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Numerical masturbation

That's a term I learned from an EE professor in college and I think it's appropriate here.

I work in engineering and it's common for engineers to gather lots of data without gaining any insight, chase numbers that aren't operationally meaningful, optimize things that don't need to be optimized, or go in circles squeezing one side of the balloon after another, only to have the other side stick out.

Getting fixated on numbers is a common engineer's trap that we all fall into at some point. Managers who rose out of engineering tend to fall into it too, spending resources to capture lots of process metrics that are never utilized for process improvement. Having the numbers is like a security blanket that makes managers feel like they know what's going on in their organization.

I haven't spent a ton of time on ASF. I've mostly just followed threads there from other places. But my impression is that it's one big ego stroke where Amir gets to play with toys and everybody drools in anticipation, waiting for another high-end audio product to be deemed unworthy. Among hobbyist measurers, I think Archimago does more interesting work.

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