The importance of using a high fidelity speaker system

I have frequently noticed that people give disproportionately large attention to having a good visual display subsystem, compared to the audio subsystem. I have seen many friends bothering less about the speaker system when getting a desktop computer assembled.

Personally, I feel that this tendency is not good. 2 reasons for this

1) I am an avid player of music on my Yamaha PSR-330 electronic keyboard cum synthesizer for over 9 years now. I believe I have a good sense and understanding of music and sound. And my experience with music/sound over years is that although sound plays a very important part, its contribution is more 'silent' as compared to the contribution of visuals. To put it more clearly, in many scenes in movies, it is the sound running in the background that creates the right mood/emotion, although this is hardly ever explicitly recognized by audience. Thus sound is more like a silent warrior that does play a significant role, but its importance is realized by only a handful of people [musicians and singers especially]. Although in real life, sound has this quality called 'prominence', in many scenes in movies [especially in the emotional ones], sound is not prominent, as larger proportion of attention of audience is towards the visuals. Visuals, in general, get a disproportionately large amount of credit for the overall effect a scene creates. This reason highlights the importance of the role played by sound.

2) I draw the following analogies between display and audio subsystems

Screen size (of a display) = Output power (volume of a speaker system)
Color gamut range (of a display) = Frequency range (of a speaker system)
Brightness, contrast etc (of a display) = quality of sound output (of a speaker system)

If any single component of a display subsystem is lame, it is outrightly turned down by people. (from point 1) A speaker system too must have high fidelity, lest the effect of sound intended by artist/creator never reach the audience.

One final word- Watching a movie on a small screen with a poor speaker system produces a fraction of effect that the same movie would have produced had it been seen on a large screen with good speaker system.

p.s. I recently bought 2 sets of speaker systems [both are creative sbs-370 systems- my own belief is that, as of now, this system gives highest value for money among all 2.1 speaker systems i know, in addition to reproducing sound quite faithfully]

i have upgraded to a new system of working

the key benefits that this new system imparts are

• addition of ability to say 'no'
• improved time management
• increased mental concentration
• reduced overheads
• reduction in per-task time
• removal of redundant elements from the system
  

expected long term benefits of this new system

• time savings
• reduced mental stress
• increased leisure time [stems from 'time savings']

the key penalties of this system are

• potential of reduced warmth in close relationships (in the short term)
  

qualms i have with the new user interface of google's orkut

the good things about this new interface

1. user interface has been designed to mimic the look of 'widgets' on windows vista desktop or apple's mac os x desktop- this i believe in itself is not necessarily a good thing- the point is that this approach segregates [or 'segments'] the interface elements into distinct units, thus providing clarity
2. addition of nifty little features [though no 'big' feature]

the bad things about this new interface

1. more resource intensive, and thus noticeably slower on slower computers [and especially on web browsers like mozilla firefox]
   
2. although 'segmentation' plays its part in providing cleanliness to the interface, the individual segments themselves are more 'filled' [or 'stuffed'], and thus the overall complexity of this new interface is [to me] higher than the old interface
3. on 800x600 displays, scroll bars are forced, rather than a 'reflow', thus hiding the rightmost portions of page all the time

my belief is that though the new look does have many little improvements, some of which are nice too, it also has an increased overall complexity, and those users who have liked it have probably liked it because of it being different from the previous interface, rather than because of it being substantially (and absolutely) better.

finally, users with 1024x768 or larger displays and high speed computers will remain shielded from the more annoying ill-effects of this new interface, and so are more likely to like and appreciate this new interface, at least initially

is instrumental music 'less distracting & disturbing' than music with words? i feel so

the background first...
i have been playing instrumental music on my yamaha psr-330 electronic keyboard cum synthesizer for over 9 years now, and before that i played it on my casio sa-11 electronic keyboard for about 5 years (maybe more).

i like to listen to instrumental music; of course not just any, but i like select ones, just like we all have our individual preferences when it comes to listening music with words.

now.
what i have noticed over years is that instrumental music seems to distract less and disturb less than music containing voices/words/lyrics. one day i started to think about it and first felt that maybe its because the total 'quantity' of sound contained in an instrumental song is probably less than the total quantity of sound in a song with words [i dont know how the 'quantity' of sound, or 'amount' of sound, contained in a sample is measured, but it looks like joule should be the right unit for this, just like joule can be used to express 'amount' of optical energy, or just like momentum can be used to express the total quantity of motion contained in a body].

then later i felt no, there are instrumentals having a lot of sound, and yet they still seem to distract less than music with words.

the only plausible reason i could think of was that brain's speech and language processing section(s) remain unengaged when listening to instrumental music, while they are engaged in both the recognition of, and semantic analysis of lyrics of music with words (even if sub-consciously).

i have noticed that when doing tasks that involve words- studying, reading a webpage or reading a newspaper- instrumental music does not distract or disturb, whereas music with words does (or at least it does more). this looks consistent with the undeniable fact that brain's speech and language processing section(s) are engaged when listening to music with words.

i dont know whether this idea i wrote here is true or not, but i thought about this, and felt like writing it, so did.

ah, yes, as i write this blog post (a task involving words), i am listening to faithless- drifting away (from "buddha bar"), an instrumental, and believe me it doesn't disturb an iota...

update
one new thought that came to my mind was whether listening to music with words, but of a language which we do not understand would cause less distraction or disturbance than music with words of a language that we understand (like english).
this question looks interesting to me, and to find out the answer, i fired O-Zone's Dragostea din tei [a romanian song i like but do not understand the meaning thereof] and indeed felt some difference, thought its nature remained unclear.
i feel that because i do not understand this language, so my brains's semantic analysis sections(s) should remain either free, or overbusy [trying to make out meanings from the jumble of words being thrown at it]. the language recognition sections(s), however, will remain busy even if i do not understand a language.

capturing animations, images, music, poems, stories, textures and videos straight off the brain of an artist

in future, textures [for use in games] and special effects [for use in movies] are going to be increasingly complex. although developer tools too are going to improve, so as to enable development of more complex content faster and more easily, yet it still requires significant effort and time.

today i was thinking that in future, when we have the technology to precisely decipher the brain's thoughts, we should be able to copy it and utilise it as content. for example i know that i can 'think music'. i mean in my thoughts i can listen to music. i mean music/sounds/voices/audio is something that can be imagined. similarly, images and videos and animations too can be thought.

with technology to capture it live and save it as files, tremendous workload can be reduced. an artist can simply think of a video, or a special effect, and have his brain's thoughts captured live and saved as a ready-to-use video file. a musician can think of a sequence of notes in a particular instrument and have that audio captured.

i believe this is possible. our thoughts are a form of information, and it should be possible to capture them, just like we capture a scene using a digital camera. but certainly, this requires deep understanding of brain's working, and its signals, along with the technology to capture it.

with above technology available, it should also be possible to copy/edit existing information in human brain. it should be possible to copy the data already present in brain, and to artificially introduce new, or modify existing data. things similar to what is done on a computer. this can make truckloads of important information quickly available for analysis or use. also, there should be a decrease in need of traditional input devices like pens, mouse, keyboard etc. a poet should be able to think the words of a poem and have them automatically captured and saved in form of a text file. we should be able to think something, and cause it to be treated as a command/task by a computer.

and of course, this system will not develop its own content, and will not assist in its development. it will, however, capture whats going on.

i hope to see spiderman 20 built using this technology.

my maniac mind's maze

if i remember that when i was a child, i was saved from a seemingly fatal accident by an adult, and if i go back in time and save my childhood version from that fatal accident, and if this child who subsequently evolves into an adult does the same (and so on), does this situation qualify as an ontological paradox?

i think this is the smallest blog post i have ever written.

i think the above line is incorrect, because addition of above line probably caused this post to no longer remain smallest.

i think the above line is correct, and its intriguing too.

i think the above line is correct.

i think the above line is correct.

i think the above line is correct.

i think the above line is correct.
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i think my mind is maniac right now, so i should sleep.

update- 18-4-07

just now i realised that sentences of the type "i think..." cannot possibly be correct or incorrect. they are all a description of what one anticipates/hopes/thinks. and hopes are not correct or incorrect. they can be stated honestly or dishonestly. but they being correct or incorrect is absurd. so i believe that if i write 3 sentences

i think that i am a good human.

i think the above line is correct.

i think the above line is correct.

then the first line may be an honest description of a thought in mind, while the second line is invalid. so is third.

i think the above is correct. honest.

finally, i think i am being a real maniac right now. honest. again.

update 2- 18-4-07

i read detailed meaning of the word 'correct' and one of the meanings is 'something which confirms to truth or fact'. this reads same as one meaning of honest, the meaning i used above. it means use of the word 'correct' is okay.

once again.

i think i am a good human.

i think the above line is correct.

i think the above line is correct.

the first line is honest. if i want to say that it (i.e. the first line) is 'correct', then in my opinion the necessary condition for this is that i be actually thinking that i am a good human, and not (necessarily) my being a good human in reality. the thought that i am a good human must have taken place, although i may not actually be a good human. now is this analysis correct? i think yes it is correct. the immediately previous line is correct (i do think that the previous line is correct- but it does not necessarily mean that it is really correct- only i actually think it is correct).




i am a maniac.

the previous line is correct.

version 3
18-4-07

witty analogy to abstractly explain difference between various linux distros

today my friend came to me asking which linux distro i have with me. i replied. then he asked me whether there shall be any differences between shell operations of various distros. i told him that for learning purposes, all major/current linux distros behave almost identically. then he asked me what exactly is the difference between various distros like ubuntu, red hat, fedora etc. i wondered for a while thinking how to explain this to him, and then spontaneously this analogy came to my mind.

i told him that just like a 'small car' is a thing and like there are various embodiments of it from different vendors- hyundai atos/santro or daewoo matiz or chevrolet spark or hyundai getz or maruti suzuki alto, a linux distribution is an abstract concept, and the various distros by different vendors all are embodiments of it. thus no matter whether it is a hyundai car or a suzuki one, they all will behave identically for learning purposes, and each one of them is both different in numerous little things [depending upon what a particular company's engineers and designers deem appropriate], and yet identical broadly.

my friend both perfectly understood the difference, and appreciated this analogy. i dont know from where this nice analogy came to my mind, and am writing this here because i think this can nicely solve the same query of any other fellow too.

a botch that i could have caused because of T9 predictive text messaging

i am an avid user of T9 predictive text messaging. i find the concept simply fabulous. some days back i was thinking about it, when i concluded some things about it. essentially, T9 is a function with one to many mapping, with an added condition such that for every element in the domain, the corresponding element or elements in the range are arranged in a fixed order. and this order is preset worldwide, based on analysis of frequency of usage of words in messages.

one thing that we can control while designing a system like T9 is the order in which different words with same combination appear for that key combination presses, but something we cannot change (fundamentally) is the unique key combination for a word (the key combinations are elements of domain set, while words are elements of range set). and it is because of this limitation (and by sheer coincidence too) that there are certain key combinations which result in mutually-conflicting words, and here lies the potential for problem.

what happened with me was that i got a message "what did you do about sony ericsson k750i?". what my friend was asking was whether i selected the phone or i rejected it (i was in the process of finding a suitable new phone for purchase). since i was in a hurry that time, i quickly hit the reply button and pressed keys in this order 7--> 3 --> 5 --> 3 --> 2 --> 8--> 3 --> 3. the word by default that comes for this combination is 'selected'. in reality i intended to write 'rejected', which, incidentally (and unfortunately) has same key combination as 'selected'. i had almost hit the send button when my finger spontaneously went numb (maybe my reaction time has lowered down) and the message did not get sent. i pressed the 'next word' key and then sent it. considering the situation, its certainly not a big deal even if i had sent 'selected' instead of 'rejected', since neither it mattered, nor it was non-amendable. yet it surprised me so much that here i am writing a blog about it. and i almost murmured to myself "oh my! what a coincidence!".

i believe such 'delicate' key combinations need to be found out by brute force coupled with dictionary lookup of valid words (so as to reject invalid words coming out of brute force) (with included logic to group words with similar key combination) and coupled with manual inspection to detect potential conflicts. conversly, a dictionary with all valid words coupled with a valid-word-to-T9-key-combination mapping program (again, with included logic to group words with similar key combination) and coupled with manual inspection too can serve this purpose. and for whichever key combinations there is potential of troublesome meaning, when a user forgets to change word for a key combination, there the phone should highlight the potentially-troublesome word(s) on the display as a reminder to user to have a re-look and make sure he has chosen the right word(s).

i really believe this should be done. not a necessity, but certainly a nice addition, and sometimes helpful too. especially when my beloved T9 can covert a casual sounding "hey i heard you have got many movies" to an inflammatory "hey i heard you have got many mother". creativity with such combinations has no end ;-)

a puzzle about minimum number of weights required, and how i by chance found its solution

it was a very boring class going on, and so my friend sitting next to me on the desk gave me a puzzle. what minimum number of weights does one need to be able to make measurements upto 100 kg [assuming a least count of 1 kg], and tell those weights too. i have heard/read this problem before, but i had not read or thought about its solution.

my strategy, which i by chance got somehow, was this.

-to measure any weight, we need to build it up
-to build up a weight, there are 3 methods

1. a direct weight of its measurement. example to measure 2 kg, we have a weight that weighs 2 kg
2. additive weight- i.e. a weight produced by adding 2 or more available direct weights. example to measure 2 kg, i add 2 available 1 kg weights
3. subtractive weight- i.e. a weight produced by subtracting 2 [or more- in some combinations] available direct weights. example to produce 2 kg, subtract 3 from 5.

having formed this strategy, the simple task was now to implement it on the whole length of integers from 1 to 100.

here's the digest

-for 1 kg- 1st option is mandatory, unless we want to deliberately use a less efficient combination. hence 1 kg weight is mandatory

-for 2 kg, although all 3 methods can be used, subtractive approach looks like the most efficient, since for subtraction we would necessarily have to have a highest possible weight [from which an already present direct weight- 1 kg in this case- would be subtracted]. not only would this highest weight itself serve us till its own magnitude, but by adding it to already available weight rather than subtracting that from it, we would be able to achieve higher weights. a simple way to calculate the magnitude of this subtractive weight is to add the sum total of already available weights to the value we want to form. example 1 kg is available as direct weight. we want to form 2 kg value. so add 1 [already available] to 2 [value we want to form] and thus we need 3 kg weight. with 1 and 3, not only can we form 2 by subtraction, but we can also form 4 by addition. had we chosen to have 2 kg direct weight so as to be able to form 3 kg by addition, we would not have been able to form 4 kg, and also there would have been a redundant combination- subtracting 1 from 2 to achieve 1- which we already have in form of 1 kg direct weight. with 1 and 3 there is no redundant combination. and hence it is most efficient. so far till 4 kg.

-for 5, again we need to add 1+3+5= 9. we can achieve 5,6,7,8,9,10,11.....13 with this

-14- add 1+3+9+14= 27. values up to 40 possible.

-41- we need 81 as per above algorithm.

-with 81 available, we can calculate any value till 121. so there are 21 redundant values here.

i will someday try to find out a way to calculate precisely till 100, and not till 121, since any unnecessarily heavy weight will cause unnecessary cost increase- since metal is obviously used in creating these weights. anyways, i am happy that a nice strategy by chance came to my mind the moment he put his puzzle.

how i think one can cool a room in a college's hostel with no cooler or air conditioner

its getting hotter in india, and especially here in delhi. i am on the 3rd floor of my hostel, and naturally its hotter here than it would be at the ground floor.

my room is approximately 6 meter x 6 meter x 8 meter [l x b/w x h]. only a ceiling fan on top and a fluorescent tube light. the ambient temperature here should be about 34 degree celsius [i have no thermometer with me here, but to find out the ambient temperature, i put my laptop to standby mode, and then after 2 hours- to give it time to cool to ambient temperature- i resumed it from standby mode. immediately i checked the hard disk temperature in hddlife program, which showed me 35 degree celsius. i compensated for slight increase in temperature during resuming by 1 degree, and so 34 should be a very accurate calculation. here in india we call such a method an intelligent jugaad :-)].

anyways, this is uncomfortable. my friend too cribbed about it, and i suggested him something that came to my mind all of a sudden. why not fill a bucket with cold water [from the water cooler in my hostel]. the water's temperature should be at most 13-14 degrees celsius, and thus there is a good difference of about 20 degrees between water and room air.

put this big bucket in room, and let its water absorb heat. water has high specific heat, and according to newton's law of cooling, the temperature difference will ensure rapid heat absorption. i dont know whether this method will indeed be effective in making the room temperature just comfortable, or less uncomfortable at least. i think it should work, after all whatever heat is absorbed by water, its obviously reducing temperature of room. but any reduction in room temperature will also cause heat from outside room to flow in. nevertheless, there should be some benefit of this no-cost method.

if it doesnt work satisfactorily, i simply gonna take that bucket, turn it around over my head and drench myself with cold water to mar the heat.