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Golden retriever are the Volvo of dogs
  • I say all good boys live forever in our hearts. I know all my previous dogs do. <3

  • Golden retriever are the Volvo of dogs
  • It is reliable and family friendly, comfortable size, no spectacular character but also no big downs.

  • What's the most embarrassing thing about you?
  • God damn, I though were being light hearted here. Now I got to go find a dark corner of shame.

  • Refractometers
  • Thanks! I'll look into it!

  • Refractometers
  • Oh, that makes sense. I guess it be further research time. Thanks.

  • Refractometers

    I ordered a cheap chinese optical refractometer from Amazon to use for convenience instead of a traditional hydrometer. It seemed accurate enough after calibration, I don't expect magic or lab results. Ballpark is fine by me.

    I got suspicious when my cider and wine have kept stopping at 1.020-1.025 and nothing I whatever I tried would only make them bubble for another few days and reduce a couple of degrees Oe. So I did a reading with my hydrometer to verify. Yep, the SG for the cider ~1.000 and with the wine in negatives.

    Checking out the refractometer it says it is for beer.

    Is there a difference for wine and beer refractometers? Is is this refractometer, cheap chinese ones in general or is it me?

    Cheers

    Edit: twas me

    5
    Using Ubuntu may give off hipster vibes to the average PC user, but within the Linux community its has the opposite effect.
  • Use whatever works for you. Don't take selection advice from people that make their operating system of choice a crusade and identity.

  • If somebody spends the whole day watching fox or religious propaganda, gets worked up and all he can think of is owning a liberal or converting an unbeliever, is this person a victim or just gullible?
  • I think the "people are free to believe what they want to believe" is a mistake. This is the very statement that relativitises opinions and belief systems with facts and creates the illusion that they are all equal.

    Look at the "facts don't care about feelings" crowd that believe wholeheartedly that statements pandering to their feelings are facts and disregard any actual facts as fake news. I don't think it's because they decided one day to pick and choose what is a fact and what is not, but they actually can't tell that there is a difference in opinions, beliefs and facts in the first place.

    People need to accept that sometimes the truth is painful, that it contradicts what you want it to be, and worst of all - that you may have been wrong.

    Edit: that said, I think people are free to believe whatever they want to believe when it comes to unprovable existential esoterica like personal values, afterlife, religion, whatever. As long they accept it is a personal belief and not an universal truth.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • Yes, we agree on most everything and my understanding of both physics, mechanics and biology seem to agree with yours.

    I guess the one main disagreement is if a pulse, either single or repeated, might potentially be more harmful than a sine wave of a single frequency. According to the teachings I've had, or my recollection thereof, a pulse or impulse may carry the sum (or zero sum) difference if any ramping wave, but the nature of the impulse it literally hits differently. A transition of difference in state versus a forceful immediate change. A push or a slap. Or a push and pull versus a slap and yank, should we speak of a complete cycle.

    This was what I attempted to illustrate with the plunger example. If you are familiar with a plunger, you'll know that the method of operation is not to keep a harmonious cycle, but to yank it aggressively in order to transmit a whole lot of impulse-like energy and forcefully release buildup or blockage in the pipes. My argument is that should we have two identical sinks with identical blockage and we'd manage to conduct an experiment where both plungers operate at identical frequency and amplitude, but that one plunger pumps in a harmonious cycle while the other does a pulse-like push pull, the latter would yield more successful results. Hence my conclusion is that despite the state being identical before and after, theoretically the amount of energy may be the same, there is a difference in how the energy is transferred depending on the curvature of the actuation on the plunger. Or the speaker cone. Though through air instead of water and air compress while water doesn't. But still.

    So the frequency of a repeated waveform and the shape of the waveform are not interchangeable. I'm sound the frequency carries the root tone, the shape carries the multiples. A perfect impulse (or other digitally generated waveforms) carry in theory an infinite amount of frequencies. Again, carry may be a misnomer depending on the discipline and of course the perfect is unobtainable so in practice the frequency spectrum is limited to one bandwidth and spectrum or another. Not that really had any bearing in our discussion.

    Finally, I disagree with the argument of the engineering in headphones. Those limits are with respects of quality of sound reproduction. They are not a guarantee of hard limit of potential output and not intended to be. I don't engineer speakers but it's quite common paradigm in engineering in general that you benefit in quality and reliability should you accept a modest degree of unused overhead. Mistakes and bugs happen and it is especially vulnerable when it is reliant on hardware and software in the earpiece itself, as with my personal experience of faulty earbuds that emitted bursts of painful high frequency noise despite playback being of moderate volume. There are no intermediate steps of filtering, as with analogue gear, so should a faulty component cause a pop, it may well do so from the one extreme to the other.

    I apologize for my frustration. I've been experiencing lately that I try to communicate one thing and the recepient keep projecting it into their own frame of reference and insist I'm talking of something that I'm not. I'm a bit touchy and I'm sorry about that.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • Dude, I'm not trying to speak like a acoustician. At closest I'm speaking as an engineer with some knowledge of sound and acoustics from ages ago or maybe a musician, I don't know. If you expect random people to use professional terminology to have a conversation it's really your own mistake. I mean it in a constructive way from my own experience of taking with people on whatever I happen to know more about than them.

    The contrast of a pulse as a rapid shift of air pressure and multiple ones in rapid succession of high amplitude in the context of causing damage to the inner ear? I am honestly struggling how to explain it any clearer.

    Ok, I'll give it one more go.

    As you say, it is not important what or how the pulse or burst of pulses are created, but digital to analog conversion of a signal can create impulses that are literally as rapid as can be by the laws of physics that are extremely rare organically and in particular by amplitudes that you get in headphones. A burst of such impulses, I'm avoiding the previously used terminology, of random but high frequency and amplitude is like having a tiny plunger jerking like crazy in your ear like nothing the ear has ever evolved to be able to deal with.

    Not because digital vs analogue, vinyl vs CD vs mp3, gold plated monster network cables or helium cooled SPDIF connectors. No magical thinking. Only changes in air pressure. Changes in air pressure of the very fast and strong variety.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • Sigh. Acoustic vs digitally generated noise.

    Acoustic noise is what you hear outdoors from the wind, waves, leaves, whatever. An absolute myriad of tiny impact noises and scrapes and brushes and whatnot mixed together that become a dense complex texture that can be characterized as noise, although technically it is just a massive amount of single individual sounds. Acoustic noise can be found in many frequency ranges but human ears are generally good at handling with the common organic ones. Thanks, evolution!

    Digitally generated noise. A sequence of random1 values that plays at the frequency rate of whatever means of digital to analog conversion is used. Digitally generated white noise consists statistically2 of all frequencies within the range of the sample rate at all volumes reproducible by the bit depth.

    Digitally generated noise3 is not limited by common physics for generating sound waves4, but can be of any frequency range at any amplitude, i.e. pressure differential, within the range of the means of digital to analogue conversion and playback. That is, potentially in a spectral distribution of sound that is straight up painful for human ears.

    However, the big difference is that digital noise is not a mix of endless impact noises or brushes or whatever that each follow an envelope curve, but are rather a sequence of shifting values without transitory ramping, i.e. pulses. That is, a sequence of shifts in air pressure that is literally as fast as it can possibly be.

    Note that in the case of glitching5, the digitally generated noise may be limited only by the physical properties of the hardware and goes beyond what amplitudes the equipment is artificially limited to for pleasant and non harmful playback of music.

    Can headphones or earbuds or loudspeakers reproduce a digitally generated noise in frequencies that are painful in amplitudes that are harmful for the human hearing apparatus? Oh, I think they do.

    Anyway, I trust you are correct in your other point. It seems I used the wrong medical terminology as I was silly enough to speak in vernacular as non native English speaker without medical expertise. I expected to get away with a delirious misnomer to call years of continuous tinnitus and distorted audio perception a permanent hearing damage when it is clearly not.

    My apologies for causing confusion.


    1 Since attention to details are important; Most likely pseudo random generated. I know. I know.

    2 Details, people.

    3 Any digital noise. Audio that has been distorted until it has a frequency distribution that can be confused as pure noise, a data stream not intended for audio playback, a software/hardware glitch that flips significant bytes rapidly enough to cause a sequence of pops in such density it is perceived as a burst of noise. Whatever, use your imagination for further examples.

    4 In our living conditions, on planet earth, at this time.

    5 Generally speaking, not specifically to any example mentioned in this context.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • Haha, uh oh, I will try to not take offence. I'm in no way an audiophile, though I do have a nice stereo system for listening to music rather than listening to the equipment. I did venture into doing sound based arts and installations and stuff when I was younger though so I do have some insights of how sound works. It was a "colleague" l knew back then that had the injury mentioned from an incident in a sound studio. If memory serves me right it was an accidental digital feedback loop that hit the ears like a brick wall and despite it was less than a second it was enough to cause permanent damage.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • Oh, thanks for the correction. I seem to have misunderstood the injury when I got it described to me.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • The source of the sound is the speaker element of headphone. I thought that detail was obvious. A speaker reproduces any signal fed into it as to best of it's abilities. Acoustic recordings, sounds mimiking acoustic sounds, analogue or digital synthetic sounds, static noise... And even a digital pulse that goes from zero to maximum amplitude in one instant that is extremely rare or near impossible for even the most aggressive acoustic sounds. Acoustic or analogue noise is basically a sum of random frequencies all playing at once, while digital noise is a constant stream of random clean digital pulses.

    Earbuds that aim to create a seal in order to isolate from external noise are dangerous in particular as there is nowhere for the sound waves to dissipate. Some parts are absorbed by the flesh of the ear canal but other parts become resonant waves that only add to the amplitude and hence the stress to the ear drum.

    I had a pair of faulty ANC earbuds that would make digital pops. They weren't necessarily louder than the music playing but damn they hurt like an unklefucker. It was like pure spike of treble cutting through the ear straight into the brain. The type of sound our ears have never encountered naturally in all their years of evolution.

  • Is a sound level of 105 decibels for a few seconds enough to rupture a person's eardrum?
  • I think it's very different if it is a clean digital noise. Acoustic sounds, even when loud, have a brief ramping up. Digital noise can appear like a wall from zero to 110dB in literally zero time for the ear to adjust.

    The ear has tiny hairs that raise to absorb sound and protect the hearing (see comment for a correction). I know of somebody that had a digital noise cut right through them and cause permanent hearing loss. Their hairs were flattened and no longer work. I don't know the amplitude though.

  • I'd rather be an unknown fish in my own pond

    Apropos "it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond"

    3
    Reddit mirrors
  • I'm not against it if it is on a server or a cluster that are separated from the regular feeds. I don't want to be spammed with mirrored content and try to interact with bots.

  • True friend
  • Friend of the dead.

  • What's a candy that's practically crack for you?
  • Fazer Blå milk chocolate. Ghost chocolate. I buy it and then it is gone.

  • Old ghost is old

    From "The Ferryman: Legends of Nanyang".

    Yes, it's the 1990s.

    2
    It would be terrifying if it were to actually start raining men.
  • I think there is a Junji Ito novel with people raining from the skies. It is, as expected, quite unpleasant.

  • The dudes on grindr just want to skip that step and come right to my basement
  • Don't go looking for dates where everybody is looking for a hook up.

  • If I had an artisinal shop of any kind in America, I'd have an emergency button under the counter that lights up an enormous neon sign behind me that says "NO!"

    I've seen enough of the internets to know this is a must have. Damn, if I was in America this would be a business idea in itself.

    Edit: If you nick this idea and make it your business - YOU'RE WELCOME! I only ask kindly of you send a yearly donation to Doctors Without Borders or some similar organisation.

    15
    Dreamy

    I was having a bad stressful dream like I often do. But then I realized I was just dreaming and that I don't want to dream this shite. So then I dreamed something else.

    That was nice.

    6
    New Zealand Today

    If somebody theoretically wanted to watch all seasons of the amazing show New Zealand Today when the official streaming is geo locked and has blacklisted VPNs in NZ - how would they theoretically do it?

    Theoretical cheers

    5
    Yeast strains for wine and cider

    How much difference does different yeast strains really make? Is it perceptible like what kind of apples you used or is it delicate nuances when doing a blind tasting?

    6
    Forgot fruit wine with citrus zest in it for over a month

    BUMPSIES: Update and discussion on bitters/aperitif in comments

    This particular little wine was supposed to have the fruits in it for ten days. I forgot all about it over Christmas stress so the fruit has been soaking for over a month. I racked it today and boy does it have an aftertaste of the zest. Do you think it can be recovered? Will the zesty bitterness reduce from aging? Or can I do something else about it?

    11
    Crazy Idea: Degassing wine using vibration plate

    While manually degassing my current 23l bucket of wine, my mind drifted off into dream land of how to save my arms and back in future times. I came to think of those vibration plates for supposed exercise benefit.

    Googling it seems people have considered them for making beer but in order to stimulate the yeast or something something carbonation magic - quite the opposite of my idea.

    Whaddya think? Could it work for degassing buckets of wine?

    1
    Vonamoe - Georg Vogel

    Jazzy baroque lounge music on microtonal harpsichord is 🔥🔥🔥

    0
    I realized why I like friendships with lesbians

    I'm a middle aged heterosexual man and I've been in various circles in my life where I've had lesbian friends and acquaintances. I was just thinking how much I've appreciated those interactions and how I currently miss having lesbians around me. Not because we stopped being friends, mind you, but due to my dynamic life and me being shit at staying in touch I've floated away from people that I appreciate.

    Anyway, then I started thinking why is that? Am I fetishizing lesbians, craving what I can't get etc? I like women who are confident so is it a sexual or psychosexual thing? It made me a bit worried because that does not sound very nice, Freud and mothers and all that jazz... But then I realized that this is not why.

    It's because they don't act and treat me like a man, like a male person, like a sexuality - but that for them I'm 100% a person. If I'm entertaining or funny or interesting, it's because I am entertaining or funny or interesting. No interference from deep rooted primate reproductive brain behaviour, and at the rare occasion it's popped up, it's something we can play off and dismiss.

    Even though I have and always had women friends, it's a different thing. Regardless our relationship, I'm always a man. It's inescapable. My friendships with lesbians have always had this special vibe. It's like what I'd imagine a good sibling be like, but I wouldn't know because I'm a lone child.

    Yeah, I miss that vibe.

    Edit: thanks autocorrect

    40
    Spicing up a bland cider

    UPDATED

    I decided to try to make a cider from supermarket el cheapo concentrate just for the fun of it, 2/3 pear and 1/3 cranberry/raspberry.

    It's gone from 48 Oe to 0 Oe in ten days, so I guess so far it is technically a success. I've been degassing it vigorously and it's going to rest now for a week before I rack it. I had a taste and I can taste the alcohol and some faint flavors from the concentrate, but oh boy it is so bland it makes my tap water seem flamboyant.

    On a whim I sliced up a thumb of ginger and dropped in, hoping it would give some flavor. It's what I had at home. Any other suggestions of how to add some taste? I've got xylitol, citric acid and tannin at home. I don't want to add more sugary fruits because it already tastes a little bit too boozy for the lack of body. There will be a bit sugar before bottling for carbonation though.

    UPDATE: Racking and having a taste a week later and it's a world of difference. Thanks for the advice @DigitalNirvana@lemm.ee! The ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon brought some body that it was desperately lacking. I think I may have had a little much ginger, two large thumbs in the end, because it's a bit heavy on the ginger basement in the flavour. We'll see how it matures. Surprisingly it was still gassy, despite vigorous shaking until flat a week earlier. Maybe the sugars in the ginger were enough to give it another go. I brought alon g the nutmeg and the cinnamon because why not. Now it's going to rest for another week and then it be another racking, sugaring it up for carbonation and bottling. Considering the low aspirations, I hope it will be ready for some early bottles by Christmas.

    4
    Do high profile contract killings like in fiction actually ever happen?

    You know the type. High security, weeks or months of stakeout, sniper three blocks away...

    The hitman sorta things I recall from the news are either planned and executed by national intelligence agents or some savage gunning and running from hired brutes, but never the variant with sophistication and private sector.

    46
    Wine from sour quince

    I'm thinking of harvesting a local bush of Japanese quince (Chaenomeles Japonica) and make a small batch of fruit wine. Since they have a very strong citrus flavor, I'm thinking to lean in on it and make something like a very sour apertif.

    I've made wines before but it was ages ago with good results, some fruit wines and kit wines, but nothing similar to this.

    Any thoughts or suggestions? Should it be combined with some sweet fruits or raisin maybe? Any particular yeast better suited than others? Or some recipe idea as a starting point?

    Cheers!

    3
    What is an musical instrument would you like to know how to play?

    And why? Not an instrument you already play. Pick something else.

    I'll start.

    Saxophone, so I can climb the rooftops and play my neighbours some cheesy sax porn solos of the eighties.

    71
    Old School Cool @lemmy.world whaleross @lemmy.world
    A young Ryuichi Sakamoto posing with a Yamaha DX7
    1
    whaleross whaleross @lemmy.world
    Posts 21
    Comments 241