Thoughts from an evil commercial interest. - Page 3  

ROFL, excellent! The most accurate view of each side yet!

Not quite on topic, but my personal favorite is the one where two scientists choose the exact same coordinates to travel back in time, naturally wrecking both ships and blaming each other. All the time, the prehistoric creatures are looking at them both like they're crazy...

I was saving it for our next cable argument, but it seemed to fit here too.

Off topic, I have 3 memorable favourite cartoons from over the years.

1) Two hot dog vendors with a caption that reads "I really enjoy being my own boss.....it's being my own employee I'm not too thrilled about."

2) A doctor reaching across his desk holding a stick with a string tied to it and a prescription bottle tied to the other end. He's giving the prescription to a patient seated on the other side of the desk. The caption reads: "Don't touch the stick."

3) Two prisoners ( skinny with long beards ) hanging upside down on a dungeon wall. The caption reads " It only hurts when I laugh". Behind them, coming down the stairs is a juggling clown.

(deleted on the grounds of pointlessness )

Should I be posting here, probably not... I have no argument either way... at the end of the day, I'm not here for the headphone, amp, PCDP or otherwise reviews... I'm here to offer what limited knowledge I have on a subject I like

I don't care if there are no banners, or a hundred of the things... its not the site that makes the community, its the community that makes the site!!

C'mon ladies and gents, boys and girls... smile, afterall, without Judes or CMoys input into there respective sites... we would not be a community, but just a few hundred people wandering lost in a sea of Sony MDR-V600s, and we all know we're gratefuil for that not being the case!!

quote:

"Should I be posting here, probably not... I have no argument either way... "

Fair enough.....What's your favourite cartoon?

Dexters Laboratory

Don't those smilies show it? Evil has crept in here.

jude,

I have absolute trust in your integrity. You did all this work because you are obsessed about headphones. For all I know, so is Tyll, and so is Jan. And if you don't want to pay all these considerable expenses for running Head-Fi any longer, by all means, get sponsors or advertisers. And it would make perfect sense if Tyll or Jan or the headphone manufacturers were among them. I wouldn't care one bit. I trust you. And if you are impressed with Headroom's generosity and service, I believe you. You just have to realize that your praise about the Max update has been tinged from the get-go. It never had a chance to work. That's what I first thought when I read it, and that's what happened. I'll always trust your judgement about components to be honest. But regarding service issues: You have to face it, as far as headphones go, you're some kind of VIP now.


Tyll,

All I tried to say is, that you have this tendency to shoot yourself in the foot with your rants. They don't make any PR sense at all. However well-meant they may be, they cannot be convincing. And the more insistent you become, the worse it gets. Just my professional opinion. I make a living from influencing people. I work in PR.

Before anyone asks, no affiliation whatsoever with any audio equipment company. I just happen to like headphones. And, as I believe, so do Tyll and Todd and Jan and probably most people working in the industry.

And jude? Well, he has completely incurable audiophilitis. I hope it's contageous.

Tomcat, I get the impression that you believe that since Tyll is in the business of selling headphones, he should not have the right to exespress his opinion on commercial support of this web site. He is as much a part of this community as anybody. He has not been deceptive about what he does for a living. I simply don't understand your view point.

(were is "Moo goes the Cow" when you need him?)

ai0tron wrote:
The problem I have with that statement is that it implies that Jude is here to make money. He's not, as far as I or anyone else here can tell.

It's also a bit hypocritical to rant about capitalism and consumerism on a site devoted to, um, buying headphone gear


The point here that so many people seem to be missing is that HeadWize closed down because Chu couldn't afford to pay the bills. He is now tweaking HeadWize on a daily basis to try to keep it functioning without making him go broke. Some of those tweaks have been great, but others have limited access and/or functionality. Why is this necessary? Because Chu has decided *not* to accept any money from any source.

I do not fault Chu for that in any way. However, it's naive for HeadWizers and Head-Fi'ers to think that *any* high-traffic site like this will be able to exist perpetually without sponsorship (unless some very wealthy person decides to run it for us for free).

Tomcat wrote:
Come on, Tomcat. There's no need for such invective here.

First of all, I don't think anyone here will claim that HeadRoom's upgrade of Jude's Max didn't have good PR value for HeadRoom. However, on the flipside, MANY people here have reported similarly stellar experiences with HeadRoom. There's no point to be made in bringing this up.

Second, and more importantly, there's no need to take cheap shots at Tyll like that. Your post seems to be saying "since you own a related business, you can't provide any input." You even say that Tyll's "credibility" is blown. Is that fair? I don't think so. Sites like this will need sponsorship at some point -- that's a FACT that cannot be avoided. At least Tyll is trying to work WITH the community to try to come up with possible relationships that will benefit everyone without sacrificing the quality of discussion. If you've read all of Tyll's posts on the topic, he's been one of the most vocal advocates of clearly separating the contributions of "commercial" entities from those of "non-commercial" members.

Your implications here are that Tyll is just doing what would benefit HeadRoom. I've always interpreted Tyll's potential self-interest as more of an INDIRECT one: Tyll wants this community to be as strong and as active as possible because it will increase the popularity and quality of headphones across the board, which will of course benefit him. One of Tyll's proposals was to have a "manufacturer's" area where reps from Sennheiser, Grado, Etymotics, AKG, Sony, etc. can post, respond to questions, etc. THINK ABOUT THIS -- being able to talk, face-to-fact (so to speak) with headphone vendors. Isn't that one of the things we have ALL wished for at some point? Is this going to benefit Tyll? Sure, but it's also going to benefit Jan, Audio Advisor, DJ Mart, and every other vendor that sells headphones. And it will benefit US.

You also said:
I think your work has made you too cynical, Tomcat Your point of view is basically "since you have some degree of commercial self-interest, you cannot be trusted." I completely disagree. I am very suspicious of commercial interests; however, I also have faith there are people out there whose passions and jobs overlap, and that they can logically and philosophically pursue both at the same time without a conflict of interest. Sure, sometimes he may say something purely from his perspective as CEO of HeadRoom, but he has also said many things that, if he were a publicly-traded company, his shareholders would be pretty darned upset at him for saying, because they weren't in the best profit-making insterests of the company.

I just think some of the "anti-corporatism" goes too far, because it is overly suspicious and it verbally castrates individuals solely because they are affiliated with a commercial entity.


Bottom line: I trust Jude to keep Head-Fi great -- I have no reason not to right now. Some of you evidently don't. I also trust Tyll as far as I trust any commercial entity. Some of you don't trust him at all. Whatever you feel, fine. If Tyll, Jude, and some of us want to discuss possible sponsorship arrangements, you don't have to participate. If the site gets sponsorship and you don't like it, that's your right. See you on HeadWize.

Neruda, I can't help it if you don't even wan't to try and understand... Or barring that incable of understanding for whatever reasons you have chosen.

Bizarre fantasies?? LOL look around you man, people sitting with devices on their heads that propell waves of energy through a medium of gas molecules into weird constructions on the sides of their "heads" which enable interpretation of these vibrations via a central processing unit. Imagine people who run around on the plains of prehistoric North America hunting Water Bison so they can feed their children all the while completely unaware of the insignifigance of their existence. The fact that the small ball on which they are is less than a speck in a less than a speck in a less than a speck in a less than a speck. The very possibility that the universe could be INFINITE do you know what that means??? Our lives so small yet so large in our eyes, so meaningful yet in the grand scope of things just a little speck, a meaningless little speck. Yes people are aware we think, we strive, we LIVE. I don't want you to hate me, I don't want anyone to hate me but in a way I am flattered because it means you took the time to read what I wrote and I thank you for that. All I wanted to know was that someone out there was listening and at least cared enough to hate me. I honestly thank you for at least caring.

And yet at the same time I can hate you back with more vivacity than you could care to imagine.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the sign of an intelligent lifeform is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously in ones mind and still function. In America one must become capitalist in order to survive. However that does not mean I agree with it. For me music and pleasure when listening to music are necessary. I don't go to the tavern and sing songs and play the piano, I sit in front of my computer and listen to a variety of things. Much of my musical satisfaction comes from this variety and much of it from headphones. I imagine that if I spent lots of money on a guitar and an amp you would see the expenditure as being more worthwhile when it fact it is ultimately useless as are all expenditures. In the event of some miracle of science that we are all given the gift of eternal life we will all still meet our demise long before the end of the universe purely by random chance. The truest fact of all is that all we are doing is trying to make justification for our existence. And if you would get past your hard feelings, jealousy or whatever else you have riding on that mighty chip upon your shoulder you might find some meaning in your own life. Instead of trying to destroy the meaning in others. And mind you I say try because your insults further seal my determination for whatever it is that drives me and in actuality create meaning.

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me... I just point out that fact that I sacrifice in some way to get what I have. You attacked me if you remember I just wanted to defend myself. PS I am moving out of this hole into a bigger place hope that doesn't bother you in some way. It's on the river on the second floor of a fairly nice historic building. I AM looking forward to it particularly on stretching my wings on an interior design concept for my final home, my future abode in this worthless speck among specks.

Yes you are right my thoughts conflict with each other because I am conflicted. But I KNOW that deep within there is something meaningful amongst all that conflict.

PS: I see nothing wrong with buying an amp from somebody. The whole reason I ever started saying anything was to point out the idea that commercialism would probably harm this community irrepairably in the end. WHY? Because once this community becomes commercial it will depend on that commercialism for the rest of it's existence. Dependence invariably is a weakness. PERIOD. And thus the community is broken by it's dependence.

I just remembered a fourth cartoon that made me howl.

There's a woman sitting on a sofa in her housecoat with curlers in her hair looking at her husband who's standing beside her wearing an old T-shirt, with his pants undone and suspenders hanging down from his pants. His arms are outstretched with his hands about 2 feet apart.

The caption reads: "No, I don't want to see the biggest turd in the world."

I'm a Dilbert fan myself.. 'Shift Happens'
crk
ps but I try not to howl as it upsets the dogs

Um, then how is it supposed to survive? That's a legitimate question. If there is no money to support the forums, what happens?

Look, I appreciate your point of view. However 1) it's not logical to think that in the world in which we live, this forum, or any other, can survive without money; and 2) your assertion above is pure speculation -- we don't know if commercial support will harm the community. We simply cannot state that.

Principles are great; but the old phrase "cut off the nose to spite the face" comes to mind.

LOL! Man, you better qualify this statement REAL quick! Is it a weakness that you depend on a professional surgeon to do surgery? Is it a weakness that you depend on the fundamental laws of physics (like gravity) to not change? Is it a weakness that thunder depends on lightning? Give me a break, modern society would not be possible w/o greater dependence on each other. What you call weakness, others call strength. As I've said about many other things, dependency is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on the application.