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Old 10th Sep 2018, 6:54 pm   #21
Craig Sawyers
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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I'm a bit confused & puzzled about that remark: would you expand and clarify your thinking on that, please?
Thanks.
I clearly caused some confusion; I should have copied the mail I was replying to, which said:

"I can scan a photographic negative from one hundred years ago on the latest scanning technology available. But will my JPG or RAW file be readable in one hundred years' time?"

My point was that technology is littered with obsolete media. So regardless of the longevity of stored jpg or RAW file storage media, there will be likely nothing that will even recognise the data format a whole lot sooner than one hundred years.

I was trying to demonstrate that is likely to be the case by listing now entirely defunct media and storage systems in the last forty years. For example, you cannot buy a new DAT player, Betamax video player or 8-track tape player - they are no longer made. So everything you had stored on those tapes is no longer accessible, unless you kept the original hardware in working condition. And in the coming years - not a chance.

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Old 10th Sep 2018, 7:23 pm   #22
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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The nature of reality isn't clear... on the quantum level i can think of particles in terms of their quantum state which implies to me a sort of digital universe, but the wave function of a particle is probabilistic, which would perhaps lean more towards an analogue view of the universe.
I was thinking more on the macro scale - in general, afferent nerves emit a string of pulses, the frequency of which increases with the magnitude of the stimulus. Efferent nerves are similar, and the resultant muscle contraction is notably 'digital', each pulse resulting in the release of a discrete packet of chemicals, which ultimately produce a specific degree of contraction.
The muscles themselves work on a sort of ratchet system, each 'click' being added to the last to produce the overall movement.
Oversimplified, but the principle holds!
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Old 10th Sep 2018, 11:38 pm   #23
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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The nature of reality isn't clear... on the quantum level i can think of particles in terms of their quantum state which implies to me a sort of digital universe, but the wave function of a particle is probabilistic, which would perhaps lean more towards an analogue view of the universe.
At the risk of straying off topic, Richard Feynman said "If anyone tells you they understand quantum mechanics, they're wrong - nobody understands it. It works in that it predicts how nature is, and at a quantum scale it is deeply screwy". That is kind of paraphrased, but his public lectures on Quantum Mechanics (and on many other topics) are on you tube.

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Old 11th Sep 2018, 7:01 am   #24
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

There are places and energy levels where there either is an electron or there isn't. This sounds sort of digital, but that view is spoiled by Heisenberg and uncertainty.

Once you start handling electrons in statistically significant numbers on our sort of scale, voltage and current start to make sense. You are talking average traffic flows and not locating individual cars.

At our scale, there are just voltages and currents. On their own they have no other meaning unless we apply one.

When giving the odd talk, I sometimes jump in the air and cup my hands together the peer inside them. After a couple of misses I announce that I've caught an electron. I offer to show it to a victim in the audience and then I ask him whether it's an analogue one or a digital one?

I stab the prods of a voltmeter onto something and I read, say 2.97845 volts with the last few digits wandering a bit.

What does it mean?

If I'd probed a lithium cell, it would suggest it was at the end of its life.
If I'd probed a logic circuit running on a 3.3v supply it would suggest a logic '1'
If I'd probed something in a simple one-transistor amplifier it could mean things are OK.
If I'd probed some old 15v CMOS logic, it would be a logic '0'

Meaning depends on context.

I take the view that 'analogue' means that a voltage or current on a wire represents something proportionately.

I take the view that digital means that the voltage or current has a simplified meaning quantised into a limited number of states, and that higher levels of resolution are handled by having information either coded onto other lines, or coded as sequential values on the same line.

Once you start pushing analogue systems for resolution, you soon learn that noise is a fundamental limitation.

Once you start pushing digital systems for speed you soon learn that it is all built on variables which aren't boolean by nature and all those RF-y things come home to bite.

It's all in the mind.

One morning in the 80's, at Ingliston Sunday market, I learned that there were analogue and now digital headphones. Careful investigation showed me that apart from the price and exceptionally loud writing on the packaging, the only difference on the cans themselves was thin gold plating on the jack plug. It would soon wear off and the proud possessor would presumably be left with dreary old analogue phones. I was tempted to write a stiff letter to the Daily Record!

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Old 11th Sep 2018, 9:32 am   #25
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

...To be followed some years later by 'digital' TV aerials, I remember.
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 10:01 am   #26
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I suppose you could consider that the concepts and mathematics we use to explain the world are our own constructs, rather than intrinsic to the universe, an artifact of our subjective experience of the world rather than an absolute objective definition of the underlying reality. We necessarily reduce the world to patterns and approximations that "we" can make sense of, but I suppose without this, all you are left with is what "is" - without explanation. Of course what is, can never be experienced directly without the filter of human subjectivity, and as such I can have no confidence in what I've just said
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 11:19 am   #27
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...To be followed some years later by 'digital' TV aerials, I remember.
Recently I purchased two packs of A4 paper for my laser jet printer. The writing of the outer wrap stated "Digital paper" .
The manufacturer was Xerox.

Al.
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 11:32 am   #28
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Brilliant! Digital paper and was it dearer than Analogue I wonder?
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 11:48 am   #29
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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...To be followed some years later by 'digital' TV aerials, I remember.
Yes a clearly ridiculous term. That having been said, I think that the term was used as a sort of shorthand in the trade to denote something of quality, with a balun etc that had been tested and certified. Completely different to the £2.00 contractor aerials that were popular with the fur coat and no knickers customers.
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 12:18 pm   #30
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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I suppose you could consider that the concepts and mathematics we use to explain the world are our own constructs, rather than intrinsic to the universe, an artefact of our subjective experience of the world rather than an absolute objective definition of the underlying reality. We necessarily reduce the world to patterns and approximations that "we" can make sense of, but I suppose without this, all you are left with is what "is" - without explanation. Of course what is, can never be experienced directly without the filter of human subjectivity, and as such I can have no confidence in what I've just said
Or my favourite saying:

The Laws of Physics are Flawed -> The Laws of Physics were made/defined by Man -> Man is inherently flawed, ergo -> The Laws of Physics are Flawed.

ducking for cover now.......
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 1:52 pm   #31
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That's far more succinct
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Old 11th Sep 2018, 2:39 pm   #32
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The laws of physics are real and perfect, it is our interpretation that is at odds with reality.
 
Old 12th Sep 2018, 9:28 am   #33
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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I suppose you could consider that the concepts and mathematics we use to explain the world are our own constructs, rather than intrinsic to the universe, an artefact of our subjective experience of the world rather than an absolute objective definition of the underlying reality. We necessarily reduce the world to patterns and approximations that "we" can make sense of, but I suppose without this, all you are left with is what "is" - without explanation. Of course what is, can never be experienced directly without the filter of human subjectivity, and as such I can have no confidence in what I've just said
A Law of Physics is a construct (or whatever type - mathematical usually) based on repeatable observations of nature. It can never be anything else. Even Newton's Principia (and Opicks) have a whole chunk that is based on careful observations of the motion of the planets an the behaviour of light.

Then there is the other class of law - those that have been generated based on no observation at all. Like Einstein's General Relativity, a tour de force that was not observation based. But works perfectly with no exceptions found so far. Or the Standard Model of fundamental particle physics, which explains the deep workings of nature at tiny length scales, which is not directly observable - is yet accurate to many decimal places using particle accelerators and massively accurate (and usually huge) detectors.

The remaining key mystery is why 90% of the universe is missing (dark matters and dark energy).

And all of this is analogue. There are no digits in nature.

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Old 13th Sep 2018, 9:45 am   #34
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

'Digital' isn't any of these things.
It's a new word for 'New', and 'Analogue' is a new word for 'Outdated'.
Ask any advertising executive!
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Old 13th Sep 2018, 2:25 pm   #35
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

I think 'smart' is the buzz-word prefix for anything new, and I'm very wary of it.
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Old 13th Sep 2018, 7:11 pm   #36
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

They have even found digital plants with fingers to count on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra
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Old 13th Sep 2018, 10:00 pm   #37
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Only analogue transistor amplifiers come on immediately.
Battery valve radios come on immediately, too! Looking back, it must have been something of a disappointment to radio listeners in the 1930s when the convenience and lower cost of all-mains receivers using indirectly-heated valves was accompanied by a hitherto-unknown and undesirable 'warm-up' period.
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Old 14th Sep 2018, 1:34 am   #38
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

I think they just accepted the slow warm up in exchange for the cost saving.
At the time electric cookers took about the same amount of time to warm up.
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Old 14th Sep 2018, 8:43 am   #39
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

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They have even found digital plants with fingers to count on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra
<grin>

I said that nature did not do digital a few posts ago, but the Fibonacci sequence is deeply embedded in the shape of flowers, seed heads, snail shells and many other living things. Although not strictly digital, it is based on a sequence of integers.

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Old 14th Sep 2018, 8:46 am   #40
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Default Re: The Persistence of Analogue

I have seen domestic light switches described as "digital". As far as I was aware, apart from dimmers, light switches have always been digital?

The Dyson "Digital Motor" advert winds me up too. It may be a servo motor, but as it provides a rotary output I think that the "digital" label is OTT.
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