Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Technology

I’m not happy with Depeche Mode

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I am a massive fan of Depeche Mode. And I really like the latest album, Playing the Angel, as I said previously.

But I am very disappointed by what Depeche Mode did to me (and more generally to us all): the CD version of Playing the Angel is basically crap! The sound quality is horrible. This is the first song for instance (A Pain that I’m Used To):

The left part is the bridge and the right part is the chorus (or more precisely a square wave mimicking the chorus). The audio is 100% clipped. Witness the VU-meter while the chorus is playing:

Everything is maxed out!!! The peak level is 0dB (on the left) as is the average level (on the right). Hence, the dynamics of the chorus is (a completely pathetic) 0dB!!!

For those of you who are not too conversant with audio and music, dynamics is what makes music interesting. The average level of music must be much lower than the peak level i.e. music must be most of the time soft but sometimes should become very loud. It must not be loud from start to end or else it will sound unnatural and your ears will feel some discomfort.

Now, what is important to understand is that the original master for that track sounds much better. Only the CD version (which has been further processed) suffers from this Loudness War (this is another detailed explanation with lots of concrete examples). What is happening is classic : people now buy CDs from supermarkets and the only way to impress them is to make the CD as hot (i.e. loud) as possible. To do that, the average level must be raised up to 0dB. The sound becomes impressive (i.e. over the top) but unlistenable in the long run (try it!)

So, what do we do? Forget about Playing the Angel?

If you have bought the “normal” CD then you don’t have any choice. Listen to the crap sound!

But for those who have the limited edition of the album, you have luck (is it?) on your side : the DVD contains an uncompressed (read brillant) version of the album. Extract the Dolby Digital tracks (i.e. AC3) using a DVD ripper (I’ve use an old version of DVD Decrypter). Use BeSweet to downmix the 5.1 mix to stereo and convert it to a good-sounding MP3. I’ve used the following command line parameters:


besweet -core( -input file.ac3 -output file.mp3 ) -lame( -b 192 --resample 44.1 )

And here’s the result:

A perfect sounding MP3 of A Pain that I’m Used To!

Mauritian spammers

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Many Mauritian companies are using the services of a spam propagation company called R&K Communications.

Quoting Spam.Abuse.Net, “Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.”

In the USA and most European countries, spamming is illegal. Some quotes from the US federal text follow :

  • “Electronic mail has become an extremely important and popular means of communication”
  • “The convenience and efficiency of electronic mail are threatened by the extremely rapid growth in the volume of unsolicited commercial electronic mail”
  • “Whoever […] knowingly […] uses a […] computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial electronic mail messages […] shall be punished […] a fine [and/or] imprisonment for not more than 5 years”

An equivalent law does not exist in Mauritius for the time being. That’s why those following companies are indulging in spam willingly. I propose that we boycott them and, furthermore, that they all reimburse us for the money we’ve spent in Internet connectivity downloading their spams.

R&K Communications and R&K Properties (the main culprits)

and some other (please note that this page has not been updated for a long time and the list of abusers has increased) :

 

ACD Computers Co Ltd, At Home Ltd, AutoMaster Ltd, Batimex Ltd, Berjaya Le Morne, British Airways, CANALSATELLITE Maurice, CLIMAPRO Ltd, Cotton Bay Hotel, ELDO Motors Co. Ltd, FIRST Autogas Ltd, Global Learning (SMU Study Centre), Hassamal Shopping Centre, IV Play, J R Conseil ltd, J.Kalachand & Co Ltd, KING Air Co Ltd, Katizo Ltd, Kick-Boxing Federation, L’Evêque de Port-Louis (great, now, even the Church spams :-(), La Jolie BodyShop Ltd, Le Defi Jeunes, Le Defi Turf, Le PRESKIL Beach Resort, Le Waterpark & Leisure Village, Lo Thiap Hing Ltd, Lovato Autogas Ltd, MSM Limited, MaustralTour Travel Ltd, Maxworks Ltd, Noscana Boutique, Odysseus Co Ltd, One World Travel, Pay And Go Computers, RadioPlus, Revlon, Rose Hill Transport Ltd, SOFAP Ltd, SOS Children’s Village, Sodibur (Maurice) Ltee, Techtonic Ltd, United Spirits Producers Ltd, V-Street, XCLUSIV Properties Ltd, etc. etc. etc.

Spam is bad! Combat it!

Thanks Microsoft… for cheap PCs

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While reading Nikolai Bezroukov’s comparison of Linux and Solaris, I came across this part:

“Microsoft indirectly subsidized all Unixes on Intel as the de-facto owner of PC standard: hardware that any Intel based Unix is running on is created by OEMs using the standards that Microsoft license for free to all PC manufactures and the cost of this hardware is mainly determined by the the size of the market created by Microsoft OSes. Plug and play hardware specification is a nice example here. Whether we like Microsoft or not, the simplest and reasonably precise definition of PC always was Microsoft compatible computer.”

I think I must agree with Nikolai… It’s thanks to Microsoft that PCs are now so inexpensive and, at the same time, so powerful.

As from now, each time I boot my PC (I’m using Kubuntu Linux), I’ll spend 1 second thinking of Bill Gates… ;-)