I don't have it on hand at the moment, but I think I saw something about how the victims of those lawsuits didn't actually end up paying. Might have been related to bankruptcy, and certain things being non-enforceable. Basically the RIAA cottoned on to it not being worth their time and money to ruin their public image for little to no return.
Edit: Still can't find it, but did find this EFF article covering a bunch of people who apparently settled for some amount. Haven't followed up on the people who took things to court yet.
https://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-five-years-later
Edit 1: I think it might have just been a high-profile case or two that escaped paying, it seems there were oodles of people who did pay based on the EFF article.
I love engineering paper too! My weapon of choice is this pad: https://www.rspaperproducts.com/products/95182/ I have not tried the Tops yet, I think because I saw somewhere it was thinner? I like the slightly thicker paper the buff pads come with, and it plays nice with my fountain pens.
> When I press F12, does an inspector open? Where does it open? When I select some words, how do I send them to a new tab in YouTube, Amazon, Google or Stack Overflow? How do I open all the links which are within a selected rectangle in new background tabs? Or use uBlock Origin's element picker?
What did you think of the demos? The sorts of things you mentioned seem like things doable in NYXT based on the demos, possibly even the exact sort of stuff they are trying to make possible. It looks like it's basically Common Lisp with a web browser attached, which suggests it should be fairly moldable too. I have not seriously used it myself though, so I can't say for sure what the limits are.
The one thing holding me back from this is not being able to run UBlock origin on it yet. I keep telling myself that eventually I'll have the spare time to change that myself....
so much this.. probably once a year I remember that nyxt would be really cool to use, but then I see it still doesn't support adblock on youtube and thus forget it again.
-Ebay, occasionally, if the seller is trusted and known by your corner of the electronics community.
There are several mailing lists where you can get equipment and parts as well over on groups.io.
- test-equipment-buy-sell-exchange
- tekscopes
- hp-agilent-keysight-equipment
and other sources that I'm not remembering off the top of my head. Check out the EEVBlog forums, they probably have a list somewhere, or can tell you where they shop. Same with the various mailing lists. If they don't have it, they might be able to point you towards who does.
> It's possible to become very good at doing things the wrong way, then belatedly realise that progress has been unintentionally stunted.
And sometimes when that happens, I've seen people say "I'll just stick with this way, since I think my skills would dip too much for too long while re-learning this technique the 'right' way."
Like a sibling comment mentioned, I was considering that newspapers got non-trivial amounts of funding from ads. Classifieds in particular, if I remember correctly. If that's still not satisfactory, then just consider the case of free papers & magazines.
How? Buying the newspaper pays the people printing the newspaper and making the paper. Whereas not a cent from paying for internet service goes to third party websites like YouTube.
It's like saying stealing from stores is okay because paying taxes for the upkeep of roads is equivalent to paying for the stores.
Physical newspapers lost money on printing and distribution. Subscription fees and purchase price did not cover the cost of printing and distributing that bundle of paper. The vast majority of their income was from ads. So your argument is really even worse with that in mind - physical newspapers were more dependent on ads than internet websites. And even with that in mind, I don't think anyone would say having a robot cutting out newspaper ads to be stealing.
It's not really a poor argument. This was the understanding of how the internet worked before we decided to use the internet to replace TV. There was never a guarantee of payment to anyone running a public web server.
But I think you've highlighted exactly why net neutrality is terrible in practice (people effectively stealing bandwidth by blocking ads).
> Sometimes musicians use dispersing devices mounted on the speakers, like "beam blockers".
Beam blockers seem to be the most common thing employed, though to my knowledge a much more effective measure is a "Mitchell donut". Basically, a soft foam disc with a soup can diameter hole cut in the center. The disc is sized to completely obstruct the speaker when mounted in front of it on the grill(cloth). With properly chosen foam of the right thickness, frequencies above about 1khz will be attenuated except when traveling through the center hole, meaning they'll behave more like they're coming from a point source and the constructive interference that causes the beam will be much reduced. Equalization may need adjusting since some highs are lost, and because if the player adjusted initially for on-axis sound they are now hearing the off-axis sound.
From a stroll through the audio cyclopedia, I think "mitchell donuts" are more properly called "acoustic lenses". A key difference between them and most beam blockers I see is that the blockers assume high frequencies come from the center of the speaker (cause that's where the beam is, and when close micing that's usually where you get the most treble), whereas donuts/lenses assume the entire speaker emits the highs, and that it is their constructive interference that causes both the beam and the trebliness of close micing a speaker on axis. I have not fully verified all the physics yet, but so far my understanding is that this later explanation is correct, at least in the context of guitar frequency ranges.
The consequence of that is that beam blockers usually/likely add a comb filtering effect from what I've read, and will still develop some beaminess in the far field despite removing it in the near field. The donuts/lenses should be effective in both the near and far fields. Anecdotally, my experience confirms the donut behavior. A previously painful-on-axis 4x12 was almost completely evened out by the addition of donuts.
If anyone has good pointers for honest to goodness physics books on speaker drivers and speaker cabinets, it would be much appreciated.
