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Technical Analysis Of VMSK
Phil Karn writes: "Regarding the Slashdot article on VMSK that appeared August 22, 2000, I have
written a detailed technical analysis that shows it to be
snake oil." I'm convinced.
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No, it's not what the American public likes.
What it is, is what the American businesses (who are sponsors of the channels in question) like. They want to be able to shape every American's mind so that they can always say, "We are good, we are good, the others are bad, we are good...."
Interestingly enough, I live in South Dakota which is one of the few states where regulations against satellite TV are regularly pushed to the front of political issues. Why? Because the local stations claim that they are being 'run out of business' by the big bad satellite providers. My take on it is this:
The local stations in this area are terrible. They cover everything from midget wrestling (dont in local bars) to the mini-golf state finals for kids under 3. Now, I have no problem with that except that they will go out of their way to do that on nights that the networks are providing semi-entertaining shows. I wanted to watch the premiere of Dark Angel on Fox, but the local Fox affiliate was busily running the local high-school hockey game that night. I wanted to watch a certain episode of survivor that I had missed the first time around (I know, I know), but the local station was busy running some idiotic local basketball competition. It happens over and over around here. So, people buy satellites so they can watch the network programs that they enjoy watching. But, the local stations are backlashing against that and saying that if you want to watch the networks, you should do it through the local stations. If the local stations actually provided the network programs, we would. And so it goes, a never ending battle between the local stations idiotic endeavors and the rights of people to watch what the hell they want to watch (if you get a satellite you can still pick up all of the local stations to catch that all important 15 year old girls volleyball tournament that's happening during the super-bowl).
Personally, I've taken to watching as many non-local stations as possible. And by non-local, I'm talking foriegn. I watch a lot of satellite TV, not because I don't enjoy good American programming, but because the non-American stations actually show what they said they are going to show. I can be told a thousand times that 'we are going to show the coolest program ever' by the local stations, and every time they interupt my veiwing of the one good sci-fi show to come out in the past twenty years to show me the junior miss competition on who can do pig calling better, they just alienate me a little more.
Sorry for the rant, but the American public is not happy with the current situation on TV. Whether you are seeking entertainment or educational TV, it is damn near impossible to do so from within the US (at least it is in my state). God, I'm sure glad I learned a little French in High School (Wow, and I thought High School was worthless!).
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq .ht ml#3.3
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Ok in a wire things are different- you own 100% of all frequency's on that wire- whatever you can shove in it you own. Radio is very different- spirious transmissions cause havoc to neighboring freq, noise from lightning that happens 100% of the time on the planet (lightning from the other side of the planet will cause noise here) grandmas toaster, etc... radio freq is very very different than what can be done in a confined wire.
This is the delimma - you cant do what you can in a wire over the air. the fcc wn\ont allow it, and basics of radio wont allow it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At least it's a different provincial worldview.
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Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Well, like many people, you could choose to pick it up via an antenna and not have to pay the cable company for what's free. Then again, I personally haven't watched any TV in over a month, and then it was just to see the two idiots debate.
When I was able to do my own spam-armoring, you got a chance to email me. Now you can only hope I see your reply.
Ok I was a bit of a whiner, but you'd be cranky too if you'd spent the past two days trying to get rid of a SubSeven trojan that just won't die!
My apologies, and thanks to the folks who backed me up.
Peace--joshwa
That was MY JOKE!!! See comment #14 (the comments.pl link no longer works).
And as long as the formal system in which they're expressed is consistent.
There's a dangerous equivocation here going on, between "physical laws" and "those things which we currently believe to be physical laws". The statement that "physical laws can never be violated" cannot be applied consistently to anything which we currently believe to be physical law without proof that the physical law is correct. Mankind has a pretty poor track record with that sort of thing. (Of course, in the past, our scientific beliefs were just plain ridiculous, whereas now they're obviously correct, right?)
Notice that it's sending you to the entire article with all comments, NOT to the specific comment.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Considering the previous posting of this comment got a +4 score, I guess this makes London Weatherman an official Kharma Whore(tm).
Policing Slashdot since... well, 10am EST.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Maybe I should file this as a bug against Mozilla.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
In the mean time, AmWay has announced that it will release plans for it's next generation DSL technology that will increase existing DSL speeds by 150%.
:)
Well, its nice to know that the gass station on the way to Indianapolis from were I life won't be the only non-telco providing DSL. I'm serious, they have a huge scrolly sign thing that proclaims "DSL only $1.20" or something.
Of course they mean desel gass, but it makes me do a doule take everytime I pass it.
I wasn't lost... I was only momentaraly confused of my spacial orientation relative to my prime destination.
NPR has pretty decent, detailed, non-US-centric news. It's really refreshing to listen to news about REAL issues from all over the world.
The problem isn't that it is experimental, it is
that it doesn't work, and can't work. It is
snake oil, just as the rumors of an "infinite compression program" are (and actually, for nearly identical reasons). The really annoying part is that EDN published it in the first place. For God's sake, doesn't anyone actually understand the simplest part of Shannon's work?
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
This is exactly right. I haven't read Karn's paper (it's still slashdotted), but it's not hard to figure out: the VMSK folks claim 90 bps per hz of bandwidth. Doing the math we get that the required s/n ratio is 2^90 - 1, or 270dB. This is unlikely to say the least, in any medium I can think of.
It's not even them using the same playlists. It's that theres like the big 3 or 4 companies that own all the major stations. Lets try one of those analogy things that are always on standardized test.
The RIAA is to record compainies as the FCC is to the.....
Well actually I wouldn't say it's completely true that the FCC only watches out for Big Radio but it has been true up until we recently got an FCC chairman that was young enough to do some radical things. Not that hes doing a completely great job. Maybe it's that he really can't.
LPFM was the first step to empowering individuals to do local community programming, but the aplication proccess is so archiac and takes too long for it to be feasible. It essentially works in 6-12 month blocks for certain states (i missed the aplication proccess for oklahoma cause i was moving from virgina) and it will be at least 3-4 years before you can try aplying again. Not to mention that the current aplication process is only for 10Watt stations.
I also have to agree about local news. Yet again somehow they mostly seem to be the same, not only that they are also HORRIBLE.
On the subject of reception of local channels. Aren't cable companies REQUIRED to carry local channels? One step further for free even. I don't know if it's the cable wires running through my walls and in the ground that add the extra reception but I plug my tv into the cable outlet and get perfect reception for all my local channels (NBC,ABC,CBS,PBS,WB). Anyone have clarification on whether it's the added 'attenna' length or if it's actually 'cable'
-Brian Peace
It was because there were pyramid schemes running with "investors" plunking money into. I doubt that the guy would have slammed this guy as hard if VMSK-man wasn't cheating people out of money with it.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Thanks for taking the time to drive a stake through this "vampire's heart". It was a fun review to read your page and I only had one comment: When you mention the zero group delay filter, are you presuming that he's not using that "hyperspace antenna" which was patented earlier this year? I'm still waiting to see if that inventor in Colorado is going to strike it rich with his "invention" or if we'll know he's on to something when the aliens show up at his house!! 73's Gary N8DMT
If you really want decent news, don't try to get it from your television. TV is simply a terrible way of getting news because it's a low density sequential access medium: you have to watch what they want to show in the order they want to show it and they can't go into real detail. If you want to get real news, buy a newspaper or look at a good news website; both are random access and high density. I happen to live in a large metropolitan area with a great newpaper that costs $0.25 per day, and I wouldn't think of touching the TV for any news except for up to the second details.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
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We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
"White Heat" to me means the leading edge of technology ... the cool new stuff we're always told is "just around the corner".
Best way to explain it is probably:
"White Heat technology generally applies to every Microsoft press-release"!
... and I forgot to add that although it is "just around the corner", it never comes! ;-)
doh! that'll teach me to hit the wrong button
.... people still exist who are willing to take the time to build a balanced, subjective view on alleged "white heat" technology statements.
How often do you watch local news on cable? Just when there's bad weather or a big event? How many of you have Music Choice on your cable or DirecTV and feel that sort of cold assimilation.
Personality!!! We need it bad. With high-tech meaning sometimes high-stress, we need to get broader in our culture, not make it colder and more "packageable..."
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It sends you to the entire article with all
comments, yes. But it then pages you right to
comment in question. Works for me.
chris Mattern
And go see what a Deja search on the newsgroups turns up! Thousands of 'Make Money Fast' posts. And I quote:
Alphacom distributor's fees are only $5. Join NOW! How can you lose! The potential is staggering!
Because there are really good odds that it's not just "some R&D", but is actually at the heart of an ongoing Ponzi scheme! And there's no such thing as too much publicity and evidence exposing a Ponzi scheme. Those less intelligent souls out there need, nay deserve our help.
Of course you can link to it, try using http://slashdot.org/articles/00/08/22/154223.shtml #14 as your HREF.
I almost thought that VMSK was related to Java(TM), but then I checked out the August article. I hope that this gets through, but there's always the vaporware rule: don't believe it until you see it in action.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
but what I want to know, is why bother writing a detailed paper debunking something that is still experimental? Wouldnt it be more beneficial to wait until its out on the market and and then point out its flaws..... How can you possibly talk down something that is in some R&D departments lab? Seems like you need a little less pessimism in your outlook......
go on...mod it down...your just drooling to do so. oh well, im not a karma whore
"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Compaq does still produce VMS. It is now known as OpenVMS, and you can find out all about it on the OpenVMS Web Site. <shameless-plug>You can also try out OpenVMS in the Compaq Test Drive Program, should you so desire.</shameless-plug>
you have a specific capacity at X frequency, Example 108 MHZ - you have a maximum of 108Mbps if you were able to encode on every cycle of the carrier (impossible without generating nasty things)
<brandishing clue stick>
Ever hear of encoding multiple bits per cycle? BPSK, QAM, PAM (I think) are all methods to encode MULTIPLE (4 and 8 being common, but 64 and 256-QAM are available with fancy DSPs) bits per cycle. This is without generating nasty things. Hell your 9600 baud modem encodes 4 bits per baud!
Spoken like someone whose science education ended in high school. If you aren't qualified to comment on something, don't.
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Haha. If only you knew
The burden of proof is now squarely on the kook. I await his response, but I won't hold my breath.
And that's exactly what I said. Phil's negative analysis matters nothing in science. In the community of science-aware people it matters inasmuch as it lowers peoples' expectations of the likelihood of any successful demonstration ever forthcoming, which is probably fairly reasonable as it dampens false expectations, but science and sociology are not one and the same thing. ALL that matters in science is whether experiments will demonstrate the new effect or not. As you said, and as I said, the ball is entirely in the court of the person claiming the innovation to demonstrate that it works in reality. NOT in the court of those whose theoretical analyses say that current theories don't allow for such an effect to happen.
The world doesn't obey our mathematical models. They are merely our creations, constructed to behave mathematically in a way that (hopefully) mirrors how reality herself actually behaves. But they are only approximations, and always subject to revision by tomorrow's new observation.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Phil Karn is of course a very highly respected member of the scientific community -- both amateur and professional.
However, reputation and even great skill are not always the be-all and end-all of real science. An experimenter may start from totally false premises, use utterly flawed reasoning, perform experiments with total incompetence, and still uncover a new aspect of reality. The real, experimental world respects no one, no theory, and certainly no dogma, and just behaves the way she wants to behave.
So, all this excellent theorizing that proves it's all snake oil is worth precisely nothing if the proposer actually manages to stuff that much information down the specified channel. We'll just have to wait and see. Should it actually work then clearly the theory used in Phil's analysis is missing something vital, so we'll all have learned something new and we'll just have to reinvent the theory to match the new discovery. Should it not work, as is far more likely, then of course it's all snake oil and Phil gets yet another well-deserved pat on the back.
BUT YOU CANNOT PRESUPOSE THAT IN ADVANCE, by analysis. Analysis merely tells you what a theory allows, not what reality allows. That's not how science works. If it did, ie. if past theory prevented anything new which it currently disallows, we'd still be in the scientific dark ages.
Thanks Phil for a great analysis. But remember that there will always be vastly more that we don't know than that we know, so hedge your bets a little and wait for the judgement of reality to validate our current theoretical understanding.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I see the point, and we have found ways around physical laws before (Ok, in a laboratory) but there is only so much you can do with electromagnetic radiation. At hyper frequencies (1.2ghz and higher) I could see some kind of a spread spectrum system working, but anything lower is plain impossible. you have a specific capacity at X frequency, Example 108 MHZ - you have a maximum of 108Mbps if you were able to encode on every cycle of the carrier (impossible without generating nasty things)
unless I am missing something, this cant happen
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The big thing now is ESSNLN (Extra-Sensory Subscriber No Line Needed).
By taking advantage of enemployed psychics left in the lurch when the Psychic Friends Network tanked, we can achieve mirculous data rates and improve your love life (how hard could that be>) at the same time.
Don't waste another minute: You can get in on the ground floor. ESP-mail me now!
One limit you may be thinking of is that the number of samples per second for pulse-amplitude modulation needs to be twice the frequency of the sound waveform you're trying to carry (so a 4kHz audio signal needs 8k samples/second, and typically that gets digitized to 8 bits/sample using a non-linear quantization.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...that's just a scary thought...
;)
Then again, NT's filesystem was built on the VMS file system... so would that mean that win2k is vms2k? Oh right, it's not as good as VMS... I forgot.
BlackNova Traders
It has been observed in many posts in this discussion that one can use various analog encoding techniques (like those used by a modem) to increase bit rate at the expense of tolerable Signal to Noise ratio.
This has the effect of requiring an increase in transmitter power proporational to the increase in the minimum tolerable S/N ratio, for reception at the same distance. This means that a radio using complex encoding (like a modem would) will create interference at distances much greater than a simple on/off binary coding would. Because of this, I would think that it would be preferable to use multiple chanels instead of fancier modulation to gain increased capacity
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The first is a method of transferring characters onto sheets of paper in a logical manner and binding said sheets together.
The second is a building in which these books can be stored with some sort of cataloging system. The catalog makes it easy for these bound papers to be found by others, who can then use the papers on loan for a limited time.
Boy, these computers make anything possible!
Brandt
and will continue to be "experimental" for as long as people buy into this snake oil stuff.
Walker's first patent for this "technology" has been filed in 1986 and he has probably been working on it for a while before that.
I am familiar with this type of personality - the more refusals they get the more they believe they are some kind of Galileo that one day will be vindicated. The problem is that for every Galileo that is eventually proven to be right about the Earth not being the center of the universe there are a hundred crackpots that believe all kinds of bullshit with the same amout of self conviction.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I can send 32 bits per cycle! But I have to be able to put 4294967296 different discrete voltage levels and/or timing shifts, or some combination thereof, into each cycle, WITHOUT NOISE MANGLING IT, to accomplish that.
If the noise is a mere 1 microvolt, I'd still have to make each step be at least 2 microvolts to get over it, and then 0xFFFFFFFF would be over 8 thousand volts!
Much of the engineering that takes place now is finding ways to get around the noise, or to reduce the noise, or to minimize the impact of noise. Spread spectrum, for example, statistically changes the effect of the noise in ways that allows retransmissions to have a chance to make it through the next time.
Much of the science is already done and it is very mathematical and statistical. What remains to be done is more and more engineering to work within the relatively well known confines.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Wake up. Local identification has been dead for a long time.
Have you driven cross-country in the last decade?
Every single radio station sounds exactly like its counterpart in the next market over. For example, pick any two "Modern Rock" stations at random. Chances are they're using the exact same playlist. They pay big money to a consultant for the privilege of being told what to play. Ditto for "Urban Contemporary", double ditto for "Classic Rock."
I agree with you that radio sucks, but look for the culprit elsewhere (hint: deregulation).
ps: The "Alternative" playlist on Music Choice is actually pretty good, with no commercials!
pps: Don't even get me started about local news. "Your kids may be about to EXPLODE!!!!!!! More at 11."
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whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
Here's a totally off base suggestion. What about downloading radio streams to broadband connections in homes, then using wireless ethernet to communicate with special streaming radios?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
In the mean time, AmWay has announced that it will release plans for it's next generation DSL technology that will increase existing DSL speeds by 150%.
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Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!