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Audio pioneer Ray Dolby passes away
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joezydeco 13y agoLet's also not forget his work on the AMPEX Quadruplex, the first magnetic videotape recorder. He was 19 when he joined the team. http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/theory.html#history http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/theory.html#history
- big_lou 13y agoAt least we still have this Dolby: http://www.thomasdolby.com/ http://www.thomasdolby.com/
- ezequiel-garzon 13y agoRay Dolby has passed on. Off-topic question for the native English speakers: what is the difference you see between passing away and passing on? It's the first time I come across the latter. Sigh... I'll never grok phrasal verbs...
- dasil003 13y agoInteresting question. There may be some nuance I'm not aware of, but to my ears passing away and passing on are largely identical euphemisms for death. If I really were to stretch I'd say passing on sounds a bit more like something applied to a person who was actively engaged in life, whereas passing away sounds a bit more like what might be said of an elderly person who has already somewhat detached from the world even before death, but that's pretty tenuous.
- jcampbell1 13y agoThey mean the same thing, but "passed on" implies a belief in an afterlife.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- cynwoody 13y agoThere is little difference between the two, as it relates to kicking the bucket†. However, using "pass on" may imply passing on to some sort of afterlife, as opposed to simply departing the world. The phrase "pass on" has more meanings. For instance, you can "pass on" an investment opportunity, meaning to decline to make the investment. Also, you can use it transitively, as in transferring something to somebody. †http://www.answers.com/topic/kick-the-bucket http://www.answers.com/topic/kick-the-bucket
- gmac 13y agoYes, 'pass on' is especially tricky, as it depends on context and emphasis. If I say 'I'll PASS on that opportunity' it means I'll decline it; but if I say 'I'll pass ON that opportunity', it means I'll offer it to someone else.
- mynameishere 13y agoThe same, except "pass on" can also refer to dessert.
- rdl 13y agoMaybe one day we can "pass on passing on", too.
- mathieuh 13y agoAs a native English speaker, they are perfectly synonymous for me.
- anigbrowl 13y agoAmericans in general dislike saying people have 'died,' which sounds too final. 'Passed on/away' is a sop to people who believe in the afterlife.
- dctoedt 13y ago> passed away / passed on ... native English speakers Native English speaker here. I've told my wife and kids that my obituary is to say simply that I died, not that I passed away, or passed on, or crossed over, or went to meet my Lord and Savior (a common formulation in the South), or anything like that. (My wife's response: "You won't be here; I'm going to do what I want.")
- saraid216 13y agoEnglish is a language where redundancy is an understatement. Speaking as a fairly competent writer, it's effectively my role as a writer to make up yet more ways to say the same thing hoping for a centimeter more of clarity.
- mpclark 13y agoAs a former newspaper sub editor, I can say there is no difference. Neither should EVER be used. The phrase they are looking for here is "has died". In news reporting it is wrong to beat about the bush, to try to soften the blow or to sugar coat things with meaningless rubbish like "passed away" or "joined the choir invisible". Harrumph.
- contingencies 13y agoOn the meme of concision, I took it upon myself to conduct a whirlwhind survey of death glyphs. 死 < Chinese character for death. http://www.mikons.com/mikon/21531_200.gif http://www.mikons.com/mikon/21531_200.gif < Mayan character for death. http://hieroglyphs.net/0301/images/d/108.gif http://hieroglyphs.net/0301/images/d/108.gif < Apparently the most popular of at least three Egyptian renditions Interestingly from a semantic perspective, according to http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/dict4.htm http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/dict4.htm there exists an alternative rendering in Egyptian which consists of two perpendicularly contrasted pairs of parallel lines, explained as "deceased (true of voice)".
- bostonpete 13y agoTwo months to the day after Amar Bose...
- tareqak 13y agoBBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24075429 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24075429
- triplesec 13y ago2 minutes' (hiss-free) silence. A fine engineer and an example to follow!
- educating 13y agoI have to admit my heart almost stopped when I thought that Thomas Dolby, one of my favorite musicians, had passed away. I caught his tour recently. Really good! Ray Dolby is the Dolby though. Very few in the history of Earth have done so much for a surname. You can't read Dolby and not think quality audio.
- rikacomet 13y agoRIP. Now that I think of it, I can't think of a audio tech brand, except dolby.. its such a common thing. I'm off to google who are dolby's biggest competitors.
- batuhanicoz 13y agoOnly other company I can think of is Bose[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corporation
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- booop 13y agoDTS comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS_(sound_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS_(sound_system)
- yardie 13y agoBose, obviously. But also Mcintosh, Nakamichi, Harman/Kardon, Sennheiser, and Bang Olufsen (Peter Bang was the audiophile in that duo). But Dolby is different in that he didn't actually make any consumer products. Everything was licensed to studios, OEMSs, theaters, etc. His brand was the Microsoft of the consumer audio world.
- vibrolax 13y agoSidney Harman, who died in 2011, gave his name and talents to a golden age consumer/professional audio company. Today Harman International is a holding company for many well-known audio industry brands. I think he is much better known for his financial, philanthropic, and political activities than his technical legacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sidney_Harman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sidney_Harman