except, of course, 6 speakers in a circle CANNOT ACHIEVE BEAMFORMING.
This is PURE marketing BS from Apple, there is no beamforming happening, because it is physically impossible given the physical layout, frequencies involved, driver geometry, etc. It is not even a matter of opinion, it is simply impossible.
What is being used is a mixture of room mode excitement, perceptual tuning and direct/reflect sound to give people some feeling of 'space', however there is practically no actual stereo separation. Really. Try listening to strong left/right panning audio on one - it is just a mess.
Of course the pudits, as usual, just swallow the pseudo-tech terms thrown out by marketing, and write big glowing reviews which assume thats what is actually happening...
What this 'with the numbers' review fails to address is the HORRIBLE compromises in other areas (I am looking at you, phase and group delay) that must be made to achieve what they are doing. These speakers are 'better' than a cheap PC speaker (and 90% of the shite bluetooth speakers people listen to these days), and yet such a large distance away from even a middling proper speaker setup that A/B blind testing is made impossible as it is simple to audible tell if you are listening to this is a proper pair of separated speakers.
If having flat frequency response was the main target of speaker design, then speakers would have been near perfect in the 60s.. and yet they were not.
But that wont stop the believers, marketers, and consumers who need to rationalise their purchases.
So, No, he has NOT 'provided empirical evidence that the HomePod reproduced sound more accurately than a speaker that costs nearly 3x its price.' . It is trivial to get flat response - and few look for that as the only requirement, because it comes at the cost of other bad problems.
I do hope you enjoy it when you cannot afford the cancer drug you need to cure you, because the regulated single source of what is a combination of generic drugs has been given a government mandate to charge what they damn well please.
I hope you enjoy it when a loved ones newborn that arrived a bit early cannot have a full incubator because the manufacturers have got a long line of specific requirements in place that only they can meet (thanks to patent protections) which dont actually increase the effectiveness of the device, but are 'mandated'.
And no, regulatory capture is IN NO WAY about a level playing field, or anything positive for consumers. It is how large incumbent players protect their patch by making the cost of entry higher than the reward of entry, often with the help of a few well placed 'investments' in government back pockets.
Nice miss-interpretation, make a lot of money in the industry do you?
As I am *sure* you know, your example is BS.
There is plenty of competition at the staff level, so income is in general sensible. There is practically NO competition at the insurer/provider level. This has been remove from the system through regulatory capture and other techniques for a lot time now, and the price is being paid.
If there is no competition, then the consumer suffers, and 'suffers' in the context of health is, eventually, dies early. So, the cost of the high profits of insurers and providers is the deaths of consumers.
Care to try and defend that?
The only two solutions are enforced REAL competition (which does not mean two 'friendly' huge providers colluding), or state regulation of prices.
Actually, IF you actually look, it is close to the coast, and there are 500+M high ranges in the area (also close to the coast), pumped hydro would be quite practical, as would the already tested locomotive type gravitational storage (cable haul a loaded train up a hill, the roll it down to generate power).
Batteries may be the current best price/performance, however most likely Musk is just a lot more can-do than any other vendor, so got in and did the job, where others wanted deeper government handouts, etc.
a) - yes this is not UBI, naturally, as they are not making it universal, they are testing on the lowest part of society. b) you dont understand what UBI is, and I suspect you are an American.
a *real* UBI is simple. You scrap unemployment payments You scrap government pensions You scrap disability payments (other than actual medical support) You scrap housing support You scrap the tens of thousands of government jobs involved in operating, planning, administering , and policing all of that You scrap minimum wage laws You scrap unions for public sector workers You take all the money you just saved per month, divide it by the population, and send everyone a cheque.
The thing a lot of people DONT realise about UBI is it is a politically 'small government' not 'socialist', because the main reason it works is the entire section of government you remove by simplifying things.
The theoretical gains are efficiency - the people who were administering everything are not free to have productive jobs in the economy The people who were on benefits which stopped them working (by being removed if they did) are free to work without loss.
I am offended by other people who are not doing anythings children being given priority access to health and education over my children, because I choose to not do nothing. I suspect the next stage will result in me being offended that what I have worked my life for is taken away and given to people who did nothing, because I am 'entitled' (ie: I worked hard, and saved, and ended up without towering debt) and they are 'victims' of me having dared to try. Of course the powers that be are quite happy with that - a class war is as profitable as any other kind, and they make sure they rules never touch themselves. The ONLY Solution unfortunately involved people putting aside their small differences, uniting the middle and lower classes against those at the top, and tearing down the corrupt power structures put in place by those at the top.
Unfortunately, the majority are more worried about friday night football, Oprah, and who is showing their tits on game of thrones.
These are Finns, not Americans. there is a reason that Scandinavian (and yes, Finland is marginally that, but hey) socialism 'works' (at least better than other places), and that is that they still have a moderate number of people who are responsible, proud to be reasonably self sufficient, realise that stupid actions tend to lead to actual and bad consequences, etc.
IMHO, a lot of that comes from living somewhere where tripping over on the wrong winters day can, and does, kill people. Not planning ahead when a storm is coming can and does kill people.
These countries are NOT America. They may have their own issues (and certainly do), however they are a very very different place. Unfortunately they are being slowly infected by 'American Exceptionalism' and all the BS that seems to drag along with it, however they are less far along that diseased path.
TL;DR - Finns are more likely to work even if they dont have to - which you would understand if you know some Finns, however they can also do math, and wont work if it means they come out worse off.
ROTFL, so you think the Chinese return to china because they want to be more ecological through use of high speed rail (which is in itself an interesting worldview, that high speed rail is at all particularly ecological).
Do you actually KNOW any Chinese? Have you ever been to China? Do you have the slightest idea what the world outside 'Murica is like?
Just wondering, because your statement above would seem to imply you dont have a clue. They leave the USA because they can get much better treatment, more job prospects, better working environment, and even more money in China.
And slightly more helpfully, vinyl is MASSIVELY compressed in both low and high frequency regions, due to the maximum allowable track deviation (for LF), and the maximum tracking speed (for HF). So, while digital CAN be compressed thanks to stupid sound engineers, Vinyl has to be, thanks to physics.
Soooo, Then you are a shareholder and not a customer? Because otherwise, you are an idiot.
Shareoholders may be happy (in the short run), customers should be pissed. Unfortunately, in the long run, pissed customers leads to pissed shareholders, however I realise The American Dream (tm) disallows long term though.
And tell me, what carbon impact do you think that shiny new electric status symbol just created, in comparison to the already-existing one? The batteries were organically grown in a bio-coop were they? All that sheet steel (and even worse, aluminium) was found floating down a mountain stream? Good to know you are also using pesticide free organically grown solar cells! I am sure you avoided those nasty ones coming from companies that are being shut down due to MASSIVE toxic chemical production.
You are dead right, your Tesla is WAY better for the environment, I feel terrible sitting here on my 10 hectares of trees and gardens - I should sell up and buy one (along with the solar infrastructure to keep one charged.. I travel around 50-60 miles a day, and its not very sunny here - I figure I will only need to cover around half the property with cells to keep it moving? right? except in winter..)
Or, just perhaps I *do* think carbon matters, and you are the one greenwashing youself.. hmm?
And then had leeches for children, who see no value in doing anything other than spending every dollar that comes through the door on 'lifestyle', expecting their parents to fund anything 'unexpected' that comes along (like yearly holidays), are desperately looking for a way to bankrupt themselves out of their student debt for their art history and XXXX studies degrees, and just blew half their families money on bitcoin at $20k because it was going to make everyone millionaires in 6 months?
If I was you would would be feeling sorry for them.
BTW, fwiw the people the article is actually about were bordering on retirement during the 'internet boom', and probably didnt even understand what it was then.
Are you saying you think the unwashed masses are graceful and/or professional? That they have any consideration for future repercussions to their actions? That they are capable of even remembering that they did this a week later? You think that acting sensibly would be more important than the 5 minutes of 'fame' they felt they would get from posting some stupid troll-rant the moment they left a job?
Not to mention that the title is pretty much a lie. This 'reporter' selected a bunch of target accounts that they wanted to target, and pointed a bot at them than just spam-replied to attack those accounts. The bot was doing no finding, no uncovering, nothing smart, it was just attempting to censor through spam.
The guy got exactly what he deserved - in fact was treated better than he should be, because their first time around he actually did manage to get his spam-bot reinstated - it was only the second time that it was correctly taken down for good.
He will try and spin victim-politics here, but the fact is that he feels the right to be the sole determiner of who should be removed from a platform he has nothing to do with. It doesnt reall ymatter if his targets are good, bad, or indifferent - he simply does not have that right.
It sounds a lot like they took a self-selected list of target accounts that they selected (or. People they personally chose to try and censor) and had a bot continuously spam any place those people tried to speak.
Perhaps it is just me, but doing that seems pretty damn 'nazi' (to use the modern interpretation of the word) and deserves a ban hammer at the least.
What they have done is basically told the world 'or opinion is RIGHT, and we will shout down any other opinions, because only our opinion is allowed to be heard, agree with us or pay the price'
In other words they are closed minded self riteous morons who want the world to be their own personal echo chamber.
It seems however the right thing was, almost surprisingly, done.
This is all about Amazon reducing shipping costs, NOTHING to do with environment. Plastic is many, many times worse than paper/cardboard in just about every environmental measurement, however this new packaging allows for a significantly larger of shipments for a given packaging volume - therefore lower costs for Amazon.
But hey, is that any surprise? of course minimising shipping costs is a prime need for Amazon, but why do they have to try and greenwash it?
Step 1 is to get everyone used to ordering and paying automatically. Step 2 is to produce and deliver the goods automatically. At Step 2 is when all the jobs go!
Its just the same plan Uber is playing - why do you think they are happy to run at a loss now? They are just planning to be the standard when self-drive cars reduce the other half of the operation to close to zero cost.
That anyone who gave $15 to such a group was, almost by definition, not 'poor'.
This really looks like a big pile of 'how can we virtue signal the strongest', using other peoples money just to make it worse.
I must actually listen to their 'positive news' podcast, to get a better handle on what they consider positive - I am guessing its just more self-ego-stroking from their self-selected echo chambers, but hey, I could be wrong.
'Scientists' rediscover flexible pneumatics. For about the thousandth time. I wonder when they will discover they can use a lever to increase for force applied! Perhaps also something round to allow the device to smoothly move over the ground!
Oh, its even more stupid than that. What the media/etc appear to be most worked up about is 'Russians' (with zero actual evidence of course) spreading INFORMATION. You know, leaking actual information, pointing at actual social problems, etc.
Damn those pesky Russians for waving truths around in front of people.
Of course, America would NEVER do anything like that, it prefers to actively arm 'terrorists' (other names used to be used, but I guess things have moved on) inside other countries to try and destabilize governments - obviously spreading information is much MUCH worse than this.
I would FAR rather my children were shot by separatists armed, trained, and often organised by America than avoiding reading some Russian paid for Facebook posts, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
except, of course, 6 speakers in a circle CANNOT ACHIEVE BEAMFORMING.
This is PURE marketing BS from Apple, there is no beamforming happening, because it is physically impossible given the physical layout, frequencies involved, driver geometry, etc. It is not even a matter of opinion, it is simply impossible.
What is being used is a mixture of room mode excitement, perceptual tuning and direct/reflect sound to give people some feeling of 'space', however there is practically no actual stereo separation. Really. Try listening to strong left/right panning audio on one - it is just a mess.
Of course the pudits, as usual, just swallow the pseudo-tech terms thrown out by marketing, and write big glowing reviews which assume thats what is actually happening...
What this 'with the numbers' review fails to address is the HORRIBLE compromises in other areas (I am looking at you, phase and group delay) that must be made to achieve what they are doing. These speakers are 'better' than a cheap PC speaker (and 90% of the shite bluetooth speakers people listen to these days), and yet such a large distance away from even a middling proper speaker setup that A/B blind testing is made impossible as it is simple to audible tell if you are listening to this is a proper pair of separated speakers.
If having flat frequency response was the main target of speaker design, then speakers would have been near perfect in the 60s.. and yet they were not.
But that wont stop the believers, marketers, and consumers who need to rationalise their purchases.
So, No, he has NOT 'provided empirical evidence that the HomePod reproduced sound more accurately than a speaker that costs nearly 3x its price.' .
It is trivial to get flat response - and few look for that as the only requirement, because it comes at the cost of other bad problems.
How cute, a supporter of regulatory capture.
I do hope you enjoy it when you cannot afford the cancer drug you need to cure you, because the regulated single source of what is a combination of generic drugs has been given a government mandate to charge what they damn well please.
I hope you enjoy it when a loved ones newborn that arrived a bit early cannot have a full incubator because the manufacturers have got a long line of specific requirements in place that only they can meet (thanks to patent protections) which dont actually increase the effectiveness of the device, but are 'mandated'.
And no, regulatory capture is IN NO WAY about a level playing field, or anything positive for consumers. It is how large incumbent players protect their patch by making the cost of entry higher than the reward of entry, often with the help of a few well placed 'investments' in government back pockets.
You could say they took the SAFE Shilling ;)
FFS, could this be more transparently Yet Another Coin Scam (tm)?
Nice miss-interpretation, make a lot of money in the industry do you?
As I am *sure* you know, your example is BS.
There is plenty of competition at the staff level, so income is in general sensible.
There is practically NO competition at the insurer/provider level. This has been remove from the system through regulatory capture and other techniques for a lot time now, and the price is being paid.
If there is no competition, then the consumer suffers, and 'suffers' in the context of health is, eventually, dies early.
So, the cost of the high profits of insurers and providers is the deaths of consumers.
Care to try and defend that?
The only two solutions are enforced REAL competition (which does not mean two 'friendly' huge providers colluding), or state regulation of prices.
https://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14.11/127.41159/39.18004/hot/all
Inside north korea, either starting or ending just off the shore of a port, then messing around the port a bit ;)
Actually, IF you actually look, it is close to the coast, and there are 500+M high ranges in the area (also close to the coast), pumped hydro would be quite practical, as would the already tested locomotive type gravitational storage (cable haul a loaded train up a hill, the roll it down to generate power).
Batteries may be the current best price/performance, however most likely Musk is just a lot more can-do than any other vendor, so got in and did the job, where others wanted deeper government handouts, etc.
And the rural areas will keep the FOOD and WATER supplies.
Should be fun.
a) - yes this is not UBI, naturally, as they are not making it universal, they are testing on the lowest part of society.
b) you dont understand what UBI is, and I suspect you are an American.
a *real* UBI is simple.
You scrap unemployment payments
You scrap government pensions
You scrap disability payments (other than actual medical support)
You scrap housing support
You scrap the tens of thousands of government jobs involved in operating, planning, administering , and policing all of that
You scrap minimum wage laws
You scrap unions for public sector workers
You take all the money you just saved per month, divide it by the population, and send everyone a cheque.
The thing a lot of people DONT realise about UBI is it is a politically 'small government' not 'socialist', because the main reason it works is the entire section of government you remove by simplifying things.
The theoretical gains are efficiency - the people who were administering everything are not free to have productive jobs in the economy
The people who were on benefits which stopped them working (by being removed if they did) are free to work without loss.
Suicide is more of a hobby in Finland than a social issue.
Just a different perspective.
Oh, we are so SO far past that.
I am offended by other people who are not doing anythings children being given priority access to health and education over my children, because I choose to not do nothing.
I suspect the next stage will result in me being offended that what I have worked my life for is taken away and given to people who did nothing, because I am 'entitled' (ie: I worked hard, and saved, and ended up without towering debt) and they are 'victims' of me having dared to try.
Of course the powers that be are quite happy with that - a class war is as profitable as any other kind, and they make sure they rules never touch themselves.
The ONLY Solution unfortunately involved people putting aside their small differences, uniting the middle and lower classes against those at the top, and tearing down the corrupt power structures put in place by those at the top.
Unfortunately, the majority are more worried about friday night football, Oprah, and who is showing their tits on game of thrones.
Panem et circenses.
You miss one basic fact in the 'analysis'
These are Finns, not Americans.
there is a reason that Scandinavian (and yes, Finland is marginally that, but hey) socialism 'works' (at least better than other places), and that is that they still have a moderate number of people who are responsible, proud to be reasonably self sufficient, realise that stupid actions tend to lead to actual and bad consequences, etc.
IMHO, a lot of that comes from living somewhere where tripping over on the wrong winters day can, and does, kill people. Not planning ahead when a storm is coming can and does kill people.
These countries are NOT America. They may have their own issues (and certainly do), however they are a very very different place.
Unfortunately they are being slowly infected by 'American Exceptionalism' and all the BS that seems to drag along with it, however they are less far along that diseased path.
TL;DR - Finns are more likely to work even if they dont have to - which you would understand if you know some Finns, however they can also do math, and wont work if it means they come out worse off.
ROTFL, so you think the Chinese return to china because they want to be more ecological through use of high speed rail (which is in itself an interesting worldview, that high speed rail is at all particularly ecological).
Do you actually KNOW any Chinese?
Have you ever been to China?
Do you have the slightest idea what the world outside 'Murica is like?
Just wondering, because your statement above would seem to imply you dont have a clue.
They leave the USA because they can get much better treatment, more job prospects, better working environment, and even more money in China.
Hmm, let me see..
No.
No.
No.
Yes.
No.
No.
And slightly more helpfully, vinyl is MASSIVELY compressed in both low and high frequency regions, due to the maximum allowable track deviation (for LF), and the maximum tracking speed (for HF).
So, while digital CAN be compressed thanks to stupid sound engineers, Vinyl has to be, thanks to physics.
Soooo,
Then you are a shareholder and not a customer?
Because otherwise, you are an idiot.
Shareoholders may be happy (in the short run), customers should be pissed.
Unfortunately, in the long run, pissed customers leads to pissed shareholders, however I realise The American Dream (tm) disallows long term though.
And tell me, what carbon impact do you think that shiny new electric status symbol just created, in comparison to the already-existing one?
The batteries were organically grown in a bio-coop were they? All that sheet steel (and even worse, aluminium) was found floating down a mountain stream?
Good to know you are also using pesticide free organically grown solar cells! I am sure you avoided those nasty ones coming from companies that are being shut down due to MASSIVE toxic chemical production.
You are dead right, your Tesla is WAY better for the environment, I feel terrible sitting here on my 10 hectares of trees and gardens - I should sell up and buy one (along with the solar infrastructure to keep one charged.. I travel around 50-60 miles a day, and its not very sunny here - I figure I will only need to cover around half the property with cells to keep it moving? right? except in winter..)
Or, just perhaps I *do* think carbon matters, and you are the one greenwashing youself.. hmm?
And then had leeches for children, who see no value in doing anything other than spending every dollar that comes through the door on 'lifestyle', expecting their parents to fund anything 'unexpected' that comes along (like yearly holidays), are desperately looking for a way to bankrupt themselves out of their student debt for their art history and XXXX studies degrees, and just blew half their families money on bitcoin at $20k because it was going to make everyone millionaires in 6 months?
If I was you would would be feeling sorry for them.
BTW, fwiw the people the article is actually about were bordering on retirement during the 'internet boom', and probably didnt even understand what it was then.
So, just to check here...
Are you saying you think the unwashed masses are graceful and/or professional?
That they have any consideration for future repercussions to their actions?
That they are capable of even remembering that they did this a week later?
You think that acting sensibly would be more important than the 5 minutes of 'fame' they felt they would get from posting some stupid troll-rant the moment they left a job?
Interesting...
Want to buy a bridge?
Not to mention that the title is pretty much a lie.
This 'reporter' selected a bunch of target accounts that they wanted to target, and pointed a bot at them than just spam-replied to attack those accounts.
The bot was doing no finding, no uncovering, nothing smart, it was just attempting to censor through spam.
The guy got exactly what he deserved - in fact was treated better than he should be, because their first time around he actually did manage to get his spam-bot reinstated - it was only the second time that it was correctly taken down for good.
He will try and spin victim-politics here, but the fact is that he feels the right to be the sole determiner of who should be removed from a platform he has nothing to do with. It doesnt reall ymatter if his targets are good, bad, or indifferent - he simply does not have that right.
It sounds a lot like they took a self-selected list of target accounts that they selected (or. People they personally chose to try and censor) and had a bot continuously spam any place those people tried to speak.
Perhaps it is just me, but doing that seems pretty damn 'nazi' (to use the modern interpretation of the word) and deserves a ban hammer at the least.
What they have done is basically told the world 'or opinion is RIGHT, and we will shout down any other opinions, because only our opinion is allowed to be heard, agree with us or pay the price'
In other words they are closed minded self riteous morons who want the world to be their own personal echo chamber.
It seems however the right thing was, almost surprisingly, done.
Absolutely this.
This is all about Amazon reducing shipping costs, NOTHING to do with environment.
Plastic is many, many times worse than paper/cardboard in just about every environmental measurement, however this new packaging allows for a significantly larger of shipments for a given packaging volume - therefore lower costs for Amazon.
But hey, is that any surprise? of course minimising shipping costs is a prime need for Amazon, but why do they have to try and greenwash it?
FFS, what happened to critical thinking?
Step 1 is to get everyone used to ordering and paying automatically.
Step 2 is to produce and deliver the goods automatically.
At Step 2 is when all the jobs go!
Its just the same plan Uber is playing - why do you think they are happy to run at a loss now? They are just planning to be the standard when self-drive cars reduce the other half of the operation to close to zero cost.
Come on people, this is pretty obvious.
That anyone who gave $15 to such a group was, almost by definition, not 'poor'.
This really looks like a big pile of 'how can we virtue signal the strongest', using other peoples money just to make it worse.
I must actually listen to their 'positive news' podcast, to get a better handle on what they consider positive - I am guessing its just more self-ego-stroking from their self-selected echo chambers, but hey, I could be wrong.
You should think before you write.
You realise auto insurance is not government mandated in many countries, and it still works fine, right?
No?
Oh dear.
'Scientists' rediscover flexible pneumatics.
For about the thousandth time.
I wonder when they will discover they can use a lever to increase for force applied!
Perhaps also something round to allow the device to smoothly move over the ground!
Oh, its even more stupid than that.
What the media/etc appear to be most worked up about is 'Russians' (with zero actual evidence of course) spreading INFORMATION.
You know, leaking actual information, pointing at actual social problems, etc.
Damn those pesky Russians for waving truths around in front of people.
Of course, America would NEVER do anything like that, it prefers to actively arm 'terrorists' (other names used to be used, but I guess things have moved on) inside other countries to try and destabilize governments - obviously spreading information is much MUCH worse than this.
I would FAR rather my children were shot by separatists armed, trained, and often organised by America than avoiding reading some Russian paid for Facebook posts, after all.
FFS.