Does anyone have any wacky theories they'd like to share?

I have a bunch. I'll post one now and more later.

The Dark Sucker Theory

For years, it has been believed that electric bulbs emit light, but recent information has proved otherwise. Electric bulbs don't emit light; they suck dark. Thus, we call these bulbs Dark Suckers. The Dark Sucker Theory and the existence of dark suckers prove that dark has mass and is heavier than light.

First, the basis of the Dark Sucker Theory is that electric bulbs suck dark. For example, take the Dark Sucker in the room you are in. There is much less dark right next to it than there is elsewhere. The larger the Dark Sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark Suckers in the parking lot have a much greater capacity to suck dark than the ones in this room.

So with all things, Dark Suckers don't last forever. Once they are full of dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the dark spot on a full Dark Sucker.

A candle is a primitive Dark Sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You can see that after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark that has been sucked into it. If you put a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, it will turn black. This is because it got in the way of the dark flowing into the candle. One of the disadvantages of these primitive Dark Suckers is their limited range.

There are also portable Dark Suckers. In these, the bulbs can't handle all the dark by themselves and must be aided by a Dark Storage Unit. When the Dark Storage Unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced before the portable Dark Sucker can operate again.

Dark has mass. When dark goes into a Dark Sucker, friction from the mass generates heat. Thus, it is not wise to touch an operating Dark Sucker. Candles present a special problem as the mass must travel into a solid wick instead of through clear glass. This generates a great amount of heat and therefore it's not wise to touch an operating candle.

Also, dark is heavier than light. If you were to swim just below the surface of the lake, you would see a lot of light. If you were to slowly swim deeper and deeper, you would notice it getting darker and darker. When you get really deep, you would be in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the lighter light floats at the top. The is why it is called light.

Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you were to stand in a lit room in front of a closed, dark closet, and slowly opened the closet door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet. But since dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet.

Next time you see an electric bulb, remember that it is a Dark Sucker.

I have a theroy that mundane habits are hereditary. But that some of those habits that are in me now, were not in me when I was born. I believe that I found enjoyment in certain things, they got encoded into my DNA, and I passed them on.

"It is my theory that is mine because it's mine..."

- Miss Ann Elk

“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.”

~Einstein

"You Reap What You Sow"

"What You Do Comes Back To You"

"If Radio Is Fun To Listen To Your Audience Will Keep Tuning In"

This is gonna be an interesting thread. (yes I have some, but no time at the moment.)

Trees moving causes wind.

Trailer Parks cause tornados

You can eat as much food with fat and cholesterol in it as long as you balance it out with enough salt.

While the fat and cholesterol will block your arteries, the salt will keep your blood pressure high enough to force the blood through anyway!

Intelliegent design.

Long exposure to AM radio programming disables brain function.

The foog!

(All knowing species that created us for the entertainment value. Someday, when the archives are more complete, look it up, or ask Herb!)

Actual belief, I've been unable to shake since I was a kid:

If you are doing something wrong, getting worried about getting caught --and in particular, thinking about all the ways it could happen, actually increases the chance of really getting caught!

One other one:

Energy is that which is consumed to get work done.

Thinking hard about how to more quickly get something done, actually reduces the work required! So, thoughts are energy right?

The World is hollow and I have touched the sky!

Dihydrogen monoxide. :-P

The Beer and Ice Cream diet.

If you drink enough cold beer and eat enough Ice Cream, you will lower your body temperature enough to cause your body to have to consume enough calories to warm you up to offset the intake and lose weight.

I'm going to win the lottery some day and start my own charitable foundation.

I once had a theory that Men are more intelligent than Women.....I have been informed of the fact that this theory is incorrect! Move over Rex.....let me in the doghouse!

Microwaves aren't as safe as we think.

* The Internet will very soon prove to be the most effective propaganda medium to date because it is easy cultivate a "plain folks" appeal with blogs, "personal" web pages, and forum posts.

* Internet usage handicaps social functioning. One day, studies will try to correlate monetary income to amount of time spent on the Internet. The studies will find that there is some threshold, in terms of number of hours of usage per day, over which increasing usage correlates to DECREASING income. Sociologists will hypothesize that these heavy Internet users are less successful because they wasted time entertaining themselves on the Internet instead of using that time productively at work or using that time to seek out better career prospects.

*Prolonged exposure to charismatic Christian (i.e. Pentecostal-themed) or radical Islamic teachings severely limits or destroys critical thinking ability.

Ooops, I forgot:

* The advent of multicasting on HDTV/HD-Radio and other multichannel platforms will end up degrading the overall quality of programming in the long term. This will happen because the organizations programming these venues will stretch themselves too thin trying to create programming for all the new channels. A few people will long for the days of the three major networks, serious news reporting/analysis, drama shows, and made for TV movies.

Hell...we are already there and Bruce wrote a song that splains it LUCY:

57 Channels (And Nothin' On) Only these days it's 1000 Channels and nothin's on!

Also TV is all about

Dirty Laundry as Don Henley so aptly sang!

My Fundamental Theorem of Functional Computing--

Seems Midnight on the 29th marked the end of what I consider the era of "functional computing", specifically due to Microdump releasing its new Winvista operating system.

Now, on the theory of functional computing:
I define functional computing as operating computers with OSes that actually do a specific (often straightforward) function outside of looking pretty. (The "looking pretty" aspect is what I rather disparagingly have nicknamed "Fashionable Computing", in which an OS is designed to look cool or be a fashion statement. Examples of fashionable computing include Winvista ('natch), many cell phones and Apple I-pods.

Unfortunately computing loses sight of what it was intended to do, when it tends to go the fashionable route. It tends to become more well-supported in terms of sheer beauty but increasingly weaker support is given to the overall computational power of an OS. Specifically, this involves replacing the functional areas of said OS with areas desighed to add "bling" to the OS. Such as, the "Media Centre" interface, or the 3D icons and desktop. In the real world who needs it and what purpose does it serve to get the job done, other than make it visually pleasing? (For another example, I understand DOS and 16-bit Windows support under Vista is severely lacking, if it exists at all; possibly a deliberate push by Microsnot to kill off realistically functional computer programmes favouring fashionable ones.) Eventually as the trend progresses OSes will become so fashionable and beautiful they will have little to no practical value as actual computing platforms. Therefore, basically all you are left with is a system which looks pretty on-screen but operates poorly when it comes tme to actually run programmes.

Remember the earlier versions of Windows, for example Workgroups 3.11? The interface itself, I will admit (as a past, as well as still somewhat current, user of this particular OS!) was outright hideous but it got the job done, and done well! In the 15 years I have been using Win 3.11 as a primary OS (and the last seven years as a backup plan in case my main OS fails, or only for compatibility on my Mandrake machine) it has only crashed on me once. This was back in 1997, after a nasty virus wiped out the file allocation table on my Backard Bell 486!

Ergo, eventually operability and stability will be doomed to give way to beauty and fashion. When this happens (it apparently is starting, look at Vista!) computing will lose sight of its goal--as an extension of human intellect, as a worker and as a tool designed to do a job.

From what I understand, from the reviews of some *very reliable* Vista beta testers (some of which I know very well) many areas of the OS are severely crippled, such as DOS and 16-bit support mentioned above. From a reliability and ease-of operation standpoint, many areas of the interface need severe improvement, such as actually implementing a desktop such as has been used in the last several versions of Win. And for speed? Turtles reportedly can move faster than Winvista upon performing complex tasks!

Basically if you hate XP, you'll *really* end up hatin' Vista in other words!

Unfortunately this trend isn't just limited to software and operating systems, hardware also can easily become plagued with these problems as well. Apparently in the market there currently seems to be a "push" towards making a computer the "all-enclusive" entertainment centre, all you need to add is a TV set and stereo. In terms of computing this thinking is seriously flawed. Why do I want to watch DVD-Video on my computer when I have a 40" TV and a high-end Harmon Kardon DVD player that would so totally whoop a computer-software based DVD player app any day?

Hopefully someday the industry will wake up and realise the world won't be able to function on computers if the computers can't function themselves!

Your thoughts??

---lots there, but I wanted to comment on the whole entertainment center bit.

Your Harmon Kardon DVD player might play a nice DVD, but it does honor all the access and user command restrictions that are part of the DVD standard.

This means you will be watching those 12 minutes of previews every time you insert Disneys "Tarzan" DVD, no matter what.

By contrast, the nice Linux system I often use to play DVD media, does scaling and sub-sampling and can output to NTSC as well as higher definition displays. It disregards all of that stuff, meaning one can insert their DVD, hit three keys and be watching the actual movie, sans crap.

IMHO, an open computer setup to work in the living room is seeming like a very smart move going forward. I've been wanting to build one for a while now, before things get too ugly where DRM is concerned.

A big issue surrounding the whole computer as entertainment center bit, is the legal struggles going on right now.

It's completely possible to build a great system that uses your high resolution display to display television content on a pass through, while also displaying other content as an overlay. This is the system I want to build.

In that scenario, the computer then only adds value to the television stream. Want a browser? Pop it up, right on top of the video. Want to play your new DVD? Insert it, let the computer transcode it to a neutral and efficient format, then play it from the stored image, storing your master disc for longer term keeping.

PVR? Sure, just record what you want and play it back later, all from the same device.

Games? Most of the classics will display as a browser would.

Currently, most of this functionality works best in a client server type of environment. With the small form factors we can get today, combined with very large storage in the same small factor, building a reasonable system that does all of what I wrote is within reach, with perhaps just large enough storage being a major cost issue.

The only thing preventing solid products from having already hit the marketplace is attorneys and corporations wanting to exert too much control over the whole affair.

I've noted the more useful media and media gear is, the more people consume it. This has totally been true for my family at least!

One of my early tests of this kind of functionality happened on an older SGI workstation. It has pro-quality NTSC video in and out. I set up the television stream on a pass through and that worked great. So the desktop background was whatever program stream happened to be on, if any.

I removed the icons and other clutter from the display, leaving only the full screen video. (That old box can scale video sources well too) The box ran headless, and connected to the TV and stereo. I used an NTSC display for that test, but it would have easily done a 1080p display.

Then, using a networked connection, I ran another low powered computer to handle human I/O, and applications to be displayed on the SGI screen. Essentially it became an X window display device with optional video capture.

Was pretty cool actually. Running apps on top of the video worked very well. Capture was nice in that if you could see it, you could record it!

That older machine proved the concept. Now that Linux systems have largely caught up to that standard, I'm gonna give it another shot using MythTV. Hopefully this will be the year I can take a shot at it.

Everyone I showed that to, wanted it, leading me to believe convergence itself is a good thing. It's the other hassles that come along for the ride that remains the spoiler.

--oh yeah, hatin' Vista huge. I'm essentially not gonna run it, unless somebody else pays for it.

Thank you for your recent post, "motozak." I agree with all the points that you make about form taking precedence over function, and I think that the main reason that this is happening is that there is a very determined push to make the personal computer into a consumer product with a market penetration similar to that of radios, televisions, CD players, and refrigerators. I think that Vista's focus on a eye candy, just like the iPOD's non user-serviceable battery, was due to a demand of the marketing department, rather than the engineers' belief that the product should be built this way.

I suppose the great thing about "form" is that it has brought the price of computers within reach of everybody.

FM-HD/Coax theory:

HD signals move very slowly through a length of coax (perhaps because the rough edges of the digital signal catch on the coax braid).

To demonstrate, tune in a HD-2 station and disconnect the antenna coax (about 10 feet in my case) from the wall plug...it will take about 6 seconds before the music stops. Plug the coax back in and it will take about 8 seconds before the music starts again. No theory yet as to why it takes less time to "drain out" the coax than it does to "fill" it back up.

Well, since the HD sidebands are on either side of the analog signal, perhaps the wider overall signal makes it more likely that the rough edges (or little hooks) get snagged in the braid. Hey--once upon a time it was theorized that atoms had little hooks on them that allowed them to link to other atoms.

Another theory that I have is that some conservative Christian groups have mounted a conspiracy to silence Elvis (because of his provocative hip-shaking), the Beatles (because of their hair), and the Stoner (because of the drug reference in his DJ name and his promotion of rock & roll)! To this end, KKSN will be taken off the air tonight.

Since RF travels on the surface of a given cable, if you scratch the conductor it will cause standing wave reflections!

Invisible Car Theory:

Fiberglass cars (Corvette, Lotus) do not reflect 10.5 ghz Police radar.

Missing--on that DVD player, it's an older machine that somewhat ignores a lot of the copy-protection crap muxed into DVD video. (Does cause problems playing back some movies, most I have noticed are a few newer MGM and Disney titles) but it seems for as little as I actually watch DVD Video, personally, it's no biggie.

It has a "Title/Chapter" function wherein you can just jump directly to whichever title on the DVD disc you want. You just put the disc in, then when it boots up immediately hit the STOP key on the remote. Then hit the number of the section you want to go to--usually I have noticed, movies tend to be in title 2 or 3, depending on however the disc is programmed. Saves time and you don't have to sit theough 15 minutes of commercials.....or menues, FBI/Interpol boilerplate, etc................

(However, on my VCR this is a lot easier--just put the tape in and hit fast forward!)

And that's another story--at least a VCR does offer one very distinct advantage over a DVR system like a Tivo or a souped-up PC, and that's portability. You can take a movie or show on VHS and play it back on another VCR and it will look and (in most cases, depending on the speed it's recorded at) perform the same as it does on your VCR.

That, and you don't have to pay a subscription fee to record your video. (Something I have never been a fan of anyways.....that's also why I use free to air for my satellite, rather than a package like Dish Net or a nonstandard DSS system.)

DVD recorders, I have noticed, are also incredibly portable, just as much so as VHS, and with often better quality (you can even dupe them on the computer!) but the price will have to come down tremendously and systems will have to be less confusing to operate (I hate having to go through menu after menu just to enable the Video Line-In on my neighbour's Sony!) before I embrace this tech.

(I guess I should come out now and admit I use my Mandrake machine almost religiously for automating my music playback, and for pumping my background music throughout my apartment!!)

Alfredo~
"I think that Vista's focus on a eye candy, just like the iPOD's non user-serviceable battery, was due to a demand of the marketing department, rather than the engineers' belief that the product should be built this way."

Somewhat out of context, but this is what is preventing me from making a purchase of an MPEG-audio player device like an Apple I-Pod or some other similar device--non-standard batteries. Until someone actually seems to have the brain to develop a player that runs on AA's (or even AAA's if size is an issue) it looks like I'll be using CD players for quite a while to come!


-----------------------------------------------

Also I read a tech review in the Columbian today on Vista (OS is barely even a week old and they are reviewing it already???) and the reviewer even seemed to, in some way or other, acknowledge that Vista's more of a visually-oriented OS that's not without its compatibility problems. (Apparently he had a video card that looked like crap, a Soundblaster that wouldn't blast sound, and an HP printer that wouldn't print.) This is exactly what I feared--the more they bling an OS up, the less functional it likely could become given limits on installation space and hardware specs.

Naaaahhhhh......gimmee my Mandrake any day!
They can keep their Vistas and their Experiences and their Millenia.......

I have a theory that along with myself, Moto, Sky, and missing are spending way to much time in here lately! LOL

Blahg, Blahg, Blahg

Someone was showing batteries at CES that run on water.
I didn't go, but a consultant I know told me about it.

http://www.americaninventorspot.com/water_powered_batteries_0

Of course, they aren't cheap. BTW, replacing iPod batteries yourself is not difficult, but mine still works fine at 3 y.o.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10165_7-5643378-1.html

Darktemper~

I haven't been spending nearly as much time 'round here lately, as I have at Muzak's boards..........

(They know me as MotoFox around those parts.)

Zen puzzle: What is the sound of one hand blogging?

Fry's/Outpost.com has a really cheap MP3 player made by Emprex (I think the model # is MP-1003) that runs off a single AAA cell. This player costs $15.00. For storage, it uses a flash memory card (not included). I've been considering buying one of these devices.

I've got two of them. Quality is iffy. Some have noisy DACs, but others are just fine.

They will sometimes not tolerate some mp3 files. I've encoded a bunch of stuff with BLADE, before I knew about LAME, and a few of those will skip.

If you make good solid encodes, with a quality encoder and I cannot recommend LAME enough, these are generally solid players.

The built in EQ settings are horrible choices. The good news is the flat setting is actually decent. (mostly flat)

Battery life is long. If you use rechargable batteries, you can expect about 10 hours at moderate volume.

Max memory card accepted is 1GB.

Sutton, would it be the same sound as one handed clapping?

Missing...Would you say that the overall likelihood of ending up with a "good" Emprex player makes it worth the $15 price tag? If I were to buy one of these, my primary usage would be to listen to podcasts downloaded from the Internet, so the file enoder compatibility issues could be a show-stopper for me.

For $15, it's probably a solid deal.

I've not downloaded much, if anything, that caused a problem. Most of the issues happened at >160Kbps joint stereo encodes.

Take a memory card with you. Put some files on it and test the thing. You can buy it, go snag a pop or something to drink, open the package up and listen through your files.

If one will skip, it will happen within the first minute of listening.

So, a half-hour spent listening to the player would tell you all you need to know. If it sucks, take it right back. Also you will want to listen for a small amount of time to check the DAC.

Ever wonder why low band VHF TV signals go farther than high band VHF and UHF signals? It's because lower frequencies have longer wavelengths than higher frequencies. The waves produced by lower frequencies are naturally heavier (because they're longer) and tend to sag as they get farther from the transmitting tower, so they follow the curvature of the earth better than the lighter shorter wavelengths.

I hope you were taking notes because I'm not going to explain this twice.

Ever wonder why TV and radio station transmitters have to put out so much power?

It’s because there are so many TV's and radios.

Here's how it works;

A transmitter, an FM radio transmitter in this example, can put out 100KW ERP. (Puts the RF in the air)

A FM radio requires about 50uV for good reception. (Sucks the RF out of the air)

Therefore there are a finite number of receivers that can be listening at any given time or you will simply run out of available RF in the air.

Skybill...don't go near a high power receiver! With that RF (really funny) brain of yours would hate to hear that it sucked out all your gray matter right through your ears! LOL

As far as the WACKY THEORIES.....go check with DUByah....he seems to have no end of them! LMAO

*PLONK*

Scott & Skybill, pretty funny!

For a number of years, my wife had my nephew believing that the bath water sometimes got sucked up you know where, if you got up too fast!

She would demonstrate by getting up quick, then pointing out the much lower bathwater level. Then he would get up slowly and the water would not change much...

He would tell others about this and for the longest time, nobody said a word!

Missing, how old is your nephew and why is your wife taking baths with him? (JK!)

If you swallow your gum your insides will stick together.

If you swallow a cherry pit, it can sprout in your stomach and grow (out your ears).

I have to sleep with the closet doors shut, so the monster can't get out. And never dangle your feet on the edge of the bed at night, spring off away from there to get up in the dark. Or turn on the light!

Maraschino cherries never leave your body...something about the formaldehyde, I think.

While swimming in fresh water, the fish will nibble your toes and the weeds will wrap around your ankles and pull you under (Thanks soooo much Dad)

Jackalopes are rarely seen alive because they are deathly fearsome of any light, especially headlights!

What goes around comes around. I never need to get revenge on someone personally, it will happen naturally, with no assistance from me. It may take a while (years!) but it WILL happen!

This is more fact than theory.

When a someone fart's in church.....They will be sitting in their own "PEW"

Skybill--

This actually might be somewhat true: specifically wireless Internet access, especially in public areas like Ester Short Park or most of Portland.

A server system can only handle so many computers accessing it at one time, therefore slowing it down tremendously or in extreme cases, crashing the servers all together. (Basically sucks the server's processor bandwidth right out of the air.....)

This would especially be a problem with portable Internet computers or even the new-fangled "Wireless Internet Radios" that are now coming onto the market.

In fact I knew of one guy on Radio Info ("700WLW", MotoMuzak apologises to you if you are reading this) who seems to be of the belief this system will somehow altogether replace IBAC's and analogue AMs/FMs. I doubt what he realises is the more bogged down a server is with these kind of data streams the less reliable it becomes. And audio/video streaming on the Internet is a HUGE bandwidth hog!!

(Unfortunately in his case a total replacement like this is wishful thinking, or if it becomes reality will just be pure folly.)

So Skybill, therefore, only a finite number of terminals can use the Wi-Fi or you will simply run out of Wireless Fidelity, right out of the air....

Motozak, very true about bandwidth, but not about the RF!

Merkie, Perkie....

It was a while back, he was age appropriate!

Re: Getting bogged down in streaming.

My SGI machines have support for multicast packets. I'm sure most TCP-IP machines do this, but I've not seen it used anywhere. Must be some deep dark technical reason...

The gist of it was that packets could be sent to be received by lots of hosts on the same network. Essentially, they were just like radio receivers. Start grabbing the stream, buffer a little and once you've captured a keyframe, you are good to go.

Seems to me, we should be able to do something like this for streaming audio only.

---just remembered what the technical reason was. One stream is just great, two requires 2x the bandwidth, 4 is 4x, etc... For multiple programs, the technique would require too much incoming bandwidth to make any sense! Well it was cool for video streaming on the internal company network.

Truth or Bullshit -- you decide!

Now maybe we need to send digital radio on the wi-fi bands. There are lots of channels, maybe one of them could be used for this purpose. Just one channel would carry a lot of programming. Sounds like a good idea, wonder who has worked on such a system?

DAB comes to mind... Guess we are stuck with what we have.