lol, copying isn’t theft. You already had to download a copy just to view it. That’s how websites work.
Technically correct is the best kind of correct.
If you copy something you are not entitled to because of copyright, it's copyright infringement.
With theft the originally owner loses what is stolen, with copyright infringement the owner only loses the license fee for 1 copy.
Not the same thing, and calling it theft is purely a propaganda term invented by the media industry.
It should also be noted that copyright laws usually have all sorts of exceptions for fair use such as satire, education, etc. Typically, keeping and even using a copy without permission is legally allowed under certain circumstances.
Just a word of caution. Even if you have a valid fair use claim they have to be adjudicated and the legal costs can get pricey. Worse if you’re found liable.
Check out Lawful Masses on YouTube for plenty of examples of copyright trolls using this as a bludgeon.
It's just a fear tactic. If enough people self represented themselves individually the companies would die. You can't draw blood from a stone... which the average consumer is basically close to. The recovery rate vs the lawsuit fees would destroy the entire legal system if people stood their ground.
Canada decided to have none of that. Downloading without keeping a copy (streaming) was basically thrown out as copyright infringement, the whole lost income idea was generally laughed at, and the final result was a maximum judgement of $500 for all non-commercial copyright infringement prior to the suit. Which basically would pay for about one hour of the plaintiff lawyer's fees. We don't get a lot of copyright suits like that in Canada any more.
With theft the originally owner loses what is stolen, with copyright infringement the owner only loses the license fee for 1 copy.
There used to be an anti-piracy lobby group in Australia literally called "Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft". I always had an issue with their name since they were really against copyright infringement, not "copyright theft" which is just a nonsense term like you said. It's been ruled several times by courts both in Australia and in the USA that it can't be called "theft" (e.g. https://www.techdirt.com/2013/12/02/surprise-mpaa-told-it-cant-use-terms-piracy-theft-stealing-during-hotfile-trial/).
I like to think of it as something similar to watching a football match from the other side of the fence. People who paid the ticket, are loyal fans. People who didn’t pay, but still want to see the match, probably aren’t even part of the target audience. Some of them might be, but that’s a small number.
So, when the football company says that they’ve lost the sales of x number of tickets, they are actually saying that if those people had enough money and if they cared enough, they might have paid this amount of money.
Not a bad analogy. 👍
"Tools" -> "Page info" -> "Media" menu on Firefox - you can even see and save the images that the browser already downloaded.
or save page to download all loaded image assets from a page into a nice folder
It’s different when you earn profit from another person’s work.
Right, so I suppose George Lucas was stealing from all the movies that inspired his work when he made Star Wars. Or when Mel Brooks made Space Balls, as a more blatant example
Mel Brooks’s works are protected under the Fair Use provisions for satire under the DMCA. Lucas never copied anything directly, but, if pressed, much of his work is “heavily inspired” by works in the public domain and/or could be argued to be “derivative works”, also covered by Fair Use provisions in the DMCA, although any claim of copyright violation would be pretty difficult to make in the first place.
And the same can be said about generative AI
If it's not redistributed copyrighted material, it's not theft
And the same can be said about generative AI
not in any legally reasonable way, and certainly not by anyone who understands how AI (or, really, LLM models) work or what art is.
If it’s not redistributed copyrighted material, it’s not theft
but that's exactly what OpenAI did-- they used distributed, copyrighted works, used them as training data, and spit out result, some of which even contained word-for-word repetitions of the author's source material.
AI, unlike a human, cannot create unique works of art. it can old produce an algorithmically-derived malange of its source-data recomposited in novel forms, but nothing resembling the truly unique creative process of a living human. Sadly, too many people simply lack the ability to comprehend the difference.
it can old produce an algorithmically-derived malange of its source-data recomposited in novel forms
Right, it produces derivative data. Not copyrighted material.
By itself without any safeguards, it absolutely could output copyrighted data, (albeit probably not perfectly but for copyright purposes that's irrelevant as long as it serves as a substitute). And any algorithms that do do that should be punished, but OpenAI's models can't do that.
Hammers aren't bad because they can be used for bludgeoning, and if we have a hammer that somehow detects that it's being used for murder and then evaporates, calling it bad is even more ridiculous.
Some safeguards have been added which curtail certain direct misbehavior, but it is still capable - by your own admission - of doing it. And it still profits from the unlicensed use of copyrighted works by using such material for its training data. Because what it is producing is not a new and unique creative work, it is a composite of copyrighted work. That is not the same thing.
And if you are comparing LLMs and hammers, you’re just proving how you fundamentally misunderstand what LLMs are and how they work. It’s a false equivalence.
but it is still capable - by your own admission - of doing it
...
And if you are comparing LLMs and hammers, you’re just proving how you fundamentally misunderstand what LLMs are and how they work
And a regular hammer is capable of being used for murder. Which makes calling a hammer that evaporates before it can be used for murder "unethical" ridiculous. You're deliberately missing the point.
And it still profits from the unlicensed use of copyrighted works by using such material for its training data
I just don't buy this reasoning. If I look at paintings of the Eiffel Tower and then sell my own painting of the building, I'm not violating the copyright of any of the original painters unless what I paint is so similar to one of theirs that it violates fair use.
it is a composite of copyrighted work
It's stable diffusion, not a composite. But even if they were composites, I'm allowed to shred a magazine and make a composite image of something else. It's fair use until I use those pieces to create a copyrighted image.
Lol… I hope you didn’t sprain something with all those mental gymnastics. In the meantime, perhaps you should educate yourself a bit more on AI, LLV’s, and, perhaps, just a little bit on art.
Coming from someone who claimed stable diffusion was a composite image
I know a large js obferscator has auto detection code, try loading dev tools in first then loading the site on the tab so it doesn't detect the sudden viewport change
I did consider this and accounted for it, that's part of the details in desc you should have read
This is why Apple pushed so hard for 1-button mice
A fellow Ultron user in the wild, #1 hacker and cyber-thief browser on the web. How's your Adobe Reader?
Are you sure? It looks just like Firefox to me
It is
Nice reference
please for the love of god someone make this a real thing.
Mobile convergence has tried to hard to kill this, but we're not having it. Cut, copy, paste, save 4 lyfe!
*an
You shouldn’t touch them either. Minimum safe distance: 4 m.
you focus on that popup and ignore all the crank shit that is on this page
yes a piece of granite (?) with $60 pricetag put on my amplifier COMPLETELY changes how my vinyls sound like
statements dreamed of by the utterly deranged
Right click?? Why did we ever need a second or third or seventeenth button anyway?
They have played us for absolute fools
a single button makes the clicks sound warmer.
That mouse worked just fine for Crystal Quest! Kids these days.
It got me through so many rounds of Zany Golf!
Oh my god I loved Crystal Quest. I thought everyone forgot about it
There are dozens of us who had no idea we heard an orgasm at the end of every wave!
All this does is infuriate actual users trying to use your site. Content thieves will just download it via a script or curl and you won't be able to do anything about it.
Also in some browsers (I know Gecko-based ones at least), you can override JavaScript by holding shift while you right-click.
Huh, didn't know that! Thanks, super useful
I always found these anti-right-click scripts funny since they usually don't block Ctrl+S to save the page, Ctrl+U to view source, or Ctrl+P to print (or these days, F12 to open the browser dev tools)
My personal favorite is Ctrl+Shift+C which brings up Dev tools in selection mode, so you can click on the picture or whatever and be taken straight to its HTML code.
Ooooh as a developer I am very grateful for this tip
It also is a bit annoying that that is the keybinding, because whenever I have to copy something from the browser to the terminal, I must remind myself not to do Ctrl-shift-c as I would in the terminal.
LOL, that's fair. That's messed with me before too.
Shift + right-click will override all this BS in Firefox.
JavaScript is no match for wget -r.
But then you find that website used JavaScript to calculate URLs to the actual website content for which wget is no match.
Or it's just otherwise JavaScript-dependent website. Wget can't parse that.
I just turn off JavaScript and then right click works again.
I can take a screenshot and then have it automatically OCR the text. Hell, I can take a picture with my phone of my chicken scratch handwriting and have it OCR.
And as someone who remembers buying OCR software from OfficeMax for $40 that barely worked, that's pretty amazing.
What are you using to OCR screenshots? I have lots of old screenshots and I'd love to OCR them and find notable things I worked on and took a screenshot of.
I have an iPhone and it just sorta does it automatically. If it thinks there's text it will put yellow corners around it and let me copy it to my clipboard. On my Mac I can just start selecting text and it will figure it out.
Or reader mode or page info or.. well, anything. All it does is annoy the user when tripped.
And good old screen sniping tools
There is a 100% chance this warning correlates with the actual content on this site being hot garbage
it is
Audiophile equipment is just magic crystal bullshit for pseudointellectuals.
He should just ask for a donation. His work isn't that valuable
Considering they think putting rocks on top of your playing equipment changes the sound, their work has negative value.
Technically, a weight on top of AV equipment's cases will change the resonant properties of the chassis but that does not produce audible effects unless it's on the speaker cone. The author considers this and dismisses the possibility because “rocks not heavy enough”.
Also, a sufficiently large rock will affect the performance of any Hi-Fi equipment.
Instructions unclear. Used boulder. No more sound comes out.
Worked as stated.
a sufficiently large rock will affect the performance of any Hi-Fi equipment.
I think you followed the instructions perfectly.
You missed the part where if you put the rock in your ear, it will affect how it sounds.
Sometimes I think the whole industry of audiophile is just a bunch of baloney. Reminds of chifi IEM the KZ ZEX pro or something where people were praising for the improve sound and more drivers. Turns out only 1 driver is used and the rest are just there to justify increase in the price. It being no different than their cheaper version.
Audiophiles are 100% targeted with tons of nonsense products, mainly because sound is such a subjective thing beyond a certain level. That's not to say all hifi products are placebo-driven, just that the industry is rife with them.
That's not untrue though... Putting rocks on your sound system could make the rocks vibrate against it and sound like utter shit.
Well, my cheap Bluetooth speaker vibrates terribly and weighing it down helps. This will not help devices which already have vibration-preventing features, such as rubber feet or acoustics-aware housing design. And only some rocks will wobble depending on the base shape and point of mass.
I planned on getting my dad a sound bar for his TV on his birthday because the TV he uses, the plastic grill over the speaker vibrates something fierce and it sounds like absolute garbage any time something with any amount of bass plays. But maybe I can just glue some rocks to it 🤔
When I hear "glue rocks to it", I feel the urge to post the steering wheel picture. Because that one lives in my head rent free.
It's only tangentially relevant, but still.
Especially if you use coprolite.
He could afford hundreds of dollars' worth of placebo just for this single article. Either there's an undisclosed sponsorship deal, or he has enough money to fuel all his means of self-delusion hobbies.
Someone already plagiarized from them, so clearly it must be
In my whole life I never bought digital audio or video content on vinyl, VHS, CD, DVD, Blueray. Never ever. It sounds as weird to me like paying for air to breath.
But one day I visited a live concert of a small band which I loved as a teenager. After the show I met with their drummer, gave him €200 cash and said "You know, when I was young you were cool about kids copying your music without paying. You told us if we like you music we can enjoy it. And if we can afford it, we can pay you. Back then I couldn't. Today I can."
And so I paid them five times as much as I saved back then by copying their music.
You are a very good person.
This is utterly irrelevant to people copying multi-million sales dickshits like Metallica.
I bet Lars would have declined the money and ask for your info then sued.
Don't get scammed with audiophile rocks. I've done my research and found out that audiophile rock salt does the exact same thing and it is MUCH cheaper! Feel free to copy this and spread the word!
Are you sure it isn’t the kitty sticker?
..... Jesus fucking christ. My research is invalid. I'm going to have to start all over again. 🤬
Dang that sounds so good I can hear it in the image.
Right?? It's crunchy! That's what all audiophiles want. Crunchiness.
The science behind it is that it sounds crunchy because the rock salt draws out the moisture from the music. You will have to replace the salt on a regular basis though - depending on how much music you listen to.
Yeah that's true but still, I listen to a lot of really wet and moist music and even then. For the price of one good quality audiophile rock I can have a lifetime supply of rock salt for both audio and seasoning purposes.
You won't come after me if I right click? Legally, I mean.
Sound like entrapment tbh
No no, I'm not like that, I promise. I understand your skepticism. It saddens me that this is where we're at today but I understand.
casually flexing stax lol
😉 😜
You're doing it wrong. You need to match the type and size of the rock to your headphone impedance, this is common knowledge man
I would need a boulder yo. My headphones have an impedence of 170,000 ohms. This will have to do.
The sacrifices one must make for the best audio quality
Urgh god damn it. Yeah I just called my contractor, he's gonna come bust a hole in my ceiling on Tuesday morning. Salt boulder will be dropped in by Friday.
Great, thank you for your research but do you have any audiophile jazz salt?
Wait, there's jazz salt???
How much can I buy them from you for
Sorry I can't sell any at all. Not even a gram. I have exactly enough for myself, nothing to spare.
Smh worst entrepreneur ever
Urgh I know but what's the point in carrying more. I can't compete with Big Rock Salt. Ever since they legalized it I barely get any customers.
That used to be fairly common 10-15 years ago.
Huh. Wonder why they stopped the warnings if it was so effective.
Every porn site: "Are you over 18 years of age"
13 year old me: "Yes"
@WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world did knowingly an intentionally expose a minor to pornography. Mandatory Sex offender registration. /s
Mildly infuriating cause those charges did happen. Charge the trafficked minor with a felony to target the traffickers. (My memory might be faulty on the event)
Isn't it wild that kids can be both perpetrators and victims of the same crime? Like if a teen takes sexually explicit video of themselves and sends it to someone, they can be arrested, tried, and convicted or producing and disseminating child pornography.
It's not wild. Christian Fascists have always taken the stance: "the slaves will never rebel, and if they do we hit them with a big hammer".
I don't think that it's christian nationalism in this case. The state definitely has a strong, compelling interest in preventing the sexual exploitation of children (and hopefully of adults as well). I think that it's more a case that it's really hard to figure out how to deal with material that is 99% exploitative, and 1% made willingly by kids, without them being coerced by adults.
Because--and here's where it gets really uncomfortable for most people--kids are also sexual. They may be more or less aware and interested in sex, and may not understand the mechanics, but that shit is baked into your biology. Gay kids know they're gay at a very young age, and I knew I was straight--although I had no idea what 'straight' and 'gay' even meant by the time I was 7 (!!!). And this was well before the internet.
1% made willingly by kids, without them being coerced by adults
the stickiest part of the wicket here is that if you carve out an exception for kids taking pictures of themselves, even if you make it still illegal but make the consequences less about punishment, millions of hideous fuckers will immediately begin probing for a way to manipulate kids into doing it themselves in a manner that doesn't technically break the law.
...And then you also have kids that grow up, and realize how fucked up that shit was, and have to deal with years of guilt and shame, while also facing the probability that the images or videos of them are still out there.
Tell me how punishing children prevents that
It's more like "we'll continuously hit them with a big hammer to prevent any potential rebellion"
It's just an alert() function thrown at you. Whatever it says, it is not enforceable as it is not a contract. But It's annoying
It's a bootstrap modal, not an alert. In Firefox you can just hold shift when right clicking to bypass the js events and show the menu anyway.
It was/is extremely easy to bypass. All you have to do is disable Javascript, or what 13-year-old me used to back in the day was spam the right-click button and the menu would pop up before the script could stop you.
I was about to give some empathy for the dude but their articles are trash and they would be lucky if we stole them.
Zero empathy. There are tons of reasons to right click that have nothing to do with copying, plus he's a complete moron to think that there's any way to prevent someone from saving something that's already downloaded on their computer.
Meanwhile, their robots.txt doesn't disallow GPTBot or Google Bard. So apparently they're okay with content being stolen by for-profit companies.
you think either of those companies pays attention to robots.txt? its not legally binding or anythjng
At the executive level, no I don't think they care or pay attention, but considering both have said "here's how to block our crawler," I do hope that that some mistreated developer did actually program a check in to the crawler. I still think it's worth doing, even though I don't fully trust them.
I feel sorry for the guy now. He's in over his head and trying to defend himself ineffectively. And now a bunch of lemmings are mocking him too, which I get, but it's still fucked up. Humans suck.
i don't feel bad dunking on this guys site. doing this is a dick move for accessibility reasons
Yeah, based on his robots.txt it seems to be a Wordpress site, so he's probably just installed an ineffective plugin to prevent copying. At least he can take solace in the fact that most of us probably aren't any more relevant than he is.
I was going to copy content from the page using Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy in Firefox, but then I realized the content isn't worth copying.
So yes, there are add-ons to easily extract text and bypass this. The text is sent to your computer. It's your computer. You can copy the content.
Don't even need an addon, just hit F12 to open dev tools and use the network tab to get images/videos, and inspector tab for text.
It's done by overriding the document.onrightclick and the selection start something function in the browser. Reset it and you're done.
I know this because of a manufacturers website that does this. So incredibly annoying when the only reason anybody would want to copy from their webbo is for reference of their own products. In my case the product numbers to search for where to buy it.
I bet in ublock origin you can just click the "block JavaScript" button and refresh the page. That works for a lot of things like this.
looks like its just setting some events, these two lines should clear the anti-select and the anti-right click respectively if pasted into the debug console:
Firefox has an add-on called "Allow Right-Click" that lets you easily toggle blocking right-click scripts. Some sites offer a useful context menu, like Google Drive, so you don't necessarily want to always be blocking them. Hence the toggle.
Or you can simply shift + right click
Interesting. I'll give that a try.
you reminded me of a site that was "down for maintenance" (they were just spamming an alert) after using the block multiple alerts button in firefox, it works fine
Can someone in a country that doesn't give a crap about his country's copyright laws wget that whole site for me?
just in case someone feels like right-clicking. (CTRL+Shift+K opens the console in Firefox, but shht)
god i even get the popup on mobile
If you use brave and block scripts you can download all you want. Not that there's anything really worth taking from there.
I run NoScript and I can right-click just fine.
This was more or less standard 20 years ago!
Even disabling the ability to select text and sometimes also dissabling the Ctrl + C shortcut!
The latter is still done by old code and outdated management that thinks disabling the clipboard is "more secure". It's fucking infuriating.
Seems like the kind of thing a person does when they understand technology well enough to use it badly but don't recognize that it's ineffective against anyone willing to type "enable right click" into their search engine of choice.
How much do you want to bet that they didn't write the JavaScript for that message and it's just been copied and edited? Probably even right-clicked to do it, the scalawag.
How much do you want to bet that they didn't write the JavaScript for that message
They definitely didn't-- the page source has it copied from another blog:
/******************************************************************************
*** COPY PROTECTED BY http://chetangole.com/blog/wp-copyprotect/ version 3.1.0 ****
******************************************************************************/
var message="Copying my work, without written permission is theft. You are not helping me, only yourself, and you are a thief. Reproduce my work and I will come after you legally.";
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
alert(message);
return false;
Isn't there a browser extension to prevent exactly that? Like, "Allow right click"?
No need, at least on Firefox you can hold down shift (or alt? I never remember) + right click to bypass such restrictions
Can confirm, just tested it on that site and it works (it's shift).
There are extensions that will download any media you want as long as it is in the source. There's a double left click to save an image one that is very useful.
Looks like a prolapsed anus from hell.
Empty threats of legal actions really paint you in a good light.
How hilariously useless.
Mildly amusing.
flashback to my first website in the 90s that put cute messages on right click.
brb going to host a duplicate site under a dubiously duplicated domain name.
CTRL + U opens the page source code
you can just use noscript to block javascript
That works too. There are so many ways to get around this.
This review is dedicated to the memory of Hugh Masekela – RIP.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll – Alice in Wonderland
Coconut Audio is dead long live Audiophile Rocks, that was the essence of part of the email exchange I had with Kamilla Liljegren of Audiophile Rocks who’s email to me was headed ‘Another Review ?’ After a brief exchange, a review was arranged of a number of Audiophile Rocks ‘Tweaks’ – as they call them – and a few days later 5 items arrived in the post to be reviewed: the Glo, Black Hole, Volcano, Rockwood and an RCA plug called the Noise Terminator.
I must say I thought Coconut Audio’s name was pretty unique and in a world of – to a degree – identikit audio companies a unique name and usp stands out from the crowd, though I guess there will be those who say that placing crystal covered items on audio gear and expecting a difference pretty unique enough to stand out from the crowd.
img:002_549x412
Being as frank as I was first review around I was very sceptical about these types of audio tweaks being pretty sceptical until I tried the previous tweak from Coconut Audio, the Vibradome Blue Star, the placing of which on several audio components made an easily audible difference.
This time round I am no more able to offer any kind of explanation as to why the Blue Star made a difference as it did, and under blind listening conditions as well as sighted listening. I recall only to well the look on faces when listeners were able to correctly identify the effect of the Vibradome Blue Star, when it was sitting on the audio equipment and had then that effects absence once it had been lifted off.
The differences, improvements were described in similar ways to what I had heard and being frank all of us were left with our ideas regarding what could and could not make a difference challenged, and I found myself severely perplexed, never mind those who did the blind testing part of the Vibradome Blue Star review who’s incredulity was swept away by the reality of hearing a crystal covered dome improve the sound of music.
This time round Kamilla’s email arrived in the in box of someone who at least had an open mind, and relished the idea of a second go at listening to the latest tweaks.
Audiophile Rocks products will be reviewed with a similar listening methodology to the Coconut Audio review and that will also mean blind testing.
Audiophile Rocks say this about their products basic technology –
‘All our products use natural based piezoelectric (1) quartz crystals, minerals and ores of selected types, which are treated with proprietary liquids and ultrasonic waves of different types. This is a lengthy process that lasts two months per batch to complete. It has taken 6 years of trial and error to perfect this H2U2 Crystal Formula. The H2U2 Crystal Formula has been fine-tuned by ear into 0.01 gram accuracy and is very sensitive to external contamination, therefore we have tightly pressed and vacuum sealed it inside all products we build.’
And about their making process and materials –
‘Around the H2U2 Crystal Formula we use either wood or PVC depending on the product. This wood/PVC has black crystals pressed into it using a proprietary technique that has taken years to develop. The amount of crystals on the surface is very important as well as how deep the crystals are pressed inside the wood. We finally place a very thin layer of proprietary varnish around everything which makes the device water resistant while holding the crystals in place.’
Having looked a little into this, I am still none the wiser as to how this can have any effect on a piece of audio equipment, but it or some other factor, please no calls of placebo or delusion, must be, because not just myself can hear an improvement in music reproduction.
This time round Kamilla has sent more products to try, so with no more ado here are the details of the items up for review this time.
:::
Holy "word salad", Batman!
::: spoiler Part 2
Product Description
Here are the details:
Volcano
img:audiophile rocks Volcano
The Volcano is suitably named as that is exactly what it looks like, a small red volcano. It is 6.3 cm wide at its base reducing to a 2.2 cm at its top, with a 5cm deep depression in its top. The red material it is made from is embedded with black crystals.
Audiophile Rocks have this to say about it
‘The Volcano is our new crystal design for the lowest cost. It costs as much as our old popular VibraDome Blue Star while also being bigger with our newest and best H2U2 Crystal Formula. This filter is surrounded with red PVC, black crystals and varnish. ‘
The next ‘tweak’ in for review is the
Glo
img:audiophile rocks glo
The Glo looks for all the world like a snow ball, its 4.5 cm tall, 5 cm wide and has a flat bottom. The surface is covered on black crystals and some other crystals a colour I am struggling to decide what it is.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Glo
‘This Glowing Light Orb (GLO) is our new crystal tweak that replaces our old Night Glow tweaks for the same cost. They have been very popular among our customers over the years. Our first model Night Stone was even voted “Product of the year 2012” which was using the old Alien Crystal Formula, since that time we improved the formula many times until we reached perfection with the H2U2 Crystal Formula.’
The Rockwood V6 is 5 cm tall, 3.5 cm wide and is round, slightly domed at the top and has a slight depression underneath it. It’s surface is covered in black crystals.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Rockwood
‘Rockwood is the most neutral and transparent tweak ever designed, and it was built to last a lifetime. It’s handcrafted from wood and black crystals on the surface which makes it almost impossible to break. It’s our only tweak that can be placed under the equipment as isolation feet if you buy 3 units.
The V6 model is our best version that is a large step up from all the other Rockwood versions and the Hill Crystal models we designed during year 2016-2017. ‘
The Black Hole is a free standing flat bottomed black object, bulbous at the top and thinning slightly to its lower body. Its 5 cm tall, by 4 cm wide at the top and 2.5 cm at its bottom. The surface is speckled with black embedded crystals, mostly buried in the surface There is a hole in its bottom, which ends in a flat faced crystal.
Audiophile Rocks say this
‘Black Hole is our new crystal tweak that replaces the old Black Star tweak for the same cost. Black Hole is twice as large and has a Black Obsidian Pyramid inside. The older Unreal Crystal Formula has been upgraded into our best H2U2 Crystal Formula which is placed inside the rock. Around this rock we use black PVC, black crystals and varnish.’
As before the proof in the pudding is the listening.
The Noise Terminator is 5cm long, by 1cm wide. It comprises of a bare metal RCA plug, black plastic body and at the opposite end to the RCA section there is a recess filled with small crystals. Currently Audiophile Rocks don’t have any other type of plug type available so potential customers wanting XLRs or any other connector option will have to ask if they can offer them.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Terminator
‘Cover up the empty RCA holes in your audio system and prevent RFI from leaking into your music.
Noise Terminator has been one of our most popular tweaks. Over the years we have improved the original Alien Crystal Formula and now we have it available in “the end of all” H2U2 Crystal Formula which took 6 years to perfect. We have even improved on the aesthetics and durability of the Noise Terminator which really sets it apart from our older versions.’
Noise terminators are not a new addition to the music lovers arsenal of tweaks, as companies like Cardas, and Telos offer cap covers, so it will be interesting to see what this particular item does to improve the listening experience.
This time round I opted to use my second system: Balanced Audio Technology VK300 se integrated amplifier, Veracity Audio Mystra DAC, Sony HAPZ1 music player, Accuphase DP56 CD player, AMG Giro turntable, AMG 9W2 tonearm, Air Tight PC3 MC cartridge, Pass Labs X Ono phono stage. Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers. Cabling: Audience AU24 XLR to XLR, Atlas Mavros,
Music Used
I used my usual reference recordings and many more during this review, but in the main I used these two.
With 4 Audiophile Rocks to assess as well as the shorting plug I tried to keep this as simple for myself as I could and thus I started with the amplifier alone, then a source. However after doing this I also introduced using two rocks on the source and amplifier.
What I am not going to do here is examine every option in detail, as I think that would lead to an unwieldy review and for some readers a boring one, instead I will focus in detail on some aspects and more generally on others.
Volcano
img:001_549x412
First up was the Volcano, as Audiophile Rocks state it was the replacement for the Vibradome Blue Star.
The difference the Volcano brought to the track was a wider soundstage, extra clarity to the space and air of the musics acoustic. There was also a greater sense of instruments and Brendan Perry’s voice being more dimensional and a greater sense of layering within the music.
These improvements were right the way across the treble, mid-range and bass. I would say there was no tonal change, no shift in focus or spotlighting music was simply appearing to be reproduced with improvements in the areas mentioned.
This wasn’t a subtle improvement and yet I did a fair few Volcano on, Volcano off comparisons before I could really accept what I was hearing. In all honesty despite hearing the positive effects the Vibradome Blue star had made to my other system I was still shocked and surprised this item could make such a difference by just sitting on the amps case. Its not heavy enough to damp it and yet it was making a difference and a positive one – frankly I don’t know how.
img:005_549x412
I also tried it on the source but felt that it gave more benefit on the amplifier, but there was an improvement while sitting on the top of the Sony HAPZ1, just not as large a one as there was while on top of the amplifier.
Next up was the Glo.
img:009_549x412
Placing the Glo on top of the BAT VK300se brought a difference to the presentation and a very slight shift in focus. There was a smidge more detail and definition in the mid and treble and a very slight shift in the soundstage coming forward, with a little more depth to the image.
Using the Glo on the Sony didn’t bring the same degree of benefit as the Volcano had but there was still an improvement, and one worth having.
Rockwood V6
img:002_549x412
I did a number of on, off comparisons, and to the Volcano and was left speechless as to how this could possibly do what it was doing.
Trying the track Birds also off Into The Labyrinth by Dead was very useful regarding how the Rockwood altered the soundstage. At the beginning there is an intro with numerous bird sounds and to the far right of the soundstage a number of bird calls appear. With the Rockwood on top of the BAT there was an extra realism to these calls that helped create the illusion that the bird making them was half way out into the room. Swapping back to the Volcano saw the bird call shrink slightly back to the right speaker.
Percussion, and drum sounds had extra impact, decay and nuance, the strikes on skin and subsequent trail off into the acoustic was breathtakingly real sounding.
Black Hole
img:003_549x412
The Black Hole had a similar effect to the Rockwood V6 but I felt that I just preferred the Rockwood in that I felt there was a very slight forwardness to the way the Black Hole worked in the system. In saying that this was pretty subtle and during the blind testing part of the review period the blind listener was not always able to discern whether it was the Black Hole or Rockwood, but could always hear the effect of the tweaks sitting on the amplifier.
The Noise Terminator
img:NoiseTerminator1piece
My methodology re this was to use it in a source, Marantz CD7 digital output and an unused RCA input on my Balanced Audio Technology VK300se integrated amplifier.
I started with track four on Dead Can Dance’s album Into the Labyrinth, The Carnival is Over with the Noise Terminator not in place and then with it in the BAT VK300se.
img:004_412x549
It was immediately obvious that there was a change, the harp at the beginning of the track had more space, and air round it, detail of the strings being plucked were much more obvious and within the soundscape of the track the harp was more 3 dimensional than it had been. The swirling keyboards also benefited from the same change as did Brendan Perry’s vocals.
Separation of the various elements within the track was improved with every aspect now clearer. The drum which beats like a heart in parts of the track was also so much more clear and defined as was the percussion elements towards the end. Another aspect that was better was the fade out where Brendan speaks. With the Noise Terminator in place his voice stood out more even as the track fades away to nothing.
I then placed the Noise Terminator in one of the digital outputs of the Marantz CD7 and had another listen. This was better than without but not as marked a difference as in place in the amplifier.
Switching back again to no Terminator in the amp, just to recheck my listening experience and then back to the Terminator in place really was an expletive moment, I swore. This time round I was able to concentrate on other aspects of how this track sounded, and the increase in soundstage width and depth, and the track appearing to sound a smidge louder (volume setting were not changed) stood out more. I think it important to do several back and forward comparisons and this was revealing.
img:007_549x412
Next I tried Stimela (The Coal Train) by Hugh Masekela and listening today was tinged with sadness at his very recent death, but also in awe of his great talent. First I listened with the Terminator in place and then with and I had another expletive moment. The clarity of the drum at the opening, cow bell and far right soundstage keyboard with the Noise Terminator in place was impressive and had all the same types of improvement there had been with the Dead Can Dance track.
The soundstage width and depth were improved and audience sounds had much more clarity and detail, individual voices more real than the slightly more homogenised non Terminator presentation, within the also improved acoustic of the club venue.
Hugh’s vocal had also gained greater clarity and detail as had the nuances of his trumpet playing.
I remember hearing a similar effect the first time I had placed Telos Caps on the unused RCA sockets of my system at that tine, but this improvement was brought about by just one item, not all the sockets being covered by caps. Where I originally lived the environment was much more noise filled than where I am now, I lived near a busy airport, with all its electronic devices, radar etc so to find this degree of improvement in my current environment begs the question what noise is the Terminator dealing with now ? I am not sure, but its effect, that of just one was big enough that I am very impressed with what the Noise Terminator was doing to reproduced music within my system.
As with the previous blind listening tests conducted at the time of the Vibradome Blue Star original review I did not tell the experienced listener what I was doing but simply played the same piece of music several times, both on a short comparison and over a slightly longer period of time. I know some favour these sorts of comparisons to be done over longer time periods than I allowed but I was fairly confident that the comparison methodology I adopted would identify differences in presentation, detail retrieval, tonal changes, and general improvements.
With the Volcano the blind listener was able to hear improvements in imaging, clarity and there were also tonal improvements. Glo brought about increased clarity in the treble, midrange and vocals. There was also an increase in soundstage width. Rockwood, and Blackhole improvements were audible but as mentioned above the blind listener was not always able to discern which was which as he felt the improvements were broadly similar. After exploring this further he felt the Black Hole’s soundstage was slightly bigger than the Rockwood V6, but there wasn’t much in it between the two, with both improving the soundstage by revealing more air in the acoustic, greater dimensionality, and subtle nuances in the music also became clearer.
My own listening experience roughly paralleled, the blind listener with a few differences in description, and interpretation of what we heard, but the main point is both of us heard these items improve and make a difference to the equipment they were placed on, be it the BAT VK300se integrated amplifier, the Sony HAPz1, Passlabs Xono or the Marantz SA7 and later on during my own follow up listening to a Marantz CD7.
“have i gone mad? i’m afraid so, but let me tell you something, the best people usually are.” ― Lewis Carroll – Alice in Wonderland
Well what can I say, once again incredulity was stretched and smashed once again. These items as I said in the last review should make no difference what so ever to any piece of audio equipment they sit on but they do, and once again I am lost as to how or why.
Being frank while I can’t explain this, I have reconciled myself to the reality that they do make a difference as the Vibradome Blue Star did before and based on Audiophile Rocks money back 90 day try in your own system guarantee I think at the very least that sceptics and the curious should give them ago. Of course there will be those who pour scorn on these products, my once again positive review, and Audiophile Rocks in general, but they won’t have tried them and therefore their opinion is somewhat worthless, in my view. Maybe they too should try them and then have an informed opinion to offer and possibly end up using them in their system as I am.
If you want an easy, or less controversial entry point into Audiophile Rocks product portfolio then give the Noise Terminator ago first and then try the other ‘tweaks’ at a later date, but being frank surely anything that improves music reproduction in your system, regardless, should be welcomed and the music enjoyed anew.
NB No part or portion of this article may be reproduced or quoted without written permission.
:::
All of this is cuckoo. I don't know what it is about the audiophile market that makes it full of stuff like this. Them calling it "proprietary", being vage about "minerals and fluids" involved and assuring us that their techniques "took years to develop", is red flag language that i've heard over and over again.
Also this article is written like crap.
Maybe audiophiles are kinda gullible and they prey on them.
Also this article is written like crap.
I am sorry, I was pretty high while writing it
Always makes me upset that audiophile snakeoil is always so expensive. I like the idea of having odd little trinkets to plop around my stuff, but $75 is way too much for a tiny goofy volcano, no matter how well it's made.
i suddenly want to visit his website and copy all his shit
Edit: Holy shit I just read the page. These people are lunatics.
Not lunatics - grifters. They have to write a lot of copy about blind testing with various rocks sat on top of their hi-fi to convince idiots to buy said rocks at extortionate prices, so that’s probably why they’re so sensitive about their rivals re-using or “stealing” their copy.
I wonder what percentage of sites that still use that are either pieces of shit, or just pirates trying to fend off competing pirates
I often copy things and paste them into google translate to translate them into my language.
"under blind listening conditions as well as sighted listening."
I decided to find this article and it's more wild than I expected. I often listen with my eyes. It very much influences the quality of the audio I listen to.
You know how you close your eyes when you're trying to listen to something carefully? There you go.
google lens ready
Paranoid much?
Control/command+shift+i
Now you’ve done it, you’re in trouble now!
That website doesn't even display the text in chromium based browsers for me
What was the nature of your right click?
I believe they used the middle finger on their right hand, and depressed it on the second (right) button of their mouse.
They could possibly be using their mouse in left-handed mode, which might've meant using the index finger on their left hand to achieve the same action.
Then again, it's possible that they're using their mouse in mirrored, left-handed mode, and they could've used the middle finger on their left hand to depress the primary (left) button of their mouse.
Of course, this only covers hand use of a traditional mouse. I can't speak as to whether OP is using an upright, ergonomic mouse of some sort, of even a stylus and tablet. There's just so many possibilities!
They can't be lost, they're on instruments up there!
It's an entirely different kind of IP theft, altogether.
lol, copying isn’t theft. You already had to download a copy just to view it. That’s how websites work.
Technically correct is the best kind of correct.
If you copy something you are not entitled to because of copyright, it's copyright infringement.
With theft the originally owner loses what is stolen, with copyright infringement the owner only loses the license fee for 1 copy.
Not the same thing, and calling it theft is purely a propaganda term invented by the media industry.
It should also be noted that copyright laws usually have all sorts of exceptions for fair use such as satire, education, etc. Typically, keeping and even using a copy without permission is legally allowed under certain circumstances.
Just a word of caution. Even if you have a valid fair use claim they have to be adjudicated and the legal costs can get pricey. Worse if you’re found liable.
Check out Lawful Masses on YouTube for plenty of examples of copyright trolls using this as a bludgeon.
It's just a fear tactic. If enough people self represented themselves individually the companies would die. You can't draw blood from a stone... which the average consumer is basically close to. The recovery rate vs the lawsuit fees would destroy the entire legal system if people stood their ground.
Canada decided to have none of that. Downloading without keeping a copy (streaming) was basically thrown out as copyright infringement, the whole lost income idea was generally laughed at, and the final result was a maximum judgement of $500 for all non-commercial copyright infringement prior to the suit. Which basically would pay for about one hour of the plaintiff lawyer's fees. We don't get a lot of copyright suits like that in Canada any more.
There used to be an anti-piracy lobby group in Australia literally called "Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft". I always had an issue with their name since they were really against copyright infringement, not "copyright theft" which is just a nonsense term like you said. It's been ruled several times by courts both in Australia and in the USA that it can't be called "theft" (e.g. https://www.techdirt.com/2013/12/02/surprise-mpaa-told-it-cant-use-terms-piracy-theft-stealing-during-hotfile-trial/).
I like to think of it as something similar to watching a football match from the other side of the fence. People who paid the ticket, are loyal fans. People who didn’t pay, but still want to see the match, probably aren’t even part of the target audience. Some of them might be, but that’s a small number.
So, when the football company says that they’ve lost the sales of x number of tickets, they are actually saying that if those people had enough money and if they cared enough, they might have paid this amount of money.
Not a bad analogy. 👍
"Tools" -> "Page info" -> "Media" menu on Firefox - you can even see and save the images that the browser already downloaded.
or save page to download all loaded image assets from a page into a nice folder
Try telling that to the AI hysterics
It’s different when you earn profit from another person’s work.
Right, so I suppose George Lucas was stealing from all the movies that inspired his work when he made Star Wars. Or when Mel Brooks made Space Balls, as a more blatant example
Mel Brooks’s works are protected under the Fair Use provisions for satire under the DMCA. Lucas never copied anything directly, but, if pressed, much of his work is “heavily inspired” by works in the public domain and/or could be argued to be “derivative works”, also covered by Fair Use provisions in the DMCA, although any claim of copyright violation would be pretty difficult to make in the first place.
And the same can be said about generative AI
If it's not redistributed copyrighted material, it's not theft
not in any legally reasonable way, and certainly not by anyone who understands how AI (or, really, LLM models) work or what art is.
but that's exactly what OpenAI did-- they used distributed, copyrighted works, used them as training data, and spit out result, some of which even contained word-for-word repetitions of the author's source material.
AI, unlike a human, cannot create unique works of art. it can old produce an algorithmically-derived malange of its source-data recomposited in novel forms, but nothing resembling the truly unique creative process of a living human. Sadly, too many people simply lack the ability to comprehend the difference.
Right, it produces derivative data. Not copyrighted material.
By itself without any safeguards, it absolutely could output copyrighted data, (albeit probably not perfectly but for copyright purposes that's irrelevant as long as it serves as a substitute). And any algorithms that do do that should be punished, but OpenAI's models can't do that.
Hammers aren't bad because they can be used for bludgeoning, and if we have a hammer that somehow detects that it's being used for murder and then evaporates, calling it bad is even more ridiculous.
Some safeguards have been added which curtail certain direct misbehavior, but it is still capable - by your own admission - of doing it. And it still profits from the unlicensed use of copyrighted works by using such material for its training data. Because what it is producing is not a new and unique creative work, it is a composite of copyrighted work. That is not the same thing.
And if you are comparing LLMs and hammers, you’re just proving how you fundamentally misunderstand what LLMs are and how they work. It’s a false equivalence.
And a regular hammer is capable of being used for murder. Which makes calling a hammer that evaporates before it can be used for murder "unethical" ridiculous. You're deliberately missing the point.
I just don't buy this reasoning. If I look at paintings of the Eiffel Tower and then sell my own painting of the building, I'm not violating the copyright of any of the original painters unless what I paint is so similar to one of theirs that it violates fair use.
It's stable diffusion, not a composite. But even if they were composites, I'm allowed to shred a magazine and make a composite image of something else. It's fair use until I use those pieces to create a copyrighted image.
Lol… I hope you didn’t sprain something with all those mental gymnastics. In the meantime, perhaps you should educate yourself a bit more on AI, LLV’s, and, perhaps, just a little bit on art.
Coming from someone who claimed stable diffusion was a composite image
ah, yes, the right click menu
Funny because Inspect offers all the stealing tools
It is awesome but some websites seem to detect when Dev Tools get brought up, can you explain this?
https://tube.tchncs.de/w/cJ18YQATnJK3dnc5xuBRM7 (details in desc)
Interesting, and clever
I know a large js obferscator has auto detection code, try loading dev tools in first then loading the site on the tab so it doesn't detect the sudden viewport change
I did consider this and accounted for it, that's part of the details in desc you should have read
This is why Apple pushed so hard for 1-button mice
A fellow Ultron user in the wild, #1 hacker and cyber-thief browser on the web. How's your Adobe Reader?
Are you sure? It looks just like Firefox to me
It is
Nice reference
please for the love of god someone make this a real thing.
Mobile convergence has tried to hard to kill this, but we're not having it. Cut, copy, paste, save 4 lyfe!
*an
You shouldn’t touch them either. Minimum safe distance: 4 m.
you focus on that popup and ignore all the crank shit that is on this page
statements dreamed of by the utterly deranged
Right click?? Why did we ever need a second or third or seventeenth button anyway?
They have played us for absolute fools
a single button makes the clicks sound warmer.
That mouse worked just fine for Crystal Quest! Kids these days.
It got me through so many rounds of Zany Golf!
Oh my god I loved Crystal Quest. I thought everyone forgot about it
There are dozens of us who had no idea we heard an orgasm at the end of every wave!
Have some nostalgia:
https://youtu.be/bR1sfqhJMdE?si=L6OJ1uG7-I1GEzUv
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/bR1sfqhJMdE?si=L6OJ1uG7-I1GEzUv
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
A piece of granite placed on the turntable would change how his records sound, but not necessarily in a good way.
Depending on the artist of course.
Does it only work for rock albums?
I'll see myself out.
Hard rock 🤘
You know, I considered that pun, but decided it was too obvious - I shouldn't have taken it for granite.
The audiophile reality distortion field in effect again.
I wish the intended had more deranged shit like this or the time cube
Green Ink
All this does is infuriate actual users trying to use your site. Content thieves will just download it via a script or curl and you won't be able to do anything about it.
Also in some browsers (I know Gecko-based ones at least), you can override JavaScript by holding shift while you right-click.
Huh, didn't know that! Thanks, super useful
I always found these anti-right-click scripts funny since they usually don't block Ctrl+S to save the page, Ctrl+U to view source, or Ctrl+P to print (or these days, F12 to open the browser dev tools)
My personal favorite is
Ctrl+Shift+Cwhich brings up Dev tools in selection mode, so you can click on the picture or whatever and be taken straight to its HTML code.Ooooh as a developer I am very grateful for this tip
It also is a bit annoying that that is the keybinding, because whenever I have to copy something from the browser to the terminal, I must remind myself not to do Ctrl-shift-c as I would in the terminal.
LOL, that's fair. That's messed with me before too.
Shift + right-click will override all this BS in Firefox.
JavaScript is no match for
wget -r.But then you find that website used JavaScript to calculate URLs to the actual website content for which wget is no match.
Or it's just otherwise JavaScript-dependent website. Wget can't parse that.
I just turn off JavaScript and then right click works again.
I can take a screenshot and then have it automatically OCR the text. Hell, I can take a picture with my phone of my chicken scratch handwriting and have it OCR.
And as someone who remembers buying OCR software from OfficeMax for $40 that barely worked, that's pretty amazing.
What are you using to OCR screenshots? I have lots of old screenshots and I'd love to OCR them and find notable things I worked on and took a screenshot of.
Tesseract is one tool that can do it.
Thanks for the link!
I have an iPhone and it just sorta does it automatically. If it thinks there's text it will put yellow corners around it and let me copy it to my clipboard. On my Mac I can just start selecting text and it will figure it out.
Or reader mode or page info or.. well, anything. All it does is annoy the user when tripped.
And good old screen sniping tools
There is a 100% chance this warning correlates with the actual content on this site being hot garbage
it is
Audiophile equipment is just magic crystal bullshit for pseudointellectuals.
He should just ask for a donation. His work isn't that valuable
Considering they think putting rocks on top of your playing equipment changes the sound, their work has negative value.
Technically, a weight on top of AV equipment's cases will change the resonant properties of the chassis but that does not produce audible effects unless it's on the speaker cone. The author considers this and dismisses the possibility because “rocks not heavy enough”.
Also, a sufficiently large rock will affect the performance of any Hi-Fi equipment.
Instructions unclear. Used boulder. No more sound comes out.
Worked as stated.
I think you followed the instructions perfectly.
You missed the part where if you put the rock in your ear, it will affect how it sounds.
Sometimes I think the whole industry of audiophile is just a bunch of baloney. Reminds of chifi IEM the KZ ZEX pro or something where people were praising for the improve sound and more drivers. Turns out only 1 driver is used and the rest are just there to justify increase in the price. It being no different than their cheaper version.
Audiophiles are 100% targeted with tons of nonsense products, mainly because sound is such a subjective thing beyond a certain level. That's not to say all hifi products are placebo-driven, just that the industry is rife with them.
That's not untrue though... Putting rocks on your sound system could make the rocks vibrate against it and sound like utter shit.
Well, my cheap Bluetooth speaker vibrates terribly and weighing it down helps. This will not help devices which already have vibration-preventing features, such as rubber feet or acoustics-aware housing design. And only some rocks will wobble depending on the base shape and point of mass.
I planned on getting my dad a sound bar for his TV on his birthday because the TV he uses, the plastic grill over the speaker vibrates something fierce and it sounds like absolute garbage any time something with any amount of bass plays. But maybe I can just glue some rocks to it 🤔
When I hear "glue rocks to it", I feel the urge to post the steering wheel picture. Because that one lives in my head rent free.
It's only tangentially relevant, but still.
Especially if you use coprolite.
He could afford hundreds of dollars' worth of placebo just for this single article. Either there's an undisclosed sponsorship deal, or he has enough money to fuel all his
means of self-delusionhobbies.Someone already plagiarized from them, so clearly it must be
http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/16/04/2019/copyright-infringement-outing-isecope-com-and-technocratsblog-com/
In my whole life I never bought digital audio or video content on vinyl, VHS, CD, DVD, Blueray. Never ever. It sounds as weird to me like paying for air to breath.
But one day I visited a live concert of a small band which I loved as a teenager. After the show I met with their drummer, gave him €200 cash and said "You know, when I was young you were cool about kids copying your music without paying. You told us if we like you music we can enjoy it. And if we can afford it, we can pay you. Back then I couldn't. Today I can."
And so I paid them five times as much as I saved back then by copying their music.
You are a very good person.
This is utterly irrelevant to people copying multi-million sales dickshits like Metallica.
I bet Lars would have declined the money and ask for your info then sued.
Don't get scammed with audiophile rocks. I've done my research and found out that audiophile rock salt does the exact same thing and it is MUCH cheaper! Feel free to copy this and spread the word!
Are you sure it isn’t the kitty sticker?
..... Jesus fucking christ. My research is invalid. I'm going to have to start all over again. 🤬
Dang that sounds so good I can hear it in the image.
Right?? It's crunchy! That's what all audiophiles want. Crunchiness.
The science behind it is that it sounds crunchy because the rock salt draws out the moisture from the music. You will have to replace the salt on a regular basis though - depending on how much music you listen to.
Yeah that's true but still, I listen to a lot of really wet and moist music and even then. For the price of one good quality audiophile rock I can have a lifetime supply of rock salt for both audio and seasoning purposes.
You won't come after me if I right click? Legally, I mean.
Sound like entrapment tbh
No no, I'm not like that, I promise. I understand your skepticism. It saddens me that this is where we're at today but I understand.
casually flexing stax lol
😉 😜
You're doing it wrong. You need to match the type and size of the rock to your headphone impedance, this is common knowledge man
I would need a boulder yo. My headphones have an impedence of 170,000 ohms. This will have to do.
The sacrifices one must make for the best audio quality
Urgh god damn it. Yeah I just called my contractor, he's gonna come bust a hole in my ceiling on Tuesday morning. Salt boulder will be dropped in by Friday.
Great, thank you for your research but do you have any audiophile jazz salt?
Wait, there's jazz salt???
How much can I buy them from you for
Sorry I can't sell any at all. Not even a gram. I have exactly enough for myself, nothing to spare.
Smh worst entrepreneur ever
Urgh I know but what's the point in carrying more. I can't compete with Big Rock Salt. Ever since they legalized it I barely get any customers.
That used to be fairly common 10-15 years ago.
Huh. Wonder why they stopped the warnings if it was so effective.
Every porn site: "Are you over 18 years of age"
13 year old me: "Yes"
@WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world did knowingly an intentionally expose a minor to pornography. Mandatory Sex offender registration. /s
Mildly infuriating cause those charges did happen. Charge the trafficked minor with a felony to target the traffickers. (My memory might be faulty on the event)
Isn't it wild that kids can be both perpetrators and victims of the same crime? Like if a teen takes sexually explicit video of themselves and sends it to someone, they can be arrested, tried, and convicted or producing and disseminating child pornography.
It's not wild. Christian Fascists have always taken the stance: "the slaves will never rebel, and if they do we hit them with a big hammer".
I don't think that it's christian nationalism in this case. The state definitely has a strong, compelling interest in preventing the sexual exploitation of children (and hopefully of adults as well). I think that it's more a case that it's really hard to figure out how to deal with material that is 99% exploitative, and 1% made willingly by kids, without them being coerced by adults.
Because--and here's where it gets really uncomfortable for most people--kids are also sexual. They may be more or less aware and interested in sex, and may not understand the mechanics, but that shit is baked into your biology. Gay kids know they're gay at a very young age, and I knew I was straight--although I had no idea what 'straight' and 'gay' even meant by the time I was 7 (!!!). And this was well before the internet.
the stickiest part of the wicket here is that if you carve out an exception for kids taking pictures of themselves, even if you make it still illegal but make the consequences less about punishment, millions of hideous fuckers will immediately begin probing for a way to manipulate kids into doing it themselves in a manner that doesn't technically break the law.
...And then you also have kids that grow up, and realize how fucked up that shit was, and have to deal with years of guilt and shame, while also facing the probability that the images or videos of them are still out there.
Tell me how punishing children prevents that
It's more like "we'll continuously hit them with a big hammer to prevent any potential rebellion"
It's just an alert() function thrown at you. Whatever it says, it is not enforceable as it is not a contract. But It's annoying
It's a bootstrap modal, not an alert. In Firefox you can just hold shift when right clicking to bypass the js events and show the menu anyway.
It was/is extremely easy to bypass. All you have to do is disable Javascript, or what 13-year-old me used to back in the day was spam the right-click button and the menu would pop up before the script could stop you.
I was about to give some empathy for the dude but their articles are trash and they would be lucky if we stole them.
Zero empathy. There are tons of reasons to right click that have nothing to do with copying, plus he's a complete moron to think that there's any way to prevent someone from saving something that's already downloaded on their computer.
Meanwhile, their robots.txt doesn't disallow GPTBot or Google Bard. So apparently they're okay with content being stolen by for-profit companies.
you think either of those companies pays attention to robots.txt? its not legally binding or anythjng
At the executive level, no I don't think they care or pay attention, but considering both have said "here's how to block our crawler," I do hope that that some mistreated developer did actually program a check in to the crawler. I still think it's worth doing, even though I don't fully trust them.
I feel sorry for the guy now. He's in over his head and trying to defend himself ineffectively. And now a bunch of lemmings are mocking him too, which I get, but it's still fucked up. Humans suck.
i don't feel bad dunking on this guys site. doing this is a dick move for accessibility reasons
Yeah, based on his robots.txt it seems to be a Wordpress site, so he's probably just installed an ineffective plugin to prevent copying. At least he can take solace in the fact that most of us probably aren't any more relevant than he is.
I was going to copy content from the page using Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy in Firefox, but then I realized the content isn't worth copying.
So yes, there are add-ons to easily extract text and bypass this. The text is sent to your computer. It's your computer. You can copy the content.
Don't even need an addon, just hit F12 to open dev tools and use the network tab to get images/videos, and inspector tab for text.
It's done by overriding the document.onrightclick and the selection start something function in the browser. Reset it and you're done.
I know this because of a manufacturers website that does this. So incredibly annoying when the only reason anybody would want to copy from their webbo is for reference of their own products. In my case the product numbers to search for where to buy it.
I bet in ublock origin you can just click the "block JavaScript" button and refresh the page. That works for a lot of things like this.
looks like its just setting some events, these two lines should clear the anti-select and the anti-right click respectively if pasted into the debug console:
Firefox has an add-on called "Allow Right-Click" that lets you easily toggle blocking right-click scripts. Some sites offer a useful context menu, like Google Drive, so you don't necessarily want to always be blocking them. Hence the toggle.
Or you can simply shift + right click
Interesting. I'll give that a try.
you reminded me of a site that was "down for maintenance" (they were just spamming an alert) after using the block multiple alerts button in firefox, it works fine
Can someone in a country that doesn't give a crap about his country's copyright laws wget that whole site for me?
http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/
just in case someone feels like right-clicking. (CTRL+Shift+K opens the console in Firefox, but shht)
god i even get the popup on mobile
If you use brave and block scripts you can download all you want. Not that there's anything really worth taking from there.
I run NoScript and I can right-click just fine.
This was more or less standard 20 years ago!
Even disabling the ability to select text and sometimes also dissabling the Ctrl + C shortcut!
The latter is still done by old code and outdated management that thinks disabling the clipboard is "more secure". It's fucking infuriating.
Seems like the kind of thing a person does when they understand technology well enough to use it badly but don't recognize that it's ineffective against anyone willing to type "enable right click" into their search engine of choice.
How much do you want to bet that they didn't write the JavaScript for that message and it's just been copied and edited? Probably even right-clicked to do it, the scalawag.
They definitely didn't-- the page source has it copied from another blog:
/******************************************************************************
*** COPY PROTECTED BY http://chetangole.com/blog/wp-copyprotect/ version 3.1.0 ****
******************************************************************************/
var message="Copying my work, without written permission is theft. You are not helping me, only yourself, and you are a thief. Reproduce my work and I will come after you legally.";
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
alert(message);
return false;
Isn't there a browser extension to prevent exactly that? Like, "Allow right click"?
No need, at least on Firefox you can hold down shift (or alt? I never remember) + right click to bypass such restrictions
Can confirm, just tested it on that site and it works (it's shift).
There are extensions that will download any media you want as long as it is in the source. There's a double left click to save an image one that is very useful.
Looks like a prolapsed anus from hell.
Empty threats of legal actions really paint you in a good light.
How hilariously useless.
Mildly amusing.
flashback to my first website in the 90s that put cute messages on right click.
brb going to host a duplicate site under a dubiously duplicated domain name.
CTRL + U opens the page source code
you can just use noscript to block javascript
That works too. There are so many ways to get around this.
oops, I wrong-clicked
Audiophile Rocks – Down The Rabbit Hole Once Again.
^Accessories^ ^Review^ ^Equipment^ ^Review^
::: spoiler Part 1
img:Volcano
This review is dedicated to the memory of Hugh Masekela – RIP.
Coconut Audio is dead long live Audiophile Rocks, that was the essence of part of the email exchange I had with Kamilla Liljegren of Audiophile Rocks who’s email to me was headed ‘Another Review ?’ After a brief exchange, a review was arranged of a number of Audiophile Rocks ‘Tweaks’ – as they call them – and a few days later 5 items arrived in the post to be reviewed: the Glo, Black Hole, Volcano, Rockwood and an RCA plug called the Noise Terminator.
img:001_549x412
I must say I thought Coconut Audio’s name was pretty unique and in a world of – to a degree – identikit audio companies a unique name and usp stands out from the crowd, though I guess there will be those who say that placing crystal covered items on audio gear and expecting a difference pretty unique enough to stand out from the crowd.
img:002_549x412
Being as frank as I was first review around I was very sceptical about these types of audio tweaks being pretty sceptical until I tried the previous tweak from Coconut Audio, the Vibradome Blue Star, the placing of which on several audio components made an easily audible difference.
This time round I am no more able to offer any kind of explanation as to why the Blue Star made a difference as it did, and under blind listening conditions as well as sighted listening. I recall only to well the look on faces when listeners were able to correctly identify the effect of the Vibradome Blue Star, when it was sitting on the audio equipment and had then that effects absence once it had been lifted off.
The differences, improvements were described in similar ways to what I had heard and being frank all of us were left with our ideas regarding what could and could not make a difference challenged, and I found myself severely perplexed, never mind those who did the blind testing part of the Vibradome Blue Star review who’s incredulity was swept away by the reality of hearing a crystal covered dome improve the sound of music.
This time round Kamilla’s email arrived in the in box of someone who at least had an open mind, and relished the idea of a second go at listening to the latest tweaks.
Audiophile Rocks products will be reviewed with a similar listening methodology to the Coconut Audio review and that will also mean blind testing.
Product Descriptions.
img:VolcanoMarantz
Audiophile Rocks say this about their products basic technology –
And about their making process and materials –
Having looked a little into this, I am still none the wiser as to how this can have any effect on a piece of audio equipment, but it or some other factor, please no calls of placebo or delusion, must be, because not just myself can hear an improvement in music reproduction.
This time round Kamilla has sent more products to try, so with no more ado here are the details of the items up for review this time.
:::
Holy "word salad", Batman!
::: spoiler Part 2
Product Description
Here are the details:
Volcano
img:audiophile rocks Volcano
The Volcano is suitably named as that is exactly what it looks like, a small red volcano. It is 6.3 cm wide at its base reducing to a 2.2 cm at its top, with a 5cm deep depression in its top. The red material it is made from is embedded with black crystals.
Audiophile Rocks have this to say about it
The next ‘tweak’ in for review is the
Glo
img:audiophile rocks glo
The Glo looks for all the world like a snow ball, its 4.5 cm tall, 5 cm wide and has a flat bottom. The surface is covered on black crystals and some other crystals a colour I am struggling to decide what it is.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Glo
And next
img:audiophile rocks RockwoodV6King
Rockwood V6
The Rockwood V6 is 5 cm tall, 3.5 cm wide and is round, slightly domed at the top and has a slight depression underneath it. It’s surface is covered in black crystals.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Rockwood
Next
img:audiophile rocks CrystalBlackHole
Black Hole
The Black Hole is a free standing flat bottomed black object, bulbous at the top and thinning slightly to its lower body. Its 5 cm tall, by 4 cm wide at the top and 2.5 cm at its bottom. The surface is speckled with black embedded crystals, mostly buried in the surface There is a hole in its bottom, which ends in a flat faced crystal.
Audiophile Rocks say this
As before the proof in the pudding is the listening.
img:audiophile rocks NoiseTerminator
Noise Terminator
The Noise Terminator is 5cm long, by 1cm wide. It comprises of a bare metal RCA plug, black plastic body and at the opposite end to the RCA section there is a recess filled with small crystals. Currently Audiophile Rocks don’t have any other type of plug type available so potential customers wanting XLRs or any other connector option will have to ask if they can offer them.
Audiophile Rocks say this about the Terminator
Noise terminators are not a new addition to the music lovers arsenal of tweaks, as companies like Cardas, and Telos offer cap covers, so it will be interesting to see what this particular item does to improve the listening experience.
Review System
img:001_549x412
This time round I opted to use my second system: Balanced Audio Technology VK300 se integrated amplifier, Veracity Audio Mystra DAC, Sony HAPZ1 music player, Accuphase DP56 CD player, AMG Giro turntable, AMG 9W2 tonearm, Air Tight PC3 MC cartridge, Pass Labs X Ono phono stage. Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 speakers. Cabling: Audience AU24 XLR to XLR, Atlas Mavros,
Music Used
I used my usual reference recordings and many more during this review, but in the main I used these two.
img:dead-can-dance-19932
Dead Can Dance – Into The Labyrinth.
img:Dali
The Dali Demo CD – Various Artists.
:::
::: spoiler Part 3 Listening
img:003_549x412
With 4 Audiophile Rocks to assess as well as the shorting plug I tried to keep this as simple for myself as I could and thus I started with the amplifier alone, then a source. However after doing this I also introduced using two rocks on the source and amplifier.
What I am not going to do here is examine every option in detail, as I think that would lead to an unwieldy review and for some readers a boring one, instead I will focus in detail on some aspects and more generally on others.
Volcano
img:001_549x412
First up was the Volcano, as Audiophile Rocks state it was the replacement for the Vibradome Blue Star.
The difference the Volcano brought to the track was a wider soundstage, extra clarity to the space and air of the musics acoustic. There was also a greater sense of instruments and Brendan Perry’s voice being more dimensional and a greater sense of layering within the music.
These improvements were right the way across the treble, mid-range and bass. I would say there was no tonal change, no shift in focus or spotlighting music was simply appearing to be reproduced with improvements in the areas mentioned.
This wasn’t a subtle improvement and yet I did a fair few Volcano on, Volcano off comparisons before I could really accept what I was hearing. In all honesty despite hearing the positive effects the Vibradome Blue star had made to my other system I was still shocked and surprised this item could make such a difference by just sitting on the amps case. Its not heavy enough to damp it and yet it was making a difference and a positive one – frankly I don’t know how.
img:005_549x412
I also tried it on the source but felt that it gave more benefit on the amplifier, but there was an improvement while sitting on the top of the Sony HAPZ1, just not as large a one as there was while on top of the amplifier.
Next up was the Glo.
img:009_549x412
Placing the Glo on top of the BAT VK300se brought a difference to the presentation and a very slight shift in focus. There was a smidge more detail and definition in the mid and treble and a very slight shift in the soundstage coming forward, with a little more depth to the image.
Using the Glo on the Sony didn’t bring the same degree of benefit as the Volcano had but there was still an improvement, and one worth having.
Rockwood V6
img:002_549x412
I did a number of on, off comparisons, and to the Volcano and was left speechless as to how this could possibly do what it was doing.
Trying the track Birds also off Into The Labyrinth by Dead was very useful regarding how the Rockwood altered the soundstage. At the beginning there is an intro with numerous bird sounds and to the far right of the soundstage a number of bird calls appear. With the Rockwood on top of the BAT there was an extra realism to these calls that helped create the illusion that the bird making them was half way out into the room. Swapping back to the Volcano saw the bird call shrink slightly back to the right speaker.
Percussion, and drum sounds had extra impact, decay and nuance, the strikes on skin and subsequent trail off into the acoustic was breathtakingly real sounding.
Black Hole
img:003_549x412
The Black Hole had a similar effect to the Rockwood V6 but I felt that I just preferred the Rockwood in that I felt there was a very slight forwardness to the way the Black Hole worked in the system. In saying that this was pretty subtle and during the blind testing part of the review period the blind listener was not always able to discern whether it was the Black Hole or Rockwood, but could always hear the effect of the tweaks sitting on the amplifier.
The Noise Terminator
img:NoiseTerminator1piece
My methodology re this was to use it in a source, Marantz CD7 digital output and an unused RCA input on my Balanced Audio Technology VK300se integrated amplifier.
I started with track four on Dead Can Dance’s album Into the Labyrinth, The Carnival is Over with the Noise Terminator not in place and then with it in the BAT VK300se.
img:004_412x549
It was immediately obvious that there was a change, the harp at the beginning of the track had more space, and air round it, detail of the strings being plucked were much more obvious and within the soundscape of the track the harp was more 3 dimensional than it had been. The swirling keyboards also benefited from the same change as did Brendan Perry’s vocals.
Separation of the various elements within the track was improved with every aspect now clearer. The drum which beats like a heart in parts of the track was also so much more clear and defined as was the percussion elements towards the end. Another aspect that was better was the fade out where Brendan speaks. With the Noise Terminator in place his voice stood out more even as the track fades away to nothing.
I then placed the Noise Terminator in one of the digital outputs of the Marantz CD7 and had another listen. This was better than without but not as marked a difference as in place in the amplifier.
Switching back again to no Terminator in the amp, just to recheck my listening experience and then back to the Terminator in place really was an expletive moment, I swore. This time round I was able to concentrate on other aspects of how this track sounded, and the increase in soundstage width and depth, and the track appearing to sound a smidge louder (volume setting were not changed) stood out more. I think it important to do several back and forward comparisons and this was revealing.
img:007_549x412
Next I tried Stimela (The Coal Train) by Hugh Masekela and listening today was tinged with sadness at his very recent death, but also in awe of his great talent. First I listened with the Terminator in place and then with and I had another expletive moment. The clarity of the drum at the opening, cow bell and far right soundstage keyboard with the Noise Terminator in place was impressive and had all the same types of improvement there had been with the Dead Can Dance track.
The soundstage width and depth were improved and audience sounds had much more clarity and detail, individual voices more real than the slightly more homogenised non Terminator presentation, within the also improved acoustic of the club venue.
Hugh’s vocal had also gained greater clarity and detail as had the nuances of his trumpet playing.
I remember hearing a similar effect the first time I had placed Telos Caps on the unused RCA sockets of my system at that tine, but this improvement was brought about by just one item, not all the sockets being covered by caps. Where I originally lived the environment was much more noise filled than where I am now, I lived near a busy airport, with all its electronic devices, radar etc so to find this degree of improvement in my current environment begs the question what noise is the Terminator dealing with now ? I am not sure, but its effect, that of just one was big enough that I am very impressed with what the Noise Terminator was doing to reproduced music within my system.
Blind Testing
img:002_412x549
As with the previous blind listening tests conducted at the time of the Vibradome Blue Star original review I did not tell the experienced listener what I was doing but simply played the same piece of music several times, both on a short comparison and over a slightly longer period of time. I know some favour these sorts of comparisons to be done over longer time periods than I allowed but I was fairly confident that the comparison methodology I adopted would identify differences in presentation, detail retrieval, tonal changes, and general improvements.
With the Volcano the blind listener was able to hear improvements in imaging, clarity and there were also tonal improvements. Glo brought about increased clarity in the treble, midrange and vocals. There was also an increase in soundstage width. Rockwood, and Blackhole improvements were audible but as mentioned above the blind listener was not always able to discern which was which as he felt the improvements were broadly similar. After exploring this further he felt the Black Hole’s soundstage was slightly bigger than the Rockwood V6, but there wasn’t much in it between the two, with both improving the soundstage by revealing more air in the acoustic, greater dimensionality, and subtle nuances in the music also became clearer.
img:004_549x412
My own listening experience roughly paralleled, the blind listener with a few differences in description, and interpretation of what we heard, but the main point is both of us heard these items improve and make a difference to the equipment they were placed on, be it the BAT VK300se integrated amplifier, the Sony HAPz1, Passlabs Xono or the Marantz SA7 and later on during my own follow up listening to a Marantz CD7.
img:003_549x412
:::
::: spoiler Part 4
Conclusions
Well what can I say, once again incredulity was stretched and smashed once again. These items as I said in the last review should make no difference what so ever to any piece of audio equipment they sit on but they do, and once again I am lost as to how or why.
Being frank while I can’t explain this, I have reconciled myself to the reality that they do make a difference as the Vibradome Blue Star did before and based on Audiophile Rocks money back 90 day try in your own system guarantee I think at the very least that sceptics and the curious should give them ago. Of course there will be those who pour scorn on these products, my once again positive review, and Audiophile Rocks in general, but they won’t have tried them and therefore their opinion is somewhat worthless, in my view. Maybe they too should try them and then have an informed opinion to offer and possibly end up using them in their system as I am.
If you want an easy, or less controversial entry point into Audiophile Rocks product portfolio then give the Noise Terminator ago first and then try the other ‘tweaks’ at a later date, but being frank surely anything that improves music reproduction in your system, regardless, should be welcomed and the music enjoyed anew.
Recommended
Neil
(1) Wiki entry relating Piezoelectricity – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity#Synthetic_crystals
Source of Review Items – Original Manufacturer
Audiophile Rocks – http://audiophile.rocks/index.html
Contact – Office address:
Kamilla Liljegren
Lysviksgatan 42
12342 Farsta
Sweden
Email – info@audiophile.rocks
Organization number: 9201264307
VAT number: SE 92012643070
Review Products:
Rockwood V6 – £60
Glo – £60
Volcano – £60
Blackhole – £60
Noise Terminator – £30
© Text and Photos Copyright 2018 Adventures in High Fidelity Audio. Except album sleeves/manufacturers images. Copyright resides with those owners.
NB No part or portion of this article may be reproduced or quoted without written permission.
:::
All of this is cuckoo. I don't know what it is about the audiophile market that makes it full of stuff like this. Them calling it "proprietary", being vage about "minerals and fluids" involved and assuring us that their techniques "took years to develop", is red flag language that i've heard over and over again.
Also this article is written like crap.
Maybe audiophiles are kinda gullible and they prey on them.
I am sorry, I was pretty high while writing it
Always makes me upset that audiophile snakeoil is always so expensive. I like the idea of having odd little trinkets to plop around my stuff, but $75 is way too much for a tiny goofy volcano, no matter how well it's made.
i suddenly want to visit his website and copy all his shit
https://web.archive.org/web/20231127004942/http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/
oops.
Edit: Holy shit I just read the page. These people are lunatics.
Not lunatics - grifters. They have to write a lot of copy about blind testing with various rocks sat on top of their hi-fi to convince idiots to buy said rocks at extortionate prices, so that’s probably why they’re so sensitive about their rivals re-using or “stealing” their copy.
http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/feed/
http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/comments/feed/
Now that's funny
XD
I wonder what percentage of sites that still use that are either pieces of shit, or just pirates trying to fend off competing pirates
I often copy things and paste them into google translate to translate them into my language.
I decided to find this article and it's more wild than I expected. I often listen with my eyes. It very much influences the quality of the audio I listen to.
You know how you close your eyes when you're trying to listen to something carefully? There you go.
google lens ready
Paranoid much?
Control/command+shift+i
Now you’ve done it, you’re in trouble now!
That website doesn't even display the text in chromium based browsers for me
What was the nature of your right click?
I believe they used the middle finger on their right hand, and depressed it on the second (right) button of their mouse.
They could possibly be using their mouse in left-handed mode, which might've meant using the index finger on their left hand to achieve the same action.
Then again, it's possible that they're using their mouse in mirrored, left-handed mode, and they could've used the middle finger on their left hand to depress the primary (left) button of their mouse.
Of course, this only covers hand use of a traditional mouse. I can't speak as to whether OP is using an upright, ergonomic mouse of some sort, of even a stylus and tablet. There's just so many possibilities!
They can't be lost, they're on instruments up there!
It's an entirely different kind of IP theft, altogether.
Its an entirely different kind of IP theft
Its an entirely different kind of IP theft