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Comment Re:Typical (Score 1) 162

Thus sayeth the audiophile.

My PC stereo system is a couple of Yamaha monitors whose model I don't know on a 40W Kenwood whose model I don't know (squinting... KA-305) and my "home theater" system is a Sony STR-DE635. I'm still using the original double-driver powered sub from the kit (it's pretty Bose-esque in its own way, actually) but I got out from under the other kit speakers with an assortment of yard sale scores. I forget who made my cheap center, maybe JBL. I have cambridge metal case in the rears, and the fronts are something british whose name I can't remember. My Headphones may be Sennheisers, but they're refoamed and reconnectorized HD420s I got for five bucks. I am a cheap bastard whose stereo systems are cobbled together from cheap crap, not an Audiophile. I bought the Sony new at Costco some ages ago, and on purpose. Hilariously, it's never let me down.

your observations are preference observations

Bose falls on its ass when it comes to non-objective measurements every time someone performs a test at their own expense. Bose refuses to publish the same numbers everyone else publishes for their speakers, claiming that those numbers are irrelevant. Whether they are correct is, I think, a whole other argument, but why not, here we go. Subjectively, I think Bose sounds pretty good, but I've heard other stuff that I found much more impressive. Objectively, Bose is inferior to much of the competition, some of which is cheaper. Personally, I'd rather have someone else's equipment, but I won't avoid buying a car because it has a Bose sound system. I just wouldn't pay thousands for the option.

tl;dr: If you think Bose sounds good then feel free to buy, listen, insert rectally whatever, who gives a fuck? Music enjoyment is subjective anyway.

Comment Re:Millionare panhandlers (Score 1) 200

From a cost-benefit point of view, is having your food and housing needs taken care of, in exchange for attending a one hour weekly meeting, really that bad?

It doesn't actually take care of your food and housing needs, and you spend that hour a week (or per day, in some cases) being told that everything that happens to you is meant to happen to you, and that the only way to happiness is to give yourself over to their faith. It's offering the man on the street a hand up while simultaneously kicking him.

Comment Re:Typical (Score 1) 162

"To be fair, they are a speaker company"

No. To be fair, there is no sense in reading the rest of your post. [...] I read the rest of your post anyway,

I should probably rest my case here, since you just stuck a fork in yourself. But...

and you go on to openly admit

Out now!

they make radios, for exampe

Well, they also make them for car companies. And sadly, they are not very good, but more to the point here, those radios are designed specifically and explicitly to go with matched sets of their speakers. I should say that they're not very bad, either. I'd rather have a factory Bose than a factory Blaupunkt, for example. Faint praise, however, only serves to illustrate the point.

so to be fair you don't even believe your own bullshit.

If you can point to something I wrote and explain why it is bullshit, then do that. But you haven't managed that. Bose is first and foremost a speaker company. Their fancy suspension system so far cannot be made practically light and their radios go with and are always sold with their speakers. You might say that they are a speaker-and-truck seat company, though. Fancy!

Comment Re:Check your Facebook autoplay settings (Score 1) 274

I looked at my usage and over 4G of traffic was from facebook... apparently because

...you were fool enough to continue to trust Facebook to run code on your phone after their various apps have run fast and free with users' private data.

I get why you would use facebook, but I'll never understand why you might trust them to run code on your phone.

Comment Re:Typical (Score 4, Interesting) 162

To be fair, they are a speaker company, and they were started to be a speaker company. The fact that they do a bunch of other stuff doesn't really change that. I've had some of their speakers (601 Series II) and they just didn't sound good enough to justify the space they take up, although they actually could sound pretty good in a crappy room; up close they even sounded really crisp, whether they actually were or not. (The whole point was that they weren't, though.) You have got to be impressed by the way Bose can make a bunch of shitty drivers sound pretty decent for most kinds of music. Not impressed enough to buy them, but I got them for free. On that basis they were pretty fantastic.

My A8 also has Bose sound, and it doesn't exactly bowl me over either. Besides the crackling volume knob and the failed tape deck, it just doesn't really sound that amazing. When you get it nice and loud, it kind of goes to pieces. Since it's an extra-fancy Bose head unit (for 1997, mind you) and the changer uses a unique protocol, the only thing I can really replace it with is the same exact thing. There are kits to do otherwise, but then you really need to get into complete speaker wiring replacement.

Bose might do a lot more than this, and there might be a whole lot of solid engineering behind what they do, but pretty much everyone who doesn't know them for making undersized all-in-one systems with funky design (Bose "Wave", indeed, harrumph) knows them for making really expensive home speakers, or automotive audio systems which are often considerably expensive options which are (in terms of quality) inferior to getting the same sort of thing installed in the aftermarket.

tl;dr: Bose is a speaker company which refuses to publish typical test data even after they collect it, as well as a company which does other things — most of which are closely related to speakers.

Comment Re:Millionare panhandlers (Score 2) 200

A lot of the shelters are downright evil, though, especially the religious ones. A lot of them really push religion hard, and some of them won't help you if you don't spend an hour in church or whatever. Get 'em while they're vulnerable, then do just enough to make sure they receive your message.

Comment Re:Cars are fast enough already (Score 1) 138

Roads were originally a shared space and the thinking is moving back towards that direction.

It's idiot thinking. Why would you want to share space with the cars? Roads for pedestrians and bicyclists have much lesser requirements than those for cars, so they can be placed not only along much more direct routes, but also along far more pleasant ones because they can run through more environmentally sensitive areas without causing harm. Send the cars out of the way so that they don't bother the bicyclists and pedestrians, and let them have the most desirable and direct routes. The cars are much faster, so they can afford to go around.

Comment Re:Your next supercar. (Score 1) 138

Uninformed. Ever hear of Tesla? They are the definition of electric supercars/

A supercar needs to have top speed. It doesn't have to be over 200 mph, but it does need to be up there. Tesla makes zero cars with high top speed. For 5-10k you can buy a used Audi A8 (yes, just the A8 and defeat the limiter to get somewhere between 170 and 180 mph. (All cars not limited to 155 for euro-compliance are limited to 130 mph, for inadequate stock tires, depending on the model.) There are many wonderful things about the Teslas, and how fast do you need to go anyway? But they're not supercars. If I didn't live in the boonies, and range wasn't an issue, I'd like to own one, but they're still not supercars. There's a sports car and a sport tourer without enough range for touring but there's no supercar and no plans to produce one.

Comment Re:Cars are fast enough already (Score 3, Insightful) 138

What really needs to be focused on is a method to stop them dead in their tracks whenever they are in striking distance of slower moving objects such as pedestrians and bicyclists.

That's dumb. Pedestrians and bicyclists don't have the same requirements as automobiles, we should focus on keeping them separated. It's not as though they need to share the same space, except where no thought has been given to them.

Comment Re:Your next supercar. (Score 1) 138

Let's turn it around - *some* or "a lot* of people who buy super cars (especially of the electric variety) buy cars for their efficiency (speed/mileage).

There are no electric supercars. Audi is about to bring out an electric R8 with a top speed of 124. My 1989 240SX would get there, if you defeated the rev limiter.

Comment Re:Best Wishes ! (Score 1) 322

Android makes it possible to actually replace the launcher. Windows Mobile didn't do that, and that is where they failed.

I'm calling the shenanigans on this one. There were (are...) plenty of launchers for Windows Mobile.

If you knew enough about Windows Mobile to know whether you had a valid point, you'd know that you don't. Explorer is still lurking in the OS, waiting to pop up and make you fuck around with a start menu when your replacement shell shits itself. This sort of thing used to happen in Android, too... way back in 1.6.

Comment Re:Customer service? (Score 0) 928

flight attendants are great at finding a place for oversized luggage clogging up the overhead bins.

Bullshit. More than half the time they helped some asshole put it in the bin to begin with. When I show up with my normally-sized piece of carry-on luggage, they'd rather tell me to stow it under the seat in front of me (I'm 6'7" and wear size 16 shoes and that's not fucking happening, bitch) or take it somewhere far away that will make me have to wait much longer to get out of that tiny aluminum can.

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