That seems to imply a different biometric measurement...
Tim
Heresy and Slashdot (was Proud to be a Heretic!)
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
This is exactly why I like Slashdot. Only rarely do I find myself agreeing with the group opinion, but it tends to open my mind to options and ideas that I hadn't otherwise thought of. Likewise, although my first view of a story will always be 3+, I frequently turn it down to -1 (when I have some extra time) to see what "the trolls" have to say.
It's also interesting to note that when I Meta Moderate (every couple of days), I find lots of anti-BSD or anti-Linux posts moderated as Flamebait. Being the heretic that I am, I always categorize such moderations as incorrect. In doing so, I've pretty much figured out that many of my opinions about copyright (WRT music) and software development (OOP and XP) are considered ignorant and uninformed.
IMHO, it would benefit many of us to spend more time in the company of people we disagree with, and not so much time just finding people to reinforce our already-formed opinions. I've feared for some time that one of the worst things about the Internet is that it allows someone whose ideas are dangerous to find others of like mind, and decide "I'm normal, because there are others out there like me who believe in gouging other people's eyes out for complaining about Joe Lieberman." It's OK for someone like that to feel the societal pressure that says "YOU ARE A WEIRDO."
Who suggested that either of us was scared? Haven't you ever had a conversation where you were sitting next to someone, or walking down the street, where the position allowed you to say things out loud, and not have them stare directly at you?
In my experience, there are many conversations in life that simply wouldn't occur if I forced everyone around me to "muster up the courage" to tell me this or that, eyeball to eyeball. A friend from college probably wouldn't have told me that she was sexually abused as a child, and my best friend from childhood probably wouldn't have confided in me some of the recent marital difficulties he's faced. In contrast, I most certainly looked this same buddy in the eye to tell him that his father had just died moments before he arrived at the hospital.
One of the most memorable conversations my mom had with me was delivered in just this manner, as I lay in bed, pretending to be asleep. She simply stared at the blank wall, began talking, sharing with me things that she felt needed to be said, and then got up and left. Had she said the same words to my face a few mintues before, when I'd come home from partying with my teenage buddies, I'd have blown it off, and never heard a thing. Instead, I can almost recite what she told me, word for word.
Staring into someone's eyes can be beneficial, but it can also halt the flow of information dead in its tracks. If using IM's around the house to occasionally trade some information with my son allows the information to keep flowing, then I'm all for it, and will use it. However, to your point, I have no intention of using IM as a substitute for looking him in the eye when I have something difficult or uncomfortable to say that would be better delivered in person.
So far, I've seen over a dozen posts suggesting that me chatting with my teenage sons are: an example of the breakdown of the modern family, an indication that we're a bunch of lazy geeks, or a sign that we need to go out and socialize. It's interesting to see these judgements, as they all assume that you know me or my family.
Yes, my oldest son and I IM each other when we're in the same house. We have even IM'd each other when in the same room. Typically, we both had parallel conversations going on with other people online, and also were talking "face to face" along with the IMs. Oddly enough, many of the posters in this thread don't seem to realize that some things are simply more funny when written than when spoken, and if both parties are reasonably good typists, the conversations can flow quite freely.
Also, there are some conversations that are awkward or uncomfortable to have in person. One of the reasons that lonely people use IM to establish new relationships is because of the comfort and anonymity of the medium. This can also be beneficial to people who know each other well, if there's an awkward subject that you want to discuss.
Recently, my son and I were discussing an article on the NY Times (I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't mind that they know I read their articles) about teenage sexuality, and the incidence of intercourse falling in the past couple of years. Now, this would be a bit of an odd conversation to have with your dad at any point, but especially when you're a teenage boy, currently in a dating relationship. Because of the medium, I was able to cast my question in a non-threatening way, and he was able to compose his response without me watching his expression, or second-guessing his body language.
Last but not least, I correct his grammar and spelling, and encourage him to learn to express himself with the written word. IM seems to be as good a place for immediate feedback and correction as any.
In short, before you assume that families chatting is another sign of impending doom, please be a bit more informed.
Tim
P.S. WRT us being a bunch of lazy geeks, he's 15, playing JV & Varsity basketball and football, and we regularly compare weightlifting routines. He regularly challenges me (typically by throwing a cross-body block in the kitchen), and is looking forward to the day (not far off) when he can "take dad down." Unfortunately for my wife, he weighs 190 lbs, and I weigh 230, so when we wrestle, things usually get broken. I'm no stud, but it's not like we sit around on our butts all day in front of the PC.
After typing "LOL" in an IM to my oldest son, he has forbidden me from typing it unless he can actually hear the laughter. Since we usually chat when we're both at home, wisecracks yelled back and forth usually run in parallel to the chat content.
One day, we were chatting while sitting at adjacent computers. My wife walked in, noticed that we were chatting (primarily with each other), and decided that we were both too geeky for her. I figured at least there was SOME kind of communication with my son.
It might interest you to read the following link: http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/conditi ons/cd/
At any point in time, Phillips or Sony could (even now) begin demanding royalties on new CD players, recorders, and so on, unless there was already an agreement in force with a particular manufacturer. I suppose this doesn't qualify as a "free and open infrastructure for the distribution of music," but it seems to have worked pretty well so far.
The [sic] was in reference to the implication that audio can somehow be based upon music. "Music-audio data" is most likely what you meant. (In contrast with "speech-audio data," which most of the aformentioned formats are suitable for.) It was also an ill-formed attempt to play on the "mu-sic[sic]" coincident location.
But I digress.
To use your argument about patented formats being inherently bad, consider the LP and 45 record formats, or the CD-Audio format. Each of these were covered by patents, and yet they each thrived as a medium for music delivery.
Simply suggesting that because AAC, MWA, or MP3 are covered by patents (and therefore protected against unauthorized use) they are somehow inherently evil or less desirable than OGG is as goofy as assuming that all open source solutions are inherently technically superior to any closed-source solution. It may or may not be, but the bozos in the House and Senate are surely not the ones who should be making such decisions.
Remind me again how AAC, the audio codec from MPEG-4, is "their own patented format"? Explain also how AAC is somehow not "good enough for music[sic]-based audio"? How is it that Dolby labs, renown for their contributions to audio quality since the early 1970's (Dolby A, B, C, HX, etc. NR) are somehow not smart enough to help build a truly "audio-quality" codec?
I'm obviously mistaking these guys as people who know something about audio. I suppose these are issues better settled by my congressman and/or senator, who are no doubt well-versed in the intricacies of noise-masking, audibility thresholds, and data compression algorithms.
'In other words, you're either with him [Lance Ulanoff] or with the "zealots."'
If I have to choose sides, I'll go with the Zealots on this one. Apple's security and responses to breaches (so far) have been light years ahead of what I've dealt with from MS.
The flagship product of my former company (aquired by a larger company) was written in OS/2. We considered for many years the pros and cons of rewriting this application in Windows (2000 or NT), but it was always so much work, we never got it off the ground.
Fast forward to today, when many people are singing the "Why in the world did you guys write this in that dead operating system, OS/2? You need to move out of the stone-age!" Given the context of this story, keeping a UL-listed life-safety system based on OS/2 sounds like a pretty reasonable move.
Please. Tell us. What are the "outrageous salaries" that are being paid in your community? Have you ever worked as a teacher in a public school system? Or, are you one of the "armchair administrators" that see this as a simple problem?
The problems of educating EVERYONE (no matter what their inclination to learn) and being forced to accept all sorts of abberant behavior (no matter what the parents' willingness to get involved may be) are among the more difficult things that my wife (who's been teaching middle and high school for 21 years) must deal with on a daily basis.
How many times have you been threatened at the workplace, and found the perpetrator of the threat RIGHT BACK in the workplace the next day? This happens to schoolteachers all the time. Are metal detectors necessary in your workplace? Is it because of the risks of someone in the room with you pulling a knife or gun and killing a co-worker? Again, this is a way of life for many schoolteachers.
I'll be the first to admit that simply raising taxes and throwing money at schools for higher teacher salaries and better facilities isn't going to fix our educational system. The system is (IMHO) fundamentally broken, and requires dramatic overhaul and review, from the top down.
Unfortunately, this would also mean that a large percentage of the population would lose the "free day care" services of the public schools, because revamping the system would also mean that many students would be deemed "unfit for the classroom," and would be directed toward a special education program (which is even more expensive) that increases supervision levels for the students, or left out of the public school system entirely.
Then again, we can just take the approach it sounds like you're suggesting. Tell the teachers to stop their incessant whinning about the environment they work in; insist that the rat-infested buildings some teachers use are still "perfectly acceptable"; cut back on extra-curricular activities that are typically funded 80% or more by fundraisers and parental involvement.
It's interesting to read some of the rantings of people who don't have children, but who are (in their opinion) experts in parenting and raising kids, simply because they were once children. This is rather like football players thinking that they can coach, simply because they've played the game. Yes, good coaches frequently were good players, but many of the finest KNEW what to do, but weren't necessarily as gifted at doing it. However, they are almost always the product of good coaching themselves.
Likewise, good parents generally are the product of a good example, even if they aren't perfect and morally pure as the driven snow. Good parents generally trust their children, but also remember what it was like when they were kids themselves, and will use that knowledge to verify that their own kids aren't doing things that might endanger them.
Yes, I trust my sons, but it's not blind trust. They know that I will come into the room unannounced, and that I will want to know who they're chatting with, who they're exchanging e-mail with, and so on. They know why I'll do this.
BTW, on a lark, I posed as an older female one time to chat with my son and one of his friends. It was enlightening (to say the least) some of the language I saw. I offered to "teach them a lesson. They eagerly agreed. My lesson?
"Never... Never... Never... chat the way you have here, unless you are certain you know who you're talking to. This is your dad. Go to bed."
I pointed out that I could have been a nutcase (which I am), or worse, the father of my son's girlfriend. I pointed out that my son would've never seen her again if it had been her father posing as this older female.
Open door where the computer is? Check.
Unannounced walk-ins? Check.
Same rules for dad as the sons? Check.
Trust my sons? Check
Verify that they're being honest with me? Absolutely.
Unfortunately, binarual recordings end up eliminating the front/rear element caused by the spectral masking of the shape of your ear. One of the more interesting tests I've read about placed the outer ear of another person over the test subject's ears, and they lost all ability to do front/rear localization.
It would be interesting to find out whether or not the system in question here does anything to mimic the spectral masking effect of the average person's ear shape, and achieve the rear-speaker effect that way.
Binarual recordings and headphones are staggering. IMHO, they still fall short in terms of true localization.
Did everyone fail to notice that Niro Nakamichi is behind this? Even if you haven't studied precedence and psychoacoustics, you should at least give the benefit of the doubt to a company founded by audiophiles, and that has always catered to audiophiles.
These aren't garage mechanics that had a paper-napkin idea. This is similar to what Polk delivered with the SRS series, but is done electronically. And while it's true that everyone's head and ears are shaped differently (and therefore respond differently to psychoacoustic phenomena), most serious research has shown that only people whose heads are dimensionally way outside of the norm hear "bizzare effects." 90% (or more) of the general population will be astounded, and will have a dramatically simpler system to set up.
Mr. Nakamichi's knowledge of psychoacoustics rivals that of EVERYONE reading/., so it would behoove you to listen to it before you dismiss it out of hand. Don't just read the articles, read about the technology and the company behind the product.
It's interesting to note that much of what you see in the Atkins diet is now getting more respect, and nutritionists are starting (just starting) to question the validity of the much-vaunted "Food Pyramid." In more educated circles, the high-carb/low-fat pyramid is being questioned for its role in the current obesity epidemic in the US. Arguably, we are eating (as a nation) more low-fat products than ever before, but also far more low-deitary fiber carbs. We've also ignored the glycemic index, which is a crucial component of how quickly a given carbohydrate is processed by the body into a given blood sugar level.
Oddly enough, we love our processed foods, and don't seem to have any interest in oatmeal, fresh vegatables, and other low glycemic index foods. We also seem to have the massive fear of red meats, eggs, and other "instant heart attack" foods that were blamed for all manner of heart problems.
Instead of blindly bashing Atkins (which has demonstrated remarkable staying power over the last 10 years, and therefore hardly qualifies as a "fad diet" anymore), people would do well to do some serious research about nutrition, from people who don't have a specific product to sell.
Just because they don't accept advertising, and they buy units off the shelf, doesn't mean the CR review is a de-facto "better review," or is definitely less biased than a trade magazine review. Based on my experience, they represent the worst possible example of "sound bite product reviews," and they rarely give me truly useful data. (For examples, read one of their loudspeaker, audio receiver, or sports car reviews. These are generally valuable only for the pictures.)
CR tries to distill down all sorts of subtle performance parameters into a box score that ranks easily against competitive products, and in the meantime, miss the value of those parameters. Quite honestly, I'd be surprised if CR could accurately determine if they had a cherry LCD display or not, given the "rounding error" of their review/comparison methodology.
Slashdot Mirror
That seems to imply a different biometric measurement...
Tim
This is exactly why I like Slashdot. Only rarely do I find myself agreeing with the group opinion, but it tends to open my mind to options and ideas that I hadn't otherwise thought of. Likewise, although my first view of a story will always be 3+, I frequently turn it down to -1 (when I have some extra time) to see what "the trolls" have to say.
It's also interesting to note that when I Meta Moderate (every couple of days), I find lots of anti-BSD or anti-Linux posts moderated as Flamebait. Being the heretic that I am, I always categorize such moderations as incorrect. In doing so, I've pretty much figured out that many of my opinions about copyright (WRT music) and software development (OOP and XP) are considered ignorant and uninformed.
IMHO, it would benefit many of us to spend more time in the company of people we disagree with, and not so much time just finding people to reinforce our already-formed opinions. I've feared for some time that one of the worst things about the Internet is that it allows someone whose ideas are dangerous to find others of like mind, and decide "I'm normal, because there are others out there like me who believe in gouging other people's eyes out for complaining about Joe Lieberman." It's OK for someone like that to feel the societal pressure that says "YOU ARE A WEIRDO."
Tim
Who suggested that either of us was scared? Haven't you ever had a conversation where you were sitting next to someone, or walking down the street, where the position allowed you to say things out loud, and not have them stare directly at you?
In my experience, there are many conversations in life that simply wouldn't occur if I forced everyone around me to "muster up the courage" to tell me this or that, eyeball to eyeball. A friend from college probably wouldn't have told me that she was sexually abused as a child, and my best friend from childhood probably wouldn't have confided in me some of the recent marital difficulties he's faced. In contrast, I most certainly looked this same buddy in the eye to tell him that his father had just died moments before he arrived at the hospital.
One of the most memorable conversations my mom had with me was delivered in just this manner, as I lay in bed, pretending to be asleep. She simply stared at the blank wall, began talking, sharing with me things that she felt needed to be said, and then got up and left. Had she said the same words to my face a few mintues before, when I'd come home from partying with my teenage buddies, I'd have blown it off, and never heard a thing. Instead, I can almost recite what she told me, word for word.
Staring into someone's eyes can be beneficial, but it can also halt the flow of information dead in its tracks. If using IM's around the house to occasionally trade some information with my son allows the information to keep flowing, then I'm all for it, and will use it. However, to your point, I have no intention of using IM as a substitute for looking him in the eye when I have something difficult or uncomfortable to say that would be better delivered in person.
Tim
So far, I've seen over a dozen posts suggesting that me chatting with my teenage sons are: an example of the breakdown of the modern family, an indication that we're a bunch of lazy geeks, or a sign that we need to go out and socialize. It's interesting to see these judgements, as they all assume that you know me or my family.
Yes, my oldest son and I IM each other when we're in the same house. We have even IM'd each other when in the same room. Typically, we both had parallel conversations going on with other people online, and also were talking "face to face" along with the IMs. Oddly enough, many of the posters in this thread don't seem to realize that some things are simply more funny when written than when spoken, and if both parties are reasonably good typists, the conversations can flow quite freely.
Also, there are some conversations that are awkward or uncomfortable to have in person. One of the reasons that lonely people use IM to establish new relationships is because of the comfort and anonymity of the medium. This can also be beneficial to people who know each other well, if there's an awkward subject that you want to discuss.
Recently, my son and I were discussing an article on the NY Times (I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't mind that they know I read their articles) about teenage sexuality, and the incidence of intercourse falling in the past couple of years. Now, this would be a bit of an odd conversation to have with your dad at any point, but especially when you're a teenage boy, currently in a dating relationship. Because of the medium, I was able to cast my question in a non-threatening way, and he was able to compose his response without me watching his expression, or second-guessing his body language.
Last but not least, I correct his grammar and spelling, and encourage him to learn to express himself with the written word. IM seems to be as good a place for immediate feedback and correction as any.
In short, before you assume that families chatting is another sign of impending doom, please be a bit more informed.
Tim
P.S. WRT us being a bunch of lazy geeks, he's 15, playing JV & Varsity basketball and football, and we regularly compare weightlifting routines. He regularly challenges me (typically by throwing a cross-body block in the kitchen), and is looking forward to the day (not far off) when he can "take dad down." Unfortunately for my wife, he weighs 190 lbs, and I weigh 230, so when we wrestle, things usually get broken. I'm no stud, but it's not like we sit around on our butts all day in front of the PC.
Son, it's WAY past your bedtime!
Dad
After typing "LOL" in an IM to my oldest son, he has forbidden me from typing it unless he can actually hear the laughter. Since we usually chat when we're both at home, wisecracks yelled back and forth usually run in parallel to the chat content.
One day, we were chatting while sitting at adjacent computers. My wife walked in, noticed that we were chatting (primarily with each other), and decided that we were both too geeky for her. I figured at least there was SOME kind of communication with my son.
Parenting in the new millenium...
Tim
It might interest you to read the following link: http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/conditi ons/cd/
At any point in time, Phillips or Sony could (even now) begin demanding royalties on new CD players, recorders, and so on, unless there was already an agreement in force with a particular manufacturer. I suppose this doesn't qualify as a "free and open infrastructure for the distribution of music," but it seems to have worked pretty well so far.
Tim
The [sic] was in reference to the implication that audio can somehow be based upon music. "Music-audio data" is most likely what you meant. (In contrast with "speech-audio data," which most of the aformentioned formats are suitable for.) It was also an ill-formed attempt to play on the "mu-sic[sic]" coincident location.
But I digress.
To use your argument about patented formats being inherently bad, consider the LP and 45 record formats, or the CD-Audio format. Each of these were covered by patents, and yet they each thrived as a medium for music delivery.
Simply suggesting that because AAC, MWA, or MP3 are covered by patents (and therefore protected against unauthorized use) they are somehow inherently evil or less desirable than OGG is as goofy as assuming that all open source solutions are inherently technically superior to any closed-source solution. It may or may not be, but the bozos in the House and Senate are surely not the ones who should be making such decisions.
Tim
...ogg on its face?
Tim
Remind me again how AAC, the audio codec from MPEG-4, is "their own patented format"? Explain also how AAC is somehow not "good enough for music[sic]-based audio"? How is it that Dolby labs, renown for their contributions to audio quality since the early 1970's (Dolby A, B, C, HX, etc. NR) are somehow not smart enough to help build a truly "audio-quality" codec?
I'm obviously mistaking these guys as people who know something about audio. I suppose these are issues better settled by my congressman and/or senator, who are no doubt well-versed in the intricacies of noise-masking, audibility thresholds, and data compression algorithms.
Tim
"iTunes only really runs on Windows XP (forget what they tell you about Win2K)."
I guess I'd better uninstall. This iTunes thing has completely fooled me into thinking that it's been working flawlessly under Win2K SP4...
Darn you Steve Jobs!!!!
Tim
Fortunately, the TechNet article doesn't absolutely drip with pro-MS bias...
Tim
'In other words, you're either with him [Lance Ulanoff] or with the "zealots."'
If I have to choose sides, I'll go with the Zealots on this one. Apple's security and responses to breaches (so far) have been light years ahead of what I've dealt with from MS.
Tim
Off the top of my head...
1) user interface/form factor
2) iTunes integration
3) OSX integration
Tim
The flagship product of my former company (aquired by a larger company) was written in OS/2. We considered for many years the pros and cons of rewriting this application in Windows (2000 or NT), but it was always so much work, we never got it off the ground.
Fast forward to today, when many people are singing the "Why in the world did you guys write this in that dead operating system, OS/2? You need to move out of the stone-age!" Given the context of this story, keeping a UL-listed life-safety system based on OS/2 sounds like a pretty reasonable move.
Tim
Please. Tell us. What are the "outrageous salaries" that are being paid in your community? Have you ever worked as a teacher in a public school system? Or, are you one of the "armchair administrators" that see this as a simple problem?
The problems of educating EVERYONE (no matter what their inclination to learn) and being forced to accept all sorts of abberant behavior (no matter what the parents' willingness to get involved may be) are among the more difficult things that my wife (who's been teaching middle and high school for 21 years) must deal with on a daily basis.
How many times have you been threatened at the workplace, and found the perpetrator of the threat RIGHT BACK in the workplace the next day? This happens to schoolteachers all the time. Are metal detectors necessary in your workplace? Is it because of the risks of someone in the room with you pulling a knife or gun and killing a co-worker? Again, this is a way of life for many schoolteachers.
I'll be the first to admit that simply raising taxes and throwing money at schools for higher teacher salaries and better facilities isn't going to fix our educational system. The system is (IMHO) fundamentally broken, and requires dramatic overhaul and review, from the top down.
Unfortunately, this would also mean that a large percentage of the population would lose the "free day care" services of the public schools, because revamping the system would also mean that many students would be deemed "unfit for the classroom," and would be directed toward a special education program (which is even more expensive) that increases supervision levels for the students, or left out of the public school system entirely.
Then again, we can just take the approach it sounds like you're suggesting. Tell the teachers to stop their incessant whinning about the environment they work in; insist that the rat-infested buildings some teachers use are still "perfectly acceptable"; cut back on extra-curricular activities that are typically funded 80% or more by fundraisers and parental involvement.
Great idea!
Tim
It's interesting to read some of the rantings of people who don't have children, but who are (in their opinion) experts in parenting and raising kids, simply because they were once children. This is rather like football players thinking that they can coach, simply because they've played the game. Yes, good coaches frequently were good players, but many of the finest KNEW what to do, but weren't necessarily as gifted at doing it. However, they are almost always the product of good coaching themselves.
... ... ...
Likewise, good parents generally are the product of a good example, even if they aren't perfect and morally pure as the driven snow. Good parents generally trust their children, but also remember what it was like when they were kids themselves, and will use that knowledge to verify that their own kids aren't doing things that might endanger them.
Yes, I trust my sons, but it's not blind trust. They know that I will come into the room unannounced, and that I will want to know who they're chatting with, who they're exchanging e-mail with, and so on. They know why I'll do this.
BTW, on a lark, I posed as an older female one time to chat with my son and one of his friends. It was enlightening (to say the least) some of the language I saw. I offered to "teach them a lesson. They eagerly agreed. My lesson?
"Never
Never
Never
chat the way you have here, unless you are certain you know who you're talking to. This is your dad. Go to bed."
I pointed out that I could have been a nutcase (which I am), or worse, the father of my son's girlfriend. I pointed out that my son would've never seen her again if it had been her father posing as this older female.
Open door where the computer is? Check.
Unannounced walk-ins? Check.
Same rules for dad as the sons? Check.
Trust my sons? Check
Verify that they're being honest with me? Absolutely.
Tim
That reminds me of the last time I gave blood, and the Red Cross volunteer asked "Have you ever given money to anyone in exchage for sex."
"Other than my wife, no."
After realizing that she was about to stab me with a large guage needle, I decided making her laugh so hard wasn't a good idea.
Tim
Unfortunately, binarual recordings end up eliminating the front/rear element caused by the spectral masking of the shape of your ear. One of the more interesting tests I've read about placed the outer ear of another person over the test subject's ears, and they lost all ability to do front/rear localization.
It would be interesting to find out whether or not the system in question here does anything to mimic the spectral masking effect of the average person's ear shape, and achieve the rear-speaker effect that way.
Binarual recordings and headphones are staggering. IMHO, they still fall short in terms of true localization.
Tim
Did everyone fail to notice that Niro Nakamichi is behind this? Even if you haven't studied precedence and psychoacoustics, you should at least give the benefit of the doubt to a company founded by audiophiles, and that has always catered to audiophiles.
/., so it would behoove you to listen to it before you dismiss it out of hand. Don't just read the articles, read about the technology and the company behind the product.
/.
These aren't garage mechanics that had a paper-napkin idea. This is similar to what Polk delivered with the SRS series, but is done electronically. And while it's true that everyone's head and ears are shaped differently (and therefore respond differently to psychoacoustic phenomena), most serious research has shown that only people whose heads are dimensionally way outside of the norm hear "bizzare effects." 90% (or more) of the general population will be astounded, and will have a dramatically simpler system to set up.
Mr. Nakamichi's knowledge of psychoacoustics rivals that of EVERYONE reading
But wait... this is
Tim
That's just gross, a thousand times over.
Tim
...2)You can't take it to the grocery store... etc.
You obviously haven't been to Eastern KY, where you CAN pack up your house on your back and go to the grocery store.
Tim
It's interesting to note that much of what you see in the Atkins diet is now getting more respect, and nutritionists are starting (just starting) to question the validity of the much-vaunted "Food Pyramid." In more educated circles, the high-carb/low-fat pyramid is being questioned for its role in the current obesity epidemic in the US. Arguably, we are eating (as a nation) more low-fat products than ever before, but also far more low-deitary fiber carbs. We've also ignored the glycemic index, which is a crucial component of how quickly a given carbohydrate is processed by the body into a given blood sugar level.
Oddly enough, we love our processed foods, and don't seem to have any interest in oatmeal, fresh vegatables, and other low glycemic index foods. We also seem to have the massive fear of red meats, eggs, and other "instant heart attack" foods that were blamed for all manner of heart problems.
Instead of blindly bashing Atkins (which has demonstrated remarkable staying power over the last 10 years, and therefore hardly qualifies as a "fad diet" anymore), people would do well to do some serious research about nutrition, from people who don't have a specific product to sell.
Of course, that requires using your brain...
Tim
...much tighter tolerances.
Tim
Just because they don't accept advertising, and they buy units off the shelf, doesn't mean the CR review is a de-facto "better review," or is definitely less biased than a trade magazine review. Based on my experience, they represent the worst possible example of "sound bite product reviews," and they rarely give me truly useful data. (For examples, read one of their loudspeaker, audio receiver, or sports car reviews. These are generally valuable only for the pictures.)
CR tries to distill down all sorts of subtle performance parameters into a box score that ranks easily against competitive products, and in the meantime, miss the value of those parameters. Quite honestly, I'd be surprised if CR could accurately determine if they had a cherry LCD display or not, given the "rounding error" of their review/comparison methodology.
Tim