The problem is, these all in one gadgets tend to do everything POORLY, and for a lot of money. I just replaced my old Handspring Visor with a Palm Zire, because I didn't want to blow $300+ on a combo cell phone / handheld that'd I'd probably just end up losing 6 months down the road. The Zire only set me back $75 on Amazon after a rebate, and even though it offers nothing in the way of functionality over the old Handspring (apart from faster synchs - it's USB - and a rechargeable battery that lasts forever between charges), it does everything I need.
I do think there would be be a market for an inexpensive combo device that's a combination iPod, cell phone and organizer, though. It would be nice to cut down on the number of gadgets you have to carry around, and the organizer's display (and OS) would come in handy for manipulating playlists on the jukebox. Unfortunately, I don't think we're quite at the point where such a gadget could be offered for a reasonable price (under $300), but by this time next year, who knows.
If Apple were smart, such a gadget could be their next killer consumer product. Do they still own the Newton OS?
>In this case, a stable, well-known and quite >familiar technology is "the best kit we can."
Except the Shuttle isn't "stable". Two of them have now self-destructed, in spite of the fact the program cost around $15 billion to develop (in the 1970's - that around $30-$40 billion in today's dollars), in spite of the fact that each Shuttle cost over $2 billion to build (in today's dollars), and in spite of the fact each launch costs somewhere between $300 - $500 million on top of all that (depending on how you do the accounting). That's a high price for catastrophic failure.
The only thing we're "quite familiar" with is that the Shuttles are a waste of money compared to disposable boosters. You can launch similar sized payloads into orbit on the larger unmanned disposable boosters for less than it costs to prep and launch the "reusable" shuttle. You can launch 6 men into space onboard 2 disposable Soyuz rockets for around $70 million - and Soyuz hasn't suffered a fatality since the 1970's. Compare that to the Shuttles, which have incinerated 14 astronauts now since 1985.
>Upgrading for the sake of getting "newer" >components is more likely to cause safety >hazards than leaving older, perfectly good >systems in place.
I agree. That's why the Shuttles should never have been flown in the first place. They do nothing to make access to space less expensive - indeed, they're significantly more expensive than disposable boosters - and they aren't any safer. Sure the tech is neat, when it works. But as we've learned, it often doesn't work, with expensive (and fatal) consequences.
>Star Trek: The Next Generation got a whole lot >better around season 3, when Roddenberry pretty >much lost control of the show and let Berman >take over.
Berman had a lot of help. Michael Piller came in as co-executive producer for Season 3, working beside Berman and writing a considerable number of episodes himself (far more than Berman ever wrote or co-wrote). As Roddenberry was increasingly ill by that point, there were several producers and co-producers working on the show as well, including writers like Ira Steven Behr. They'd also attracted a stable of excellent writers by that point, particularly the brilliant Ronald Moore, who wrote classics like "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Sins Of The Father," and "The Defector" for Season 3.
Giving Berman all (or even more than a little) credit for the success of TNG would be like giving Al Gore all the credit for inventing the Internet. I'm sure Berman was very effective at getting money out of the suits, but it's obvious the man doesn't have a clue when it comes to forging a compelling story. And that's precisely why Trek is in the trouble it's in today.
Many of those compounds would also be broken down by the composting process. And if they aren't broken down there, where else in nature are they going to be broken down? If the answer is, "nowhere," then we probably shouldn't be producing such compounds in the first place, should we?
>Your attitude towards your fellow citizens >is offensive in the least, and stupid besides.
My "attitude" towards my "fellow citizens" was formed by their insolent, childish, selfish, obnoxious behavior. If you have a problem with my "attitude" towards yuppies, try teaching the little fucktards a few basic lessons in civility. Namely:
* Pay attention to where the fuck you are on the road when you're driving your $70,000 petroleum chugging fume belching lane hogging pedestrian composter. * Learn how to park. In a single space - not three. * Learn how to use your turn signal. And how to turn it off. * Learn that red lights mean, "stop." * Turn off the ringer on your goddamn cell phone when you attend the movies or the symphony. Anybody who's earning $150,000 a year for "harnessing cutting edge models" or "branding granular e-business" or "utilizing magnetic schemas" or whatever the e-bullshit d'jour is in the tech sector ought to be able to figure out how to silence their $500 cell phone.
>Do you really think that "pasty yuppie asses" will >be the ones to buy this thing - instead of (for example) >postal workers, who are already testing it?
Well, considering it's a $5,000 tech gadget that performs essentially the same function that a bicycle, skateboard or roller-skates could perform for at least $4,500 less, yes I'd say "pasty yuppie asses" are exactly the crowd that will be buying this thing. Anybody who ever worked an honest day in their life would certainly blanch at the thought of blowing $5,000 on a toy that makes you look like a clueless dork, and turns you into a threat to 90-year-old grandmothers on their way to buy groceries. But based on prior experience (see above), I wouldn't expect selfish, self-absorbed yuppies to spend a single millisecond considering the welfare of others.
I could see the Segway being useful in an environment like a warehouse, but we weren't talking about banning them in warehouses, only on the sidewalks.
Regarding postal workers, they're already reporting they hate the things. As one of them put it, standing around on a Segway buzzing down the sidewalk at 12mph when the temperature is below freezing turns you into a giant popsicle on a stick real quick.
Who the hell walks in Sacramento? You could run 120mph jet-powered steamrollers down Sacramento sidewalks and not hit any pedestrians.
Last time I was there in '97 the sidewalks were empty, apart from fat-assed Sacramento residents who jiggled their way across them on their way into KFC or McDonalds for a bucket or bag full of fried lard.
The reason why pedestrians in San Francisco don't want Segways on their sidewalks is simple physics. A Segway weighs around 70lbs. The average rider would weigh around 150lbs, with some weighing well in excess of 200lbs. The combined weight would be at least 220lbs, with weights up to 300lbs possible. A Segway can travel at up to 12mph. Getting hit by a 250lbs mass traveling at 12mph would be like getting tackled by an NFL linebacker. It could cripple the average adult, and it would kill old people. San Francisco has a large elderly population, and they have enough trouble getting around town without having to worry about being creamed by some pasty yuppie ass tooling down the sidewalk on his $10,000 toy, yapping on his goddamn cell phone.
It's called the SIDEWALK. SIDE, as in at the side of the road, and WALK, as in where your fat lazy ass is supposed to, like, walk. If you want to operate a motor vehicle, do it in the street. The sidewalk is reserved for pedestrians.
Yup. I used to play Snood. I think I might have even registered it at one point on my old PC. Then it started shipping with loads of spyware, thanks to some "advice" the author got from his uncle IIRC.
Thanks, uncle. I've now stopped using the product due to your "advice".
>MCE does everything through software which, >in technical terms "sucks ass".
RTFA. Microsoft specifically requires MCE PCs to come with a dedicated MPEG encoder hardware. It is not "doing everything through software". In fact, according to the article ATI and nVidia are having fits precisely because of the outrageous hardware requirements Microsoft has slapped on these systems.
Sounds to me like yet another case of crappy, bloated code from Microsoft. What a surprise. Would never have seen that one coming.
You seem to be missing the point. An advanced alien race might consider the entire galaxy their living room. There would be no ultimatum to "leave the galaxy". We couldn't do it anyway even if we wanted. They'd simply squash us.
I think most humans would be even quicker to squash talking bugs than they are to stomp on the traditional stupid variety!
As for "intentional transmissions", I most certainly did not include all of the commercial radio and television signals already out there in that category. I was specifically referring to numerous high-power signals which have been deliberately beamed into space in order to attract extraterrestrial attention. That's a profoundly foolish thing to do. You have no idea what might be listening, or what its intentions might be. It's bad enough our planet leaks a low level of radio noise due to all of the commercial traffic.
There are lots of reasons why we might not have detected alien civilizations (yet) - even if they're quite common throughout the universe - let alone seen any evidence of their colonization. I can briefly list a dozen reasons right off the top of my head:
1) Gamma ray bursts. Until relatively recently in the history of our universe - perhaps up until 500 million years ago - radiation from gamma ray bursts (and supernovae, for that matter) was routinely sterilizing the surfaces of most planets within our galaxy and every other fair-sized galaxy. It took 4.5 billion years for intelligent life capable of interstellar communication and interplanetary travel to evolve here on our planet. Assuming a roughly similar evolutionary pace on other worlds, there might just now be a handful of intelligent species coming into being throughout this galaxy (and others, for that matter).
2) We're the first civilization to evolve in our galaxy. Unlikely, but someone's gotta be it. Whether or not we could be the first depends in large part on how rare advanced life forms are in our galaxy - a question we may have the answer to within our lifetimes, thanks to advanced space telescopes like the Terrestrial Planet Finder and its successors. If it turns out life on terrestrial planets is exceedingly rare - on the order of only a few dozen planets in our galaxy - then we very well could be the first intelligent species to evolve.
3) Intelligence is common. Civilization is less common. Technology is vanishingly rare. Remember, in order to colonize the galaxy - or even be detected by a project like SETI - you have to have more than intelligence. You even need more than civilization. SETI is really the search for extraterrestrial *technology*. Space colonization requires technology. For whatever reason, perhaps few intelligent lifeforms make the leap to civilization, and fewer still make the leap to a technological civilization.
4) Technological civilizations invariably wipe themselves out, or are wiped out by natural processes before they can begin interstellar colonization. A sobering proposition, but certainly one that's supported by our own civilization's close encounters with destruction (the Black Plague, the Tunguska event, WWI, WWII, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Ebola, AIDS, terrorists with bioweapons . ..).
5) The technology to engage in interstellar travel might be common, and technological civilizations might endure long enough to make such efforts practical. However, that same technology makes such expensive (and risky) undertakings unappealing. Why spend 50 years traveling to the nearest inhabitable planet? You might send out probes - or build larger telescopes - to observe other worlds, but you can simulate their environments and explore them from the comfort of your living room via virtual reality. If you could go on safari in your living room, would you sit in a cramped airplane seat for 20 hours flying to Africa?
6) Technological civilizations eventually die not with a bang, but with a whimper. We see evidence of this happening already in Europe, where population growth comes only via immigrants. But what happens if the rest of the world reaches the technological and social advancement Europe has attained? Populations may begin to slowly decline worldwide. Without population pressure, there's no reason to colonize new territory here on Earth, let alone other planets. Indeed, you couldn't spare the human capital.
7) Interstellar travel is impossible, for some currently unknown reason. Perhaps there are giant invisible particles between the stars - they could even be the source of that missing mass we hear so much about - that an unlucky spacecraft could slam into, instantly halting its journey to a nearby star. This is admittedly an unlikely proposition, but we'd be foolish to think we know everything about the feasibility of interstellar travel. Perhaps it's impossible regardless of your level of technological advancement - hence, no alien colonies scattered about the galaxy.
8) They're already here. This could either take the form of X-Files-style shenanigans, or more benevolent intervention (think Gary Seven from that old Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth"). Or perhaps only their probes are here, either so microscopic we don't detect them, or somehow disguised as ordinary objects (or creatures - this would go a long way towards explaining the behavior of housecats).
9) They've all been wiped out by a malevolent alien über-civilization - one that could be on its way to eliminate us. Such villains are a sci-fi staple (War of the Worlds, Independence Day, The Borg), and one we've been foolish to so easily dismiss, especially in light of the silence that greets us from the heavens. There has to be some reason why alien technological civilizations are so rare, and this explanation is as valid as any other in light of the current evidence. Our radio broadcasts already reach out over 100 light-years, starting with the first primitive Morse Code transmissions from over a century ago. We've even deliberately (and foolishly) transmitted high power radio signals directly into space, in various attempts to announce our presence to interstellar listeners ("an open invitation to alien invasion" as the good Doctor on Britain's Doctor Who once wisely pegged it). How long we have before the day of reckoning depends on how close their nearest listening station is, and whether or not they've perfected a means of hyperlight travel. Assuming their nearest detector is 100 light years away, they've just become aware of our presence. Assuming they're limited to sublight travel, we've got another century before they - or some planet-busting weapon - arrives to deal with this latest disease outbreak in their galaxy.
If you find this scenario unlikely, consider how you'd react to an anthill suddenly springing up in your living room.
10) They're all hiding from possible über-civilizations (or each other). This certainly wouldn't be a stupid position to adopt, given the consequences of such an encounter. If you don't know what's out in the forest, you'd do well to keep quiet. And once you do know what's out there, you might have an even better reason to keep quiet. Technological civilizations might go completely underground, perhaps relocating themselves to an unspoiled nearby planet and burrowing deep beneath the surface in an effort to completely hide themselves from alien invaders - at least, until they feel they have the technology to resist any such invasion. Perhaps those gamma ray bursts aren't always natural phenomena at all - maybe they're sometimes the visible artifacts of colossal alien wars.
11) Maybe they're all hiding from us. Perhaps there are no evil overlord über-civilizations. Maybe a federation of benevolent civilizations rules over our galaxy, perhaps after uniting to defeat less enlightened powers. Perhaps these enlightened powers possess the equivalent of Star Trek's Prime Directive, a strictly hands-off policy regarding lesser civilizations. We could dwell in a kind of interstellar game reserve, one that's off limits to alien intrusion. If so, we might never detect our superiors - at least, not for thousands of years, until we possess the technology to go out and meet them face-to-face. It's a comforting thought, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
12) Maybe they aren't deliberately hiding from us. Perhaps we're surrounded by interstellar homebodies, but just can't hear them because they don't use radio to communicate. For whatever reason - simulations, interstellar obstacles, declining populations - they don't travel or colonize (much), so we don't physically encounter them or their artifacts, and their communications technology either doesn't involve radio (maybe they use some form of quantum communications), or utilizes radio in a way that sounds like static to our receivers. Of course, you'd think they'd detect our signals and issue some kind of reply, but they'd have to be within about 50 light years in order for that to be possible. Perhaps there's simply nobody that nearby. Entirely possible, if alien civilizations don't travel much.
Even if you assume there are thousands of technological alien civilizations in this galaxy, if they only communicated with our form of radio for 100 to 200 years of their existence, it's possible there's nobody using our form of radio at the moment anywhere in the galaxy apart from us. Meanwhile, the galaxy is so vast, even with thousands of civilizations there might not be anybody listening within 500 light years of the Earth.
Anyhow, it's way too early to say why we haven't been contacted, let alone visited, by alien intelligences. We simply don't have enough evidence. Some of the possible explanations are certainly unsettling, though.
No, the preamp doesn't "reverse" the procedure. The distortion caused by the equalization itself cannot be perfectly reversed - you're lucky if the preamp even comes close. Assuming you had a perfect preamp whose level adjustments perfectly matched those performed for the vinyl master, you'd still be looking at a slew of phase issues caused by all of that equalization and de-equalization.
And the RIAA equalization isn't the only thing being done to the signal prior to mastering. Forget loud, low bass pans from one channel to another (I think a Madonna CD sported one of these fairly recently) - the bass has to be mixed to mono in order to avoid having consumers' needles jumping out of their grooves.
Problems with getting vinyl to handle stereo bass are so severe, legendary Atlantic records megaproducer Arif Mardin began mixing kick drums and bass in mono back during the 1960's, a trick that's been used for vinyl mastering ever since.
You can't possibly be this obtuse, can you? Vinyl can't reproduce loud bass accurately, and every link I provided supports that assertion. Not that I even needed to provide that set of links, since several other links had already indicated that vinyl CAN'T REPRODUCE ANY SIGNALS ACCURATELY, due to all the frequency response and phase issues imposed by the RIAA equilization / de-equalization process, harmonic distortion caused by the mass of the needle and resonances in the pickup and cartridge, rumble, wow and flutter, surface noise, etc. etc. etc.
Here are some relevant passages from the three links you were sooooo concerned about.
From planetdmb:
Try to keep record lengths below 12 minutes per side; an average club record runs 7-9 minutes. The shorter you keep the track lengths, the louder the recording will be and the more heavy and full the bass will sound.
From aardvarkmastering.com:
Dance club music is way heavy in bass, and likes to be cut at very high levels. The standard level for european dub plates is 6 db over standard reference level. Cutting at these levels, especially heavy bass, the grooves have to be pretty spread out, and deep to keep the needle from bouncing out, especially when scratched and back-cued.
From futurediscsystems:
It should be mentioned here that if the bass information is too loud, your raft [the needle - sunspot42] gets thrown over the embankment (skips).
And also from futurediscsystems:
I'll discuss stereo very briefly. If the sides of the river don't stay parallel, it's stereo. In other words, any difference between the two channels causes the stylus to move up and down in addition to sideways. As the stylus digs deeper, it is using more precious disc space. The moral for engineers is: If you are looking for hot levels or long sides, don't pan instruments like drums and percussion hard left and right. Keep the bass and bass drum in the center, and keep everything in phase. An out of phase snare or bass drum can wreak havoc. Use an oscilloscope if possible!
And also:
If the sides are long, remember that the more bass, the lower the cutting level (volume). It is possible to squeeze 30 minutes on a side but the level will be so low you'll have to crank it just to hear it, and you will hear the surface noise!
I find your whining to the moderateors incredibly pathetic. I note you didn't offer a similar whine when "Sara Chan" posted a doofus reply in which two of the "references" provided no documentation for the assertions being made whatsoever, while the third was a pile of marketing treacle.
Here's another reference for you to chew on regarding how crappy vinyl "fidelity" is, this time from a veteran engineer. But please, don't allow any facts to get in your way. You're batting a thousand so far!
Sorry, I didn't mean to snap your head off. I'm just getting sick to death of seeing posts modded up as "Informative" when they don't contain any information or valid references, or when the information they contain is obviously incorrect. "+5 Opinionated" would be more like it. But that's obviously not your fault.
As for "rolling off hard at 20k", again this is a common argument advanced by vinyl proponents, but the truth is, vanishingly few adults can even hear up to 20k. Yes I know, there's tons of marketing material that tries to assert otherwise, usually citing "harmonics". The problem is, microphones will pick up those sub-20k harmonics, too. So what, exactly, is missing here? A teensy-tiny amount of additional sub-20k harmonics that might be generated in your room by a (say) 30kHz signal bouncing off your furniture and walls? I'm not even sure that's a plus. That sounds like additional distortion to me, since the walls of your room weren't part of the original recording environment!
You might also be buying into the old "brickwall filter" myth, which goes something like this:
"Due to the nature of the 44.1kHz sampling rate utilized by CD, filters have to be in place to keep any signal above about 22.05kHz from getting to the D/A converters. 44.1kHz recording limits you to 22.05kHz maximum, and these filters introduce all kinds of distortion and mess up the imaging and degrade the harmonics and put a hole in the ozone layer and yadda yadda yadda."
And it's true. Sort of. You do have to use a filter to keep out signals above 22kHz (half the sample rate), and recording at 44.kHz does limit you to 22.05kHz (and in reality, much less because you can't build an effective, transparent filter that just whacks off the signal at precisely that point). Unless you record at a higher sampling rate, which folks have been doing now SINCE EVEN BEFORE CD'S WERE INTRODUCED. The early 3M digital recorders, for example, utilized a rate of around 50kHz. That allowed them to encode sounds out to 25kHz. Later professional equipment seemed to standardize on 48kHz. Over the last few years, it's shifted to all the way out to 96kHz, allowing for a flat frequency response to in excess of 40kHz if you want it. Of course, you have to bring it back down to 44.1kHz for CD, but that can be done using very precise analog equipment at the mastering lab, or it can even be performed in the digital domain using algorithms. On the playback side, early CD players with no oversampling were plagued with poor brick wall filters that led to slightly degraded sound quality, especially at the extreme high end (of course, many people can't hear anything up there, anyhow). But that hasn't been a real issue now for over a decade thanks to oversampling, which pushes all that high frequency noise way, way up into the ultrasound and allows for the use of far less drastic (and cheaper, more accurate) filters.
Anyhow, complaining about CD's filters at the extreme high end (where little music resides and our hearing sucks, anyhow) and then pointing to the "virtues" of vinyl is laughable. Vinyl utilizes similar extreme filtering in the RIAA equilization / de-equilization process, over the entire audio spectrum - not just at the extreme high end. Any sins potentially being committed by CD players due to their extreme high-end filters are also being committed on vinyl, at pretty much every frequency, including smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing from around 80Hz - 5,000Hz. It's one of the main culprits behind bad vinyl sound.
>Signal processing: I was talking about dsp, or any algorithm needed >to record or replay digital music media is just data, analog is more >like a fossil of a recording. I can drag a needle over a record myself >to replay the sound, I don't need a cpu or ram or anything.
But that's just not true. If you drag a needle over a record, you won't hear *anything* that sounds like the original signal. The bass is all gone, the treble has been outrageously boosted, and there will be tons of clicks and hiss and harmonic distortion. Since the needle itself has mass, it'll start to vibrate independent of the input it's receiving from the groove, setting off harmonics all over the audible range of music (and beyond) that weren't present in the original recording. The signal coming off of a vinyl disc must be heavily processed (not to mention amplified) before playback, not to mention all of the compression and processing it underwent in order to be encoded in the first place. CD's (and other digital formats) come with none of these limitations.
And here we have yet another Slashdotter doesn't know what they're talking about. They seem to come crawling out of the woodwork every time the "vinyl is better" boobs start slinging their BS around.
> FACT: most people can hear up to at least 30 kHz.
FACT: Nobody can hear up to 30kHz. People *might* be able to hear harmonics of sounds above 20kHz, provided those harmonics fall within the range of human hearing, but they won't be able to hear the actual pure tones themselves (as you yourself indicated). Since any medium - such as CD - that records sounds up to 20kHz will also record the harmonics of tones above 20kHz, provided they fall within the range of human hearing, what exactly would we be missing? And apart from percussion or certain electronic instruments, what instruments are out there generating gobs of ultrasonic information, anyhow? And what microphones are capable of picking up such information? And what analog tape decks are capable of recording such information? And - here's the kicker - how many speakers are capable of reproducing such information? The answer to each of these questions is, vanishing few. Many tape decks filter out or fail to record tones much beyond 20kHz. Few microphones can pick them up to begin with. And most speakers are lucky to maintain a flat frequency response even out to 20kHz, let alone to 25 or 30kHz. You'd practically have to live in a laboratory to record and then accurately reproduce ultrasonic information. A 50-year-old format like the vinyl LP certainly isn't ideal for such a thing, given its noise, distortion, dynamic range, separation and phase issues. Only the high quality analog tape decks found in professional studios or digital recording formats utilizing higher sampling rates than 44.1kHz could hope to accurately record and reproduce such audio.
>Yes, such transients are reproduced on vinyl.
Maybe on audiophile grade, quarter-speed mastered vinyl played back on a $5,000 turntable equipped with a $1,500 cartridge run through a $2,000 preamp they are. Poorly. With oceans of harmonic distortion and waves of crashing high-frequency noise. Assuming, of course, the original performance was picked up using microphones and mic preamps capable of dealing with much of anything beyond 20kHz (such mics cost in excess of $2,000, and the preamps aren't much cheaper) onto tape decks capable of recording much of anything beyond 20-25kHz. None of which is likely, outside of studiously recorded audiophile sessions.
>Your final star'ed points are just dumb. You don't give any references, >because of course you don't have any.
You must really enjoy looking like a boob. Hey, if you want to play the (in your case, irrelevant and apparently unavailable on the web) references game, I'd love to! (Actually, one "reference" you posted is available on the web - marketing material from a stereo company plugging their overpriced audiophile gear. You should have provided us with a link to the guy selling $10,000 tinfoil hats to protect us from government mind control rays, too.) Here are my bullet points, plus any references I could dig up (though much of this should be obvious to anyone with a brain in their skull):
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
Well, this one is obvious. Whenever a tick or pop is louder than the music (happens a lot with vinyl, and even with tape during quiet passages), the signal to noise ratio goes negative.
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
Another obvious point. Many turntables even include rumble measurements in their specifications, though that's for the platter only and doesn't take into account additional noise caused by the friction of the stylus dragging through the groove.
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc.
Another spec that's included for most turntables and even analog tape decks. Hard to see how this one is, "just dumb", unless you're so ignorant you've never looked at the specs for a turntable or tape deck.
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal.
Another obvious point. Anytime you process the signal to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, you're going to introduce phase discrepancies. Here's a $2,000 preamp from Daniels Audio that attempts to compensate for the phase issues. Notice I say "attempts". Even a manufacturer of $2,000 stereo components won't claim to be able to eliminate such issues. And who knows what issues all that additional processing is going to introduce.
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
Again, a no-brainer. If the frequency response curve used to produce the wax master doesn't precisely match the frequency response curve in your preamp (and it never will), certain frequencies are going to be emphasized upon playback while others will be de-emphasized. Here's a big page detailing the design issues faced by folks trying to build the RIAA de-equalization circuits for a preamp. Notice the difficulties he's having making the response curve come close to the RIAA ideal. Even by the end, he's off by more than a quarter dB at many frequencies, including some smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing.
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
I should think this one would be obvious. Lots of turntable manufacturers sell heavy weights to sit on top of a record while it's playing. If you don't believe this is true, jump up and down next to your turntable while it's playing, or set it on top of a speaker pumping out a lot of bass. You'll get an "extreme" demonstration of the effect, but the truth is it's happening all the time.
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
* 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
See this, or the specs for the cartridges themselves here. You'll be lucky to find a preamp that can come close to the 70-90dB of separation even a cheap CD player can provide, let alone a pickup.
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum.
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
See the reference above.
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits.
This one has been covered already.
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation.
Again, see the references above.
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable.
That's another obvious fact to anyone but a blithering idiot.
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
Well, duh. On to dissect the remainder of your post:
>The reverse of most of what you say is true. E.g. your claim >of 60dB dynamic range is nuts: the range is over 100 dB. >You are confusing the noise floor of a high-hiss record with >dynamic range--but you can hear 20 dB into that noise, and a >good record need not have high hiss. Vinyl has poor bass??? >It's much better than CD. And so on.
Oh my. There doesn't seem to be anything left to dissect. I've already covered these points up above. Vinyl is *lucky* to hit 60dB of dynamic range with audiophile pressings played back on incredibly expensive equipment. No "confusion" with vinyl's truly outrageous noise floor is necessary. And the dynamic range decreases drastically as the length of the record increases - a problem digital formats don't suffer from. And as for vinyl's bass performance, I think half the links I posted up above note how crappy vinyl is at capturing loud, low bass.
Next time, you might want to learn something about a subject before you proceed to open your mouth and cram your foot down your throat.
Why do uninformed ramblings keep getting moderated as "Insightful" here at Slashdot?
First, farnsworth's post asserts that some people can hear a 25kHz pitch. Yeah. Right. Maybe if they're six months old. The reality is, there are probably a handful of adults on the planet who can hear a 25kHz pitch, and I doubt any of them live in the noise-drenched environments of western civilization. Most adults are lucky if they can still hear anything out past 18kHz, especially if they listened to a lot of loud music at any point in their lives.
It's also vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at high frequencies is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.
Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low. And this assumes the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz, to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal. Many do. Older or lower-quality equipment (and/or tapes) won't even make it to 25kHz (except for all the hiss!).
Even if the decks can record 25kHz sounds, in order to get them onto the tape the microphones would have to be capable of picking up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?
Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important. You're lucky if you can get a flat 50Hz - 15,000kHz response out of vinyl. Most signal above and below those limits is likely to be noise (rumble and hum below 50-60Hz, clicks, pops, hiss and harmonics above 15,000kHz).
Next, you make the ludicrous assertion that, "analog music naturally compresses from the quietest to the loudest portions in much the same way the human ears work." Eh? Human hearing most certainly does not "compress" the audio signal, and even if it did, what could possibly be "natural" about adding an external layer of compression to the signal? The only time our hearing "compresses" is when a really loud sound (think thunderclap) happens nearby - IIRC, the hammer will be temporarily pulled away from the eardrum, but that's a reflex that lasts only moments. With a dynamic range well in excess of 90dB (far greater than vinyl's pathetic 60dB under absolutely ideal circumstances), CD's and DVD's don't need to utilize any compression, unless they're recording the sound of a jet taking off six feet away or something. Nor do vinyl records magically compress the natural dynamic range of recorded music into their paltry 60dB of dynamic range (more like 40dB for virtually all consumer vinyl) - that compression is done by mastering engineers. You could perform the same signal-degrading compression before mastering the sound to a CD if you wanted, but what kind of an idiot would do such a thing?
Finally, this statement of yours the kicker: " Simplicity: no processing is required to record/play analog. the medium is a physical imprint of the sound waves in the room as a function of time. all you need is a magnet and some energy." No processing, eh? Apart from the already mentioned compression, of course, to get the natural dynamic range of music shoehorned into vinyl's pathetic dynamic range. And then there's the RIAA equilization, required before one can even attempt to squeeze high fidelity performance out of vinyl. Here's the standardized curve. Looks pretty processed to me. Bass frequencies are cut by almost 20dB at 20Hz (they have to, otherwise the needle would pop out of its groove trying to reproduce bass), while at 19kHz treble frequencies are boosted by almost 20dB in an attempt to drown out all the vinyl noise. Then it all has to be reversed on playback. That's some serious processing.
I suppose this would also be a good time to mention that, if you want to put more than about 10 minutes worth of material onto a single side of a vinyl LP, you're going to have to further compress (or eliminate) any loud, low bass. The grooves can't be made wide enough to handle it. And of course, de-equalizing that RIAA curve on playback is an imprecise science, leading to all sorts of frequency response irregularities and phase issues. Whoops!
Ah yes, the wonderful, "naturally" compressed, unprocessed sound of vinyl. To summarize:
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.) * Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove * Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc * Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal * Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process * The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly) * The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways * Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both. 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation * A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum * In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum * A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits * The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation * Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable * The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
You're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you obviously don't begin to understand
Yes, tape is a "true backup medium", but it is *not* a suitable medium for longterm archival storage - at least, none of the affordable formats up till this point (like the DAT-derived DDS format) have been. There's a big difference between a backup medium (a copy that's probably replaced every day / week / month and is intended for use in the immediate future) and archival storage (a copy that's intended for use 5+ years in the future).
While the failure of a tape drive won't separate you from your data (unless the drive damages the tape at the same time it fails . ..), tapes themselves deteriorate over time. Here's an article about the problems the National Archives here in the United States have encountered with preserving copies of the Nixon tapes on DDS's audio cousin DAT. An excerpt:
"During the National Archives' routine monitoring of the tapes' condition, the analog reel-to-reel copies have shown no signs of deterioration whereas there is an estimated 5-10% catastrophic failure rate among the DATs in the collection. There appears to be no pattern to the failures. It has occurred on new tapes that were recorded six months ago, and it has occurred on tapes that were recorded six years ago. It has occurred on all brands of DAT purchased throughout the previous seven years. Accordingly, the archivists routinely reduplicate these DATS on multiple copies. As insurance, archivists also transfer DAT copies back onto analog reel-to-reel preservation copies. Unlike the other preservation analog copies, these copies have not been filtered and closely "mirror" the original tapes. Therefore, in the future when technology has progressed, the archivists can retrieve conversations that are extremely close to the original audio recordings and enhance these with the latest technology."
Leading audio preservationists have issued their own warning. This company deals with audio preservation, and has some interesting things to say about tape formats - analog and digital.
Of course, DDS tapes have supposedly been manufactured to a higher standard than their Audio DAT cousins, sport finer particles and stronger binders, and the format includes additional error correction and redundancy. Still, these issues with a modern tape format like Audio DAT are not an encouraging sign for those seeking to perform archival storage using DDS and it contemporaries. HP for example only claims a 10 year archival life for DDS. Contrast that with the 75-100 year lifespans Kodak and TDK are claiming for CD-R.
These longevity issues won't just be confined to older tape backup formats though, if history is any indication. It's the nature of the medium. I think Sony is currently claiming a 30-year lifespan for AIT, and HP something similar for their new format, but of course we only have a couple of years' experience with them so far, and given the incredible data density of those formats, if something should go wrong with either of them the results could be catastrophic. Unexpected deterioration has certainly happened with tape before - witness this article composer and synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos put on her website, as well as her own experience with her older tape masters.
Hard drives certainly aren't a great archival medium either, but I wouldn't be so quick to assert that tape is superior. At least drives have the advantage of being sealed from the outside atmosphere, and contain within them all the logic and hardware required to extract that information in the future. The only big issues I can see are, will there still be equipment to interface with them in 10 to 20 years (probably, since IDE is so widespread) and will the drives still spin up in 10 to 20 years (who knows). It's that second issue that's the real buzzkill for HD's as a longterm storage medium. Manufacturers won't even issue a decent warranty on drives anymore. What does that say about their planned longevity?
Me, I think your best bet is DVD. But if you really want to be able to read that data in the future, I'd suggest copying it to at least two different formats, perhaps AIT *and* DVD. Don't forget to check on it every few years, too. If there's any sign of deterioration, you'll hopefully be able to make another clone before the failure becomes catastrophic (perhaps to a superior format that hasn't even been invented yet). If you want something you can just throw in a hole and forget about, sorry - that media doesn't exist.
That depends to some degree on the kind of rock that water was passing through. Was it hard, like basalt is here on earth, or was it softer stuff, perhaps some type of sedimentary deposit comprised of compacted regolith and permafrost?
The Grand Canyon wasn't carved by the explosive melting of permafrost encased in a layer of regolith, either. With that much sediment in suspension, who knows how long it might take to carve deep features, even in relatively hard rock. Similar events could have been commonplace on the early Earth as well, but all trace of them would have been erased by geologic forces on this planet's active surface.
You're also assuming the water carved all of the features we see today on Mars unaided. The problem with that assumption is that water would naturally flow through any existing cracks and low spots in the crust, ones that should have formed naturally as the planet cooled and its crust contracted.
I'd say this theory is by far the best yet for explaining how the surface of Mars came to look the way it does today. I certainly find it more plausible than the assertion that Mars was once warm, wet and earthlike, sporting vast oceans. Perhaps that was the case *very* early in its history, but once the surface began to cool the tiny planet was far too small to hold an appreciable atmosphere at that distance from the sun, particularly given how dim the sun was over 3.5 billion years ago. Lighter greenhouse gasses like methane would have quickly escaped into space, while heavier ones like water vapor would have frozen out at the poles. Eventually, the surface of the planet became so cold even CO2 started to freeze, and at that point it was all over for Mars.
Earth went through its own snowball phase at least once, perhaps several times during its evolution after its surface had finally cooled (a process that took far longer here than it did on tiny Mars, I might add). It apparently never became cold enough here for CO2 to freeze out of the atmosphere though, and Earth is massive enough to retain enough lighter greenhouse gasses (like methane) long enough for them to make a significant contribution toward warming the planet's surface. Eventually, that volcanic activity belched enough greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to free the oceans of their coat of ice. It didn't hurt that Earth was much closer to the sun than Mars either, or that by the time Earth was going through its big freeze, the sun was significantly brighter than it had been when Mars began to freeze over.
Why do people who can't read keep getting modded as "insightful" here at/.?
>Doesnt anyone think we'd notice the pothole >left by a 150 mile wide asteroid?
Please READ the article:
"Segura and colleagues used photographs of the Red Planet's surface and computer models to show that large asteroids or comets hit the planet 3.5 billion years ago."
That's 3.5 *billion* years. Almost any impact crater from 3.5 billion years ago on the surface of the Earth would have long ago been eroded away, uplifted by faults into mountains, or subducted down into the mantle. In any case, they'd be difficult or impossible to identify now. Very little of the Earth's surface from 3.5 billion years ago remains intact. On Mars, it's a completely different story.
There are a handful of large craters on Earth that are still identifiable after around 2 billion years, as this article makes clear. But the giants formed by large impactors from early in our solar system's history have long ago been erased (or at least thoroughly obscured) from the surface of this world.
Our moon on the other hand has plenty of gigantic impact scars left over from before 3.5 billion years ago. For example, the gigantic Imbrium crater on the lunar surface is around 700 miles in diameter, and was formed about 3.85 billion years ago. There are several lunar craters in excess of 500 miles in diameter. Our moon is also home to the largest known impact crater in the solar system, the colossal 1,300 mile wide South Pole-Aitken Basin.
>While spaceborne objects would be a nice >explanation for these formations- if a bit >uncreative- it forgets the element of the >atmosphere, which is the only reason Earth >doesn't get pounded into rubble every meteor >shower.
Eh? Did you read the article at all? We aren't talking about shooting stars here - we're talking about asteroids and comets that are miles across slamming into the planet. Objects that big wouldn't even notice the thin atmospheres of worlds like Mars and Earth. At the speeds they're traveling, they'd blow right through them in a couple of seconds and smash into the surface, releasing a tremendous amount of energy in the process and - if they're large enough - melting much of the subsurface permafrost on a world like Mars.
>For one, there is no evidence of any other planetary body >which would have gotten a significant infusion of water >this way and it seems unlikely that Mars would have been the >only target.
You must not have read the article, or at least you didn't read it carefully. The water wasn't all delivered by the bodies that collided with Mars - much of it would have already been in place, trapped as ice beneath the surface and at the poles (as we believe it is today). Furthermore, we have lots of evidence that water ice can be delivered to planets via comets - we actually watched comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smash into Jupiter in 1994. That comet consisted of around 21 fragments, some with diameters of well over a mile, and had a visible impact even on that giant planet's atmosphere. You can visit this site to get an overview of the massive (and unexpected) results of their fiery plunge into Jupiter. Had it smacked Mars instead, it would have injected a vast amount of water vapor (and other gasses) into the thin Martian atmosphere, radically altering its composition.
Even today, if a large comet or even a sufficiently sized iceless asteroid slammed into the surface, it would produce a massive explosion, throw mountains worth of material into the atmosphere and generate a tremendous shockwave. The heat that would result from such events - including the rain of ejected rock falling back to the surface of Mars - could melt that subsurface permafrost on a global scale. Throw in any ice delivered by the impactor itself (for example, from a 20 mile wide comet) and you'd have one hell of a flood.
As CO2 and water vapor poured into the atmosphere, they'd rapidly insulate the planet, allowing still more ice to melt and resulting in colossal floods on a global scale. Another article I've seen on this theory points out the atmosphere could become hotter than a self-cleaning oven (more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit). This flooding could go on for years, until Mars cooled and its water vapor / CO2 atmosphere largely precipitated out, seeped through all the regolith at the surface, and refroze as a layer of permafrost.
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The problem is, these all in one gadgets tend to do everything POORLY, and for a lot of money. I just replaced my old Handspring Visor with a Palm Zire, because I didn't want to blow $300+ on a combo cell phone / handheld that'd I'd probably just end up losing 6 months down the road. The Zire only set me back $75 on Amazon after a rebate, and even though it offers nothing in the way of functionality over the old Handspring (apart from faster synchs - it's USB - and a rechargeable battery that lasts forever between charges), it does everything I need.
I do think there would be be a market for an inexpensive combo device that's a combination iPod, cell phone and organizer, though. It would be nice to cut down on the number of gadgets you have to carry around, and the organizer's display (and OS) would come in handy for manipulating playlists on the jukebox. Unfortunately, I don't think we're quite at the point where such a gadget could be offered for a reasonable price (under $300), but by this time next year, who knows.
If Apple were smart, such a gadget could be their next killer consumer product. Do they still own the Newton OS?
>In this case, a stable, well-known and quite
>familiar technology is "the best kit we can."
Except the Shuttle isn't "stable". Two of them have now self-destructed, in spite of the fact the program cost around $15 billion to develop (in the 1970's - that around $30-$40 billion in today's dollars), in spite of the fact that each Shuttle cost over $2 billion to build (in today's dollars), and in spite of the fact each launch costs somewhere between $300 - $500 million on top of all that (depending on how you do the accounting). That's a high price for catastrophic failure.
The only thing we're "quite familiar" with is that the Shuttles are a waste of money compared to disposable boosters. You can launch similar sized payloads into orbit on the larger unmanned disposable boosters for less than it costs to prep and launch the "reusable" shuttle. You can launch 6 men into space onboard 2 disposable Soyuz rockets for around $70 million - and Soyuz hasn't suffered a fatality since the 1970's. Compare that to the Shuttles, which have incinerated 14 astronauts now since 1985.
>Upgrading for the sake of getting "newer"
>components is more likely to cause safety
>hazards than leaving older, perfectly good
>systems in place.
I agree. That's why the Shuttles should never have been flown in the first place. They do nothing to make access to space less expensive - indeed, they're significantly more expensive than disposable boosters - and they aren't any safer. Sure the tech is neat, when it works. But as we've learned, it often doesn't work, with expensive (and fatal) consequences.
>Star Trek: The Next Generation got a whole lot
>better around season 3, when Roddenberry pretty
>much lost control of the show and let Berman
>take over.
Berman had a lot of help. Michael Piller came in as co-executive producer for Season 3, working beside Berman and writing a considerable number of episodes himself (far more than Berman ever wrote or co-wrote). As Roddenberry was increasingly ill by that point, there were several producers and co-producers working on the show as well, including writers like Ira Steven Behr. They'd also attracted a stable of excellent writers by that point, particularly the brilliant Ronald Moore, who wrote classics like "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Sins Of The Father," and "The Defector" for Season 3.
Giving Berman all (or even more than a little) credit for the success of TNG would be like giving Al Gore all the credit for inventing the Internet. I'm sure Berman was very effective at getting money out of the suits, but it's obvious the man doesn't have a clue when it comes to forging a compelling story. And that's precisely why Trek is in the trouble it's in today.
Many of those compounds would also be broken down by the composting process. And if they aren't broken down there, where else in nature are they going to be broken down? If the answer is, "nowhere," then we probably shouldn't be producing such compounds in the first place, should we?
>Your attitude towards your fellow citizens
>is offensive in the least, and stupid besides.
My "attitude" towards my "fellow citizens" was formed by their insolent, childish, selfish, obnoxious behavior. If you have a problem with my "attitude" towards yuppies, try teaching the little fucktards a few basic lessons in civility. Namely:
* Pay attention to where the fuck you are on the road when you're driving your $70,000 petroleum chugging fume belching lane hogging pedestrian composter.
* Learn how to park. In a single space - not three.
* Learn how to use your turn signal. And how to turn it off.
* Learn that red lights mean, "stop."
* Turn off the ringer on your goddamn cell phone when you attend the movies or the symphony. Anybody who's earning $150,000 a year for "harnessing cutting edge models" or "branding granular e-business" or "utilizing magnetic schemas" or whatever the e-bullshit d'jour is in the tech sector ought to be able to figure out how to silence their $500 cell phone.
>Do you really think that "pasty yuppie asses" will
>be the ones to buy this thing - instead of (for example)
>postal workers, who are already testing it?
Well, considering it's a $5,000 tech gadget that performs essentially the same function that a bicycle, skateboard or roller-skates could perform for at least $4,500 less, yes I'd say "pasty yuppie asses" are exactly the crowd that will be buying this thing. Anybody who ever worked an honest day in their life would certainly blanch at the thought of blowing $5,000 on a toy that makes you look like a clueless dork, and turns you into a threat to 90-year-old grandmothers on their way to buy groceries. But based on prior experience (see above), I wouldn't expect selfish, self-absorbed yuppies to spend a single millisecond considering the welfare of others.
I could see the Segway being useful in an environment like a warehouse, but we weren't talking about banning them in warehouses, only on the sidewalks.
Regarding postal workers, they're already reporting they hate the things. As one of them put it, standing around on a Segway buzzing down the sidewalk at 12mph when the temperature is below freezing turns you into a giant popsicle on a stick real quick.
Who the hell walks in Sacramento? You could run 120mph jet-powered steamrollers down Sacramento sidewalks and not hit any pedestrians.
Last time I was there in '97 the sidewalks were empty, apart from fat-assed Sacramento residents who jiggled their way across them on their way into KFC or McDonalds for a bucket or bag full of fried lard.
The reason why pedestrians in San Francisco don't want Segways on their sidewalks is simple physics. A Segway weighs around 70lbs. The average rider would weigh around 150lbs, with some weighing well in excess of 200lbs. The combined weight would be at least 220lbs, with weights up to 300lbs possible. A Segway can travel at up to 12mph. Getting hit by a 250lbs mass traveling at 12mph would be like getting tackled by an NFL linebacker. It could cripple the average adult, and it would kill old people. San Francisco has a large elderly population, and they have enough trouble getting around town without having to worry about being creamed by some pasty yuppie ass tooling down the sidewalk on his $10,000 toy, yapping on his goddamn cell phone.
It's called the SIDEWALK. SIDE, as in at the side of the road, and WALK, as in where your fat lazy ass is supposed to, like, walk. If you want to operate a motor vehicle, do it in the street. The sidewalk is reserved for pedestrians.
Yup. I used to play Snood. I think I might have even registered it at one point on my old PC. Then it started shipping with loads of spyware, thanks to some "advice" the author got from his uncle IIRC.
Thanks, uncle. I've now stopped using the product due to your "advice".
According to the article:
In April 1997, Xerox sued Palm, claiming that Graffiti was essentially derived from its patented Unistrokes technology.
That's really odd. I thought Pee Wee Herman had the patent on Unistrokes.
>MCE does everything through software which,
>in technical terms "sucks ass".
RTFA. Microsoft specifically requires MCE PCs to come with a dedicated MPEG encoder hardware. It is not "doing everything through software". In fact, according to the article ATI and nVidia are having fits precisely because of the outrageous hardware requirements Microsoft has slapped on these systems.
Sounds to me like yet another case of crappy, bloated code from Microsoft. What a surprise. Would never have seen that one coming.
You seem to be missing the point. An advanced alien race might consider the entire galaxy their living room. There would be no ultimatum to "leave the galaxy". We couldn't do it anyway even if we wanted. They'd simply squash us.
I think most humans would be even quicker to squash talking bugs than they are to stomp on the traditional stupid variety!
As for "intentional transmissions", I most certainly did not include all of the commercial radio and television signals already out there in that category. I was specifically referring to numerous high-power signals which have been deliberately beamed into space in order to attract extraterrestrial attention. That's a profoundly foolish thing to do. You have no idea what might be listening, or what its intentions might be. It's bad enough our planet leaks a low level of radio noise due to all of the commercial traffic.
There are lots of reasons why we might not have detected alien civilizations (yet) - even if they're quite common throughout the universe - let alone seen any evidence of their colonization. I can briefly list a dozen reasons right off the top of my head:
.).
1) Gamma ray bursts. Until relatively recently in the history of our universe - perhaps up until 500 million years ago - radiation from gamma ray bursts (and supernovae, for that matter) was routinely sterilizing the surfaces of most planets within our galaxy and every other fair-sized galaxy. It took 4.5 billion years for intelligent life capable of interstellar communication and interplanetary travel to evolve here on our planet. Assuming a roughly similar evolutionary pace on other worlds, there might just now be a handful of intelligent species coming into being throughout this galaxy (and others, for that matter).
2) We're the first civilization to evolve in our galaxy. Unlikely, but someone's gotta be it. Whether or not we could be the first depends in large part on how rare advanced life forms are in our galaxy - a question we may have the answer to within our lifetimes, thanks to advanced space telescopes like the Terrestrial Planet Finder and its successors. If it turns out life on terrestrial planets is exceedingly rare - on the order of only a few dozen planets in our galaxy - then we very well could be the first intelligent species to evolve.
3) Intelligence is common. Civilization is less common. Technology is vanishingly rare. Remember, in order to colonize the galaxy - or even be detected by a project like SETI - you have to have more than intelligence. You even need more than civilization. SETI is really the search for extraterrestrial *technology*. Space colonization requires technology. For whatever reason, perhaps few intelligent lifeforms make the leap to civilization, and fewer still make the leap to a technological civilization.
4) Technological civilizations invariably wipe themselves out, or are wiped out by natural processes before they can begin interstellar colonization. A sobering proposition, but certainly one that's supported by our own civilization's close encounters with destruction (the Black Plague, the Tunguska event, WWI, WWII, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Ebola, AIDS, terrorists with bioweapons . .
5) The technology to engage in interstellar travel might be common, and technological civilizations might endure long enough to make such efforts practical. However, that same technology makes such expensive (and risky) undertakings unappealing. Why spend 50 years traveling to the nearest inhabitable planet? You might send out probes - or build larger telescopes - to observe other worlds, but you can simulate their environments and explore them from the comfort of your living room via virtual reality. If you could go on safari in your living room, would you sit in a cramped airplane seat for 20 hours flying to Africa?
6) Technological civilizations eventually die not with a bang, but with a whimper. We see evidence of this happening already in Europe, where population growth comes only via immigrants. But what happens if the rest of the world reaches the technological and social advancement Europe has attained? Populations may begin to slowly decline worldwide. Without population pressure, there's no reason to colonize new territory here on Earth, let alone other planets. Indeed, you couldn't spare the human capital.
7) Interstellar travel is impossible, for some currently unknown reason. Perhaps there are giant invisible particles between the stars - they could even be the source of that missing mass we hear so much about - that an unlucky spacecraft could slam into, instantly halting its journey to a nearby star. This is admittedly an unlikely proposition, but we'd be foolish to think we know everything about the feasibility of interstellar travel. Perhaps it's impossible regardless of your level of technological advancement - hence, no alien colonies scattered about the galaxy.
8) They're already here. This could either take the form of X-Files-style shenanigans, or more benevolent intervention (think Gary Seven from that old Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth"). Or perhaps only their probes are here, either so microscopic we don't detect them, or somehow disguised as ordinary objects (or creatures - this would go a long way towards explaining the behavior of housecats).
9) They've all been wiped out by a malevolent alien über-civilization - one that could be on its way to eliminate us. Such villains are a sci-fi staple (War of the Worlds, Independence Day, The Borg), and one we've been foolish to so easily dismiss, especially in light of the silence that greets us from the heavens. There has to be some reason why alien technological civilizations are so rare, and this explanation is as valid as any other in light of the current evidence. Our radio broadcasts already reach out over 100 light-years, starting with the first primitive Morse Code transmissions from over a century ago. We've even deliberately (and foolishly) transmitted high power radio signals directly into space, in various attempts to announce our presence to interstellar listeners ("an open invitation to alien invasion" as the good Doctor on Britain's Doctor Who once wisely pegged it). How long we have before the day of reckoning depends on how close their nearest listening station is, and whether or not they've perfected a means of hyperlight travel. Assuming their nearest detector is 100 light years away, they've just become aware of our presence. Assuming they're limited to sublight travel, we've got another century before they - or some planet-busting weapon - arrives to deal with this latest disease outbreak in their galaxy.
If you find this scenario unlikely, consider how you'd react to an anthill suddenly springing up in your living room.
10) They're all hiding from possible über-civilizations (or each other). This certainly wouldn't be a stupid position to adopt, given the consequences of such an encounter. If you don't know what's out in the forest, you'd do well to keep quiet. And once you do know what's out there, you might have an even better reason to keep quiet. Technological civilizations might go completely underground, perhaps relocating themselves to an unspoiled nearby planet and burrowing deep beneath the surface in an effort to completely hide themselves from alien invaders - at least, until they feel they have the technology to resist any such invasion. Perhaps those gamma ray bursts aren't always natural phenomena at all - maybe they're sometimes the visible artifacts of colossal alien wars.
11) Maybe they're all hiding from us. Perhaps there are no evil overlord über-civilizations. Maybe a federation of benevolent civilizations rules over our galaxy, perhaps after uniting to defeat less enlightened powers. Perhaps these enlightened powers possess the equivalent of Star Trek's Prime Directive, a strictly hands-off policy regarding lesser civilizations. We could dwell in a kind of interstellar game reserve, one that's off limits to alien intrusion. If so, we might never detect our superiors - at least, not for thousands of years, until we possess the technology to go out and meet them face-to-face. It's a comforting thought, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
12) Maybe they aren't deliberately hiding from us. Perhaps we're surrounded by interstellar homebodies, but just can't hear them because they don't use radio to communicate. For whatever reason - simulations, interstellar obstacles, declining populations - they don't travel or colonize (much), so we don't physically encounter them or their artifacts, and their communications technology either doesn't involve radio (maybe they use some form of quantum communications), or utilizes radio in a way that sounds like static to our receivers. Of course, you'd think they'd detect our signals and issue some kind of reply, but they'd have to be within about 50 light years in order for that to be possible. Perhaps there's simply nobody that nearby. Entirely possible, if alien civilizations don't travel much.
Even if you assume there are thousands of technological alien civilizations in this galaxy, if they only communicated with our form of radio for 100 to 200 years of their existence, it's possible there's nobody using our form of radio at the moment anywhere in the galaxy apart from us. Meanwhile, the galaxy is so vast, even with thousands of civilizations there might not be anybody listening within 500 light years of the Earth.
Anyhow, it's way too early to say why we haven't been contacted, let alone visited, by alien intelligences. We simply don't have enough evidence. Some of the possible explanations are certainly unsettling, though.
For those who can't get thru to the original site or the mirrors. Just search for "Starship Exeter".
In response to China's development of Tai Chi robots, Hong Kong announced today it's busy developing Feng Shui robots.
No, the preamp doesn't "reverse" the procedure. The distortion caused by the equalization itself cannot be perfectly reversed - you're lucky if the preamp even comes close. Assuming you had a perfect preamp whose level adjustments perfectly matched those performed for the vinyl master, you'd still be looking at a slew of phase issues caused by all of that equalization and de-equalization.
And the RIAA equalization isn't the only thing being done to the signal prior to mastering. Forget loud, low bass pans from one channel to another (I think a Madonna CD sported one of these fairly recently) - the bass has to be mixed to mono in order to avoid having consumers' needles jumping out of their grooves.
Problems with getting vinyl to handle stereo bass are so severe, legendary Atlantic records megaproducer Arif Mardin began mixing kick drums and bass in mono back during the 1960's, a trick that's been used for vinyl mastering ever since.
You can't possibly be this obtuse, can you? Vinyl can't reproduce loud bass accurately, and every link I provided supports that assertion. Not that I even needed to provide that set of links, since several other links had already indicated that vinyl CAN'T REPRODUCE ANY SIGNALS ACCURATELY, due to all the frequency response and phase issues imposed by the RIAA equilization / de-equalization process, harmonic distortion caused by the mass of the needle and resonances in the pickup and cartridge, rumble, wow and flutter, surface noise, etc. etc. etc.
Here are some relevant passages from the three links you were sooooo concerned about.
From planetdmb:
Try to keep record lengths below 12 minutes per side; an average club record runs 7-9 minutes. The shorter you keep the track lengths, the louder the recording will be and the more heavy and full the bass will sound.
From aardvarkmastering.com:
Dance club music is way heavy in bass, and likes to be cut at very high levels. The standard level for european dub plates is 6 db over standard reference level. Cutting at these levels, especially heavy bass, the grooves have to be pretty spread out, and deep to keep the needle from bouncing out, especially when scratched and back-cued.
From futurediscsystems:
It should be mentioned here that if the bass information is too loud, your raft [the needle - sunspot42] gets thrown over the embankment (skips).
And also from futurediscsystems:
I'll discuss stereo very briefly. If the sides of the river don't stay parallel, it's stereo. In other words, any difference between the two channels causes the stylus to move up and down in addition to sideways. As the stylus digs deeper, it is using more precious disc space. The moral for engineers is: If you are looking for hot levels or long sides, don't pan instruments like drums and percussion hard left and right. Keep the bass and bass drum in the center, and keep everything in phase. An out of phase snare or bass drum can wreak havoc. Use an oscilloscope if possible!
And also:
If the sides are long, remember that the more bass, the lower the cutting level (volume). It is possible to squeeze 30 minutes on a side but the level will be so low you'll have to crank it just to hear it, and you will hear the surface noise!
I find your whining to the moderateors incredibly pathetic. I note you didn't offer a similar whine when "Sara Chan" posted a doofus reply in which two of the "references" provided no documentation for the assertions being made whatsoever, while the third was a pile of marketing treacle.
Here's another reference for you to chew on regarding how crappy vinyl "fidelity" is, this time from a veteran engineer. But please, don't allow any facts to get in your way. You're batting a thousand so far!
Sorry, I didn't mean to snap your head off. I'm just getting sick to death of seeing posts modded up as "Informative" when they don't contain any information or valid references, or when the information they contain is obviously incorrect. "+5 Opinionated" would be more like it. But that's obviously not your fault.
As for "rolling off hard at 20k", again this is a common argument advanced by vinyl proponents, but the truth is, vanishingly few adults can even hear up to 20k. Yes I know, there's tons of marketing material that tries to assert otherwise, usually citing "harmonics". The problem is, microphones will pick up those sub-20k harmonics, too. So what, exactly, is missing here? A teensy-tiny amount of additional sub-20k harmonics that might be generated in your room by a (say) 30kHz signal bouncing off your furniture and walls? I'm not even sure that's a plus. That sounds like additional distortion to me, since the walls of your room weren't part of the original recording environment!
You might also be buying into the old "brickwall filter" myth, which goes something like this:
"Due to the nature of the 44.1kHz sampling rate utilized by CD, filters have to be in place to keep any signal above about 22.05kHz from getting to the D/A converters. 44.1kHz recording limits you to 22.05kHz maximum, and these filters introduce all kinds of distortion and mess up the imaging and degrade the harmonics and put a hole in the ozone layer and yadda yadda yadda."
And it's true. Sort of. You do have to use a filter to keep out signals above 22kHz (half the sample rate), and recording at 44.kHz does limit you to 22.05kHz (and in reality, much less because you can't build an effective, transparent filter that just whacks off the signal at precisely that point). Unless you record at a higher sampling rate, which folks have been doing now SINCE EVEN BEFORE CD'S WERE INTRODUCED. The early 3M digital recorders, for example, utilized a rate of around 50kHz. That allowed them to encode sounds out to 25kHz. Later professional equipment seemed to standardize on 48kHz. Over the last few years, it's shifted to all the way out to 96kHz, allowing for a flat frequency response to in excess of 40kHz if you want it. Of course, you have to bring it back down to 44.1kHz for CD, but that can be done using very precise analog equipment at the mastering lab, or it can even be performed in the digital domain using algorithms. On the playback side, early CD players with no oversampling were plagued with poor brick wall filters that led to slightly degraded sound quality, especially at the extreme high end (of course, many people can't hear anything up there, anyhow). But that hasn't been a real issue now for over a decade thanks to oversampling, which pushes all that high frequency noise way, way up into the ultrasound and allows for the use of far less drastic (and cheaper, more accurate) filters.
Anyhow, complaining about CD's filters at the extreme high end (where little music resides and our hearing sucks, anyhow) and then pointing to the "virtues" of vinyl is laughable. Vinyl utilizes similar extreme filtering in the RIAA equilization / de-equilization process, over the entire audio spectrum - not just at the extreme high end. Any sins potentially being committed by CD players due to their extreme high-end filters are also being committed on vinyl, at pretty much every frequency, including smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing from around 80Hz - 5,000Hz. It's one of the main culprits behind bad vinyl sound.
>Signal processing: I was talking about dsp, or any algorithm needed
>to record or replay digital music media is just data, analog is more
>like a fossil of a recording. I can drag a needle over a record myself
>to replay the sound, I don't need a cpu or ram or anything.
But that's just not true. If you drag a needle over a record, you won't hear *anything* that sounds like the original signal. The bass is all gone, the treble has been outrageously boosted, and there will be tons of clicks and hiss and harmonic distortion. Since the needle itself has mass, it'll start to vibrate independent of the input it's receiving from the groove, setting off harmonics all over the audible range of music (and beyond) that weren't present in the original recording. The signal coming off of a vinyl disc must be heavily processed (not to mention amplified) before playback, not to mention all of the compression and processing it underwent in order to be encoded in the first place. CD's (and other digital formats) come with none of these limitations.
And here we have yet another Slashdotter doesn't know what they're talking about. They seem to come crawling out of the woodwork every time the "vinyl is better" boobs start slinging their BS around.
> FACT: most people can hear up to at least 30 kHz.
FACT: Nobody can hear up to 30kHz. People *might* be able to hear harmonics of sounds above 20kHz, provided those harmonics fall within the range of human hearing, but they won't be able to hear the actual pure tones themselves (as you yourself indicated). Since any medium - such as CD - that records sounds up to 20kHz will also record the harmonics of tones above 20kHz, provided they fall within the range of human hearing, what exactly would we be missing? And apart from percussion or certain electronic instruments, what instruments are out there generating gobs of ultrasonic information, anyhow? And what microphones are capable of picking up such information? And what analog tape decks are capable of recording such information? And - here's the kicker - how many speakers are capable of reproducing such information? The answer to each of these questions is, vanishing few. Many tape decks filter out or fail to record tones much beyond 20kHz. Few microphones can pick them up to begin with. And most speakers are lucky to maintain a flat frequency response even out to 20kHz, let alone to 25 or 30kHz. You'd practically have to live in a laboratory to record and then accurately reproduce ultrasonic information. A 50-year-old format like the vinyl LP certainly isn't ideal for such a thing, given its noise, distortion, dynamic range, separation and phase issues. Only the high quality analog tape decks found in professional studios or digital recording formats utilizing higher sampling rates than 44.1kHz could hope to accurately record and reproduce such audio.
>Yes, such transients are reproduced on vinyl.
Maybe on audiophile grade, quarter-speed mastered vinyl played back on a $5,000 turntable equipped with a $1,500 cartridge run through a $2,000 preamp they are. Poorly. With oceans of harmonic distortion and waves of crashing high-frequency noise. Assuming, of course, the original performance was picked up using microphones and mic preamps capable of dealing with much of anything beyond 20kHz (such mics cost in excess of $2,000, and the preamps aren't much cheaper) onto tape decks capable of recording much of anything beyond 20-25kHz. None of which is likely, outside of studiously recorded audiophile sessions.
>Your final star'ed points are just dumb. You don't give any references,
>because of course you don't have any.
You must really enjoy looking like a boob. Hey, if you want to play the (in your case, irrelevant and apparently unavailable on the web) references game, I'd love to! (Actually, one "reference" you posted is available on the web - marketing material from a stereo company plugging their overpriced audiophile gear. You should have provided us with a link to the guy selling $10,000 tinfoil hats to protect us from government mind control rays, too.) Here are my bullet points, plus any references I could dig up (though much of this should be obvious to anyone with a brain in their skull):
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
Well, this one is obvious. Whenever a tick or pop is louder than the music (happens a lot with vinyl, and even with tape during quiet passages), the signal to noise ratio goes negative.
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
Another obvious point. Many turntables even include rumble measurements in their specifications, though that's for the platter only and doesn't take into account additional noise caused by the friction of the stylus dragging through the groove.
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc.
Another spec that's included for most turntables and even analog tape decks. Hard to see how this one is, "just dumb", unless you're so ignorant you've never looked at the specs for a turntable or tape deck.
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal.
Another obvious point. Anytime you process the signal to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, you're going to introduce phase discrepancies. Here's a $2,000 preamp from Daniels Audio that attempts to compensate for the phase issues. Notice I say "attempts". Even a manufacturer of $2,000 stereo components won't claim to be able to eliminate such issues. And who knows what issues all that additional processing is going to introduce.
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
Again, a no-brainer. If the frequency response curve used to produce the wax master doesn't precisely match the frequency response curve in your preamp (and it never will), certain frequencies are going to be emphasized upon playback while others will be de-emphasized. Here's a big page detailing the design issues faced by folks trying to build the RIAA de-equalization circuits for a preamp. Notice the difficulties he's having making the response curve come close to the RIAA ideal. Even by the end, he's off by more than a quarter dB at many frequencies, including some smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing.
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
For references, please see this, this, this, or this.
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
I should think this one would be obvious. Lots of turntable manufacturers sell heavy weights to sit on top of a record while it's playing. If you don't believe this is true, jump up and down next to your turntable while it's playing, or set it on top of a speaker pumping out a lot of bass. You'll get an "extreme" demonstration of the effect, but the truth is it's happening all the time.
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
Again, an obvious issue. Good luck getting it right!
* 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
See this, or the specs for the cartridges themselves here. You'll be lucky to find a preamp that can come close to the 70-90dB of separation even a cheap CD player can provide, let alone a pickup.
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum.
References to this abound. If you don't believe me, take it from an expert.
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
See the reference above.
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits.
This one has been covered already.
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation.
Again, see the references above.
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable.
That's another obvious fact to anyone but a blithering idiot.
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
Well, duh. On to dissect the remainder of your post:
>The reverse of most of what you say is true. E.g. your claim
>of 60dB dynamic range is nuts: the range is over 100 dB.
>You are confusing the noise floor of a high-hiss record with
>dynamic range--but you can hear 20 dB into that noise, and a
>good record need not have high hiss. Vinyl has poor bass???
>It's much better than CD. And so on.
Oh my. There doesn't seem to be anything left to dissect. I've already covered these points up above. Vinyl is *lucky* to hit 60dB of dynamic range with audiophile pressings played back on incredibly expensive equipment. No "confusion" with vinyl's truly outrageous noise floor is necessary. And the dynamic range decreases drastically as the length of the record increases - a problem digital formats don't suffer from. And as for vinyl's bass performance, I think half the links I posted up above note how crappy vinyl is at capturing loud, low bass.
Next time, you might want to learn something about a subject before you proceed to open your mouth and cram your foot down your throat.
Why do uninformed ramblings keep getting moderated as "Insightful" here at Slashdot?
First, farnsworth's post asserts that some people can hear a 25kHz pitch. Yeah. Right. Maybe if they're six months old. The reality is, there are probably a handful of adults on the planet who can hear a 25kHz pitch, and I doubt any of them live in the noise-drenched environments of western civilization. Most adults are lucky if they can still hear anything out past 18kHz, especially if they listened to a lot of loud music at any point in their lives.
It's also vital to note that even then, the sensitivity of our ears to sound at high frequencies is extraordinarily low. In other words, a sound at 20kHz would have to be phenomenally loud for us to hear it compared to a sound at, say, 5,000Hz, where our hearing is much, much more sensitive. Few musical instruments produce loud sounds at or above 20kHz as a result - at least, not intentionally. There could be harmonics at frequencies in excess of 20kHz (for example, perhaps cymbals produce such harmonics), but by their very nature, those harmonics are going to be soft in relation to the rest of the signal - and again, most adults don't stand a snowball's chance of hearing them anyhow, even if they were deafeningly loud, which they're not.
Worse, vinyl doesn't stand a snowball's chance of reproducing such ultrasonic information with any kind of accuracy. The format was never designed to record high frequency signals - engineers have enough trouble squeezing 60Hz - 15,000Hz out of them reliably, let alone with any kind of fidelity when compared to CDs. I have no doubt that LPs produce a fair amount of ultrasonic signal, but again, most of that is going to be unintentional - clicks and pops, surface noise, electrical noise, and harmonic distortion generated by the stylus and cartridge as they vibrate. Any "real" ultrasonic information on the record would be swamped by all the fake ultrasonic garbage. You also seem to be assuming that the master tapes contain such ultrasonic information. They don't. The usable frequency response of even the best analog tape decks used historically for studio recording typically topped out at around 25kHz. Beyond that the levels fall off so rapidly as to be useless, and even there, the levels are going to be pretty low. And this assumes the deck doesn't employ filtering beyond around 22kHz, to eliminate unwanted ultrasonic noise that can impinge on the bias signal. Many do. Older or lower-quality equipment (and/or tapes) won't even make it to 25kHz (except for all the hiss!).
Even if the decks can record 25kHz sounds, in order to get them onto the tape the microphones would have to be capable of picking up such ultrasonics to begin with, which of course they can't. 99.9% of the microphones used over the past 60 years to record audio in the studio or concert hall are lucky to have a usable frequency response out to as far as 20kHz - most begin a pretty severe rolloff at 15kHz, and by 20kHz only a handful manage to maintain a flat response, with performance dropping off rapidly thereafter. Anything they're picking up beyond 20kHz is going to be so faint as to be inaudible once it passes through the gauntlet of noise and distortion inherent in the vinyl format. Here's a sales listing for the legendary Neumann U87, a mic that's been the studio standard for vocal recording since the '60s - the Beatles used this mic, and singers & engineers continue to choose this mic over all others even to this day. Its frequency response tops out at 20kHz. So much for recording ultrasonics. And the instrument probably most likely to produce ultrasonics - the cymbal - is typically recorded using a mic like the Shure SM57, which has been a standard for recording percussion since its introduction over thirty years ago. Its frequency response tops out at a measly 15kHz. What ultrasonics?
Of course, it's all utterly inconsequential compared to the trashing of the original waveform caused by all of vinyl's other numerous limitations, including the damage done in the crucial 50Hz-5,000Hz range where human hearing and perception is so much more sensitive, and accuracy therefore so much more important. You're lucky if you can get a flat 50Hz - 15,000kHz response out of vinyl. Most signal above and below those limits is likely to be noise (rumble and hum below 50-60Hz, clicks, pops, hiss and harmonics above 15,000kHz).
Next, you make the ludicrous assertion that, "analog music naturally compresses from the quietest to the loudest portions in much the same way the human ears work." Eh? Human hearing most certainly does not "compress" the audio signal, and even if it did, what could possibly be "natural" about adding an external layer of compression to the signal? The only time our hearing "compresses" is when a really loud sound (think thunderclap) happens nearby - IIRC, the hammer will be temporarily pulled away from the eardrum, but that's a reflex that lasts only moments. With a dynamic range well in excess of 90dB (far greater than vinyl's pathetic 60dB under absolutely ideal circumstances), CD's and DVD's don't need to utilize any compression, unless they're recording the sound of a jet taking off six feet away or something. Nor do vinyl records magically compress the natural dynamic range of recorded music into their paltry 60dB of dynamic range (more like 40dB for virtually all consumer vinyl) - that compression is done by mastering engineers. You could perform the same signal-degrading compression before mastering the sound to a CD if you wanted, but what kind of an idiot would do such a thing?
Finally, this statement of yours the kicker: " Simplicity: no processing is required to record/play analog. the medium is a physical imprint of the sound waves in the room as a function of time. all you need is a magnet and some energy." No processing, eh? Apart from the already mentioned compression, of course, to get the natural dynamic range of music shoehorned into vinyl's pathetic dynamic range. And then there's the RIAA equilization, required before one can even attempt to squeeze high fidelity performance out of vinyl. Here's the standardized curve. Looks pretty processed to me. Bass frequencies are cut by almost 20dB at 20Hz (they have to, otherwise the needle would pop out of its groove trying to reproduce bass), while at 19kHz treble frequencies are boosted by almost 20dB in an attempt to drown out all the vinyl noise. Then it all has to be reversed on playback. That's some serious processing.
I suppose this would also be a good time to mention that, if you want to put more than about 10 minutes worth of material onto a single side of a vinyl LP, you're going to have to further compress (or eliminate) any loud, low bass. The grooves can't be made wide enough to handle it. And of course, de-equalizing that RIAA curve on playback is an imprecise science, leading to all sorts of frequency response irregularities and phase issues. Whoops!
Ah yes, the wonderful, "naturally" compressed, unprocessed sound of vinyl. To summarize:
* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)
* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove
* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc
* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal
* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process
* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)
* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways
* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.
30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation
* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum
* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum
* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits
* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation
* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable
* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results
You're clearly uninformed from a technical standpoint. If you prefer the "sound" of vinyl, that's your business. But don't try to cloak your preference in technobabble you obviously don't begin to understand
Yes, tape is a "true backup medium", but it is *not* a suitable medium for longterm archival storage - at least, none of the affordable formats up till this point (like the DAT-derived DDS format) have been. There's a big difference between a backup medium (a copy that's probably replaced every day / week / month and is intended for use in the immediate future) and archival storage (a copy that's intended for use 5+ years in the future).
.), tapes themselves deteriorate over time. Here's an article about the problems the National Archives here in the United States have encountered with preserving copies of the Nixon tapes on DDS's audio cousin DAT. An excerpt:
While the failure of a tape drive won't separate you from your data (unless the drive damages the tape at the same time it fails . .
"During the National Archives' routine monitoring of the tapes'
condition, the analog reel-to-reel copies have shown no signs of
deterioration whereas there is an estimated 5-10% catastrophic failure
rate among the DATs in the collection. There appears to be no pattern
to the failures. It has occurred on new tapes that were recorded six
months ago, and it has occurred on tapes that were recorded six years
ago. It has occurred on all brands of DAT purchased throughout the
previous seven years. Accordingly, the archivists routinely reduplicate
these DATS on multiple copies. As insurance, archivists also transfer
DAT copies back onto analog reel-to-reel preservation copies. Unlike
the other preservation analog copies, these copies have not been
filtered and closely "mirror" the original tapes. Therefore, in the
future when technology has progressed, the archivists can retrieve
conversations that are extremely close to the original audio recordings
and enhance these with the latest technology."
Leading audio preservationists have issued their own warning. This company deals with audio preservation, and has some interesting things to say about tape formats - analog and digital.
Of course, DDS tapes have supposedly been manufactured to a higher standard than their Audio DAT cousins, sport finer particles and stronger binders, and the format includes additional error correction and redundancy. Still, these issues with a modern tape format like Audio DAT are not an encouraging sign for those seeking to perform archival storage using DDS and it contemporaries. HP for example only claims a 10 year archival life for DDS. Contrast that with the 75-100 year lifespans Kodak and TDK are claiming for CD-R.
These longevity issues won't just be confined to older tape backup formats though, if history is any indication. It's the nature of the medium. I think Sony is currently claiming a 30-year lifespan for AIT, and HP something similar for their new format, but of course we only have a couple of years' experience with them so far, and given the incredible data density of those formats, if something should go wrong with either of them the results could be catastrophic. Unexpected deterioration has certainly happened with tape before - witness this article composer and synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos put on her website, as well as her own experience with her older tape masters.
Hard drives certainly aren't a great archival medium either, but I wouldn't be so quick to assert that tape is superior. At least drives have the advantage of being sealed from the outside atmosphere, and contain within them all the logic and hardware required to extract that information in the future. The only big issues I can see are, will there still be equipment to interface with them in 10 to 20 years (probably, since IDE is so widespread) and will the drives still spin up in 10 to 20 years (who knows). It's that second issue that's the real buzzkill for HD's as a longterm storage medium. Manufacturers won't even issue a decent warranty on drives anymore. What does that say about their planned longevity?
Me, I think your best bet is DVD. But if you really want to be able to read that data in the future, I'd suggest copying it to at least two different formats, perhaps AIT *and* DVD. Don't forget to check on it every few years, too. If there's any sign of deterioration, you'll hopefully be able to make another clone before the failure becomes catastrophic (perhaps to a superior format that hasn't even been invented yet). If you want something you can just throw in a hole and forget about, sorry - that media doesn't exist.
That depends to some degree on the kind of rock that water was passing through. Was it hard, like basalt is here on earth, or was it softer stuff, perhaps some type of sedimentary deposit comprised of compacted regolith and permafrost?
The Grand Canyon wasn't carved by the explosive melting of permafrost encased in a layer of regolith, either. With that much sediment in suspension, who knows how long it might take to carve deep features, even in relatively hard rock. Similar events could have been commonplace on the early Earth as well, but all trace of them would have been erased by geologic forces on this planet's active surface.
You're also assuming the water carved all of the features we see today on Mars unaided. The problem with that assumption is that water would naturally flow through any existing cracks and low spots in the crust, ones that should have formed naturally as the planet cooled and its crust contracted.
I'd say this theory is by far the best yet for explaining how the surface of Mars came to look the way it does today. I certainly find it more plausible than the assertion that Mars was once warm, wet and earthlike, sporting vast oceans. Perhaps that was the case *very* early in its history, but once the surface began to cool the tiny planet was far too small to hold an appreciable atmosphere at that distance from the sun, particularly given how dim the sun was over 3.5 billion years ago. Lighter greenhouse gasses like methane would have quickly escaped into space, while heavier ones like water vapor would have frozen out at the poles. Eventually, the surface of the planet became so cold even CO2 started to freeze, and at that point it was all over for Mars.
Earth went through its own snowball phase at least once, perhaps several times during its evolution after its surface had finally cooled (a process that took far longer here than it did on tiny Mars, I might add). It apparently never became cold enough here for CO2 to freeze out of the atmosphere though, and Earth is massive enough to retain enough lighter greenhouse gasses (like methane) long enough for them to make a significant contribution toward warming the planet's surface. Eventually, that volcanic activity belched enough greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to free the oceans of their coat of ice. It didn't hurt that Earth was much closer to the sun than Mars either, or that by the time Earth was going through its big freeze, the sun was significantly brighter than it had been when Mars began to freeze over.
Why do people who can't read keep getting modded as "insightful" here at /.?
>Doesnt anyone think we'd notice the pothole
>left by a 150 mile wide asteroid?
Please READ the article:
"Segura and colleagues used photographs of the Red Planet's surface and computer models to show that large asteroids or comets hit the planet 3.5 billion years ago."
That's 3.5 *billion* years. Almost any impact crater from 3.5 billion years ago on the surface of the Earth would have long ago been eroded away, uplifted by faults into mountains, or subducted down into the mantle. In any case, they'd be difficult or impossible to identify now. Very little of the Earth's surface from 3.5 billion years ago remains intact. On Mars, it's a completely different story.
There are a handful of large craters on Earth that are still identifiable after around 2 billion years, as this article makes clear. But the giants formed by large impactors from early in our solar system's history have long ago been erased (or at least thoroughly obscured) from the surface of this world.
Our moon on the other hand has plenty of gigantic impact scars left over from before 3.5 billion years ago. For example, the gigantic Imbrium crater on the lunar surface is around 700 miles in diameter, and was formed about 3.85 billion years ago. There are several lunar craters in excess of 500 miles in diameter. Our moon is also home to the largest known impact crater in the solar system, the colossal 1,300 mile wide South Pole-Aitken Basin.
>While spaceborne objects would be a nice
>explanation for these formations- if a bit
>uncreative- it forgets the element of the
>atmosphere, which is the only reason Earth
>doesn't get pounded into rubble every meteor
>shower.
Eh? Did you read the article at all? We aren't talking about shooting stars here - we're talking about asteroids and comets that are miles across slamming into the planet. Objects that big wouldn't even notice the thin atmospheres of worlds like Mars and Earth. At the speeds they're traveling, they'd blow right through them in a couple of seconds and smash into the surface, releasing a tremendous amount of energy in the process and - if they're large enough - melting much of the subsurface permafrost on a world like Mars.
>For one, there is no evidence of any other planetary body
>which would have gotten a significant infusion of water
>this way and it seems unlikely that Mars would have been the
>only target.
You must not have read the article, or at least you didn't read it carefully. The water wasn't all delivered by the bodies that collided with Mars - much of it would have already been in place, trapped as ice beneath the surface and at the poles (as we believe it is today). Furthermore, we have lots of evidence that water ice can be delivered to planets via comets - we actually watched comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smash into Jupiter in 1994. That comet consisted of around 21 fragments, some with diameters of well over a mile, and had a visible impact even on that giant planet's atmosphere. You can visit this site to get an overview of the massive (and unexpected) results of their fiery plunge into Jupiter. Had it smacked Mars instead, it would have injected a vast amount of water vapor (and other gasses) into the thin Martian atmosphere, radically altering its composition.
Even today, if a large comet or even a sufficiently sized iceless asteroid slammed into the surface, it would produce a massive explosion, throw mountains worth of material into the atmosphere and generate a tremendous shockwave. The heat that would result from such events - including the rain of ejected rock falling back to the surface of Mars - could melt that subsurface permafrost on a global scale. Throw in any ice delivered by the impactor itself (for example, from a 20 mile wide comet) and you'd have one hell of a flood.
As CO2 and water vapor poured into the atmosphere, they'd rapidly insulate the planet, allowing still more ice to melt and resulting in colossal floods on a global scale. Another article I've seen on this theory points out the atmosphere could become hotter than a self-cleaning oven (more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit). This flooding could go on for years, until Mars cooled and its water vapor / CO2 atmosphere largely precipitated out, seeped through all the regolith at the surface, and refroze as a layer of permafrost.
Nobody knows.
Where do you think it all came from?
Did you murder your last wife?