HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: noise cancellation (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Date: 1 Oct 92 20:10:12 GMT
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.

george@beta.ee.ufl.edu (George L) writes:
:
: Skip the speakers. Just beam the signal directly into our heads. Then we can 
: neglect speaker response, room dynamics, and the general degradation of our 
: auditory systems over time. It would also allow everyone to listen to the 
: material of their choice, as loud as they like, without disturbing the rest 
: of the world.
:

This has been done.  As I recall the details, you take a fairly strong
AC field (1KV/m at several hundred KHz) and amplitude modulate it with
an audio signal.  If you place an arm or leg in the field, you can
hear the audio.  I don't have any references, but I was under the
impression that this is a widely known phenomenon.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Kids, don't gross me
Rosemount Inc.                                |off..  ``Adventures with
                                              |MENTAL HYGIENE'' can be
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |carried too FAR!
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
From: dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright)
Subject: Re: "Normal" body temperature
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Organization: Salt Lick Silty, Ewe-taw
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 03:41:52 GMT

98.6 F was not chosen because it converts to the round figure of 37 C.
The dogma that "normal" is 98.6 was established by Carl Wunderlich in
1868.  He published a paper reporting 98.6 as the average body temperature
of more than 25,000 healthy adults.  His data included more than one
million measurements.  His effort was even more remarkable because the
thermometers of his day took 15-20 minutes to come to the right reading,
and had to be read while still in place (in the armpit).  His
investigation of body temperature was one of just a few in history.
Many medical texts still cite Wunderlich's study.

In the Sept 23/30 _Journal_of_the_American_Medical_Association_, a certain
Phillip Mackowiak of the University of Maryland reports the results of his
study.  His group measured oral temperature using digital thermometers
four times daily for three consecutive days in 148 healthy men and women
aged 18 to 40.  Like Wuderlich, Mackowiak found that normal temperatures
vary between individuals by as much as 4.8 degrees, and vary within the
same individual over the course of a day by as much as 1.1 degrees.
However, 98.6 was neither the average, nor the mean, nor the single most
reported reading.  In fact it accounted for just 8% of the readings.
The average in Mackowiak's study was 98.2.

Age did not appear to influence readings.  Women tended to be about 0.3
degrees warmer than men, and blacks about 0.1 warmer than whites.  Some
extreme people had regular afternoon highs of 99.9, while others had
morning lows of 96.3.

Note: someone on this thread reported Dan Rather as saying the average was
*higher* than 98.6, and described a graphic with a thermometer going *up*
to illustrate the point.  I wonder which study Rather was quoting?

I ran this posting through an English style-checker and the result was:
... reported dan *[rather]* as saying ...
SUGGEST: omit "rather"

  -- Dan Wright

Xref: sparky alt.folklore.science:3669 alt.folklore.urban:24964
From: klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Metrication and "normal usage"
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:28:23 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

>rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:

>>For common use, you need what you're used to.  For example, I still
>>talk in inches though my children talk in metric, because of the
>>principle system in use when we were at our respective schools.  I
>>`understand' (in the sense of being able to visualise) both imperial
>>and cgs, mks and SI metric, since that's what I was actually taught
>>(or have had need to use).  They understand only metric.

This country went metric in 1907. I have lost touch with the grocery
trade now, but when I was working in my mother's store in the 1970s,
people would buy 1kg of flour, 2kg of sugar, 1 pound of coffee and half
a pound of butter. The weight of people were given in kg more often
than in pounds, but only slightly more. I think that kg is finally
winning.

Note, however, that the Danish pound was almost exactly 500g. In
Sweden, which had (or has) a 10km mile, miles are still commonly
used. In Danmark, where a mile was 7.6km, they are never used.
"Pund" now of course means 500g, and in Sweden "mil" means 10km.

Klaus O K
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
From: jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox)
Subject: Re: "Normal" body temperature
Reply-To: jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 03:52:47 GMT

In article <EACHUS.92Oct1094810@Dr_No.mitre.org> eachus@Dr_No.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
>     The Farenheit temperature scale used salted ice water for zero,
>and average body temperature for 100 degrees.  Of course back then the
>average person was likely to have a cronic infection of some sort...

  Actually, I believe the scale was tweaked to allow the difference
between the boiling and freezing points of water to equal 180 degrees
exactly, because that's a nice easy number to work with...this is, of
course, why the Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion is so clean.

Jonathan Lennox
jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu



Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: jdg41088@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Pickaxe)
Subject: Speed of gravity
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 06:25:35 GMT
Keywords: gravity

Here's something that I've been thinking about. What is the speed of gravity?
Imagine a mass that causes a force on another mass somewhere else. If I were
to change the mass of the original mass by some means (nuclear for example),
how long would it take before the other mass "notices" the change? I'm guessing
it would be at the speed of light, or maybe I just don't understand enough
general relativity to be able to answer this myself.

things that make you go hmmmm....


-- 
+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
| Joe Gross          |  Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| pickaxe@uiuc.edu   |  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign        |
| (217) 328-4331     |  "Society is such a terrible waste of people"      |
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: o.k. scifi
Date: 6 Oct 92 01:33:16 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <1ao8ujINN29t@gap.caltech.edu>, jittlov@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Mike Jittlov) writes:
[Lots of irrelevent twaddle deleted{

Mike:  How long can the human body be immersed in a heat sink at the freezing
point of water before hypothermia sets in?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: dcb@kopachuk.uucp (David Breneman)
Subject: Re: noise cancellation (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Organization: Tacoma Screw Products, Inc.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 23:37:37 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.064612.27012@eng.ufl.edu> george@beta.ee.ufl.edu (George L) writes:
>
>On a similar note, and hopefully a new and different thread, has there been 
>any success at environmental noise cancellation? Not noise masking, where a 
>relaxing noise source (bubbling water, etc...) is used to drown out other 
>unwanted noise. Instead, something that would listen to the environment, and 
>generate another signal which would actually reduce the magnitude of the 
>unwanted noise. Kind of like using odor-eaters in your tennis shoes as opposed 
>to just dumping some cologne in them.
>

I heard that this system was built into the stereo of some high-priced
car like a Lincoln or something.  When you turn on your stereo, not
only are you hearing the music, but you're cancelling out the noise
in the car at the same time.

-- 
David Breneman     Sys Admin, Tacoma Screw Products, Inc. |  ____  ____  ____
dcb@tacoma.uucp           |   SCREWIE the TSP CLOWN sez-  |   /   /___  /___/ 
 ..!uunet!tacoma!dcb      |  "Nylok lock nuts lose their  |  /   ____/ / 
CompuServe: 75760,1232    | binding strength after 1 use!"|
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Subject: Re: noise cancellation (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Reply-To: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Organization: People Playing Civ Till All Hours
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 16:27:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.064612.27012@eng.ufl.edu> george@beta.ee.ufl.edu (George L) writes:
>In article <5851@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane) writes:
>Skip the speakers. Just beam the signal directly into our heads. Then we can 
>neglect speaker response, room dynamics, and the general degradation of our 
>auditory systems over time. It would also allow everyone to listen to the 
>material of their choice, as loud as they like, without disturbing the rest 
>of the world.

Severe apocrypha time: I heard rumors a few years back that some brilliant kid
in California had come up with a way of using charged particle beams to
project music directly into the auditory nerves, and the U.S. Army classified
it immediately, since it apparently could be used for beaming all kinds of
other interesting signals into all kinds of other interesting parts of the
brain.

>On a similar note, and hopefully a new and different thread, has there been 
>any success at environmental noise cancellation? Not noise masking, where a 
>relaxing noise source (bubbling water, etc...) is used to drown out other 
>unwanted noise. Instead, something that would listen to the environment, and 
>generate another signal which would actually reduce the magnitude of the 
>unwanted noise. Kind of like using odor-eaters in your tennis shoes as 
>opposed to just dumping some cologne in them.

It seems to me that this would involve having something sit exactly where you
would rather be sitting, assimilate and process the sound, add a cancellation
signal, and pipe it to headphones bulky enough to drown out any possible
background noise.  It'd just be easier to build a foot of cork into all the
walls, it seems to me.
Seth L. Blumberg          | "Once again, fear and superstition triumphed over
slb22@cunixb.columbia.edu |    science and technology."
On CI$: 76460,1666        |        -- Anton Braun Quist, quoting Ed Whitaker
   > No one I know shares my opinions, least of all Columbia University. <
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar)
Subject: Re: Wanted: Interesting experiments
Organization: Loral Western Development Labs
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:29:13 GMT

I don't see what is so paradoxical about your example, (2 rubberbands, 3
threads and a weight).  A simple application of Hooks law and the fact that
you are going from one support line to two support lines so each rubber
band has only half the force on it implies that each band would be streatched
less so the weight must go up.  And yes I did figure this out before reading
the end of the article where you give it away.

--
Mark Biggar
mab@wdl1.wdl.loral.com
From: tlg@uknet.ac.uk (Tim.Goodwin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Date: 28 Sep 92 10:39:20 GMT
Organization: UKnet

In article <BZS.92Sep25222359@ussr.std.com> bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein)
writes:
>However, to play the devil's advocate, something I see missing in
>these experiments which claim identical bit streams is timing. Timing
>of the bits and how they hit the speakers can be very critical in the
>quality of the sound perceived, even if the bits when taken as a whole
>are indistinguishable.

Yes, but the timing isn't derived from the disk.  The bits coming from
the disk are shovelled into one end of a buffer, and clocked out of the
other end.  If the buffer gets too full, the disk is slowed down; too
empty and it's speeded up.

[ It would be quite a feat to maintain accurate timing otherwise: music
CDs use constant linear velocity; as I recall the speed varies from
about 8 r/s at the centre of the disk to about 3 r/s at the edge.  (I
believe CD-ROMs do use constant angular velocity, so that they can be
sectored.) ]

I can't think of any straightforward way for the green marker to improve
timing accuracy.

Tim.
-- 
It's always a mistake to assume that the legal | ; who am i
system behaves rationally - Robin Fairbairns.  | uknet.ac.uk!tlg
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Subject: Re: ENOUGH ALREADY (was Re: Phony SCIFI on TV and in Movies)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 14:32:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.143334.5237@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes...
>... but it's now degenerated to a slanging match
>between people who know about star trek (which I've never seen, so
>that I'm of course biased). ... Can't the
>authors of this stuff transmigrate their souls, or something?

	As the one who started this whole thread, I must agree, it's about
	time we gave it up!

	Lets discuss phoniness in Monty Python and the Grail instead!!!

   Frank R. Borger - Physicist    __       Internet:  Frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Michael Reese - Univ. of Chicago |___      Phone : 312-791-8075 fax : 567-7455
  Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   No man is good enough to govern 
                                   | \|_)  another man without that other's
    "Birthplace of Softball"          |_)  consent. - Abraham Lincoln
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
Subject: Re: oversampling (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 16:07:06 GMT
Organization: Right Bleedin' Church of Libertine Obfuscatology

In <1992Sep30.182103.20143@engage.pko.dec.com> moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes:

>In article <1992Sep30.115205.15739@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes...
>>|> I've been asking people about this for some time and have yet to get a
>>|> good description of what oversampling is.
>> 
>>Yeah - let's have someone who _knows_ posting here!

>I haven't said anything since I don't *know* for sure how oversampling works,
>but I *believe* it works as follows:  Instead of feeding the bitstream directly
>to the D/A converter, for N times oversampling N-1 digital 0s are inserted
>between each data value and the clock frequency is multiplied by N.  So for
>4 times oversampling instead of the stream 123,177,197,144, ... you get
>123,0,0,0,177,0,0,0,197,0,0,0,144,... which, after filtering produces the same
>analog output but makes the filters easier to design as someone mentioned
>earlier. 

I seriously doubt this and heres why:

if the signal value drops to zero so suddenly - isn't that sticking in a
very sharp edge?  In other words, very high frequency components.  These
WILL show up when you convert back to analogue.  Why, because you are now
restoring the waveform AS IF you sampled 4 or 8 times as fast.  You have to
introduce extra samples that do not add information above the cutoff
frequency (1/2 the sampling rate).  If it were as simple as inserting 0's,
then there would not be nearly as much hoo-ha about it.

I believe the question was for someone who actually KNOWS to post about it.
So can we eliminate the "well I'm not really sure how oversampling actually
works but I think ....." posts?

Thank you.


-- 
    / \      Reverend fnord                 | "King Kong died for your sins!"
   /   \     fnord@panix.com                | 
  / <0> \                                   | "Don't just eat a hamburger, 
 /_______\   Church of Obfuscatology, Inc.  |  eat the HELL out of it!"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: "Normal" body temperature
From: dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 92 07:24:18 +1200
Organization: The Dawghaus BBS, Palmerston North, New Zealand (+64 6 357 9245)

> At any rate, if any of these legends are true it does show the
> inherent superiority of Fahrenheit over Celsius for common use since
> the former is a scale of human experience (whether body temperature
> and cold water or days in summer and winter) which is what most people
> want to gauge when they ask the temperature. I have nothing against
> scientists and engineers using C, of course, or Kelvin for that
> matter, but for common usage F seems more sensible.


I have never used the Fahrenheit scale in my life, and I never expect
to. If a day is 22C then it is pleasently warm. 0C is damn cold as far
as I'm concerned. 35C is OK for low humidity, but uncomfortable above
about 85% RH.

Just a note from a metric country....


dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz
The Dawghaus BBS, Palmerston North, New Zealand (+64 6 357 9245)


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
From: boebert@sctc.com (Earl Boebert)
Subject: Re: Metrication and "normal usage"
Organization: SCTC
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:57:35 GMT

Back in the 1970's the midwestern author/humorist/radio personality
Garrison Keillor (of later "Prairie Home Companion" fame) was the
morning DJ on the Minneapolis public radio station.  On one show he
explained that he refused to give the temperatures in Celsius because
the scale was illogical. Farenheit makes sense: When it is zero
degrees then it's cold.  When it's below zero it's really cold.  When
it's above zero it's not so cold.  Even a batchelor Norwegian farmer
can understand that :-)

Earl

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 06:28:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep21.105438.22038@odin.diku.dk> bengaard@diku.dk (Jens Martin Bengaard) writes:
>The Danish high fidelity magazine, "High Fidelity" (surprise!), made a test
>of various methods to enhance the quality of CD output. They actually 
>found, on a listening test, that the quality of the sound improved with
>the green marker. 
>
>The alleged reason was that the green marker damped some laser reflections 
>from the edge of the CD, resulting in lower error rates. 

You can't here the error rate even if you lower it unless it results in
enough errors that extrapolation, rather then error-correction is being
used to derive the audio output.  There is redundancy in the digital bit
stream, so all that happens is that the "safety net" of less errors requiring
error correction may have occured.  In any case, the data supplied to the
D-A section is unchanged.  The error rate is ordinarily quite low anyway, so
this sounds more like that gullible "subjective" effect where the listener is
"contaminated" by pre-established expectations of improvement.  Let's have
more double-blind tests before anyone gives credence to any of this.

cjl

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Subject: Re: Speed of gravity
Summary: The valiant flamer fights on against a sea of error.
Reply-To: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Organization: Hatless Loonies of America
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:15:46 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.113212.1802@eng.cam.ac.uk> pjh@vernon.noname writes:
>In article C4D@news.cso.uiuc.edu, jdg41088@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Pickaxe) writes:
>>Here's something that I've been thinking about. What is the speed of gravity?
>>Imagine a mass that causes a force on another mass somewhere else. If I were
>>to change the mass of the original mass by some means (nuclear for example),
>>how long would it take before the other mass "notices" the change? I'm guessing
>>it would be at the speed of light, or maybe I just don't understand enough
>>general relativity to be able to answer this myself.
>>
>
>From what I have read, you are correct - the effects of gravity travel at the
>speed of light. This means that if the sun were to disappear it would take exactly
>the same lenght of time (~8 mins) for us to see that it has gone (i.e. for the
>last photons to reach us) and for the sun's gravity to stop affecting the earth
>(i.e. for the last gravitons to reach us)

But wait a minute...the mass of a black hole is concentrated at the
singularity, which is necessarily inside the event horizon.  If gravitational
field propagation takes place at the speed of light, wouldn't that mean we'd
never "see" the gravitational pull of the black hole? Or are we just getting
the graviton flux emitted immediately before the mass collapsed to form a
singularity, stretched out until the end of time by the good offices of
general relativity?

I'm confused....
Seth L. Blumberg          | "Once again, fear and superstition triumphed over
slb22@cunixb.columbia.edu |    science and technology."
On CI$: 76460,1666        |        -- Anton Braun Quist, quoting Ed Whitaker
   > No one I know shares my opinions, least of all Columbia University. <
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Subject: Re: Green markers and... Schroedinger's cat!
Reply-To: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:01:26 GMT

In article <19v19lINN3eh@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.063001.7083@trl.oz.au>, jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
>>I've rather been puzzled by learning that the poor pussy
>>had nothing to do with the uncertainty principle.
>
>OK, wise guy, if the Schrodinger's cat experiment has something to do with the
>Heisenberg uncertainty principle, please enlighten us:  What other parameter of
>the cat/box system becomes unobservable when we determine with certainty
>whether the cat is alive or dead?  Sure, when you describe the uncertainty
>principle and Schrodingers cat in vague terms in English, they sound similar. 
>That just explains why English is not a good language for doing quantum
>mechanics (I recommend mathematics instead).  So come on, tell us, what's the
>variable that becomes unobservable when we find out the state of the cat?

Time, of course.  The radioactive decay has a certain probability of occurring
in a given time.  When you open the box and determine the vitality of the cat,
you render uncertain the time at which you opened the box.

(Please note that the foregoing is not only a semi-educated guess, but
tongue-in-cheek to boot.)

Seth L. Blumberg          | "Once again, fear and superstition triumphed over
slb22@cunixb.columbia.edu |    science and technology."
On CI$: 76460,1666        |        -- Anton Braun Quist, quoting Ed Whitaker
   > No one I know shares my opinions, least of all Columbia University. <