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I think you just made me realize that I don't like interacting with salespeople because their behavior falls into some kind of uncanny valley.


We're definitely hard wired to recognise the difference between people being friendly to foster a good relationship and people being friendly because they've good ulterior motives


Maybe they’re actually AI avatars! Or just bad salespeople


it maybe acting as an acoustic lens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLBmWF9Xo10

edit: Steve Mould's video "I Made a Lens, But for Sound" demonstrates how balloons filled with gasses of different density than the surrounding air, act as a lens on sound waves. Helium filled balloons will scatter sound because the helium is less dense than air. He shows how a balloon filled with carbon dioxide can focus the sound.


Somebody wrote a paper on it in 2008: https://physics.byu.edu/docs/publication/644

  A balloon filled with a gas that has a different sound speed than that of air has been used as an
  acoustic lens. One purpose of the lens is to show refraction of sound waves in an analogy to
  geometric optics. We discuss the physics of the balloon lens demonstration. To determine the
  validity of a gas-filled balloon as a classroom demonstration of an acoustic lens and to understand
  the corresponding phenomena, its physics is considered analytically, numerically, and
  experimentally. Our results show that although a geometric analogy is a good first-order
  approximation, scattering theory is required to fully understand the observed phenomena. Thus this
  demonstration can be adapted to a wide range of students, from those learning the basic principles
  of refraction to advanced students studying scattering
Here's Harvard demonstrating it too: https://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/presentations/...


So would a wall of helium balloons work as a sound dampener? Or perhaps diffuser? A lot cheaper than fiberboard & foam


I doubt it would be cheaper than foam, but this is similar to gas filled windows. Argon or Krypton gas is pumped in-between the window panes to provide another layer of insulation.


Makes sense


At the old Exploratorium in the Palace of Fine Arts there was an exhibit that had a large 3-4m balloon filled with something heavy (Argon or maybe SF6?) and two points on the floor at the foci of the balloon. You could whisper at one focus and hear it easily at the other. I think it has been replaced with a more durable pair of concrete parabolic reflectors with similar effects.


Oh dang! I bet that's it! Nice find, thank you!


midwest of United States, 2007(7th)[12-13yo]-2012(12th)[17-18]

- 2007(7th): The mosquito ring tone was a popular notification ring tone. I recall a friend testing it with my math teacher during class. He could not hear it.

- 2010(10th): The last time I recall passing notes in class... I got caught. Apologies to my Geometry teacher. He was one of the best teachers I had.

- 2012(12th): I(late to the party) bought my first phone... The only time I recalll using my phone was when went to the bathroom and accidently dropped it in in the toilet. :'( ... 3 days in a bag of rice and it worked just fine. I'm sure I must have used it in the toilet too many times for that to have happened, but I don't recall ever using it in class, as the punishment was confiscation of the phone and it wouldn't be returned until a parent signed off in person.


The YouTube channel, 'The Quantified Scientist', does a great job of comparing sleep tracking wearables to a reference EEG. He collects a lot of data and presents it very well.


Thank you for posting this! I recently started using my Apple Watch for sleep tracking and have been dismayed at my quality and quantity (vs. "bed time") of sleep. Searching the channel for "sleep" I instantly found 3 videos for my "to watch" list.


in the spirit of fun, we might set up a system that could deny access if - more than one person present - gps location matches known government building - if law enforcement officers have recently been spotted at a residence or office - biometrics sense elevated blood pressure/heart rate or other signs of duress


It'd be simpler to have a separate Under Duress password that behaves differently. Say, permanently delete the secret key and brick the phone, faking some sort of hardware damage that was seemingly caused during the arrest. Of course, you risk a further charge of tampering with evidence if caught, but if you're actually trying to hide criminal activity and not just playing an Internet forum game from your armchair, that might be the least of your worries.


That sounds like something they could reasonably argue was destruction (spoliation?) of evidence, and in some cases judges are allowed to tell juries to assume evidence that was destroyed is harmful to or counters the defense's arguments.

Also destruction of evidence is a crime, so you could pick up additional charges as well.

Don't play games with the law: talk to a lawyer. The law is not code, you generally aren't going to win with clever interpretation (see myriad cases where the "intent" of the people making the law is considered by the court) or "hack". If you're ever dealing with legal issues, civil or criminal, talk to a lawyer.


On Android, I disabled the YouTube app and use Firefox for YouTube, entirely because of the shorts. It lets you remove the shorts for 30 days in the browser. I did have to switch text messaging apps because the default option wouldn't work without YouTube enabled whenever someone sent a YouTube link.


It's indeed infuriating how these services try to cram TikTok style crap down our throats.

The stupid thing is: they try to get more popular than TikTok. How the hell do they expect to become popular with users that don't want this stuff? I'm not on TikTok, I hate YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. Just allow me to turn that shit off and I'll be a lot happier and use the service more because it's not pushing me away.

How do they think forcing it on unwilling users is in any way beneficial??


Thanks, I'll have a look into that!

My biggest beef with Shorts is that it's the equivalent of having the shelves full of lollies and junk food if you're trying to be healthy; it's far better not to have any available if you want to stay lean.

I love long form YouTube videos as much as I loathe the short form, whose promotional algorithms are skewed towards content that's rubbish for the brain - and society.

Edit: On Samsung Internet, could browse to the mobile app and indeed hide the shorts for 30 days (little X in top right of Shorts content panel, not a setting). Furthermore, if I disable "open links in apps" under settings/useful features, I now get the YouTube icon to open the current video in the app - this lets me browse for videos without being bugged by Shorts, and I can then open in the app if I want some of its features such as play in background etc. Thanks again, great tip.


I had an issue with my payment for premium which resulted in temporary suspension of my service. A few days after fixing the payment issue, this news came out.

Considering this with the recent price increase, and some trouble with my family plan, my initial reaction was quite negative towards YouTube. They are setting a very clear trend against what I want in their service with recent changes (Removing downvote, removing android shortcuts and other features, aggressive copyright stiking policies, aggressive promotion of shorts, terrible recommendations).

I am considering cancelling. However, a more optimistic view would be that their ad block policy could result in lower subscription fees with more ad and subscription revenue.


That's crazy, the same thing happened to me. I was like what? Suddenly now my price has increased when I was on YouTube Red for the longest time. Considering canceling too


Many studies claim the response people have to the manipulation of light intensity, color, and duration, does effect several aspects of the person. Sleep hygiene does seem to play a large role, but the sun is likely the largest contributor to the human body's roughly 24 hour circadian rhythm.


Ironically it's the wavelengths at sunrise which have the greatest affect. If teenagers are sleeping in they don't get to see these:

> Researchers said the wavelengths at sunrise and sunset have the biggest impact to brain centers that regulate our circadian clock and our mood and alertness.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200220141731.h...


It was less intuitive than previous Halos, but I have played split screen on Series X and Series S, no hacks.


What do you think about cooperative hunting between humans and dogs? Not the same as modern domestication, but some have theorized dogs may have domesticated themselves by eating scraps and/or leaving scraps progressing into sharing, hunting and training with humans. These relationships could have slowly progressed to human ownership of dogs. If we gloss over the hunting ethics, where would you draw the line for when this ethical cooperation between unequal partners turns unethical? Or do you reject the premise?


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