Cables can very easily change the tonal character of a system and the cable manufacturers capitalise on this, you can’t measure it so it’s very easy to say “hey look, it’s better isn’t it?”.

What can’t you measure? I’d wager that there are a whole host of things you could measure to identify the differences – probably more than you can for a specific cassette that’s for sure – the problem is that these are abstract to most people. i.e. You can describe the attenuation, resistance or inductance of a cable over it’s length, or the phase linearity or having an FEXT characteristic in a particular range based on particular stimulus and measurement circuit arrangements can tell you something about a cable, but it won’t mean much to most people.

However, given the nature of digital transfers of information, this does’t matter – there is no way for the signal degradation* in the cable to impact on the data in the cables – which is of course the whole point of ridicule in this particular thread. However much perceivable difference there is between two cables in the analogue domain, due to the nature of digital audio, data in = data out, unless you’ve screwed it up something rotten, in which case, the error protection kicks in and you get nothing.

*because even good analogue cables are not about improving the sound, they are about minimising degradation, even if that’s poor messaging in terms of sales.

Peaked helmets – I find if I ride my road bike with a peaked helmet then I have to crane my neck back to see properly and it hurts, I assumed this is why road helmets don’t have peaks – is this not the case, and don’t all you lot using one helmet for both not get painful necks?

Of those, the one posted by the generalist scares the life out of me more than the OP – because it’s inside the realms of possibility that I might climb something like that (and indeed, have done) climbing free-standing ice pillars isn’t something most people do in the UK – slushy snow ice over streams of water is ten a penny!

If the wood is of any size, then stick it on freecycle/Gum Tree or whatever and someone will come and clear it up and take it away free of charge.

Nothing uses psycho-acoustics, something which is quite well understood

Except it’s not.

There are some really vast areas where there are gaps, and we can talk in terms of ranges of possibility (like frequency response changes in response to loudness changes) but there are some aspects (like the transition between the use of ITD and IID in localisation) which are poorly understood, and seemingly inconsistent.

We can do a lot with what we know about psycho-acoustics – just look at how effective MP3’s are at compressing audio down and retaining most of the information (particularly compared with other methodologies.) There is however, and insufficient amount of knowledge to use this to create a useful measurement of quality.

If we start to try and look at audio quality as a whole in any kind of detail, then Heisenberg pops up his head and says no – because we’re dealing with interacting variables, once we get any detail in terms of, for example, frequency, then we automatically lose detail in terms of timing and indeed phase.

I’d watch out – the EU want to make having one a criminal offence.

Is he not now riding the Tirreno Adratico supporting Ritchie Porte? Not that it would stop him racing last Saturday, but if he was going into preparations then it would at least make sense.

CD quality audio reproduction at the standard sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16bit sample rate gives 1411Kbps, from what has been drummed into me that’s 2 (# audio channels) × 44100 samples/sec x 16 bits/sample = 1,411.2 kbit of information per second, rather more than 320Kpbs.

That’s a dishonest comparison because they work on fundamentally different systems – using pulse code modulation to store audio data is inherently wasteful, so all the data included isn’t always needed, just because it’s always there.

The root of the problem is that there is no easy way to assess absolute sound quality, it’s very subjective. This Audiophile nonsense is very much like the Emperor’s Clothes, e.g.

Timing and coherence are the two really easy differences to hear, but like other interconnects it’s simple to spot the differences in levels of detail, tonal quality and dynamic performance.

i.e. If you can’t hear the difference you’re a moron.[/quote]

That’s not strictly true – all of those things can be measured fairly accurately, using, in some cases, a number of scales. That said – it’s a real faff to measure them, and the differences between the measurements are difficult to actually assess unless you have some kind of reference – as with many audio things, they mean little to nothing in a vacuum.

<geek>

Timing – at this level, you’d be measuring this on the basis of system/interconnect jitter, which is related to the quality of the clocking of the system. This *can* have an impact on the consistency of playing back the samples – these should be precisely every whatever milliseconds depending on sample rate – if this drifts, due to poor clocking, then it can impact on phase alignment, but only really when you have more than one cable or system transmitting audio – i.e. it’s of little to no consequence here, because we’re only dealing with a single stereo/greater than stereo signal, not multiple signals from multiple sources being brought together – like in a mixer. You can measure jitter pretty easily by checking the consistency of the sample data in the cable – this is something you can do straight out of the cable itself.

Coherence – I’m assuming this means phase coherence, rather than anything else, and this again, can be an issue, if the left channel arrives at a different time from the right channel then you end up with a skewed stereo image, and potentially comb filtering impacting on the overall tone. However, a cable wouldn’t improve or deteriorate this – even in a system (like optical cables) where the stereo data is sent serially – i.e. left content followed by right content – then the problems could only occur in the reconstruction of it, not the interconnects. You can measure this by comparing the input signal and the output signal – although isolating the cable would be basically impossible – it needs convertors etc. to be able to do the calculations, and then if you changed the cable you’d need to take into account the changes in the rest of the circuit because of the changed cable – but you could come out with something – it’s unlikely to change, but you’d have a difference.

Detail – this is probably the most bollocks on there, the only thing I can think of is total harmonic distortion (THD) to measure this…but a digital cable would need to be seriously crap to have an impact on it, in fact, the point at which a digital cable is impacting on this, you’d end up with no signal.

Tonal Quality This is easily measured by comparing signal in to signal out and identifying areas of difference. This doesn’t mean that change = bad, because I know a heap of people who choose stuff (mixers, EQ, compressors, speakers) because they do change the sound for the better.

Dynamic performance This is crudely measured as an RMS average over time, or more usefully using Bob Katz K system, it has a specific calibration process and meter ballistics to follow, meaning you can compare apples with apples through the system and give you a good idea about relative dynamic performance.

There is a difference between funded and controlled.

There should be yes, in reality, this is not the case with the BBC – who are controlled through soft controls, like the government taking stories elsewhere if they allow certain speakers*, or report on certain things in a particular way, this removes the possibility of having a news network that covers the day to day, so they do as they are told. In addition, finding means that you can continue, as long as they are holding the purse strings, the consideration is always going to be to think about what happens.

There are notable exceptions, but on the whole, this seems to be the case with the BBC.

Are you suggesting that ITN and Sky News were able to provide very different objective reporting of the Iraq War ?

If so, can you provide some evidence of this ?

No, I compared RT to the BBC specifically because they are both state funded – commercially funded networks are worse.

Russia Today has a specific remit to paint the West, particularly the EU, UK in particular and US in the most negative light possible inside and outside Russia. It is to it’s benefit for it to appear to uphold free speech as much as possible.

Anywhere where you might expect the UK or US media to be negative about something, then RT is positive about it. as an example, thinking back to the 2010 student protests in the UK. RT was very positive about them, “anti-government protesters” in the same way that our media has been positive about the motley crew of people who have got rid go the Ukrainian president, and been applauded for it by our media and political class, RT has broadly taken an opposite view.

I don’t think this specifically highlights a fundamental dishonesty behind what RT does, certainly not over and above the fundamental dishonesty of our state media (BBC) in this country, which lies, misrepresents and obfuscates reality in it’s news reporting all the time.

if you have time to ride you have time for some chores

Nonsense, if the weather is good enough to fix the path, then you should be riding.

“Is RT the only media which whitewashes the evils of the state?“

Other than the BBC you mean?

State media is state media.

“Winter Conditions”

Tweets by WardenEryri

When did U2 form?

1978?

Erm, they did a press conference as the original line up and promptly fell out with Bill Ward and he didn’t play the shows.

Ward played with them and recorded stuff around 2001 definitely – I saw them.

Flow
Minecraft PE
Temple Run or clone (minion rush etc.)

i don’t think Brendan O’Hare was technically an original member?

Well quite – wasn’t an original member, did go on to be the drummer for 2.5 albums or so, then replaced by someone else, then they were replaced by Francis Mcdonald who did half of the first album.

If we are going to play that game, then Black Sabbath – they have played fairly recently with the original line up.

Teenage Fanclub lost Brendan O’Hare after Grand Prix, or maybe thirteen – before Songs from Northern Britain at least.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – probably stretching the rules ( a lot) but the line up hasn’t changed since they started with that name in 1969.

Chas & Dave?

Duo’s can’t count, because if it was a different line up, it would not longer be Chas and Dave – e.g. the Everly Brothers – spent a decade apart doing other things, but no one was the every brother in the interim…

Unless of course you start from the fist album, rather than first release.

ZZ Top – The first single (Salt Lick) was Gibbons, Greig and Mitchell, replaced afterwards with Gibbons, Beard and Hill – so not the “original” line up of ZZ Top, because there is a record made with a different one.

ZZ Top changed their drummer after the first release.

Longest ever was probably The Four Tops – 1953 – 1997, but they are no longer going as the original line up.

If the cave is naturally forming then that would be ok, but if you have specifically dug the cave in order to house the child then that would would be a piece of technology, and according to this research, would be detrimental to the child’s development.

Foraged fruit is also fine, as long as you don’t use any implements to feed it to them, or collect it, that would be dangerous to the child’s development.

This does seem to be advocating the kind of society that the Amish would consider backward.

Their use of the word “technology” is really bizarre – a see-saw is a piece of technology, is this included? a spoon is also a piece of technology, is that also included? what about nappies?

Our virgin phone/TV/broadband deal is cheaper than our previous BT phone/broadband deal, and we no longer need to use free view, which has poor coverage in our area.

I use a pump left over from a home birthing kit we used for the births of 2 of our kids – this lifts the water from the water butt, through the chiller, then back out to a different water butt – it has a connection very like the one above, I think it’s a pond pump of some sort.

Doing the lake side as an out and back is a great ride – I stayed in Martindale last summer and rode it of an evening a few times.

I agree with the above – Boredale isn’t a great ride, Bannerdale/Beda Fell is a better option, a little more climbing from the Hause itself, but the overall ride is better.

If I was going to ride it as a loop that’s the way I would go from Hartsop, up to Boredale, over Beda Fell into Martindale, then down to Sandwick on the road and along the lake shore to Patterdale and back on to Hartsop.

It depends on exactly what is included – if it’s just the mechanism, then that’s really specific and unless people actually want to use it, not of much value – £50 or so – maybe more for the nice box.

If it is a system which uses physical type to do the titles, and you have some of those – often made by Hernard in ceramic, “3-D title letters” these can be quite desirable for home decorating on their own, and an upmarket salvage shop might be interested, or etsy types.

Steve Jones is the only serious bike journalist out there, his prose makes the trail come alive.

Movicol paediatric FTW. Not sure if it’s available from a GP. We got some from a consultant my son was referred to.

This, it can be prescribed by a GP.

The article above suggests that very few other countries would have the same sort of tally – with the exception of perhaps the French.

The design on the slides is really crap – and always is on this sort of thing. That is however consistent with the reality of most official slide presentations.

What does it do exactly? I really can’t work it out.

(also – £4 tool to service £22 pedals isn’t great value when you can do it with standard tools)

I’ve never used one on mine – not sure what bit it is used to tighten up, but have never had issues with a collection of sockets, spanners and screwdrivers, couple of goes at trial and error to get the right tightness across the two nuts and bob is your uncle – easy stuff.

I have them on my bikes I use to commute, but I hate them with a passion – the benefits outweigh the negatives, but I find if there is one thing that needs working on, and it likely to end up slicing my hands open, then it’s mud guards, they end up snapped (toe overlap makes this inevitable with my crappy commuter) and generally all over the place no matter what I do to them.

Done

Google drive allows you to have as many questions as you like, Survey Gizmo does also, although it’s limited to 350 responses a month, but I’ve yet to see a dissertation with that level of response, so I’m sure you will be fine. If you need more questions, get a better provider – they are out there. (the other alternative is Lime Survey, but that is very serious stuff)

Live action photoshop is called After Effects, not that I think it’s done that way, it’s just that it does exist.

Looks like he has a good sense of balance, and has developed a sense of what stones fit together and where they will balance – the videos show him doing this sat in the river – moving the stones round, selecting once which will work, trying them over and over in different combinations to get them to balance – so in terms of how does he do it – what the videos and watch him…