There are plenty of companies where using the cloud (someone else's computers) isn't really a viable option. For example, think defence, or critical infrastructure (telecoms).

For everyone else, many existing businesses which grew up before the availability of cloud based solutions tend to dabble, move a few things off site, to achieve cost savings. They are likely to get burnt by problems stemming from lack of understanding of cloud infrastructure (migration between cloud vendors, that sort of thing), and so will over-estimate the savings from moving to the cloud.

By comparison, companies which are cloud-centric will see the move to own servers the same way, as a cost saving. They will under-estimate the cost of running their own hardware, especially when scenarios like disaster recovery are taken into account.

It's interesting that they both see moving to the other solution as driving cost savings :)

I think we're in that period of time when over-reliance on cloud services with the cost and vendor tie-in are hitting some businesses. It's the same as over-reliance on a DB vendor technology (i'm looking at you Oracle) drove many companies to explore alternatives. My guess is there will be a correction and there will always be space for both solutions to co-exist.

Ah yes, the old 'you can correct it in the digital domain' argument ;)

You can correct for some stuff, but anything properly non-linear is really tricky, and the compromises can lead to other problems. However, it's a valid point, and we shouldn't be too dismissive until we've actually seen and heard the product.

Are there any public posted efficiency figures for the design? There's such a range of efficiencies in the marketplace from 85db up to above 100db that any marketing stuff like 'twice as efficient' doesn't really mean anything unless you know what they are comparing with, so we need actual numbers...

Agreed, there's too much of that sort of behaviour. It should change, the last generation that can honestly know nothing about tech in any capacity is diminishing in size and responsibility. As you say, we've had a fair few dubious laws passed with unpleasant side-effects and we can do with less of these going forward. I'm an optimist :)

It sounds like you're an idealist who thinks that all decisions should be deferred till you know all of the facts. The world however isn't perfect, and there are plenty of times that decisions needs to be made with imperfect information, both inadequacies in the people making the decision, and inadequacies in available information. In such a situation, it's normally best to be conservative with decisions you make, so that the implications will hopefully not be too painful if things turn out not to meet your expectations. Lots of small corrections over time is normally the right strategy.

Oh, I understand completely where you are coming from and agree. I was just trying to provide some nuance.

No, the research can be good, but they can still fail to reproduce the results. They may have failed to reproduce the actual test by failing to understand the test conditions, or because the original research doesn't state the conditions accurately enough (as in the discussion about which mice to use).

The problem is two-fold, bad research making it into the accepted canon, but also valid research being thrown out because it can't be reproduced.

I do agree with your point about early detection/changes in behaviour, and there are environmental factors too which mean comparing now and the 70s is going to be tricky due to the lack of any control.

I would, and i've been programming both for 25 years. I can see this from both points of view, and think that together makes more sense in this context. Clearly though, if I wanted to hire a C++ developer, i'd not assume that a C developer can do the job.

I had presumed that many of the measures where not directly effective, but certainly helped calm the more risk averse members of society, and give them confidence that they were not alone, and things were being taken seriously. So, the effectiveness of barriers should I think be more to do with whether people feel safe in spaces where barriers are being used.

We're still (globally) unsure how to deal socially with barriers, masks etc. When is it right to wear a mask, when is it unacceptable to not.

The master is the original.

Sounds like you've not heard a good stereo then. Decent CD and vinyl reproduction are give or take identical. That's why both standards have their advocates.

Music is mastered to a format. Lossless means you get that format delivered to your home. If it's mastered to 44.1/16 then that's what you should get. If it's mastered to 96/24, then that's what you should get. I don't see why this is hard to understand.

No

It might be lossless, but i'd be surprised if it's bit perfect from CD as they put a digital watermark on their music as far as I remember.

Sorry, but you are talking utter tosh. For a delivery format for consumption of audio, 44.1/16 is just about perfect, which is why we're still using it nearly 40 years later. If you want to go on about reconstruction filters and stuff like that, well that's very interesting, but things transitioned to oversampled delta/sigma strategies 30 years ago, and the filters can be as close to sinc() as you care given todays compute, so it's not an issue.

If you want to argue about higher bit depths and sample rates when recording to give you some wiggle room in post production, sure, there's benefits.

Do you honestly think that Wall Street hasn't been doing this for years?

This sort of trading sentiment is exactly what gives them an edge, that they are able to predict what is going to happen before it does, or, more realistically, in a short enough timeframe that they can take advantage of the knowledge. They are scraping all social media, twitter, facebook, you name it. They also (of course) take the more traditional sources like Reuters. They don't just blindly apply this, they have (shock horror) algorithms that determine what to apply, how seriously to take it, and this is the real value, not the source itself.