Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On 3/13/25 1:31 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2025-03-13, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
 

    Most humans don't do dB ... don't intuitively get
    the scale. You SELL stereo gear using WATTS, even
    if the system is inefficient. Love those ads for
    1000+ watt class-d amps for cars. They DO make
    the whole car body buzz, can hear it for a mile,
    but 'fidelity' ... umm ... young folk don't care.

 Hey, the car body is buzzing.  What more do you want?
 As for watts, marketroids love inflating those numbers.
Good old RMS watts don't sound nearly as impressive as
peak power (twice as many "watts").  And then there are
all sorts of other fabricated numbers, up to 8 or 10 times
the RMS power.

   Ya know ... I used to be kinda 'outraged' by how
   advertisers warped reality.
   But NOW, I'm kinda fascinated.
   Find a 1950s book - "The Technological Society"
   by Jacques Ellul. By "tech" he didn't really mean
   computers and such. 'Technique' mostly referred
   to detailed scientific investigations in the 40s/50s
   about how humans thought/decided, mostly sponsored
   by biz interests (mostly). Amazon still sells it :
https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394703901/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1345802804092734&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.g2w5n3qWUvmau99HIZJjJ_2HuuGyIFaKcpKQQsE3Wyjw5Ol_BvztY-h6ErEoqETkNTKqH1Q20LwNpgRiiz7rcJjR5t_jrDgDQnXQ8EhxX0PYofoW3vunWgT0ktIcAviV5Vh76Sv2wvUITFvOkVQrNZPckXj0VcEz9I-wccABuAEjjdXXDN_oSKDyejta1KfNclMGPxEM1afKF4MbeieDw7F4wQXzS1KjzIoWIDu2Y7M.GkCsQCTJo1s9DGbwEjd1JF_ekxnfXecnY2mzY1pVyZM&dib_tag=se&hvadid=84112913820532&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=71593&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=p&hvtargid=kwd-84113035273301%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=8267_13501948&keywords=technological+society+ellul&mcid=1ae4528eff0a3399abf6f19b6fe144e2&msclkid=04b8e4c235911c79afcf8310488a8336&qid=1741847839&sr=8-1
   (note the French->English can be a bit difficult
   sometimes)
   That era was maybe the first time SERIOUS effort was
   put into qualifying/quantitizing how to bullshit humans.
   And they mostly got it right.
   GOT my old copy of the book. Kinda re-read bits of it
   from time to time.