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Anechoic

7,935 karma · joined November 26, 2009

Acoustical consultant based in Massachusetts
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Anechoic··on DEF CON 32 Was Canceled. We Un-Canceled it
Not to be TOO snarky, but given how quickly corporate cancels employee labor despite rising revenue, it would not surprise me for other corporate to also cancel "low paying customers" for "high paying customers". Loyalty is beyond dead so cancelling a contract is just a cost of business if they feel the alternative gives more money.

If they canceled a year or so before the con, I could see that. But to cancel seven month before the conference? There's no way they will get a decent-sized substitute in the space before then, so I don't see how this would be anything but a money-loser. Not to mention other conferences might be less willing to commit to long-term deals if they see that the contract can be canceled on a whim.

Anechoic··on Why you've never been in a plane crash
If a system is attacked or fails in novel way, and the system design was done in accordance with best-practices, the follow-up investigation will note this, the system implementers will in all likelihood not face any repercussions (because they weren't negligent) and the standards will be updated to account for the new vulnerability. Just like other engineering disciplines.

Yes, things are constantly evolving in computer engineering, but how many of the failures that make the news are caused by novel new attack vectors, versus not following best-practices?

Anechoic··on iPad users will miss out on third-party app stores, browser engines, and more
>Microsoft bailed out Apple with an investment entirely because of anti monopoly regulations.

Not "entirely", it was a lawsuit settlement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

Anechoic··on Apple knew AirDrop users could be identified and tracked as early as 2019
This is about AirDrop, not Air Tags.
Anechoic··on A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)
Yep, you’re correct, I was using old numbers - Springfield MA lost some population while Springfield MO grew. But we still have Dr. Suess!
Anechoic··on A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019)
It’s the first, largest and (unfortunately) poorest Springfield.

(I’m writing this from Springfield right now)

Anechoic··on TSA introducing self-service screening technology in Las Vegas
When I’m on my way back from an international location the last thing I want to do is sit in a TSA office and answer questions about my identit

Well you're in luck - it's not TSA that interviews you, it's CPB!

Anechoic··on Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year
> RCS fixes the cost / reliability problems of SMS,

It doesn’t fix the end to end encryption problem unless google opens up their system.

Anechoic··on Free IRS-run tax filing pilot to be available in 13 states
protects you from liability for incorrectly filing your taxes.

In practice, it's not really needed. The thing is (and I realize that it's not the general perception) if you sincerely try to file your taxes and you screw up, the IRS will generally work with you to fix things. Sure, if you go all sovereign-citizen/Wesley Snipes and refuse to acknowledge taxes they'll kick in the door and take all your stuff. But if you accidentally report select head-of-household instead of single, and you can explain why you did, the IRS won't ruin your life.

Anechoic··on Google’s dominance under siege: Antitrust trial threatens sweeping changes
They did both those things purely because the DoJ made Gates sweat.

They did both those things to settle a lawsuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

Anechoic··on Is Software Engineering Real Engineering?
Exactly, which is why "as-builts" are a thing.
Anechoic··on ‘Blue lights’ flash in sky moments before Morocco earthquake
It could be in response to the p-wave, which arrives before the higher-amplitude shear wave.
Anechoic··on Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos
Other way around-they’re scanning iCloud but not photos stored on iPhones, except in iMessage.
Anechoic··on Thoughts on Flash (2010)
Absolutely. I'm guessing most of the responders on this thread didn't use a Mac in the early aughts - Flash ran like dogshit on Macs (when it wasn't crashing) and Macromedia/Adobe had no interest in fixing it because "no one used a Mac" back in those days.

I suspect that if Adobe had played lip service to trying to address those issue, Flash on iPhone may have had a shot. But they were also dealing with Adobe threatening to not update Photoshop on Mac, MS threatening to not update Office on Mac, etc. Given all of that, what incentive did Apple have in letting Flash on iPhone?

Anechoic··on Railway Safety Posters (2022)
The T backtracked on that a while back: https://patch.com/massachusetts/northend/yes-you-can-take-ph...

(the original MBTA link is long gone)

Anechoic··on Lego’s new $200 Concorde is a fantastic homage to the supersonic passenger jet
Commercial flop because the US banned it for "reasons"

There was ban that was quickly overturned. The ban was not for "reasons," the issue was noise pollution and it is a legitimate issue. A lot of working is going into NASA's X-59 project[0] to make overland commercial SST more practical.

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/specials/Quesst/

Anechoic··on Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
pivoting to a productive, merit-based approach

For the right definitions of "merit", yes. I'm not confident we've figured that part out yet.

Anechoic··on BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels
You're comparing a 2-mile, $6.5 bridge to a 130-mile, $0.5 bil/year system and you think this looks good for the bridge?

Not to mention in addition to direct costs, you need to look at externalities.

Anechoic··on U.S. Supreme Court curbs affirmative action in university admissions
It seems this will end quotas,

Quotas have been illegal since the 1970s.

Anechoic··on FAA overruled engineers, let Boeing Max keep flying
a guy who knew nothing about aviation

It's not that he knew nothing about aviation (he ran Denver International Airport), he didn't have first-hand experience as a pilot. But here's the thing - that's okay. FAA is a mess right now, and Phil Washington has experience cleaning up messy organizations. That works perfectly find for a Federal administrative position where you're generally only on the job for a few years and move on. You can argue that it's even fine in the long term - how much software or hardware engineering experience does Tim Cook have again?

Sometimes the only way to escape regulatory capture is to hire an outsider, at least temporarily.

Unfortunately the administration did Washington dirty by not properly preparing him for his confirmation hearing.

Anechoic··on The Effects of Noise on Health (2022)
I don't know why you're being downvoted, but you're correct - they do.
Anechoic··on Andrew Carnegie Turned His Fortune into a Library Legacy (2013)
Singapore became one of the wealthiest countries in the world by studiously copying the aspects of the British financial and legal system that worked

Did Singapore copy those aspects because they chose to do so, or were those aspects imposed on them? (sincere question, since if they chose of their own free will, that would seem to argue against "paternalism is good")

Anechoic··on FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations
Presumably pair-locking still works to mitigate against evil chargers?

https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/pair-lock-supervise-ip...

Anechoic··on Illustrations of Japan’s “unseen” workforce of trains that work at night (2019)
Boston prioritized capital projects

Because U.S. transit systems get Federal money for capital projects, but don't get Fed money for regular maintenance.

Anechoic··on Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
but if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws?

That's my (uneducated) understanding, but the speculation is that he didn't pay it himself because then he couldn't deny (to friends/family/fans/donors/voters) that he knew her.

Anechoic··on Apple passwords deserve an app
Keep a “Notes” field where you can add extra data, like 2FA backup codes, for each password!

I'm not sure if the reference here is to Keychain's "Secure Notes" or the "comments" field associated with password items. If the latter, I've found (at least on older versions of OS X/macOS) that when Safari updates the value of a changed password, it deletes the comments! I used the comment field to add the (random) answers to security questions, and got burned on a couple of sites when I've needed to do an account reset and lost those answers.

Anechoic··on Haraldur Thorleifsson's Personal Site
runs the biggest rocket company

That would be Boeing Defense, Space & Security (50,000 employees and $23.3 billion in revenue vs 12,000 employees and $2 billion revenue)

runs one of the biggest car companies.

Tesla, with it's $81 billion in revenue, doesn't even crack the the top ten.

just eliminated rare earth metals for new generation of motor

Just announced it would eliminate rare earth metals. This will be a great thing if/when it happens, but it hasn't happened yet.

runs Twitter which is undeniably more active and popular than ever.

Annual users appears to be up, but down in the US [0]. But if we use annual users as a proxy for "active and popular" then I'll give this to you.

So, 1 for 4.

[0] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/

Edit: taking chroma’s post at face value, you’re at 50%.

Anechoic··on Some data centers are noisy neighbors
Nobody wants to be next to the "noisy" data center, but at the same time everybody wants access to the internet. If we had sane city design in the United States of America which emphasized density, walkability, alternative forms of transportation, and accessible and highly available public transportation. Nobody would care if a data center is out in the middle of nowhere.

The downside is that instead of being exposed to noise from data centers, you're exposed to noise from nearby buildings, neighbors, transit, etc. We get plenty of work in city centers from folks annoyed by noisy neighbors (residential and commercial).

You're not wrong about the US needing to better emphasize density, but it's not a panacea.

Anechoic··on What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record
Are you referring to Kareem? If so, that's not true at all. If you have HBO Max, watch Kareem: Minority of One.
Anechoic··on Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours
From what I can tell, rental car companies are not setup to easily service a one way rentals,

Which isn't surprising because at some point, someone needs to bring that car back to it's home base.

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