New Study, Ivermectin Works Again

May 9th, 2024


Aune AR5000 Openback Headphones

May 9th, 2024

I was going to post this to an audio forum, but thought that some budget audiophiles out in Cryptogon land might be interested.

The Amazon affiliate links pay me a small commission. Your support is very much appreciated.

I’ve had my Aune AR5000 openbacks for about a month and they are fantastic. Very detailed and impactful midrange. Ample bass. Treble is detailed and never unpleasant. I’m coming from DT770 80 ohm, so I’m still marveling at the larger soundstage on the AR5000. (These are my first openbacks.) Instruments are separated and floating in space around me now.

At only 28 ohms, you can drive these with anything.

I used to EQ the DT770 lows and highs down while boosting midrange, basically trying to turn them into a closed HD600. Don’t laugh, man, it worked for me.

I’m running the AR5000 with no EQ at all and they sound absolutely beautiful.

The build looks and feels premium. Very solid. No squeaks or rattles. The cable feels premium and is a commonly available dual 3.5mm setup if you want to change it, or run 4.4mm balanced.

With regard to the fit and comfort: I have a huge head. I wore DT770 with the forks all the way out. AR5000 fits my head easily with room to spare.

Clamp force feels perfect.

I do wish the pads/ear cups were a bit bigger, but if they are barely adequate for me, chances are they will be good for you. I haven’t seen any other reviewer complain about this, so it might just be me. I only notice it after long sessions.

I did start to want more room for my ears inside the pad. Any DT770 pads fit the AR5000. The most comfortable pads I’ve found are a generic memory foam protein leather replacement for DT770. The specs are: Material: protein leather & Memory foam, Outer diameter: 100mm, Inner size:50mm, Thickness:35mm. These are available on Amazon and Ebay. Cost is between $12 and $15. On the stock AR5000 pads, there is nothing between the pads and the drivers, so I cut away the thin mesh on the replacement pads.

I get a vague sense that the stock pads sound slightly better, maybe more detail. When I went to try and apply EQ with these replacement pads, I wound up just leaving it flat. If you try this and are scratching your head about what’s different, I’d consider slightly EQing down the 5K to 8K range between 1 and 3dB with the generic replacement pads I mentioned.

That’s it. I’m good for a long, long time. My guess is that the law of diminishing returns would kick in very hard from this point. I’m not going to say this is the end of my headphone journey, but it might be and that would be fine. I’m very happy to be able to say that at the $300 level and not some much more insane level.

I still use my DT770s when I require sound isolation. I live is a small house with my wife, her sewing machine and our four children, so the closed back DT770s definitely still have their place.

Some videos:


War Is A Racket: Anduril Pulsar

May 8th, 2024

Here’s a tiny curiosity to add to your long herniating War Is A Racket file folder.

The U.S. Government paid Anduril about a billion dollars for a system that seeks to counter a sub-$500 threat:

The company in 2022 mentioned the EW equipment after winning a nearly $1 billion counter-unmanned aerial systems contract from U.S. Special Operations Command. A memo obtained by Defense News that same year described it helping to “mitigate incoming threats.”

How effective would this Pulsar system be if the enemy programmed the target coordinates into ArduPilot (free/open source) and spent a few cents on EM shielding on their sub-$500 drone?

Hmm…

Silly me, worrying about the finer details—like whether the widgets will work or not.

As long as wealth is transferred from the base of the pyramid to the psychopath war priests at the top, it’s mission accomplished.

Now, let’s look at the bright side.

Compared to boondoggles like the F-35 ($1.5 trillion) and spending a couple of decades and $2.3 trillion to kill people wearing sandals and armed with $150 AK-47s in Afghanistan*, this Anduril contract seems like a bargain.

* Same Taliban, same sandals, now with U.S. weapons costing an order of magnitude more and provided to them by the U.S. taxpayer: As Taliban takes over, some swap iconic AK-47s for made-in-America rifles.

Via: Anduril:

Related:

Major General Smedley Butler: War Is A Racket (1935)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961)


Rifle-Armed Robot Dogs Now Being Tested By Marine Special Operators

May 8th, 2024

Via: The Warzone:

The United States Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) looks to be the first organization within the U.S. military to be using rifle-wielding “robot dogs.” Other armed robotic K-9s have been explored by the U.S. military and shown off by foreign countries, in the recent past.

Eric Shell, head of business development at Onyx Industries which supplied the gun system for the dogs, confirmed to TWZ on the floor of SOF Week that they are in use with MARSOC. Shell noted that MARSOC has two robot dogs fitted with gun systems based on Onyx’s SENTRY remote weapon system (RWS) — one in 7.62x39mm caliber, and another in 6.5mm Creedmoor caliber. It’s unclear precisely how many other robotic dogs MARSOC may have at present, however, it appears likely that the two equipped with SENTRY are being tested by the command.


Gaza Mass Graves: Victims’ Hands Were Tied

May 8th, 2024

Via: United Nations:

The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste” over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified.

“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

More:

Netanyahu’s Mass Atrocity Machinery

Evidence of Torture as Nearly 400 Bodies Found in Gaza Mass Graves


Oklahoma Storm Had 3 Extraordinary Features, Including a “Wrong-Way” Tornado

May 8th, 2024

Via: AccuWeather:

Hours after a tornado was documented in Tillman County, Oklahoma, on April 30, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts were enthralled by a severe thunderstorm in the same county because several rare meteorological phenomena, including double tornadoes, a tornado track that looped back on itself and an “anti-cyclonic” tornado, were documented.

The second tornado spawned by the Tillman storm spun the wrong way, exhibiting clockwise or “anti-cyclonic” movement. This is because the Coriolis Effect, which dictates rotation at the size of a tornado, is never 100 percent effective. It is estimated that only 1 to 2 percent of tornadoes rotate clockwise.


Cost of “The American Dream”

May 8th, 2024

Via: End Of The American Dream:

According to a brand new report that was just released, it now takes over $100,000 a year for the typical family to live “the American Dream” in all 50 states, and in 29 of those states it actually takes over $150,000 a year…

A household would have to spend more than $150,000 a year to live the dream in 29 of the 50 states, according to an analysis published in April by the personal finance site GOBankingRates.

According to the report, the optimal American lifestyle would cost $137,842 a year in Ohio, $147,535 in Texas, $159,932 in Florida, $194,067 in New York and $245,723 in California.


Google Lays Off Hundreds of ‘Core’ Employees, Moves Some Positions to India and Mexico

May 8th, 2024

One for your, “Laid Off Factory Workers Should Learn to Code” file folder.

Via: CNBC:

Just ahead of its blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 25, Google laid off at least 200 employees from its “Core” teams, in a reorganization that will include moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC has learned.


Record Wave of Americans Fled Big Cities for Small Ones in 2023

May 8th, 2024

Via: Bloomberg:

Score a victory for Mayberry. America’s small towns, like the iconic setting of television’s The Andy Griffith Show from the 1960s, saw more in-migration in 2023 than larger areas for the first time in decades.

The remote work boom that prompted Americans to flee urban areas for mountain hamlets and seaside towns during the pandemic continued at least through last year, according to University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard. An estimated 291,400 people last year migrated from other areas into America’s small towns and rural areas, which Lombard defines as metropolitan areas with 250,000 people or fewer.

That number exceeded net migration into larger areas for the first time since at least the 1970s, estimated Lombard, who works with the university’s Demographics Research Group.


And Now… The Blade-Less Swiss Army Knife

May 7th, 2024

Via: ZeroHedge:

Victorinox Chief Executive Officer Carl Eisner told Swiss paper Blick on Monday that its Swiss Army Knife will soon be available without a blade due to mounting regulations in European and Asian countries amid a surge in violence.

“We are concerned about the increasing regulation of knives due to the violence in the world,” Elsener said, citing new laws in the UK and Asian countries that only permit knife-carrying for work or outdoor activities.

Eisner said, “In some markets, the blade creates an image of a weapon.”

Victorinox told Bloomberg, “The increasing regulation of knives in various countries represents a major challenge for the company.”


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