On the other hand, the last few times the industry tried this (DAT, 8-Tracks, SVHS...) have not been that well recieved.
Well, 8-track was popular, but it came out right before Phillip's cassette tape format took off, and was supplanted. Consumer DAT was basically killed by the record industry because of piracy concerns, but has proved popular with pros.
I'd be willing to bet that if the recording industry hadn't messed with it, DAT would have replaced cassette tapes - even with it's limited market back in the 90's, Sony Walkman DAT's could be purchased for under $500, and 2-hour DAT tapes could be bought for less than $8. If the market was one or two orders of magnitude larger, prices could have approached the levels of portable CD-players.
Whether or not the increased bandwidth and dynamic range of DVD-A and SACD will improve the sound quality of recordings is debatable (having heard both, I know that it can, but only if the recording engineers know what they're doing).
However, the comment "surround sound is pretty useless for basic music" is dead wrong. If you play a two channel recording through one of the faux surround modes in many receivers, I'll admit that it doesn't sound all that great. But have you ever listened to a recording that was specifically mixed for 5.1, or even Dolby Pro Logic (e.g. some of Telarc's releases)?
If the mixing engineer knows what she's doing, the result produces an increased sense of envelopment and makes you feel more connected to the performance, even in pop recordings. Yeah, if the surround mixing is done using gimmicks like the original Fantasia, it just becomes distracting
(I say this having just spent an evening at a colleagues home listening to several 5.1 DVD musical performances. Trust me, done properly it makes a difference)
It depends on your perceptive. I can agree that a lot of large firms (the type with full IT staffs and in-house programmers/pseudo-programmers) use the "real" MS Office in the manner you describe. But a lot of people just need a word processor to/read/write letters and a spreadsheet to crunch numbers.
Seriously, go drive/walk to you town/city center and look around. You'll probably see banks, maybe an accounting firm or small engineering firm that needs VB/Access functionally. But keep looking. You'll also see things like barber shops, a Ma & Pa convenience store, maybe a store front for plumber, graphic artist, and so on. These people probably wouldn't know what a database or scripting language was if you hit them over the head with one.
As long as they can read whatever Office formats that are sent to them (and thankfully that may actually happen), the combo of Pages/Keynote/Numbers will be enough for the great majority of small businesses.
Given the number of small businesses in the U.S., I think the potential market is higher than one might expect, especially if you think business=megacorp
I know, it was a joke - I should have added a smiley.
And for the record, they did directly address the evolution vs. creationism argument in both the biology and region classes. But then again, I graduated 15 years ago.
I strongly agree. While I'll be the first person to defend Bose against unwarranted charges of 'crap' it's hard for me to not laugh at someone denigrating B&O, especially since their Beolab 5 loudspeaker is easily the 2nd best loudspeaker I've ever heard (behind the Wilson Watt Puppy)
The patches were released only after the KDE team went public on what a mess the whole situation was.
Wha? Dave Hyatt posted his announcement on April 27. Based on the comments to that entry, the patches were available around 11:00pm that night. Zack's blog entry is dated April 28, with a timestamp of 6:12pm (I don't know what the relative time zones are).
In any event, it looks like the patches were available a good 18 hours before "KDE team went public on what a mess the whole situation was." Unless you're referring to something else?
As an engineer, Google Earth (or in my case, more likely MS's Virtual Earth since MS has at least hinted at Mac compatibility via Firefox, while Google Earth seems to be Windows only), would be a godsend - I spend a lot of time looking over aerial photos to identify buildings (or 'sensitive receptors' as we call them in the noise biz) and the more detail we can get, the better we can make our estimates.
For example, having a clearer indication of building height or terrain features can help us create better sound propagation models that accounts for shielding or diffraction. Sure, GE/VE won't give us exact values, but every little bit helps. Topo maps help a bit, but if you've ever had to model an area with complex geometry (say San Fran or Seattle) topos become unwieldy pretty quickly.
We spend a lot of money right now sending people to certain project areas to help get a better sense of the terrain and building geometries. Having an fairly accurate 3D model of these features can save hundreds of thousands of dollars just in travel costs.
Re:Sound cancelling headphones
on
Cubicle Privacy
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· Score: 1
I have been other very-quiet places, (such as a microwave-shielded room with special panels on the walls, floor, and ceiling that happened to also deaden all outside sound amazingly effectively.)
If it's anything like the EM-shielded/EM 'anechoic' rooms I've been in (like ASU's facility) it's not the same thing. It's quiet, but not really quiet.
It's just in addition to it suddenly being a little bit quieter, there's this additional annoying pressure feeling that's similar, but milder than, the pain mentioned earlier.
Again, I ask, what headset(s) have you used? I've never experienced it. I've spent the past couple of minutes trying to replicate it with my Bose QC-1 headsets, and I can't "feel" it.
Re:Sound cancelling headphones
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 1
The reason I think this is that when turning on these headsets I feel part of that same uncomfortable feeling of pain that some of us get around ultrasonic pest controllers, and even more folks shirk from from the backs or undersides of CRTs.
Actually I'll bet what is happening is that the noise-canceling headsets are working too well - they're canceling out most of the external noise, leaving only the "internal" self-noise of your ears (and possibly various bodily functions like blood rushing through your head).
It's the same feeling you get if you've every been in a truly quiet environment (like an anechoic chamber, or out in the grand canyon at night where the background noise approaches the threshold of human hearing*). These noises are always present, but we don't notice them because external sounds from the world around us are masking them
When you say that you hear sounds from "ultrasonic pest controllers" I doubt that you're hearing ultrasonic sounds. Even if the device produces ultrasonic sounds, it's probably also emitting high-frequency sounds in the audible range. Our high-frequency hearing is usually just not that good unless you're a two year-old girl. My high-frequency hearing is not all that great, but I can hear the 16 kHz "flyback" whine from TV's which most people around me can't hear.
* it's hard to describe "truly quiet" if you've never experienced it. Most people may think of a rural or suburban environment as quiet, and in reality, it's not - you can still usually hear sounds like the wind, leaves rustling on trees, distant traffic, etc. In a truly quiet environment (with a sound pressure level of 20 dBA or less), there is almost a sense that there's something wrong, and your ears are trying desperately to lock on to any sound source.
Re:Sound cancelling headphones
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 1
yet you can still feel pressure on your ears, which can be unpleasant.
You certainly shouldn't feel any additional pressure on your ears - soundwaves are pressure waves, so when you cancel out the soundwave, you're canceling out the pressure wave (well technically the pressure difference above/below ambient pressure).
I've certainly never noticed this with the noise canceling headsets I've used (including the Bose professional and consumer headsets). What headset(s) did you try?
Not Noise Canceling!
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The "Babble" technology that is discussed in this article is not noise canceling technology! Noise canceling technology uses soundwaves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the original waveform to cancel out the original soundwave.
From the article description, Babble simply 'scrambles' sound waves so that speech is unintelligible, but it doesn't actually make anything quieter (in fact, based on the description it probably increases the ambient noise, just like masking systems). This device is used for speech privacy (which can be useful for meeting HIPAA regs for example), not sound cancellation.
If you want to make things quieter, you'll have to resort to earplugs, sound-canceling headphones, or floor-ceiling partitions (ie walls).
Nowhere is said that Darth Vader/Anakin gets weaker losing limbs. What is the midichlorian just jumped from the limbs to his head? He would be strong anyway. But I would be jumping into conclusions, don't I?
It's never stated in the movies, but the idea of Vader losing power because he loses his limbs comes straight from an interview with Lucas in the February issue of Vanity Fair (the one with the SW actors on the cover, p 167, 1st paragraph).
The article isn't online, but you can find people who have quoted portions of the article:
"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful. But he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there's not that much of him left. So his ability to be twice as good as the Emperor disappeared, and now
he's maybe 20 percent less than the Emperor. So that isn't what the Emperor had in mind. He wanted this really super guy, but that got derailed by Obi-Wan. So he finds that, with Luke, he can get a more primo version if he can turn Luke to the Dark Side."
These shrill, obnoxious people, I think, turned a lot of people against the Mac, because, as a PC user the basic idea is that PC users are idiots, and buying a Mac is like validating all that BS.
Yeah, but let's not forget that there are fanbois on both sides.
microphones seem to be a good idea in detecting when the noise becomes too loud, but how does a microphone tell you whos making all the noise?
It doesn't. There are three approaches you can take to determine the source measured by a single microphone (arrays are another matter, but require significant amounts of processing):
Use judgment and experience to determine the source based on graphs of the sound level time history. If you've worked in noise control for long enough, you tend to learn how to pick out sources based on the shape of the event in the graphical time history of the event. For example, a locomotive-led train is easy to pick out since it looks like a blob with a large peak followed by a smaller blob.
Use computer algorithms to determine the the source. There are several noise monitoring systems sold today that can distinguish between aircraft noise and other noise based on the time and frequency characteristics of the event. It's quite possible that someone has extended this system to recognize other sources.
Simply record the sound, and let a human make the final decision.
I work in noise control, and I typically use method 1 (in combination of logs generated during brief periods of attendance) to determine the noise source.
Lately I've gotten into some disputes regarding the accuracy of my source determinations, so I've started using long-term calibrated sound recordings in place of long-term sound level meter measurements. The recordings have removed all doubts about the sound source, and I wouldn't be surprised if the UK authorities try using sound recordings if they find that the sound measurements are being disputed on a regular basis.
To my mind, the most hellish of noises is that low-frequency thud-thud-thudding bass particularly featured in rap/r&b tracks. Ear plugs are useless; you don't so much 'hear' the sound as 'feel' it. No general-purpose all-weather outdoor microphone is going to pick up frequencies that low.
If the authorities are going to use microphones to determine sound violations, they will be using microphones that meet IEC/ANSI standards for sound measurement equipment. That means mics from companies like Bruel and Kjaer, GRAS, Norsonic, ACO Pacific, Larson Davis, etc.
These mics will definitely measure down to 20 Hz (most "boom car" bass is around 50 or 60 Hz), and some will even get down to 1 Hz.
By the way, classical music generally has much lower bass than hip-hop/r&b/pop/dance music. Seriously.
E.g., is Microsoft going to create a major new Windows release for delivery on April 14 based on this report?
MS isn't going to create a new Windows release for April 1-14, but they could schedule their own press event for that period extolling the feature set of the Longhorn beta to steal some (or all) of Apple's thunder. They've done it before.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, 8-track was popular, but it came out right before Phillip's cassette tape format took off, and was supplanted. Consumer DAT was basically killed by the record industry because of piracy concerns, but has proved popular with pros.
I'd be willing to bet that if the recording industry hadn't messed with it, DAT would have replaced cassette tapes - even with it's limited market back in the 90's, Sony Walkman DAT's could be purchased for under $500, and 2-hour DAT tapes could be bought for less than $8. If the market was one or two orders of magnitude larger, prices could have approached the levels of portable CD-players.
Now SVHS? That was a failure. ;)
Whether or not the increased bandwidth and dynamic range of DVD-A and SACD will improve the sound quality of recordings is debatable (having heard both, I know that it can, but only if the recording engineers know what they're doing).
However, the comment "surround sound is pretty useless for basic music" is dead wrong. If you play a two channel recording through one of the faux surround modes in many receivers, I'll admit that it doesn't sound all that great. But have you ever listened to a recording that was specifically mixed for 5.1, or even Dolby Pro Logic (e.g. some of Telarc's releases)?
If the mixing engineer knows what she's doing, the result produces an increased sense of envelopment and makes you feel more connected to the performance, even in pop recordings. Yeah, if the surround mixing is done using gimmicks like the original Fantasia, it just becomes distracting
(I say this having just spent an evening at a colleagues home listening to several 5.1 DVD musical performances. Trust me, done properly it makes a difference)
Brickwall filters haven't been used in digital audio since the late 80's. Google "oversampling."
When did Jobs say that? Link?
AARRRGHH!!!
perceptive=perspective
It depends on your perceptive. I can agree that a lot of large firms (the type with full IT staffs and in-house programmers/pseudo-programmers) use the "real" MS Office in the manner you describe. But a lot of people just need a word processor to /read/write letters and a spreadsheet to crunch numbers.
Seriously, go drive/walk to you town/city center and look around. You'll probably see banks, maybe an accounting firm or small engineering firm that needs VB/Access functionally. But keep looking. You'll also see things like barber shops, a Ma & Pa convenience store, maybe a store front for plumber, graphic artist, and so on. These people probably wouldn't know what a database or scripting language was if you hit them over the head with one.
As long as they can read whatever Office formats that are sent to them (and thankfully that may actually happen), the combo of Pages/Keynote/Numbers will be enough for the great majority of small businesses.
Given the number of small businesses in the U.S., I think the potential market is higher than one might expect, especially if you think business=megacorp
I know, it was a joke - I should have added a smiley.
And for the record, they did directly address the evolution vs. creationism argument in both the biology and region classes. But then again, I graduated 15 years ago.
Nope. But then again, I went to Catholic School.
I strongly agree. While I'll be the first person to defend Bose against unwarranted charges of 'crap' it's hard for me to not laugh at someone denigrating B&O, especially since their Beolab 5 loudspeaker is easily the 2nd best loudspeaker I've ever heard (behind the Wilson Watt Puppy)
Wha? Dave Hyatt posted his announcement on April 27. Based on the comments to that entry, the patches were available around 11:00pm that night. Zack's blog entry is dated April 28, with a timestamp of 6:12pm (I don't know what the relative time zones are).
In any event, it looks like the patches were available a good 18 hours before "KDE team went public on what a mess the whole situation was." Unless you're referring to something else?
Umm, no.
Nope - why, do you wonder why they sound they way they do?
As an engineer, Google Earth (or in my case, more likely MS's Virtual Earth since MS has at least hinted at Mac compatibility via Firefox, while Google Earth seems to be Windows only), would be a godsend - I spend a lot of time looking over aerial photos to identify buildings (or 'sensitive receptors' as we call them in the noise biz) and the more detail we can get, the better we can make our estimates.
For example, having a clearer indication of building height or terrain features can help us create better sound propagation models that accounts for shielding or diffraction. Sure, GE/VE won't give us exact values, but every little bit helps. Topo maps help a bit, but if you've ever had to model an area with complex geometry (say San Fran or Seattle) topos become unwieldy pretty quickly.
We spend a lot of money right now sending people to certain project areas to help get a better sense of the terrain and building geometries. Having an fairly accurate 3D model of these features can save hundreds of thousands of dollars just in travel costs.
If it's anything like the EM-shielded/EM 'anechoic' rooms I've been in (like ASU's facility) it's not the same thing. It's quiet, but not really quiet.
It's just in addition to it suddenly being a little bit quieter, there's this additional annoying pressure feeling that's similar, but milder than, the pain mentioned earlier.Again, I ask, what headset(s) have you used? I've never experienced it. I've spent the past couple of minutes trying to replicate it with my Bose QC-1 headsets, and I can't "feel" it.
Actually I'll bet what is happening is that the noise-canceling headsets are working too well - they're canceling out most of the external noise, leaving only the "internal" self-noise of your ears (and possibly various bodily functions like blood rushing through your head).
It's the same feeling you get if you've every been in a truly quiet environment (like an anechoic chamber, or out in the grand canyon at night where the background noise approaches the threshold of human hearing*). These noises are always present, but we don't notice them because external sounds from the world around us are masking them
When you say that you hear sounds from "ultrasonic pest controllers" I doubt that you're hearing ultrasonic sounds. Even if the device produces ultrasonic sounds, it's probably also emitting high-frequency sounds in the audible range. Our high-frequency hearing is usually just not that good unless you're a two year-old girl. My high-frequency hearing is not all that great, but I can hear the 16 kHz "flyback" whine from TV's which most people around me can't hear.
* it's hard to describe "truly quiet" if you've never experienced it. Most people may think of a rural or suburban environment as quiet, and in reality, it's not - you can still usually hear sounds like the wind, leaves rustling on trees, distant traffic, etc. In a truly quiet environment (with a sound pressure level of 20 dBA or less), there is almost a sense that there's something wrong, and your ears are trying desperately to lock on to any sound source.
You certainly shouldn't feel any additional pressure on your ears - soundwaves are pressure waves, so when you cancel out the soundwave, you're canceling out the pressure wave (well technically the pressure difference above/below ambient pressure).
I've certainly never noticed this with the noise canceling headsets I've used (including the Bose professional and consumer headsets). What headset(s) did you try?
The "Babble" technology that is discussed in this article is not noise canceling technology! Noise canceling technology uses soundwaves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the original waveform to cancel out the original soundwave.
From the article description, Babble simply 'scrambles' sound waves so that speech is unintelligible, but it doesn't actually make anything quieter (in fact, based on the description it probably increases the ambient noise, just like masking systems). This device is used for speech privacy (which can be useful for meeting HIPAA regs for example), not sound cancellation.
If you want to make things quieter, you'll have to resort to earplugs, sound-canceling headphones, or floor-ceiling partitions (ie walls).
It's never stated in the movies, but the idea of Vader losing power because he loses his limbs comes straight from an interview with Lucas in the February issue of Vanity Fair (the one with the SW actors on the cover, p 167, 1st paragraph).
The article isn't online, but you can find people who have quoted portions of the article:
Yeah, but let's not forget that there are fanbois on both sides.
It doesn't. There are three approaches you can take to determine the source measured by a single microphone (arrays are another matter, but require significant amounts of processing):
I work in noise control, and I typically use method 1 (in combination of logs generated during brief periods of attendance) to determine the noise source.
Lately I've gotten into some disputes regarding the accuracy of my source determinations, so I've started using long-term calibrated sound recordings in place of long-term sound level meter measurements. The recordings have removed all doubts about the sound source, and I wouldn't be surprised if the UK authorities try using sound recordings if they find that the sound measurements are being disputed on a regular basis.
If the authorities are going to use microphones to determine sound violations, they will be using microphones that meet IEC/ANSI standards for sound measurement equipment. That means mics from companies like Bruel and Kjaer, GRAS, Norsonic, ACO Pacific, Larson Davis, etc.
These mics will definitely measure down to 20 Hz (most "boom car" bass is around 50 or 60 Hz), and some will even get down to 1 Hz.
By the way, classical music generally has much lower bass than hip-hop/r&b/pop/dance music. Seriously.
As I rider once said (paraphrased): if you need to wake up everyone in a 12 block radius to stay safe, you might want to take the bus.
MS isn't going to create a new Windows release for April 1-14, but they could schedule their own press event for that period extolling the feature set of the Longhorn beta to steal some (or all) of Apple's thunder. They've done it before.
Do you really believe that?
Are you sure? Raskin claims to at least have created 'click and drag.'