Posts by Oliver Collett

Apple is Fisher-Price of sound quality, says Neil Young

Some perspective

Personally, I don't have a problem with compressed (mp3 type compression) audio quality. I don't think the ipod sounds too bad either.

I bet in a controlled environment you'd struggle to find anyone who can tell the difference between 320kb MP3 vs. WAV or even 192 vs. Wav. Time and time again people have failed in double-blind tests to tell the difference in high end audio equipment and supposedly superior audio formats.

Dynamic range compression is however another matter entirely - imo it's most of the reason behind why people still claim vinyl sounds better (it's the only sane reason i can think of). A quick waveform analysis of a modern CD will show you that nowadays they compress CD's literally to levels of distortion (you'll notice flat peaks at the loudest parts). That WILL make a difference in sound quality just as driving an amplifier too hard will.

www.theaudiocritic.com is an excellent site, this article in particular is a favourite of mine:

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/The_Audio_Critic_26_r.pdf

GTA IV website prompts outrage

it's like it's 2001 all over again

The media completely missing the point, getting worked up and then looking ridiculous?

Brass eye?

Let's go stamp on some crabs.

London store brews £50-a-poop cat-crap coffee

It's actually really nice, but not at that price!

I've had it before at a posh nob restaurant, was by far the best coffee i've ever had, but it was more like £7/cup not £50!

Software is never done… Or is it?

Mate, I'll fix your taps, but...

Simon, I think you have miss-understood agile somewhat. For a start, one of the fundamental principles is the involvement of the customer in decisions such as what is de-scoped from the project. You commit to a deadline, if you cannot make that deadline for various reasons, you explain to the customer and they then decide what they want to have or not have, so your analogy is somewhat inaccurate. What should happen is the plumber would say "I can't fix this leak by tomorrow because there is a worldwide shortage of washers and they are very difficult to get hold of. However, instead I could apply some kind of temporary fix in the meantime or whatever else might fit with you."

As for not knowing the impact on the customer, what is required etc. again this goes against the principles of agile of customer centered focus and having them on board for the project with you to make key decisions. If the team has been 100% transparent and ideally co-located with the customer then you wouldn't be in the kind of situation where you see a customer baffled as to why their entire project cannot be delivered on time without de-scoping certain aspects.

Agile is, in my opinion a far more realistic way of running a project. In reality how often are projects given realistic deadlines that they meet? You might be sold the idea that you can have the Petronas towers in a week with some impressive figures, but an agile team should give you a more realistic timescale for what that team can deliver and by when. If wembley stadium was agile, for example, and it was essential that it was done for a year ago, we might have ended up with a stadium without the impressive arch rather than a complete stadium a year or so too late!