There are obviously many different flavors of vegans, each stopping at different points when it comes to what they consider animal suffering. There are vegans with pets, but they might not agree with the idea that all forms of keeping animals is considered suffering. Other vegans won't keep pets, I'm one of them, because I agree completely with the post you commented on and draw the same conclusion as you that it's incompatible with my beliefs.
There's a middle ground as well, exemplified by Gary Francione (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_L._Francione). He's an animal rights abolitionist, meaning that we should just improve the welfare of animals in the animal industry, but abolish it completely. Yet he keeps pets, by only taking in rescued animals from shelters. He argues that their lives are already ongoing, and we should make the best situation we can for them. But we shouldn't buy animals from breeders, because then we help perpetuate the situation.
I think it's a sympathetic position to take, so yes, it's possible to want to stop people from breeding pets while still caring for the ones that are already here.
I'm genuinely curious about this: are vegans who are against animals suffering in any form universal anti-natalists? From my perspective, if you treat a pet well, or even live-stock well, their lives involve much less suffering than their wild-counterparts, who typically die of disease, starvation, or predation. So the only way to make the view consistent IMO is to be against animal life in general.
Why everything has to be black or white? I'm a vegan and i have rescue pets, if an animal is sick i would help it even if it is a wild one, if a predator has to hunt I wouldn't interfere and i respect that, even hunter humans who have no choice are fine to me but impregnating animals and removing their offspring to get it's milk when there's no need for us to consume it, keeping animals in cages where they can't even move, force feed them to enlarge their livers, grow them so fast that they can't even stand up, and a long list of more "treatments" in the name of what? Need? Or just greed? We all know what is bad or good, I don't care of people who eat meat but they don't need to excuse themselves.
> I'm genuinely curious about this: are vegans who are against animals suffering in any form universal anti-natalists?
When you say "against animals suffering in any form" you make it sound like you mean both in the human-operated animal industry and wild in nature, and also that these vegans would want to prevent wild animals from breaking their legs or something because it induces suffering. I haven't seen vegans argue that we should interfere with nature to limit suffering in that way.
Some vegans are utilitarians (what I've read of Peter Singer comes to mind), and then I guess it comes down to if you think that the benefits of the animal's life outweighs the suffering when considering if they should have been born or not.
Other vegans are into animal rights, where you assign unalienable rights to animals like the right to freedom, but these vegans wouldn't even consider your idea of ending all animal suffering. They would be antinatalist in the sense that being born into captivity and raised just to be slaughtered for meat is wrong, and for that animal it would surely have been better to not have been born at all.
I'm heavy on the animal rights side and extremely suspicious of utilitarianism. I'm sure that hardcore utilitarianism could lead to the bizarre conclusion that you're presenting, but I haven't seen it argued.
When I bought my smart TV I've decided to not connect it to my WLAN and didn't plug in the Ethernet.
So it isn't able to send information or install anything. Everything I watch on it is through my home theater PC. If I ever wanted to update it I would connect it with Ethernet and then remove the ethernet cable after the update.
There is a good song of a German singer / songwriter Funny van Dannen - "Menschenverachtende Untergrundmusik" (inhuman ? underground-music) which says basically the same thing.
Bandcamp is my preferred way of buying music these days. The only advantage of physival media is the record cover. But I am really pissed if I can't download the album or if I am just able to download a shitty MP3 of the music I've bought.
So Bandcamp works great for me. It offers all the options I want (FLAC) and I like that a band can set the price to 0$ so you can download it from Bandcamp for free but you can give them money if you want to.
Awesome experience all around. And with the music I like most of the bands are on Bandcamp.
What do you find so shitty about MP3, are you morally opposed to it's origin/licensing?
Quality wise for listening you aren't going to tell the difference between a -v0 MP3 and FLAC even if you think otherwise. For anyone that wants to claim otherwise, unless you've had someone setup an A/B test with a significant amount of cases you're falling victim to placebo.
I say this as a professional audio engineer, who long ago would always seek out FLAC. Now, unless I need to edit or re-encode a file the MP3 is just as good, far from shitty.
As another professional audio engineer, I've done it, and to do it I tuned in on 'personality' aspects of the sound, knowing that the rough frequency response would be pretty much taken care of.
The degradation is much like what you'd get running the mix through a generic digital EQ imposing some subtle but high-order filters, or going through the mix buss of an unexceptional DAW that's doing a lot of bit-shuffling to get to the output, perhaps with some unnecessary gain changes.
These are shitty if you have seriously good monitoring and care about ambience and soundstage depth and subtle emotional cues or shades of texture. Sooo… not exactly 'OMG, super obvious on earbuds through iTunes with the aural exciters on'. That stuff will wreck the sound MUCH worse than -v0 mp3, no argument there.
If you're working on gear where you'd be able to tell the difference, and you have experience with listening for the specific objectionable qualities of lossy audio, then you can hear the lossy audio even at its best.
Otherwise, the cure for bad sounding mp3s is to do 'em 320K and call it a day. Throwing more bits at it does definitely help. It's not hard to get mp3 over the threshold where other parts of the playback system harm the sound worse.
Even if you can tell, the question is, why fixate on it? As you say, the changes are far more subtle than getting a cheap set up. Most people do not live or commute in anechoic chambers. For myself, I'm happy to 128k opus or -v1 lame it, which arguably may still be overkill
When you go from SD to HD video it's hard to go back. Same again when you go to 4K. Same again when you start eating higher quality foods. Same again when you start driving nicer cars.
I'm sure there's a technical name for it, but for a significant number of people, once you get used to the higher quality it's harder and harder to go back down a level.
I would counter that once someone goes from a common, well engineered brand to a less common, expensive, and equally well engineered brand, they'd have a hard time going back. You only need to look at clothing brands to see this everywhere. Not all differences are functional in the way that you have drawn the comparison.
I disagree. It's all about adaptation. Sure, if you step down to SD from HD, it will be hard. But if you are forced to watch SD always, you will eventually adapt to it again.
Some people got this thing called sensory overexcitability, it makes sensory things be more intense and detailed for them, and it probably makes some of them really appreciate the extra quality in FLAC.
Not many people got sensory overexcitability so a/b testing with random selection might not show those peoples opinions.
Its like saying most of humanity can't read JavaScript code so JavaScript is a completely shit programming language that are only used by stupid uninformed mindless coders who don't understand real programming, and that they are too lacking in intellectual ability to realize that and move over to a real programming language.
And also some music just does not work in low quality, it just turns into noise.
A rare condition probably shouldn't be compared to something which can be learnt and practiced. Given how people can form strong opinions derived from what other people say, I would wager that most audiophiles do not fall into this category. Citing an exception doesn't invalidate the common case.
While it may be the case that the direct parent of my post may have this, they still pointed out the differences were minor compared to pretty much every other technical factor at play in the digital to ear pipeline.
I remember having a copy of "busdriver imaginary places", where he does a lot of fast rapping, once I got the CD it was suddenly much easier to understand him.
"Placebo" describes the audio scene people pretty well in my experience.
I did that MP3/FLAC A/B/X test back in my audio engineer days after catching a ton of condescending comments due to my listening of 'terrible sounding' MP3s.
Either my ears are garbage, or the difference is so subtle that even with solid headphones in a dead quiet room, the absolute best you could hope to be able to detect is that one is "different." getting all the way to "shitty" sounds near impossible to me.
Also, to my surprise, if you burned someone a cd from an MP3 source, but told the person it was Flac, it'd still "sound really smooth". Hm.
I was of the same opinion - but I've recently noticed (because youtube-dl, I think, automatically downloads music at a fairly high quality) that I enjoy some music substantially more when it's not compressed to hell. Classical music especially seems much juicier with a high quality recording.
What do you mean by compressed? Classical music is usually cited with regards to "compression" in the context of dynamic range compression, not data compression.
Similar experience. I did the blind tests as well, and surprisingly often chose 320 kbps mp3s that I thought were FLACs because they sounded "crisper" (I mostly listen to electronic club tunes). I did and also witnessed other DJs play out tracks I know for sure were 192kbps mp3s on huge sound systems (sadly no other version ever exported), the place went 100% wild because it's all about the music in the end...that said, would be great to ditch mp3s for OPUS in streaming and have catalogues in FLAC/AIFF.
Edit: a LOT if not most of new music at this point contains samples ripped from Youtube. Something to consider also.
Cable quality can make a difference for instruments with passive pickups, especially with long cable runs. A guitar pickup can have >10Kohm output impedance, so it doesn't take much cable capacitance to get audible high frequency loss. You can solve this problem with a buffer amplifier close to the instrument, but that's one more device that can break or run out of battery charge.
My library is all FLACs. You can sometimes definitely tell the difference on high-enough fidelity gear, not so much in the sound itself, but being able to hear production flaws more, often you can't, but the point is, I don't care if I can tell the difference. If I am paying the same amount, I want the same quality as I'd get on a CD, if MP3s were cheaper, it'll be a different story.
I wonder if another reason to prefer FLAC to MP3 is if you ever want to convert the MP3s to another lossy format (perhaps multiple times), is there a loss of quality associated with converting one lossy format to another multiple times?
It's nice to have a lossless format because you can always get lossy from it, but you can't do the opposite.
That's more or less my argument. At least by my own standards, local storage space is really cheap, and the argument that I'd get 100,000 songs instead of 20,000 songs in the same amount of space just isn't that compelling.
Arguments about sound quality are in my experience largely doomed to failure; they usually end up devolving into meta-arguments about testing methodologies. (And invariably mocking audiophiles about $2000 USB cables or whatever, an argument I've grown really, really weary of seeing despite agreeing such things are profoundly silly.)
This is exactly my point of view also. I have 1,100+ CDs all of which are ripped to WAV[1]. In my car I have a duplicate copy of the collection converted to MP3s, as that's what my car audio system will read. When I used a portable music player, that was also MP3. However if I get a new car or a new music player, that prefers ogg, or some other codec, I can go back to my source library of WAVs and create a whole new set of lossy tracks in that new codec.
As far as people saying 320k MP3s vs Uncompressed WAV or FLACs sound no different, then they simply are not using good enough audio equipment. Throw into the mix the Hi-bitrate audio files that are becoming quite common (and you really can tell the difference between standard CD audio and hi-bitrate) and MP3s start to look completely unsuitable for long term music storage.
Also... don't get me started on the rubbish quality of streaming and DAB radio.
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[1] I started with WAV 10+ years ago, and kinda stuck with it - storage is cheap; I feel no need to change formats just yet.
Sorry if this triggered somthing in you, but I really meant "shitty MP3s".
I don't have got anything against MP3s in general, but back when I was buying MP3s (Amazon or Downloads when you are buying a record) sometimes I got 256kbps MP3s or even worse. I think one time I even got a 192kbps MP3. And that's my problem.
When I am buying music digitally I would like to have a very very good (or even perfect) digital copy of the music - not something that saves download bandwith and space on the hard drive(for me these days are over).
I am fine with 320kpbs MP3s - but if I pay for it I prefer FLAC.
I try to always find the highest quality version of the media I'm consuming because I enjoy archiving it. If I'm going to keep an archived copy and storage is so cheap, why not opt for the best possibly quality?
I'd agree that for most music I can't tell the difference. But there are some tracks where the difference is noticeable, even if it's minor. I've tested myself thoroughly by running automated ABX tests.
Reminds me of one of my favorite articles about HDMI cables where they had a bunch of supposed audiophiles try to tell the difference between a $2,000 cable and one made from a bent coat hanger. Surprise surprise, they couldn't.
Back when I ripped CDs, I encoded my MP3s with variable bitrate with the quality set to high. They average around 192 kbps. I was never able to tell the difference between the CD and the MP3 at that rate.
A good coat hanger is actually a damn fine wire for speaker cable. Most of what you want there is ability to handle big current spikes. I made 'audiophile style' cables using simple house cable solid-core, wrapped in opposite directions around a polystyrene tube core, so the conductors keep crossing at right angles (the point of that shenanigan).
Works fantastic. Sounds a lil' better than zip-cord, and of course at these levels it's a game of countless 'lil better' choices wherever possible.
I guess you could pay $2000 to have the conductors made out of silver and yak hair, but the 'heavier conductors and cable geometry' parts don't require any of that.
> The only advantage of physival media is the record cover.
I would add that for long-term archiving purposes, vinyl has many advantages over digital formats. I'll admit this is probably not a concern for most people, but once I own something on vinyl it feels much more like I own a permanent copy of the music.
How is vinyl more durable as far as physical media goes than a CD (digital format)? Vinyl can easily warp when improperly stored, degrades every time it is played, and even a small scratch result in audible imperfections. A CD at least can be scratched heavily and still be identical to the original thanks to forward error correction by Reed-Solomon codes.
All good points. Personally, for daily listening I am using online digital streaming options almost exclusively now. My vinyl gets pulled out maybe once a year, and I am very aware that overuse can degrade them physically.
As for cd's, I am no expert on this by any means, but I wonder how prevalent disc rot will become as some discs age to 30, 40, 50+ years old in the near future:
As far as I know vinyl doesn't have a comparable risk of degradation while sitting at rest in climate controlled storage. But I agree that the downsides are major concerns.
I would say from a technical point of view vinyl is one of the worst for archiving purposes. It degrades every time you play it, it can warp, playing it back is error prone...
The advantage of vinyl is in your last sentence: "once I own something on vinyl it feels much more like I own a permanent copy of the music".
That's totally fine for me if you feel this way, but I don't. I feel better with multiple digital copies of the music on multiple places.
I am sorry if this is not really the point of your post, but I am reminded of watching the movie "Meine keine Familie". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2917962/
As mich as i know there is no English version but it is a movie about someone growing up in a commune in Austria in the 70ies. It is a very interesting and sad movie. The "founding father" of this commune spent time in prison because of child molestation and harassment. His mother still thought that he "had a good childhood and time" in the commune without knowing his father. As much as I know from the movie he wasn't molested - but he experienced growing up there as a very strict and unfree experience (I am not sure if this is totally correct, but my memories are shady, I've watched it many years ago)
I've watches some videos on youtube of guys who try to salvage Tesla's. I am not sure if these are growing pains or if Tesla is just more interested in a model without independent mechanics.
In these videos it seems more that Tesla is VERY hostile against people who repair their car. They have no access whatsoever to parts, so their only chance is to buy damaged cars and salvage the parts. My feeling was that it was very hard for the owners to keep the cars updated and to super charge these cars.
My experience with dealers repairs and independent contractors is that most of the dealers change assembly groups and good mechanics change what's damaged. You've got less problems if you change assembly groups but it is way more expensive.
Using used parts for repairs is normal practice. It makes little sense to manufacture a new body panel when there is a perfectly good one from a vehicle with a bad drivetrain just sitting there in a junkyard.
The trouble right now is because Tesla has only recently started delivering in meaningful volumes, there is no big supply of them in junkyards to pull parts from. And for much the same reason there are no independent parts suppliers yet, so the company has a temporary monopoly on parts.
Whether their attitude changes when the parts monopoly erodes remains to be seen, but competition has a way of shifting corporate behavior.
And some of the current behavior is within reason, e.g. if you have free supercharging it's not so you can modify your car to sell that power back to the grid, or take the VIN of a wrecked car with free supercharging and try to transfer it to an entirely different car by exchanging a couple of parts. There has to be some process to make sure that's not what's happening.
Yeah this joke didn't make any sense in German. The problem I see with this kind of jokes is that they can't be translated to German.
e.g. another joke like this
Did you hear about the country with the fastest growing capital? It's Ireland - every day it's Dublin.
I can't think of any way how to translate this joke so it would be funny in German.
But I have a feeling that these word play jokes aren't used much in German speaking countries anyways. Most of the humor is about people acting different or surprising.
As a fellow German: I don't think puns are very popular in German (except for intentionally cheesy dad jokes).
The closest equivalent I can think of are sentences where the joke lies in using a different word at the end than the (likely, extremely crass) one the audience expects. These tend to work better in German than in English because of the sentence structure, I think.
EDIT: Example of a dad joke pun: "Was sagt ein Sachse auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt in New York? Ä Tännschen, please." -- "What does a man from Saxony say at the Christmas market in New York? A fir, please."
The joke is that "ein Tännchen", "a (small) fir", when pronounced with a Saxony accent, sounds a bit like the English word "attention". The joke works because most Germans know the phrase "attention, please" from movies, vacations and/or multilingual announcements. I believe this particular joke was invented some time in the 60s or 70s and ceased being funny about two seconds after, but that wouldn't stop "your dad" from using it.
Reading Nietzsche translations recently, German does seem to have a considerable capacity for allusion and double meanings that are very hard to translate. Perhaps not in modern or common usage, or nearly as much as English.
Yes it does - but it's not as prevalent in humor as it is in the US.
I'd say that most of these double meanings are hard to translate. At least if you compare German and English (the two languages I am "proficient" in).
If you want this in a more modern context I would be completely unable to translate Dendemann lyrics to English so it would still be lyrical or funny.
I am incredible happy that Unicode is the de facto standard and that encoding problems are (mostly) a thing from the past.
But sometimes it doesn't work out and you still hve these problems (Microsoft I am looking at you and your bad Unicode CSV support in Excel).
