[HN Gopher] Origin of the Bluetooth Name
___________________________________________________________________
Origin of the Bluetooth Name
Author : piotrgrudzien
Score : 257 points
Date : 2022-02-01 12:59 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bluetooth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bluetooth.com)
| dqpb wrote:
| That's fitting
| soheil wrote:
| And the dead tooth was used as an antenna to communicate with
| others when his energy levels were low?
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| King Harald is one of the best characters on Vikings
| bjornsing wrote:
| Related anecdote: The south of Sweden is full of people who think
| they "invented Bluetooth". I've met a handful.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Bluetooth was only intended as a placeholder until marketing
| could come up with something really cool.
| natashabaker wrote:
| If you're curious to learn more about how Bluetooth was named,
| there's an interview with Jim Kardach on the topic:
| https://blog.snapeda.com/2019/10/07/how-bluetooth-got-its-na...
| [deleted]
| Pentamerous wrote:
| That's interesting, I always thought it was because it was a
| competitor to Infrared, hence something new with another color in
| its name. Interesting how random things in my life are
| assumptions I never questioned.
| sackerhews wrote:
| I really like Bluetooth.
|
| I just wish it would "just work". My bluetooth devices (high end)
| don't always connect properly and I have to disconnect them and
| reconnect them.
|
| It's a minor inconvenience I know, but after 23 years I'd have
| hoped that those oddities would have been rounded out.
| markpeppers wrote:
| Someone had to link this, guess I'll go ahead.
| https://xkcd.com/2055/
| wojciii wrote:
| This is so accurate. We have two cars. When my wife starts
| one of the cars the carkit connects to my phone and she
| spends 10 minutes with the engine running trying to get her
| phone to connect to the car.
|
| If I'm in a good mood I turn off Bluetooth on my phone to
| save her time.
| Kye wrote:
| This is evidence that Bluetooth is a mischievous entity.
| The range is terrible unless better range will cause
| problems.
| enobrev wrote:
| Reminds me of an issue I've been dealing with. The
| bluetooth in our car picks my wife's phone every time. Not
| a big deal, one might think, but then if I turn off
| bluetooth on her phone, it turns right back on and
| reconnects! I tried updating the car's settings not to
| prefer her phone (both were preferred), still a problem.
|
| I believe at some point when we got our new phones, she
| accepted a dialog that set the car to a "trusted device"
| which means it will automatically turn on bluetooth and
| connect as soon as it's in range. But I couldn't find a way
| to turn that setting off.
|
| Finally I had to force the car to forget both of our
| devices and I was able to get my phone to connect to the
| car while my wife was anywhere within a few feet of our
| garage.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| Just a guess, but location services can use bluetooth
| scanning for getting a location fix even when bluetooth
| is off. Sometimes these pings will turn it back on. You
| might try disabling bluetooth location scanning.
| enobrev wrote:
| Makes sense. Will try if we run into this again. Thanks!
| notfed wrote:
| When I turn my car on, no, I don't want Bluetooth to
| autoconnect, and play music on full volume.
| wildzzz wrote:
| In one of our cars, the car will just connect to whoever
| last was connected although sometimes this means it
| connects to someone's phone that isn't even in the car.
|
| The other car has a preference selection that will try
| the preferred phone first and then will try whoever else
| is in range. I like this one best since I'm usually alone
| in this car. Either option really doesn't work great if
| you are sharing the car, the car would never really know
| who it should connect to if both phones are in range. I
| wish the car would somehow factor in RSSI into the auto
| connect decision, like don't pick the default or most
| recent phone if it has significantly less signal strength
| than the other devices in range.
| enobrev wrote:
| Agreed - or "simply" a UI that shows "Multiple favorite
| devices detected - which should I pick?"
|
| That could show for 10 seconds or something and then pick
| whatever the default would have been.
|
| In this case, I think it's a mix of both the car and the
| phone picking favorites, and my phone loses the toss
| every time because of some setting that I couldn't seem
| to find.
| coldpie wrote:
| I just use an aux cord into the headphone jack. Easy peasy.
| jandrese wrote:
| Finding a phone with a headphone jack that isn't some low
| end garbage is becoming harder and harder each year.
| kube-system wrote:
| You can always use a lightning/usb-c to 3.5mm cable.
| dmos62 wrote:
| I'm using a 200 eur Xiaomi Redmi with a 3.5mm jack and
| I'm very happy with it. Battery lasts me around 5 days.
| Why is it garbage?
| coldpie wrote:
| In truth, I use a USB-C/Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter. It
| lives on the car's aux cord.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| does someone sell one of these that survives more than 10
| disconnect cycles now?
| coldpie wrote:
| No. I buy a new handful every couple months. It sucks. My
| latest batch is from some brand called Insignia and so
| far has lasted one month without issues, but I'll be
| surprised if they don't fail soon. Previously tried Apple
| and Anker, both failed in a small number of months.
|
| I've considered wrapping the thing in heat-shrink tubing
| to give it some rigidity and protect the nano-scale-wires
| they're using in there, but haven't got any handy.
|
| I'd love a phone with a real jack, but phones just aren't
| made for me anymore.
| singingboyo wrote:
| > some brand called Insignia
|
| Isn't that just Best Buy's store brand?
| Moru wrote:
| Just buy a cheap phone with an audio jack and use that
| one dedicated for the car. No need for the latest
| greatest for playing music on the go...
| josefresco wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this insanity. I have the same
| situation, I sit in my driveway for 5 minutes while my
| slow-as-molasses car audio system disconnects from my
| wife's phone (inside house) and connects to mine (in my
| pocket)
|
| It actually works better if I just drive off. Once the BT
| is out of range, it autoconnects to my phone usually within
| 1/4 mile time.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I don't understand this insanity stuff. We have a $35
| chinese brand (Ugreen FWIW) bluetooth adapter in our car.
| If it connects to my wife's phone when I go start the car
| (or opposite), all I have to do on Android is to pull
| down the notification drawer, long-press the bluetooth
| icon to open the bluetooth settings, then click the name
| of the desired device in the list that comes up. 10
| seconds later it has connected correctly.
|
| This $35 dongle also has pause/play and skip buttons, and
| you can use those to answer calls as well. The buttons
| are tactile so you can use them without looking.
|
| Honestly, the only bad thing is the built-in microphone
| delivers pretty bad audio when you use it as a hands
| free. But for $35 I cannot complain.
| Moru wrote:
| My old car used to have a cable that was connected to an
| audio tape inserted in the radio. I just needed to
| connect my MP3-player to it and off I went. It just
| worked. No 10 seconds waiting for a connection or 10
| minutes fiddling with options.
|
| Once I was hovering the car at the gas station and the
| cable went into the hose and broke off from the audio
| tape though so not everything old was better... :-)
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Those problems can be a real toothache.
| lordleft wrote:
| Naming one of the most inconsistent technologies I've ever used
| on the festering tooth of a dead king seems about right
| kuratkull wrote:
| I though everyone (old enough) knew this already, it was a
| somewhat talked about thing when Bluetooth started getting
| adopted in consumer technology aeons ago
| sackerhews wrote:
| You weren't trying to make fun of people, but it's a good one:
| https://xkcd.com/1053/
| charcircuit wrote:
| I find Bluetooth annoying to use since you have to license it.
| For example if you add an LED to an raspberry pi and you want to
| sell it to your friend you have to pay $9600 to SIG. (then you
| also have to pay $xxxx or more to get it certified by the FCC)
| Eduard wrote:
| Your comment piqued my interest, and I found this discussion
| from 2017:
| https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=173142
|
| It seems you can sell a Raspberry Pi-based contraption without
| paying SIG fees as long as you make it impossible for end users
| to use the Bluetooth functionality / disable/brick Bluetooth on
| the device.
| pge wrote:
| More King Harald trivia: a story about King Harald making a
| boastful soldier shoot an apple off of his son's head is the
| original source for the later legend of William Tell in
| Switzerland
| knorker wrote:
| Modern version: We've tied a bomb to your son. It's easy to
| defuse. Just connect to it via bluetooth and give the "defuse"
| command.
|
| You have 48 hours. Good luck.
| micimize wrote:
| looking forward to a future safety-critical network protocol
| called appleshot
| azinman2 wrote:
| That's actually a pretty good name.
| bborud wrote:
| "Hold my mead..."
| easrng wrote:
| Am I crazy or was it called Blutooth at some point?
| axelfontaine wrote:
| You're thinking rays, not teeth...
| sillyquiet wrote:
| Fun fact, the very first explanation of Bluetooth tech I saw was
| by Leo Laporte on Tech TV sometime in the 90s. The name was the
| first thing they discussed iirc.
| silisili wrote:
| Woulda been ZDTV in the 90s. Man I miss that channel. It all
| started going downhill after the first name change.
| sakex wrote:
| Fitting
| [deleted]
| goto11 wrote:
| Just to be clear, it is conjecture that the nickname was due to a
| dead tooth. It is not exactly clear what the nickname means. The
| word we translate to "tooth" could also mean "thane", so it could
| mean something like "the blue price" or "the black prince".
|
| It has been argued that the nickname is unlikely to be because of
| a bad tooth, since this would have been common enough at the time
| not to be noteworthy. But of course there might have been some
| story behind which is lost to time.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| In '99/00, I remember a cartoon on a slide because the lecturer
| was involved in the BT spec. It took a while, but he was right
| that it would be ubiquitous.
|
| I do have issues with BT compatibility between some devices with
| stuttering sound. For example, I have Edifier speakers that don't
| work properly with Apple devices.
|
| Another issue is audio/video latency. aptX Low Latency isn't
| widely-supported. Receivers, TVs, computers, and any display
| device chain muxes or demuxes A/V should support an A/V
| calibration device discoverable by WiFi and BT containing a
| microphone and light sensor for automatic synchronization.
|
| Pairing is a PITA. The behaviors of connecting, selecting,
| forcing, and moving devices are inconsistent and problematic.
| AirPods are terrible because they repeatedly connect when not
| wanted.
| usrusr wrote:
| "In 1996, three industry leaders, Intel, Ericsson, and Nokia,
| met"
|
| So Nordicsemi really had nothing to do with it? The world felt
| more consistent before I read that sentence.
| HPsquared wrote:
| An interesting point about the logo, and a test of Unicode:
|
| "The Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark
| runes (Hagall) (h) and (Bjarkan) (b), Harald's initials."
| martin_a wrote:
| HN has passed the Unicode test.
| [deleted]
| tasha0663 wrote:
| When the alien archaeologists dig up our civilization, they'll
| think we were still putting magic runes on everything.
| jaggederest wrote:
| If you don't think Bluetooth is nigh unto magic, what is?
| Imagine explaining it to someone from even 30 years ago.
| meepmorp wrote:
| "Believe it or not, despite 30 years and billions of
| dollars up for grabs, wireless headphones are pretty much
| gonna be ass."
| azinman2 wrote:
| I'm actually surprised there wasn't similar wireless
| headphones previously that were just pure analog FM radio.
| Seems very doable with older technology, save battery
| size/weight.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| There definitely was. You could get them for your home
| stereo, not phones.
| mcast wrote:
| The headphones would probably weigh a ton and only last
| 1-2 hours from the heavy ni-cad batteries of the 90s.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Those exist and have the major advantage of zero audio
| latency which is good for interoperability (think a TV
| headphone port).
|
| The disadvantage (in my cheap ones at least) is poorer
| sound quality, especially the amount of background hiss,
| short range and susceptibility to interference (no error
| correction).
| HPsquared wrote:
| Computer programming in general is akin to magic. It's
| literally in the realm of "say the magic words in the
| correct order, and things will happen".
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I used to give that story, in one of my Bluetooth classes. I
| ended up removing it, to save time, and also, because I used an
| Albert Uderzo character, from _Asterix_ , as an illustration, and
| couldn't share it online, with that image.
| u2077 wrote:
| Relevant Tom Scott video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdmQp9M9jUo
| ybbond wrote:
| I knew about this information from the same video. Great
| explanation from great channel (and person).
|
| The article is a nice source to read tho
| dybber wrote:
| Harald Bluetooth built some amazing fortifications for his period
| of time:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ring_fortress
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263286349_A_Palisad...
| danuker wrote:
| Fun fact: Apple and non-Apple devices won't share files via
| Bluetooth.
| tomrod wrote:
| Really?
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Yep. It was already like this when I got an iPhone 5 and as
| far as I know it's still the same on the iPhone 13.
|
| While these days we have faster technologies, bluetooth is
| available on most devices. It's like SMS, but for file
| transfers. Another reason for me not to buy iPhones.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| File sharing over BT is insecure, obsolete, and not widely-
| supported. It's better to deal with reality that BLE-
| capable apps and cloud apps are universal replacements.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| > not widely-supported
|
| Can you mention one main stream phone or tablet released
| in the past 10 years that doesn't support bluetooth file
| transfer? Android certainly supports it and I also
| remember using it on Windows Phone. As far as I know,
| only iOS (and iPadOS) doesn't... a bit weird as Apple
| supports it on macOS (just tested by sending a photo from
| my 2021 M1 MBP - Android phone).
|
| Anyway, is it the best option available today? No. Speeds
| alone are a good reason to avoid it. But Airdrop only
| works with Apple devices and Nearby Share is for Android
| (and apparently Windows in the future[0]), so the
| alternative is either a cloud app or some cross platform
| app which both sides need to install (who wants to do
| that just to transfer a file?).
|
| [0] https://9to5google.com/2022/01/05/google-nearby-
| share-androi...
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Do you mean AirDrop or BT File Sharing?
|
| Edit: In general without Apple, BT File Sharing has never
| interop'd. It's better to use a third-party app that uses BLE
| or a cloud or chat app with file sharing.
| whyoh wrote:
| >In general without Apple, BT File Sharing has never
| interop'd.
|
| I've used it with Windows, Symbian and Android at least,
| sending small files to each other without issues. The main
| problem is that it's just very slow.
|
| Wi-Fi Direct (also used in 'AirDrop') however, doesn't
| interop. Windows and Android even both call their
| implementation 'Nearby Sharing' -- but they're not
| compatible.
| sofixa wrote:
| Why? What's Apple's reasoning for that? Probably something
| along the lines of security or privacy but i really don't see
| it.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Same as Apple's reasoning for their other, er, opportunistic
| hesitance when it comes to interoperability: "Every time we
| add friction to the boundary of our ecosystem, it drives
| people to operate exclusively within our ecosystem".
|
| There's a reason people without iPhones show up a different
| color in iMessage too (and that group chats with Android
| users frequently don't function [carrier dependent]), and it
| has nothing to do with technical constraints.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I had a bluetooth mouse and keyboard on my PowerBook G4 for two
| years before I even had wifi. It worked flawlessly. As soon as
| folks started adding wifi to their homes the mouse became
| unusable and the keyboard would occasionally miss keys.
|
| The modern solution of vendor specific dongles is more reliable,
| but I sure wish we didn't need them.
| lhoff wrote:
| I don't now mich about the evolution of Bluetooth over the
| years but I am using a modern Bluetooth mouse for 2-3 years now
| and never issues with connectivity. I might be worth another
| try.
| oncejapan wrote:
| According to geni.com[1], he is actually my 31st great
| grandfather.
|
| Anonymized the first part of my line:
|
| You - ******** your father - ******** his mother - ******** her
| mother - ******** her father - ** Johansen his father - Johan
| Grove Kristoffersen his father - Ingeborg Catharine Jentoft
| Henrichsdatter Klaeboe his mother - Henrich Johan Hansen Klaeboe
| her father - Maren Hansdatter Glein his mother - Margaretha
| Johansdatter Gron her mother - Margrethe Christophersdatter Darre
| her mother - Kristoffer Bjornsen Bjornsen her father - Bjorn
| Rolfson Darre his father - Maren Bjornsdatter his mother -
| Johanne Mattisdatter her mother - Margreta Johannesdatter Kruckow
| her mother - Anne Ludvigsdatter Barsebek her mother - Magdalena
| Svare her mother - Adelus Eringsdotter Erlingsdtr Tolstad,
| Hildugard her mother - Elin Jonsdatter Hildugard Tolstad her
| mother - Sigrid Erlingsdotter Bjarkoy her mother - Elin
| Thoresdatter Bjarkoy her mother - Ingebjorg Erlingsdatter Bjarkoy
| her mother - Erling Alvsson Tornberg her father - Ingeborg
| Bardsdotter Rein his mother - Bard Skule Guttormsson Rein her
| father - Sigrid Torkjellsdotter Fugl his mother - Hallkatla
| Sveinsdatter Av Aurland her mother - Ingerid Svendsdatter of
| Denmark, Queen Consort of Norway her mother - Sweyn II Estridson,
| King of Denmark her father - Princess Estrid Margrethe (Margret),
| Of Svendsdatter his mother - Sweyn I "Forkbeard", king of
| Denmark, Norway & England her father - Harald "Blue Tooth", king
| of Denmark his father
|
| [1] https://www.geni.com/people/Harald-Blue-Tooth-king-of-
| Denmar...
| 1_player wrote:
| A huge amount of people have him as their 30th-something great
| grandfather.
|
| Somewhere in the ballpark of (average # children that grow to
| adult age per family) ^ 31
| jdminhbg wrote:
| This starts to fall apart because of overlap -- for most of
| those people, he's thousands of their 30th-something great
| grandfather, not just one ancestor.
| danans wrote:
| > This starts to fall apart because of overlap
|
| AKA pedigree collapse
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedigree_collapse
| NhanH wrote:
| 2^31 is already 2 billions ... And the average # children has
| to be higher
| coop_solution wrote:
| I guess that's yet another reason to make a HN account.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I still wonder why Apple has not dropped Bluetooth already.
| Bluetooth sucks, period. It helped shape many creative ideas, but
| it cannot meet the expectations in 2022 anymore.
|
| Bluetooth was, and still is, the most widely used means of file
| sharing, esp. between Android devices. When Apple decided not to
| support file sharing over Bluetooth in iOS, that was a good
| decision, albeit being an inconvenience to users. But Apple then
| introduced AirDrop which work's way better than Bluetooth.
| Meanwhile, there's still no reliable way to wirelessly transfer
| files between Android and Windows devices, and your have to use
| Bluetooth for that!
|
| Bluetooth also sucks when it comes to wireless headphones and
| other wireless accessories. I'm seriously surprised that Apple
| kept using Bluetooth for their AirPods.
| andylynch wrote:
| I recently read an interview posted here with one of the Apple
| engineers working on AirPods. In it he mentioned they were
| working on a wireless interface with more bandwidth than
| Bluetooth can do.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| Nearby share on Android and Windows and KDE connect
| behnamoh wrote:
| Nearby share on Windows is NOT compatible with Android.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Works fine enough for my headphones. Just wondering, have you
| used any BT 5.0 devices recently?
| HKH2 wrote:
| I used to have many problems with Bluetooth, but my Bluetooth
| 5.0 earbuds seem to work quite consistently. I can't see
| myself ever going back to wired earphones.
| cerved wrote:
| > AirDrop which work's way better than Bluetooth
|
| and is proprietary Apple exclusive nonsense. no thanks
| yholio wrote:
| That's a feature, like the green bubble, it's a social signal
| used to coerce bystanders into the sinister cult.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Why do you feel victimized by a green bubble, though?
| causi wrote:
| _Meanwhile, there's still no reliable way to wirelessly
| transfer files between Android and Windows devices, and your
| have to use Bluetooth for that!_
|
| The issue is there are a hundred different ways to transfer
| files between Android and Windows, and no two people use the
| same method. Personally I just use a file manager to copy files
| onto a network folder on my Windows devices.
| behnamoh wrote:
| File managers might do file sharing just fine, but they'll
| never be easy to use by most people.
| Kye wrote:
| >> _" I still wonder why Apple has not dropped Bluetooth
| already."_
|
| Apple Pencil uses Bluetooth. That's a huge selling point for
| their bigger devices. Dropping Bluetooth would mean dropping
| all the third-party styluses people use. Who would ever upgrade
| what they draw/paint on if they had to buy a $100 device to
| replace one that already works on what they have?
| baybal2 wrote:
| > When Apple decided not to support file sharing over Bluetooth
| in iOS, that was a good decision
|
| When Apple decided not to support file sharing over Bluetooth
| in iOS, that was a bad decision made to push its own not-
| compatible-with-anything ad-hoc file sharing standard, which in
| the end wasn't adopted by anybody else.
|
| Nothing innovative in reinventing a wheel. Poor vision, bad
| execution.
|
| > Meanwhile, there's still no reliable way to wirelessly
| transfer files between Android and Windows devices, and your
| have to use Bluetooth for that!
|
| And it will never be unless both will freaking stop reinventing
| the wheel, and keep trying EEE with Android Beam, Android
| Share, Samsung Share, Windows Share, and other misadventurous
| attempts at standard-making which live no longer than 2-3
| years.
|
| Windows XP, and Ericsson R520 had built-in Bluetooth stack, and
| worked just find from the box.
|
| Win 10, and latest Android had to both individually subvert the
| OBEX standard in their own ways to become mutually incompatible
| from the box.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > _I'm seriously surprised that Apple kept using Bluetooth for
| their AirPods_
|
| The fact that most people expect earphones to work with more
| than just their phone and laptop might have something to do
| with it.
|
| I actually think Bluetooth works ok for wireless accessories.
| Seems fine on my games controllers and mice. No complaints with
| Bluetooth for my Apple Watch nor the Pebble that came before
| it. Audio feel like the worst widespread use of Bluetooth and
| even there, I think half the problems are the implementations
| rather than the protocol. For example I have a few Bluetooth
| speakers that works flawlessly. My old Bose earphones worked
| flawlessly too. In fact ironically the worst bluetooth audio
| hardware I've used is actually the AirPods -- but I accept that
| I do shop around before buying audio hardware so there will be
| other products out there that are terrible.
| jandrese wrote:
| iOS is the one place where Bluetooth is even semi-reliable. I
| have endless trouble keeping devices paired to my Windows and
| Linux machines, but the iPhones pick it up first try every
| time.
| Findecanor wrote:
| Another, perhaps more plausible, theory of why King Harald was
| nicknamed "Bluetooth" is that it would have been the name of his
| sword: a sharp "tooth" of blued steel.
| danuker wrote:
| I find Bluetooth impractical to use due to its slow speed and
| incompatibility between Android and Apple devices, as well as
| interference with Wi-Fi.
|
| Everyone I know shares files via a centralized service like
| WhatsApp, but those are getting iffy also.
|
| I share files locally through a hotspot and LWS:
|
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.basov.lws.fdroid
| chakkepolja wrote:
| > Everyone I know shares files via a centralized service like
| WhatsApp, but those are getting iffy also.
|
| Maybe you can convince them to use Files by Google, Trebleshot
| or something like that, which doesn't require internet.
|
| For desktop <-> mobile sharing, there's always KDE connect for
| Linux and Windows.
| alephnil wrote:
| The reason he was known as Harald Blatann (Bluetooth) was as
| mentioned that he had a dead tooth. These are normally black, not
| blue, but old norse did not distinguish between black and blue,
| thus the name.
| matsemann wrote:
| As a Norwegian speaking guy, I used to say "blatann" instead of
| "bluetooth" as a joke when I was a teenager. Because I found
| the direct translation funny. Didn't know at the time that I
| was actually somewhat "correct".
| norenh wrote:
| Swedish guy here, can confirm that it was often called
| "Blatand" in various circumstances in Sweden at the time
| (20ish years ago). I have worked with Ericsson-employees who
| also called it "Blatand" but nowadays it is less common and
| "Bluetooth" has taken over as the way to refer to it here.
| Moru wrote:
| Among older people I still hear Blatand now and then. Some
| of them think they are funny, some knows why :-)
| eli wrote:
| Many ancient languages lacked a word for blue. It doesn't occur
| very often in nature.
| [deleted]
| rightbyte wrote:
| Blueberries? Alot of flowers?
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Alot of flowers
|
| > Ancient
|
| Why bother with inventing a separate word to distinguish
| some [rare|rarely or sometimes extreme|ly rarely [used]]
| flowers from others?
|
| Why the said flower can't be successfully described with
| other adjectives?
|
| EDIT: also this comment
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30167639
| DFHippie wrote:
| I think the explanation is that it didn't occur very often,
| until recently, as a dye or pigment. Color terms are more
| useful to describe things, like shirts, that don't have an
| inherent color. In a society where everything just has its
| inherent color, you don't need many color terms. In a society
| where people can change things' colors, these terms are more
| useful.
| octopoc wrote:
| The sky is blue and so is the ocean
| eli wrote:
| It's a fascinating phenomenon, right? Worth noting the
| "blue" in both those examples comes from physics not
| pigments.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| The reason pigments or anything else is blue is also
| because of physics.
| dTal wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1818/
| Agentlien wrote:
| A friend of mine once claimed that the sky wasn't blue. I
| challenged him, expecting some argument about physics and
| Rayleigh scattering.
|
| Instead he looked at me and, with a straight face, said
| "it's the spy satellites which are blue. And there are
| _very_ many. "
| pengstrom wrote:
| While true, it might be worth noting that if you grind
| iridescent blue material it will loose its color. Pigment
| will not.
| mzs wrote:
| and a bruise
| teawrecks wrote:
| More specifically, it is believed by historians/biologists
| that humans didn't evolve the ability to distinguish
| between shades of blue until relatively recently. The ocean
| and the sky are 2 of the only examples, and humans didn't
| spend much time in either place. A few fruits are blue, a
| few poisonous animals might have some blue, but the vast
| majority of natural things aren't blue. We have examples of
| ancient writings comparing the color of the ocean to the
| color of wine. Even now, our eyes have the fewest cones for
| detecting blue wavelengths, and the most for distinguishing
| greens. Graphical artists have to account for this
| literally all the time. Every digital color space we've
| made saves some bits by shifting more color resolution to
| greens and reds because no one will notice the extra blues.
| monocasa wrote:
| It's not biological evolution, but linguistic evolution
| at play. There's a specific evolutionary pattern for
| color words in language found for the most part (albeit
| like everything in language and evolution, there's always
| exceptions to the pattern):
|
| All language known have terms for black and white.
|
| If a language has three color terms, the third is 'red'.
|
| If a language has four color terms, the fourth is either
| 'green' or 'yellow'.
|
| If a language has five color terms, the fifth is the
| other of 'green' or 'yellow'.
|
| If a language has six terms, the sixth is 'blue'.
|
| If a language has seven terms, the seventh is 'brown'.
|
| And from there it starts to heavily diverge with purple,
| pink, orange, grey.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_t
| he_...
| Agentlien wrote:
| As someone with deuteranomaly I find this so funny
| because for me blue is the color that pops and doesn't
| blend together with all the rest.
| xdennis wrote:
| This dead tooth (top right) looks pretty blue to me:
| https://tracewellness.com/what-does-dead-tooth-look-like/
| (careful, you might not like to see these images).
| giorgioz wrote:
| I feel Bluetooth is the ever-unstable technology we have been
| beta testing for 2 decades. I own Quietbose QuietComfort 35 which
| I paid 350 USD. They are top of the line headphones and yet the
| bluetooth still sucks. This is not a blame on Quietbose which in
| fact might be one of the best product ever. After few months of
| use I just decided it's just less annoying to use them with the
| cable. BLUETOOTH STILL SUCKS!
| rightbyte wrote:
| I feel the main problem is pair UI with vendors cheaping out on
| a designated pait button.
| jabiko wrote:
| I think that somehow each Bluetooth device has its own kinks.
|
| With my QuietComfort 35 sometimes the A2DP profile is not
| negotiated and it falls back to HSP/HFP which sounds like a
| landline in the 90s. Then you have to disconnect/reconnect it
| and hope it works this time.
|
| Another pair of cheap sports headphones I own just like to pair
| with everything that is in range if no other device is
| connected.
|
| And lastly my Sony WF-1000XM3 just never automatically connects
| to my phone. I always have to manually go into the Bluetooth
| menu to connect them.
|
| I think there should be some type of conformity certification,
| not for the implementation of the Bluetooth protocol itself but
| for how a device has to act in certain scenarios.
| visarga wrote:
| > With my QuietComfort 35 sometimes the A2DP profile is not
| negotiated and it falls back to HSP/HFP which sounds like a
| landline in the 90s. Then you have to disconnect/reconnect it
| and hope it works this time.
|
| This happens to my AirPods2. Very annoying, like a $5 pair of
| headphones.
| vardump wrote:
| In my experience QC35 works well with pretty much anything
| _except_ some Apple computers, such as on _some_ Macbooks.
| Might be chipset dependent.
|
| In my experience QC35 works well on Linux/Windows PCs and
| laptops, iPhone/iPad and on Android devices.
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| I have a QC35 connected to linux laptop/android phone/toyota
| car. The problem is the headphones will randomly decide which
| one is going to win. Sometimes i turn on the headphones, they
| say they connect to the phone and the laptop, then I join a
| meeting and no audio. Usually have to turn the phone
| bluetooth off to get it working again. In the end i bought
| separate dedicated headphones to use for the laptop.
| vardump wrote:
| Yeah, that dual bluetooth connection "feature" is pretty
| annoying. It just plays audio from the device that first
| happened to send any sound, while the other device becomes
| completely muted. What were they thinking at Bose...
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Exactly. My phone still once every few days struggles to
| connect to my headphones or my car, until I reset the phone and
| it all works fine again
|
| I've actually worked on a bluetooth stack, and even I have no
| idea why it's so unreliable.
| _joel wrote:
| AFAIU it was basically FTP strapped onto a wireless PHY. It was
| hacky from the start.
| zwirbl wrote:
| With the new BLE audio standard, everything will get better(tm)
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| What are you talking about? BLE is not an audio standard.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_Low_Energy
| larschdk wrote:
| No, but a BLE extension for audio is being created.
| stordoff wrote:
| I assume they're referring to LE Audio. From Wikipedia:
|
| > Announced in January 2020, LE Audio will allow the
| protocol to carry sound and add features such as one set of
| headphones connecting to multiple audio sources or multiple
| headphones connecting to one source
| barbazoo wrote:
| That's one data point. I've been using my QC45 with a MBP and
| Android device and it works flawlessly. My hearing aid is
| connected to my Android via BLE and has worked consistently for
| which I'm really really grateful. I think it's a magnificent
| piece of technology.
| tombert wrote:
| I thought that until I paid attention to the supported codecs.
| When I had a pair of Sennheisers that had AptX HD support, they
| sounded great on my Android phone and MacBook, but awful when I
| moved to an iPhone.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| Bose probably just sucks at making Bluetooth.
| nradov wrote:
| Bose almost certainly buys a Bluetooth chip from another
| vendor instead of making it themselves.
| kalleboo wrote:
| I've read all the rants about how the Bluetooth spec is too
| long and complicated and hence the protocol is impossible to
| implement properly, but
|
| Honestly I have so much trouble with Wi-Fi as well, it randomly
| won't see a network, it won't roam to 5 GHz leaving me on slow
| 2.4 GHz (turning on "band steering" on the router makes it even
| worse, it just drops completely), you check the forums, people
| swear that this new OS update made the range worse somehow.
|
| Even Apple's AirDrop on which they own the whole stack is very
| unreliable if it will see the other device.
|
| Digital wireless just seems like a very very difficult field.
|
| The only digital wireless communication tech that seems rock-
| solid is the 3GPP stack (GSM/UMTS/LTE/5G). It just always
| works, flawlessly, 24/7. Even with the random crap Chinese
| "iFOE" Mediatek knockoff I bought once.
| ksec wrote:
| >Digital wireless just seems like a very very difficult
| field.
|
| Indeed It is. And not much appreciation about it anywhere
| either.
|
| >The only digital wireless communication tech that seems
| rock-solid is the 3GPP stack (GSM/UMTS/LTE/5G).
|
| And that is why they are expensive. Again no one appreciate
| the work that was done on 3GPP, nor are they willing to pay
| much for it. Everyone likes to shit post on 3G / 4G / 5G
| without actually spending any time to understand the _insane_
| difficulty of wireless. No one realise we got 10,000x
| capacity improvement in the last 20 years on mobile network.
| All while siding with Apple and suggest they should only pay
| 30cents on patent to Qualcomm or Ericsson.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Again no one appreciate the work that was done on 3GPP,
| nor are they willing to pay much for it.
|
| Ideally, you would have governments spend tax money on
| universities and national standardization bodies to do the
| R&D and publication of open standards, and then both
| companies and private efforts can openly use these
| standards to develop products against, with clearly defined
| interfaces and interoperability expectations.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| One job I did involved a large provider of public WiFi in the
| UK. As a result of this, I'm convinced that WiFi is pretty
| much like tech from the Warhammer 40k universe and simply
| will not work if the correct benedictions to the Machine God
| are not uttered in the right order.
| benbristow wrote:
| Once you learn the habbit of navigating to neverssl.com as
| soon as you connect to a public WiFi network to force the
| captive portal/auth you'll usually not have any issues with
| it unless the WiFi network itself sucks.
| sporedro wrote:
| Wow, I'll have to remember that. I always am fumbling to
| get to an http site to redirect when I go on the train or
| somewhere.
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| I use example.com or example.org, which seems to work
| just fine also.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I usually use notpurple.com for this (I used to use
| purple.com until the guy finally sold the domain to the
| mattress company), but I suppose there's no guarantee the
| notpurple person won't some day add ssl.
|
| Thanks for the tip.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Thank you nice site tip! One after one my goto http sites
| adds a s.
| benbristow wrote:
| Haha. Great to see more websites using SSL encryption but
| it does make it harder to connect to public WiFi if the
| OS's captive portal detection doesn't trigger properly.
| throw0101a wrote:
| I am reminded of old school parallel SCSI: three
| terminations are needed: one at each end of the bus, plus
| that of a black rooster at midnight with-in a circle of
| black candles.
| emodendroket wrote:
| For all the flaws I find not having my head tethered
| revelatory. I just can't stand it. I always feel like I have to
| hold my neck a certain way and make it sore.
| mepiethree wrote:
| I have those headphones and they do indeed rock. The problem
| is: most cellphones don't have headphone jacks. My cellphone
| broke last summer and everything with a headphone jack was
| backordered. So now when my headphones die on (say) a long
| flight, I just can't listen to music anymore, because they
| don't work while plugged in. Bluetooth sucks, and not just
| because it's unreliable.
| fattybob wrote:
| I got myself a charging port (iPhone) adapter for headphones
| - just for such a use case, long flights. But can still face
| a problem if needing to charge while listening to music /
| audio book.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| I use a wireless charger for this but there are also very
| cheap adapters that allow you to attach power on one side
| and headphones on the other and then connect the thing to
| your lightning port.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| I have similar experience with bluetooth audio devices.
| Meanwhile, I have been using bluetooth mice for over a decade
| and never had any problems. So, is it poor implementation? Or
| maybe bluetooth audio in particular is bad?
| jandrese wrote:
| It doesn't help that the Bluetooth stack on Windows is still
| pretty finicky after so many years. I bought some fairly decent
| Bluetooth headphones for the kids so they wouldn't have to
| worry about tangling up cords and they are basically worthless
| because the OS keeps getting in a state where they know that
| they are there but refuse to associate. I have to go in and
| manually forget the headphones and re-add them every other time
| the kids want to use them. If I pair them with my phone they
| work perfectly every time. The Linux stack is also prone to
| flaking out randomly in much the same way. The dreaded
| "resource temporarily unavailable" being an annoyingly common
| message on my laptop when it forgets about the speakers again.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I feel Bluetooth is the ever-unstable technology we have
| been beta testing for 2 decades._
|
| Meanwhile I just transferred via Bluetooth some old high-school
| photos from an 2003 NEC flip-phone with Bluetooth v1.1 onto my
| 2021 OnePlus Android phone with Bluetooth v5.1 seamlessly.
|
| And as a test, both phones managed to connect flawlessly to my
| shitty 2014 Fiat entertainment system and to my dad's ancient
| 2005 Audi entertainment system. Even my brand spanking new Sony
| noise cancelling bluetooth headphones from 2021 worked with
| that NEC flip phone from 2003. The backwards- and cross-
| compatibility of bluetooth is nothing but impressive.
|
| The only bluetooth device that gave me issues were some M-Pow
| headphones off Amazon that I threw away after a couple of weeks
| due to how terrible they were and a work colleague constantly
| had issues with his LG Android phone because LG apparently
| fudged the Bluetooth firmware implementation on that phone.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Funny, same here with M-Pow!
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Bluetooth(-devices) work okay as long there is only one main
| host (Laptop, Smartphone) and multiple accessoires involved
| ONLY for use on that host. As soon as you have several main
| hosts in constant use (Car, Laptop, Phone) and use the
| accessoires regularly on different main hosts, it becomes a
| nightmare. Auto (dis-)connects happening on power on/off,
| some devices not relinquishing their connection etc. In these
| configurations I've never seen it work properly, and most
| often it is more a source of anger than happiness.
| lukebuehler wrote:
| That's right. Bluetooth works great in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many
| relationships, but not in many-to-many.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I've gotten in the habit of just always putting my devices
| into pairing mode when I want to use them, which seems to
| work OK.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Anecdata happened 30mins after typing that answer: I
| disabled BT on my Macbook while I was using a Bose
| Soundlink Micro BT speaker which sits at the other end of
| the room (because I wanted to use the built-in speaker).
| Now after disabling my BT on the laptop, the Bose Speaker
| went into nagging mode, playing "Ready to connect" in 30s
| intervals. Had to get my ass of the chair and manually turn
| it off.
|
| I mean, what is the logic behind this. Why would I go into
| nagging mode and tell my user every 30s that "I am ready to
| connect" just because the BT device disconnected? How about
| you do nothing, wait 5mins, and if no other device connects
| you go to standby?
| RedShift1 wrote:
| I think it's otherwise confusing for users to know what
| state the device is in. Like for example take any
| bluetooth device that has a blinking blue light on it.
| What does it mean? There's probably a cultural
| understanding that it means it's waiting for a connection
| but then again you'll find many other bluetooth devices
| doing it other ways.
| enedil wrote:
| It becomes even funnier with a dual-boot setup. My
| headphones think they are connected with my laptop, but
| either the pairing was with Linux or Windows, in which case
| I need to disconnect and connect again.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Because of exactly those edge cases I'm reluctant to use
| wireless BT headphones. I still only buy wired
| headphones. Especially when on the laptop, the benefit of
| being wireless is barely there. Not that I wouldn't want
| wireless, but the drawback of that mode with BT edge
| cases, empty batteries etc. make me think accepting wires
| is just more comfortable and less of an annoyance.
| interstice wrote:
| That depends on your tolerance for charging for ten mins
| once every few days or so and reconnecting vs
| occasionally getting a wire tangled/under the wheel of
| the chair/forcibly yanked when you forget you are wearing
| them when you stand up.
|
| It's pretty 50 50 for me but the physical minimalism and
| not having the wire/socket wear out swung it in the end.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Actually if you put some effort in, wires become pretty
| manageable. I use a special technique to roll up my in-
| ears and a clip to hold them in-place while in my pocket.
| For my over-the-ear headphones I use cable-management
| spools to match the cable length to my usually distance
| on the desk.
|
| Although I admit, I own a FiiO BTR 5 that has BT and I
| can plug in my in-ear wired headphones - so I
| occasionally have a need for wireless listening. The
| battery of the FiiO is 13-15h however, and I also use it
| for other purposes (wired external headphone preamp).
| Additionally, in case the battery runs flat, I can always
| just insert the headphones directly into the device
| directly as a fallback.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Oh man, so _that 's_ why my earbuds act so wonky...
| AdrianoKF wrote:
| While I haven't personally tried it (and have since given
| up on BT audio in my setup), there seems to be a way to
| extract the pairing key from Windows and have the Linux
| Bluetooth stack use it (see e.g. [0]), effectively making
| the Windows and Linux host appear identical to the paired
| device.
|
| [0]: https://brokkr.net/2015/09/26/bluetooth-dual-
| booting-sharing...
| larusso wrote:
| I can attest that this works. I did this for my
| headphones and keyboard/mouse until I plugged the
| keyboard into my work mac with the USB cable to charge. I
| didn't know that Apple sees this and creates the
| connection via Bluetooth (Yes used a spare Magic
| Keyboard). I had no desire to to the whole setup again
| and now have a cable keyboard and a KVM setup.
| [deleted]
| morsch wrote:
| I use my headphones (85h) with both my Android tablet and
| my Android phone (and it does work 100% of the time), so
| there is progress, but it's truly glacial. It's limited to
| two devices and they can't even play simultaneously.
| gsich wrote:
| The connection part is not the main issue I think. It's
| staying connected after reboot/power save/distance or
| automatically reconnecting.
| rob74 wrote:
| Another data point: I currently use Marshall Major III
| wireless headphones, which are much cheaper than Bose's QC
| line, but I never had any problems with them (or with their
| predecessors, Marshall Major II, which I unfortunately lost).
| Of course my use case is the simplest there is: pair with
| phone, leave paired. But it works flawlessly, switch
| headphones on, headphones connected (except if BT is disabled
| on the phone of course).
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Another data point: I have these same headphones, listening
| to them now in fact and they are great.
|
| However the problem the original poster has still exists I
| think, when you use it across multiple devices it's
| annoying and I get that sound of it disconnecting and
| reconnecting to other devices while I am listening, so i
| have to find that device and turn the bluetooth off.
|
| Case in point this afternoon when I went to listen. Connect
| bluetooth on my iPad, connect the headphones, iPad shows
| that headphones are connected, listen to music, nothing, no
| sound... why? Ahh, have to go on my mac, disconnect them
| from my mac and then boom sound starts.
|
| It's just annoying with multiple devices and we live in a
| very multi-device world. I should just be able to press the
| device I want as a sound source and boom. It's silly to
| still be having this issue.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Meanwhile I just transferred via Bluetooth some old high-
| school photos from an 2003 NEC flip-phone with Bluetooth v1.1
| onto my 2021 OnePlus Android phone with Bluetooth v5.1
| seamlessly.
|
| With a speed of 200 kByte, barely faster than IrDA?
|
| Seriously, the data rate of Bluetooth file transfer is
| atrocious.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Meh, the pictures were in VGA resolution so their size was
| very small so the transfer speed was not an issue. The
| value of the memories was more important.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Whether Bluetooth sucks or not I'm not sure. But man they
| didn't help themselves with the robotic voice "HUA-IP 20 Pro
| disconnect" followed shortly by "Connected to HUA-IP 20 Pro and
| GBK-w-006" every time something goes in or out of range.
| rob74 wrote:
| Ah, yes, I remember that Bose feature, I had a Bose BT
| speaker a few years ago (actually it's still here somewhere,
| but I haven't used it in a while). But I don't think it's a
| synthesized voice - the German version has a distinctly
| disappointed sound when it has to inform you that something
| has disconnected. Good to know that the headphones have that
| too (as a "con" argument for getting QC headphones).
| coding123 wrote:
| I can't use it for audio but it was a godsend for me for the
| past 20 years for mice and keyboards.
| darksaints wrote:
| I feel like they dropped the ball with respect to spec
| compliance. I have some speakers that allow anybody to pair
| with them, even if they don't have physical access to the
| device, and I occasionally have apartment neighbors connect to
| them and start playing music. That shouldn't be possible...but
| anybody can just say that their product is Bluetooth compatible
| and get away with it.
|
| They should have a rigid spec and a publicly available test
| kit, and a certification process for spec compliance.
| runjake wrote:
| I loved the QC35 headphones, because their introduction led to
| the fire sale of the older QC25 series, which I scored new for
| just under $150.
|
| The QC25 uses a user-replaceable AA battery. And they're still
| going strong.
|
| Someday I may even buy one of the Bluetooth adapters for them:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MTQGY69
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Being able to pop in a new AA battery is absolutely awesome
| when traveling - I still reach for my QC25s instead of my
| QC35s for long-haul flights.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| Is there an answer though to the question of how to fix it?
| Obviously it's designed to operate in a pretty noisy slice of
| bandwidth, is that the root of their problem? Or is there
| something fundamentally wrong with their approach that they
| can't change without breaking backwards compatibility?
| mastax wrote:
| The spec is so complicated that it's impossible to implement
| correctly (or so I hear).
|
| I do think it would help a lot to have 5GHz Bluetooth.
| fnord77 wrote:
| in the 20 years I'm surprised that some company that makes both
| sources and headsets (sony, apple) haven't made their own
| proprietary protocol in parallel
| k__ wrote:
| It highly depends on the products.
|
| I never had issues with my BT speaker.
|
| I switch it on, it connects, and the PC automatically switches
| all output to it.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| I still have mine (v. 1). I called support once about it. It
| can get into a mode where it needs to be rebooted. Overall,
| they work fine. Be sure to download the app and install the
| latest firmware update.
|
| Also, using the audio cable and charging cable at the same time
| results in annoying digital noise in the headphones. It may be
| a ground loop issue that can be broken by charging and
| listening with different relative ground sources (gnd of USB
| must be different than the audio gnd).
| airstrike wrote:
| Fun fact: last month, a contestant in the Brazilian version of
| "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was asked the million
| dollar^Wreais question: what is Bluetooth named after?
|
| https://gshow.globo.com/google/amp/programas/domingao-com-hu...
|
| Spoiler alert: he chose not to answer and walked away with R$500k
| instead
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Smart man. Didn't get tempted. He won.
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