Vacuum tubes are the best. They saturate with only even-n harmonics, making them sound 'warm' or 'natural', unlike the random things you can do with digital audio streams.
It's the same idea as the harmonics of a guitar string.
Look up "Fourier Decomposition of a Wave" on Wikipedia for more details.
As a practical matter, the human ear filters everything below about 20 hz and above 10-20 khz (depending on age, noise exposure, and genetics). A carefully-produced CD at 16 bit/44.1 khz can reproduce everything that's audible...
Except that anything at 20 kHz will be a triangular wave when sampled down to 44.1 kHz for CD-pressing. (I think CD-mastering involves a 22 kHz low-pass filter because of this.)
Sound is more than a single pitch. It is the 'shape' of the wave — Mathematically speaking, that shape comprises a number of different frequencies, and at different phases relative to one another.
Does anyone else around here ever get tired of being a Cassandra?
People won't heed warnings about stupid new 'tech devices'. But 10 years later, once it has bitten them in the ass, they complain to us that we weren't emphatic enough.
>> the most intense hurricane ever observed in the Western Hemisphere...and record central pacific hurricane activity.
I believe the biggest knock on Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie was the prediction of lots of new super-hurricanes that hasn't come true, especially not in recent years. I'd be careful trying to link the two again...
I predict that you will not die of an aggressive cancer in the next few months.
I pray that my prediction is as "wrong" as your colorization of the hypotheses presented in An Inconvenient Truth.
That is, I hope you die – soon. People like you are stymieing real political and technological progress that can address this threat to human existence.
No need to 'Save the Earth' — It will do just fine without humans around to foul it up.
Quite apart from the question of whether this is feasible, I think am important question is whether this is morally right? People who have lived in a cplace for generations generally get up in arms if a large group - say, muslims - suddenly stream in and want to change things; the same will apply with any other large group. They are simply newcomers, who want to impose their views on people. And, of course, isn't there something contradictory in trying to impose "Freedom" on anybody?
Uhm, how about "The Freedom of Association" enshrined in the US Constitution?
You do know that States are part of the 'Union' that comprises the 'United States of America', right?
John Brennan did pretty much that, stripping naked in protest of invasive TSA procedures. He was arrested for indecent exposure, taken to jail, and fined $1000 by TSA for "interference with screening personnel." He was found not guilty on the indecent exposure charge, the fine is still in appeals 4+ years later, but I'm pretty sure his legal expenses are in five figures.
I wouldn't for a moment discourage you from this plan, but please do be aware of what you're getting into, and the extent to which they will fuck with you.
Do you mean John Brennan, the CIA Director? Kind of a powerful guy, who I would imagine travels with an entourage of security, and has some exception that even Congress-members do not get.
If so, I'd really appreciate a source. Your story rings true, oh-so-true, but I haven't been able to find a source confirming it.
I any case, I'll wear my "banana hammock" g-string swimsuit underneath, or a Speedo (which has a label) every time I fly. If it's not indecent on the beach or in a swim competition, then it's not indecent in the airport. I have a feeling the press coverage it would generate might get me a pro bono attorney – one who is trying to make their name.
Now, please provide any kind of citation for what you're saying, and I want data and not anecdotes before I will consider your response worth of perusal. What I've said here is well-known, it should not come as a surprise. Your refusal to believe it is also not a surprise.
Yeah, OK. Fine.
I bought a condo that had been foreclosed upon. Squatters had been living there, rent-free, for over 14 months. I bought the place to actually live in, but due to local "renters' rights" laws, I had to pay these assholes $8000 for "moving expenses", plus wait two months before I could move in. They caused a few thousand $$$'s of damage to the place before leaving. When I tried to get compensation for that, they brought the local rent-control board down on me, which threatened me with tons of fines, and actually re-controlled this property which had been removed from rent control since 1992 (like all other units in the large complex).
I also wrote to the bank, offering to act as a bounty hunter (which is an easy license to obtain), in order to collect the 14+ months of back-rent. That would have meant about $15,000 in free money (and the same to me) to the bank that had foreclosed on the landlord, who had done this same stunt with four local condos, and in the end absconded back to his home country as a rich man. The foreclosing bank, which stood to gain $$$$$$, without diminishing any other compensation or tax breaks, would not even reply to my multiple letters. They did not care. It was a small bank in a fly-over state, so I doubt that they needed the tax deductions. They were just clueless.
That is: Banks are not landlords. They do not want to be landlords. They suck at it. They will deliberately forego income/profits for the simple reason that they are clueless in landlord-tenant law.
OK, as I said, I didn't do the math, but wrote from memory.
IM is closer to 100 ions/atoms per m^2, not the 1 I stated. Off by two orders of magnitude — for physicists, that is a close enough estimate. It is still far less dense in relation to any terrestrial ultra-high vacuum systems (which I work with on a routine basis, Mr. 'rectum face').
Say, why did you post as an AC? Are you scared of me? Space is empty. If you don't believe me, please go visit it in person.
Here it is, in 2006, by Animats (/.ID#: 122034) Alter Relationship on Monday December 26, 2005 @10:39PM (#14343315)
Saudi Arabia finally admits the Gawar field has peaked. Oil passes $70 per barrel.
US interest rate spike. "Homeowners" with adjustable-rate interest-only loans default and are foreclosed.
Housing prices crash as foreclosures glut market.
Congress finally starts investigating some activities of the Bush administration.
No real change in Iraq. Neither side can force a decision, so both sides keep bleeding.
China announces major progress in their space program.
Micropayments flop, again. Goodbye, Bitpass.
A Cat 4 or 5 hurricane wipes out another southern US city, or New Orleans floods again.
One of the big three US car manufacturers goes bankrupt.
Total number of active blogs decreases.
Here's the post from Wyatt Earp (/. ID#: 1029) 10 years ago. He nailed it:
Advancements in artificial limb technology driven by the Iraqi Military Operations Advancements in stripping the psychotropic effects of drugs like Ketamine and X for use as pain killers, driven by the Iraqi Military Operations A video card that cracks the $1000 US price point More hybrid and bio diesel technology from the big Automakers F/A-22, Eurofighter Typhoon purchases get cut, F/A-22 or the F-35 programs might get totally eliminated by the US DoD Quad core AMD and Intel server chips US program to put GPS in all cars becomes a political hot issue UK program to track all cars does not become a political hot issue
N.B.: For various reasons these ships would need to be quite large. A question that hasn't been answered is "What is the minimum number of people required to maintain a technological civilization?", but presumably laser communications would be possible and cut down the minimum number. So say a stable population of 100,000 or more....
Yep, a large population.
But one quibble with communications: Lasers have divergence. On human length-scales, they are close enough to being collimated. On interstellar, or even just Earth-local stellar, beam divergence means loss of signal at greater distances. Satellite-to-satellite communications by laser are hampered by this.
Lenses don't help, and in any case, because lasers are coherent, there is the problem of 'laser speckle' on the receiving end. That is, nano-scale imperfections in your laser window result in a specific but unique pattern of little specks surrounding your main beam, due to interference of the coherent photons.
Better to stick with a parabolic radio dish. Both are light, and travel at the same speed.
By interstellar medium, does the author mean "space." That is, dimensional space but a very hard vacuum.
Isn't interstellar space somewhere around 10^-25 Torr, or roughly one atom per cubic meter? (I did not check my math for the conversion, so go easy on me.)
For comparison: On Earth, we can build usable vacuum chambers that go down to about 10^-13 Torr, at room 'temperature'. Lower than that, hydrogen just seeps through your chamber walls as if it they were a sieve. And a single fingerprint can out-gas for a month.
There is NO interstellar "medium". It is called space; void.
How CRAZY would we think it of MONKEYS who want to live underwater? We'd marvel at why happy jungle monkeys would leave a comfortable environment free of most predators and full of food to go somewhere hostile where they can't breathe, their temperature will decay, and without machine aids would soon die.
You make some nice points, but actually, living underwater is something we can do, and should do.
Build a hyperbaric lab (think of the South Pole stations) –with work, living, and socializing quarters. 200 m deep, 400 m deep. Each level with air pressure (and gas mix) appropriate for human function.
Why? Oh, TONS of reasons. Medicine, microbiology, sub-cellular chemistry, organic chemistry, drug discovery, hydrothermal vent investigations, immediate access to the deep-water conditions one wants to study because you live in a large building or complex that is at 200 or 400 m under the sea
You walk around in pants and a shirt. There is enough space that it does not feel like a jail. And instead of taking a two-week field trip as an oceanographer (or whatever), you just live at the pressure. No autoclaves, no high humidity, and an environment like a large hotel-hosted conference, with labs. In the labs, you just put on regular safety equipment.
As for results, materials synthesis, medicine, and even some manufacturing processes would benefit tremendously from being able to rent lab space for 3 to 12 months. Vapor pressures of chemicals are the same at any given temperature.
Humanity needs a hyperbaric lab. Pressure is a state variable, just like temperature, but a little more difficult to work with. A hyperbaric lab complex would solve this problem. It would also open up myriad new R&D projects.
It is possible. Far more possible than a moon base, and infinitely more possible than a Mars station.
How did this get posted the the/. main-page? Forbes is a magazine about money, with a known editorial slant. The article's author apparently discovered science fiction novels, and then perused Wikipedia for all of his sources (except for a pic or two from NASA/JPL, which are public == free).
WP is great, but for some bozo to lazily summarize a few WP articles, all written by many volunteers, including their fair-use images, and then selling it in a for-profit magazine w/website is disgusting.
It's totally against everything that Wikipedia is about. Ah, but it is also everything that Forbes is about. So there is that.
I will likely be initiating an interference proceeding.
Oh well, back to my 30 patents, of which a family of 20 is being heavily and overtly infringed.
Well, far be it from me to recommend against entering into a proceeding that could cost anywhere between $20k-$200k, without a guarantee of getting a patent at the end of it. Good luck to you. I'll go back to the 3000 patents on my docket and the 8 associates I oversee.
WOW! You are a true super-hero. But unlike real superheroes, you leave digital footprints all over the place.
So, Mr. Jeffrey Dixon, of HINSHAW Law, do you feel proud now of your prowess, and your 'management' of eight assistants? You are really powerful. I should fear you. Boo-gah boo-gah!.
I know your boss, personally. So, really just shut the f*ck up about being a gigantic patent stud, when all you really do is put into text the ideas of actual inventors, geniuses, professors, etc.
Feel proud that you are able to reduce descriptions of brilliant ideas into legalese. That is a monkey-talent that not every person can learn.
As for having brilliant ideas. . . Well, you have none; otherwise you would be an inventor/scientist/etc. — You are simply a scribe – one who serves at the leisure of your intellectual superiors.
Yes, I see you looked me up on LinkedIn. You deserve a medal for that. Or at least a certificate!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the bad rap that big wind turbines get is undeserved.
Skyscrapers and power lines kill far more birds than wind turbines.
And, y'know, I never heard anyone sling that mud at the idea of a Space Elevator. . . I wonder why.
27Mw is no small prototype, but there seems to be nothing about it anywhere.
That's how it is with prototypes.
This is why the word begins with the Latin root protos, meaning first or primitive.
It's not April 1 yet, is it?
Vacuum tubes are the best. They saturate with only even-n harmonics, making them sound 'warm' or 'natural', unlike the random things you can do with digital audio streams.
It's the same idea as the harmonics of a guitar string.
Look up "Fourier Decomposition of a Wave" on Wikipedia for more details.
I skip both vinyl and CDs, and simply go to hear music live. Or play it myself with friends.
It sounds so real and faithful that way.
As a practical matter, the human ear filters everything below about 20 hz and above 10-20 khz (depending on age, noise exposure, and genetics). A carefully-produced CD at 16 bit/44.1 khz can reproduce everything that's audible...
Except that anything at 20 kHz will be a triangular wave when sampled down to 44.1 kHz for CD-pressing. (I think CD-mastering involves a 22 kHz low-pass filter because of this.)
Sound is more than a single pitch. It is the 'shape' of the wave — Mathematically speaking, that shape comprises a number of different frequencies, and at different phases relative to one another.
Does anyone else around here ever get tired of being a Cassandra?
People won't heed warnings about stupid new 'tech devices'. But 10 years later, once it has bitten them in the ass, they complain to us that we weren't emphatic enough.
Society gets what it asks for.
>> the most intense hurricane ever observed in the Western Hemisphere...and record central pacific hurricane activity.
I believe the biggest knock on Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie was the prediction of lots of new super-hurricanes that hasn't come true, especially not in recent years. I'd be careful trying to link the two again...
I predict that you will not die of an aggressive cancer in the next few months.
I pray that my prediction is as "wrong" as your colorization of the hypotheses presented in An Inconvenient Truth.
That is, I hope you die – soon. People like you are stymieing real political and technological progress that can address this threat to human existence.
No need to 'Save the Earth' — It will do just fine without humans around to foul it up.
Apparently "liberty-minded" means "interested in co-opting" someone else's constituency,
Americans are free to live wherever they so choose.
Would you prefer, "Papers please" at every State border?
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
Drug laws are disproportionately directed at blacks. Commercial sex laws are almost exclusively directed at women. Libertarians want to repeal both.
Oh, for some mod points!
Ah, but I already commented here. So, #ShanghaiBill, I do my best to say YES YES YES. Their goal is an even playing field —fairness.
Quite apart from the question of whether this is feasible, I think am important question is whether this is morally right? People who have lived in a cplace for generations generally get up in arms if a large group - say, muslims - suddenly stream in and want to change things; the same will apply with any other large group. They are simply newcomers, who want to impose their views on people. And, of course, isn't there something contradictory in trying to impose "Freedom" on anybody?
Uhm, how about "The Freedom of Association" enshrined in the US Constitution?
You do know that States are part of the 'Union' that comprises the 'United States of America', right?
John Brennan did pretty much that, stripping naked in protest of invasive TSA procedures. He was arrested for indecent exposure, taken to jail, and fined $1000 by TSA for "interference with screening personnel." He was found not guilty on the indecent exposure charge, the fine is still in appeals 4+ years later, but I'm pretty sure his legal expenses are in five figures.
I wouldn't for a moment discourage you from this plan, but please do be aware of what you're getting into, and the extent to which they will fuck with you.
Do you mean John Brennan, the CIA Director? Kind of a powerful guy, who I would imagine travels with an entourage of security, and has some exception that even Congress-members do not get.
If so, I'd really appreciate a source. Your story rings true, oh-so-true, but I haven't been able to find a source confirming it.
I any case, I'll wear my "banana hammock" g-string swimsuit underneath, or a Speedo (which has a label) every time I fly. If it's not indecent on the beach or in a swim competition, then it's not indecent in the airport. I have a feeling the press coverage it would generate might get me a pro bono attorney – one who is trying to make their name.
Stay tuned...
OK, thanks for the tip.
Another entry for my hosts file. Hello "StartsWithABang", I welcome you to 127.0.0.1
Now, please provide any kind of citation for what you're saying, and I want data and not anecdotes before I will consider your response worth of perusal. What I've said here is well-known, it should not come as a surprise. Your refusal to believe it is also not a surprise.
Yeah, OK. Fine.
I bought a condo that had been foreclosed upon. Squatters had been living there, rent-free, for over 14 months. I bought the place to actually live in, but due to local "renters' rights" laws, I had to pay these assholes $8000 for "moving expenses", plus wait two months before I could move in. They caused a few thousand $$$'s of damage to the place before leaving. When I tried to get compensation for that, they brought the local rent-control board down on me, which threatened me with tons of fines, and actually re-controlled this property which had been removed from rent control since 1992 (like all other units in the large complex).
I also wrote to the bank, offering to act as a bounty hunter (which is an easy license to obtain), in order to collect the 14+ months of back-rent. That would have meant about $15,000 in free money (and the same to me) to the bank that had foreclosed on the landlord, who had done this same stunt with four local condos, and in the end absconded back to his home country as a rich man. The foreclosing bank, which stood to gain $$$$$$, without diminishing any other compensation or tax breaks, would not even reply to my multiple letters. They did not care. It was a small bank in a fly-over state, so I doubt that they needed the tax deductions. They were just clueless.
That is: Banks are not landlords. They do not want to be landlords. They suck at it. They will deliberately forego income/profits for the simple reason that they are clueless in landlord-tenant law.
OK, as I said, I didn't do the math, but wrote from memory.
IM is closer to 100 ions/atoms per m^2, not the 1 I stated. Off by two orders of magnitude — for physicists, that is a close enough estimate. It is still far less dense in relation to any terrestrial ultra-high vacuum systems (which I work with on a routine basis, Mr. 'rectum face').
Say, why did you post as an AC? Are you scared of me? Space is empty. If you don't believe me, please go visit it in person.
Do not feed the trolls.
Here it is, in 2006, by Animats (/.ID#: 122034) Alter Relationship on Monday December 26, 2005 @10:39PM (#14343315)
Saudi Arabia finally admits the Gawar field has peaked. Oil passes $70 per barrel.
US interest rate spike. "Homeowners" with adjustable-rate interest-only loans default and are foreclosed.
Housing prices crash as foreclosures glut market.
Congress finally starts investigating some activities of the Bush administration.
No real change in Iraq. Neither side can force a decision, so both sides keep bleeding.
China announces major progress in their space program.
Micropayments flop, again. Goodbye, Bitpass.
A Cat 4 or 5 hurricane wipes out another southern US city, or New Orleans floods again.
One of the big three US car manufacturers goes bankrupt.
Total number of active blogs decreases.
Here's the post from Wyatt Earp (/. ID#: 1029) 10 years ago. He nailed it:
Advancements in artificial limb technology driven by the Iraqi Military Operations
Advancements in stripping the psychotropic effects of drugs like Ketamine and X for use as pain killers, driven by the Iraqi Military Operations
A video card that cracks the $1000 US price point
More hybrid and bio diesel technology from the big Automakers
F/A-22, Eurofighter Typhoon purchases get cut, F/A-22 or the F-35 programs might get totally eliminated by the US DoD
Quad core AMD and Intel server chips
US program to put GPS in all cars becomes a political hot issue
UK program to track all cars does not become a political hot issue
N.B.: For various reasons these ships would need to be quite large. A question that hasn't been answered is "What is the minimum number of people required to maintain a technological civilization?", but presumably laser communications would be possible and cut down the minimum number. So say a stable population of 100,000 or more....
Yep, a large population.
But one quibble with communications: Lasers have divergence. On human length-scales, they are close enough to being collimated. On interstellar, or even just Earth-local stellar, beam divergence means loss of signal at greater distances. Satellite-to-satellite communications by laser are hampered by this.
Lenses don't help, and in any case, because lasers are coherent, there is the problem of 'laser speckle' on the receiving end. That is, nano-scale imperfections in your laser window result in a specific but unique pattern of little specks surrounding your main beam, due to interference of the coherent photons.
Better to stick with a parabolic radio dish. Both are light, and travel at the same speed.
By interstellar medium, does the author mean "space." That is, dimensional space but a very hard vacuum.
Isn't interstellar space somewhere around 10^-25 Torr, or roughly one atom per cubic meter? (I did not check my math for the conversion, so go easy on me.)
For comparison: On Earth, we can build usable vacuum chambers that go down to about 10^-13 Torr, at room 'temperature'. Lower than that, hydrogen just seeps through your chamber walls as if it they were a sieve. And a single fingerprint can out-gas for a month.
There is NO interstellar "medium". It is called space; void.
Oh noes!!! Oops.
Only the first paragraph was quoting the parent. The rest was my post.
How CRAZY would we think it of MONKEYS who want to live underwater? We'd marvel at why happy jungle monkeys would leave a comfortable environment free of most predators and full of food to go somewhere hostile where they can't breathe, their temperature will decay, and without machine aids would soon die.
You make some nice points, but actually, living underwater is something we can do, and should do.
Build a hyperbaric lab (think of the South Pole stations) –with work, living, and socializing quarters. 200 m deep, 400 m deep. Each level with air pressure (and gas mix) appropriate for human function.
Why? Oh, TONS of reasons. Medicine, microbiology, sub-cellular chemistry, organic chemistry, drug discovery, hydrothermal vent investigations, immediate access to the deep-water conditions one wants to study because you live in a large building or complex that is at 200 or 400 m under the sea
You walk around in pants and a shirt. There is enough space that it does not feel like a jail. And instead of taking a two-week field trip as an oceanographer (or whatever), you just live at the pressure. No autoclaves, no high humidity, and an environment like a large hotel-hosted conference, with labs. In the labs, you just put on regular safety equipment.
As for results, materials synthesis, medicine, and even some manufacturing processes would benefit tremendously from being able to rent lab space for 3 to 12 months. Vapor pressures of chemicals are the same at any given temperature.
Humanity needs a hyperbaric lab. Pressure is a state variable, just like temperature, but a little more difficult to work with. A hyperbaric lab complex would solve this problem. It would also open up myriad new R&D projects.
It is possible. Far more possible than a moon base, and infinitely more possible than a Mars station.
How did this get posted the the /. main-page? Forbes is a magazine about money, with a known editorial slant. The article's author apparently discovered science fiction novels, and then perused Wikipedia for all of his sources (except for a pic or two from NASA/JPL, which are public == free).
WP is great, but for some bozo to lazily summarize a few WP articles, all written by many volunteers, including their fair-use images, and then selling it in a for-profit magazine w/website is disgusting.
It's totally against everything that Wikipedia is about. Ah, but it is also everything that Forbes is about. So there is that.
Lol, nope. Wrong guy. Sorry, Mr. Dixon, for drawing the ire of Sir Holo of Slashdot, Lord of the Inept Googling.
Thanks for taking my bait, @Theaetetus. Mr. Dixon would not have wasted his time. :-P
You, however, remain a mere scribe.
I only know what my patent attorney tells me.
I will likely be initiating an interference proceeding.
Oh well, back to my 30 patents, of which a family of 20 is being heavily and overtly infringed.
Well, far be it from me to recommend against entering into a proceeding that could cost anywhere between $20k-$200k, without a guarantee of getting a patent at the end of it. Good luck to you. I'll go back to the 3000 patents on my docket and the 8 associates I oversee.
WOW! You are a true super-hero. But unlike real superheroes, you leave digital footprints all over the place.
So, Mr. Jeffrey Dixon, of HINSHAW Law, do you feel proud now of your prowess, and your 'management' of eight assistants? You are really powerful. I should fear you. Boo-gah boo-gah!.
I know your boss, personally. So, really just shut the f*ck up about being a gigantic patent stud, when all you really do is put into text the ideas of actual inventors, geniuses, professors, etc.
Feel proud that you are able to reduce descriptions of brilliant ideas into legalese. That is a monkey-talent that not every person can learn.
As for having brilliant ideas. . . Well, you have none; otherwise you would be an inventor/scientist/etc. — You are simply a scribe – one who serves at the leisure of your intellectual superiors.
Yes, I see you looked me up on LinkedIn. You deserve a medal for that. Or at least a certificate!
I only know what my patent attorney tells me.
I will likely be initiating an interference proceeding.
Oh well, back to my 30 patents, of which a family of 20 is being heavily and overtly infringed.