Linux nerd. Music lover. Specialty coffee obsessed. The list goes on; stop using so many gosh darn periods!
I sorta agree with you, except that I've worked in audio before, and you can in fact mix for HiFi and normal people at the same time. That is actually what like 90% of mixing/mastering is. Making it sound good everywhere.
I also hard disagree on not being able to get a good experience with 2.0. Spend a couple thousand (obviously not everyone needs to do this) on 2.0 tower speakers, maybe add a sub (technically now 2.1), and you will almost certainly get a better experience than 99% of pre-build everything-in-the-box surround sound systems.
You can, of course, build you own surround sound system for more than a few thousand, but that is a radically different price range, which I don't think is really relevant to this conversation (I certainly don't have that kind of money to spend on a speaker that I'm only using when watching movies). I think it is borderline poor-shaming (or really just not-rich-shaming) to say that movies can only have audible dialogue at $10,000 surround sound systems. Before that, 2.0 or 2.1 will almost always be a better investment.
Yes, of course, it's only natural to replace a 2.1 or 2.0 HiFi system with the scam that is Dolby Atmos...
Dolby Atmos does jack shit for quality audio; I say this as an audiophile. It is extremely controversial in HiFi, and not some gold standard. Additionally, the sound bar system you linked is just a facil approximation to what Atmos is, and far, far inferior to good passive stereo bookshelf speakers of the same price (I think Elac DB52s cost about $250, plus a $70 300W per channel fosi v3 amp will get you a fantastic setup. Later you could even add a $200 sub for the <60Hz range.)
Here's a Benn Jordan vid I found on the subject: https://youtu.be/5Dw3aKbw5Wo
The farthest I would ever go with surround/quadraphonic sound would be something like the Schiit Syn, which is now discontinued anyway. I have two ears: I only need to speakers. If the speakers are good and the track is well mixed, this will always lead to a better result than Dolby Atmos.
Movies like Interstellar are mixed with quiet dialogue for the dynamic range, like you say, and that can make speach difficult to understand. This is a questionable trend in movies led by Christopher Nolan but is absolutely not alleviated by Atmos.
I won't go into what I think of the trend, but I really want to emphasize that buying an overpriced consumer sound system with Atmos marketing on it will not solve the problem. Please do not invest you money into faux-HiFi! If you are going to spend that much money, spend it wisely, and don't pay attention to marketing.
I've traveled a lot for food, and, despite not living and never having lived in America, the US has the best "foreign" food I've ever had. The best Chinese food I ever had was in the US, for example. In fact, I think high (and high-ish) cuisine in the US is generally quite good (despite crazily sized portions WTF).
I've had incredible Korean food in random towns (~20,000 pop.), incredible Indien in another (<50,000), etc.; I think the US is kinda special when it comes to foreign food like that.
And, of course, there is some American-American food that is amazing. The greatest filet mignon I ever had was also in the US (and again, random small towns, not metropolitan cities). Also: donuts (not from chains) can be craaaaaazy good. Also cheesecake, though I actually prefer the German version of New York cheesecake (cheese cake is originally German, New York improved it, then Germany improved that).
The problem is grocery store food. It all has 3x sugar and chemicals compared Europe. Literally everything, sometimes even organic stuff, tastes fake and disgustingly sweet. It drives me crazy, and is one of the top reasons I would never live in the US. I also dislike the espresso there: nearly all specialty coffee I've had in the US has either been extracted by untrained barista or has been a bad copy of faux-skandinavian roasts. I think that situation is better in larger cities though, which I've spent less time in.
Ok, sorry for this very, very long ramble. Just some thoughts on American food from someone who didn't grow up there but has tried a lot of it.
I have a friend who was born and raised in China, and move to Europe when they were 16 yo. They're first language was basically Chinese, despite having an American and German parent respectively.
I was always super curious about what their time in China was like, and asked extensively about it. Of course they were quite biased in favor of China, so things like the crazy surveillance that goes on there never really seemed dubios to them, but one thing they mentioned very frequently: discrimination.
I should say, this individual did not look Chinese (and couldn't get a Chinese passport, despite being born there). This — according to them, and I am inclined to believe this, due to the aforementioned bias — caused them to be intensely discriminated against, as a lot of Chinese people apparently don't like Westerners (well, a lot of Westerners also discriminate against Chinese).
Your mileage may vary, but that did always surprise me. If you look non-asian, China might not be the best place to move to 🤷.
You realize the image doesn't prove anything?
I've actually done a little to combat this, in my personal life (apart from ordinary privacy stuff like librewolf und Linux). I got so sick of the majority of my friends expecting me to reply to every text message within 30 minutes, and then getting extremely offended when I didn't (simply because I don't look at my phone that often), that I turned off read-receipts on all my messaging apps, and set my notifications to only arrive in groups at specific times of day.
Then I made a habit of not answering unimportant messages for a few days, until I got the reputation that I pretty much don't use my phone (I also don't use conventional social media, and none of my friends even know I'm in lemmy). This worked like a charm! My social life much, much less stressful.
I've broken the absurd contract that so many people seem to think they have a right to. My time is now my own. I can highly recommend this system! Of course, I can't do it for work-related stuff, but it still really has reduced my stress by a lot.
This is actually the first thing I thought of; I was really confused there for a sec. Then I remembered AI exists...
↑ mods pls ban
The Serval WS is also more than twice the price of my Pangolin... and I had a one year warranty, so I'm not sure what you mean with lifetime support. As for the specs (i.e. the screen etc.), yeah, they are great. But the case is very poorly designed on my pang12, and gets bent out of shape, which can cause mechanical failure in the hinge, quite frequently, despite the aluminum chassis. My complaint is just that it is far from rugged, which is problematic for me, as I travel a lot with it. But your mileage may vary.
PS: one more thing that really bothers me is the known problem with the touchepad on the pang12, which regularly fails. Mine also came with a faulty motherboard, which suggest bad quality control. Over all, these issues have caused me to lose faith in System76 hardware.
I'm traveling right now, but will get back to you on my playlist generator.
I hadn't thought of syncing music libraries! You are indeed right, MPD does not have that, and it would be a hassle to set up. One point to apple...
I have a Pangolin 12. While it has great specs and software support, the build quality is horrible, and over the course of two years now, I have had to screw it open and bend the laptop case in position more often then I'm comfortable with. It is the far, far opposite of rugged, which is the main reason I want to replace it. Twice now, it has just randomly decided to not boot for one or two weeks...
MPD works pretty well for the music thing, and, I don't know if this is would be an option for you, but I programmed my own smart-paylist-generator in rust as a hobby project to get control of my 500Gb (around 10,000 100% legally acquired tracks cough, cough) library. The additional control over the algo meant I got something that works waaaay better than pretty much anything else I've tried (including Spotify suggestions, etc. — the only thing I still use is Bandcamp for new artist suggestions); if you have the time, I highly recommend a homemade solution like that. It is a lot of work though.
Anyone here have a StarLabs laptop (briefly mentioned in the article) and am opinion on it? I'm thinking about replacing my crappy System76 laptop and looking for something with good build quality.
The VLC thing can be solved relatively easily by installing
opiwith zypper, and then runningopi codecs, which will add all the necessary repos and install everything. After that VLC (and h.264 etc) will work like a charm.I use librewolf, with default settings, as my main browser. If a page doesn't work (which is quite rare for me) I usually turn of uBO which does the trick. There are of course a few known culprits that don't work, like Netflix. I have brave installed for that kind of thing 🤷.
Also Tor is definitely not more usable then Librewolf...
Could you point out any specific sites that don't work for you?
I'm not sure I entirely follow you (I'm only half awake, sorry), but programmed music is only generated by computers insofar the computer is generating 44100 samples every second based on a set of mathematical rules the composer made. AI music is generated based on huge datasets and probability; the composer has very little to no specific control.
If I program a instrument/synth in Supercollidor or Pure Data or some hardware synth, and then sample the instrument/synth or create and sequence a melody for it on my MIDI (piano) keyboard or Schism Tracker, etc., I have complete and absolute control over everything, down to the very waveform. In that case I am truly and purely the creator of the piece.
If I type in a prompt, I am just playing a probability lottery. I have done jack shit more than describing a piece of music.
I might have misunderstood you though. For now, I'm going to bed. Good night!
I wholeheartedly agree with you for the most part, but one thing confuses me. You say
Fucking DJ sets are walking around using synths instead of analog instruments [...]
Synthesizers can be both analog or digital. Neither is even remotely comparable to AI music, as there is still a very real composer. Is this a typo/misunderstanding? Thanks for clarification!
That is by no means AI generated, and certainly not by today's understanding of the term. If I write a score and design an instrument (or sound, etc), that is still a creative process. Brian Eno literally created ambient music with algorithms like that, but it is still his creative work.
My point is just computer-generated ≠ ai-generated in general discourse.
I've literally watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on the plain in mono because my seat's audio was broken and I was trying to use my IEMs without an adapter. I had a great experience, in part because I love more about the movie than just the visual and auditory delivery. I like the story and philosophy as well.
You may not have enjoyed it in that setting, but please don't gatekeep the experience. It's also worth mentioning that a lot for movies are, unlike 2001, not art.