Tub

2 hours ago, imatfaal said:

Is Mary Winehouse a bastard mix of Amy Winehouse and Mary Whitehouse?  A great soulful voice who sings about censorship and the decline of family values

 

 

Ha, Ha. Yes. Sorry. And sorry, Amy ( R.I.P. ).  Ironically, it must have been the glass of red wine i was drinking to help me sleep. ( Just woke up on the sofa with a stiff neck!)

2 hours ago, imatfaal said:

 

if you sit in quiet room and listen to your favourite tune on FM radio, DAB radio, tape, cd, bad encryption, good encryption, etc.  You will notice a difference but you pay your money and take your choice of where you draw the balance between money and fidelity.

 

What's underlined  above ( my underlining ) is exactly what i was going to write in my last post: " You pays your money and you takes your choice ", but i thought the phrase might get  a bit lost in translation - especially to people who wouldn't know anything about Mary Whitehouse, ( again, R.I.P. ), who would have been completely horrified at being described as  anything like a " bastard mix ", lol.  Language,Timothy!

Just by the way, my favourite old FM radio is my 1967 Bang and Olufsen Beomaster 900 and it still sounds good to my ears even though it's only worth about £10 now.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

It occurs to me that if filtering out the carrier is imperfect it could add a bias to the resulting signal

I'm sure that's a possibility; all technology is fallible. Conversely, my old mono FM radio is perfect at filtering-out important parts of stereo broadcasts so that some older stereo-recordings, ( particularly Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs), emerge minus vocals or bass or drums or even the whole rhythm-section!  Quite interesting, really.

I'm not sure how to digitalize signals etc, as Sensei suggested above, so the only other way i can think of to compare different signals carrying the same song would be to listen to that same song being played simultaneously on two or more different radio-stations,which is probably impossible to do. Then again, there could be other variables due to the actual radios in use.

5 hours ago, imatfaal said:

Any directly generated additional noise would have to be at a fraction of the carrier frequency (not sure if that is the correct terminology) the threashhold of human hearing is just under 30kHz for young adults (who I think have the best range) - whereas FM transmission is about 3000 times that frequency.  There is about 100kHz variation in the carrier frequency of  of about 100MHz..  You are much more likely to get annoyed at mains hum if you are an audio-phile audio-snob

For a decoding bias I just cannot envisage what happens to a 100MHz carrier modulated with a ~10-10000KHz signal when the carrier signal which is removed is actually 99MHz.  Just read that commonest form of demodulator is two rf transformers - #1 on a closed loop with fixed frequency of the carrier and #2 on the received signal; if the frequency is the same on signal and closed then no voltage difference between to transformers and no resulting output.  However if frequency is not the same then the difference will be expressed as a varying out put voltage which is proportional to the difference in frequency.  And that system was developed over 80 years ago and is still the basis of FM radios

http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/category/systems

There is a good explanation of  Loop-systems on the above site.It seems they are still used now as part of  " Error Correction Coding " which is designed to filter-out errors in digital-broadcasting too, but, again, they aren't infallible: if the ECC is itself faulty or weak it won't correct signal-errors and a so-called " bubbling mud " interference or a complete loss of signal, ( a " digital-cliff " ), can occur. I also read that varying bit rates used by different digital broadcasters can also have an effect on sound quality and authenticity,

For a very simple experiment, i tuned my new DAB radio and my 50 year-old FM radio to the same station. A Mary Winehouse song was playing and, apart from the DAB delay, i couldn't really discern any difference and both songs were in tune with each other, in the same key of D minor. As i said, I suppose a truer test would be to hear the same song played simultaneously on two or more different radio stations but, again, that's not really feasible. Anyway, what i did hear was good enough for my ears, but maybe not for someone prepared to pay tens of thousands of pounds for a sound-system, or someone with perfect-pitch or just a very good ear for music who could , perhaps,hear a difference between the same music played on different stations,or in different formats, compared with what they hear on their sound-systems at home.

13 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Although this is more biology, if you know a song well your brain will make adjustments to the incoming signal to match your expectations and will even synthesise sounds/frequencies that may be missing, derived from memory. .

Seems the old saying is true: " I couldn't believe my ears! ". I imagine we are susceptible to subliminal frequencies too. Thanks, SJ.

Thank you, imatfaal; thank you swansont. Good, clear answers. I was under the impression that the carrier signal could alter the pitch of the song.

Shakespeare is Shakespeare however it is written, yes, but if he'd heard me trying to sing one of his songs he may have said: " If Music be the food of Love, that's what salmonella sounds like !"

Thank you, Sensei. Sadly, i'm behind the times and all my radios aren't DAB, lol.

Often hearing the same songs played on many different radio and television stations, I've wondered how any song always sounds the same, even though it is delivered on the many different frequencies that the different broadcasters use. Why don't those different wavelengths affect the original sound of the song? ( Thanks to Led Zeppelin for the thread title ).

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

As I said before, I wouldn't be surprised to learn this was a planned response meant to confirm Trump's authority in a chaotic administration.

If we knew for sure that the questioner had been planted and the Admiral was expecting the question, then this has to be correct, and i would come to the same conclusion, but that can't be proven to be the case.The question could also have been planted without the Admiral's knowledge, in order to test his loyalty to Mr.Trump. Again, if the question had not been planted, the only thing the Admiral could say was " Yes ", if he wanted to keep his job; saying " No " or even " Next question ", as Swansont  rightly suggested,could  even have been regarded as treasonable. Perhaps nothing so drastic as that, but still perceived as gross insubordination.( I don't know Admiral Swift, so any suggestion that he is dishonest or unpatriotic is entirely unintentional. Nor would i impugn his integrity ).

15 hours ago, MigL said:

 

The whole point of nuclear deterrence is to convince the other side ( potential enemies ) that if they launch a nuclear strike against us they will be destroyed also. IOW you are ready and willing to launch. That's how deterrence works  and has worked since 1945.

If you say you will 'second guess' your President ( because he may be a nut-job ), you are giving wiggle room to the other nut-jobs ( like in North Korea ), who then think they might get away with a nuclear strike against us.

I think this is correct, too. The Admiral's reply was meant primarily for the ears of  kim Jong-un and his Chinese allies, but others would hear it too - friends and enemies alike. I don't know enough about these military and political " mind-games " though, to decide whether this  pours water or petrol over the flames, I hope it's water.

As for the US Navy attacking the question ( not the answer ) as " outrageous and ridiculous "? Well, they would say that wouldn't they?  ( Good cop, bad cop scenario ).

18 hours ago, Ten oz said:

People in govt refuse to answer a variety of questions and or point out the silliness of them all the time. He should have just said " I am not going to hypothetically discuss using Nuclear weapons". Saying yes to a question about hypothetically incinerating an unimaginable number of people is in poor taste. Addressing the question as absurd would have been more appropriate. The use of nuclear weapons on a population isn't something one casually spitballs about. I have no doubt had the reporter asked if he'd drone strike his own children if ordered his answer would have been something more akin to my recommendation above. perhaps it was a bad question but it was also a terrible answer.

True and sensible, but can these apply to anything associated with Mr.Trump? ( Again no offense intended to Admiral Swift).

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Only one thing to change "The purpose of the page is to complete add to the book, even if that page can never know the whole story."

Yes, that's probably more correct. Thanks.

I'm just an average guy, nothing special about me. Never done anything exceptional or earth-shattering and probably won't be remembered for much when i'm gone, but, if i hadn't been born, the whole of Life would have been different, would it not? Even in the tiniest way, Life would not have been the same - either for better or for worse.That goes for all of us, too: without any one of us, Life would be different. The Whole of Life, near or far, is in each moment and everyone one of us is part of that moment, either living or dead.

In our little, individual life, we are like a separate page in one great " Book of Life ". What's on the page may be  exhilarating or really dull and boring, but each page is unique. Even if that page may never know the beginning of the story, or the ending, or even be aware of the other pages, that single page gives meaning to the whole book and the book gives meaning to the page. The page without the book is meaningless, the book without that page is incomplete. The purpose of the page is to complete the book, even if that page can never know the whole story.

Apologies for the tortured metaphor. Shakespeare put it a bit better:  " The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, though to itself it only lives and dies. "

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

The definition I used is the actual definition:

thought¹

THôt/

noun

noun: thought; plural noun: thoughts

1. 1.

   an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind.

   https://www.google.com/search?q=termendous+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=thought+

 The definition you used is the definition of a thought, which is a noun.

 The definition i used is the definition of  thought as the past tense of the verb " to think ".  

 A thought is the product of thinking which, as i said, is the response of memory. Try thinking of something without using what that you've got stored in your memory cells. Instinct isn't  a product of thinking and isn't " an idea or opinion ".

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Thought is defined as an idea or opinion produced by thinking or occurring suddenly in the mind. With your story about the dog were you truly without thought; I do not believe so. A rush of adrenaline sped up your thought process and greatly narrowed your focus. Ultimately everything you did was still controlled by your mind and as such still falls under the purview of thought. That is why even when panicked Police, Pilots, Soldiers, Doctors, Fire Fighters, and etc are still accountable to do the right thing. Because fear induced instinctive reaction is not a medically or legally accepted thing. A police officer can't shoot and kill people then write in his report instinct took over and he or she doesn't know what happened.

 

 

 

I don't agree with that definition of thought. I would say that thought is a response from memory and as i had no memory of being attacked by a dog, or any animal,thinking didn't come into it. I didn't "know " what to do and without an instinctive reaction i would have frozen in terror. It was an act of natural intelligence rather than an act of thought and maybe adrenaline is involved in that.  Police, pilots , soldiers etc are all highly-trained and well-drilled professionals and that training replaces the instinctive reaction, so that they do know what to do under stress and their training takes over in the situations that they have rehearsed over and over as part of that training. I can't believe, either, that medical science doesn't recognize  some fear-induced reaction. Surely such things as crying, screaming, fainting, shivering, trembling, panic-attacks and the " fight or flight " instinct etc have physiological and psychological roots in fear?  Fear is a natural, necessary response to danger common to all animals and animals can't think as we do, only react instinctively. They don't need to think. I don't know a great deal about legal matters, but surely a plea of murder in self-defence as a response to to a vicious, unprovoked knife-attack would be considered as as a " fear-induced instinctive reaction ". What jury would convict a defendant in such circumstances?

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

 

Deer antlers do not evolve to be smaller so to deter  humans and fish do not shrink so to wiggle through nets. That is not how Evolution works.  Rather it is the smaller fish and deer with smaller antlers which are able to reproduce healthier numbers on the account of not being killed which results in the changes.

Yes, i agree with this. I said i thought it was rather more down to genetics than evolution: evolution could give the fish sharp teeth to gnaw through those nets, simple genetics couldn't, so the smaller fish that could already escape the nets would obviously breed similar smaller fish, while the larger fish would not have escaped the nets to reproduce more large fish.  The habits of the smaller fish would not evolve  as they would just be smaller fish with the same instincts. The same for the smaller-antlered deer and tuskless elephants too.

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Humans came together and built communities to shelter ourselves from nature because of how brutal and hard it actually is. Animals use the adaptations they have to survive. I believe using those adaptations require a learning curve and as such require thought. Wolves, tigers, killer whales, bears, and etc fail to catch prey countless times before they suceed. A learning curve is involved.

 

 

I agree , too, that humans were not best equipped to deal with Nature " red in tooth and claw ". It seems that Mother Nature is more inimical to us than other animals so we are more at war with Her in order to survive, puny creatures as we are.  Fortunately we can use thought to our advantage. Animals are better-adapted to survive in the wild, as you say, but i cannot agree that animals use thought  as humans do: thought requires a complex and sophisticated language to operate ( try and think of anything without the word associated with it ) and animals don't need it. Of course they have intelligent brains and they do have to learn how to hunt and develop those hunting-skills but that is a function of their intelligence rather than a thinking-process. Intelligence and thought are not the same thing.

As for extinction and mortality - everything dies in the end.

Is it possible that infinite space has always existed, without time, and what is expanding into that space is the finite matter that had a beginning, with time, and will, according to entropy, eventually come to an end? 

On 15/07/2017 at 0:49 PM, Ten oz said:

If animals operate purely on instinct how does their behavior(s) evolve? If instinct is akin to a program what or who is responsible for the program?

 

Just for the purposes of my post, allow me to alter the original title from " Instinct vs Consciousness " to " Instinct vs Thought ", as i feel that consciousness can include both. I think that, for human beings, thought has gradually superseded instinct as a prime mover but we still need both. For instance,  some years ago, as a small boy, i clambered over a high and unfamiliar garden-wall to retrieve my football; just as i picked up the ball, a large dog came running down the garden towards me barking, and the next thing i knew i was standing on the safe side of the wall, without the ball and minus one shoe. When there had been no time for me to think, instinct took over and got me out of danger. So though we now depend more on thought, instinct is still important too: we need both, and both are part of human consciousness. I definitely think all animals  are conscious too, or else they wouldn't be able to respond to any stimuli or fend for themselves, but as String Junky suggested earlier, consciousness does not necessarily imply self-consciousness. Some animals such as pigs etc, at the higher end of dimreepr's intelligence spectrum, may indeed possess some level of self-awareness, but is it at all necessary or desirable for them?

All in all, we shouldn't (if we do) treat instinct as inferior to thought, and i think that animals, apart from humans, don't need any capacity other than instinct to survive; for any creature that doesn't aspire to much beyond pure survival,instinct alone is perfectly adequate for that survival: they can live " by bread alone ", perfectly attuned to Nature. ( Without free-will, maybe, but perhaps in some way that's not such a bad thing). If this is the case,i feel that animal behaviour doesn't really need to go through any great radical evolution.Natural mutation does occur, obviously, sometimes quite quickly, so animals can adapt to changing situations. A very recent book on evolution suggests that deers' antlers and elephants' tusks are getting smaller, so as to deter poachers. Fish are getting smaller as well, so they can slip through fishing-nets, though this may be caused by genetics.  Pavlov's experiments have shown, too, that instinctive behaviour is not immune to being irrevocably changed under certain circumstances.

As for the programme - is it self-preservation/survival?  As for the programmer - who knows?

You're welcome.

Thanks, Capiert. I hadn't thought of hovercrafts.

Hello, Mr Ask. Here's what i've come up with:

Y/Z: Y is perhaps an Area 51-type base, set up to examine a vast alien spacecraft which has lain dormant for many years. All attempts to enter the craft have failed until one day when sensors pick up vibrations in the craft and soldiers sent to investigate finally gain entry through a hidden door which automatically opens as they approach.

At the same time, unknown to the soldiers, 2 time-activated survival-pods open in the craft's control-room releasing 2 aliens who start to activate the craft. As it slowly rises, those in the base, thinking that the investigating soldiers have been killed and so the craft is hostile, begin to fire at it. The aliens activate a force-shield around the craft, nullifying the base's attack, and blast the base with some type of cosmic ray which sets the base ablaze. At that moment, the soldiers who entered the craft discover the 2 aliens, see what is happening and,in the ensuing fight, all the soldiers and the aliens are killed. The spacecraft,however,with it's ray still firing automatically, rises up into orbit around the moon. The fires at the base reach nuclear reactors and ammunitions stores and the resulting catastrophic explosions do that imagined damage to the moon.

Pockets of people not affected could perhaps be those who are already working where protective-clothing is

worn: scientists, engineers, technicians etc, in places such as laboratories, nuclear plants, NASA, and military and aerospace industries, where they are well-protected in cleanroom environments in which contamination is controlled. These would also be among the best people to deal with the aftermath of the disaster.

W: The spacecraft now orbiting the moon takes on a kind of lighthouse effect as each orbit causes the ray to sweep across the earth's surface causing, in turn, a vast " air shower " ( See "Air shower ( physics ) on Wikipedia ) of ionized particles and electromagnetic radiation as the ray reaches earth's atmosphere. ( Attempts to destroy the craft with missiles are all foiled by it's still-activated protective force-shield ). The air shower could also coincide with a period of minimum solar activity, an 11 year cycle when the ultraviolet output of the sun decreases, shrinking the upper atmosphere, allowing the air shower to penetrate more easily.

X: The next peak of solar minimum activity is around 2019/2020, so any future-date setting of the story would need to account for all the succeeding 11 year cycles, if necessary.

I hope this is of some help to you but, even if it isn't, it's been fun for me. Good luck anyway.

Edit: Hah! You must have posted at the same time as me so i didn't see your latest post about "anti-alienism " bias until i'd already posted! Sorry. Perhaps the aliens could be exchanged for human space-pirates who had stolen the spacecraft? ( I still think aliens would be better, lol).

I have not (yet) estimated surface friction

from surface texture.

(That's a big deal.)

Thanks,Capiert. I appreciate that - I'd find it impossible.

My first passing thought/guess would be that the force would be the same.... but the power required to generate that same force could be different due to the difference in air pressure. Obviously g would be slightly effected due to height, but I doubt the effect would be significant next to the air pressure difference.

Thanks,DrP. Maybe g and air-pressure at great height would even out any differences in power-to-weight ratios relevant to g and air-pressure at ground-level.

Capiert - can i ask, would air-bounce alter greatly in flight over different terrains such as rolling hills,deserts,or over the sea,where the ground/water is rough, very uneven or not solid, requiring in-flight corrections to the power needed to keep altitude steady at any height or speed? Are these factors taken into consideration when creating formulae for levitation?

Thank you, studiot. Fascinating link.

Is there a significant difference in the amount of force needed for levitation from the top of a very high place, ( e.g. Mount Everest ), compared with that needed at ground level?

Thanks, Area54. Very informative link - sad too, though.

May I ask this here: when we hear reports that " ice on the wings " has prevented take-off, is it because the ice adds an incalculable weight-factor to the safe load or is it because the ice alters the shape of the wings so disrupting airflow?

Thank you too,Janus. No need for Albert after all,lol.

Brilliant. Thank you,Zapatos.

Out stargazing with the naked eye,if I focus on a particular star,I can see it pretty clearly but if I shift my focus slightly to the side of that star it appears to be brighter and even more focused than before. Is this effect explainable using GR or could it be an aberration of my eyesight?