Monthly Archives: April 2013

The figth against noise on long flights

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I do spend quite a bit of time on airplanes (2012 is a good example) and there are mainly 2 things that are very fatiguing once in the air: sub-optimal seat ergonomics and background noise.

The first one is hard to overcome without a recurring increase in expenses (using business class or premium economy class) while the second one is a bit easier and I’ve made a few experiments in this area.

7 years ago I bought Creative Labs’ HN-700 noise canceling headphones for about 50€ new on sale. On an airplane sound quality is acceptable (way better than what is offered by the ones offered in economy by the airline) and noise reduction (both active and passive) is there to a degree.
Active noise canceling with this headphone is not an option in a normal home/office environment due to the high level of white noise that is generated even in a silent environment.
Sleeping while wearing them is really not an option due to the size.
Also long use is not comfortable due to the weight and to the fact that the ear is completely inside: sweat builds up.
The bulky construction is a bit of an annoyance too.

The last 3 reasons led me to the purchase of an in-ear alternative, again with active noise canceling.

About 9 months ago I picked up Philips’ SHN4600. On sale I paid 49.90€
They are light, sweat-free, occupy a small volume, and again the sound quality is better than the one from the airline: potentially perfect on the paper.
Unfortunately the reality is different: there it is a very noticeable cable noise and repeated insertions and removal of the tip bruises a bit the ear canal with the remaining of the moulding process on the silicone; compensation of pressure while climbing and descending is a bit difficult
The passive noise isolation is in a different frequency range compared to the NH 700 and the same is true for active canceling. They can be kept on while sleeping.
The “talk mode” button works but it’s not really as good as simply removing the earphones.
Production and quality control can be improved: the left ear bud has problems of major distortion as soon as the volume moves up and bass tones are played and this was from day 1.
Overall I’d not buy this model again even at an even lower sale price.

When sleeping the best option so far has been to use earing preserving devices commonly used in the construction business and made by 3M.
I usually pickup either the orange ones or the yellow ones
Fitting is very good as is the noise dampening: it’s necessary to remove them to have a conversation with the cabin crew.
In some cases I’ve used the earplugs in combination with the HN 700 (with the volume way up) to get rid of as much as possible of the external noise while listening to music or watching movies during a flight.

The HN 700 recently broke (I made it somewhat useable again by securing the left can in a fixed position with the help of a fair amount of electric insulating tape) and the SHR4600 is not a satisfactory either.
Sooner or later I’ll have to go shopping again for a noise canceling solution.

I’ve tried the latest generation of Bose and the difference in performance is impressive, but I’m not sure that’s worth 300€.
If anyone has a suggestion based on personal experience please comment.
Thanks in advance!

Synology DS411slim: getting slower with time?

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I’ve written in the past a few posts about this small nice NAS: here, here, here and here.

Yesterday I did another test after updating the complete local copy of my gmail messages on Thunderbird.
It took 4 hours 33 minutes to compress 11,548,610,909 bytes (578 Files, 61 Folders) to a single 7zip file of 7,108,652,903 bytes: it is a lot of time.
16.380 seconds of runtime means an average read/write speed of 1.139.027 bytes per second.

Both the NAS and the computer I used are connected with 1Gbit copper ethernet to the same switch: during the process the usage stats on the windows 7 (64 bit) machine indicated almost no load and the same was true for the NAS according to the web interface.

The DS411slim is running version 4.2-3202 with 3 HDDs in a single disk group using SHR (Synology Hibrid RAID)

This is really puzzling. And a bit upsetting.
Any suggestion to recover from this bad performance is welcome.

Delle 6430U and airport IONSCAN system did not played nicely together

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From time to time happens to each frequent flyer that the hand luggage gets tested for various substances.
It happened to me a number of time and until recently it was always a minor slow down: a piece of white fabric (or fablic-like material) is rubbed against the luggage, but in the machine and then after a few seconds I moved head.

Until I got my luggage including the 6430U tested one week ago.
The IONSCAN machine turned the writings on the screen to red and I suddenly gained a lot of attention.
All of my personal belongings then got scanned a few more times in the x-ray machine and with the IONSCAN system, I got carefully checked with and hand-held metal detector and then by hand.
The personnel was very rigorous in the checks but professional and always kind.

After the process was completed and I had answered a lot of questions about what I had done during my trip I was told that everything was fine with the sole exception of the notebook.
This meant that it had to be shipped and I could not keep it with me until my arrival at home.

The notebook got packaged in a box and shipped.
After about 3+2 hours of flight the box was completely destroyed: the people handling it was not really paying any attention to the clearly visible red labels stating “FRAGILE” and I was very happy that I have no mechanical drive inside the system.

Finger crossed for the next airport control!

Dinner @ The Balcony Restaurant of the Bella Sky in Copenhagen

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On Tuesday I’ve had a very fatiguing day and I’ve decided to have the dinner with a colleague of mine in the restaurant of the hotel where we were for work.

I sat down at 9pm and after a few minutes a very kind waiter came to pickup the orders.
I selected one of the two available menu (starter+main course+dessert) and my colleague got a starter and a main course with a side dish.

Starters:
My salmon tartare had almost no salmon taste left after the preparation and was in the range of the 35 grams. Given the taste the small quantity was a benefit.
The salad with roasted goat cheese was good and a fair amount.

Main courses:
I had a beef steak and my colleague a tuna steak; when asked we both said we wanted our grilled food made rare.
Unfortunately it looks like the concept of rare is not shared across the globe as we had only a light hint on pink in che very center of the steak.
The grilled vegetables were ok albeit nothing to write home about and the same is true for the fried potatoes.

The dessert (Crème brûlée with pear sorbet) tasted good, but to arrive to the dessert it took over 90 minutes and the time was split into 75 minutes of waiting and 15 of eating: really too much!

Cost of the dinner: 128 euro with water and without any wine.

Summary.
Do yourself a favor if you happen to stay in the Bella Sky hotel: take the metro and go to eat somewhere else.

The liberal mind by Kenneth Minogue

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I’ve really appreciated this book.
With a few exceptions tied to some of the specific examples used the reader could easily think that this book was written very recently and not 50 years ago.

The Author analyzes in detail the dynamics that starting from the Liberalism lead to the liberal thinking.
Today we’re so immersed in the liberal thinking (even if in some countries the Liberal party is right-wing party) that most people would consider it the same as the liberalism while this is not the case.

The description of the evolution of desires into needs and of needs into rights is one of the most interesting parts.
The distinction about freedom considered as a potential to do things vs. the actual doing is also a very significant subject.

I recommend the book as it helps understand how the liberal thinking is pushed to the general audience and how the language is manipulated to make everyone not adhering appear as old-fashioned and against the progress.

This book is useful both for liberals (as they better understand the way they think) and for non-liberals as this helps in both in discussing with liberals and in resisting the liberal pressure to homologate.