luv-talk June 2014

luv-talk@luv.asn.au

11 participants
7 discussions

Re: [luv-talk] Playing LP's with a laser pickup ?

by David E Payne

Exact citation thanks toDavid I believe the device described and sold at the URL below is real; I was really just exploring whether 1/ anyone had every had any experience with such and 2/ whether any other varieties existed regards Rohan I don't have any reason to doubt that $15k+ device is/was real. I expect some hackers could make their own LASER pickup for a turntable for less than $500-$1000. (Maybe less than $50, I dunno.) My only doubt is whether an UNMODIFIED LaserDisc player could really play UNMODIFIED LPs. The audio and video on LaserDiscs was analog but span much faster than 33 1/3 RPM. A C.onstant A.ngular V.elocity Disc for PAL would spin at 25 revs per SECOND = 1500 RPM as each track held one video frame. (30RPS = 1800 RPM for an NTSC disc.) So for a start, the sound would have to BE buffered, say by writing to & replaying from a computer file, otherwise the treble section would be ultrasonic & only microscopic creatures could dance to the beat! The Wikipedia LaserDisc article is pretty comprehensive. In referring to LASER Rot however, it doesn't mention that apparently the metal recording surface was exposed at the outside edge, which I read back then made the discs more vulnerable than CDs etc. It also doesn't mention a reason for adopting a smaller form-factor for the Digital A.udio D.is(c or k?) standard which became the Compact Disc. Manufacturers wanted to make a player that would fit in the standard car radio/cartridge/cassette dashboard space. (There was a least one phonograph produced for cars I think.) I would have liked to see the "Soundstream Audio File" system adopted as the DAD standard but there wasn't much chance of a little company beating the winning alliance of Philips & Sony. The article reference 14 in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundstream is not available at http://www.eetimes.com/ but basically AudioFile, VideoFile & DataFile used a photographically reproducible optical track read by an orbiting lens which swept past & tracked along the length of the rectangular card. (Or the card could have tracked past the lens but that's not how I remember it. Wouldn't affect compatibility either way.) Because the medium wasn't spinning, all the arc-shaped tracks were the same length, also the medium could be various lengths & potentially transparent so both sides could be played without flipping. (I read about AudioFile in an article by J. Hansen called "The Record that Doesn't Go Round" in January 1983 "Hi-Fi News & Record Review" magazine presumably still at the State library of Victoria. Maybe in the stacks now. I still had a photocopy not long ago, somewhere. Exact citation thanks to http://arpjournal.com/2140/soundstream-the-introduction-of-commercial-digit… )

8 years, 5 months

Why is there a protest over the East West Link?

by Brent Wallis

Why? Seems to me that every weekend protest notches up the compo payout for the rich landowners around the proposed development. The greens in particular seem to be the instigators and that beggars comprehension. ? I don't understand..... how does this weekends protest do anything other than up the taxpayer price for an infra need that is long overdue? Sure, public transport needs to be a priority, but in the end, what about moving freight? They can't catch a train or bus. ???? BW

8 years, 7 months

Re: [luv-talk] Why is there a protest over the East West Link?

by Peter Ross

From: "Lev Lafayette" <lev(a)levlafayette.com> > In this particular case they were lying AND deluded. They knew what the > facts were but deliberately chose not to relay them, and they were deluded > enough to think that this would make a difference on the ground. Every day of war is worth a million dollar and why not keep the business running? I wonder why we are always so shy to name vested interests. Back to the East West Link, the winners are obvious. And the way it was "planned" and gets rushed through makes it quite obvious that nobody cares about the outcome for Melbourne and Victoria. Regards Peter

8 years, 7 months

A talk tomorrow about privacy etc.

by Peter Ross

Hello, somehow I remember an open invitation in my inbox, to a talk/meeting about privacy, challenges we are facing and what to do. And somehow the EFF was in it;-) And I thought it would be tomorrow. Sorry about this vague recollection.. it somehow disappeared, I cannot find it. Google does not help me neither. I believe it was on one of the LUV mailing lists last days.. Am I right or did I dream of it?? Maybe the last days watching soccer at unholy hours made me more forgetful than usual. Sorry about the noise Peter

8 years, 7 months

Natural language processing was ( Re: How best to move system to SSD)

by Rohan McLeod

Terry Duell wrote: >> Hope that helps somewhat at least ;-) > Don't think so :-( > I'll keep searching for clues. The way Google seems to work these days one > has to be quite enlightened to figure out the right search string to get > an answer that helps. Obviously natural language processing must be an extremely difficult problem, if Google with all their expertise and processing power can't put a natural language, front end on their search engine. I wonder whether some entrepreneurial start-up company with a new idea; might put together software which disambiguates say short English language search questions via a dialogue; then compiles a complex Google search string, to achieve that result ? regards Rohan McLeod

8 years, 7 months

USB boot order: BIOS or USB issue ?

by Rohan McLeod

Assembled cognoscenti; I have a Asus-M4A79XTD_EVO mother board with an AMD 3.4GHz Phenom x4 965CPU and 16GB of Ram; with a AMI BIOS ver 2102 (which I suspect is more relevant) !. The problem is when I install a USB composite card reader (4 devices) it grabs all the BIOS USB 'boot options' (about 4 devices apparently) and whilst a USB FDD, (which I wish to access at boot time ) is obviously visible to the BIOS( it is the 5th device); it is not available at boot time. If I remove the card reader the FDD becomes available. Not having much luck googling " BIOS USB boot order"; just finding help with ordering BIOS boot devices; which is not the essential problem Question: Is USB BIOS boot order: 1/ just a matter of the specific BIOS firmware, or 2/ related to the USB port number (ie the plug) or 3/ somehow intrinsic to the set of USB devices ? 4/ something else ? regards Rohan McLeod

8 years, 8 months

Science, Technology, Science Fiction & Fantasy events coming soon.

by David E Payne

http://www.meetup.com/Science-Technology-and-the-Future/ has a talk 6pm tonight re Biologically Inspired Engineering & 6 pm Friday has the co-inventor of string field theory. > Monarch's Birthday weekend normally sees a Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention. This year it's a fen run event which won't get nearly as much publicity as the commercial ones. Friday is a chance to check it out for $1-$2! http://www.meetup.com/Continuum_Con/events/186808332/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dav* - (I'm so pessimistic sometimes I think I'll NEVER manage to read everything on the World Wide Web!)

8 years, 8 months

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luv-talk June 2014