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Political litmus tests for employment have been a big no-no for a damn good reason.

Sure. In 9 states. In the other 41, it's legal. In Washington, California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Louisiana, and Florida it's illegal to fire someone for political activity or for not voting for your employer's preferred candidate, or for belonging to a particular party (one or more of those protections, depending on the state).

The linked blog post is by an employment attorney, so it's reasonably sure to be correct. Some states are more specific than others about what specific political activity can not be used to justify firing. Some extend protection to all activity. Others are specific only to voting. Your Republican in South Carolina example is perfectly legal.

it's interesting to see modern UIs adopting some of the idioms that testing in the early 90s showed were awful (e.g. Gtk+ 3's state toggles).

Actually, expectations for a GUI change over time. Gtk's state toggles are actually accepted state of the art today, and not a problem for users. I've been following this guy's blog and his GNOME usability test, and sliders wasn't an issue.

The only circumstances in which I would upgrade is [...] the data I process (documents, music, video) have no applications I can use on XP. [...] Yes, I'm going to have to take care to stop being infected by malware. Good anti-virus [...] Chrome browser

So long as Google and the publishers of "good anti-virus" continue to support Windows XP. Otherwise, "the data [you] process" (virus definitions and HTML documents) would "have no applications [you] can use on XP". Support for Chrome on Windows XP will continue longer, possibly as a side effect of support on Windows Server 2003, but even that's going away in a year.

good firewall

If security researchers (wearing any color hat) exploit a defect in the TCP/IP stack of Windows XP, a firewall running on Windows XP is unlikely to help you much.

"with ***Congress*** passing a law it makes that avenue alot more difficult"

"there is...ahem...alot of support for NSA reform..."

alot

Eight major studies of identical twins in Australia, the U.S., and Scandinavia during the last two decades all arrive at the same conclusion: gays were not born that way.

“At best genetics is a minor factor,” says Dr. Neil Whitehead, PhD. Whitehead worked for the New Zealand government as a scientific researcher for 24 years, then spent four years working for the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency. Most recently, he serves as a consultant to Japanese universities about the effects of radiation exposure. His PhD is in biochemistry and statistics.

Identical twins have the same genes or DNA. They are nurtured in equal prenatal conditions. If homosexuality is caused by genetics or prenatal conditions and one twin is gay, the co-twin should also be gay.

“Because they have identical DNA, it ought to be 100%,” Dr. Whitehead notes. But the studies reveal something else. “If an identical twin has same-sex attraction the chances the co-twin has it are only about 11% for men and 14% for women.”

Because identical twins are always genetically identical, homosexuality cannot be genetically dictated. “No-one is born gay,” he notes. “The predominant things that create homosexuality in one identical twin and not in the other have to be post-birth factors.”

Dr. Whitehead believes same-sex attraction (SSA) is caused by “non-shared factors,” things happening to one twin but not the other, or a personal response to an event by one of the twins and not the other.

For example, one twin might have exposure to pornography or sexual abuse, but not the other. One twin may interpret and respond to their family or classroom environment differently than the other. “These individual and idiosyncratic responses to random events and to common environmental factors predominate,” he says.

The first very large, reliable study of identical twins was conducted in Australia in 1991, followed by a large U.S. study about 1997. Then Australia and the U.S. conducted more twin studies in 2000, followed by several studies in Scandinavia, according to Dr. Whitehead.

“Twin registers are the foundation of modern twin studies. They are now very large, and exist in many countries. A gigantic European twin register with a projected 600,000 members is being organized, but one of the largest in use is in Australia, with more than 25,000 twins on the books.”

http://www.hollanddavis.com/?p...

I suppose I'm going to be called all sorts of nasty names for pointing this easily searchable fact out.

The "Born that way" myth started because gays wanted to compare themselves to Blacks. If they conceded that homosexuality was not innate and a self-destructive behavioral choice (Given the horrific levels of disease in the gay community.) on the same level of smokers and alcoholics, the whole gay rights movement falls apart.

Just like smokers and alcoholics, you can find plenty of former homosexuals if you go looking for them. Most stay silent, lest they suffer the same fate as others who go up against the LGBT lobby

Robert Oscar Lopez is just one name I can throw. A former homosexual who was raised by his mother and her lesbian partner who is against gay marriage. They gay lobby nearly got him fired for simply telling his life experience and how children should be raised by a mom and a dad. Check out his blog at http://englishmanif.blogspot.c...

Kay, you are welcome to join OS/2 Warp Community, we need some open source driver developers here !!!!

(...damn... I'm so desperate to get developers to this community)

CÔNG TY C PHN T VN U T & THNG MI THIÊN AN VP HN: P.311 S 204 H Tùng Mu, T Liêm, Hà Ni T: 04.37.920.787 – 0439.949.829 - Mobile: 0983.958.379 – 0978.281.057 Mail: thienan2009.jsc@gmail.com - banhang.thienanvietnam@gmail.com VPD Min Trung: S 76 Trng Vn Lnh, Nghi Phú, TP Vinh, tnh Ngh An VPD phía Nam và TP H Chí Minh: Cm 10, khu ph 3, phng Trng Dài, TP Biên Hòa, tnh ng Nai: Ngi ph trách Mr Hiu: 0979.206.187 Website: http://www.thienanvietnam.com/ – http://thienanvietnam.blogspot...

I've actually looked over most of that information and it isn't really auditable. Most of the raw data isn't actually raw for one thing. I've compared specific land site temperature data with their sources and they don't match perfectly. Which means the data has been filtered and modified to some extent. I have no information on how that was done and can't reproduce the filtration system.

Second, the methodology itself isn't fully stated to the extent that I can't take data, input into a system, and get the same output they're showing.

So... Thank you for your citation but I don't know if you've actually tried to click on any of those links or use them or verify any of them. What you have there is a giant list that looks impressive but I don't think its very useful in this discussion.

Understand, I'm not saying they're wrong because of that. Its just that the list isn't useful.

On a side note, what do you think of this:

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

Someone sent me this link in this discussion and I just want as many eyes on it as possible.

Please give me your scientific opinion. Not your political one. Saying "I don't know this guy" or "this person has low social status in the scientific community" is a political evaluation. Its also ad hominem. Lets avoid classic logical fallacies. Do you have a scientific reason for dismissing the argument?

I find the argument to be interesting. I don't know if its valid. It guess that its probably not... but its very elegant nonetheless.

Are you saying that a hugely complex chunk of software which is not designed for high school students' iphones, but is operated by folks with advanced degrees who have been fooling around with them 24/7 for a couple of dectoades is a bit much for you to pick up on your own in a few hours? Surprised I am.
Of course, the argument is that the climate is too complex for simple models; now it's that the models are too complex.
But anyway, weren't you arguing a couple of posts ago that the code is kept private to conceal that it doesn't work, now all of a sudden you're not only not surprised to find it public, but you've enough experience with it to find it difficult and not well documented, from your POV.

you're ben, right?
http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com...

I remember seeing a spectrum for H2O and CO2... as I remember, most of the the CO2 spectrum overlapped with the H2O. Which might mean the impact of CO2 would be less as H2O will absorb a lot of energy indifferent to the CO2 and once converted from light into heat it can't be double counted.

Look, I'm just doing my best to stay in the game. I know how rudimentary my thinking is on the whole thing. I just feel my only right to have any more opinion then an utter savage comes from making these sorts of attempts.

Someone in this thread sent me this link:
http://theendofthemystery.blog...

What do you think about that line of reasoning? Your scientific opinion please... not a political opinion such as "I don't know this guy" or "he has no support from his peers". Is there a flaw in this logic and if so what is it?

Truly asking... Its elegant enough that I could actually process it completely. The climate models thrown around are generally unauditable because they're too complicated for someone like me to go through line by line and often rely on undisclosed datasets that I simply don't have access to in the first place.

SpaceX is not too far from manned launches.

The word I've heard is that they simply don't have enough free time (their satellite launch business is doing very well) to do it in 2014, so it's pretty likely to be next year.

if NASA had gone ahead with Orion

...they wouldn't have had any budget left to actually go anywhere. Or at least not anywhere Congress could agree to let them.

Seriously, go read this guy's stuff, he explains a lot about NASA's budget troubles: http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/

I've actually looked over most of that information and it isn't really auditable. Most of the raw data isn't actually raw for one thing. I've compared specific land site temperature data with their sources and they don't match perfectly. Which means the data has been filtered and modified to some extent. I have no information on how that was done and can't reproduce the filtration system.

Are you saying you've got data from one of those sensors and it doesn't match the data in that source from the same sensor? Or from another sensor in the same area?

Second, the methodology itself isn't fully stated to the extent that I can't take data, input into a system, and get the same output they're showing.

I'd expect the programs wouldn't be user-friendly. Which model did you compile? If you have it running I'll see if I can find out how to make it work.

On a side note, what do you think of this:

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

Someone sent me this link in this discussion and I just want as many eyes on it as possible.

That is a lot of math to go through right now. But if he claims to have disproven something as fundamental as the greenhouse effect (or can even show that it somehow breaks down at large scales, since we can demonstrate it in a desktop experiment), he's either made a mistake or he's a future Nobel prize winner and deliverer of great news (since we could drop all efforts to reduce GHG emissions).

I found an article that claims to address his supposed disproof directly, and I'd say it makes a proof of the greenhouse effect that would require revisions to the laws of thermodynamics to disprove:

https://agwobserver.wordpress....

Where could the energy be going? If it's being teleported or stored somehow - again, Nobel prize material. Maybe cheap solar power if we can tap into this energy.

I ran across some other relevant articles on Venus' atmosphere:

http://m.teachastronomy.com/as...
https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Someone sent me a link in this thread that I found interesting. I was wondering if you wouldn't look at it and give me your SCIENTIFIC opinion:

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

Its not a venerable source trusted by one and all... but that doesn't make it right or wrong. That's just a reflection of this person's social status in our society... not the particular accuracy of anything he might have to say from one moment to the next.

Please look it over and tell me what your scientific opinion of it is... not your political opinion.

I've actually looked over most of that information and it isn't really auditable. Most of the raw data isn't actually raw for one thing. I've compared specific land site temperature data with their sources and they don't match perfectly. Which means the data has been filtered and modified to some extent. I have no information on how that was done and can't reproduce the filtration system.

Second, the methodology itself isn't fully stated to the extent that I can't take data, input into a system, and get the same output they're showing.

So... Thank you for your citation but I don't know if you've actually tried to click on any of those links or use them or verify any of them. What you have there is a giant list that looks impressive but I don't think its very useful in this discussion.

Understand, I'm not saying they're wrong because of that. Its just that the list isn't useful.

On a side note, what do you think of this:

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

Someone sent me this link in this discussion and I just want as many eyes on it as possible.

Please give me your scientific opinion. Not your political one. Saying "I don't know this guy" or "this person has low social status in the scientific community" is a political evaluation. Its also ad hominem. Lets avoid classic logical fallacies. Do you have a scientific reason for dismissing the argument?

I find the argument to be interesting. I don't know if its valid. It guess that its probably not... but its very elegant nonetheless.

In regards to hansen's work... Hansen is an expert on Venus by the way... its where his real background is...

I'd like you look at something. Someone sent me this link in this discussion and I find it interesting. I want to get as many opinions as possible on it.

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

The argument seems elegant to me and I don't really know enough of the science to have a strong opinion.

The basic concept is that if you compensate for air pressure, distance from the stun, and differences in blackbody radiation... venus and earth have the same temperature. That is the argument it makes. I don't know if its valid. It essentially only deals with three variables and it could well be more complicated then that. But the analysis is interesting.

I'm honestly just asking for as many eye balls on this thing as possible so I can get additional opinions. If the argument is reasonable it would horribly undermine hansen's credibility... given that he would be just the sort of person that should have made the connection. I'm well aware that that level of incompetence is unlikely to be actual so this theory is likely wrong. But I'd like to know why it is wrong.

if you have scientific reason for why this theory is wrong and not a political one... I'd love to hear it. For example, saying "this guy has low social status" is not a scientific opinion. That is political. Or "I don't know this guy" is a political opinion. Or "Surely someone of higher status would have come to this conclusion earlier" is also political.

Just out of curosity, what do you think of this argument:

http://theendofthemystery.blog...

Understand, I am not saying this is correct or incorrect. I haven't looked into it enough to have an opinion. But I find the argument to be elegant.

What do you think about it? Please don't just dismiss it out of hand. Try to give a scientific reason for it being wrong. I am literally asking for a second opinion here.

I believe this is how science works no... back and forth between minds?

I mostly find this interesting because most AGW research is pretty impenetrable. Your citations are likely only useful if I wanted to spend months to years pouring over it. Which by the way doesn't make any of it invalid. Its just not practical for someone like myself to audit it. Which obviously makes me uncomfortable. Science doesn't have to make me comfortable... but I do prefer things that way. If I can find a valid way of looking at it that gives me a window into it then I'll pursue it.

In any case, please keep an open mind, look at the analysis in that link, and give me your scientific and honest opinion of it. Remember, I'm not interested in some snap judgement based on bias against the source. That's ad hominem. Lets try to avoid classic logical fallacies.

What you're saying is that if the temperature goes up you can't be falsified.

Sadly that doesn't mean CO2 is increasing the temperature. That's the distinction between causation and correlation.

It would help if your theory were constructed in such a way that it could be vetting indifferent to temperature fluctuations.

What if its alien heat beams from Klandaxu that are causing the rise in temperature and not the CO2?

You see the issue.

In any case... I was wondering if you'd look at something for me. It was a blog post someone linked to me recently and maybe you can give me your opinion:
http://theendofthemystery.blog...

The general premise of the post is that the temperature of venus is the same as on earth if you compensate for atmospheric density, distance to the sun, and the difference in blackbody radiation.

I am not a scientist. But neither am I afraid of math. I found this argument to be elegant. It might be wrong for all I know but it seems like an interesting argument and I'd love to hear what other scientists think about it. If only because I might learn something.

I am genuinely curious about nature, science, and yes whether the world is warming. But I feel it is intellectually lazy to just accept doctrine and I've thought that much of the conduct of the pro global warming groups has been unbecoming of ethical scientific practice so far as I understand it.

Anyway, you're probably not a scientist either. But I think I'm going to start linking this around and hope that someone is a scientist and can shed some more light on then me if only by telling me its wrong. Of course... I'd want them to try and tell me why while they're at it.

The whole purpose of the patent system is to get inventors to publicize their inventions so they can be copied (after the patent term expires). Copying with greater efficiency benefits the consumer. You seem to imply that copying is bad, in and of itself. Do you only use Bayer aspirin? Do you avoid iPhones and iPads because they don't use Intel microprocessors?

Getting a patent is supposed to require coming up with something new and non-obvious - something many of Apple's patent claims lack. (e.g. pinch/spread to compress/zoom).

There's also the issue of Apple's apparent copying of a Samsung design when they created the iPad, which they disingenuously tried to claim in reverse.

No discussion of modern money can proceed without referencing the following people? Marriner Eccles http://mikenormaneconomics.blo... Beardsley Ruml http://www.constitution.org/ta... Abba Lerner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... William Vickrey http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/wp... Wynne Godley http://www.levyinstitute.org/s... Warren Mosler http://moslereconomics.com/man... Randy Wray http://www.levyinstitute.org/p... Bill Mitchell http://bilbo.economicoutlook.n... and CH Douglas, already referenced in another comment

Business as Usual, During Alterations by Ralph Williams.

http://variety-sf.blogspot.com...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lptV...

But this is what can happen.

http://www.milanofixed.com/wp-...

But Zylon makes great spokes though, covered in thick vinyl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...

http://brimages.bikeboardmedia...

Bitch to tension, and hard to re-spoke too. Spinergy taking 6 months to send out replacement spokes isn't great either.

We're not allowed to talk about the negative impacts of minimum wage laws, or automation:

Evidence that increases in the minimum wage increase unemployment:

... the increases and decreases in the real minimum wage closely align with the increases and decreases in the gap between the unemployment rates of white and black youth. As the real min. wage increases the more unemployed black workers there are relative to white workers. This chart, while not completely ceteris paribus, is still more informative since both white workers and black workers were facing the same macroeconomic conditions i.e. recessions, expansions, etc. and yet on average the black unemployment rate increased more than the white unemployment rate when the real min. wage increased and vice versa.

Just to repeat, this is not a statistical, causal analysis. But it does provide evidence for a very sound theory that when wages are increased workers who cannot produce enough to justify the higher wage are left without employment. ...

So, who are the real RAAACISTS?

They burn fat for fuel, primarily. If they eat too lean, they get sick and maybe die from ketoacidosis.

Except the scientific method was invented by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who was certainly not a physicalist.

I can't speak for Grosseteste, who lived in an environment where coming out as a physicalist was pretty much suicide, but coming up with something like "resolution and composition" must come from the trust that similar things behave similarly. Combined with the fact that observations of similarity are based on observations of physical properties, it must have crossed his mind at some point that there may be nothing more than just the physical, since all else is irrelevant when trying to formulate the single set of natural laws which govern the universe.

I think you're looking at the difference between a hard science (like physics! Now there's a science based on physicalism!), based on measurement, and a soft science, based on opinion polls (like psychology, sociology, and even theology), but both can fit into the scientific method.

Barely. Again, to call opinion polls valid measurements for the scientific method, you must agree that similar things behave similarly: you only need to choose the right boundaries for your black box (i.e. a good idea of what this 'similar' means) to analyze and predict someone's behaviour. That goes against the notion that there must always be something inside the black box (a consciousness, a soul, whatever) that doesn't obey a natural, universal law, which is AFAIK something you need to refute physicalism.

http://chrome.blogspot.com/201...

You are not the first person to notice this......

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/...

You guys have it all wrong.

Iran needs a little bitty aircraft carrier to land it's little bitty aircraft..

Yeah, but this is more what came to mind for me:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EAf7...

The chain of trust is broken because cryptographers, a class of developers with a long track record of being utterly incapable of building software that's usable for regular humans, has been left in charge of building iit.

When the problem is taken up by other, more UX knowledgable, developers we'll get a solution to the problem.

Except the scientific method was invented by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who was certainly not a physicalist.

I think you're looking at the difference between a hard science (like physics! Now there's a science based on physicalism!), based on measurement, and a soft science, based on opinion polls (like psychology, sociology, and even theology), but both can fit into the scientific method.

Oh noes! You are clearly smarter than Google, since they didn't think of that!

The whole mess has a lynchpin (perhaps the only one?)....

Modern computers are vast amalgamations of logic (of varying quality), and we can see only the iceberg tip of the iceberg tip of that content at any given time. Even the experts are left constantly guessing about the doings of all the invisible things inside.

And no, I have no idea how to improve that situation. No matter what you change, you're not going to get any better results.

Start by creating a creating a desktop OS with a hypervisor ingrained into it (all the risky stuff, even graphics and IP stacks are isolated) to reduce the attack surface to a very small area. Then, hopefully, more and more eyeballs and minds will concentrate their attention on the really crucial parts instead of getting PTSD over the whole expanding theatre of apps and services.

Next, turn attention to system firmware (CoreBoot BIOS, and Shuttleworth's initiative to replace ACPI). We're almost half way there now...

Finally, open hardware: CPUs, GPUs and such (we may see mobile devices benefit from this first).

TL;DR: Make the whole logic stack inspect-able and open, and tightly link the security context provided by those components to the privileged part of the GUI.

Audits are not formal verification. Give me a system that reduces the attack surface *without* shutting down most of a system's functionality, and which doesn't diminish its security profile when adding/enabling features.

OpenBSD is an anachronism in a world that has demoted OS kernel-based security to the sidelines, in favor of hypervisors. Qubes continues this trend by working VMs into the grain of the desktop architecture itself; this allows a profusion of apps and features to be added while affecting the attack surface minimally or not at all.

No the correct response is to explain that god actually hates figs. Easy mistake to make.

If you really want to change the way you code then read the following article.

http://binstock.blogspot.com/2...

Pick an old project that you think might be a good candidate for a major re-factoring and follow EVERY SINGLE ONE of the rules and rewrite it using them.

I think that some of the rules are a bit overkill but as an exercise and to force yourself to learn some new tricks follow them all and don't stop following them until they are second nature.

Electrification of transportation in the US can provide enough storage in used car batteries to provide half a day's worth of our average electricity consumption. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/20... Consequently, the concept of baseload generation becomes antiquated and even spinning reserve may be doomed.

I recently played a few hours of Mario Kart 64 (yep, dusted of the old N64) on a couch with some friends and by the end of it, my lower back was killing me. I never get this when I spend 4 hours playing Civ IV.

Absolutely. If you look at the posture of someone playing a console game, you will see an arched back, pressure on the lumbar, neck pulled back, often feet not flat on the floor.

As you can see from this photo of me playing WoW, PC gaming provides a much more healthy posture:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xAf6...

And you're assuming government funded research isn't conducted the same way? Haha.

What if the Billionaire WANTS a certain answer and lets the scientist know it, so that the "data" can be published for a huge return on investment for the billionaire? Tobacco industry did this.

Or maybe billionaire just has an answer he emotionally wants to hear and funds science to get that instead of sensible science? If Jenny McCarthy had billions what sort of research d'you think she might fund?

Or what if billionaire wants research on life extending treatments for him and him alone and screw publishing?

I don't see any compelling reason billionare science would be any better than publicly funded science. I'd rather everyone own the results, too, than a billionaire.

I mean, one thing a billionare is VERY good at is hoarding good things (money) for themselves AREN'T THEY.

--PeterM

And the incentives of the people deciding which research will get public funding differ exactly how? You seem to start with the assumption that the career bureaucrat won't dispose of assets under his control to his greatest advantage whereas the career businessman will. I'm not seeing it.

Here's a decent take on Tainter vs Diamond on the topic: http://narjsberk.blogspot.com/2012/02/diamond-vs-tainter.html

I admit it: I was interested enough to actually copy/paste a text link. Then I discovered, to my horror, that Comic Sans has a mutant, retarded sibling!

I didn't know such an abomination existed; I advocate maximum containment protocols to ensure this does not become a pandemic meme—i.e. up to and including orbital bombardment.

Developing the technologies and protocols of the internet was done at the expense of U.S. taxpayers by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Similarly, the Panama Canal was built at the expense of U.S. taxpayers for its great strategic value.

In 1977, President Carter signed a treaty giving up U.S. control, and today China has a great deal of control over this asset:
http://themengesproject.blogsp...

What strategic asset will the U.S. give up control over next... the Global Positioning System, perhaps?

Yea, Clinton did that. May 1 2000. But I assume you knew that.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton on Monday gave the go-ahead for letting boaters, motorists, and hikers use a satellite-navigation system with the same pinpoint accuracy as the military has long enjoyed. Clinton ordered that at 8 p.m., EDT on Monday night, the U.S. military stop intentionally scrambling the satellite signals used by civilians to improve the accuracy of Global Position System receivers tenfold

Developing the technologies and protocols of the internet was done at the expense of U.S. taxpayers by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Similarly, the Panama Canal was built at the expense of U.S. taxpayers for its great strategic value.

In 1977, President Carter signed a treaty giving up U.S. control, and today China has a great deal of control over this asset:
http://themengesproject.blogsp...

What strategic asset will the U.S. give up control over next... the Global Positioning System, perhaps?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EZYE...
So who is right?

3gp2orn

Don't bother, that poster is an idiot.
see his home page:
http://outsidetheautisticasylu...

I wish I looked before replying to him, cause a ability to think of change a narrative based on fats does not exist with that person.
The site is full of inaccuracies and WTFs?

I just want a proper DAC without audiophile markup!

Check out the ODAC. Built to be cheap, and objectively transparent at the jack, unlike most DACs which just quote the specs of a high-end DAC chip inside of them and ignore a mess of other crap on the PCB that degrades the signal.

Ah, but you're talking about movies. I sincerely want to listen to my Disturbed and later Metallica at a high volume for more than a song or two. Any more than 10 minutes tops and it's like my ears start hurting 'cause the music degenerates into noise. Good phrase I just ran across to describe this is "fatiguing distortion". Put on the old stuff that that doesn't happen.
In the TV world, I think you want to turn on TruVolume, Dynamic volume or Dolby volume. If you have them, these features on your TV will even out the sound in the way you describe.

I just want a proper DAC without audiophile markup!

If you are spending your own money, you should buy the ODAC.

http://www.jdslabs.com/products/46/standalone-odac/

Also available built-in with an O2 Amp so you can use it with headphones.

http://www.jdslabs.com/products/48/o2-odac-combo/

This gear was designed by "NwAvGuy", and the audiophiles flamed him so hard he has never revealed his real name. He tested his designs against a commercially-available DAC costing over $1000 and found that they performed about the same. In double-blind tests, nobody can tell the difference, but that was to be expected given the results from the test equipment.

You also can buy a plain O2 headphone amp, or if you like to solder you can build your own. NwAvGuy released all plans and specs and gave advice on how to do the build. For the DAC, you must sign documents with the chip vendor and buy DAC chips in quantity, so the DAC isn't practical as a DIY project. But you can buy just the DAC board and build it in to your own O2 to make your own O2+ODAC.

I know someone who spent big bucks on an audiophile headphone amp. He lived on top of a hill that also had broadcast towers for local radio stations. His expensive amp picked up the radio broadcasts (not sure if its own electronics acted as an antenna, or if the AC lines in the house did and its power supply picked up the signal, but either way it was acting as a radio receiver). He bought an ODAC + O2 and despite costing much less, it offered clean audio without picking up the radio broadcast.

The ODAC only supports USB audio. NwAvGuy discussed his reasons and you can find them if you search his blog for FAQs about the DAC.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-vanished

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/

Four links down... http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2...