w1nt3rmu4e (u/w1nt3rmu4e)

w1nt3rmu4e commented on The Dirty Truth About Turning Seawater into Drinking Water earther.gizmodo.com/the-d... · Posted by u/aceperry

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

> this salty-ass junk

Do you mean sea water? The amount of fresh water the human race will extract from the oceans will be what fraction of a percentage point of the total? Not accounting for, of course, the fact that most of it will make its way back to the oceans.

If pumping it back in has a local effect, then by all means try to mitigate that. But the idea that we're producing 'toxic waste' by creating saltier sea water is absurd.

What is with journalism today?

w1nt3rmu4e commented on Netflix to raise prices by 13% to 18% cnbc.com/2019/01/15/netfl... · Posted by u/jmsflknr

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

It's amazing how many people here -- presumably reasonably successful people -- are butt hurt about paying a few more dollars a month for unlimited, high quality (in terms of streaming quality) content.

I fail to see this as a cynical attempt to squeeze more money out of consumers. Netflix is cheap. Really, really cheap. They're putting a ton of money into original content. The streaming quality is fantastic.

No, it's not all amazing content. How much f'n content do you need? Get off the damn couch, go outside, get some work done, whatever.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on Ask HN: How did you escape your safe 9-5 job? · Posted by u/amadk

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

Started my own company with a couple of partners.

Lots of risk and hard work, but it can pay off. It did for me. Not really that company, though it was successful, but companies I started after that which were more closely aligned with what I love to work on.

My plan was to become my own boss, or at least a boss. Turns out it's not that black and white, but it defined my career for the better.

I will say this:

Taking calculated risks is as important, or more, than any other factor in what you'll accomplish in your life. I've seen many otherwise very talented people get stuck in local maxima because they're afraid of failure.

Listen to your instincts. Take risk.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on UK engineers have completed the build of the novel Quantum satellite bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/gyre007

GlenTheMachine · 7 years ago

An astronaut at GEO would exceed their lifetime radiation exposure limit in less than an hour (in a spacesuit). The reset is gonna be robotic.

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

That's interesting. Do you have source(s) for that?

I'm not a 'the Moon landings were faked' person, but how does this reconcile with manned Moon missions?

[Edit]

So I don't have to add another comment:

My first thought was, 'oh shit, how long before someone hacks one of these and repurposes it?'

w1nt3rmu4e commented on Ask HN: How do you organise your hard drive? · Posted by u/cogs

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

If you happen to be fishing for app ideas, here's one I'd pay $50 for:

An app that controls `~/Downloads` and automatically organizes (somehow), tracks usage and schedules files for deletion.

Once a week I'd like to see a dialog listing files likely to be unwanted, info about how many times they've been accessed, where they came from, etc. With a simple, one button, 'trash them all'.

The idea would be to optimize sets of files so they're more likely to be 'all trashed' because they aren't useful anymore, while minimizing situations where you want to trash all but a few and have to spend time managing that.

Not sure what the heuristic would be.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on What Data Compression Does to Music (2012) soundonsound.com/techniqu... · Posted by u/colinprince

MrBuddyCasino · 7 years ago

> I recently picked up a DAP and IEMs for ~$300 total (for running) and it's 90% of the quality of my reference rig.

Which ones did you choose?

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

I've got a lot of different gear, but the stuff in question was the HiBy R3, which has a new ESS DAC/AMP combo (an SoC which eliminates a lot of variability in quality due to implementation problems) and a very healthy 200mW/16R (or somewhere around there) output power in balanced mode. Small, the software is great by DAP standards and it's inexpensive.

The IEMs I struggle to recommend: Fiio FH1, which is a dynamic driver / BA 'hybrid'. They are enjoyable to listen to but definitely not reference -- bass heavy. They're leagues beyond a typical earbud, however, and for $75 it's hard to complain.

I mainly don't recommend them because they're the first IEMs I've tried anywhere near that price range, apart from freebies included with smartphones, etc. They might be easily bettered by something else in the same price range, especially since there's a lot of competition there now.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on What Data Compression Does to Music (2012) soundonsound.com/techniqu... · Posted by u/colinprince

ZoomZoomZoom · 7 years ago

>It cracks me up when people start telling me what I can or cannot hear based on those tests without knowing anything about me or what kind of equipment I own. This happened just the other day on an audio forum.

Just disprove them with data! Until then, casually mentioning "award-winning" acquaintances and telling people they need "proper" gear reads a bit condescending and probably turns some people defensive.

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

I generally don't name drop and I never tell people to get better gear. The burden of proof is not on me. I simply do not give a shit what they believe.

I only take issue with people telling me what I do or do not experience -- because of the absurdity of that. The fact that this is about audio is coincidental.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on What Data Compression Does to Music (2012) soundonsound.com/techniqu... · Posted by u/colinprince

0xf8 · 7 years ago

Doesn’t the equipment used for reproducing the soundstage matter in A/B testing? I haven’t done a rigorous test myself, because I’m comfortable having a predilection for high fidelity audio even if it isn’t demonstrably/empirically superior. But in my experience listening to music on a “audiophile” or “studio reference” setup, when the equipment is sufficiently sensitive and well engineered as to most accurately render the audio signal, I recall rather obviously noticing a difference in sound quality.

I can’t imagine if you compare a 192kbps MP3 with a DSD256 audio file played on reference monitors from a high performance DAC there’d be no audible difference. Personally, using a McIntosh integrated amp and Focal Utopia headphones the first time I listened to a DSD track, 1-bit word depth sampled 2.8M times per second, it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I acknowledge that’s not a direct comparison, but all i’m saying is maybe the lossy vs lossless test performed on a low fidelity audio chain where the signal is always meaningfully subject to harmonic distortion before you hear it is the reason most people can’t tell a difference?

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

Personally I have zero problems A/B-ing DSD, PCM and lossy formats on my reference system (headphones). I also know (award winning) people in the audio industry who can walk into a listening room and tell you where the dominate resonances are or tell you if a reconstruction filter is linear or minimum phase.

The idea you can take a group of non-professionals and run tests with no requirements on equipment quality and then draw conclusions about what any human can hear is absurd.

Those tests (Hydrogenaudio was one of the main proponents back when lossy codecs were more important) are a decent way to tell if something is audible for the average listener with average equipment. It cracks me up when people start telling me what I can or cannot hear based on those tests without knowing anything about me or what kind of equipment I own. This happened just the other day on an audio forum.

Another dimension to this is that DAC quality has been increasing steadily while the prices of high fidelity DACs have been dropping. The DAC chips on the market today are really the best ever made (ESS and AKM notably). More people than ever have access to (near-)reference quality DACs. When lossy compression tests were popular few people had access to reference quality DACs. I remember people talking about using their computer sound cards as sources for those tests.

I think a lot of people react negatively to this topic because it's considered elitist (expensive toys). The good news is just about anyone can afford a near-reference quality, inexpensive headphone setup these days. You have to do your homework and read reviews but they definitely exist. I recently picked up a DAP and IEMs for ~$300 total (for running) and it's 90% of the quality of my reference rig. I listen to it instead of my reference rig sometimes. It's that good, despite the price.

(Even on that, I can easily ABX FLAC and 192kps AAC, which has been universally declared "transparent" more than once.)

If you think your smartphone's audio jack sounds good, you really need to listen to a device with a proper amount of output power (you need more than you think for headphones) and a high resolution DAC. You need both to be good, though they can be part of the same device. When you have them, music really becomes holographic and, for lack of a better word, alive.

w1nt3rmu4e commented on Bootstrap builder for busy developers bootstrapshuffle.com... · Posted by u/macinjosh

Phenix88be · 7 years ago

I understand why you did it that way. But not every one use NPM (I try to avoid it every time I can). If you are doing a Wordpress template your tool is usefull, but not NPM :).

Maybe it's possible to add a "download build" button.

w1nt3rmu4e · 7 years ago

Can you offer an insight as to why? Of all of the project / language tools / package managers I use NPM seems to offer me the least amount problems. Easy to install, fast and 99% of the time 'just works'.

I actually use Node for writing tools way more than other options because of how drama-free NPM is.