3mo ago

smart engineering

57 comments

I prefer my dials in base 16, my amp goes to F.
- Wonder what that'd look like to a layman. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... Awesome? Beastly? Crushing? Deafening? Ear-shattering? Fuck that's loud?
- Mineis also base 16 and goes to 10. Which one is louder?
  
  Yours is one louder
- Programmer detected

Just for the record... it has to do with practicality.
the notches are spaced similar to a clock, but with the deadzone most potentiometers have, it doesn't go a full 360 around, so they stop at 11. This makes for an intuitive scale with familiar spacing on the notches- even if it is entirely arbitrary.
- Based off of my peripheral I really thought that deadzone was Saddam for a second
  
  dammit.
  missed an opportunity...
- so they stop at 11
  you mean 10, most amps stop at 10.
  
  At the 11 o'clock position, I think they mean. That's a bit arbitrary tho
- That's not the history of that thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven
- This is not at all the case.
  Most potentiometers have a full rotation or 270°, sometimes up to 300°. By convention the mid-travel is at 12 o'clock. That would make the 0 around 7:30 and the 10 around 4:30.

Here's the original for higher quality
- Relevant xkcd about these xkcd's:
  
  I believe it's mandatory to add jpeg when linking to that comic.
- Title text too:
  Wow, that's less than $200 per ... uh ... that's a good deal!
  https://xkcd.com/670/

The difference between engineering and sales engineering

I feel like the last one is a marketer, not a smart engineer.
- Capitalist engineer.
  
  Sales executive. Paid more than engineers, is substantially dumber.
  
  Self employed and beyond comfortable, financially.

11 is one louder than 10!
- No 11 is much less than 3,628,800

My peavey modeling amp was very proud that it went up to 13! :}
- 6227020800 is definitely higher than 11.
- Ahhh. The vypyr.. I love everything about that stupid amp series.

For $2000? Is this comic from the 50s?
- The smart engineer then buys a stock amp for $1000, 3D prints a dial that goes to 12, installs it, delivers it to Spïnäl Täp (I can never remember where the umlaut goes), and pockets his well-earned profit.

Some Peavey amps do go to 12

Yup anyone who as umlaut to an n will buy anything for "cool factor"
- This comment is like a New York Times daily game "which word is the typo?"
  🟥🟥🟥🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟫🟫🟫🟠🟠🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪🟫🟫⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨🟨🟨🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧🟧

Nothing beats the original delivery
Movie Clip

Eh my amps scale is from 0 to 32 bit intiger limit. (it's just as loud as the ones that go from 0 to 11)

40 years ago someone made a joke

So it's smart to scam people. Interesting take.
- We live in a capitalist world, scamming is objectively how we base how successful and smart someone is.
  
  I'm gonna scam this amp to turn up to 12.
  
  Celebrating selfishness and deception is just that, no matter how warped the perception of a theoretical majority of people might be. Perpetuating such nonsense will only cause more harm in the future. It's not a sign of good behaviour or even mental health to be well adapted to a broken system.
  So yeah, not "smart". Disgusting.
- It said "smart", not "morally right".
- It’s not a “take” it’s a joke
  
  sigh even jokes communicate stuff; they're especially powerful in normalizing things.
  I'm aware people hate it when someone criticizes jokes. However when bad stuff gets normalized it's necessary to point that out.
- You're a moron to think this is about scamming someone. The smart engineer realized he can offer a louder option but didn't want to disturb the preset settings the customer is used to. If anything, not only is the engineer smart but empathetic towards how troublesome learning a new tool is like. Let me tell you it is not a problem that the volume is not standardized. Instead, it is nice to know that the customer can choose options he is familiar with AND now has a setting to go louder. Of course the much smarter way is to make the dial more analog input than a digital input. However, the digital dial will not move as easily when bumped. Trade-offs were made. For aesthetics and function. Yes I know some music nerds who like the dial more than a touch button.
  Now don't get me started with how they can sell it however they want. If it is louder than the product it is comparing against and the buyer likes it then it is not a scam, it was a fair trade.
  Yes it is possible to look at this image with different what-ifs, and from what I see, you are only looking at the what-if where the "smart engineer" is not even acting as an engineer but rather a con artist. If we were to take the meme more literally then the what-if I have explained above is more true to the intentions of the characters in it than your narrow interpretation.
  /EndRant
  
  Isn't the joke that the smart engineer will change the labels on the knob since they don't have any unit? That's the scammy aspect. I don't think OC finds the idea of selling a better amp immoral

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