HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: aris@unisup1.uucp (Aris Stathakis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Date: 29 Sep 92 08:03:24 GMT
Organization: Lasernet (pty) Ltd.

In <1992Sep23.192354.24409@awdprime.austin.ibm.com> jlpicard@austin.ibm.com (Craig Becker) writes:


>russ@bbxrbk (Russ Kepler) writes:
>...
>> This is probably a bad time to bring up monster cables, then...

>Well, maybe so, but on a related topic: I've seen some high-end
>(read: big $$$) audio equipment that uses fiber optic cables for
>routing the audio signal from, say, the CD player to the amplifier.
>Is this really worth it?

More than likely the fiber was transporting the digital signals from
the CD Transport to the DAC (digital-audio-converter).  They say that
this electrical isolation helps, but I think it's a load of bollocks.

Of course, if I could afford such a system i'd buy one anyhow :-)

Aris

-- 
Aris Stathakis        Tel +27 11 887 4220 | 
SCO Unix Support      Fax +27 11 887 1141 |     " Ni, Peng, Nooooowom. "
UniNet - A Division of Lasernet (Pty) Ltd |_________________________________
Internet:   aris@unisup1.UUCP
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Date: 28 Sep 92 07:00:11 GMT
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <mmaster.2abf5330-e@parnasus.dell.com> mmaster@parnasus.dell.com (Michael Masterson) writes:

>here's a good test, take a cd, and a 'golden eared audiophile', play the
>cd for him, then TELL him you're polishing it with whatever they like,
>and doing the green ring bit, then play the cd again, no changes to it
>at all... I'll BET you that the golden ear will detect a marked
>improvement of the sound... "a fuller, richer soundstage, more
>presence, a much warmer presentation... yes, well worth the expense of
>the treatments".

I agree, that there is a whole class of (mostly people with a lot of
money to burn relatively and audio-wise speaking) and that a lot of what
they are manipulated into is pure crap marketing hype ingeniously presented
so they aren't aware of it (like posh little screwdrivers in posh little
screw-driver holding boxes) that jackup the perceived quality with no actual
technical underlying reason.  Thus we have the claims about audio cables that
supposedly give better sound when connecting line-level signals to power amps,
or absurdities about speaker wiring cables where the runs are short enough to
not require any ohmic-drop problems yet other far-fetched claims are made, etc.
and now green markers on CD's.  But sometimes there are topics such as
tubes versus transistors that are geared toward these people's basic tenents:
they are willing to pay a lot more for a little more, and all other things
being equal, be a niche market to get unrelated frills for even more money,
etc.

The problem is that sometimes there is a legitimate goal towards this end,
and often there isn't.  But let's not make the mistake that all things are
always in one category or another.  There are power amps that are better than
other power amps that look better; the subject look beats the technical specs
in the marketplace because the marketroids know how to make their company more
money in spite of inferior products.  Hopefully, in some cases the high-end
people actually get what they seek, such as *possibly* in the tube amp
case.  I don't here anything about the green-marker situation that warrants
any such consideration.  So, I'll chalk it up to subjective manipulation,
or a placebo effect as it's called in some circles.  Some other circles might
want to call it fraud.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: ketil@svale.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: Phony SCIFI on TV and in Movies
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of computer science at the University of Bergen, Norway
	<10327@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <cw3n9+f@lynx.unm.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 92 21:13:35

In article <cw3n9+f@lynx.unm.edu> jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth) writes:

   Why can all aliens speak English perfectly with a slight British or
   European accent?  Why not some Asian accents Boston accents or even non-
   human accents?  Why don't they speak some gibberish that is interpreted 
   by the computer as sub-titles on the view screens?

I loved the scene in 'Dune' when the navigator's, eh, minions were
speaking through a sorta translator device.  You could hear the
unintelligible sound of his speech in the background.  But then,
*that* was an awesome movie.  Or rather, would have been, if they
hadn't cut it so severely. 

Alien 3 is supposed to be reeeaaaally low...sad, I liked the other two
movies. 

Oh well.

--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Black Holes (was Re: Speed of gravity)
Date: 3 Oct 92 02:31:32 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1992Oct2.165702.7150@colorado.edu> juola@bruno.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola) writes:

>In article <1992Oct2.042537.24201@news.columbia.edu> jml12@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jonathan M Lennox) writes:
>>
>>  On a similar note, there's a problem I've been wondering about for
>>some time, but I've never been able to get a good answer to.  (I asked
>>about it on sci.physics a couple of times, but I never understood the
>>answer.)
>>
>>  As I understand it (from SF stories and science popularizations,
>>never having had a GR class), from the point of view of someone
>>falling into a black hole, they fall in in finite time, whereas from
>>the point of view of an observer "outside" (in an essentially flat
>>spacetime) they take infinite time. 

>This is exactly reversed.  Think of it this way -- if I watch someone fire
>his engines from a mile away from a black hole, accelerate up to 1 mile/hour
>(convert to km for the Europeans 8-), it's won't take more time than an
>hour to fall to the black hole.  Less, in fact, since he's accelerating.

>On the other hand, if I'm accelerating, I experience the time/space
>distortion in the rest of the universe.  Eventually, I get close enough to
>the the speed of light (in a stationary observer's frame) that from my
>perspective, his clocks, &c. slow down.  Several evil pages of mathematics
>later, I find that a) I'm not going to hit the ground in finite time, but
>b) the rest of the universe won't perceive it that way, since their time
>measurements are being continually expanded (to infinity, since I'm
>continuously accelerating, from their point of view).

[remainder deleted]

  To quote you:  this is exactly reversed.  The effect you are referring 
to is the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction, a prediction of Special 
Relativity.  Patrick is referring to a different effect, which is a 
prediction of General Relativity.

  Briefly, GR predicts that as time is measured in increasingly 
"gravitationally intense" areas (i.e. nearer to a large mass) time
will be measured as slower in a manner dependent on the intensity
of the gravity.  This effect has been confirmed by experiment.

  Patrick:  you're basically right in your impressions, except that
large black holes (stellar or greater masses) don't have significant
Hawking radiation - the intensity of Hawking radiation is inversely
dependent on the black hole's mass.


-- 
==============================================================================
Carl Fink          carlf@panix.com, C.FINK4(GEnie), or CF427620I@LIUVAX.BITNET
  "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits"  -  Mark Twain
From: tapley@sdxs04.llnl.gov (Bill Tapley)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: noise cancellation
Keywords: noise cancellation
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:38:01 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

I recently saw a demonstration of hearing protection, headphones,
that used noise cancellation. Expensive, but what an ideal application.

-- 
William C. Tapley (Bill)                        tapley@llnl.gov
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory          voice: (510) 423-1131
7000 East Avenue, L-573                         FAX:   (510) 422-2237
Livermore, CA 94550-0611
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
From: olesen@math.uiowa.edu (Martin Olesen)
Subject: Re: "Normal" body temperature
Originator: olesen@maple.math.uiowa.edu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 04:10:33 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA


In article <BZS.92Oct4022156@ussr.std.com>, bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
|> 
|> The legend I heard was that he used the hottest day somewhere in Italy
|> for 100 and the coldest day somewhere in Germany for 0.
|> 
|> 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.|> 
|> --
|>         -Barry Shein
|> 
|> Software Tool & Die    | bzs@world.std.com          | uunet!world!bzs
|> Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD



         True, the freezing and boiling of water are after all
         theoretical predictions, as yet unobserved by man.


                          Martin Olesen
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: Speed of gravity
Reply-To: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:45:18 GMT


In article <1992Sep30.171546.9136@news.columbia.edu>,
slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth L. Blumberg) writes:
|> [modulo all his quotes]
|> But wait a minute...the mass of a black hole is concentrated at the
|> singularity, which is necessarily inside the event horizon.

Yes, I agree with that (despite what others have posted).

|>                                                              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?

We're talking different things here.  When you're considering the
effect of a black hole as it sits there being black, the only model we
currently have is the distortion it effects on the fabric of
space-time.  You can therefore gaily swing around in an orbit around
such an object, experience tidal forces, etc. - they're all explicable
in terms of this distortion model.  There's no dynamic information to
be transmitted.

However, suppose that all the mass at the centre of the black hole
were to disappear down some wormhole (NB - I don't even know if I'm
talking sense here), or suppose that someone drops the sun onto the
even horizon.  Now there's some dynamic information to be got out.
_That's_ where you question about the propagation of gravity waves
over the event horizon arises.  I don't have the faintest idea what GR
has to say about that.
--
Robin (dump Brian Kay) Fairbairns                    rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
Nobody ever taught me GR - I therefore disclaim everything I say on
the topic...
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.science:3670 alt.folklore.urban:24965
From: klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Reamur (was: "Normal" body temperature)
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:40:55 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo) writes:

>I guess this is the right place in this thread to insert the view that
>Fahrenheit is more accurate that Celcius.  :-)

When I was a child (1960's and 70's), most weather thermometers would
be marked in both Celcius and Reamur. Was Reamur ever used? When and
where? I have heard that it is still used for meassuring the temperature
of wine.

The conversion for R is much easier than for F, BTW. C = 1.25R

Klaus O K
From: pjh@vernon.noname (Philippa Hogben)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Speed of gravity
Date: 29 Sep 92 11:32:12 GMT
Reply-To: pjh@vernon.noname
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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)

Hope this helps.

Philippa

---
Philippa Hogben   pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk  (Reverse if mailing from Janet)
Any mistakes are mine, all mnie.

I am not a .sig virus. I am a free bug. 
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.science:3568 alt.folklore.urban:24451
From: klaus@diku.dk (Klaus Ole Kristiansen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: "Normal" body temperature
Keywords: Great 98.6 it's good to have you back again, Keith
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:09:56 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen


Here 37.0C is considered normal. All temperatures are assumed to be messured
in the rectum. Oral messurement is used, 0.5 degrees are always added to
such messurements to make them comparable.

Klaus O K
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: ketil@svale.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: Spinning Grapes
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of computer science at the University of Bergen, Norway
	<millernw.716946481@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 92 21:44:24

In article <millernw.716946481@craft.camp.clarkson.edu> millernw@craft.camp.clarkson.edu (Neal Miller) writes:

   I'm no expert, but I'm willing to hazard a guess that the "spin" was
   caused by a chemical reaction taking place where the stem met the
   grape.  The 
   rest of the grape is covered with a relatively inert skin, except at that 
   point.  As to the exact nature of the reaction, someone else will
   have to put 
   in their two cents.

I've seen that a grape dropped in soda will sink to the bottom, then
lie there for a while, float to the top, sink again after a while..and
so forth.

Explanation: The grape is almost the density of the soda, so when
bubles attach to it, it will float.  At the surface, the bubbles pop,
and the grape sinks again.

Spinning could be because bubbles are more likely to form on the
underside of the grape.  (Why?  Perhaps if they sit on top, they'll
tear loose?)

	
--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Metal Foil and Fillings
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 15:43:59 GMT

jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (John G Dobnick) writes:
: 
: Metallic fillings are called "silver fillings" for a reason. :-)
: 
: The material is a silver-mercury amalgam, with a number of other
: metals thrown in (in much smaller quantities) for various purposes
: such as hardness, etc.  Palladium is one of the additional components.
                          ^^^^^^^^^
: (And you wondered why the dentist charged so much, eh?  :-) )
: 

If you have heavy water in your mouth at them same time you are
sucking on aluminum foil, do you end up with cold fusion?

(Where did I put my geiger counter?)

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  Uh-oh!!  I forgot to
Rosemount Inc.                                |submit to COMPULSORY
                                              |URINALYSIS!
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: ketil@svale.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of computer science at the University of Bergen, Norway
	<26140@castle.ed.ac.uk>,<1992Sep23.064653.12729@eng.ufl.edu>
	<19sr24INN2l9@gap.caltech.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 92 21:34:34

In article <19sr24INN2l9@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:


   Wrong.  You're missing the whole point of a placebo effect.  In the
   case of the green marker, even though the marker demonstrably has
   NO effect whatever on the output of the device, if someone BELIEVES
   that the marker enhances the sound, then he will perceive an
   enhancement in sound.
   
Yeah!  So he's been screwed, but doesn't know it, so he's happy, and
in essence not being screwed after all...
	...better to be more enlightened and less happy. :-)


--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: hod@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Hod Greeley)
Subject: oversampling (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry,
	Columbia University
	<1992Sep24.134507.13987@odin.diku.dk>
	<1992Sep28.080332.18366@news.columbia.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 21:15:08 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.080332.18366@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:

   In any case, were this to happen, it would create a clearly audible aberation
   of the signal that goes beyond our discussion.  So, for all the usual cases,
   the data either arrives totally intact, or with enough of the redundant
   error-detection and correction information intact to supply the proper
   digital information in precisely the same form had there been no errors.
   Thus, the same data is applied downstream in the rest of the player, and
   therefore is no possibility of change. 

   It was stated that devices that read the bits could tell if the pens were 
   affecting anything.  This is absolutely true; no improvements will be found
   because none are necessary.  The vast majority of reading of CD's is
   really error-free, and the dominant majority of the tiny niche left falls into
   the category of data corrected by the safeguards and redundancies in the 
   digital recording format itself.  Virtually always the data provided to the
   rest of the player and is totally identical in every way whether error free
   or error-detected and corrected.  If there was anything to the pens, this
   is the only place it can be detected.  Apparently it was shown that there
   was nothing to detect, which is also consistent with the relevant laws of
   physics that apply to how the thing works.

   cjl

This is a tangential question, but if the error rate is so low, what
purpose does oversampling serve?  Is this more industry hype?  If,
say, an 8x pass over the data is required to achieve this level of
accuracy, that would suggest to me that the error rate must be much
higher than you claim.  Am I missing something?  If the rate of
uncorrectable errors is as low as you suggest, it would seem
superfluous.  Is oversampling not what I think it is?

Hod
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: oversampling (was Re: using green marker on CDs)
Reply-To: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 11:52:05 GMT


In article <1992Sep29.213143.6551@rosevax.rosemount.com>,
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:
|> mmaster@parnasus.dell.com (Michael Masterson) writes:
|> : [description of how oversampling works]
|> 
|> Do you interpolate between the two samples read off the disk in order
|> to generate the 7 "extra" samples that you are creating to allow you
|> to use fewer poles in your output filters?  It wouldn't do any good to
|> read a sample, write that to the D/A 8 times, then read the next
|> sample and repeat, since the spectrum of the output signal will the
|> same, right?

Wrong.  The spectrum would be even worse, in the sense that the
transitions between different intensity values out of the D/A would
happen in still shorter time periods.  This reasoning (NB - I don't
actually have any _knowledge_ in this field ;-) leads me to believe
that there must be some interpolation.

Further reasoning leads me to guess that the interpolation is probably
non-linear, since linearity ought to be achievable with analogue
electronics after the D/A (with small amounts of effort).

|> [...]
|> 
|> 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!
--
Robin (dump Brian Kay) Fairbairns                    rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Subject: Re: Speed of gravity
Reply-To: rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 10:15:08 GMT


In article <92275.171727FFAAC03@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be>,
FFAAC03@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be writes:
|> would an exploding object in space cause a gravity wave?  The gravity
|> center of all the bits and pieces stays the same, and the total mass
|> stays more or less the same (if mass is converted into energy, does the
|> energy cause a gravity field?).

Of course it would.  The conformation of the space-time geometry will
change as a result of the explosion, so there will be waves reporting
that information to an expectant universe.
--
Robin (dump Brian Kay) Fairbairns                    rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: David Ruggiero <osiris@halcyon.com>
Subject: Re: using green marker on CDs
Originator: osiris@halcyon.com
Reply-To: osiris@halcyon.halcyon.com (David Ruggiero)
Organization: [none - why fight entropy?]
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 02:14:42 GMT

jma@reef.cis.ufl.edu (John 'Vlad' Adams) writes:

>Did osiris@halcyon.halcyon.com really type:
>   > details his exhaustive and highly technical testing
>		 ^^^^^^^^^^     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   > using a Macintosh for bit-level data capture before and after treatment
>             ^^^^^^^^^
>Wait a minute... doesn't this belong in alt.folklore.computers?
>Highly technical with a Macintosh?  *cough* *cough*   ;)

Yes, I really did type that. Actually, the experimenter in question used
the Mac only to grab the bits from the player. He did the statistical
analysis on a 'real' computer, a 1982-vintage IBM XT.

:-}  :-}  :-}



-- 
David Ruggiero  (osiris@halcyon.com)      Seattle, WA