dougmwne

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3 years agodiscuss

I think everyone is missing the point. Sam Altman seems to be a reasonably effective leader (and certainly flawed and a bit sociopathic), but ultimately unimportant and replaceable. This was not about Sam, this was about the strategic direction of a critical Microsoft partner. Microsoft felt Sam would take orders and therefore supported him. If Sam ever asserts himself, he will be gone, just like the board was replaced.

3 years agodiscuss

My partner's grandmother spent her entire career researching a single bacteria species and its reaction to a single environmental toxin.

3 years agodiscuss

There have been some really good experiments in room scale VR, both with actual basketball court sized play spaces and with smaller play spaces that used tricks like redirected walking. Honestly it’s mostly uncomfortable and tiring to walk around. They joystick works better once you get used to the motion.

3 years agodiscuss

It was a daily driver for me. I game in waves. Sometimes an hour or 2 a day, then I will take a break for awhile. I found a lot of really excellent titles on the Quest. I had an absolute blast, but recently gave the headset away after about 2 years of heavy use. I’ll admit that I was choosing VR specially because I wanted to get a good sense of what Apple and Meta are pouring billions into as a bet for the future of computing.

One conclusion for me is that great software is great! There’s not much of a library on Quest, but the few gems pulled me in like my first game console all over again, an addicting and polished game paired with incredible immersion.

Another conclusion for me is that VR is uncomfortable in many ways. You have to stand and move for long stretches. You perform repetitive actions that can hurt your hands, your arms, your shoulders. The current hardware is heavy and awkward. It cuts you off from the world, restricts your field of view and prevents you from eating or drinking. And maybe worst of all, it creates bizarre dissociations between movement and body, eyes and objects, reality and unreality.

I still think the tech has incredible potential. One day we will live in an immersive physical/digital environment that will respond to our slightest intentions. But I now think this tech is decades away before it becomes as easy and ubiquitous as a cell phone.

If you want a really good peek at computing in 2050, pick up this Apple headset.

4 years agodiscuss

I have terrible wax issues from before I used in ear headphones, mostly from swimming. I have found an earwax cleaning kit called Earwax MD and it works great for me. The peroxide based kits didn’t remove my wax and I needed to do periodic ENT appointments to scrape it out when it got impacted. This Earwax MD formula really eats away the wax and dries it out so that it can be rinsed out or fall out on its own.

And before anyone raises a stink about this being bad for my ears, I become functionally deaf when my earwax gets impacted which happens about once ever 2 years.

4 years agodiscuss

That was a manufacturing defect with the first gen. I had a pair replaced for free.

4 years agodiscuss

I just gave a pair to my mom who uses hearing aids. She was able to enter her audiogram in them and use them as both backup hearing aids when her regular ones are on the charger or in for repair and as headphones that match her hearing needs. So heck yeah they can be viewed as a medical assistive device.

4 years agodiscuss

Yes, there is a licensing cost that only a few manufacturers will pay.

4 years agodiscuss

I suppose you mean that you have cauliflower ear? That seems like most IEMs would not work for you.

4 years agodiscuss

You lose enough of the features that I would not use them with Android regularly. Most importantly, the only high fidelity bluetooth codec they support is AAC, which most Android devices do not support, causing you to fall back to SBC. You will also not be able to adjust any of the settings.

4 years agodiscuss

That is an advertised feature, so I assume that the lawyers have looked into those health claims as somewhat defensible.

First, they do seal, so even if it's not as tight as a foam earplug, it is something.

Second, there's the ANC which is producing out of phase sound and lowering the sound pressure level reaching your ear. I have seen commercial hearing protection with ANC, though I'm not sure if it's allowed to be advertised as such. The theory is sensible at least.

Thirdly, the ANC is allowing you to listen to your audio content at lower volumes, especially in a very loud environment like an airplane.

Fourthly, there's an advertised hearing protection feature in passthrough mode where external noises loud enough to cause hearing damage will be automatically reduced.

Fifthly, There are sound pressure measurements being sent to the iphone for audio content loudness in real time, and also over time notifications you receive if you have been listening too loudly.

So all in all, yes in practice, but we're not exactly talking OSHA here.

4 years agodiscuss

There are 3rd party tips you could try.

4 years agodiscuss

I'm not aware of any evidence of that, though for me I rarely notice my tinnitus unless I am in a quiet space. It is almost never quiet for most people in most cities, so I can understand someone noticing it for the first time while using ANC.

4 years agodiscuss

It's very dependant on your ears and the eartip size you use. I personally would not bike with them, because as good as the passthrough audio is, there could be small differences in localizing sound that could really cause trouble on a bike. The passthrough is great, but not life or death situation great.

Edit: this is for the Pros. The open non-pros seem like they would be safe for biking at lower volumes.

4 years agodiscuss

Just tried these for the first time from TJ's and you are absolutely right!

4 years agodiscuss

Airpod Pro 2

They are basically bionic ears. Headphones, headset, earplugs, hearing protection, hearing aids, extendable ears, and more. Wish they could act as universal translators, but I suppose that's still yet to come.

4 years agodiscuss

Google is absolutely not going to start taking more risks. They are at the part of the business lifecycle where they squeeze the juice out of the cash cow and protect it jealously in the meantime. While Google gets much recognition for this research, I believe they are incapable as a corporate entity of creating a product out of it because they can no longer capable of taking risks. That is going to fall to other companies still building their product and able to gamble on risk-reward.

4 years agodiscuss

Thanks for the flashback. I too remember when playing an MP3 took a good chunk of processor utilization, maybe 40%, and doing too many other things at the same time would cause it to stutter. I also remember when 1080p and 4k were taxing respectively.

4 years agodiscuss

Given the current state of the governance of the US, maybe you can forgive some cynicism.

4 years agodiscuss

I have observed that even when all parties know someone is full of BS, it can still be quite difficult to fight against it. It takes much more energy to debunk than lie. Lies, once spoken take on a weird truth of their own.