It's more that they get confused between talking about accuracy and quality.... one is measurable, the other is totally subjective.
Tubes color sound.. and they do so in a pleasing way. That is insturmentally verifiable.. and heck, just use your ear.. you'll agree. People like this sound. That's it. That's why people hear tubes and then hear solid-state and say "tubes sound better" and go digging for pseudoscience as to why solid state isn't "accurate". It's plenty accurate.. it's just not adding the color they like to hear.
The article made a simple point: Using an FM transmitter and a tube amp.. he gets the sound he grew up with, and he likes that. Who are we to argue with that?
I agree totally.. the audiphile world gets far too carried away with totally bogus claims as to why a slightly thicker cable made of some exotic mateiral "enhances the soundstage and bass response, with clearer highs blah blah blah"... or about how much oversampling or upsampling their DAC does... as if it somehow magically added back in information lost in the recording process. Tube amps are NOT more accurate.
Given that I truly believe all that.. I still think tube amps sound cool, and I can see how someone would want one based on it's sound alone.
It's the same reason I often prefer listening to music on my mid-range headphones rather than my really expensive ones.. because although I nkow it's messing with the sound and not as accurate, it's doing so in a way that sounds better to me (warmer, more bass.)
average 128kbps mp3 on ipod headphones: sounds allright
same mp3 played back through Grado RS-1 headphones: sounds like ass. I can hear just how crappy the recording is.
well mastered CD on ipod headphones: sounds like crap compared to...
well mastered CD on Grado RS-1 headphones: i hear subtle details that I didn't know existed in the recording.. things that I absolutely can't hear on cheap headphones. Music sounds just awesome. If I go back and try the ipod headphones again, they sound incrediby constrained and muted.. the sound is just completely wrong.
Seriously.. this is part nostalgia, part fact. Tubes were used for a long time for audio reproduction. Tubes color the sound. Tubes color the sound more than most solid state gear does, and they do it in a nicer way at that.
So it's no Wonder that Mr. Wonder liked the sound of tube gear better... the lack of coloration would sound kind of crisp if you are used to the tube sound.
That "crisp" sound could also be called "accurate" sound.
The amplifier for an electgric guitar is part of the insturment.. it's there for sound production, not sound re-production.
Tubes have a warmer sound, they distory differently, and produce differnet harmonics than solid state gear, and people tend to like this better.
In terms of accuracy though, they are not more accurate than solid state gear. Often, it's the lack of accuracy and the coloration that people really like (and miss)
Running an audio source through a tube amp creates tube-amp like sound! WHAT A BREAKTHROUGH.
What's this got to do with an iPod?
Yes, tube amps have a distinctly different sound than solid state gear. Yes, many people find the colorations of a tube amp pleasant. Most people do, in fact. I know I do.
Does that mean tubes are more accurate at reproducing sound? Not at all. But when it comes to the natural harmonics introduced by the amplifiers... tubes are much more pleasing than solid state gear.
An amp based on either technology can be engineered very thoroughly to give a flat, neutral uncolored response... but guess what.. that doens't necessary sound BETTER to the listener.
Remember, accuracy can be measured, but what sounds GOOD is *purely* subjective.
Perfect example: I have 128kbps mp3s that sound much better on my little ipod headphones than my $800 reference headphones. I know the reference cans are more accurate, and that they are letting me hear how crappy the mp3 truly is.. but the overall effect is that the shitty headphones make it sound better.
This is exactly what iChat needs to get me to use it.
Now they just need to make iChat AV compatable with Messenger & NetMeeting so the iSight can be more than a useless appendage unless everyone you want to chat with has a mac.
The thing is, most virus/worm authors aren't into it for the joy of destruction. Adding a payload that erases stuff is not at all challenging, or in any way beneficial to anyone, even the author.
From a technical point of view, I can respect a worm that is technically advanced... sort of how we might respect some kind of bank robber who never actually hurts or threatens to hurt anyone, and doesn't use a weapon. He's still a bad guy, disrupting the economy... but he's not a murderer.. so we respect him on a certain level.
A worm author adding deliberately destructive payloads that have no technical purpose, but are there simply to fuck ME over... that puts them in a class with the bank robber who walks in, shoots random people, threatens to kill the rest, etc....
Worms are bad.. stealing computer resources is bad, but on a technical level a good worm is interesting.
Controlling access to data also involves controlling what may be done with that data, how it may be displayed, where it may be moved. This is just another tool to do just that.
Yes, a skilled attacker can steal from us regardless, but that doesn't mean I should make it easy for anyone with the slightest temptation to walk off with the company database, okay? It's called reducing risk.
Sometimes people need limited access to information.. this is a tool to help limit access. This isnt' something you give to a fairly trusted employee who needs to do lots of varied things with a computer. its' something you give to someone who specifically does NOT need to be, in facat is not allowed to be, copying things on and off their computer.
What if that employee's work absolutely does NOT require removable storage devices in any way, shape, or form, and you have a strong interest in making sure they aren't copying significant quantities of data and taking it off the premesis?
Ahh.. one of those Engineers who thinks anyone without an Engineering degree is a lackey. I've worked with lots of you.
Believe it or not, even though your situation at work might not be one, there are situations where you DO want to disable any methods of copying data off the workstation. A call-center, for instance... where your employees have to access customer data all day long but you don't want them stealing it.
Having machines that have the floppy drives disabled and USB storage disabled is necessary. To not do this in this situation is to invite thievery. It discourages the casual thief.
I saw video of a rocket fuel plant exlpoding in the US.... biggest explosion short of nuclear I've ever seen. IT flattened homes up to a mile away, i think.
Remember, the phone system was not built for 911 service, 911 service was something that was added on, because it was feasible.
Also, in days of your, 911 operators DIDN'T know your address... you had to tell them.... the service was simply so you had an easy to remember number for emergency services.
So sure, let's come up with some good ways to provide 911 service over VoIP.. but let's not let waiting for that slow us down, either.
Courses augment self teaching.. they don't replace it.
I firmly believe that to be a good sysadmin, programmer, technologist, etc, you have to be able to learn on your own.. that is the primary skill you need... and this is why almost every single skilled person you meet in this field will tell you they really learned it all on their own.
School, however, is a source of knowledge.. and not every course is there to teach you a bunch of narrow-minded BS.
If you really want to bean up on a specific area, for instance, you are getting more into Linux, taking a couple courses your employer is willing to pay for is certainly not a BAD thing to take advantage of... especially if you feel you will learn something out of it. Especially if you are a learning on your own kind of guy.. you will absorb a lot from the course. Make sure the instructor is someone who can actually add knowledge to you.. the entire course could be worth it if a handful of your unanswered questions are answered.
I think most of us just suggest "do it on your own, courses are silly" because we want people to realize that learning on your own is the most important skill.. that courses are just a brief foray into some new knowledge.
Every good sysadmin that I know has learned chiefly on their own. They may have had some schooling in some facts of computing.. but NONE of them learned OS skills in a class.
Classes generally don't give you the WHY of everything either.. they cram as much as they can into a short period of time. What gives you the WHY is work experience.
Yes, of course, there are things at home you just can't learn at home.. you can't learn them much better at school either.
Granted, a good course can help you fit some things together.. and I'm not saying you won't learn something..... but it's not the answer.
The real reason many suggest learning on your own is because requests for "what is a good course to learn linux so I can do sysadmin" generally come from those who DON'T learn on their own, and think a course is the answer, and will promote them up a level. A course will teach you things, and depending on the course, might teach you some really good facts.. but in the end, if you don't learn quickly on your own, you are going nowhere.
Oh please... compared to what other comparable sector?
You mean all the 24 adn under tech workers making way above average salaries for their area?
Or you mean the school dropouts on their first tech job who feel "abused" because they are the only tech guy and have to work long hours.
To form a union you need a bunch of people in the same boat with common interests, who are willing to pay money in order to collectively bargain... and I'm sorry, but the "tech" field is WAY too broad and varied, not to mention still re-defining itself, to be unionized.
Further, to unionize, you need a shop that hires enough people to make a difference... many tech jobs where people complain have exactly one , maybe two or three, technical guys who are always complaining.. now if those one, two, or three guys can't get together and come to terms with their employer, a union has NO extra power to help.
But it doesn't keep a suicidal maniac off your plane.. the suicidal maniac doesn't CARE if you show ID or not.. the ID that is shown for domestic flights can easily be faked.
And if the security screeners are doing their job properly, it doesn't matter if Mr. X has no ID.. because we don't know who he is.
Requiring ID so the government can "protect" everyone is what this is about. What's next... when someone shoots up a stadium, you'll have to show ID to be in the stadium? Then what... the public streets? Sorry, cant' go downtown without showing ID?
Yes, airplanes need more security than, say, the bus... and they HAVE it... but requiring ID isn't one of them.
noTe - the airlines LIKE the ID requirement, and have no objection to it whatsoever.. it lets them sell tickets to individual people that are non-transferrable and non-refundable. l (contrast to a bus ticket that can be used by anyone, anytime)
They didn't say the law will be secret..they said that the reason tehy NEED the law is a secret....
and I sure hope my American neighbors won't put up with THAT.
Part of this, of course, is because for a long time it was perfeclty legal to fly without showing ID... in fact it was actually ILLEGAL for the airlines to refuse to let you to board for NOT showing ID.....but nobody knew this, because the airlines and everyone else pretended it was such a high and holy thing to ask for ID.
Okay so it seems we both operate on the same principle.
I've heard plenty of people attempting to prove the existence of a creator.. unfortunately, all their examples can be explained much more simply by known, verifiable science. Occam's Razor again.
I suppose it's splitting hairs.. but I'm not agnostic about it because there is simply not one shred of evidence as to why I should evne CONSIDER that God exists... there is no room for debate. Until we have SOME kind of evidence suggesting something may, in fact, be true.. we can assume it's not.
whatever you want to call it... it's the same as my flying magic invisible pig. I can't prove that he exists.. and you can't prove he doesn't.. therefore, he might?
Occam's Razor says that given equal explanations for something, the simplest one is probably correct.
I haven't yet heard even one explanation for the existence of god.. so the simplest explanation is that there isn't one. I don't see how agnosticism fits in.
You are right.. prove is the wrong word. Science cannot prove things.. it can only disprove things.
But when I say prove, I mean cite some kind of actual verifiable evidence of something.. some scenario that can test the theoretical existence of the aforementioned flying magic invisible pig, for instance. Give us something to work on, something to compare notes with.
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Those Quad recordings required a totally different pickup to be sensitive up to 45khz.
A normal pickup is sensitive up to about 20khz.
Yes, the medium itself could be more sensitive.. but the fact is the recordings themselves were not.
Quad recordings still only reproduced signals up to about 20khz.. they just did so on four channels.
Good vinyl recordings produce sound on par with a good CD recording. The reverse is also true.
IT's also not necessarily the same type of vinyl.
It's more that they get confused between talking about accuracy and quality.... one is measurable, the other is totally subjective.
Tubes color sound.. and they do so in a pleasing way. That is insturmentally verifiable.. and heck, just use your ear.. you'll agree. People like this sound. That's it. That's why people hear tubes and then hear solid-state and say "tubes sound better" and go digging for pseudoscience as to why solid state isn't "accurate". It's plenty accurate.. it's just not adding the color they like to hear.
The article made a simple point: Using an FM transmitter and a tube amp.. he gets the sound he grew up with, and he likes that. Who are we to argue with that?
I agree totally.. the audiphile world gets far too carried away with totally bogus claims as to why a slightly thicker cable made of some exotic mateiral "enhances the soundstage and bass response, with clearer highs blah blah blah"... or about how much oversampling or upsampling their DAC does... as if it somehow magically added back in information lost in the recording process.
Tube amps are NOT more accurate.
Given that I truly believe all that.. I still think tube amps sound cool, and I can see how someone would want one based on it's sound alone.
It's the same reason I often prefer listening to music on my mid-range headphones rather than my really expensive ones.. because although I nkow it's messing with the sound and not as accurate, it's doing so in a way that sounds better to me (warmer, more bass.)
average 128kbps mp3 on ipod headphones: sounds allright
same mp3 played back through Grado RS-1 headphones: sounds like ass. I can hear just how crappy the recording is.
well mastered CD on ipod headphones: sounds like crap compared to...
well mastered CD on Grado RS-1 headphones: i hear subtle details that I didn't know existed in the recording.. things that I absolutely can't hear on cheap headphones. Music sounds just awesome. If I go back and try the ipod headphones again, they sound incrediby constrained and muted.. the sound is just completely wrong.
You can build some yourself cheap enough.
Seriously.. this is part nostalgia, part fact. Tubes were used for a long time for audio reproduction. Tubes color the sound.
Tubes color the sound more than most solid state gear does, and they do it in a nicer way at that.
So it's no Wonder that Mr. Wonder liked the sound of tube gear better... the lack of coloration would sound kind of crisp if you are used to the tube sound.
That "crisp" sound could also be called "accurate" sound.
The majority of people are not using high-end digital sources.. they are using 128kbps mp3, or poorly mastered CDs..
Okay.. but that's totally different.
The amplifier for an electgric guitar is part of the insturment.. it's there for sound production, not sound re-production.
Tubes have a warmer sound, they distory differently, and produce differnet harmonics than solid state gear, and people tend to like this better.
In terms of accuracy though, they are not more accurate than solid state gear. Often, it's the lack of accuracy and the coloration that people really like (and miss)
define "better".
If "better" means "more pleasant sound" then yes, they are.. because people just seem to like the twist that tubes put on their music.
If "better" means "more accurate" then no, they generally aren't.
Tubes introduce more coloration than your average solid state amp.
Running an audio source through a tube amp creates tube-amp like sound! WHAT A BREAKTHROUGH.
What's this got to do with an iPod?
Yes, tube amps have a distinctly different sound than solid state gear. Yes, many people find the colorations of a tube amp pleasant. Most people do, in fact. I know I do.
Does that mean tubes are more accurate at reproducing sound? Not at all. But when it comes to the natural harmonics introduced by the amplifiers... tubes are much more pleasing than solid state gear.
An amp based on either technology can be engineered very thoroughly to give a flat, neutral uncolored response... but guess what.. that doens't necessary sound BETTER to the listener.
Remember, accuracy can be measured, but what sounds GOOD is *purely* subjective.
Perfect example: I have 128kbps mp3s that sound much better on my little ipod headphones than my $800 reference headphones. I know the reference cans are more accurate, and that they are letting me hear how crappy the mp3 truly is.. but the overall effect is that the shitty headphones make it sound better.
This is exactly what iChat needs to get me to use it.
Now they just need to make iChat AV compatable with Messenger & NetMeeting so the iSight can be more than a useless appendage unless everyone you want to chat with has a mac.
The thing is, most virus /worm authors aren't into it for the joy of destruction. Adding a payload that erases stuff is not at all challenging, or in any way beneficial to anyone, even the author.
From a technical point of view, I can respect a worm that is technically advanced... sort of how we might respect some kind of bank robber who never actually hurts or threatens to hurt anyone, and doesn't use a weapon. He's still a bad guy, disrupting the economy... but he's not a murderer.. so we respect him on a certain level.
A worm author adding deliberately destructive payloads that have no technical purpose, but are there simply to fuck ME over... that puts them in a class with the bank robber who walks in, shoots random people, threatens to kill the rest, etc....
Worms are bad.. stealing computer resources is bad, but on a technical level a good worm is interesting.
Controlling access to data also involves controlling what may be done with that data, how it may be displayed, where it may be moved. This is just another tool to do just that.
Yes, a skilled attacker can steal from us regardless, but that doesn't mean I should make it easy for anyone with the slightest temptation to walk off with the company database, okay? It's called reducing risk.
Sometimes people need limited access to information.. this is a tool to help limit access.
This isnt' something you give to a fairly trusted employee who needs to do lots of varied things with a computer. its' something you give to someone who specifically does NOT need to be, in facat is not allowed to be, copying things on and off their computer.
What if that employee's work absolutely does NOT require removable storage devices in any way, shape, or form, and you have a strong interest in making sure they aren't copying significant quantities of data and taking it off the premesis?
Ahh.. one of those Engineers who thinks anyone without an Engineering degree is a lackey. I've worked with lots of you.
Believe it or not, even though your situation at work might not be one, there are situations where you DO want to disable any methods of copying data off the workstation. A call-center, for instance... where your employees have to access customer data all day long but you don't want them stealing it.
Having machines that have the floppy drives disabled and USB storage disabled is necessary. To not do this in this situation is to invite thievery. It discourages the casual thief.
I saw video of a rocket fuel plant exlpoding in the US.... biggest explosion short of nuclear I've ever seen. IT flattened homes up to a mile away, i think.
911 get in the way of an otherwise great service.
Remember, the phone system was not built for 911 service, 911 service was something that was added on, because it was feasible.
Also, in days of your, 911 operators DIDN'T know your address... you had to tell them.... the service was simply so you had an easy to remember number for emergency services.
So sure, let's come up with some good ways to provide 911 service over VoIP.. but let's not let waiting for that slow us down, either.
Same in Canada.. downloading legal, uploading illegal.
Courses augment self teaching.. they don't replace it.
I firmly believe that to be a good sysadmin, programmer, technologist, etc, you have to be able to learn on your own.. that is the primary skill you need... and this is why almost every single skilled person you meet in this field will tell you they really learned it all on their own.
School, however, is a source of knowledge.. and not every course is there to teach you a bunch of narrow-minded BS.
If you really want to bean up on a specific area, for instance, you are getting more into Linux, taking a couple courses your employer is willing to pay for is certainly not a BAD thing to take advantage of... especially if you feel you will learn something out of it. Especially if you are a learning on your own kind of guy.. you will absorb a lot from the course. Make sure the instructor is someone who can actually add knowledge to you.. the entire course could be worth it if a handful of your unanswered questions are answered.
I think most of us just suggest "do it on your own, courses are silly" because we want people to realize that learning on your own is the most important skill.. that courses are just a brief foray into some new knowledge.
Every good sysadmin that I know has learned chiefly on their own. They may have had some schooling in some facts of computing.. but NONE of them learned OS skills in a class.
Classes generally don't give you the WHY of everything either.. they cram as much as they can into a short period of time. What gives you the WHY is work experience.
Yes, of course, there are things at home you just can't learn at home.. you can't learn them much better at school either.
Granted, a good course can help you fit some things together.. and I'm not saying you won't learn something..... but it's not the answer.
The real reason many suggest learning on your own is because requests for "what is a good course to learn linux so I can do sysadmin" generally come from those who DON'T learn on their own, and think a course is the answer, and will promote them up a level. A course will teach you things, and depending on the course, might teach you some really good facts.. but in the end, if you don't learn quickly on your own, you are going nowhere.
Oh please... compared to what other comparable sector?
You mean all the 24 adn under tech workers making way above average salaries for their area?
Or you mean the school dropouts on their first tech job who feel "abused" because they are the only tech guy and have to work long hours.
To form a union you need a bunch of people in the same boat with common interests, who are willing to pay money in order to collectively bargain... and I'm sorry, but the "tech" field is WAY too broad and varied, not to mention still re-defining itself, to be unionized.
Further, to unionize, you need a shop that hires enough people to make a difference... many tech jobs where people complain have exactly one , maybe two or three, technical guys who are always complaining.. now if those one, two, or three guys can't get together and come to terms with their employer, a union has NO extra power to help.
But it doesn't keep a suicidal maniac off your plane.. the suicidal maniac doesn't CARE if you show ID or not.. the ID that is shown for domestic flights can easily be faked.
And if the security screeners are doing their job properly, it doesn't matter if Mr. X has no ID.. because we don't know who he is.
Requiring ID so the government can "protect" everyone is what this is about. What's next... when someone shoots up a stadium, you'll have to show ID to be in the stadium? Then what... the public streets? Sorry, cant' go downtown without showing ID?
Yes, airplanes need more security than, say, the bus... and they HAVE it... but requiring ID isn't one of them.
noTe - the airlines LIKE the ID requirement, and have no objection to it whatsoever.. it lets them sell tickets to individual people that are non-transferrable and non-refundable.
l
(contrast to a bus ticket that can be used by anyone, anytime)
They didn't say the law will be secret..they said that the reason tehy NEED the law is a secret....
and I sure hope my American neighbors won't put up with THAT.
Part of this, of course, is because for a long time it was perfeclty legal to fly without showing ID... in fact it was actually ILLEGAL for the airlines to refuse to let you to board for NOT showing ID.....but nobody knew this, because the airlines and everyone else pretended it was such a high and holy thing to ask for ID.
Look at it this way.
Agnosticism leaves the door open.
Atheism slams the door.
I think there shouldn't BE a door.
Okay so it seems we both operate on the same principle.
I've heard plenty of people attempting to prove the existence of a creator.. unfortunately, all their examples can be explained much more simply by known, verifiable science. Occam's Razor again.
I suppose it's splitting hairs.. but I'm not agnostic about it because there is simply not one shred of evidence as to why I should evne CONSIDER that God exists... there is no room for debate. Until we have SOME kind of evidence suggesting something may, in fact, be true.. we can assume it's not.
whatever you want to call it... it's the same as my flying magic invisible pig. I can't prove that he exists.. and you can't prove he doesn't.. therefore, he might?
Occam's Razor says that given equal explanations for something, the simplest one is probably correct.
I haven't yet heard even one explanation for the existence of god.. so the simplest explanation is that there isn't one. I don't see how agnosticism fits in.
You are right.. prove is the wrong word. Science cannot prove things.. it can only disprove things.
But when I say prove, I mean cite some kind of actual verifiable evidence of something.. some scenario that can test the theoretical existence of the aforementioned flying magic invisible pig, for instance. Give us something to work on, something to compare notes with.