[time-nuts] Faster than light of a different type

Tom Knox actast at hotmail.com
Tue May 8 19:21:34 UTC 2012


What I found funny was that the Audiophlie and light thread drew such attacks when it hit home to me as exactly what the Time-Nuts mission is about.  The Audio thread touched on some real world time and freq research I am helping a friend with in the near future. Why do I believe it is relevant?  I have seen how much jitter can affect D/A converters during recent work on the NIST AC voltage standard which as a result of our research is now connected by fiber directly to F1. So when I was recently contacted by legendary recording engineer Gus Skinas who has helped develop the next generation of digital recording. I thought it would be worth helping him exploring the effects of Jitter on sound quality. All analog tapes start degrading the moment the are recorded and Gus wants to preserve these recordings digitally at the highest possible resolution before they degrade further. Time will tell whether there is noticeable effects with better timing, but it seemed a worthy topic for other Time Nuts. Is there some junk science in the audio world? For sure! But look at the advances in the past 50 years and deny there is real science going on and that time and freq has not been involved in many of those advances to me does more damage to this distinguished group then occasionally exploring the fringe applications of time. Best Wishes to the group and my apology to any my responses to the related posts have offended. 

Thomas Knox


> From: bill at iaxs.net
> To: time-nuts at febo.com
> Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 13:01:37 -0500
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Faster than light of a different type
> 
> Hal,
> 
> Excellent comment!
> 
> "In some sense, success is related to the number of people signed up."
> Yes, in the same sense that happiness is related to the money you have.
> It is possible to have too many or too much.
> 
> Human nature includes "Look at me, Ma. Look at me!" Most pros can
> stifle that. People grow out of behaviors at different times, or not
> ever. The bigger the list, the more people under the skirts of the
> bell curve.
> 
> Seems like many lists where members are acquainted with Ohm's law
> will fall into audiophile bashing at the drop of an extravagantly
> priced widget. Possibly to show the group "I'm smarter than that!"
> 
> A possible way to select messages that stay on topic is to filter
> out those that don't have "time" in the text. If you believe your
> message is on-topic but time isn't mentioned, add "Ob time-nuts:"
> (Obligatory) and some words about time. It won't get them all
> because the word is common, but it might slow them down.
> 
> I have wondered if part of the problem is that the list is set to
> only reply to the list. You have to work to get an individual
> address for an individual reply. Every list seems to have people
> who don't or can't edit their replies.
> 
> I get the whole list first and skim it to find the interesting
> bits, then read them and let the rest go to an Outlook archive.
> I have trouble throwing away things that might be useful some day.
> 
> Bill Hawkins
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hal Murray
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2012 10:45 PM
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Faster than light of a different type
> 
> 
> cls at employees.org said:
> > one more thing, people need to learn to hit the "delete" key if they
> don't
> > like a particular email.  get over it. 
> 
> I don't think that's a reasonable approach.  Yes, of course, we should all
> be 
> more tolerant.  But that's only half the story.
> 
> There is an interesting problem with technical discussion lists, bboards, 
> usenet groups, web forums, whatevers.  In some sense, success is related to 
> the number of people signed up.  On the other hand, once you get enough 
> people, the signal to noise ratio often falls off a cliff.  A (strong) hint 
> of the problem is bursts of noise like the recent events here.
> 
> The problem with saying just-hit-delete is that many of the people with 
> technical skills/opinions/ideas that I want to hear from are not very 
> tolerant of low signal/noise.  So they leave the group rather than pound on 
> their delete key.
> 
> 
> I think there is a fundamental truth for this area.  It may be a physical 
> constant.  It's at least a good PhD topic.  For any large list there will be
> 
> some amount of traffic (like this message) that is grumbling about the "bad"
> 
> traffic on the list.  At best, it's the list operator/moderator occasionally
> 
> (preemptively?) reminding people to stay on topic.
> 
> It's something like 1/e for the max throughput of an Aloha network.  If you 
> beat up on the noisy people so they are less noisy, the list will grow to 
> include enough new people to fill in the spots that were previously quiet.  
> It would be interesting to study the timing of the noise bursts and/or the 
> relation to people signing up or leaving a list.
> 
> I've seen similar problems in standards groups.  Initially, the group is
> full 
> of smart geeks with good ideas.  They are cooperating to try to solve an 
> interesting problem.  Then some not-so-sharp guy gets sent to make sure his 
> company's products are blessed.  As the group turns to politics, the smart 
> guys leave, their company sends a lawyer to replace them, and things spiral 
> downhill.
> 
> ----------
> 
> One thing that might help is if everybody would get in the habit of scanning
> 
> all their mail before responding to anything.  The idea is that if a 
> discussion explodes while you are sleeping (or away from your mail for 
> whatever reason), you will learn that a topic has exploded before you 
> contribute your wise-ass or me-too comment.  Even if your answer is
> technical 
> and valuable, you might notice that somebody has already said exactly what 
> you were about to say.
> 
> 
> -- 
> These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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