Hi there

[Ardacer]

Hello. I was searching for a community such as this one. I tried hydrogenaudio, but that place seems dead + they are way to serious about everything - I like subjective reviews as well, if they are understood for what they are. Otherwise none of this makes any sense.
I actually saw the schiit measurements drama and thought to check out that infamous Amir, who was even compared with nwavguy (the ultimate source of all evil in the galaxy). Turns out you're quite polite and honest and ok in my book. I don't see the reason for aggression. Then again, I never saw any reason for hate towards nwavguy either. I really like and respect guys at Schiit too (their product faq's are gold), so go figure. Guys over at sbaf made their own measurements which show different results to yours. Now. What I think, is that DAC's make no difference what so ever to anything if you are not using them to do volume control so... yeah... I don't really care who's in the right about that. Do know that I deeply respect anyone willing to measure, report, and contribute in any way, be it Marv, nvawguy, you guys, Linkwitz, or my mom and homemade pudding.

I'm the kind of guy that really likes nwavguy's blog and mr. Linkwitz, completely (all aspects, honesty, politeness, open mind, audio views), so that should be enough to know what I stand for...
Also, I'm a doctor, own a private electronics lab (for a hobby), and several servers. I studied electronics and computing in parallel with medicine for a few years, then decided I like sleep, sex and quality time with friends and female friends ;D more than that nonsense so I dropped out of EE school midway. At least I figured it out. I also have a workshop and build speakers and amps.

I very much enjoy physics, cosmology, audio, signals (my domain is mostly electrophysiology of the eye), rf, hacking of any kind.

Anyway, I caused a stir at sbaf a while ago. That particular time was extremely sad and hard for me for private reasons (death), and some people there reacted really badly at my, I hope, polite writing and opinions - and my reaction was probably childish and I took things too seriously. To their defense, my thoughts can be an incoherent mess and sometimes I don't express myself optimally, especially as English is not my first language. What does remain though, is that I do think I don't belong there ideologically speaking. I still kind of hope to remain there, it can be a good source of info too, and some people there are great and worth the effort. I will certainly not share any of my audio/physics related objectivist views and stuff there ever again though. Reddit is fine too but I dislike the thread style, a regular forum is nicer. I think my views align more with this place. Let's face it, everywhere is an echo chamber, really. It's always been this way and will be, it's just how it is . We'll see how it goes.

Looking forward to contributing and reading, and having fun together with other passionate about science and audio.

edit: Yeah now I see the introductions thread. Sorry for this one.

 

[DonH56]

Welcome! Sounds like you should fit in well here.

I started out pre-med/EE, got a bunch of extra hours, then quit the medical track just before taking the medcat after deciding I couldn't take another few years of school and was doing better in engineering anyway...

A Story: The Dean of Engineering (the whole shebang, not just EE) called me in towards the end of my last semester and had me sweating. A friend of mine had gone through graduation the year before, then they discovered he was shy one humanities class, so they revoked his diploma until he took one last class. It was a mess, affected his job and everything. I had gobs of hours but due to the dual track and multiple advisors in different areas was nervous I might have missed something. He looked at me when I walked in and said "Sooo, Don, you think you're going to graduate this semester?" Not a good start... Then he went on: "Well, do you think you might want to declare a major?" I looked at him with my mouth open and eyes bulging, scared spitless, and he started laughing. He knew my grandfather and had set up this little meeting instead of letting the EE Dean handle it (I knew the EE Dean very well). Being pre-med, somehow I had never actually declared EE as my major. I had missed the deadline by a good bit (like, a year, thus he had to sign the form to approve instead of my EE Dean) but after some good natured ribbing about the extra years I'd spent in school he said they needed to kick me out so he signed the forms and out I went. Whew!

I did get a couple of undergrad degrees (EE and Computer Engineering; MSEE came later, had to drop the PhD program after finishing half the coursework when Work and Life intervened) as well as completing all the pre-med requirements and then some, but for a few minutes there I thought I was going to faint.

 

[Ardacer]

Thanks for the welcome!

Interesting story. I've never actually understood the concepts of "majors", certainly not why you should "declare" them. In my country, you just enter college, and that's it. You study and take exams, get the diploma. Midway you choose a subspecialty, but you can't progress if you don't.

I had a funny story, though. People like us are very rare, so I didn't know the procedure for entering 2 colleges simultaneously. My mother was back then a university professor, and we went together to speak with the ee dean about the details (I've already entered medschool). It was just after the admission tests, so the dean's secretary (who didn't know) thought, when my mom introduced herself, that I failed the admission test and that we were there to "negotiate" - basically corruption at work - my entry through other channels, pulling favours or so. The woman was furious, I was very amused

I ranked 3rd on the medschool admission test (240 admitted), and around 300 th on EE (1000 admitted). I never prepared/studied for the EE test.

 

[amirm]

Welcome aboard. Typing on phone so no long stories from me. I took one look at the thick biology book in high school and knew medicine was not for me. Hated memorizing things....

 

[Thomas savage]

Hello. I was searching for a community such as this one. I tried hydrogenaudio, but that place seems dead + they are way to serious about everything - I like subjective reviews as well, if they are understood for what they are. Otherwise none of this makes any sense.
I actually saw the schiit measurements drama and thought to check out that infamous Amir, who was even compared with nwavguy (the ultimate source of all evil in the galaxy). Turns out you're quite polite and honest and ok in my book. I don't see the reason for aggression. Then again, I never saw any reason for hate towards nwavguy either. I really like and respect guys at Schiit too (their product faq's are gold), so go figure. Guys over at sbaf made their own measurements which show different results to yours. Now. What I think, is that DAC's make no difference what so ever to anything if you are not using them to do volume control so... yeah... I don't really care who's in the right about that. Do know that I deeply respect anyone willing to measure, report, and contribute in any way, be it Marv, nvawguy, you guys, Linkwitz, or my mom and homemade pudding.

I'm the kind of guy that really likes nwavguy's blog and mr. Linkwitz, completely (all aspects, honesty, politeness, open mind, audio views), so that should be enough to know what I stand for...
Also, I'm a doctor, own a private electronics lab (for a hobby), and several servers. I studied electronics and computing in parallel with medicine for a few years, then decided I like sleep, sex and quality time with friends and female friends ;D more than that nonsense so I dropped out of EE school midway. At least I figured it out. I also have a workshop and build speakers and amps.

I very much enjoy physics, cosmology, audio, signals (my domain is mostly electrophysiology of the eye), rf, hacking of any kind.

Anyway, I caused a stir at sbaf a while ago. That particular time was extremely sad and hard for me for private reasons (death), and some people there reacted really badly at my, I hope, polite writing and opinions - and my reaction was probably childish and I took things too seriously. To their defense, my thoughts can be an incoherent mess and sometimes I don't express myself optimally, especially as English is not my first language. What does remain though, is that I do think I don't belong there ideologically speaking. I still kind of hope to remain there, it can be a good source of info too, and some people there are great and worth the effort. I will certainly not share any of my audio/physics related objectivist views and stuff there ever again though. Reddit is fine too but I dislike the thread style, a regular forum is nicer. I think my views align more with this place. Let's face it, everywhere is an echo chamber, really. It's always been this way and will be, it's just how it is . We'll see how it goes.

Looking forward to contributing and reading, and having fun together with other passionate about science and audio.

edit: Yeah now I see the introductions thread. Sorry for this one.

Welcome and thanks for this fantastic write up, sounds like you have made some wise decision to me

 

[Ardacer]

I hated memorizing things too, but for some reason it's almost if I already knew biology. It was easy. Anatomy on the other hand... appaling.

Welcome and thanks for this fantastic write up, sounds like you have made some wise decision to me

Thanks!

 

[DonH56]

Physiology test had a picture of a skeleton with 206 blanks to fill in all the names of the bones, plus a side list to identify the extra 64 or so we start with.

Second inorganic chemistry test's last page was a blank periodic table of the elements to be filled in.

At least in engineering we got a crib note card for the basic formulae; can derive the rest.

 

[Ardacer]

Physiology test had a picture of a skeleton with 206 blanks to fill in all the names of the bones, plus a side list to identify the extra 64 or so we start with.

Second inorganic chemistry test's last page was a blank periodic table of the elements to be filled in.

At least in engineering we got a crib note card for the basic formulae; can derive the rest.

That's..wow.

I'm sure I could do the skeletons now, easily, but memorizing the periodic table? That's just stupid... So is the first one kind of, but eh..

 

[DonH56]

Chem professor said if the world blew up and we were on a desert island all we needed was the periodic table to start again. One of my EE professors felt the same way about Maxwell's equations, the physics prof added Newton's Laws and Thermodynamics, the English lit professor said, uh, I don't remember what she said to remember, sorry.

Periodic table: One of my classmates came up with an incredibly filthy limerick (mnemonic) to remember the transition metals. The prof started laughing in the middle of the test when he heard a couple of nice young ladies in the front row quietly reciting it. No idea where they heard it.

 

[Ardacer]

Well if your classmate came up with it and those nice young ladies heard it, I've got an idea about how this came to be...