That's one of the main reasons I drive a manual transmission: I can adjust my speed without having to use my brakes. Makes the brake pads last longer too.
Problem with this is that it's harder to tell when the person in front of you is slowing down if they're only using their engine to do so. I just took driver's ed here in Belgium (where everyone drives a manual), and, although they do teach us to break using the engine, they also teach us to tap the break *before* we downshift in order to alert the driver behind us.
And, btw, you're saving your break pads at the cost of more wear on your clutch and more stress on your engine, unless you also match your RPMs to your speed before you reengage the clutch (something they didn't teach me in driver's ed).
If every user of that game/virtual world suddenly got everything free, it might affect that company's pockets, but it wouldn't destroy the world economy, right?
It wouldn't destroy the real world economy but it would destroy the in-game economy, which, besides affecting the company, might also affect players as well.
How many times a week do we hear about law enforcement going into apoplectic seizures when someone thinks they saw some shifty character hanging around somewhere or an innocent package left behind shuts down some place?
For your amusement, a quote printed in Newsweek this week:
As far as I'm aware it's not a criminal offense to cook very strong chili - Sue Wasboonma, owner of a London Thai restaurant, after police mistook fumes from her hot sauce for a chemical attack and evacuated buildings and streets
Apparently she was dry-frying nine pounds of chilis to make sauce, and due to weather conditions the resulting cloud of fumes descended on a nearby market street. Considering how harsh chili fumes can be...
I can't understand what point you're trying to make. My understanding was that gp was giving the standard answer of "consumers will vote with their feet" and stop patronizing any company that ignored things like property and contracts. My cynical response was that this is only true in an ideal world where consumers are fully informed and rational and the market is free.
Word-of-mouth should be enuf to keep companies in line
Should be, but it ain't. It would only be sufficient with rational consumers who have access to perfect information (same condition for true capitalism, btw).
Isn't the threshold for pain or damage (what I would consider the upper bound to the sensitivity of your hearing) somewhere around 120dB above the auditory threshold? Someone with excellent hearing should be able to hear the noise of the quantizer, in this case.
Of course, the noise floor on vinyl is typically somewhere around -60dB, so you can't claim it's better on that count.
I hope you realise that the so-called charter for fundamental rights included worker protection "rights" (things like the 35 hour workweek or not being able to fire you unless you blow up the building) - not something I want here in Belgium.
In any case, lat poll I heard on the BBC said that only 30% of British citizens supported the constitution.
Poland's helping to block the constitution too, as they don't want to give up the voting rights they have under the current system. The nice thing is that they're being honest about their motivation.
You do indeed own that copy of the software, but installing the software makes a new copy on your hard disk and running it makes a new copy in RAM. The law (at least, European law, and I can't imagine that US law is any laxer) has a special exception for technically necessary copies, such as a RAM copy when loading a program and a cache copy when viewing web sites, but as far as I know installing is not covered by this exception. Running it from the CD without accepting the EULA would therefore be perfectly legal.
Seems people have forgotten Sony's VAIO x505: tapered from.75in at the back to.3 at the front and weight 1.85lb. Problem was, it was only sold in Japan and in very limited numbers in the US.
Personally, I'd love a good ultralight. Give me a small machine any day - something you can flip open on the bus or train without a second thought. Rip any entertainment (so you can dump the optical drive) and run any computationally-intensive tasks on a remote desktop via ssh.
He did indeed ignore thermal noise, but wasn't that the whole point of this thread? The original poster was claiming that the shot noise was audible with record players, but even with your numbers for the voltage and impedance it is still a factor 100 smaller than CD quantization noise.
A few numbers off a piece of scratch paper: The power output of that Shure pickup is -74dBm The thermal noise level for audio is -130dBm, giving us an SNR of 56dB at the pickup (decent) A CD has an signal-to-quantization-noise level of 96dB, a 40dB improvement (significant) Your Shure pickup has a signal-to-quantization-noise level of 138dB, another 40dB better. As the healthy human ear seems to have a range up to 130dB, this might just be audible.
The moral is that the electron noise in a record player is much lower than the quantization noise in a CD and will barely be audible, even when the music volume is jacked up to the threshold of pain. Therefore, electron noise plays no significant part and the problem with records remains the thermal noise and dust.
Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen.
Easy to fix. The Belgian ID card has a smart chip with an RSA certificate signed by the government. With it you can legally authenticate yourself and sign documents electronically. It is impossible to steal the cert, however, as it's generated on-chip and the chip does not contain the functionality to let it be read by an external device. Therefore, a sucessful authentication exchange guarantees that you're talking with that person's card and someone who knows its pin.
Various websites, such as the login for my university and certain Belgian banks, already allow you to use the card to authenticate yourself.
As far as I know, the high-speed trains don't slow down for towns. They definitely don't stop in them, and seeing as there's often a special high-speed track there's rarely anything in the way.
Anecdotal evidence: When standing in the train station here, I often see the TGV barreling through at what must be at least 100km/h. I've also ridden on the Eurostar a few times (Brussels-London) and don't recall much slowing down (on the French side, at least, where they have good track). There are also safety concerns with the new track they just laid in Antwerp, as the TGV route now passes through a busy open-air station at high speed with only minimal warning.
for blood pressure and cholesterol medicine alone.
Try garlic for the cholesterol. I have a great uncle who had a serious cholesterol problem (he was a butcher, might have something to do with it) and he managed to improve it significantly by regularly eating a whole ball of garlic. It's apparently great roasted in the oven with some toast.
Can't guarantee it won't affect your social life, though.
Yes it's advertising, but I specifically said they do not count, not that they aren't. Whenever people complain about advertisements, they mean, as Tepples said, the untargeted junk of recent years. Nobody I know complains about previews, and in fact I've heard people complaining about the fact that there have been fewer previews since those TV ads started appearing. Previews just aren't viewed as ads (even though they may be ads) but more like free samples or the excerpt on the back of a book.
Now in retrospect, I'll admit that I've been arguing against the wrong person. AC was right - it is an advertising-supported model. However it is a successful and publicly-supported model and I'd say that most people don't even see it as being advertising-supported. That's probably the mentality that motivated the original "a model other than advertising" comment.
I will always think internally in degrees Fahrenheit till the day I die. It is what it is.
I think you'll find that your mind is surprisingly flexible.
Personally, I started with the metric system but moved to the US when I was ten. When I left the US nine years later I was just like you - using SAE because it felt right. I've now been in Europe for four years and I've completely switched back to the metric system.
It's all a matter of what your surroundings are measured in.
The only thing any wave cannot pass through is a perfectly conductive medium. For any other type of material, a portion of the wave will pass through, a portion will reflect, and a portion will be dissipated. Whether the transmitted wave is above the noise threshold is another matter, however, and depends on the conductivity and thickness of the material and the frequency of the incident wave.
Best relevant example I can think of is submarine communication. The ocean is a rather conductive medium compared to anything but metal and will therefore block anything of moderately high frequency. However, low frequencies will penetrate slightly and can be used for slow communication.
I expect there's some truth to this, but it's also cultural for a large part. When I was 8 we moved to Australia for a few years and my mother would regularly take my brother and I to the local playground. She told me that one time we were wrestling with the other boys and throwing each other around a bit, but when she moved to stop us the other mothers held her back saying that boys need to get that out of their system.
Actually, the issue I have with cell phones is not so much the phone itself but the idea that you are always reachable. I know a number of people who think you should always have your phone with you and would take offence if you just rejected their call (easy to tell by the # of rings). Of course, I feel similarly about fixed phones - if I'm really busy or eating a meal I'll just let it go to voicemail and call back later. Thankfully, most people who call me know that I often don't pick up but usually call back soon. Used this way, I consider a cell perfectly acceptable.
Unfortunately there is some distortion introduced by digital sampling, namely due to quantization. On the other hand, it's so small that it's effectively inaudible at normal recording levels - it only becomes an issue when you start approaching the -96dB mark.
and sheer intimidating bulk (we're aggressive drivers)
I've driven both in the US (northeast) and northwestern Europe, and I can guarantee you that the Europeans have you beat. They are the fastest, most impatient drivers I have ever seen. A few examples:
- Speed limits: Here in Belgium, the max is 120kph (~75mph) and you regularly see people driving at 160 (~100) without flinching. For this reason, there's a speeding camera roughly ever third traffic light. - In Paris, if you don't immediately go when the light changes, the car behind you will give you a push. - In a similar veign, my grandma rearended someone because she hit the gas when the light changed and the car in front of her didn't. - My father was brought up here and once took a course in driving fast safely. He was in London with a few US colleagues and was driving as he normally does - fast corners, slaloming - until he noticed that the passengers were all white as sheets and holding on for dear life.
Surprisingly enough, there doesn't seem to be an excessive amount of accidents here - could be because the driver's exam is significantly harder than in the US.
BTW, on that safe? I bet the walls are thin. If not that, then there is some sort of physical weakness and a pro would have it open faster than the police would show up, but as you did note, the grab and run burglars wouldn't bother.
Reminds me of a quick story from my great uncle. He'd bought a little safe like that to hide valuables, documents, etc. He wanted to find some way to fix it in place, so without stopping to think he grabbed his biggest drill and drilled two holes through the back for bolts...
Needless to say, he left his valuables in a bank safe deposit box instead.
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That's one of the main reasons I drive a manual transmission: I can adjust my speed without having to use my brakes. Makes the brake pads last longer too.
Problem with this is that it's harder to tell when the person in front of you is slowing down if they're only using their engine to do so. I just took driver's ed here in Belgium (where everyone drives a manual), and, although they do teach us to break using the engine, they also teach us to tap the break *before* we downshift in order to alert the driver behind us.
And, btw, you're saving your break pads at the cost of more wear on your clutch and more stress on your engine, unless you also match your RPMs to your speed before you reengage the clutch (something they didn't teach me in driver's ed).
If every user of that game/virtual world suddenly got everything free, it might affect that company's pockets, but it wouldn't destroy the world economy, right?
It wouldn't destroy the real world economy but it would destroy the in-game economy, which, besides affecting the company, might also affect players as well.
For your amusement, a quote printed in Newsweek this week:
As far as I'm aware it's not a criminal offense to cook very strong chili
- Sue Wasboonma, owner of a London Thai restaurant, after police mistook fumes from her hot sauce for a chemical attack and evacuated buildings and streets
Apparently she was dry-frying nine pounds of chilis to make sauce, and due to weather conditions the resulting cloud of fumes descended on a nearby market street. Considering how harsh chili fumes can be...
I can't understand what point you're trying to make. My understanding was that gp was giving the standard answer of "consumers will vote with their feet" and stop patronizing any company that ignored things like property and contracts. My cynical response was that this is only true in an ideal world where consumers are fully informed and rational and the market is free.
You understood it differently?
Word-of-mouth should be enuf to keep companies in line
Should be, but it ain't. It would only be sufficient with rational consumers who have access to perfect information (same condition for true capitalism, btw).
Isn't the threshold for pain or damage (what I would consider the upper bound to the sensitivity of your hearing) somewhere around 120dB above the auditory threshold? Someone with excellent hearing should be able to hear the noise of the quantizer, in this case.
Of course, the noise floor on vinyl is typically somewhere around -60dB, so you can't claim it's better on that count.
Jw
I hope you realise that the so-called charter for fundamental rights included worker protection "rights" (things like the 35 hour workweek or not being able to fire you unless you blow up the building) - not something I want here in Belgium.
In any case, lat poll I heard on the BBC said that only 30% of British citizens supported the constitution.
Poland's helping to block the constitution too, as they don't want to give up the voting rights they have under the current system. The nice thing is that they're being honest about their motivation.
Jw
You do indeed own that copy of the software, but installing the software makes a new copy on your hard disk and running it makes a new copy in RAM. The law (at least, European law, and I can't imagine that US law is any laxer) has a special exception for technically necessary copies, such as a RAM copy when loading a program and a cache copy when viewing web sites, but as far as I know installing is not covered by this exception. Running it from the CD without accepting the EULA would therefore be perfectly legal.
IANAL, but I did just finish a course on IP Law.
Seems people have forgotten Sony's VAIO x505: tapered from .75in at the back to .3 at the front and weight 1.85lb. Problem was, it was only sold in Japan and in very limited numbers in the US.
Personally, I'd love a good ultralight. Give me a small machine any day - something you can flip open on the bus or train without a second thought. Rip any entertainment (so you can dump the optical drive) and run any computationally-intensive tasks on a remote desktop via ssh.
Jw
He did indeed ignore thermal noise, but wasn't that the whole point of this thread? The original poster was claiming that the shot noise was audible with record players, but even with your numbers for the voltage and impedance it is still a factor 100 smaller than CD quantization noise.
A few numbers off a piece of scratch paper:
The power output of that Shure pickup is -74dBm
The thermal noise level for audio is -130dBm, giving us an SNR of 56dB at the pickup (decent)
A CD has an signal-to-quantization-noise level of 96dB, a 40dB improvement (significant)
Your Shure pickup has a signal-to-quantization-noise level of 138dB, another 40dB better. As the healthy human ear seems to have a range up to 130dB, this might just be audible.
The moral is that the electron noise in a record player is much lower than the quantization noise in a CD and will barely be audible, even when the music volume is jacked up to the threshold of pain. Therefore, electron noise plays no significant part and the problem with records remains the thermal noise and dust.
Electronic transactions. An ID won't help you in electronic communications. You can't present your ID to a web page. They might start collecting Real ID numbers, but, like SS numbers, they can be stolen.
Easy to fix. The Belgian ID card has a smart chip with an RSA certificate signed by the government. With it you can legally authenticate yourself and sign documents electronically. It is impossible to steal the cert, however, as it's generated on-chip and the chip does not contain the functionality to let it be read by an external device. Therefore, a sucessful authentication exchange guarantees that you're talking with that person's card and someone who knows its pin.
Various websites, such as the login for my university and certain Belgian banks, already allow you to use the card to authenticate yourself.
Jw
As far as I know, the high-speed trains don't slow down for towns. They definitely don't stop in them, and seeing as there's often a special high-speed track there's rarely anything in the way.
Anecdotal evidence: When standing in the train station here, I often see the TGV barreling through at what must be at least 100km/h. I've also ridden on the Eurostar a few times (Brussels-London) and don't recall much slowing down (on the French side, at least, where they have good track). There are also safety concerns with the new track they just laid in Antwerp, as the TGV route now passes through a busy open-air station at high speed with only minimal warning.
Jw
Tax rates, however, are awful - income tax can be as high as 75% in extreme cases.
Jw
for blood pressure and cholesterol medicine alone.
Try garlic for the cholesterol. I have a great uncle who had a serious cholesterol problem (he was a butcher, might have something to do with it) and he managed to improve it significantly by regularly eating a whole ball of garlic. It's apparently great roasted in the oven with some toast.
Can't guarantee it won't affect your social life, though.
Yes it's advertising, but I specifically said they do not count, not that they aren't. Whenever people complain about advertisements, they mean, as Tepples said, the untargeted junk of recent years. Nobody I know complains about previews, and in fact I've heard people complaining about the fact that there have been fewer previews since those TV ads started appearing. Previews just aren't viewed as ads (even though they may be ads) but more like free samples or the excerpt on the back of a book.
Now in retrospect, I'll admit that I've been arguing against the wrong person. AC was right - it is an advertising-supported model. However it is a successful and publicly-supported model and I'd say that most people don't even see it as being advertising-supported. That's probably the mentality that motivated the original "a model other than advertising" comment.
It's the truth. Anything I would actively seek out to watch, I do not consider a commercial.
A recent phenomenon. It's not that long ago that commercials before a movie were unthinkable.
BTW, previews do not count as commercials, at least not in a cinema.
Jw
I will always think internally in degrees Fahrenheit till the day I die. It is what it is.
I think you'll find that your mind is surprisingly flexible.
Personally, I started with the metric system but moved to the US when I was ten. When I left the US nine years later I was just like you - using SAE because it felt right. I've now been in Europe for four years and I've completely switched back to the metric system.
It's all a matter of what your surroundings are measured in.
Jw
The only thing any wave cannot pass through is a perfectly conductive medium. For any other type of material, a portion of the wave will pass through, a portion will reflect, and a portion will be dissipated. Whether the transmitted wave is above the noise threshold is another matter, however, and depends on the conductivity and thickness of the material and the frequency of the incident wave.
Best relevant example I can think of is submarine communication. The ocean is a rather conductive medium compared to anything but metal and will therefore block anything of moderately high frequency. However, low frequencies will penetrate slightly and can be used for slow communication.
Jw
I expect there's some truth to this, but it's also cultural for a large part. When I was 8 we moved to Australia for a few years and my mother would regularly take my brother and I to the local playground. She told me that one time we were wrestling with the other boys and throwing each other around a bit, but when she moved to stop us the other mothers held her back saying that boys need to get that out of their system.
Jw
Actually, the issue I have with cell phones is not so much the phone itself but the idea that you are always reachable. I know a number of people who think you should always have your phone with you and would take offence if you just rejected their call (easy to tell by the # of rings). Of course, I feel similarly about fixed phones - if I'm really busy or eating a meal I'll just let it go to voicemail and call back later.
Thankfully, most people who call me know that I often don't pick up but usually call back soon. Used this way, I consider a cell perfectly acceptable.
Jw
Unfortunately there is some distortion introduced by digital sampling, namely due to quantization. On the other hand, it's so small that it's effectively inaudible at normal recording levels - it only becomes an issue when you start approaching the -96dB mark.
Jw
and sheer intimidating bulk (we're aggressive drivers)
I've driven both in the US (northeast) and northwestern Europe, and I can guarantee you that the Europeans have you beat. They are the fastest, most impatient drivers I have ever seen. A few examples:
- Speed limits: Here in Belgium, the max is 120kph (~75mph) and you regularly see people driving at 160 (~100) without flinching. For this reason, there's a speeding camera roughly ever third traffic light.
- In Paris, if you don't immediately go when the light changes, the car behind you will give you a push.
- In a similar veign, my grandma rearended someone because she hit the gas when the light changed and the car in front of her didn't.
- My father was brought up here and once took a course in driving fast safely. He was in London with a few US colleagues and was driving as he normally does - fast corners, slaloming - until he noticed that the passengers were all white as sheets and holding on for dear life.
Surprisingly enough, there doesn't seem to be an excessive amount of accidents here - could be because the driver's exam is significantly harder than in the US.
Jw
BTW, on that safe? I bet the walls are thin. If not that, then there is some sort of physical weakness and a pro would have it open faster than the police would show up, but as you did note, the grab and run burglars wouldn't bother.
Reminds me of a quick story from my great uncle. He'd bought a little safe like that to hide valuables, documents, etc. He wanted to find some way to fix it in place, so without stopping to think he grabbed his biggest drill and drilled two holes through the back for bolts...
Needless to say, he left his valuables in a bank safe deposit box instead.
Jw
What the smurf did all that mean?