There's actually a lot of that stuff around for neural processes that detect things they shouldn't be able to detect by acuities that have to do with comparisons. There are electric fish that can detect phase differences in electric fields in the 1-10 microsecond range, even though "everybody knows" neurons operate in the 1-10 millisecond range.

Anyway, it never occurred to the engineers putting together the standard that they couldn't just do single tone auditory tests and then double the top frequency to figure out how many bits to use to encode peoples recordings. That mistake was okay, everybody screws something up some time. But then the industry tried for several years to argue that people couldn't hear things that they could hear. That was the marketing stuff.

The difference is that auto deaths are accepted as inevitable, while things like 9/11 aren't. ...is totally not true.

In fact, I know of quite a few people who spend a lot of time, initially in research, and eventually in interventions (product design, legislation, etc.), trying to reduce those fatalities.

Thanks for that comment to dear pete b.

o, Anonymust seen at midnight ordering,

a 'Starbucks' peppermint hot mochas brew,

and talking to fellow insomniac Salon's readers.

Ondelette, I am a bit puzzled by the beat frequencies. Are you saying that it is necessary to have the frequencies above, say 20 KHz, in the playback system because these tones can beat in the ear and thus non-linearly generate lower frequency tones that are audible? Do you have a reference?

-- Mike Sulzer

To really hear low frequencies. Longer waves. Think how long a 40 Hertz sound wave is. If you set up in a smaller room with an adjoining long hallway, you can test this out. You won't hear the lows in the room, but step outside in the hallway. Lower freqs are non-linear. That's why you can place a subwoofer anywhere.

"Jebbie: My sins are many and the deepest crimson, but for what am I forgiven this time?"

Nothing specific but I felt like forgiving someone and you fit the bill. Maybe someone will forgive me someday in a like manner.

I gotta SCREAM!!!

Taking Leiberman's Super Status away should have been a no-brainer since he's no longer a Democrat and has not been considering himself a Democrat since he got his sorry ass kicked by Ned Lamont. The Demo Party leadership should be horsewhipped for allowing that sonofabitch to occupy any Majority Seat on any committee. If he wants a committee assignment, much less a Chairmanship, let him kiss some GOP ass and let them spend their allotment on him.

Sheesh.

Respectfully,

I remember observing a dog walker on 5th Ave in NYC,

tying to instruct her pedigree dog to ignore "inferior" mutts.

The inferior breeds are the GOP's. I say, 'Let's have burp skills.'

If a presidential hopeful can burp the ABC's we have some hope.

... seeking out Salon's readership's advice,

... why has all failed? Why has each GOP marriages backfired?

... insecure trolls are pleading and petitioning for free advice!

.... asking GG's readers how to do the hoopla hoop? O, my gads.

O, gads.

... an obese 'goof' teaches how to jiggle the belly button and do a GOP dance?

... on You-Tube...

what a surprise education on this chilly erev(evening)!
Thanks to all for the expressions of good will earlier, after my silly rant.
Silly's ok.
Good crisp savory stalks of celery flying around Glenn's garden tonight! Thanks, bebop-o (incognito. hush.).
Laila Tov
Umami!

You mentioned LBJ a few posts ago.

Have you ever been there?

-- Jebbie

I mentioned a former President of the USA named Lyndon Baines Johnson. I used 'LBJ' since that is common for those of us who suffered the Vietnam war, and it pertaining to a long ongoing disagreement.

"... The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as he later admitted.[27]. It was Johnson who began America's direct involvement in the ground war in Vietnam. By 1968 there were 550,000 American soldiers inside Vietnam; in 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of over 1000 a month.[28] ..."

He was the George Bush of my youth and I will detest him until I leave this mortal plane. As an added plus, his mishandling of the Presidency led to the election of a fellow name Nixon; not good, not good at all.

The following was seen on the web and is not necessarily a comment on this comments section; I did find it amusing however.

====

Forget about MR and its superb commentators, I am talking about the typical above-average blogs. I often have the impression that the best comments come in the first fifteen or so, after which quality declines precipitously and often exponentially. Why might that be?

1. The truly smart people only like to make smart points on "fresh" posts. For instance more people read the comments on fresh posts (but why?), so the benefit of a quality comment is lower as the post becomes older.

2. As time passes, the chance that a warring twosome find each other, and take over the thread, increases.

3. There is a tendency to attack or respond to the stupidest or most controversial thing said, and the longer the comments thread runs for, the stupider this will get.

4. As the number of comments multiplies, so does the number of independent discussion threads and the optimal number of threads is exceeded.

5. (Addended) As one (early) commentator notes below, the simple fact of diminishing marginal utility.

Might some of these mechanisms also help explain why a) history of thought is "ghettoized" as a field, and b) there is such a high premium to working in hot, new fields? The general point is that there are increasing returns to scale for high quality discussions; furthermore those quality discussions are quite fragile and require cultivation and subsidization through norms. Freshness matters, so stale topics will indeed encounter discrimination.

Comments are open, who wants to go first?

========

But then, there is a certain universal law here as anyone married for ages will immediately see.

:-)