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User: ozydingo

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  1. Re: Just one's mouth can make some powerful music on Polyphonic Overtone Singing Explained Visually With Spectrograms · · Score: 1

    I'll just add that even for a single sustained note, it's not just the ratio of energy of steady-state sinusoidal components that combine to our perception of a violin vs horn, for example, but it also heavily depends on the temporal evolution of that energy. If the steady state were all that mattered, just about any eq on top of a sound would really screw with our ability to recognize it. Put a steep eq on any instrument, then listen to just a few notes. You can still easily recognize it even though you've drastically altered the ratio of energy different frequencies. Hell, play a note louder and your ears will attenuate their physical response to the louder overtones, dulling the energy ratios between different frequencies. It's a fascinating machine. A jet engine does not have clean overtones, which means the amplitude in any given filter in our ear fluctuates wildly. Though it's still debated how much the temporal cues vs the place (spectral) cues really weigh into these precepts.

  2. Re: How do you do it? on Polyphonic Overtone Singing Explained Visually With Spectrograms · · Score: 1

    Where do you get that idea from, other than guessing because you noticed her nostrils? With or without the nasal passage your throat and mouth give multiple audible resonances to your voice. And she is largely only using one. One pitch precept comes from the actual vibration frequencies of her vocal folds, the other from a pronounced resonance from the shape of her mouth & throat. Where do you get the idea that a separate pathway via the nasal passage is required?

  3. Re: How do you do it? on Polyphonic Overtone Singing Explained Visually With Spectrograms · · Score: 1

    By my understanding, it's basically the same way you make different vowel sounds. Vowels like ah or oh or ee are just creating resonances at different places in the spectrum. And, like whistling (which uses some of the same mechanisms for creating a resonance), you need to practice to really get the mouth/throat shape down to achieve a really sharp resonance. My understanding of throat singing is the same, so I'd imagine those tutorials would cover it, though I never really looked too deeply into that so it's possible that uses a different mechanism, though I can't imagine what.

  4. Re:Technicalities on Ebola Nose Spray Vaccine Protects Monkeys · · Score: 1

    If it was 100%, and the vaccine prevented it, then it is 100% effective with 0% margin of error.

    0% margin of error? How do you figure? Maybe I'm just mixing up terms (surely you don't just mean standard deviation in the sample?), but it seems to me that no matter your assumptions a 0% margin of error based on this study would be rather foolish and meaningless.

  5. Re: Antitrust lawsuit? on Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable In $44.2 Billion All-Stock Deal · · Score: 1

    But it will make it even harder to compete against an even more behemother company that can leverage now even more assets and power to crush little uprisings of entrepreneurial rebellion. Though I'm not sure there is any chance to begin with even without the merge.

  6. Re: Basic Statistics on Why Standard Deviation Should Be Retired From Scientific Use · · Score: 1

    To be fair, standard deviation has a meaning for any distribution, but there's a lot you can infer from alone only when dealing with Gaussians. Many people try to infer those same things with non-Gaussian data, and there lies the problem.

  7. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 1

    I thought trans fat was only about texture and stability / shelf life (while being cheaper than animal fats). Do you have more info on the claim that trans fats were thought to help prevent heart disease?

    Additionally, there are some natural trans fats too, but they do not have the same effect on heart disease as currently manufactured trans fats

  8. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm missing something but, but you appear to be asking what currently available GMO crops contain "entirely separate species". Ignore this if I misread.

    There are only a few currently on-the-market GM crops, where GM refers to transgenic modification, not hybridization. Probably the most commonly known is the Roundup ready line of crops, including soy and corn, but I'm a little sketchy on the details. It appears to have something to do with the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens . Almost as commonly known are crops such as Bt corn and potatoes, which have a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis , The SunUp papaya has a gene fragment from the papaya ringspot virus. Liberty Link corn, soy, etc., has a gene isolated from Streptomyces bacteria. Golden rice has been produced different ways, including genes from daffodil, bacteria, and corn.

    Anyway, that's a partial list, in case you're interested. I don't suppose you are actually claiming that there is no practical difference between cross-breeding and transgenics.

  9. Re:I Love Americans on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 1

    Probably most of them. But a few that I know better I'd be pretty confident in saying the feeling is their own. Still might be a more chronic version of what you're talking about, where people learn to "care" about the kinds of "news" that get clicks and headlines. Maybe you don't see that as any different...anyway I do.

  10. Re:Cashing in on the Chick-fil-A effect on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 1

    There will still be homophobes and other bigots but they'll keep their mouths shut and hopefully their children won't learn their bigotry.

    They'll keep their mouths a little more shut in public, and maybe that will actually lead to some good (maybe), but not to their children. Strong opinions + lack of open conversation = more polarization.

    And, to me, it is the point. There are issues I frankly care more about a food company's position on than whether a pasta company dude thinks that the iconic family that he wants to portray in his ads includes a woman in the kitchen. I don't speak for Minupla, and have no problem if this issue makes or brakes his pasta-buying choices over other issues that I wished more people cared more about. But against his point as stated, I think my point stands valid.

  11. Re:Cashing in on the Chick-fil-A effect on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 2

    I guarantee you that if you by any pasta, or really any product at all, you're supporting someone whose views you don't agree with.

  12. Re:I Love Americans on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 1

    If there are only five, I must know them all, because I've seen at least that many posts from folks in my fb network. So while it may be hype that will die down for something else next week, it's still more than just the media saying it.

  13. Re:Apologies... on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 2

    Sometimes apologies don't mean shit. It's far more important to know what people really believe.

    Which is one of the reasons I did/do not support this boycott. Best I could tell, he expressed his opinion, but wasn't or isn't actively trying to suppress gay rights. If we boycott companies for honestly stating opinions, as is my read of this situation (please inform me of any more relevant details, however), then we don't change their opinions, we just change what they say. Everybody loses.

  14. Re: Bullshit! on Stronger Winds Explain Puzzling Growth of Sea Ice In Antarctica · · Score: 1

    Yes.

    Also, ditto on arctic sea ice volume, which is a more meaningful metric

  15. Re:How is this news? on How Amateurs Destroyed the Professional Music Business · · Score: 1

    I value my health and sometimes eat burgers => you are wrong, QED.

    Really, though, burger meat can be ground on premises from whatever cut of meat you'd like (and I do this myself sometimes, a decent food processor will do the trick), so why the distinction based solely on form?

  16. Re:Who man! on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1
  17. Re:GM Rice NOT passing to weeds on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    "GM rice passes unexpected benefits to weeds" is true. This does not imply that this is occurring on any particular scale at any particular location, it just states that it happens. Which it does. When GM rice cross-breeds with a wild variety, the offspring has a benefit.

    To this point, the weeds were not GM'd directly with the transgenic gene, they were cross-bred with GM rice crop. So, it is reasonable to suspect this is likely to happen in the wild. I wonder how difficult it is to collect a reasonably meaningful survey of wild crops to detect this occurrence, and if anyone has attempted it.

  18. Re:Wait...what? on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    As I have read it (in the paper itself), the authors cross-bred the rice & weedy rice, then split up the following generation of plants into those that expressed or did not express the modified gene. So the comparison was amongst hybrids. Still, it may be that this division has an inherent bias as to the presence or absence of other beneficial genes from the food crop, so it is interesting to question what the mechanism behind the reported benefits were.

    The take-home point, however, is still that the hybrids containing the modified gene possessed an advantage over hybrids not containing that gene.

  19. Re:Wait...what? on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    Calling it "insanely dangerous" and talking about a famine in 5-10 years may be going all tin-foil hat, but you still can see why faster can potentially mean more dangerous, right? (Of course, I'd be more inclined to spend energy on investigating the Bt modification than the roundup ready, but anywho...)

  20. Re:In the absence of glyphosate on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    Likewise, assuming that anything GM is going to be more dangerous is rather shortsighted.

    Perhaps, as stated, sure. In the same breath, though, I'd also call not devoting just a little more of our finite resources toward scrutiny of the effects of rapid GM (i.e. transgenic methods over cross-breeding) similarly short-sighted.

  21. Re:In the absence of glyphosate on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    The point above I believe is that rapid genetic modification (transgeneses) is more likely than existing flora that co-evolved with its ecosystem to cause harmful disruption to that ecosystem. The questions "what are my assumptions" and "what happens if they are wrong" should always be on a scientist's mind.

  22. Re:In the absence of glyphosate on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    That must be some kinky pr0n you're watching...

    (Hint for the slow ... it passes these traits by cross-breeding, which is, of course, not saying anything about the presence or absence of effects due to consumption and digestion)

  23. Re:In the absence of glyphosate on GM Rice Passes Unexpected Benefits To Weeds · · Score: 1

    That's one possibility, among many. That doesn't get us to it being "very likely that in the presence of glyphosate their yield will drop".

  24. Re: Not surprising but shitty interpretation as us on Camping Helps Set Circadian Clocks Straight · · Score: 2

    You're really going to claim that your personal anecdotes trump the scientific method? Did you read the paper and find specific fault with their methods? Maybe your tent just sucks.

  25. Re: Good Question on What's Stopping Us From Eating Insects? · · Score: 1

    Interesting. Well this bear was shot somewhere inland in New England, I suppose making berries far more likely than salmon to have dominated its diet, so that at least is consistent.