thermodynamics

the fucking word engineering comes from being able to understand steam engines

taking thermo and learning that all of this came from something that happened just a hundred years ago when people were trying to figure out a science that could be applied to what a steam engine does

this shit was the equivalent of bootleggers figuring out distilation in the hills

no one thought it was anything more than a novelty

agreed

the idea that the entire planet would be dominated by this technology was not in anyone

anyone's mind

fr tho

don't sleep on netscape

on the topic of shit no one saw coming, there's been a push in research to be able to separate out individual human voices in loud settings

communicating face to face with loud noise seems to be a good way to hide what you're talking about

crime shows invent tech that doesn't exist to pretend you can isolate one voice, but it doesn't really exist, yet

imagine being able to take a recording from a rock concert, and then being able to pull out every individual conversation

doesn't sound too useful at first

now consider that all you're trying to do is eliminate all the noise, and that the noise is just vibrations, and that those vibrations exist everywhere

now, imagine you can take in all of those vibrations with a laser

and you can point that laser anywhere, and if you can reflect it back, you can process all of the vibrations, and if you figure out how to isolate only the vibrations from one voice, you hear what you want from simply pointing a laser

so even if they don't have a smart phone relaying everything they say

and even if they turn up loud music to drown out what they are saying

if you can bounce a laser off of a surface that is picking up the vibration of their voice, you can eliminate the noise and hear what they are saying

anyone want to take a guess at what technology research universities are persuing?

I had an idea like that once in a story, except that it was a pair of headphones that could selectively cancel out certain sounds so that if you and your friend were wearing them, you could have a quiet conversation and hear each other even at a rock concert.

we already have that

Really?

there's two options at least

one is just noise canceling headphones with voice coms

the other is what shoorters use

yeah

headphones that cancel noise outside of a certain range so you hear normal stuff but the gunshots get blocked out

Aren't the shooting headphones just insulated headphones that also have microphones on the outside, so it plays what it picks up, but mutes itself if the mic picks up something at a certain decibel level?

yeah

and you can just block everything and have voice

1XJV circuit.

but anything within the range still comes through

its just a matter of magnitude

Oh, I thought nothing went through when the high decibel noise was happening.

noise in the magnitude can still drown out anything else

Excuse me, *2JV* circuit.

yeah, that's all possible

it's just magnitude filtering