Thank you, and sorry if I came across as too negative about what is actually a great article, from which I learned a lot.

On the theme of the article, sound is a great way to understand what is going on, and I really like how you've used it here. I think some people believe that hearing mainly applies to obvious sounds such as speech and music, but it is, as you demonstrate here, an excellent diagnostic tool. I've personally learned that all of the little sounds contribute significantly to ones mental map / model of the world to the extent that I'm prepared to believe that total deafness would be as devastating, in the long term, as total sight loss.

I'm sorry to hear that. No, your reply wasn't too negative considering it's a very serious loss. Yes, as you said, we underestimate the power that small sounds have, and that we, as professionals, are losing this accidental feature from our tooling.

>I'm sorry to hear that

just keep rubbing it in

Id say fixing up a fairly minor issue and apologizing for it takes a lot more backbone than the blatant fear of having made a misstep that your comment reeks of.

I don't usually agree with the pro-social-justice, everything-is-offensive PC crowd. But sometimes, a joke is in bad taste. It's not the end of the world, it's not a horrible joke the author should be ashamed of, it's not a huge deal, and "sorry, you're right, fixing" is a perfect response.

Your response however is full of severe insecurity. "Grow a backbone", as they say.

> Your joke didn't make light of losing one's hearing, to the contrary it played on the obvious absurdness of caring more about a headset than one's hearing.

How can you tell? Why not give the benefit of the doubt that the apology was sincere and not grovelling?