I will have to check that out! I also recommend reading pretty much anything by Richard Hamming, who worked closely with Shannon at Bell Labs, "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering" is especially good.
Agreed regarding the audibility of (data-) compressed audio, just put on some classic jazz with trumpets and lots of cymbals and the artifacts are immediately apparent.
Not going to argue with you regarding dynamic compression, but after backing away from the worst excesses of the volume wars by mastering engineers in the mid '00s, things are sounding better to my ears. Dynamic compression can sound good (even in the extreme) if done for artistic effect. Like here's Beck's Ramona where the drums & cymbals have the tar squashed out of them with serious limiting, which to my ears nicely tames the sonics of Joey Waronker's spirited performance, while fitting well dynamically into the rest of the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3yZ9OVjzbE
That said, maybe the engineers responsible for some of the worst dynamic squashing could be pressed into TV/film audio service where in 2026, there are still extreme volume imbalances between on-screen dialogue and everything else (hint the dialogue isn't loud enough and the everything else, especially crashes and explosions, are wayyy too loud).
Sure, compressing individual elements judiciously is a valid and even necessary choice. But the so-called "remastering" that has ruined our whole pop/rock heritage as represented today on streaming services is a heinous, lazy hack job that ruins people's enjoyment of music... even though they can't put their finger on why.
When I was a little kid, I'd ride my bike to the record store and buy my two or three favorite current songs on 45. I noticed that they didn't sound as "fat" as they did on the radio. So I got an equalizer. But that of course wasn't the answer.
Over time I realized that I liked the sound of the records better. They were more fun to turn up loud. Likewise I realized that the oddly-quiet station on my FM dial (WXRT in Chicago) sounded the best. All because it, like the records, was less dynamically compressed than the other stations.
A huge number of people alive today have never heard good-sounding pop music, which is disgraceful. Near-perfect sound reproduction is within everyone's reach now, but the recordings themselves are ruined before we get them.
It's all even more stupid when you consider that compression could have been (and was) done ON THE PLAYBACK DEVICE. My 1996 Ford CD player has a button on it labeled "Compress."
FWIW, my experience doing this process for a ~130 person org last year was pretty painless compared to other Domain Claims I've initiated for other SAAS vendors (Docusign in particular), and MDM nightmares (expired JAMF certificates, I'm looking at you).
We had to do it as ppl had made personal Apple accounts using our domain, meaning if they logged in with such an account and left, their iPhone magically transformed into an expensive, elegant paperweight. Due to a setting in our previous MDM we were unable to migrate data cleanly using Apple Biz Manager without committing to use ABM as our MDM (we couldn't) so we told people to "move it yourself following these detailed instructions, otherwise it can't be migrated." Regarding personal data like health on company-managed devices, I certainly don't share that type of info with my employer, and make it clear to staff that it's not our responsibility to migrate such data.
Can you expand on this, specifically how it compares with jamf? It is a direct competitor to jamf right? Essentially Apple vying to eat their lunch right?
I'm in publicly funded mental health...federal cuts are starting to cause states & counties to either immediately slash what CBOs thought was solid funding for essential services, or to let us/them know to expect significant cuts starting in the next fiscal year.
Great points - a Little Library near me has become more of a dumping ground than it used to be because when they re-did it, they replaced the clear plastic window with a frosted/corrugated plastic (you can't see what's in it without opening the door), and they replaced the hook latch with a chain one that lets rain get in.
Hendrix was a working musician who paid his dues on the chitlin' circuit with artists like The Isley Brothers, Little Richard, Ike & Tina Turner, and Sam Cooke before making it on his own. AFAIK those are pretty high-pressure assignments, and count as real work...
I run IT for a nonprofit and have 120 "real users" doing "real work" on "low-end machines "providing "real mental health, foster care, and social services" to "real communities".
These workers complain about performance on the machines we can afford. 16GB RAM and 256GB SSDs are the standard, as is 500MB/sec. internet for offices with 40 people, and my plans to upgrade RAM this year were axed by the insane AI chip boondoggle.
People on HN need to understand that not everyone works for a well-funded startup, or big tech company that is in the process of destroying democracy and the environment in the name of this quarter's profits!
BTW Teams has moved away from Electron, before it did I had to advise people to use the browser app instead of the desktop for performance reasons.
MINASWAN...
WTFIDHHSAFA???
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