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Comment: Re:...stuff they see on the Science Channel. (Score 1) 841

by Bozzio (#37967986) Attached to: Why Do So Many College Science Majors Drop Out?

I watched the first season of Numb3rs and found it stupid. To me it looked like they were interested in making Maths and Computer Science cool, but couldn't find a way to do it. They resorted to over dramatizing simple concepts and spewing out technical terms without any explanation (turning them into buzz words). Worst of all, some of the stuff they were saying was completely ridiculous.

When the show was running, friends of mine who had seen it would occasionally come up to me and tell me they had no idea my field of study/work was so exciting. When I would tell them "yes, it is exciting, but Numb3rs is nothing like real life," they would inevitably lose interest.

Although Numb3rs seemed to try to make Math and CS cool, I doubt they managed to create many new scientists. And I'm not surprised as the whole thing was a big misrepresentation.

Oh, and don't get me started on CSI.

Comment: Re:Wow, when you can't trust CNET (Score 1) 397

by Bozzio (#37169734) Attached to: Download.com Now Wraps Downloads In Bloatware

that only makes sense if people who block banners would, otherwise, be the same people to click on them.

I've been browsing the web since around 1997, and blocking banners since about 2007. I can confidently say that in those 10 years with banners I probably only clicked 3-5 banners.

Obviously I should assume my personal experience is representative of banner-blockers as a whole, but do believe I represent a majority of us. Why? I think if people are tech-savvy enough to block banner ads they are also savvy enough to know what's being advertised using banners doesn't interest them.

Comment: Re:OGG = MP3 (Score 1) 111

by Bozzio (#36856710) Attached to: Google Music Adds Linux, Ogg Vorbis Support

Both OGG and MP3 lossy compression techniques work by sacrificing aspects of the original waveform that often go unnoticed by the human ear. Some approaches even take advantage of what's considered the auditory equivalent of optical illusions, removing large chucks of audio information which, due to how the human ear and brain processes audio, go by almost completely unnoticed. It's actually pretty cool :)

My point is, from what I read a couple of years ago, many of the more ambitions compression techniques interfere with one another. A compression technique which plays on auditory illusions will have its illusion completely destroyed by a subsequent compression approach. This is because the subsequent compression is applied not on the perceived audio, but on the encoded audio. It's not the same thing, and it makes combining certain lossy compression techniques seriously degraded the perceived audio quality. And in this case I used 'perceived audio quality' as a judgement of noticeable difference between the original waveform and the compressed and decompressed waveform.

In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis

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