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jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,562
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Having compensation tied more directly to productivity would be good, I think--these problems that we have wouldn't be problems if the slackers got paid half as much...
how does your employer handle annual performance reviews? i'm assuming your department is all salary based? for me, my annual bonus and salary merit increase is tied to my performance review rating. i can get more $$ if i have a very good review, but poor performance can result in missing your targets for the two.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
how does your employer handle annual performance reviews? i'm assuming your department is all salary based? for me, my annual bonus and salary merit increase is tied to my performance review rating. i can get more $$ if i have a very good review, but poor performance can result in missing your targets for the two.
There’s one bonus figure, twice a year, which varies by the department’s profits. Get meeting expectations or above on your annual review and you get it in full. At base we are indeed salaried.

Thus there’s a nearly complete disconnect between this sort of productivity and pay, and appeals to good nature only go so far when the incentives are not in alignment.
yep....I'm delving into this next contract negotiation. It's messy, to say the least, but needs to be considered.
Good luck!
 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
85,562
24,182
media blackout
There’s one bonus figure, twice a year, which varies by the department’s profits. Get meeting expectations or above on your annual review and you get it in full. At base we are indeed salaried.

Thus there’s a nearly complete disconnect between this sort of productivity and pay, and appeals to good nature only go so far when the incentives are not in alignment.

Good luck!
see, ours differs a bit. my bonus is weighted more heavily on my own performance, although there is a factor for overall performance of our business unit. i can actually exceed my target bonus with above average performance (and have several times).
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
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Getting this and that done today, including modifying a fresh Tundra-OEM-wheel center cap to fit the protuberant axles on the front of the Land Cruiser. As the last photo shows the rear axles have no such issues.

(it requires the hole in the middle, clearly, but also shaving off part of five little wing things molded into the plastic inside it as well.)
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549


Going to pick the elder two girls up from the bus stop across the neighborhood on the decked out commuter beast today

can always get bailed out by wife in minivan if this is an abject failure

edit: success. They loved it

 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
what if I had the renovation work on the mountain house completed over next summer (primary suite out of the loft)

enjoyed it another winter

sold both houses

and moved to Queenstown prior to the whole 2024 election brouhaha

hmm

 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,138
16,536
Riding the baggage carousel.
what if I had the renovation work on the mountain house completed over next summer (primary suite out of the loft)

enjoyed it another winter

sold both houses

and moved to Queenstown prior to the whole 2024 election brouhaha

hmm

:wave:
Hello, it's me, your son.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549


Wife apparently is not strong enough to reliably lift her side of the 100 lb TV and not drop it on the ground unexpectedly.

This broken part is interesting: looks like it was cast from fine metal pellets, like a plastic but of metal.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Giant Monoprice subwoofer update:

Had to change my Windows sound settings (for sound output over the HDMI connection to the receiver) to 5.1. 'twas in stereo. Whoops. Now it's actually using the sub: when it's not the frequency response of my main tower speakers below 60 Hz is quite lacking.

With the sub in THX calibrated mode it's very solid down to 30 Hz but falls apart at 20 Hz. This is with all 3 ports sealed. This matches its reported 15-200 Hz response curve in non-THX mode and 23-200 Hz in THX mode.

I opened up two of the three ports and stuck it back in THX mode as it's rated for 19-200 Hz as set up. Like this I can hear differences in all of the kick drum hits down to the 20 Hz one:


(and Dune sounds suitably overwhelming and house shaking)



Cliffs Notes: Adequate, once set up properly.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Video was way longer than needed, of course, but from this I garner:

Rivian ABS based traction control == Toyota A-TRAC >> rear locker + open/no traction control front axle on that poor 100 series.

 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I opened up two of the three ports and stuck it back in THX mode as it's rated for 19-200 Hz as set up. Like this I can hear differences in all of the kick drum hits down to the 20 Hz one:

Some more frequency response data:

My AirPods Max can be picked apart by reviewers, but I find the detail to be just fine and the sub-bass poke in the curve to be entertaining, especially for movie content.


APM_Final_v2.jpg


On the subwoofer kick test as in the quoted post above there's clear distinction with the headphones between all of the curves down to 20 Hz, which jives with the response measured in that above picky review.

I noticed a huge flat spot at 100 Hz when playing a series of sine waves (linked below) to test the subwoofer in the interaction of my home theater speakers and the room they're in. Unfortunately the EQ in my Yamaha receiver has adjustment bands at 63 Hz and 160 Hz, missing that region entirely. So I can't fix that, and the automated YPAO calibration feature left that dead spot in all the same.


The latest thing I messed around with is testing my own hearing a bit, or at least the interaction of my hearing + the speaker setup down here + the room.


10-14 kHz were trivial. I struggled with 15 kHz, getting a few wrong, but ended up passing their test with 99% confidence ultimately. This jives with my performance with the embedded video here:


I can hear 15 kHz fine. 16 kHz is very faint. 17 kHz on up are inaudible to me. I am old.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I wonder if the 100 Hz flat spot is a quirk of my own hearing. Having an isolated band of reduced response there would be weird, though.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
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HVAC dude went to go install the lineset cover but the deck was all ice as per this photo. Deferred until better conditions as he'll be up on a tall ladder and all.

On the upside, this indicates that indeed I have a deck! with Trex! and no railing as expected pending that replacement part coming in.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
that’s what’s keeping me from an Audi e-tron GT, honestly

View attachment 167378

that’s a gorgeous design. Too bad the price and practicality!
Things that I must have:

- four driven wheels
- room for all 3 kids if not an extra person or two
- 2” hitch

I may compromise on anything else to fit whims but these are necessary.
Seems the Porsche wagon-ish version has a factory “hitch” rack. Quotes because it doesn’t have a conventional receiver hitch: factory custom job here.


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this is the kind of content that Kidwoo craves, I know
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549

If Rivian loses their jump on Kia/Hyundai/Ford/the rest of the mass market crowd they won’t have a niche. Early to market was the only thing they had over places with actual service locations, etc.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Headed up to the mountain house. Santa Train tomorrow night, then I work Sat and Sun. Not skiing but rather just staging gear.

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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Redone deck looks awesome. Railing pending, of course. It took basically all day to unpack and assemble all this furniture, but now the garage is finally just collapsed giant boxes rather than huge, filled ones.









The drywall in the basement only looks like it was patched, certainly not all replaced… so I have to figure out if that's legit since that's not what I was expecting given the water intrusion documented before.

Close!
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,376
12,531
In a van.... down by the river
Redone deck looks awesome. Railing pending, of course. It took basically all day to unpack and assemble all this furniture, but now the garage is finally just collapsed giant boxes rather than huge, filled ones.









The drywall in the basement only looks like it was patched, certainly not all replaced… so I have to figure out if that's legit since that's not what I was expecting given the water intrusion documented before.

Close!
You should probably pull all that furniture in for the winter. :D
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549

Interesting that WP’s account would share this. I see two people with bad technique out of those three…

edit: more footage of ripper dudes like this guy, pls

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=315973320344050
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Going go to give this generic-brand piece of Chinese electronics a try





In theory this looks like the smallest/cleanest setup to drive a 2.1 setup (for the mountain house living room--the Klipsch The One II there is adequate but ultimately let down by its size). Bluetooth for input since that's all one really needs in the era of phones these days.

Anyway, I have some ELAC B6 bookshelf two ways and the now-deprecated 8" powered subwoofer that was in the basement to play with, and this should drive them in theory.

Meanwhile conventional receiver manufacturers are still putting out giant boxes at 4-6x the price of this, with features like built in Pandora streaming via a LCD 2 line display interface. No thanks.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I noticed a huge flat spot at 100 Hz when playing a series of sine waves (linked below) to test the subwoofer in the interaction of my home theater speakers and the room they're in. Unfortunately the EQ in my Yamaha receiver has adjustment bands at 63 Hz and 160 Hz, missing that region entirely. So I can't fix that, and the automated YPAO calibration feature left that dead spot in all the same.
I'll fix this in the mid term future via ditching YPAO... and switching out a whole bunch of gear. This is higher on my priority list than the full loft remodel project, but not a "this ski season" type of deal. Maybe next summer depending on if I get stupid and switch employers or not.

Anyway the goal is to go from the current adequate 5.1 setup (with the giant .1!) to a robust 5.1.4 setup, and to leave the Yamaha/YPAO ecosystem while at it.

Cliffs Notes version: Denon 9.2 receiver with their fancy flavor of room correction, and Monoprice speakers with built in Dolby Atmos elevation speakers.



Long version:

Denon AVR-X3700H or AVR-X4700H for the receiver. Both are 9.2. The .2, a second independent subwoofer output, is irrelevant as I don't plan to add another subwoofer, but the 9 powered channels are needed for the 5 (main) and 4 (height) speakers. The astute reader may wonder here why I'm not looking at 11.2 to power a 7.1.4 setup: this would be pointless with the room's layout, as there's not enough room behind the main couch for back surround channels to be separated physically from the "side" surrounds.

Anyway, either of those would do, and both have Audyssey XT32 for their room calibration, which is reputed to work better than YPAO, either the old versions my receivers have or the newer ones on current Yamaha offerings. The 4700 offers Auro 3D, which seems cool but also a dead-end format.

For speakers I think I'll go all in on the Monoprice Monolith line (as in my current giant subwoofer). They have a beefy set of full size front towers that have built in Dolby Atmos elevation speakers on the top: an extra angled speaker firing upwards from the top of the tower, with its own separate input plugs.

front.jpg


back.jpg


Similarly, they have a mini-tower setup with a built in Atmos elevation speaker that'd work well for the rear surround + height channels, as well as a matching construction center channel.

small.jpg


(The final piece of this puzzle is that the current 5.1 setup here in Denver would migrate out to the mountain house, where adequate would be just fine and a huge upgrade from the audio-from-built-in-TV-speakers situation there on the main floor. The loft has a load of speakers and a subwoofer but the projector is terrible, the speakers are all mismatched and old, and that whole room is not going to be around in its current form forever.)
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,013
Sleazattle
Going go to give this generic-brand piece of Chinese electronics a try





In theory this looks like the smallest/cleanest setup to drive a 2.1 setup (for the mountain house living room--the Klipsch The One II there is adequate but ultimately let down by its size). Bluetooth for input since that's all one really needs in the era of phones these days.

Anyway, I have some ELAC B6 bookshelf two ways and the now-deprecated 8" powered subwoofer that was in the basement to play with, and this should drive them in theory.

Meanwhile conventional receiver manufacturers are still putting out giant boxes at 4-6x the price of this, with features like built in Pandora streaming via a LCD 2 line display interface. No thanks.

The latest gen of integrated chip amplifiers can deliver good sound in a small package, I am currently running an extremely simple on with a raspberry pi plus add on DAC board. There are however some caveats. If using the full rated power you will often find that the small packages will run hot which will severely impact reliability and longevity. Those big amps do a much better job with heat dissipation. The power supply is external so the small size is a bit deceiving as the power supply is probably bigger than the amp. In addition the amp may be capable of good quality sound with a good power supply, but often the supplied power units are garbage. The one that comes with your amp if sourced with amazon is only capable of 108 watts while the amp itself is supposed to be able to supply 200 watts with all channels. It will obviously fall on it's face if pushed beyond 108 watts and I am guessing that if pushed anywhere near 108 watts that power supply is going to pass along noise from rectification. The only way to avoid that is with capacitance, and the only way to do that reliably is with large cool capacitors and inductors.

They can make for a good setup if you have sensitive/efficient speakers so you don't have to push the amp very hard, find a good power supply and don't expect it to last very long.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
The one that comes with your amp if sourced with amazon is only capable of 108 watts while the amp itself is supposed to be able to supply 200 watts with all channels.
Yeah, I noted that discrepancy in their specs as well. I'll see how they do with the stock power supply, driving fairly average sensitivity ELAC B6s, especially since my wife's tolerance for sound levels is low anyway.

:D

 
The latest gen of integrated chip amplifiers can deliver good sound in a small package, I am currently running an extremely simple on with a raspberry pi plus add on DAC board. There are however some caveats. If using the full rated power you will often find that the small packages will run hot which will severely impact reliability and longevity. Those big amps do a much better job with heat dissipation. The power supply is external so the small size is a bit deceiving as the power supply is probably bigger than the amp. In addition the amp may be capable of good quality sound with a good power supply, but often the supplied power units are garbage. The one that comes with your amp if sourced with amazon is only capable of 108 watts while the amp itself is supposed to be able to supply 200 watts with all channels. It will obviously fall on it's face if pushed beyond 108 watts and I am guessing that if pushed anywhere near 108 watts that power supply is going to pass along noise from rectification. The only way to avoid that is with capacitance, and the only way to do that reliably is with large cool capacitors and inductors.

They can make for a good setup if you have sensitive/efficient speakers so you don't have to push the amp very hard, find a good power supply and don't expect it to last very long.
If it's a class B amplifier with an efficiency of, say, 35%, it can deliver order 37 Watts from a 108 Watt power supply...
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
If using the full rated power you will often find that the small packages will run hot which will severely impact reliability and longevity. Those big amps do a much better job with heat dissipation.
The Fosi one I posted was on back order, then I went down the rabbit hole of power + inputs, thinking that 20W RMS at realistic loads may well be too weak. There doesn’t appear to be a free lunch after all, as these peak power @ 4 ohm claims don’t line up with physics when pressed.

There’s only a small window where these generic class D units make sense, imo, as one can get a refurbished Yamaha 125W/channel @ 8 ohms stereo amplifier for $150. That’d give Bluetooth input, and a sub with its own crossover could be driven off of the line out.

In the meantime for even cheaper, I’m trying a Belkin Soundform Connect. This is an $80 dongle that gets Wi-Fi info automagically from one’s phone, speaks AirPlay 2, and outputs optical audio out to one’s existing amp or receiver. For the life of me I can’t get Yamaha’s AirPlay 1 implementation to work reliably on the receiver I have upstairs, so maybe this will be the cure. That 7.2 receiver’s 2 channel output of 90W @ 8 ohms would be just fine, it won’t overheat, and I already have it… just can’t input music sources into it reliably now.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Me: spends profligately renovating the mountain house

Also me: chats with Amazon to get an $8 refund on a replacement remote order that I couldn't cancel and now is technically unreturnable due to 3rd party seller policy