whaleross

joined 1 year ago
 
[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I don't think many tourists would head out to the far away suburbs by subway. My recommendation is to avoid Drottninggatan and "City" with the exception of some architecture or particular places of interest because it is just really too much busy people and pickpockets and hot asphalt and concrete and glass and tourist traps and chain stores.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Indeed. While you were learning how to reverse the car I was studying how to reverse the time.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Same here. I grew up in a big city, moved around to different big cities, always been on foot, biking or communal traffic. Never felt the need for a car. I'm in the upper middle ages now so I doubt it's going to change.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Originally communication on the web was one directional, server to client. Web 2.0 meant active web and bidirectional communication. Hence, web 3.0 is a threesome.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I've got intelligible but that's about it

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

God damn, I though were being light hearted here. Now I got to go find a dark corner of shame.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, we agree on most everything and my understanding of both physics, mechanics and biology seem to agree with yours.

I guess the one main disagreement is if a pulse, either single or repeated, might potentially be more harmful than a sine wave of a single frequency. According to the teachings I've had, or my recollection thereof, a pulse or impulse may carry the sum (or zero sum) difference if any ramping wave, but the nature of the impulse it literally hits differently. A transition of difference in state versus a forceful immediate change. A push or a slap. Or a push and pull versus a slap and yank, should we speak of a complete cycle.

This was what I attempted to illustrate with the plunger example. If you are familiar with a plunger, you'll know that the method of operation is not to keep a harmonious cycle, but to yank it aggressively in order to transmit a whole lot of impulse-like energy and forcefully release buildup or blockage in the pipes. My argument is that should we have two identical sinks with identical blockage and we'd manage to conduct an experiment where both plungers operate at identical frequency and amplitude, but that one plunger pumps in a harmonious cycle while the other does a pulse-like push pull, the latter would yield more successful results. Hence my conclusion is that despite the state being identical before and after, theoretically the amount of energy may be the same, there is a difference in how the energy is transferred depending on the curvature of the actuation on the plunger. Or the speaker cone. Though through air instead of water and air compress while water doesn't. But still.

So the frequency of a repeated waveform and the shape of the waveform are not interchangeable. I'm sound the frequency carries the root tone, the shape carries the multiples. A perfect impulse (or other digitally generated waveforms) carry in theory an infinite amount of frequencies. Again, carry may be a misnomer depending on the discipline and of course the perfect is unobtainable so in practice the frequency spectrum is limited to one bandwidth and spectrum or another. Not that really had any bearing in our discussion.

Finally, I disagree with the argument of the engineering in headphones. Those limits are with respects of quality of sound reproduction. They are not a guarantee of hard limit of potential output and not intended to be. I don't engineer speakers but it's quite common paradigm in engineering in general that you benefit in quality and reliability should you accept a modest degree of unused overhead. Mistakes and bugs happen and it is especially vulnerable when it is reliant on hardware and software in the earpiece itself, as with my personal experience of faulty earbuds that emitted bursts of painful high frequency noise despite playback being of moderate volume. There are no intermediate steps of filtering, as with analogue gear, so should a faulty component cause a pop, it may well do so from the one extreme to the other.

I apologize for my frustration. I've been experiencing lately that I try to communicate one thing and the recepient keep projecting it into their own frame of reference and insist I'm talking of something that I'm not. I'm a bit touchy and I'm sorry about that.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Dude, I'm not trying to speak like a acoustician. At closest I'm speaking as an engineer with some knowledge of sound and acoustics from ages ago or maybe a musician, I don't know. If you expect random people to use professional terminology to have a conversation it's really your own mistake. I mean it in a constructive way from my own experience of taking with people on whatever I happen to know more about than them.

The contrast of a pulse as a rapid shift of air pressure and multiple ones in rapid succession of high amplitude in the context of causing damage to the inner ear? I am honestly struggling how to explain it any clearer.

Ok, I'll give it one more go.

As you say, it is not important what or how the pulse or burst of pulses are created, but digital to analog conversion of a signal can create impulses that are literally as rapid as can be by the laws of physics that are extremely rare organically and in particular by amplitudes that you get in headphones. A burst of such impulses, I'm avoiding the previously used terminology, of random but high frequency and amplitude is like having a tiny plunger jerking like crazy in your ear like nothing the ear has ever evolved to be able to deal with.

Not because digital vs analogue, vinyl vs CD vs mp3, gold plated monster network cables or helium cooled SPDIF connectors. No magical thinking. Only changes in air pressure. Changes in air pressure of the very fast and strong variety.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Sigh. Acoustic vs digitally generated noise.

Acoustic noise is what you hear outdoors from the wind, waves, leaves, whatever. An absolute myriad of tiny impact noises and scrapes and brushes and whatnot mixed together that become a dense complex texture that can be characterized as noise, although technically it is just a massive amount of single individual sounds. Acoustic noise can be found in many frequency ranges but human ears are generally good at handling with the common organic ones. Thanks, evolution!

Digitally generated noise. A sequence of random^1^ values that plays at the frequency rate of whatever means of digital to analog conversion is used. Digitally generated white noise consists statistically^2^ of all frequencies within the range of the sample rate at all volumes reproducible by the bit depth.

Digitally generated noise^3^ is not limited by common physics for generating sound waves^4^, but can be of any frequency range at any amplitude, i.e. pressure differential, within the range of the means of digital to analogue conversion and playback. That is, potentially in a spectral distribution of sound that is straight up painful for human ears.

However, the big difference is that digital noise is not a mix of endless impact noises or brushes or whatever that each follow an envelope curve, but are rather a sequence of shifting values without transitory ramping, i.e. pulses. That is, a sequence of shifts in air pressure that is literally as fast as it can possibly be.

Note that in the case of glitching^5^, the digitally generated noise may be limited only by the physical properties of the hardware and goes beyond what amplitudes the equipment is artificially limited to for pleasant and non harmful playback of music.

Can headphones or earbuds or loudspeakers reproduce a digitally generated noise in frequencies that are painful in amplitudes that are harmful for the human hearing apparatus? Oh, I think they do.

Anyway, I trust you are correct in your other point. It seems I used the wrong medical terminology as I was silly enough to speak in vernacular as non native English speaker without medical expertise. I expected to get away with a delirious misnomer to call years of continuous tinnitus and distorted audio perception a permanent hearing damage when it is clearly not.

My apologies for causing confusion.


^1^ Since attention to details are important; Most likely pseudo random generated. I know. I know.

^2^ Details, people.

^3^ Any digital noise. Audio that has been distorted until it has a frequency distribution that can be confused as pure noise, a data stream not intended for audio playback, a software/hardware glitch that flips significant bytes rapidly enough to cause a sequence of pops in such density it is perceived as a burst of noise. Whatever, use your imagination for further examples.

^4^ In our living conditions, on planet earth, at this time.

^5^ Generally speaking, not specifically to any example mentioned in this context.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Haha, uh oh, I will try to not take offence. I'm in no way an audiophile, though I do have a nice stereo system for listening to music rather than listening to the equipment. I did venture into doing sound based arts and installations and stuff when I was younger though so I do have some insights of how sound works. It was a "colleague" l knew back then that had the injury mentioned from an incident in a sound studio. If memory serves me right it was an accidental digital feedback loop that hit the ears like a brick wall and despite it was less than a second it was enough to cause permanent damage.

[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Oh, thanks for the correction. I seem to have misunderstood the injury when I got it described to me.

 

If somebody theoretically wanted to watch all seasons of the amazing show New Zealand Today when the official streaming is geo locked and has blacklisted VPNs in NZ - how would they theoretically do it?

Theoretical cheers

 
 

Jazzy baroque lounge music on microtonal harpsichord is 🔥🔥🔥

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by whaleross@lemmy.world to c/general@lemmy.world
 

I'm a middle aged heterosexual man and I've been in various circles in my life where I've had lesbian friends and acquaintances. I was just thinking how much I've appreciated those interactions and how I currently miss having lesbians around me. Not because we stopped being friends, mind you, but due to my dynamic life and me being shit at staying in touch I've floated away from people that I appreciate.

Anyway, then I started thinking why is that? Am I fetishizing lesbians, craving what I can't get etc? I like women who are confident so is it a sexual or psychosexual thing? It made me a bit worried because that does not sound very nice, Freud and mothers and all that jazz... But then I realized that this is not why.

It's because they don't act and treat me like a man, like a male person, like a sexuality - but that for them I'm 100% a person. If I'm entertaining or funny or interesting, it's because I am entertaining or funny or interesting. No interference from deep rooted primate reproductive brain behaviour, and at the rare occasion it's popped up, it's something we can play off and dismiss.

Even though I have and always had women friends, it's a different thing. Regardless our relationship, I'm always a man. It's inescapable. My friendships with lesbians have always had this special vibe. It's like what I'd imagine a good sibling be like, but I wouldn't know because I'm a lone child.

Yeah, I miss that vibe.

Edit: thanks autocorrect

 

You know the type. High security, weeks or months of stakeout, sniper three blocks away...

The hitman sorta things I recall from the news are either planned and executed by national intelligence agents or some savage gunning and running from hired brutes, but never the variant with sophistication and private sector.

 

And why? Not an instrument you already play. Pick something else.

I'll start.

Saxophone, so I can climb the rooftops and play my neighbours some cheesy sax porn solos of the eighties.

 

I'll start.

My then gf and I had a chihuahua that just happened to be the most tiny and most diva and most clever little dog I've ever met. Tiny, incredibly cute, extreme ego and confidence, a terrible piercing bark and had some wild mood swings on top. He'd go from cuddly to nuclear warfare in a second of something displeased him. He was the eldest and the leader of his little pack and he kept all of them wrapped right around his paw running a little dogmatic terror state. But he took his responsibilities seriously and was always up in front if there was a threat to them. Be it an angry German shepherd or a double parked electric scooter. Nobody messed with his pack - except for him, obviously.

Our little beast was very well aware of his cuteness, and his craving for adoration knew no end. He'd be walking down the street next to me, obviously refusing to yield for anyone, and as we pass some café tables, he'd throw himself flat on the ground, legs pointing in all directions. We called it that he did a doormat. The intent was to throw us under the bus as his keepers so that he'd maximize the aahs and oohs and attention went compliments from the people sitting in the café.

But this is just the backstory. He was vain, and we knew he was clever, but also of this is still learned behaviour with a previously verified outcome.

No, what really set it apart was that one time we were at home, the entire couch occupied by humans, dogs, and generally not him in particular. He was strutting around, being grumpy that others had taken his rightful seat, and nobody would disappear into nothingness for his approval. Not an uncommon thing, but he has plenty of other comfy spaces to be, communal and his very own. We know if we lift him up now, he'll try force some other dog down just because he wants space for himself, and we weren't having it. The other dogs were there first today and it's their right as much, so tough luck bud.

After some time, I notice him staring into the lights off bedroom. He looks at me, turns back to the bedroom and just keeps staring at it. I tell my gf that he is staring into the void and it seems to be staring back at him. We watch him as he keeps staring at nothing.

By now he is an old dog and has already shown signs of deterioration. I ask him what's up and he shows some signs of anxiety, tail down, tapping feet, mild whimper. I call for him, there's nothing there, come to daddy. No response. We figure he's lost it now, the creeping senility we've suspected is real.

So I keep talking to him, calming him, approach to turn on the lights and show him around that there is nothing there. He stands eagerly waiting, full focus on me as I come closer. Then - tail high, he runs as fast his tiny legs can carry his body, to the seat where I was sitting, barking at my gf to be picked up into the couch.

And it dawns on me. It was all a ruse! He came up with the clever plan to lure me away from his desired spot. If he acts anxious I'll get worried and get up, freeing up a vacancy on the couch, and then it's a fair race who gets it first. His smug posture standing in my seat was what gave it away. He was not anxious at all, he was not afraid, that I'm not anthropomorphizing but that he knew exactly what he was doing.

A multi step sequential plan with a clear goal in mind that he came up with from no be prior training. If that is not intelligence, I don't know what is.

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