Ok, I'll try to turn him on to those. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if he already knows about (and maybe even uses) those super AC power cords.
I'm clearly in the wrong line of work (i.e., making an honest living instead of selling magic pixie dust to rubes).
Thanks for the correction! Unfortunately, my CD-degaussing FOAF is still just as stupid.
What's ironic is that he often mentions his fundamental theory which very accurately explains much human behavior: "Most People Are Stupid". I agree with him on that one!:-)
No, he's really serious! He just doesn't understand enough about how things work to discriminate between electronics-related stuff that makes sense (which is just black magic to most people, I think), and magic pixie dust. That's excusable... electronics just isn't anywhere close to his area of expertise. What's hard to swallow is his pig-headed refusal to listen to people who actually know something about how things work, and do related stuff for a living. Sigh.
I think it's walking the fine line between funny and just plain sad. It's the kind of thing that gives me a headache if I think about it too hard while sober.
Oooh, I bet I could get him to buy a granite table for his stereo equipment (especially the amplifier!) as long as somebody else planted the idea in his head... he's probably smart enough to realize that anything that I tried to get him to do stereo-wise would just be me trying to screw with his brains.
Except that the data is encoded as physical pits in the metallic layer (which is usually aluminum, if I'm not mistaken), and it's read by shining a laser on the disk and observing how the pits modulate the intensity of the reflected light.
To the best of my knowledge, a tape degausser will not have any physical effect upon a thin layer of aluminum unless the eddy currents that it induces are large enough to heat up the aluminum significantly (think "CD in a microwave oven"). Aluminum is not magnetizable, and even if it was, the method used to read CDs is not sensitive to magnetization of the media.
Even if the tape degausser did affect the disc by heating up the aluminum enough to melt it, the only thing that it could do would be to induce data errors. Minor data errors would be corrected by the error-correcting code and thus have no effect on the recovered audio. Errors that are too severe to be corrected by ECC would most likely create pops, skips, dropouts, etc., none of which would sound "good" even to somebody with Golden Ears.
I know a guy who insists that degaussing his CDs (i.e., with a magnetic tape eraser) makes them sound better. I $#!^ you not!! I tried to be reasonable and explain how many ways that is wrong, but he insisted that I just have a tin ear. Well, I guess I better go turn in my Master's degree in electrical engineering, because it's no match to his Golden Ear.
As if that wasn't absurd enough, he later told me how he breaks in his AC power cords by running a current through them before using them on his stereo, because otherwise the sound is too, well, I don't even remember what adjective he used. Yellow? Impudent? Octagonal? Whatever. He said that a new electrical outlet takes even longer to break in. OMFGBBQ! I'm ashamed to say that at that point I completely lost the ability to debate rationally with him and try to educate him, and told him what an idiot he is. Well, at least he doesn't bother to ask me any electronics-related questions any more.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that I should invent some electrical snake oil to liberate audiophools from their excess money, but I just don't want to sink that low.
Alternators produce the electricity whether you use it or not.
No, that is not correct. The mechanical load that the alternator presents to the engine increases proportionally to the electrical load on its output, exactly as the laws of thermodynamics predict. When the load on the alternator increases (for example, when the headlights are turned on), the alternator's pulley becomes harder to turn, and draws more power from the engine. If those headlights draw 200 watts or electrical power, then the alternator requires more than 200 watts of additional input power (due to less than perfect efficiency) from the engine when the headlights are turned on.
Adding a significant load to the electrical system will load down the alternator, which will in turn load down the engine. In order to keep the engine RPMs (and thus the speed of travel) constant, it will then be necessary to open the throttle more to allow more fuel and air to be burned in the engine per unit of time. In other words, adding an electrical load to the engine will either slow you down or increase the rate of fuel consumption. The effect is usually not very noticable to the driver because all of the electrical accessories in the typical automobile require a lot less power than is required to accelerate the vehicle and then maintain speed, but it's still very real.
Sure, the alternator produces voltage all the time, but the power that it draws from the engine is proportional to the power drawn by both battery charging and electrical accessories. Electrical power = voltage * current. The voltage is typically regulated to about 13.8 volts in common automobiles, but the current can vary from fairly small values to a hundred amps or more depending on the state of battery charge and the amount of power required by electrical accessories.
That's the crystal fragment in the watch's oscillator, used to keep time. If your watch face was made out of a semi precious gem, it would probably be rather expensive.
No, the crystal in the watch oscillator would be a quartz crystal. The word "crystal" is also used to refer to the clear window over the hands and/or display of a watch, and I believe that the word was used that way long before the invention of the crystal-controlled electronic oscillator, let alone its application to clocks and watches. When discussing watches, "sapphire crystal" refers to a window on the front which is made from sapphire, which is much harder than ordinary glass or plastic, and is thus more scratch-resistant. It has nothing to do with the crystal-controlled oscillator in an electronic watch. A wind-up mechanical watch can have a sapphire crystal, too.
In any case, I'd rather have an iPod with a relatively soft plastic outside that scratches, but can be polished, rather than a glass (or wtf, gem) iPod that cracked or shattered.
I can't say for sure whether a plastic display window would survive the kind of punishment that it would take to shatter a sapphire watch crystal, but a good sapphire watch crystal is probably a lot more durable thay you seem to think. It takes a pretty hard hit to break one. I don't think that knocking around in your pocket with a few coins or a keychain would be too likely to harm one unless you took a really hard fall. Based on my experience with watches with sapphire or glass crystals, it seems to me that an impact that's strong enough to shatter a good, thick sapphire watch crystal may also bend a plastic display window enough to damage the display underneath it, even if the plastic window didn't crack.
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Wow.
I'm at a loss for words.
Ok, I'll try to turn him on to those. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if he already knows about (and maybe even uses) those super AC power cords.
I'm clearly in the wrong line of work (i.e., making an honest living instead of selling magic pixie dust to rubes).
What's ironic is that he often mentions his fundamental theory which very accurately explains much human behavior: "Most People Are Stupid". I agree with him on that one! :-)
No, he's really serious! He just doesn't understand enough about how things work to discriminate between electronics-related stuff that makes sense (which is just black magic to most people, I think), and magic pixie dust. That's excusable... electronics just isn't anywhere close to his area of expertise. What's hard to swallow is his pig-headed refusal to listen to people who actually know something about how things work, and do related stuff for a living. Sigh.
That only works if you sand the CDs under a pyramid.
I think it's walking the fine line between funny and just plain sad. It's the kind of thing that gives me a headache if I think about it too hard while sober.
Oooh, I bet I could get him to buy a granite table for his stereo equipment (especially the amplifier!) as long as somebody else planted the idea in his head... he's probably smart enough to realize that anything that I tried to get him to do stereo-wise would just be me trying to screw with his brains.
To the best of my knowledge, a tape degausser will not have any physical effect upon a thin layer of aluminum unless the eddy currents that it induces are large enough to heat up the aluminum significantly (think "CD in a microwave oven"). Aluminum is not magnetizable, and even if it was, the method used to read CDs is not sensitive to magnetization of the media.
Even if the tape degausser did affect the disc by heating up the aluminum enough to melt it, the only thing that it could do would be to induce data errors. Minor data errors would be corrected by the error-correcting code and thus have no effect on the recovered audio. Errors that are too severe to be corrected by ECC would most likely create pops, skips, dropouts, etc., none of which would sound "good" even to somebody with Golden Ears.
The whole CD-degaussing thing is pure hogwash.
Speaker Spoilers!? ROFL! Unlike degaussing CDs or "breaking in" power cords, that might actually do something to the sound.
As if that wasn't absurd enough, he later told me how he breaks in his AC power cords by running a current through them before using them on his stereo, because otherwise the sound is too, well, I don't even remember what adjective he used. Yellow? Impudent? Octagonal? Whatever. He said that a new electrical outlet takes even longer to break in. OMFGBBQ! I'm ashamed to say that at that point I completely lost the ability to debate rationally with him and try to educate him, and told him what an idiot he is. Well, at least he doesn't bother to ask me any electronics-related questions any more.
Sometimes I find myself thinking that I should invent some electrical snake oil to liberate audiophools from their excess money, but I just don't want to sink that low.
No, that is not correct. The mechanical load that the alternator presents to the engine increases proportionally to the electrical load on its output, exactly as the laws of thermodynamics predict. When the load on the alternator increases (for example, when the headlights are turned on), the alternator's pulley becomes harder to turn, and draws more power from the engine. If those headlights draw 200 watts or electrical power, then the alternator requires more than 200 watts of additional input power (due to less than perfect efficiency) from the engine when the headlights are turned on.
Adding a significant load to the electrical system will load down the alternator, which will in turn load down the engine. In order to keep the engine RPMs (and thus the speed of travel) constant, it will then be necessary to open the throttle more to allow more fuel and air to be burned in the engine per unit of time. In other words, adding an electrical load to the engine will either slow you down or increase the rate of fuel consumption. The effect is usually not very noticable to the driver because all of the electrical accessories in the typical automobile require a lot less power than is required to accelerate the vehicle and then maintain speed, but it's still very real.
Sure, the alternator produces voltage all the time, but the power that it draws from the engine is proportional to the power drawn by both battery charging and electrical accessories. Electrical power = voltage * current. The voltage is typically regulated to about 13.8 volts in common automobiles, but the current can vary from fairly small values to a hundred amps or more depending on the state of battery charge and the amount of power required by electrical accessories.
No, the crystal in the watch oscillator would be a quartz crystal. The word "crystal" is also used to refer to the clear window over the hands and/or display of a watch, and I believe that the word was used that way long before the invention of the crystal-controlled electronic oscillator, let alone its application to clocks and watches. When discussing watches, "sapphire crystal" refers to a window on the front which is made from sapphire, which is much harder than ordinary glass or plastic, and is thus more scratch-resistant. It has nothing to do with the crystal-controlled oscillator in an electronic watch. A wind-up mechanical watch can have a sapphire crystal, too.
I can't say for sure whether a plastic display window would survive the kind of punishment that it would take to shatter a sapphire watch crystal, but a good sapphire watch crystal is probably a lot more durable thay you seem to think. It takes a pretty hard hit to break one. I don't think that knocking around in your pocket with a few coins or a keychain would be too likely to harm one unless you took a really hard fall. Based on my experience with watches with sapphire or glass crystals, it seems to me that an impact that's strong enough to shatter a good, thick sapphire watch crystal may also bend a plastic display window enough to damage the display underneath it, even if the plastic window didn't crack.
Yeah, but they call it "milk" there.