In audio equipment, reproduction accuracy is all there is.
You personally might be willing to accept distortions of various kinds (we all make our own tradeoffs), but the point in audio design is that the equipment attempts to recreate as faithfully as possible the original sound. The fact that people are willing to accept less than outstanding audio fidelity is analogous to people being willing to eat fast food. Most people being willing to eat fast food doesn't mean that a world-class chef using the finest ingredients doesn't create a fundamentally different gustatory and nutritional experience, or that there aren't people who can discern and appreciate the difference.
In this case, pushing transducer response farther and farther beyond the audible range of hearing improves the linearity of the response within the audible range. The same way that a 192k sampling rate doesn't mean people can hear up to 96kHz, it means that the filter response in the audio band is better, driver response down to 6Hz or up to 50k doesn't mean Sennheiser is suggesting people can hear down or up to those points, but that the response from 20-20k is better.
In the audio work I've done (music recording and film sound), we've worked very hard to achieve the most accurate reproduction possible...because we can hear it.
The best analogy for how that could even be possible is the way one's hearing adapts to quiet. At first, compared to normal environments, a 20dB room seems very quiet, even silent. But spend time in that 20dB room and then move to a 0dB anechoic chamber and that previously quiet 20dB can seem surprisingly noisy. Another visual analogy is the way that some people don't notice compression artifacts in images at first, but see them easily once they know what to look for.
I'm reminded of the early days of HDTV equipment manufacturers trying to convince us (where I was at the time) it was finally possible to use HD for feature film principal photography. Some manufacturer or other had brought in their latest and greatest camera demo reel, where they had shot footage on film and then at some secret point cut over to footage shot on HD. One of the people in the screening room wasn't really a technical person, and quietly asked us (quite reasonably) that if the quality of the images was really so hard to distinguish what they could look for to tell when the images switched from film to HD. Our (only half-joking) answer was "just look for when the film guys start vomiting.":-D
If it were possible, the recording industry would sue you for breathing.
Of course! That violates the copyright on The Police's "Every Breath You Take" and Pink Floyd's "Breathe."
I really can imagine the folks at RIAA humming "Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you" as they're running deep packet inspections. Kinda creepy to think of that song as an NSA-FISA surveillance theme song.:-(
I suffer every time I see one of his production car designs. But before this I could at least believe they were simply the best he could do - like Stevie Wonder designing clothing or Stephen Hawking doing brain surgery.
Now I see he can design a beautiful car.
And so all those other designs must be out of spite. Damn you, you sadistic bastard!:-)
Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week... I think this analogy may reveal a little more than intended about government's vision for humanity.
And note that cults do succeed for periods of time. Look at Scientology, or Microsoft, the Bush Administration, or even the classic "horror story" cults like the People's Church. (And dont' forget *BÖC*! *rimshot*) Cults are one of the few social forms strong enough to harness in any way the power of pure, raw creativity. In terms of the underlying energetics, the absolute masculine of the structure holds and focuses the absolute feminine of creation. So as an organizational strategy, cults work.
Until they don't.
The problem is that most cults do not have a corrective feedback mechanism. (In some ways that's a reasonable definition of a cult - the power flows from the outside to the center, without a feedback loop where power flows the other way.)
So like any system with huge amounts of forward gain and not a lot of negative feedback (insert obligatory comment about Alvy Ray's opinion of the amount of negative feedback in any of Steve's organizations;-) ), it works astoundingly well when it works. The problem happens when it needs to correct, because its very success was because it allocated all available resources to forward progress. When it comes time to "Think Different" there isn't any part of the system that can think differently - the cult-optimization stage that filters out negative or contrary thinking got rid of that capability long ago.
Note that this is exactly what happened to Apple, too. Steve basically crashed and burned both Apple v1.0 and NeXT (Apple v2.0), and it was only through Steve having to deal with those failures that Apple v3.0 has been able to succeed. While the article implies Steve's style has been successful, one could also argue that it completely killed two other important companies with great products, ideas and people. So the Apple of today is actually the third time around for Jobs.
This isn't to say that lots of forward gain doesn't have its place - it's as essential as corrective feedback. One can look at Microsoft's success (defined in their terms, as the degree to which they became the monopoly they set out to become at the beginning), or the military successes of Nazi Germany or the Spartans at Thermopylae (think the movie 300), or the success of filmmaker James Cameron. Cameron is (or at least was) a stated believer in the value of negative energy - the power of fear to drive people to create greatness. It's just that without a feedback mechanism it's unsustainable.
So it's pretty obvious that Apple (the company) is a cult. This is not inherently a problem, because again cults and prisons provide the structure for people who otherwise can't provide it for themselves. That's a good thing. Microsoft, Tom Cruise and Scientology, Dubya, The People's Church and Apple all had amazing - most tellingly, superhuman - success for a while. But when circumstances change, they usually can't respond - because one can say that the purpose of a cult is to be the agent of change, not to respond to it. Again, Apple, Microsoft, and Dubya all fit this definition. We'll have to see whether Obama also does.
But life balances all things. And while Icarus flies closer to the sun than anyone else, he also falls farther than anyone, too. Important for all of us to remember, because the United States itself also fits this model. We're learning right now the consequences of flying too close to the sun. I hope for myself and all of us that next time we can learn how to be not just Icarus, but also Prometheus, and in the end just simple mortals, too.
While I have all my life shared the deep desire to know the "ultimate end" (if there even is such a thing), the more I pay attention the more I feel the cognitive resources spent on these kinds of calculations are almost shameful - the astrophysical equivalent of gunning down buffalo from the back of the train.
If we weren't trying to solve these problems I'd be the voice saying that we should. It was just that in a world of such instability, in reading this article I suddenly felt sad we were spending time figuring out what might happen in a few billion years, when so many of us desperately need to know simply how to survive tomorrow.
Wow, just writing that helps bring me back to balance (since my projective emotional response to something can only ever be a response to something inside me). Remembering my own personal priorities, with which I'd momentarily lost touch this evening, has me feel centered again. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to right myself...and for listening.
(P.S. My own thesis is that long before the 7.6E9 moment we'll have grown to be able experience ourselves as far more than we do now, not just as tiny elements at the effect of the cosmic turnings of the Sun and Earth, but at one with the entire Universe itself. And with that, time for bed...gotta survive tomorrow, too, you know.;-) )
So it's up to the foreign press, in this case the Times Online. (Makes my head hurt that a Murdoch-owned outlet counts as the best source of investigative, or at least reportive, journalism.)
Basically, the story was that Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator listening to comm intercepts looking for Middle Eastern "terrorists," discovered evidence of a network of US, Israeli, Turkish and Pakistani nuclear weapons secrets trading. She's told the FBI - they fired her. She told Congress - they placed her under a gag order and threatened to jail her if she talked about it. She's even agreed to tell the story to any American media outlet (which means she's willing to go to jail so people can know), as long as the outlet agrees to tell the whole story, and not edit it to hide the truth. So far, all American sources have refused to cover the story.
Interesting tidbit - the CIA front company, "Brester Jennings," for which Valerie Plame worked before she was outed by Cheney and company, had as its mission tracking nuclear weapons activity in the ME. Outing Plame meant the Brewster Jennings cover was completely blown, like a wiretap being discovered. Which means that Plame's outing, with its supposed rationale as payback for exposing Bush's lies about Iraq and uranium, may have been nothing more than a convenient two-fer with a great cover story, when the real goal was to take out CIA assets who were getting too close to something far more important.
There's an old joke that, sadly, is far too applicable here.
A mobster is on trial for multiple murders. The prosecutor, frustrated he may lose the case because of the ease with which the mobster and his associates lie under oath, finally tries to threaten him on witness stand:
DA (sternly): "Sir, are you aware of the penalty for perjury in this state?"
Mobster (smugly): "It's less than the penalty for murder, isn't it?"
Too bad for us there won't even be a penalty for perjury.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of Presidential Idol! Who will be eliminated this week? Call in and vote for your favorite!"
Language must be interpreted using the meanings understood by the *speaker*. In Microsoft's case, "high quality" has always meant "high profit and monopoly extending." (This difference in source and destination meanings of "quality" has been the root cause of a great deal of argument in the/. community.)
After translation: "Our current goal remains to provide a high profit and monopoly extending Windows experience on the XO device."
Simple, honest, to the point. (Whether I like it or not is a different issue.)
Slashdot Mirror
In audio equipment, reproduction accuracy is all there is.
You personally might be willing to accept distortions of various kinds (we all make our own tradeoffs), but the point in audio design is that the equipment attempts to recreate as faithfully as possible the original sound. The fact that people are willing to accept less than outstanding audio fidelity is analogous to people being willing to eat fast food. Most people being willing to eat fast food doesn't mean that a world-class chef using the finest ingredients doesn't create a fundamentally different gustatory and nutritional experience, or that there aren't people who can discern and appreciate the difference.
In this case, pushing transducer response farther and farther beyond the audible range of hearing improves the linearity of the response within the audible range. The same way that a 192k sampling rate doesn't mean people can hear up to 96kHz, it means that the filter response in the audio band is better, driver response down to 6Hz or up to 50k doesn't mean Sennheiser is suggesting people can hear down or up to those points, but that the response from 20-20k is better.
In the audio work I've done (music recording and film sound), we've worked very hard to achieve the most accurate reproduction possible...because we can hear it.
The best analogy for how that could even be possible is the way one's hearing adapts to quiet. At first, compared to normal environments, a 20dB room seems very quiet, even silent. But spend time in that 20dB room and then move to a 0dB anechoic chamber and that previously quiet 20dB can seem surprisingly noisy. Another visual analogy is the way that some people don't notice compression artifacts in images at first, but see them easily once they know what to look for.
I'm reminded of the early days of HDTV equipment manufacturers trying to convince us (where I was at the time) it was finally possible to use HD for feature film principal photography. Some manufacturer or other had brought in their latest and greatest camera demo reel, where they had shot footage on film and then at some secret point cut over to footage shot on HD. One of the people in the screening room wasn't really a technical person, and quietly asked us (quite reasonably) that if the quality of the images was really so hard to distinguish what they could look for to tell when the images switched from film to HD. Our (only half-joking) answer was "just look for when the film guys start vomiting." :-D
The 90's called, they want their overused David Spade line back.
[Edit] Sorry, my mistake, that call was actually the 80's pranking the 90's, the 90's don't really want that line back. ;-)
Happy 1234567890, everyone!
The problem was not that he wanted to shoot Reagan and fuck Jodie Foster.
Sure don't wanna have dyslexia when that's your to-do list.
Or your do-to list.
"Mommy? Mommy?"
"How about a newspaper columnist and few geeks on the net?"
If it were possible, the recording industry would sue you for breathing.
Of course! That violates the copyright on The Police's "Every Breath You Take" and Pink Floyd's "Breathe."
:-(
I really can imagine the folks at RIAA humming "Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you" as they're running deep packet inspections. Kinda creepy to think of that song as an NSA-FISA surveillance theme song.
I always feel like somebody's watchin' meeeee...
But where's all the Metallica?
Though with one slight change to the rules - first one to finish loses. :-)
"This fantastic result was a complete team effort. We really spanked the competition today."
I suffer every time I see one of his production car designs. But before this I could at least believe they were simply the best he could do - like Stevie Wonder designing clothing or Stephen Hawking doing brain surgery.
:-)
Now I see he can design a beautiful car.
And so all those other designs must be out of spite. Damn you, you sadistic bastard!
"Let my people goto!"
Well, it certainly confirms their usual methodology is to just pound it out. ;-)
"I'm nearly two kilometers tall."
How sad that Microsoft considers metric-driven software development that connects users and developers a new invention. :-(
"At Microsoft, these two halves of the brain come together in the colon."
This is /. What do you mean, "again"?
I feel such pity for your significant other....
/. Your drycleaner, then. OTOH, you probably enjoy hay fever season more than anyone. ;-) )
( Oh, wait, this is
Don't worry - OLPC's getting screwed in that other orifice. ;-)
"Microsoft Orifice 2008 - now for OLPC"
I mean, Jeebus, anyone can see that it's large.
"Oh, excuse me, Dr. Physicist, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me." Stupid physicists.
(Though perhaps it's that physicists contracted out to the folks who classify shrimp...next up, the "Jumbo Hadron.")
"Mmmm...Jumbo Hadrons"
No, it was actually an incredibly accurate prediction of the upcoming Depression. Four hours isn't all you need, just all you get.
:-)
Now if they'd said "and buy Bear Stearns March 30 puts" then I'd be really impressed. (That and pissed I didn't subscribe.)
Exactly.
;-) ), it works astoundingly well when it works. The problem happens when it needs to correct, because its very success was because it allocated all available resources to forward progress. When it comes time to "Think Different" there isn't any part of the system that can think differently - the cult-optimization stage that filters out negative or contrary thinking got rid of that capability long ago.
And note that cults do succeed for periods of time. Look at Scientology, or Microsoft, the Bush Administration, or even the classic "horror story" cults like the People's Church. (And dont' forget *BÖC*! *rimshot*) Cults are one of the few social forms strong enough to harness in any way the power of pure, raw creativity. In terms of the underlying energetics, the absolute masculine of the structure holds and focuses the absolute feminine of creation. So as an organizational strategy, cults work.
Until they don't.
The problem is that most cults do not have a corrective feedback mechanism. (In some ways that's a reasonable definition of a cult - the power flows from the outside to the center, without a feedback loop where power flows the other way.)
So like any system with huge amounts of forward gain and not a lot of negative feedback (insert obligatory comment about Alvy Ray's opinion of the amount of negative feedback in any of Steve's organizations
Note that this is exactly what happened to Apple, too. Steve basically crashed and burned both Apple v1.0 and NeXT (Apple v2.0), and it was only through Steve having to deal with those failures that Apple v3.0 has been able to succeed. While the article implies Steve's style has been successful, one could also argue that it completely killed two other important companies with great products, ideas and people. So the Apple of today is actually the third time around for Jobs.
This isn't to say that lots of forward gain doesn't have its place - it's as essential as corrective feedback. One can look at Microsoft's success (defined in their terms, as the degree to which they became the monopoly they set out to become at the beginning), or the military successes of Nazi Germany or the Spartans at Thermopylae (think the movie 300), or the success of filmmaker James Cameron. Cameron is (or at least was) a stated believer in the value of negative energy - the power of fear to drive people to create greatness. It's just that without a feedback mechanism it's unsustainable.
So it's pretty obvious that Apple (the company) is a cult. This is not inherently a problem, because again cults and prisons provide the structure for people who otherwise can't provide it for themselves. That's a good thing. Microsoft, Tom Cruise and Scientology, Dubya, The People's Church and Apple all had amazing - most tellingly, superhuman - success for a while. But when circumstances change, they usually can't respond - because one can say that the purpose of a cult is to be the agent of change, not to respond to it. Again, Apple, Microsoft, and Dubya all fit this definition. We'll have to see whether Obama also does.
But life balances all things. And while Icarus flies closer to the sun than anyone else, he also falls farther than anyone, too. Important for all of us to remember, because the United States itself also fits this model. We're learning right now the consequences of flying too close to the sun. I hope for myself and all of us that next time we can learn how to be not just Icarus, but also Prometheus, and in the end just simple mortals, too.
how long the human race will survive. (no smiley)
;-) )
While I have all my life shared the deep desire to know the "ultimate end" (if there even is such a thing), the more I pay attention the more I feel the cognitive resources spent on these kinds of calculations are almost shameful - the astrophysical equivalent of gunning down buffalo from the back of the train.
If we weren't trying to solve these problems I'd be the voice saying that we should. It was just that in a world of such instability, in reading this article I suddenly felt sad we were spending time figuring out what might happen in a few billion years, when so many of us desperately need to know simply how to survive tomorrow.
Wow, just writing that helps bring me back to balance (since my projective emotional response to something can only ever be a response to something inside me). Remembering my own personal priorities, with which I'd momentarily lost touch this evening, has me feel centered again. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to right myself...and for listening.
(P.S. My own thesis is that long before the 7.6E9 moment we'll have grown to be able experience ourselves as far more than we do now, not just as tiny elements at the effect of the cosmic turnings of the Sun and Earth, but at one with the entire Universe itself. And with that, time for bed...gotta survive tomorrow, too, you know.
Soon to be seen on another site... "Digg this up!"
(What? Digg doesn't have a paleontology section?)
So it's up to the foreign press, in this case the Times Online. (Makes my head hurt that a Murdoch-owned outlet counts as the best source of investigative, or at least reportive, journalism.)
"The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece
Which was itself a follow-up to
"For sale: West's deadly nuclear secrets" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece
Basically, the story was that Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator listening to comm intercepts looking for Middle Eastern "terrorists," discovered evidence of a network of US, Israeli, Turkish and Pakistani nuclear weapons secrets trading. She's told the FBI - they fired her. She told Congress - they placed her under a gag order and threatened to jail her if she talked about it. She's even agreed to tell the story to any American media outlet (which means she's willing to go to jail so people can know), as long as the outlet agrees to tell the whole story, and not edit it to hide the truth. So far, all American sources have refused to cover the story.
Interesting tidbit - the CIA front company, "Brester Jennings," for which Valerie Plame worked before she was outed by Cheney and company, had as its mission tracking nuclear weapons activity in the ME. Outing Plame meant the Brewster Jennings cover was completely blown, like a wiretap being discovered. Which means that Plame's outing, with its supposed rationale as payback for exposing Bush's lies about Iraq and uranium, may have been nothing more than a convenient two-fer with a great cover story, when the real goal was to take out CIA assets who were getting too close to something far more important.
Sibel Edmonds' web site is http://www.justacitizen.com/>here.
"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers." - Daniel Ellsberg
There's an old joke that, sadly, is far too applicable here.
A mobster is on trial for multiple murders. The prosecutor, frustrated he may lose the case because of the ease with which the mobster and his associates lie under oath, finally tries to threaten him on witness stand:
DA (sternly): "Sir, are you aware of the penalty for perjury in this state?"
Mobster (smugly): "It's less than the penalty for murder, isn't it?"
Too bad for us there won't even be a penalty for perjury.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of Presidential Idol! Who will be eliminated this week? Call in and vote for your favorite!"
"White House spokesman Tony Fratto also said to keep sucking, he has no reason to believe the Bush Administration intends to cum in America's mouth."
Language must be interpreted using the meanings understood by the *speaker*. In Microsoft's case, "high quality" has always meant "high profit and monopoly extending." (This difference in source and destination meanings of "quality" has been the root cause of a great deal of argument in the /. community.)
After translation: "Our current goal remains to provide a high profit and monopoly extending Windows experience on the XO device."
Simple, honest, to the point. (Whether I like it or not is a different issue.)
Destroy all evidence of destruction of evidence.