I’m a big high-definition fan. The other day I started telling my friend how disappointing it was that Waner Bros. went exclusively Blu-ray. Then I went on to talking about how Paramount will likely follow, since they have an escape clause in their contract that allows them to drop their HD-DVD exclusive agreement in the event that Warner Bros. goes Blu.
I must be a tedious wanker because I saw his eyes start to glaze over.
Seriously though. HD-DVD…region free…finalized specification…no BD+ protection…Sony is evil…
Gun Enthusiast, demonstrating: “I *told * you a .357 hollowpoint would smash the humerus! Now quit whining, tighten that tourniquet, and let’s see how the nine-milimeter compares.”
I’ve got to agree with you. A guy I got stuck listening to was going on about “interconnects” - the cable from the CD player (“transport”) to the “preamplifier”. He said the difference in sound quality between a $100 interconnect (!) and a $1000 interconnect (!!!) is absolutely real, although you can’t hear it if you’re listening for a difference, because that engages the wrong part of the brain. :dubious:
I was going to say “spectator sports,” especially watching golf or bowling on tv.
And then I remembered a security guard in a place I used to work, who was into . . . BUSES! He collected bus schedules from all around the country, and would sit there all day studying them and memorizing them (yeah, Rainman). And he also collected all sorts of bus-related stuff like tickets, transfers, signs, hats, badges, models of buses, photos of bus stations, bus stops, etc. And his vacations were spent taking a bus to a far-away city, then riding all the buses in that city . . . then coming back and spending the whole following year telling everyone about his awesome vacation.
Yes, as an accredited audiophile, I acknowledge that we do obsess. “Listening to good music on good equipment” can’t be bad.
But it’s harmless (it’s my money) and in fact we do care about small improvements to the sound, which indeed increases my pleasure in the music. When you can hear that Ricky Lee is smiling when she sings with Dr John (‘Making whoopee’) that adds, doesn’t it.
So do $300 inter-connects make a difference? Sure do. Significant? To me and my mates, yes indeed. Now I can hear that the other guitar is over there, behind Eric Clapton. Does the table on which I perch my turntable make a difference? Surprisingly, yes. Air vibration mucks up the ultra small resolution that tells you about the size of the room where Jazz at the Pawnshop was recorded.
In our Melbourne Audio Club of 100+ members, most stay for years because of the music, as well as socialising with consenting adults. At our home concerts we hear some good music that we hadn’t known about, and buy it. Egberto Gismonti was one of my special discoveries.
I find it really difficult to believe that these subtleties could have been captured with the recording equipment in the first place.
Of course, I only just learned that I was capable of singing a scale a couple weeks ago, so even if those subtleties exist, I’d never be able to pick them out.
Yeah?
Wow.
Hmmm.
Really?
<glances off into the distance>
Mmm Hmmm.
Hey, listen, I…
Oh.
Sounds great.
<looks at watch>
Hey, sorry to interupt, but…
Yeah.
Okay.
Mmm Mmm
Well, I better get back to whatever the hell I was doing 30 minutes ago. See ya later. Goodbye. I’m turning my back to you now. G’bye. So long.
The only time I can recall that I wanted to punch a fellow Magic: the Gathering player in the face was when he wouldn’t shut up about weed. And some of the tourney players are real jerks, but this guy went beyond that. He’d been kicked out of the military for smoking pot. He thought my green minivan and green shirt were signals that I was a fellow pothead. Even after everyone in the group said they didn’t smoke, had no interest, and that he couldn’t smoke in our group, he still wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it. God damn!
I’m gonna hafta cock a sceptical eyebrow at this claim: you can hear her smiling on a track if you buy enough gear? How is hearing a purely visual cue even possible, let alone quantifiable? The chick might have sounded happy, sure, but outside of a Zen koan or a metaphor you can’t hear a smile.
I agree. Particularly with live recordings and club performances, I don’t believe the playback equipment can re-play information the recording equipment did not or** could not ** capture.
Insect collectors are a pretty wacky bunch. I had this job in an insect lab out of college, and someone persuaded me to go to this amateur entomology meeting. Scary…
Sky Divers,you dont know what hell is until you’ve been in a conversation with one.
They are under the impression that they invented parachuting amongst other things.
Unfortunately many of my mates are now sports parachutists.
I use the term "Mate "in the sense of people I really like but would quite happily strangle given the chance.
Mythical conversations.
“My wife had sex with every member of the local football team several times over in the most disgusting positions imaginable and it has been posted on the internet revealing my name as the husband,also I have just found out that I have untreatable cancer,I’ve lost my job of 40 years and I am now bankrupt”
“Well thats just terrible!
But anyway there I was at 10 grand,thought jeez I’ve got a total malfunction here and I’m going to plough in when luckily I…and so on and so on”
Example No.2
My god you wont believe this!
I just found out I’ve won £15,000,000 on the lottery,went out to celebrate and bumped into Jennifer Aniston who was drunk out of her mind so we ended up having incredible sex all night,finally staggered home and found that Blair had Knighted me for my work for charity.
Wow thats incredible !
Good for you mate!
So there Iwas ,had already deployed my main and the wind had kicked up ,and I thought to myself well I’m going to plough in (Sorry for our American readers Plow in)but luckily I managed to …
My ex-boss was one-he had converted his garage into an air-conditioned warehouse for his 1.5 million pc collection. talk about boring: “you should see the French pre-war color postcards I’ve got-all with original postmarks”!
BORRINNGGG!
Actually, in some (and *only *some) cases you can instrumentally establish whether or not someone is smiling during speech, and I assume the same holds for song. Since the speech signal is basically just a bunch of sound waves that bounce around the throat, mouth and nose before escaping through the lips, the actual physical configuration of the lips has a perceivable effect.
Now, notice that I said instrumentally establish. I have no clue how Ricky Lee smiles, if the movement is even big enough to show up on an acoustic analysis program, or if you can notice the difference when you’re listening to her sing.
I just bet that someone with lots of caffeine, a decent pair of headphones, and familiarity with something like praat could take a recording of someone speaking with a neutral expression, compare it to a second recording of the same someone speaking with a smile, and find one or two blurry sections on the waveform, spectrum, or something else that they could circle and say “This variation is consistent with what a whole bunch of theory tells us to expect when someone’s lips widen and open more. So I think she’s smiling in this one”.
I just previewed this and realized that with it, I’ve actually helped build a Tedious Wanker argument against phoneticians. :smack:
In any event, I encourage you to hang out with a few: some linguists are stuck-up, many are obsessive, but I’ve yet to meet a single truly tedious person in my field.
Oh, I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of hiking with amateur entomologists and I learned some pretty neat tricks. Want proof? I can entertain a random bunch of kids for half an hour, starring nothing but:
a. **Burrowing wasps. **Watch wasp come home in little burrow on sandy path. Put a straw in wasps burrow. Sit back and watch wasp, grunting and uttering little wasp curses, push straw out and give dirty looks to kid audience.
b. Dragon flies. Catch dragon fly in net. Dunk dragon fly in cold water, easy available because dragon flies always fly above water. Cooled dragonfly won’t be able to fly away for about five minutes, while buzzing wings to warm up. During warm-up period, put dragon fly on nose of random kid and make cool photograph. Meanwhile admire dragonfly’s penis, and other dragonflies having airborn sex in so called mating wheels. .
Put dragonfly on kids’ thumb and watch him bite kids’ thumb. Hold cool contest how long kid can stand angry dragonfly biting away at thumb. See dragonfly take air again, unharmed, but muttering little dragonfly curses and give dirty looks to kid audience. (see a pattern here? )
c. Compare different kind of spiderwebs, including trapdoor spiders, jumping spiders and funnelwebspiders. Tug gently on web with leaf of grass to make spider dash out. Tell a grizzling tale to kids about what spider would be like if he were the size of automobile.
Dance with your finger around jumping spider, as they will back off or approach your finger as you come nearer, keeping their eight eyes fixed on your finger at all times.
Funny you should mention this, because I just got a new roommate and he is an over-the-top skydiving geek.
He has about $20,000 worth of gear laying around the apartment.
I concede that skydiving is cool and the technology is pretty interesting, but dude, what gave you the remotest idea that I want to watch 20-minute YouTube clips of formation flying or whatever. “Hey, check this out. This is the high-attack delta transverse drop-down harness I want to buy. It is great for sit-down approach flying. And check out this carbon fiber helmet with…”
Dude, STFU.
ETA:
Oh, and what’s with using all of that industry-only technical mumbo-jumbo in conversation? You do realize I don’t know a damn thing about skydiving, right? I think he just likes the sound of his own voice.
Actually thats a very good pointShamozzle it reminds me of the first time Ijumped a piggyback rig,I’d trashpacked the main and we were going to try some five ways…
)