Unusually Good Links
Here are some exceptionally interesting links for your reading pleasure this morning.First, from Chris Meadowcraft, a link to an article about sound quality on music CD's and how it's being destroyed by compression. Here's an excerpt:
For the past 10 or so years, artists and record companies have been increasing the overall loudness of pop and rock albums, using ever increasing degrees of compression during mastering, altering the properties of the music being recorded. Quiet sounds and loud sounds are now squashed together, decreasing the recording's dynamic range, raising the average loudness as much as possible.
As Jerry Tubb at Austin's Terra Nova Mastering puts it, "Listening to something that's mastered too hot is like sitting in the front row at the movies. All the images are in your face."
I've certainly noticed at times in the last few years that I couldn't stand the mix of a CD and couldn't figure out why. This is a pretty fascinating article in general, because it goes into quite a bit of detail about how albums are recorded and mastered. An excellent read, and you can find it here.
Here's a brief but very interesting article about soft tissue found inside a T-rex bone.
That's right--soft tissue. And here's a surprise:
A scanning electron microscope revealed that the dinosaur blood vessels, which are 70 million years old, are virtually identical to those recovered from modern ostrich bones.
Here's the link to the full story.
Finally, from Franke Regan, a link to an epic story over at Wired about Gizmondo. I've put up links to stories about the company before, but this one is, by far, the most detailed and interesting. It's an amazing story, particularly for what it says about human nature, and you can read it here.
Last, from Sirius, a link to an article about an amazing BBC documentary. It seems that in Northern Botswana, lions have started hunting elephants. Here's an excerpt:
A few years ago stories began to emerge from Botswana that were so extraordinary wildlife experts struggled to believe them. The north of the country is home to 130,000 elephants, a quarter of the world’s population. According to guides in a remote area of Chobe National Park a pride of lions had started attacking elephants. Driven by extreme hunger at the height of the dry season, when their normal prey was scarce, they had started by taking down baby elephants and then moved on to adolescents and occasionally even fully grown adults.
Lions are among the animal kingdom’s most brutal and efficient predators but no one had heard of them hunting elephants before. These two big beasts of the savannah have plenty of mutual respect and normally give each other a wide berth.
It's a stunning article, and you can read it here.
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