Disqus - Latest Comments for snej

Re: Sorted integers compression with Elias-Fano encoding | Antonio Mallia

Jens Alfke — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 16:51:09 -0000

There's a mistake at the end of the sentence “The concatenation of the lower part of each element of the list is the actual stored representation and takes trivially n log m bits.” The actual value is n log(m/n).

Re: CPP std::shared_ptr Thread-Safety

Jens Alfke — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 11:40:27 -0000

Your operator= has a bug: if the RHS is a different shared pointer to the same object, it decrements and then increments the ref-count. This is a no-op, unless the ref-count was 1, in which case the object is freed and then the shared pointer is left with a dangling pointer. The fix is to compare m_ptr as well as this.

There’s also another notable thread safety problem, one which I believe std::shared_ptr also has: if multiple threads call operator= concurrently on the same instance, you can also end up with invalid state.

Re: Weddell seal vocalizations are cooler than your synthesizer, and we’re still learning more

Jens Alfke — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 11:21:45 -0000

As usual, Biosphere was way ahead of the trend, with his early track “The Seal And The Hydrophone”.
https://youtu.be/0FcCXrqDV-g
“There's a lot of activity. A lot.”

Re: Quick tips: changing oscillators while live jamming with Arturia MicroFreak

Jens Alfke — Mon, 02 May 2022 11:23:14 -0000

The Zoom MS-70CDR pedal is an excellent pairing. You can get one for under US$100 and it’s chock full of reverb, modulation and delay effects. IMHO “SpaceHole”, their Eventide Black Hole emulation, alone is worth the price of admission.

Re: The Best Portable SSD

Jens Alfke — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 12:11:05 -0000

This review seems to judge durability by “how tough does the case feel?”, not “how often do these drives fail?” Given that external SSDs have a propensity to just go blooey and stop working entirely, and that unlike hard drives there’s no way anyone can recover data off a dead one, I think the failure rate should be a key factor in a review.

I’m sure no manufacturer wants to disclose their products' failure rate, but that’s what we have independent journalism for, right?

Based on anecdotal evidence, including my own experience (see below) the SanDisk drive seems to have serious problems. Coupled with SanDisk's terrible customer service, I don’t understand why you’re still recommending it.

Re: Audio Damage has released 33 classic legacy plug-ins for free – here’s a guide and a stupid test

Jens Alfke — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 11:59:34 -0000

Thank you! I saw an earlier post about this on Synthtopia, then had to repeat to myself, “they're not free, I’d be paying for my time to figure out what they do and which ones actually work.” But now you’ve done that for me!

Re: Free MIDI Tape Recorder captures all your expression – sample-accurate, no quantization

Jens Alfke — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 17:49:03 -0000

> It’s accurate then down to the level of individual audio samples (so, for instance, 44,100 Hz instead of the usual parts-per-quarter measurement of conventional sequencers)

It's MIDI, so it doesn't have any direct connection with audio samples. Better to say it's accurate down to the resolution of MIDI events. MIDI runs at 32768 bits/sec, so you'd get a maximum accuracy of 32,768Hz for a single note start if the bus is otherwise idle.

Once you start to play multiple notes, or include expression info, it gets dodgier -- a byte is 9 or 10 bits including stop bits, and a simple note on/off message is two bytes, meaning you can send around 2,000 of those messages per second. We're down to 2KHz. Add a bunch of velocity, aftertouch and MPE events and that data size mushrooms. I haven't worked with MPE, but I imagine this stuff would begin to clog the MIDI bus to the extent that timing accuracy would be in the tens of milliseconds ... which is in the domain of 1/64 notes.

(Now, this might be invalid for MIDI over USB. Does it run at higher speeds? I don't know the answer but I'm guessing "no", based on how ridiculously long it takes to send long SysEx messages like patches or samples over USB MIDI.)

Re: The Best Portable SSD

Jens Alfke — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 19:56:59 -0000

My Sandisk Extreme 2 completely bricked itself within a few months, earlier this year. I hadn't used it that much, and it spent its brief life plugged into an iMac, with no physical wear and tear to speak of. One day the Mac wouldn't mount the disk, Disk Utility wouldn't recognize it, and it only showed up as some kind of generic USB device on the bus.

Sandisk support confirmed there was nothing I could do to recover the data. They offered to replace the disk but I never got a replacement nor an envelope for returning the old one. I'm unlikely to buy from them again.

I'm even leery of using an external SSD again. I've used many external HDDs over the years, and one or two have died, but only after five years or more of service. The thought to trusting my data to something that can just go kablooie in the first few months is unsettling.

Re: 1Password shares new password sharing feature that Apple’s iCloud Keychain should share too

Jens Alfke — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 18:02:34 -0000

No, they are not. The Keychain is always end-to-end encrypted.

Re: 1Password shares new password sharing feature that Apple’s iCloud Keychain should share too

Jens Alfke — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 12:01:32 -0000

keychain can do this. Open Settings, go to Passwords, open an entry, long-press on the password, select “AirDrop” from the menu to send directly to someone nearby, or select Copy and then paste it into iMessage (end-to-end encrypted, remember.)

This is a lot more secure. I’m not about to trust some website with all my passwords.

Re: ‘Sleeve’ brings an Apple Music or Spotify now playing widget to your Mac’s desktop

Jens Alfke — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 13:24:35 -0000

The Music app already has exactly this feature. So this app seems pointless unless you use Spotify.

Re: Pilot claims Delta stole his app, is suing for a billion dollars

Jens Alfke — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:35:24 -0000

The exact wording and scope of the contract varies. But as a salaried employee, the company is allowed to claim ownership of anything you make at any time that is related to the company's business. In this case, the company's business is air travel, so his app would certainly be covered. (See my other comment for details and why I know this for sure.)

Re: Pilot claims Delta stole his app, is suing for a billion dollars

Jens Alfke — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:31:03 -0000

Nope, darksi, you’re wrong, in the US at least. If you’re a salaried employee then anything you create at any time, anywhere, becomes the property of your employer if it’s related to their business.

I know this for certain because I got bit by this in the 1990s while working for Apple. I came up with a little app for displaying post-it notes (working at home on weekends), and Apple's system software team offered to in buy it to include in System 7.5. In the end the VP of software decided that Apple already owned it anyway and nixed the payment to me. I was pretty outraged, but it turned out the law was on his side.

Ever since then, when I’ve wanted to work on a side project I’ve first gotten approval to exempt it from my employer's intellectual property agreement. This is easiest to do when you start employment — you can add exemptions when you sign the contract.

Re: Poll: What’s the feature you’re looking forward to the most in your next MacBook?

Jens Alfke — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 12:43:01 -0000

As I’m currently suffering with the awful “butterfly”, I’m really looking forward to the return of a decent keyboard.

Re: Popular Audacity audio app dubbed ‘spyware’ by users over policy changes from new owner

Jens Alfke — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 16:50:43 -0000

It’s not collecting any more data than most iOS apps (OS info and error reports basically), nor really more than any website such as the one you’re reading this on. The only reason this is a big deal is that as an open source app that runs on Linux, Audacity has a lot of visibility among free/open software zealots who are ideologically opposed to any kind of phoning-home.

Re: Hammerhead for iOS brings back a 90s drum computer legend for a new generation

Jens Alfke — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:04:14 -0000

Oh jeez, I don’t need another drum machine, but I do need one of whatever Bram Bos just pulled out of the oven …

Re: Apple Music’s Zane Lowe details recently-launched Spatial Audio feature

Jens Alfke — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 12:19:36 -0000

In blind A/B testing, it’s pretty reliable that _no one_, even audiophiles, can tell 160kbps VBR MP3 apart from uncompressed CD audio. And Apple Music's AAC/256 is already higher quality than that.

I’m told it is possible for people with good ears to hear the benefit of 24-bit samples, but I don’t know how much music is mastered at that level. Everything got remastered to 16-bit during the transition to CD, and I’m sure recent music is 24-bit but there’s probably a ton of music from before 2000(?) that’s still 16-bit.

Re: Apple Music’s Zane Lowe details recently-launched Spatial Audio feature

Jens Alfke — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 12:12:22 -0000

Not impressed with spatial audio, either. Im using AirPod Pro. Can’t detect any surround-sound effect, not surprisingly because there are still only two speakers, right? I’ve been turning it off and on (using Control Center) while listening to songs, and while it’s different, it usually sounds worse. Not just quieter, which I can deal with, but a lot of bass is lost (check that Tiesto track!) and overall sounds just feel less immediate. After listening to the beautiful Max Richter piano-and-strings piece at the end of the playlist, I decided to leave spatial audio off. The nuances like the subtle electronic effects are fainter, and the piano feels duller.

Re: How to Use Your Smart Lock Better

Jens Alfke — Mon, 31 May 2021 12:53:23 -0000

You lost me at “…connect to the internet via your home Wi-Fi.” I’m a software engineer and, while not a security guru, do work with security and crypto protocols. The consumer smart-devices and “Internet of Things” industry has a miserable, shameful track record in security. So many devices have been found to be easily hackable because their firmware either omits crucial security features — for example doesn’t use secure encrypted TLS data connections, or ships with an open admin account with a fixed password — or contains serious bugs that are exploitable in the wild. Worse, these bugs don’t get fixed because firmware updates are usually awkward, insecure, or even impossible.

I’m willing to put up with this in some cases, like a light switch, especially when the device isn’t reachable from outside my WiFi network. But do I trust my front door lock to some proprietary firmware that anyone in the world can contact and try to break into? Hell no.

Re: A look back at my favorite Apple products through the decades

Jens Alfke — Mon, 31 May 2021 12:39:25 -0000

The LaserWriter was indeed revolutionary; and not just for Apple users. My college computer lab had one hooked up to HP workstations, a which ran print-jobs written by hand in PostScript (a fun language!), and in the TeX markup language.

Typesetting didn’t go from hand-set metal type to laser printing in one jump, though. First came the Linotype and Monotype machines around the turn of the century, and then phototypesetting (onto photo film) in the 1950s. By the 1980s, lead type was only used for specialty purposes. But the LaserWriter was incredibly cheap for what it did, even at around $4000.

Re: Comment: Apple Music Lossless Audio – what we do and don’t know

Jens Alfke — Tue, 18 May 2021 12:15:50 -0000

Even if we assume anyone but a bat will be be able to tell the difference between 48KHz and 192Khz, they’re sure as hell going to need some seriously audiophile gear to do so, the kind you need a second mortgage to afford. Trying to listen to it on $500 headphones or a little teeny speaker would be pointless.

(Over on audio-production blogs people are laughing at this. Nearly all music gets mastered at 24-bit/48KHz or less, so listening to it at any higher resolution isn’t going to magically create more sound quality. It’d be like upsampling a 1080p picture onto your 120” 8K TV.)

Re: Comment: Apple Music Lossless Audio – what we do and don’t know

Jens Alfke — Tue, 18 May 2021 12:05:24 -0000

“Lossless” refers to the compression algorithm. “Hi-res” and “mid-range” refer to the audio sample depth and rate. Those are entirely independent things.

Re: Watch this entertaining how-to on hacking Mutable’s Plaits for just intonation

Jens Alfke — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:19:13 -0000

I’ve never tried playing with non-12TET tunings, but from what I’ve read about Western music history it sounds like there’s a learning curve to composing with them. Yes, in just intonation some intervals become purer, without beating, especially those starting on the root note. But the inevitable side effect is that some other intervals in the same scale get farther out of alignment, to the point that they used to be called “wolf intervals” and carefully avoided. And if you venture out of the scale, or transpose to a different root without retuning, it gets worse.

Of course one person's teeth-grinding “wolf interval” might be another person's exciting dissonance. I do love me some dissonance. But I’ve found microtonal music rather difficult to get into, compared to run-of-the mill dissonance like, say, early Sonic Youth.

Re: Logic Pros Marketplace: New, discounted, and FREE creative tools to fuel your recording rig

Jens Alfke — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 17:36:52 -0000

TS-808 README says “for PC only”.

Re: Comment: Apple Music Radio shows are Apple’s secret weapon against Spotify

Jens Alfke — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 11:40:23 -0000

A meager selection of stations recycling overplayed classics and vapid hits? Sounds like the vast wasteland before MP3 and the Internet shook things up. No thanks.

It’s especially weird to be highlighting this when there are so many radio stations streaming online, from all over the world, covering any genre you could want … and they’ve been available for years or decades. (Pretty sure the excellent Soma FM has been going since before Y2K.)