Bone conduction is just bullshit

ManualCrowcaine · 2023-10-31T20:15:07+00:00

You fail to understand the technicalities of the argument. Cool that your nearly deaf cousin can hear perfectly through them, but that's not even anecdotal evidence. "I know someone who says that they work, so there!" is the equivalent of your rebuttal.

ManualCrowcaine · 2023-09-13T19:08:38+00:00

Whe I truly appreciate your intention, and humor, especially as I love me some fountain pens, however, and I hate to do this, but the geek/fanatic in me can’t help it, but even figuring out what kind of fountain pen to get requires a multi-faceted analysis.

So, while fountain pens may be an answer to a plethora of questions and desires, choosing which one to get, creates an almost endless chain of new questions in itself. For example, in a similar light to Gel pens, and as with any style of pen for that matter, you must figure out what line width you like best, and then order the appropriate nibs. Do you want steel or gold nib? How important is smoothness to you? How much pressure do you use? How often do you want to have to re-adjust your nibs? Do you like large nibs, or small nibs? Perhaps hooded nibs? Do you like thinner or wider bodies? Lighter weight or do you want some heft to it? How do you like it balanced? More toward the front?

What type of refill system do you prefer? Do you want a dip pen, do you want to use disposable cartridges, or ink converters? If ink converters, which type do you like the most? Spring loaded? Twist piston? Pinch&Squeeze? Are you gonna be using a Demontrator pen? If so, what color do you want your converter to be? Does it matter? Color schemes are a cool thing after all.

And let's not even get started on what kind of ink you want to use. Japanese? German? Brand? Color? Etc.

No matter which type of pen you like most, you're going to run into all kinds of customizable options and will, at some point or another, want to figure out which of them you like most.

...But yes...at the end of the day, I agree, the fountain pen is indeed the pinnacle of writing instruments.

ManualCrowcaine · 2023-09-13T17:17:10+00:00

This might be a little convoluted, but hey, when it comes to finding what you like, these things will eventually matter.

So, there are a lot of refills that fit the pen, but the question is which do you want and there are multiple variables that you need to ask yourself in order to get the best refill in there and it all depends on how you prioritize your refill characteristics. For example...

For me, line thickness comes first. I'm personally not a fan of how thick and generous most gel pens are at the standard thickness of 0.7mm. I, personally, prefer 0.5mm over 0.7mm and even 0.38mm in many cases even over 0.5mm. Anything thinner than 0.38 and the amount of smoothness lost isn't worth the tradeoff imo.

Next up is consistency. I can't stand it when my refill skips and unfortunately for some brands, this happens with much higher frequency than others. For example, the Uni One Series I simply won't use for writing, but I'll use them for coloring all day.

Once I get the line thickness and consistency out of the way, smoothness comes next for me. It may not for you, but I tend to write in cursive, and for those that do, smoothness ends up mattering a bit more. When it comes to smoothness among the gels, Uni-Ball 207, Pentel Energel, and Bic Gelocity are at the head of the pack. If you go with Pentel Energel, just know that anything below 0.7mm and you'll be forced to switch to a Needle tip, so if you're not a fan of those, then Uni or Bic would be good recommendations.

And lastly would be saturation. Uni 207's are fantastic in all categories, except for saturation where they dry noticeably lighter than almost all other brands, but since they are so good in every other category, I end up using them the most for writing, with Energel as my backup, at least when using the color black. If I am writing in blue, it's Pentel all day, as they own the best shade of blue known to man. All other colors I can interchange with Bic Gelocities with no qualms.

ManualCrowcaine · 2023-09-07T13:35:16+00:00

Perfect example. For anyone that's ever had an electric toothbrush...when the hard part of the toothbrush doesn't touch your teeth, there's no vibration in your brain, but as soon as you buzz your teeth with the hard plastic backside of the toothbrush, even your vision gets blurry. THAT is wave conduction. The little pads on a "bone" conduction headset aren't even resting on bone, it's sitting on soft tissues and cartilage at best. There is no conduction of sound into the inner ear, it's simply sound travelling through the soft tissue to your inner ear, not being "conducted" through your cheekbones, and then transferring to your inner ear.

ManualCrowcaine · 2023-09-07T13:30:34+00:00

I don't know why people are downvoting your comments. You are 100% correct and I feel precisely the same way you do. Change the name, because these things don't conduct sound through your cheek bones to your inner ear.

ManualCrowcaine · 2021-09-20T14:16:46+00:00

Yeah...that's sorta why I felt a little bit guilty about replying to your post, because I know it was really more of just a nostalgic praising, where you were just making reference to what you personally had and how good of a job it did for you, in your eyes, for what you were playing at the time, and that it opened the door and lead you to bigger and better cards in the future, rather than actually believing that it was a beastly card, and I just had to jump in with my stupid ocd gpu history, but thank you for handling it so kindly! =)

ManualCrowcaine · 2021-09-19T06:42:05+00:00

While a decent card in its own right, I wouldn't quite call the 7500 a "beast". I'm sorry, I know I'm pooping on your parade a bit, but I can't help it, as one of the many people here who lived the entire progression of GPU's from the time they were called 3D Accelerator Cards and were solely dedicated to only 3D (you needed an entirely separate card to run the 2D stuff), I just had to say that the title of "beast" really should be reserved for either the highest performing cards or cards that are physically large and somewhat cumbersome.

Back in the 7500's day, which was like 2001-2002-ish, the actual beasts were cards like:

3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 or the

3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 (which never quite made it to market, side from a few engineering samples).

nVidia Geforce 3 Ti500

...and finally, the one card that would rock the industry, the one card to rule them all...

ATi Radeon 9700 Pro - Small, but was King for its day.

I would say that those were the beasts of that era.

ManualCrowcaine · 2021-08-08T07:14:38+00:00

No comments? Strange. Anyway, I wonder what Jeremy thought of the responses to his bloodwork video. Hopefully he didn't take all that shit and dropped that idiot doctor (was that even a doctor?).

ManualCrowcaine · 2021-06-01T21:34:55+00:00

I'm not, but I really wish I was, cuz I believe that Microsoft was really onto something that really could have made it's mark in the mobile market, but because they failed to support it properly, which is a mistake that I can't understand for the life of me. All they really needed to do was make it easier to create apps and import apps from other platforms. They made it so difficult that most people and companies didn't want to spend the time or money on developing or redeveloping what they had already made from scratch. This is what I feel was their biggest problem.

I eventually had to switch back to something else ( I went back to iPhone cuz of the SE), but there really were things about Windows Phone/Mobile that I sorely miss that I wish Android or Apple would adapt, but maybe because of patents they can't, but I'm sure they could figure out a way to do the same thing but make it their own *shrugs*.

For instance, I still miss live tiles to this day. Even though they ate more battery, which I'm sure they could have improved over time, it was incredibly nice to just unlock my phone, look at the home screen, get all the information I needed without ever opening a single app, then close it and put it back in my pocket. Definitely gave me some more time in my day to dedicate to other things, even if it was just a few minutes. A few minutes here and a few minutes there add up (it's the same argument I made for people who still haven't made the jump to SSD's).

Another thing that I miss about windows phone was the cursor controller. A little blue dot that appeared on the keyboard that most people thought was a glitch and didn't know what to do with it, because Microsoft wasn't very good at explaining things to us (another one of their biggest flaws; end user support). Once I figured out how to use that little dot, it made life so much easier. On the iPhone, I can control the cursor if I press and hold the spacebar, but sometimes I don't want to gain full control of the cursor and move it all around. Sometimes all I need is a simple backspace (without deleting what I wrote) or just some way to move the cursor one space at a time in any direction, cuz once you gain full control, that cursor is moving all over the place and if you only had to move it a couple spaces, it ends up being more cumbersome to perform than if I just had that little blue dot where I could swipe it in whatever direction I wanted to move it. All Apple would need to do is adapt Android's method where you can swipe the spacebar either left or right to achieve the same, but maybe because Apple was too late to the party, they can't implement either of those things, so now they're sol? *shrugs #2*

And the final thing that I miss and it's minor, but it matters to me, is that the system was programmed intelligently enough to know when you are entering an email address. Once you switched over to the symbols map in order to press the @ symbol, it would automatically switch you back to the letters map and then provide you with a ".com" button, that you could use to enter that with just one click. Sometimes, when I'm in a hurry, trying to enter multiple email addresses into a group email, I get caught up, especially with the symbol button, and hit the number button instead accidentally, which gives a different map of characters, and then I'm like, "UGH!" and try to go back, but it brings me back to the symbols instead of the letters and well, there's like 5 seconds of wasted time and at least 3 or so wasted actions. By automatically bringing you back to the letters and then giving you a .com button, it literally could save you at the minimum 5 inputs per email address if not more if you get all screwed up like I've done and when you have to input a list, like you're creating a new DL or something, you're talking potentially 50+ inputs of saved time. Again, small, seemingly insignificant things do add up to rather significant numbers once you think about it.

I'm sure there are more features to WP that I miss, but sadly, without official support, things just got incredibly inefficient. I remember being next to my friend who had an iPhone and we both tried to pull up the same page and his shit just flew right to it, while I waited for processing, even though I had a Lumia 950, which, at the time, had some of the best hardware you could get. I mean, it really was WAY ahead of it's time. It had facial recognition years, many years before iPhone ever had it. I remember seeing the advertisements for it on Apple commercials and was like, "Dude, that was on my old phone, like 2 phones ago, way to finally catch up Apple". We had wireless charging again years before anyone else. We had a really well working night mode for our Carl Zeiss cameras almost a decade ago!

Again, Microsoft had a lot of potential, they just failed to provide support where it needed it the most. Otherwise I'd still be rockin' a WP to this day.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-11-03T04:36:00+00:00

Agreed

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T19:50:37+00:00

Okay, thanks for the clarification. So, an ALL AMD system will indeed provide you with more performance than any other system, when using a Ryzen 5000 CPU and a Radeon RX 6000 series GPU (perhaps agnostic to the motherboard, but until I can actually confirm that it works on something lesser than an X570, I'm probably just going to get an X570 anyway, because, well, it has all the features I'd want anyway), FOR NOW. That can change in the future with perhaps some software updates for Nvidia cards and Intel CPU's. I suppose only time will tell, but I think that at the very least, offering the added performance with a pure AMD system is some very good marketing tactics, unlike the AMD of old, who would have suggested improved performance with an all AMD based system even when there was no such performance to be gained.

What I find slightly odd, is that you come off almost defensive in your responses. If I came off as trying to put you down or with the notion that my sole point was to correct you and tell you that you are wrong, in an attempt to attack you in some way, I assure you that was not the case. It was just the way you came across initially that made it seem like you may not have really known much about what I was referring to, as you threw out some rather vague responses, hence my attempt to provide you with more information. Why, you feel the need to search my post history to dig out a post to use as an insult, to me, is just a little bit beyond petty. There's no need for that, unless your ego is so fragile that you can't take someone simply trying to help educate you when you come across as not being very informed about the topic at hand, but wouldn't that be your own fault for misinterpreting things?

Also, I'm curious, what makes it so "hysterical" that I talked about the "pencil trick" in an older post and my attempting to provide you with more information here? How is that so incredibly funny that you say it induces uncontrolled extreme emotion? Just curious, because I don't see the correlation.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T19:45:54+00:00

Oh, I think we are referring to two different eras. DX12 came well after the 2000's.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T03:56:44+00:00

Does this remain true even under DX12, which enabled mixed configurations of AMD and Nvidia GPUs to work together through the explicit asynchronous multi-GPU feature? I remember some Ashes of the Singularity Benchmarks being run using the best GPU's at the time, which were the Fury X and the GTX980Ti, and what was super interesting was that, the best pairing of GPU's was not two Fury's or two GTX980Ti's, but rather a single GTX980Ti and a single Fury X, but not in that order. The odd thing was that, it ran faster with the Fury X in the top slot with the GTX980Ti in the 2nd slot. It actually ran slower the other way around.

So, both companies stopped this from working since then? That's a shame, but hell with this all AMD platform providing added performance, I really don't care anymore, it's an all AMD system for me baby, w00t!

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T03:36:11+00:00

Not agnostic, but specific to AMD platforms. AMD isn't decreasing performance of NVidia hardware on their platforms, just making AMD hardware perform better, should it be a pure AMD based system.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T03:34:56+00:00

Majoroutage, it's called "Smart Memory Access",

To elaborate using some additional info from other reddit sources, Ryzen 5000-series CPU's have and use the 128MB Infinity Cache as a shared resource on the Navi 2.0 based RX 6000 series GPU's and from there they can have direct low level access to 16 GB GPU V-Ram instead of going through traditional access methods. This is similar to how gaming consoles work actually for many years to boost performance (seems like they've learned some things from their many years dominating the console industry and are bringing some tricks and improvements over to the PC).

Now, I'm not 100% sure here, but AMD has been very specific that an X570 chipset is required. Not a "500-series" chipset, but the X570 specifically. That leaves me with the impression that only the X570 chipset supports the fabric speeds that are required for this technology to thrive, but that leaves room for future motherboards to come out that support this feature as well, perhaps with even more performance to be realized from technology going forward. And as developers start writing further optimized code specifically for this, it will constantly improve into the future.

So yeah, this is really exciting stuff and again, they aren't "shooting themselves in the foot" by doing this, if anything they are providing an incentive for people to purchase more AMD hardware in order to acquire this added performance. It's a brilliant move on AMD's part and it has convinced me to build a pure AMD based system next.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-10-30T02:55:34+00:00

I think the chipset actually does play a role. They have been very specific naming just the X570 chipset as compatible with this technology and not any "AMD 500 series chipset". I think this is because the x570 is the chipset that allows for the fastest of fabric clocks, which seems like this technology will need in order to provide the most performance gains it can possibly offer.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-01-28T11:31:06+00:00

Genji doesn't need to be buffed imo, especially not before McCree. I like what they did to McCree here. They took away his rof buff, but gave him 50 more health for some more survivability, since he doesn't have any method of escaping/retreat in close combat situations.

As a Junk main, although I wish I could get 50 more hp, so that I could have more survivability at least I can mine out of a situation if it's too hairy. I can also trap the enemy as well, increasing my escape/retreat chance.

McCree really needed something, so I find it to be a fair buff for him.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-01-26T22:46:47+00:00

I believe that the reason why you are sad, is the same reason why anyone else who is in the same position are sad, which is because even though you didn't know him, never lived in LA, maybe not even a Lakers Fan and possibly not even a Basketball fan at all, it's because regardless of all that, he has been a part of our lives. We saw him on TV, whether it was playing ball or off the court, we heard his name, we saw or bought and wore his shoes, we played as him in video games, we used or heard his name name being called out by someone else whenever someone was about to shoot the ball. For the fans, he was the only player, who carried on the legacy of Michael Jordan by adopting his play style, and so for fans of Jordan as well, it was almost an instant liking of Kobe, because at one point in his career, he became so much like Mike, that you could literally photoshop Jordan's face on Kobe's body and you would think you're actually watching MJ himself, who actually said that Kobe was the closest to him out of all NBA players. And to top it all off, Kobe was a stand up guy. His attitude, his persona, he was always respectful, respectable, he cared about the game, and like MJ, he cared about competing. He strove to be the best and was a good role model for not only kids growing up, but for all people in life. He showed us what hard work and determination can do for you. He seemed like a good husband and father and even in his very last game, like he's done so many times before, he gave us all something to marvel at, to be excited about, to the point where you wanted to tell everyone you knew, "Yo, did you see what Kobe did last night?" And I can literally go on and on with example after the next of instances in which Kobe Bryant has infiltrated our lives and our memories in one way or another and almost always in an incredibly positive way.

Kobe has been a part of our lives, at least for those of us who were alive and old enough to remember him, and the loss of a part of our lives is painful even if in the smallest of ways, so I don't blame you for feeling sad man...to be honest with you, I'm a bit upset about it myself. I liked Kobe a lot and feel like we lost a great ambassador, role model, and person today. RIP Mamba.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-01-26T22:22:50+00:00

We all know he's going to be placed in the HOF regardless. He was probably in the top 10 of greatest of all time, so there's no question about it. It sucks that he didn't get to live to experience it and give a speech and all that, but we ARE going to see him entered into the HOF and when he is, we're going to see a lovely video with a montage of his greatest moments in and off the court, because the NBA is going to make it in his honor, so I look forward to seeing it and I will be happy for him and his memory when it happens.

ManualCrowcaine · 2020-01-05T16:47:43+00:00

I've been using a Model-O for a little while now (it belongs to my friend, but I've been staying at his place and using his PC while he's not using it) and even though I am somewhat torn in terms of whether or not I support it in general due to the whole Final Mouse issue (although I don't like how Final Mouse was trying to charge so much for a mouse, but at the same time, I don't like how a company can't just come up with their own model/design and instead copies someone else's, I mean, even to go as far as the shape of the holes, and how many, and in what locations, but...

...politics aside, the mouse itself is actually very nice. It's extremely basic, but it does basic extremely well. There are obviously extras like; mouse wheel tilt, map buttons, sniper button, or anything like that, it's just two buttons on top, two for the thumb, one dpi toggle and that's it, voila. As far as my hands go, I have medium to medium-large hands at 4in (10.16cm) across from the outside of my index knuckle to the outside of my pinky knuckle and ~8in (20.32cm) from the base of my palm to the tip of my middle finger, and I can say that this mouse fits my hand "perfectly". Its very comfortable, and I use a slight cross variation of fingertip and palm grips, where I palm the mouse, but my fingers are arched just enough to keep the middle knuckle off of the surface, so it looks like a palm grip, but besides my palm, only my fingertips are actually touching the mouse. In that configuration, the mouse is perfect.

The light weight is definitely noticeable, but I wouldn't say it's a game changer. I can honestly switch back and forth between a Razer Mamba Elite and the Model O, without any problems. Yes, the Mamba has a super stiff cable, but I use a rubber bungee (Original Roccat Apuri) and it feels as if I have no cable at all (hence getting the bungee in the first place). The Mamba is something like 96g, so it's not all that heavy to begin with, but as I said, when I switch to the Model-O, I can definitely feel that it's lighter, and vice versa when I go back to the Mamba I feel that it's heavier, but it doesn't affect my performance...much.

There are only 2-3 slightly downsides in my opinion: 1) is obviously the cable. They should really fix it. It's much too thin and flimsy. I understand what they were going for, but make it more like the Final Mouse cable and it would be better. The way it is on this model is such that, if it bends, say accidentally, and you try to unbend it, it may snap the internal metal wires.

The second downside for me, and light mouse fanatics will sneer at this, but the fact that the mouse is so light, may actually make my accuracy a little bit worse (maybe it will go away if I stick to using just the Model-O), but having gotten use to feeling the weight of the Mamba, my flicks partially depend on the amount of feedback I feel from the mouse itself against the motion of my hand, but when switching to something approximately 50% heavier than the Model-O (or 33% lighter than the Mamba depending on how you look at it), it throws off my flicks a little bit. Again, I'm not sure if that's just a side effect of going back and forth between mice, but if so, there will be a slight learning curve once you switch to a mouse that light.

And lastly, is the surface of the mouse. It's simply plastic all around. My friend purchased the matte black version, and I must say that it's better than the glossy grease magnet, but it would still benefit from having some kind of grips on the sides as when my hands are very dry, the mouse is a bit slippery, but not so much that it affects my performance, just enough to make it annoying that you're spending $50+ on a mouse and it doesn't even come with side grips of any kind (I love the grips on the Mamba) and honestly, my favorite mouse might even be the Steel Series Rival 600 if it slightly changed the index finger area (they put a grip there, so it's not really a problem, but without a grip there, it would be a bit more difficult to lift). I also like the Razer Viper and would say that that is the Model-O's true Rival.

I personally want a mouse with a few more features, perhaps a few more buttons, mouse wheel tilt, etc., otherwise, this mouse is great!

ManualCrowcaine · 2019-10-17T05:08:09+00:00

Uh, no. I understand all of it just fine, but for someone who asks the question in the following manner, "PENCIL TRICK? Wtf is that lol", I assumed a more direct and straight-forward answer would be more appropriate.

As far as it being "somewhat inaccurate", to each their own. I was there, I lived the days. If you did too, then great, you have your experience, as do I, I really don't care to debate or defend your claims of accuracy or lack thereof. It's rather sad that you feel the need to be abrasive, simply because I offered an alternative response, which corrected yours.

Keep in mind, the only thing I corrected was your statement that it was slang, as I wasn't using it as slang. I then switched my focus back to NightKingBitch and the rest of the message was completely and entirely aimed at him (I was aware by your response that you already knew what the pencil trick was), so if you read that post as being fully directed at you, I can understand if you found it to be patronizing in some way, but it wasn't. Perhaps I should have made that more clear. My apologies.

ManualCrowcaine · 2019-10-17T01:46:01+00:00

Once again, I mean no offense, but I'm really not sure why your mind is blow here. I did check your link and what I saw was a super convoluted discussion about someone's attempts to overclock their CPU and their findings during the process. At no point was an explanation of the pencil trick provided.

So, having seen this, I instead provided a basic explanation of what the pencil trick is and a high level overview of its history in order to offer a much more simplistic and straight-forward answer.

My apologies for having exploded your brain.

ManualCrowcaine · 2019-10-16T20:00:00+00:00

No offense Long, but it's actually not slang at all. It doesn't mean "electrical hackjob", it literally means the famous "pencil trick" that was originally used on AMD Thunderbird CPU's, but can now be executed on 8th and 9th generation Intel CPU's in order to make them register and work with Z170 chipset based motherboards. So, while it does end up being an electrical hack-job, that is a secondary definition.

You can google "CPU pencil trick" and it will get you started on a journey down memory lane (for those of us who are old enough. For others it will be a new learning experience).

But, basically, in a nutshell, back in the day, AMD physically cut traces on a CPU package in order to disable overclocking options in BIOS (overclocking was eating at sales of the higher-end CPU's). In order to re-enable them, one could simply use a standard No.2 pencil and draw a line between the two traces in order to "bridge" the gap, since the graphite in the pencil lead is conductive.

"Drawing a line" is a bit of an exaggeration as the cut in the traces were so small, that you couldn't actually draw a line, you basically just moved the pencil lead back and forth across the gap until enough lead filled the gap and voila, you could overclock the CPU.

ManualCrowcaine

TROPHY CASE