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We need physical audio kill switches

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Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#271

Post by lozf »

frankosaurus wrote: post #129
allenu wrote: post #105

I don't know what I'd do if my iPhone didn't have physical volume buttons. When I watch videos on YouTube now, as soon as an ad starts playing, I just mute it by using the volume button and look away for a few seconds as I can't stand ads (sadly there isn't a dedicated mute button).

Nice, I need to come up with a solution for this on desktop. My dream is a Chrome extension which recognizes Youtube ads and auto-mutes while they are playing.

I open youtube with `mpv` (which uses youtube-dl) ...Ads are automatically skipped, and there's a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for skipping & fine-grained speed control etc.

I have a single-button shell alias that calls it with appropriate options, and a slightly longer one that adds a dynamic range compression filter which is sometimes handy.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#272

Post by Poacher5 »

aareet wrote: post #241
m463 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always wanted a flashlight with a brightness knob, that clicks to off. It is incredibly hard to find this. I have one somewhere, but the knob was a little silly: https://amzn.com/B07BDQS3XX I think a better design would be a ring around the circumference that you twist. But I agree - when it came to putting a good stereo in my car (when you used to be able to do such a thing) I always kept looking until I foun…

Maglite flashlights behave as you describe - you turn the head to turn on/off and change intensity or pattern https://www.amazon.com/s?k=maglite

Unless something's changed since I bought my big maglite, the outer ring only controls the beam pattern, and the button just gives you on and off. Things might have got fancier in the meanwhile, but mine still does what it needs to.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#273

Post by pessimizer »

moe wrote: post #185
MereInterest wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if there is a physical switch, it is not clear what that switch is doing. My bluetooth headset has a hardware on/off switch. However, when the switch is turned off, it plays a sound to say the words "power off". If it were a physical switch across the battery, then I would expect the power to be immediately cut, and it shouldn't have the power to say that the power has been cut.

But then how would you know it's really off!

The way I've been able to learn that devices are off since the early 2000s is that the blindingly bright blue LED light is replaced by a blindingly bright red LED light.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#274

Post by temptemptemp111 »

brandon272 wrote: post #29

I let my spouse, who likes the novelty of a touchscreen, talk me into a Whirlpool oven a couple years ago that is controlled by touchscreen. I had no idea it was possible to hate an oven so much. The only saving grace is that the stovetop elements are still controlled by knobs.

"Spouse" - hahaha, right...

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#275

Post by pessimizer »

skohan wrote: post #133
systemvoltage wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people find novelty of touchscreens appealing. We've got to do a better job of educating consumers. The marketing behind touchscreens is so powerful that it is unanimously considered as a feature, something you must have. I get angry just thinking about the amount of marketing bullshit around touchscreens. Just go to Garmin Aviation website and now a lot of operation in airplane cockpits is off…

Touch controls are only warranted when you need to support a large number of varied interactions which can't be supported by physical controls, or if you have to support arbitrary gesture-based input (like a drawing tablet for example). If that's not the case, physical controls are always better. If you're operating a vehicle, or can't look at the display for any reason, tactile controls are leagues better.

General purpose computing requires generic control systems. If your device knows its purpose, it shouldn't need a touchscreen.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#276

Post by WalterBright »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #254
WalterBright wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody knew what the hell all the icons meant Still can't figure out how to turn on the defroster in a new car. My old truck was simple - turn the knob to "DEFROST". My cat feeder invented all its own icons, trying to get it set up is a nightmare. I keep the instruction manual next to it. I hate Steve Jobs for convincing the world that written words are bad and random cute pictures are cool. Please, bring back "DEL…

Did Steve Jobs really do that? Unless you mean going from a text based CLI to a graphic UI but even those had plenty of words, especially those well thought out. When Jobs had to choose a washing machine for his family, he chose a Miele with plenty of words on it: https://9to5mac.com/2011/03/07/how-steve-jobs-picks-a-washer...

> Did Steve Jobs really do that?

Famously, using a trash can instead of "DELETE".

A Mac evangelist came to my workplace shortly after the Mac was released. His entire presentation was about how icons were far better than words. He asserted the function of the icons was obvious, and so needed no explanation. He passed around a sheet of paper with a bunch of icons on it, and said isn't that right?

This all fell apart when nobody could figure out what the box of Kleenex icon was. He was visibly flustered by this, eventually exclaiming that it meant "PRINT".

This was all made worse by the practice of copyrighting icons so every company invented their same-only-different icons.

But, the Mac won anyway and PRINT and DEFROST became hopelessly uncool, unhip and old-fashioned.

I predict that, like all hieroglyphic writing systems, icons will eventually evolve to have associated sounds with them, then they'll morph into simple pen strokes, then we'll be back to a new phonetic alphabet.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#277

Post by maest »

toxicFork wrote: post #109
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #77

>> "mute buttons on keyboards shouldn’t need to go to software, they should immediately send a signal to the motherboard’s DAC" I don't have a lot of knowledge about this, but audio is often streamed via USB or HDMI or Bluetooth or WLAN to another device, like headphones, an AV receiver, or wireless speakers and then uses the DAC in that device. So the blog posts wish would result in the mute button not doing anythin…

I was working as a video/audio engineer for a bit and for Bluetooth especially the latency is insane. For some devices it was around half a second. I don't think I have seen two seconds though. The main thing was that we would need to stream the audio first, wait for the latency duration, then start showing video frames. If you press pause, the audio would stop after that much time. I haven't checked if some devices…

> I don't think I have seen two seconds though.

The obscenely priced Bose SoundSport (GBP 180) in-ear headphones have around 2 seconds of lag. That is when I press stop and when the music stops, it's around 2 seconds. Same for start and skip.

Even worse, by default, video and audio do not sync up. If you try to watch a youtube video with these headphones connected, your sound will lag by about 1 second. Nothing can be done about it. "The fix" is to use special apps that apply a delay to the video, to obtain a semblance of audio-video sync (no solution for PCs).

Again, you have to pay GBP 180 for this experience.

I received these headphones as a gift, so at least I didn't spend money directly. I still feel bad for the person who gifted me these, complete waste of money.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#278

Post by Reason077 »

RedShift1 wrote: post #203
Symbiote wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rented apartment has switches that presumably use radio to turn on and off the lights. There is no further integration, or smart app etc. I can't see which light switch is on or off, so even after years living here I mix up some of the switches. Sometimes the radio pulse doesn't register, so I have to go back to the switch and press it again. After pressing the switch, there's a perceivable, variable delay for the…

At work we have a few rooms that have 4 buttons organized in what normally is one light switch. Each button controls different parts of the rooms. I call them Heisenbuttons, you never know what they'll do until you've pressed them.

Tried operating them with your eyes closed? Real Heisenbuttons change their behaviour depending on whether or not they're being observed.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#279

Post by downut »

dheera wrote: post #56
mhh__ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking on gas is much more pleasurable than most electric stoves. There's much more "feel" to control the heat

I use an induction stove and it is even more pleasurable than gas in terms of the speed of response of the pot. Response is literally instant because the pot is the source of heat, and not something external. They are also by far the safest since the hottest thing in the entire system is the bottom of the pot, which is usually at about 100-200 C depending on what you're cooking, which is usually not hot enough to sta…

I cook on a 30 yo gas range with all high capacity burners and regular knobs. The response is nonlinear: there's a big jump in flame intensity as you pass through nominal "low" to "medium". In practice I don't look at the knobs at all, I can fine tune the heat by looking directly at the size of the flame. My visual judgement is instantaneous. The results are stellar throughout the range.

When I travel, for instance to cook for the inlaws on holidays, I have to spend time physically correlating how hot each of the burners is for its particular settings. It seems to vary between each individual burner, which are different sizes. The way I correlate is to use my bare fingers to quickly touch the bottom of the pan. Or I lift the pan up and touch the bottom there. This seems suboptimal. When I travel to AirBnBs, induction ranges are all the rage. Same process. I suppose if you're boiling a pot of water, the induction speed is great. If you're making something sensitive like a hollaindaise, lordy what a PITA, in my experience.

I make delicate sauces like hollaindaise reliably and speedily on my nominal 15,000 BTU gas range. I have had the family twiddling fingers more than once waiting on me to get results from an induction burner. Same burner is an outstanding large volume frier.

Now I get that the induction technology is safer, but then I use a big chainsaw with a real chain to cut down trees on my property. Chainsaws are highly dangerous and exceptionally useful. Similarly I raised up a child that learned to cook quite sophisticated things on that big gas range. She was also using very sharp 12" knives from an early age. There can be a deep pleasure in "be here now", paying attention to your tools, using them competently and safely.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#280

Post by evan_ »

yholio wrote: post #251
pbourke wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kinds of switches are perfectly analogous to technical debt. Doing things the right/straightforward way involves costs that we don’t want to pay (holes in the wall/labour to run a new circuit) so we shoehorn a complex hack using some new tech (RF control). The cost savings are moderate and the price paid is amortized over every further use of the system.

A few years down the road, the radio switch transmitter breaks down and is no longer manufactured. The receivers, wires and the mechanical switches blocked in the ON position are hidden somewhere under multiple layers of drywall. But the functionality of the switch can be emulated with with a software defined radio attached to a 1GHz Raspberry Pi running Linux. It works great, but an out of date kernel enables a viru…

Wouldn’t the switches just be placed in the boxes for the old switches? Burying a switch as you describe is against code in the US and I assume other countries.
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