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We’ve already lost a tremendous amount of craft over the last 1,000 years. There are almost no craftspeople left in the world who can do the kind of moldings &

We’ve already lost a tremendous amount of craft over the last 1,000 years. There are almost no craftspeople left in the world who can do the kind of moldings & designs you see in renaissance era buildings. Having been a classical musician, what I noticed about getting tuning right is there is a body sensation of lightness/breath that is palpable if you are a classical enthusiast - even if you can’t distinguish the sound you are hearing from an “ideal memory” of what it should sound like. But the largest reduction in auditory tech has already happened - mp3 compression. Uncompressed audio is radically different and richer than low fi digital compression, but almost everything we hear everywhere is coming through streaming services. The rare delights of extreme tech built around the first principles of a discipline like sound/music are achieved by overcoming very difficult and confounding problems. They are technical wonders as much as they are refined experiences. I once worked with a scientist who had permanently solved the issue of mic feedback. Imagine what revolution that would be for AV use cases everywhere! But it required a radical shift in the protocols used to build both mic and speakers, so even though Sony optioned it there’s not a single product you can buy with the tech. Like the Internet, everything is really just a semi-poor adaptation to a semi-poorly design system. Fundamental protocol changes (like ipv4 to ipv6) are brutally hard. We like to believe that modern society is hard-wired for improvement, but it seems mostly hard-wired for minimal change that delivers marginal improvements detectable by the lowest common denominator consumer/user. To me, that makes it all the more extraordinary when genuine protocol level changes - like EV cars - are made reality.

deleted 2y ago
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austin-cheney 2y ago
Just in renaissance? There is virtually nobody left in the workforce that can write JavaScript. Most of the old timers have gotten out, and the youngsters are an epic example of the article: the loss of perspective to self-reflect due to a machine (library) that does their jobs for them. Case in point: take React and querySelectors away and watch the sadness unfold like an apocalypse movie. Yes, yes, I know there are still people who can/do write JavaScript... they just are not statistically represented in the workforce.
- heikkilevanto 2y ago
  Great composers were never "statistically represented in the workforce". Just like rock stars today are not. Yet they still exist, and have a positive impact on the life of many people.
- tacocataco 2y ago
  Starsector is written in java and recently had an update. It uses a modified Version of Java 7 IIRC.
JasserInicide 2y ago
To me, that makes it all the more extraordinary when genuine protocol level changes - like EV cars - are made reality. Not how I see them at all. They're just as incremental and actually overall a worse experience. The only "benefit" they have is their acceleration. Everything is touchscreen in the cabin which is demonstrably worse. There's a persistent Internet connection sending all my data to a black hole where it will get used in ways I don't approve of. If I want to fuck off for a weekend somewhere, I need to plan the getaway around places that have recharge ports. And when I do get there, I need to figure out what a "charging network" is, download the correct app for the charging network, fight with the fucking app/charging port to get my payment information where it needs to be and that the charging port recognizes my payment, and finally wait for several hours vs. a 5 minute (max) refueling stop with an ICE. And these are just some of the problems I have with them. The core tech of EVs may be a big game-changer but everything else about the EV experience can fuck off in its current iteration.
natdempk 2y ago
> Uncompressed audio is radically different and richer than low fi digital compression, but almost everything we hear everywhere is coming through streaming services. Out of curiosity, have you blind A/B tested yourself with the various streaming service "high" quality MP3 encodings vs. lossless? (like https://abx.digitalfeed.net/ https://abx.digitalfeed.net/) I agree that there is some difference that you can hear in certain parts of songs listening on high-end equipment/headphones (stuff that is greater quality than >99.9% of the listening population has), but really to me it would be hard to call it radically different. Obviously if you are below 320 MP3s there are more noticeable compromises that do ruin things one you notice.
- J_Shelby_J 2y ago
  You are probably right, but I take OP as metaphorically speaking. Recently I went to a local orchestra performance, and I was absolutely blown away by the sound. It was overwhelming in a way spotify never is. It was like a full body experience. I’ve been to the orchestra before, but it’s been a few years and I just forgot how powerful music can be. Kinda like how most people listen to low quality audio streams, on low quality earbuds/soundbars. Hell, I torrented a video recently because it wasn’t available to buy, and again, was blown away because the quality was so high compared to the streaming I pay for. I think in general, we’re all just becoming used to the mediocre.
  - natdempk 2y ago
    Well, it's important to differentiate what actually matters in cases like this otherwise we just get into a weird luddite place of complaining about things that don't actually matter. Here it is the listening medium and environment where an orchestra hall is a physical building built at a cost many orders of magnitude more expensive than speakers specifically for the experience of listening to live music compared to listening to something on a home speaker or phone. To me It's interesting that you assume Spotify is the problem, whereas its actually the listening medium you are using Spotify through. In the case of audio, you could listen to Spotify recordings on sound systems that will basically blow you away in the same way a live orchestra will, but they cost probably 10's of thousands of dollars. For example at the higher-end of setups people describe it being hard to differentiate between concert recordings and actual concerts, and this should be expected with what we know about audio. I do agree though that quality degradation as a means of meeting cost and false-repackaging of that as higher quality is annoying. Especially in streaming video, things are advertised as 4K, but that ignores bitrate and we have the potential infrastructure to deliver experiences that are way better like streaming the equivalent bitrate of a Bluray, but we've kind of fallen into a place of "good enough" where most people don't know or appreciate what is possible. Audio is kind of similar, but there is maybe more of an argument that cost of listening systems means we're at a happy-medium of cost vs. quality and you can pretty much buy the level of experience you want there.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

austin-cheney 2y ago

Just in renaissance? There is virtually nobody left in the workforce that can write JavaScript. Most of the old timers have gotten out, and the youngsters are an epic example of the article: the loss of perspective to self-reflect due to a machine (library) that does their jobs for them. Case in point: take React and querySelectors away and watch the sadness unfold like an apocalypse movie. Yes, yes, I know there are still people who can/do write JavaScript... they just are not statistically represented in the workforce.

heikkilevanto 2y ago
Great composers were never "statistically represented in the workforce". Just like rock stars today are not. Yet they still exist, and have a positive impact on the life of many people.
tacocataco 2y ago
Starsector is written in java and recently had an update. It uses a modified Version of Java 7 IIRC.

JasserInicide 2y ago

To me, that makes it all the more extraordinary when genuine protocol level changes - like EV cars - are made reality. Not how I see them at all. They're just as incremental and actually overall a worse experience. The only "benefit" they have is their acceleration. Everything is touchscreen in the cabin which is demonstrably worse. There's a persistent Internet connection sending all my data to a black hole where it will get used in ways I don't approve of. If I want to fuck off for a weekend somewhere, I need to plan the getaway around places that have recharge ports. And when I do get there, I need to figure out what a "charging network" is, download the correct app for the charging network, fight with the fucking app/charging port to get my payment information where it needs to be and that the charging port recognizes my payment, and finally wait for several hours vs. a 5 minute (max) refueling stop with an ICE. And these are just some of the problems I have with them. The core tech of EVs may be a big game-changer but everything else about the EV experience can fuck off in its current iteration.

natdempk 2y ago

> Uncompressed audio is radically different and richer than low fi digital compression, but almost everything we hear everywhere is coming through streaming services. Out of curiosity, have you blind A/B tested yourself with the various streaming service "high" quality MP3 encodings vs. lossless? (like https://abx.digitalfeed.net/ https://abx.digitalfeed.net/) I agree that there is some difference that you can hear in certain parts of songs listening on high-end equipment/headphones (stuff that is greater quality than >99.9% of the listening population has), but really to me it would be hard to call it radically different. Obviously if you are below 320 MP3s there are more noticeable compromises that do ruin things one you notice.

J_Shelby_J 2y ago
You are probably right, but I take OP as metaphorically speaking. Recently I went to a local orchestra performance, and I was absolutely blown away by the sound. It was overwhelming in a way spotify never is. It was like a full body experience. I’ve been to the orchestra before, but it’s been a few years and I just forgot how powerful music can be. Kinda like how most people listen to low quality audio streams, on low quality earbuds/soundbars. Hell, I torrented a video recently because it wasn’t available to buy, and again, was blown away because the quality was so high compared to the streaming I pay for. I think in general, we’re all just becoming used to the mediocre.
- natdempk 2y ago
  Well, it's important to differentiate what actually matters in cases like this otherwise we just get into a weird luddite place of complaining about things that don't actually matter. Here it is the listening medium and environment where an orchestra hall is a physical building built at a cost many orders of magnitude more expensive than speakers specifically for the experience of listening to live music compared to listening to something on a home speaker or phone. To me It's interesting that you assume Spotify is the problem, whereas its actually the listening medium you are using Spotify through. In the case of audio, you could listen to Spotify recordings on sound systems that will basically blow you away in the same way a live orchestra will, but they cost probably 10's of thousands of dollars. For example at the higher-end of setups people describe it being hard to differentiate between concert recordings and actual concerts, and this should be expected with what we know about audio. I do agree though that quality degradation as a means of meeting cost and false-repackaging of that as higher quality is annoying. Especially in streaming video, things are advertised as 4K, but that ignores bitrate and we have the potential infrastructure to deliver experiences that are way better like streaming the equivalent bitrate of a Bluray, but we've kind of fallen into a place of "good enough" where most people don't know or appreciate what is possible. Audio is kind of similar, but there is maybe more of an argument that cost of listening systems means we're at a happy-medium of cost vs. quality and you can pretty much buy the level of experience you want there.