To follow up on the lead and almost ignored first award: A long time ago I bought a Compaq Lunchbox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...http://www.vintage-computer.co... in a San Francisco thrift store, looking to turn it into a portable Linux box. Curious about what files were on the drive, I discovered it booted into Windows 95, and autostarted a netwrok connection to a subdicrectory within the NSA's internet infrastructute. It signed in automatically and gave lots of access to ftp directories, too -- even root directories!
I am a hacker, not a cracker, so I didn't continue to compromise the NSA's site and went on to install Linux on it.
Pardon my awkward syntax; Gauss is the measurement of magnetic strength. Once the Gaussian field reaches a certain level, poles are formed. I don't know what the level required is, but it is true nonetheless. This is basic physics.
Are there no poles when only so little magnetism is present?
Yes. Below a certain level there, apparently, are no poles.
Eddy currents in what? Doesn't a current require some sort of conductor?
Eddy currents do not need a conductor nor medium, any more than magnetism itself does. They exist where (and because) the lines of force intersect with the poles -- or more nearly correctly, with an imaginary line drawn between the poles.
The poles create the currents and then those currents cause the poles to rotate? How/why?
See above. Eddy currents are coincidental with the erection of poles; they are not exactly caused by the poles. See any basic physics text which covers magnetism. Since they are energetic in a state in which there is no matter (yet) the energy created (released?) must act on something; the magnetic field is the only thing which exists, so this energy must either cause it to rotate or to expand (since there are no molecules to vibrate yet, there cannot be heat). I choose rotate because the math of the speed of expansion of the universe requires rotation rather than linearity. In either case, rotation or expansion make a magnetic field move, which field started as a stationary one.
But a rotating magnetic field is moving, so it can create a universe.
Why?
Both matter and energy, according to the Standard Model, are moving electromagnetic fields. This is basic quantum theory stuff. A stationary magnetic filed is not moving, so it causes no matter nor energy. Matter-and energy are moving magnetic fields. In a nutshell, increasing magnetism could have resulted in the creation of magnetic poles in nothingness (a stationary magnetic field), and coincident eddy currents, which caused the system to begin rotation.
a tangent curve is simply a sine wave as viewed from outside the system. Could you explain this?>>
This comes from basic trigonometry. A sine curve is side a of a triangle over side b as the angle between them changes. A tangent curve is side c divided by side a. In searching to understand this, I discovered an article describing the tangent as being "outside" of the system of side a and side b, mathematically speaking. Since the effect of "dark matter-energy" is to increase the speed of expansion of the universe, which has been experimentally shown, graphing that increase would yield a curve that is not sinusoidal, but tangential. This would cause the universe to seem to have begun from a big bang, but only if it were observed from outside of the universe itself. That the universe is a virtual or apparent one is not an original thought of mine, but is fairly commonly-held by some physicists nowadays.
This does away with not only pi Why? >>
Because a rotating universe can best be described in radians rather than degrees. Since a radian is 360 degrees/2pi, any pi factors in measurements will cancel out.
but also "dark matter/energy".
Why?/
What is called dark matter and dark energy is a construct to explain the increasing velocity of the expansion of the universe. If I am right, then the increasing velocity is an illusion caused by our being outside the actual universe and which makes simple rotation (sine curves) seem like tangent curves. See a book on trig or visit this site http://encyclopedia2.thefreedi....
since one of the "Four Forces" (magnetism) is self-organizing; Here what is more likely to my way of thinking:
Magnetism increased in gauss until poles began to form; with north and south pokes come lines of force, and from these, eddy currents form. These eddy currents are energy. This caused the poles to begin to rotate. Since a stationary magnetic field is not moving (by definition) there was no mass or energy, ergo no universe yet. But a rotating magnetic field is moving, so it can create a universe.
The math seems to confirm this: the increasing size of the universe might resemble a tangent curve (as opposed to a sine curve expected in the mid-20th century) or a straight line expected before that; a tangent curve is simply a sine wave as viewed from outside the system. The asymptote(s) appear to be a Big Bang because of this.
We (humans) are simply viewing the universe as a virtual system from outside it. This does away with not only pi but also "dark matter/energy".
I know many will not agree; I ask you to think about it in the light of newer discoveries which defy the accepted Standard Model, and to appreciate how this explains other oddities, too.
Supporting each of approximately 8,000 homeless persons in San Francisco costs about $30,000 or $250 million total; presumably other cities' costs are similar. (Source: homeless censuses and San Francisco budgetary estimates, not including emergency medical services.)
Either government human services are not cheap -- or Harvard is.
Supporting each of approximately 8,000 homeless persons in San Francisco costs about $30,000 or $250 million total; presumably other cities' costs are similar. (Source: homeless censuses and San Francisco budgetary estimates, not including emergency medical services.)
Either government human services are not cheap -- or Harvard is.
Mint-KDE has never (NEVER) sent me to the command-line for fixes since ver. 12! Mint XFCE needed some fixes for power management, but never the OS itself.
You are aware, I'm sure, that posts on/. are, by necessity, time-sensitive, and, so, not well-edited. I would have revised much of what I said were there time.
No, presidents can't act without Congress' approval -- except for Nixon and FDR, which I noted. Both devaluations were done as a fait accompli and a surprise to political donors, many of whom are international bankers. The Federal Reserve was not involved. Those political donors, in Nixon's case, caused Republicans in Congress to support impeachment, which led to his resignation. That is my take, and I was a news writer at the time....
Richard Nixon was in a similar position before his forced resignation to avoid impeachment; Until he closed the gold window -- effectively devaluing the dollar -- he had enough votes to withstand his opposition. Those Republicans who lost fortunes because of that act turned on him and, suddenly, there were enough votes to impeach.
Curiously (or not...) Roosevelt had a movement to impeach move through Congress after he devalued the dollar from $20 per ounce of gold to $35.
Should Trump move to weaken the dollar, I predict he, too, will be impeached.
And, I might add, for no other reason, at least in his first term.
I thought everyone knew what the real story was. After the Soviet Union fell, some of their KGB documents and defectors showed they used UFO reports in the United States and several other nations to spread distrust of their governments. But wait, as they say on TV, there's more.
Later FOA requests some few years ago from the CIA and other agencies described how, after the defeat in WW2, the US gained several rocket scientists/engineers, including, famously, Dr. Werner Von Braun. Also imported were several experiment aircraft seized at Pannemunde (not sure of the spelling), including at least one prototype with a circular (saucer-like) wing arrangement. As I am quite an ancient dude (ignore the handle) I remember seeing grainy photos of some of these aircraft, possibly taken by servicemen, which were published in either or both Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazines. I was just a small kid at the time, so it was probably ca. 1947. These planes, according to the CIA response to the info request, were taken to a testing airbase in the New Mexico desert (think area-51) where they were studied and test-flown, and found to be quite unstable as they were involved in frequent collisions with the ground, causing numerous pilots' deaths. Contemporary reports of these crashes by civilians spread throughout the US, while its government denied the existence of these crashes and the erratic, saucer-shaped craft. It was the Cold War, and the USSR used their network to spread other fictitious reports (see above paragraph. Rinse and repeat.)
The CIA saw what they were doing and did it back to them, spreading false reports throughout northern Asia and then to the more populous western regions. Suddenly, UFOs were a worldwide phenomenon!
I never called AMD a success. I inteded to show AMD was at times kept alive by Intel needing its existence. Why cower behind an AC? I stand by my historical view.
AMD staying afloat in the face of Intel's market share is a pretty amazing feat. It hasn't been easy being the distant second while keeping up the pressure on the #1 player but AMD has kept going for decades. I expect AMD to continue to be the distant second competitor, but being second doesn't mean you are a failure...
Intel in the previous century needed AMD for Intel's own survival for several reasons:
In the 80s and 90s when Intel was considered a small player in computation, many contracts called for a second supplier of CPUs in case Intel failed or failed to deliver. AMD was that company, which is why it was a near-perfect clone of Intel chips until the 386. AMD kept its license to make x86-compatible, independently-developed chips for a couple of reasons, which evolved over time.
Later, when Intel's dominance in the home computer market made it a natural monopoly, Intel used AMD's existence to argue against US-Justice Department litigation.
Even later, AMD's better technical decisions, IMO, gave it a performance lead at the same time Intel made a serious tech blunder with the Pentium-4. AMD became a better processor than an Intel. So Intel mobilized their hugeness and designed chips which outperformed AMD both in performance and efficiency, in the Core series.
You proved my principle: Quality and depth-of-selection brings in subscribers and keeps them. Once subscribed, one may use the TV audience model where ppl will watch the "least worst" show or movie available.
This new policy will cap their subscriber numbers, as those who leave will be replaced, more or less, only by those newcomers who will be attracted by fewer and lower-rated movies.
While I agree with your conclusions, there is an important fact you ignore: PCs now have less than 50% of the internet market in general, and I suspect smartphones and other devices' share will only grow in future, considering the slowing sales of PC and the increasing penetration of alternate gaming platforms. MS doesn't seem to see a way to stem the flow from computers to other devices, so they are maximizing their profits for the short term.
MS has a habit of showing their hand -- remember when they sold Windows subscriptions to businesses when there were no OS upgrades for years between 2000 and the disaster called Vista?
MS in, is a way, in the same bind they put Sun, et al. in a decade ago: they are now the de facto business platform, and they want to leverage that, even at the expense of their future PC personal software. There is much more cash in selling licenses to businesses than delivering OSes to manufacturers at bulk prices which were sometimes nearly free.
MS is a mature monopoly which does not see any competitors on the horizon -- except for phones and consoles. Otherwise, they would act differently. They know what they''re doing and they expect their PC customers mostly not to care.
The difference is subtler nowadays, but the act is exactly the same: libel is the widespread form of slander; IANAL but I have some experience in talking to lawyers about this as I spent twenty years as a broadcast journalist. If it is printed, broadcast, webcasted, shouted from rooftops or in public assemblies, or otherwise widely distributed, the harm is far greater than if it is simply spoken to individuals. Kinda like the difference between misdemeanor theft and felony grand theft.
I would have written "you can't libel a dead man," but that was not the maxim I learned.
You're right, texting isn't as fast or accurate as typing, but I think you got the numbers wrong.
Near the turn of the millennium, speech recognition software (ViaVoice, etc,.) achieved a claimed 99% accuracy. So I tried it out. After training, I got over 95% by speaking carefully (and slowly). The problem was finding and fixing those 05% mistakes took longer than typing the whole document over would have taken.
And yeah, most touch typists can't get more than 35 wpm and touch screens are worse, so the deck is stacked to an extent.
While your examples could be simple aggressive behavior in cat culture, they are amusing.
However, cats indeed use symbolic reasoning. Mine, a mature shelter animal when I got her, loved to play with a boot lace tied off with feathers which I "flew" near her until she realiized it was only a toy controlled by me, at which time she lost interest and did not play anymore.
However, when she wants my company, she fetches the feathered lace and brings it to me. She does not want to play with it -- she uses it as a symbol to say she wants some face time at the places she hangs out in (the porch or the back room with the sunny exposure.)
Am I surprised? At first I was, but it looks like Noam Chomsky was right -- we (many creatures) are "hard-wired" for language.
Wow! Who would have thought increasing the brightness and/or contrast of an LED screen would use more energy and make the power-saving measurement certification mode unusable?
OTOH, turning the screen off during video playback seems a little VW/Mitsubishi/Hyundai-like.
Read the Digital Millenium Communications Act (US)(1998); I was amazed when I read the document as passed; I remember understanding it required "secure" hardware and software for playback of HD (1080p) content, disallowing VGA connection to such sources. HDMI was the industry's first solution; Secure Boot (EFI) the next and now....this.
Wow! Exactly what I've learned in fifty years of audio/broadcast production. I wish I had written it; I certainly wanted to.
I would give the speakers/headphones more emphasis, however. No matter how expensive your rig is, speakers as good will be more. Much more. Including the speakers (especially cheaply-made and poorly designed) in the system evasluation gives an edge to the way bipolar transistors handle transients or square waves. A high power-to-cone mass speaker will follow the sharply cut off curve of a transistor well enough to make a listener's ears bleed, that's true, but a low power-to cone mass cheapie will not; its physics actually complements the transistor's characteristics by not following its sharp peak, but taking its lazy time returning to its accurate excursion limit. In effect, a cheap speaker "smooths' the spikey output of an overdriven bipolar transistor or IC.
But wait, there's more! Psychology is the number one influence. We like what we are used to hearing. We get used to good audio over time, and we become more selective. Or, if we have only heard distortion all our lives, we get to miss bad production if it is absent.
Slashdot Mirror
To follow up on the lead and almost ignored first award: A long time ago I bought a Compaq Lunchbox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... http://www.vintage-computer.co... in a San Francisco thrift store, looking to turn it into a portable Linux box. Curious about what files were on the drive, I discovered it booted into Windows 95, and autostarted a netwrok connection to a subdicrectory within the NSA's internet infrastructute. It signed in automatically and gave lots of access to ftp directories, too -- even root directories!
I am a hacker, not a cracker, so I didn't continue to compromise the NSA's site and went on to install Linux on it.
NSA's security has always sucked, I guess.
Pardon my awkward syntax; Gauss is the measurement of magnetic strength. Once the Gaussian field reaches a certain level, poles are formed. I don't know what the level required is, but it is true nonetheless. This is basic physics.
Yes. Below a certain level there, apparently, are no poles.
Eddy currents do not need a conductor nor medium, any more than magnetism itself does. They exist where (and because) the lines of force intersect with the poles -- or more nearly correctly, with an imaginary line drawn between the poles.
See above. Eddy currents are coincidental with the erection of poles; they are not exactly caused by the poles. See any basic physics text which covers magnetism. Since they are energetic in a state in which there is no matter (yet) the energy created (released?) must act on something; the magnetic field is the only thing which exists, so this energy must either cause it to rotate or to expand (since there are no molecules to vibrate yet, there cannot be heat). I choose rotate because the math of the speed of expansion of the universe requires rotation rather than linearity. In either case, rotation or expansion make a magnetic field move, which field started as a stationary one.
Both matter and energy, according to the Standard Model, are moving electromagnetic fields. This is basic quantum theory stuff. A stationary magnetic filed is not moving, so it causes no matter nor energy. Matter-and energy are moving magnetic fields. In a nutshell, increasing magnetism could have resulted in the creation of magnetic poles in nothingness (a stationary magnetic field), and coincident eddy currents, which caused the system to begin rotation.
This comes from basic trigonometry. A sine curve is side a of a triangle over side b as the angle between them changes. A tangent curve is side c divided by side a. In searching to understand this, I discovered an article describing the tangent as being "outside" of the system of side a and side b, mathematically speaking. Since the effect of "dark matter-energy" is to increase the speed of expansion of the universe, which has been experimentally shown, graphing that increase would yield a curve that is not sinusoidal, but tangential. This would cause the universe to seem to have begun from a big bang, but only if it were observed from outside of the universe itself. That the universe is a virtual or apparent one is not an original thought of mine, but is fairly commonly-held by some physicists nowadays.
Because a rotating universe can best be described in radians rather than degrees. Since a radian is 360 degrees/2pi, any pi factors in measurements will cancel out.
What is called dark matter and dark energy is a construct to explain the increasing velocity of the expansion of the universe. If I am right, then the increasing velocity is an illusion caused by our being outside the actual universe and which makes simple rotation (sine curves) seem like tangent curves. See a book on trig or visit this site http://encyclopedia2.thefreedi....
since one of the "Four Forces" (magnetism) is self-organizing; Here what is more likely to my way of thinking:
Magnetism increased in gauss until poles began to form; with north and south pokes come lines of force, and from these, eddy currents form. These eddy currents are energy. This caused the poles to begin to rotate. Since a stationary magnetic field is not moving (by definition) there was no mass or energy, ergo no universe yet. But a rotating magnetic field is moving, so it can create a universe.
The math seems to confirm this: the increasing size of the universe might resemble a tangent curve (as opposed to a sine curve expected in the mid-20th century) or a straight line expected before that; a tangent curve is simply a sine wave as viewed from outside the system. The asymptote(s) appear to be a Big Bang because of this.
We (humans) are simply viewing the universe as a virtual system from outside it. This does away with not only pi but also "dark matter/energy".
I know many will not agree; I ask you to think about it in the light of newer discoveries which defy the accepted Standard Model, and to appreciate how this explains other oddities, too.
It's an old BMW. Ryzen7 = 7-series Ryzen5 = 5-series Ryzen3 = 3-series
Supporting each of approximately 8,000 homeless persons in San Francisco costs about $30,000 or $250 million total; presumably other cities' costs are similar. (Source: homeless censuses and San Francisco budgetary estimates, not including emergency medical services.)
Either government human services are not cheap -- or Harvard is.
Sorry -- mistakenly posted to wrong article...:(
Supporting each of approximately 8,000 homeless persons in San Francisco costs about $30,000 or $250 million total; presumably other cities' costs are similar. (Source: homeless censuses and San Francisco budgetary estimates, not including emergency medical services.)
Either government human services are not cheap -- or Harvard is.
Mint-KDE has never (NEVER) sent me to the command-line for fixes since ver. 12! Mint XFCE needed some fixes for power management, but never the OS itself.
I tried a very similar technique in 1971; it was a short shopping list. I still remember all thirteen items!
Real world, it is quicker and simpler to write a list. However, none of my shopping lists still exist 46 years later.
It probably works because our memories deal with objects real or imagined differently than with words.
You are aware, I'm sure, that posts on /. are, by necessity, time-sensitive, and, so, not well-edited. I would have revised much of what I said were there time.
No, presidents can't act without Congress' approval -- except for Nixon and FDR, which I noted. Both devaluations were done as a fait accompli and a surprise to political donors, many of whom are international bankers. The Federal Reserve was not involved. Those political donors, in Nixon's case, caused Republicans in Congress to support impeachment, which led to his resignation. That is my take, and I was a news writer at the time....
Richard Nixon was in a similar position before his forced resignation to avoid impeachment; Until he closed the gold window -- effectively devaluing the dollar -- he had enough votes to withstand his opposition. Those Republicans who lost fortunes because of that act turned on him and, suddenly, there were enough votes to impeach.
Curiously (or not...) Roosevelt had a movement to impeach move through Congress after he devalued the dollar from $20 per ounce of gold to $35.
Should Trump move to weaken the dollar, I predict he, too, will be impeached.
And, I might add, for no other reason, at least in his first term.
Time will tell.
There's no better security than that!
I thought everyone knew what the real story was. After the Soviet Union fell, some of their KGB documents and defectors showed they used UFO reports in the United States and several other nations to spread distrust of their governments. But wait, as they say on TV, there's more.
Later FOA requests some few years ago from the CIA and other agencies described how, after the defeat in WW2, the US gained several rocket scientists/engineers, including, famously, Dr. Werner Von Braun. Also imported were several experiment aircraft seized at Pannemunde (not sure of the spelling), including at least one prototype with a circular (saucer-like) wing arrangement. As I am quite an ancient dude (ignore the handle) I remember seeing grainy photos of some of these aircraft, possibly taken by servicemen, which were published in either or both Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazines. I was just a small kid at the time, so it was probably ca. 1947. These planes, according to the CIA response to the info request, were taken to a testing airbase in the New Mexico desert (think area-51) where they were studied and test-flown, and found to be quite unstable as they were involved in frequent collisions with the ground, causing numerous pilots' deaths. Contemporary reports of these crashes by civilians spread throughout the US, while its government denied the existence of these crashes and the erratic, saucer-shaped craft. It was the Cold War, and the USSR used their network to spread other fictitious reports (see above paragraph. Rinse and repeat.)
The CIA saw what they were doing and did it back to them, spreading false reports throughout northern Asia and then to the more populous western regions. Suddenly, UFOs were a worldwide phenomenon!
As Paul Harvey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... used to say, "And that's the rest of the story."
I never called AMD a success. I inteded to show AMD was at times kept alive by Intel needing its existence. Why cower behind an AC? I stand by my historical view.
Intel in the previous century needed AMD for Intel's own survival for several reasons:
In the 80s and 90s when Intel was considered a small player in computation, many contracts called for a second supplier of CPUs in case Intel failed or failed to deliver. AMD was that company, which is why it was a near-perfect clone of Intel chips until the 386. AMD kept its license to make x86-compatible, independently-developed chips for a couple of reasons, which evolved over time.
Later, when Intel's dominance in the home computer market made it a natural monopoly, Intel used AMD's existence to argue against US-Justice Department litigation.
Even later, AMD's better technical decisions, IMO, gave it a performance lead at the same time Intel made a serious tech blunder with the Pentium-4. AMD became a better processor than an Intel. So Intel mobilized their hugeness and designed chips which outperformed AMD both in performance and efficiency, in the Core series.
AMD became a player in the graphics chip side through acquisition. Intel tried to develop GPUs but proved to be inept at it. Now, Intel is contemplating using AMD GPUs integrated into their desktop offerings. http://www.pcworld.com/article...
https://www.extremetech.com/co...
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/...
Intel's relationship with AMD is existential.
You proved my principle: Quality and depth-of-selection brings in subscribers and keeps them. Once subscribed, one may use the TV audience model where ppl will watch the "least worst" show or movie available.
This new policy will cap their subscriber numbers, as those who leave will be replaced, more or less, only by those newcomers who will be attracted by fewer and lower-rated movies.
While I agree with your conclusions, there is an important fact you ignore: PCs now have less than 50% of the internet market in general, and I suspect smartphones and other devices' share will only grow in future, considering the slowing sales of PC and the increasing penetration of alternate gaming platforms. MS doesn't seem to see a way to stem the flow from computers to other devices, so they are maximizing their profits for the short term.
MS has a habit of showing their hand -- remember when they sold Windows subscriptions to businesses when there were no OS upgrades for years between 2000 and the disaster called Vista?
MS in, is a way, in the same bind they put Sun, et al. in a decade ago: they are now the de facto business platform, and they want to leverage that, even at the expense of their future PC personal software. There is much more cash in selling licenses to businesses than delivering OSes to manufacturers at bulk prices which were sometimes nearly free.
MS is a mature monopoly which does not see any competitors on the horizon -- except for phones and consoles. Otherwise, they would act differently. They know what they''re doing and they expect their PC customers mostly not to care.
The difference is subtler nowadays, but the act is exactly the same: libel is the widespread form of slander; IANAL but I have some experience in talking to lawyers about this as I spent twenty years as a broadcast journalist. If it is printed, broadcast, webcasted, shouted from rooftops or in public assemblies, or otherwise widely distributed, the harm is far greater than if it is simply spoken to individuals. Kinda like the difference between misdemeanor theft and felony grand theft.
I would have written "you can't libel a dead man," but that was not the maxim I learned.
So...No Libel Suit
You're right, texting isn't as fast or accurate as typing, but I think you got the numbers wrong.
Near the turn of the millennium, speech recognition software (ViaVoice, etc,.) achieved a claimed 99% accuracy. So I tried it out. After training, I got over 95% by speaking carefully (and slowly). The problem was finding and fixing those 05% mistakes took longer than typing the whole document over would have taken.
And yeah, most touch typists can't get more than 35 wpm and touch screens are worse, so the deck is stacked to an extent.
While your examples could be simple aggressive behavior in cat culture, they are amusing.
However, cats indeed use symbolic reasoning. Mine, a mature shelter animal when I got her, loved to play with a boot lace tied off with feathers which I "flew" near her until she realiized it was only a toy controlled by me, at which time she lost interest and did not play anymore.
However, when she wants my company, she fetches the feathered lace and brings it to me. She does not want to play with it -- she uses it as a symbol to say she wants some face time at the places she hangs out in (the porch or the back room with the sunny exposure.)
Am I surprised? At first I was, but it looks like Noam Chomsky was right -- we (many creatures) are "hard-wired" for language.
Wow! Who would have thought increasing the brightness and/or contrast of an LED screen would use more energy and make the power-saving measurement certification mode unusable?
OTOH, turning the screen off during video playback seems a little VW/Mitsubishi/Hyundai-like.
Read the Digital Millenium Communications Act (US)(1998); I was amazed when I read the document as passed; I remember understanding it required "secure" hardware and software for playback of HD (1080p) content, disallowing VGA connection to such sources. HDMI was the industry's first solution; Secure Boot (EFI) the next and now....this.
Wow! Exactly what I've learned in fifty years of audio/broadcast production. I wish I had written it; I certainly wanted to.
I would give the speakers/headphones more emphasis, however. No matter how expensive your rig is, speakers as good will be more. Much more. Including the speakers (especially cheaply-made and poorly designed) in the system evasluation gives an edge to the way bipolar transistors handle transients or square waves. A high power-to-cone mass speaker will follow the sharply cut off curve of a transistor well enough to make a listener's ears bleed, that's true, but a low power-to cone mass cheapie will not; its physics actually complements the transistor's characteristics by not following its sharp peak, but taking its lazy time returning to its accurate excursion limit. In effect, a cheap speaker "smooths' the spikey output of an overdriven bipolar transistor or IC.
But wait, there's more! Psychology is the number one influence. We like what we are used to hearing. We get used to good audio over time, and we become more selective. Or, if we have only heard distortion all our lives, we get to miss bad production if it is absent.
Was their 120 20 per cent better than the 100?
Was their Twin Six twice as good as their plain six?
Is the AMD FX8350 twice anything of the FX4175?
What's your point?