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dpbsmith (263124)

dpbsmith
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http://www.dpbsmith.com/

dpbsmith (263124)

Submitted by dpbsmith on Thursday September 27 2007, @03:35PM
dpbsmith writes ""Deeper voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers, according to a new study from researchers with Harvard University, McMaster University, and Florida State University," according to the Harvard Gazette.

Anthropologists studied "the Hadza, a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer tribe that lives much the same way that most human beings did 200,000 years ago." The tribe does not use birth control, a factor which interferes with studies of reproductive success in modern populations. They found that males with lower voice pitch had more surviving children.

According to the article abstract they found that "men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them" and hence "there is currently selection pressure for low-pitch voices in men," but that "voice pitch in men does not predict child mortality. These findings suggest that the association between voice pitch and reproductive success in men is mediated by differential access to fecund women," i.e. the chicks just prefer deeper-voiced guys.

The researchers found that "Voice pitch is not related to reproductive outcomes in women.""
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 [+] submission, science, enlightenment, stupid, interesting

  Has audio gone about as fur as it can go? 2007-07-23 17:40 dpbsmith

Submitted by dpbsmith on Monday July 23 2007, @05:40PM
dpbsmith writes "I was listening to a CD remastered from a 1972 recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and I was thinking to my self "1972? Really? That sounds pretty damn good." Then I was listening on my iPod to a 1957 recording of the Boston Symphony that I had recorded off the air in analog FM with my RadioShark, and I was thinking to myself "1957? Really? That sounds pretty damn good."

I'd summarize the history of audio over the last fifty years by saying that from the forties to the mid-fifties, what happened was magnetic tape recording, and "hi-fi," i.e. high fidelity becoming available to any well-heeled, knowledgeable audiophile. What happened in the sixties was two-channel stereophonic sound. What happened in the seventies was the elimination of tape hiss, through direct-to-disk, Dolby, and digital recording.

What happened in the eighties, nineties, and this decade was... nothing much, as far as actual sound quality. The big advance was that integrated circuits, digital audio, rare earth magnets for speakers, offshore manufacture changed changed the population that got to hear mid-fi sound. Today anyone who wanders into Best Buy and spends $500-$1000 dollars will just automatically get a quality of sound that only serious audiophiles in the 1970s got to hear. (The people who bought expensive prepackaged "hi-fis" and "stereos" during the 1960s and 70s got crap in a pretty cabinet).

I know I'm going to get flamed by the high-end fans, but I still say that except for the advances represented by stereophonic sound and the elimination of analog tape hiss, everything else has been subtleties appreciated only by cognoscenti. The acceptance of compressed digital audio and the apparent market failure of SACD and DVA would seem to support this.

So, is that all there is?

Can anyone imagine a future advance in audio, impossible now due to cost or technical factors, that would produce an improvement in sound so dramatic that it would make the ordinary lay listener say "wow?" What would it be? Wavefront reconstruction? Headphones that sense head movement and rotate the stereo sound image in the opposite direction (so as to keep it stable?)Cheap cochlear implants for people without hearing deficiencies that would extend hearing up to 30 kHz?"
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 [+] submission, askslashdot, toy

  How does your company "recondition" gear? 2007-05-06 15:36 dpbsmith

Submitted by dpbsmith on Sunday May 06 2007, @03:36PM
dpbsmith writes "When the company you work for "reconditions" or "refurbishes" gear, what, exactly, do they actually do?

Actual stories, please, from people who actually know the process."
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 [+] submission, askslashdot, enlightenment
  • Nothing More

  The Debate Over Advertising on WIkipedia 2007-01-03 10:00

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 03 2007, @10:00AM
from the my-opinion-should-be-obvious dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some Wikipedians have objected to Virgin Unite's participation in the Wikimedia Foundation's fund drive, calling it adverising. But there's a strong case that Wikipedia should run advertising. The funds raised could support dozens of Firefox-scale free knowledge and free software projects, outspending all but the wealthiest foundations."

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