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Comment How about that calendar? (Score 1) 429

You guys wanna get anal about this stuff? We should have 13 months of 28 days (364 days) and a tack-on day, since there's 13 lunar cycles a year. Instead, we had some nutcase priest named Greg or something that decided back in the Crusading days. We should have a clock that does not change. Instead, we have Ben Franklin's BS. Congress in 2007 spent $150M studying DST, and found it was actually a net loss in energy. We should not have time zones. We should have a set UTC, and businesses and people adjust to that clock. We should have a day system similar to Internet Time a la Swatch. It may not have gone anywhere, but it's actually as clear as can be. It would be a great system to adopt. And finally, the reason that the metric system never caught on in Imperial areas is because while it makes sense, people have a tendency to handle smaller numbers better. Feet are often used in everyday measurements because they have actual feet on their body. We don't have meters on our body. If we could come up with something in the Metric system, maybe call it a "Third", you could convert people. 30 centimeters is user-unfriendly. So is 450ml when you can have a pint, though that's less a problem. People don't have to be adjusted into these new distance schemes. Just make gas be sold by liter, and put all road signs with km (mi), and tell detroit that all cars have to be km friendly. It's really not hard; we just don't have the spine politically to move the needle on something that is truly important, but often overlooked at trivial.

Comment Ogg v AAC is an INVALID TEST (Score 1) 567

This is stupid. As someone who deals with these all day long, and I get paid to do so, this is absolutely an invalid conclusion. Logically, if you tested ogg 48 vs ogg 160, or AAC 48 vs AAC 160, great. You have a scientific test. If you test a codec that really is DESIGNED to perform best at low rates, specifically AAC HEv2 @ 48k, you'll find that it's such a good codec that it's unsurprising that 1/3 of any group couldn't tell. The reason is that AAC @ 48 is full human-hearing spectrum, unlike many other codecs including the venerable mp3. It's just not fair. AAC HE at 48 is equivalent in quality roughly to solid FM radio, mostly through psycho-acoustic "tricks" with the way it handles channels and reconstructs the spectrum. It uses more CPU to decode, and makes some very good assumptions in recreating the sounds it is designed for. What would be interesting is if the same 1/3 couldn't tell the difference between 48k AAC and uncompressed 24-bit 48k sample (those 48's are different, I'm aware). My guess is that you would still have 1/4 of your people not able to tell. I love AAC audio, but this is just a fallacy.

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