[William Noble]

"giant snip-----------------------------------
This generation's taste in music, film and literature is poorer than that
of
the "Baby Boomers" and their (my generation's) taste in music, film and
literature is poorer that that of their parents' generation(s). It's
called
entropy and it comes from within and from without.

Entropy, I am sorry to inform you is a thermodynamic property totally
unrelated to personal preferences.
you can read about it on wikipedia or any thermo text. the essence is that
the change in entropy,
?S, is defined by the equation ?S = ?Q/T, where ?Q is the amount of heat
absorbed in an isothermal and reversible process in which the system goes
from one state to another, and T is the absolute temperature at which the
process is occurring

This notion has been extended to informatoin theory wherein entropy is a
measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The term by
itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which
quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in
a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy
is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does
not know the value of the random variable. The concept was introduced by
Claude E. Shannon in his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of
Communication".

so, sadly, neither of these reasonably precise definitions support the
alledged decline in musical tastes. I really do admire your attempt to
redefine words to have convenient meanings that support your arguements, but
with the exception of the universes of mr Charles Dodson, I think you will
find such spontaneous redefinitions generally frowned upon.

but to bring this back to the general topic of audio, perhaps it is truer
now than 4 years ago that we are willing to tolerate digitization artifacts
in our music due to the wide availability of highly compressed music. You
may have noted a recent article about Mrs Zappa and how she is refusing
permission for her late husband's music to be distributed in any compressed
form because of the violence it does to his vision. Surely she is to be
admired by this group?

[Sonnova]

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:17:44 -0700, William Noble wrote
(in article ):

"giant snip-----------------------------------
This generation's taste in music, film and literature is poorer than that
of
the "Baby Boomers" and their (my generation's) taste in music, film and
literature is poorer that that of their parents' generation(s). It's
called
entropy and it comes from within and from without.

Entropy, I am sorry to inform you is a thermodynamic property totally
unrelated to personal preferences.
you can read about it on wikipedia or any thermo text. the essence is that
the change in entropy,
?S, is defined by the equation ?S = ?Q/T, where ?Q is the amount of heat
absorbed in an isothermal and reversible process in which the system goes
from one state to another, and T is the absolute temperature at which the
process is occurring

This notion has been extended to informatoin theory wherein entropy is a
measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The term by
itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which
quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in
a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy
is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does
not know the value of the random variable. The concept was introduced by
Claude E. Shannon in his 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of
Communication".

so, sadly, neither of these reasonably precise definitions support the
alledged decline in musical tastes. I really do admire your attempt to
redefine words to have convenient meanings that support your arguements, but
with the exception of the universes of mr Charles Dodson, I think you will
find such spontaneous redefinitions generally frowned upon.

but to bring this back to the general topic of audio, perhaps it is truer
now than 4 years ago that we are willing to tolerate digitization artifacts
in our music due to the wide availability of highly compressed music. You
may have noted a recent article about Mrs Zappa and how she is refusing
permission for her late husband's music to be distributed in any compressed
form because of the violence it does to his vision. Surely she is to be
admired by this group?


Sorry, but your examination of my use of the word 'entropy' is incomplete,
and thus your conclusion about my incorrect use of it is wrong. From "The New
Oxford American Dictionary" This alternate definition in addition to the two
you quoted is found:

entropy - € figurative lack of order or predictability; GRADUAL DECLINE INTO
DISORDER : "a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme."

You're welcome.

[Steven Sullivan]

William Noble wrote:

but to bring this back to the general topic of audio, perhaps it is truer
now than 4 years ago that we are willing to tolerate digitization artifacts
in our music due to the wide availability of highly compressed music. You
may have noted a recent article about Mrs Zappa and how she is refusing
permission for her late husband's music to be distributed in any compressed
form because of the violence it does to his vision. Surely she is to be
admired by this group?

Not really...first, data compression can be lossless. Second, even when it's lossy, it
can be psychoacoustically benign.



--
-S
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. -- David Hume, "On Miracles"
(1748)