INFO-VAX Sun, 16 Mar 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 152 Contents: Another WSIT triumph? Re: Can a MicroVAX 3100 run on 208V? Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Old VMS version supporting compatibility mode? Re: Proof that macintosh is better than VMS Re: Time changing after reboot Re: VMS Mail translates incoming tilde character into a dollar sign. Re: VMS Mail translates incoming tilde character into a dollar sign. Re: Weekly Boot Camp Update ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:42:37 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Another WSIT triumph? Message-ID: Hi, Interesting VMS job description: - http://www.jobserve.com.au/W2AF542B55F0D6F15.job These guys just don't get it do they? Don't they know that the Waste of Substantial Investment in Technology (nee BridgeWorks) has been over 10 years in the making, has had a Cecil B DeMille cast of thousands, and a budget that'd make Hollywood blush? Who is this Mickey Mouse outfit anyway? Clearly some sort of lose-cannon, maverick organization that just hasn't been reading the same Gartner reports that HP's IMM team can recite ad infinitum. Anyway, I'm sure HP don't want their filthy money. Full steam ahead - you're all doing very well :-( Regards Richard Maher PS. Now just imagine if HP could jump in there and show them their existing tried and tested COBOL/Rdb code being accessed from the very RIA interface that they crave, yet with all the original's intrinsic performance and security characteristics preserved, and all this while the rewrite suffers from the usual cost overruns and missed deadlines. Nah, you're right - "Who cares?" you'll all be outta here in five years anyway. PPS. Maybe it was a broken $MAIL tilde or blinkin' LED on a VT100 that pushed them over the edge? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:43:05 -0800 From: glen herrmannsfeldt Subject: Re: Can a MicroVAX 3100 run on 208V? Message-ID: Tom Linden wrote: (snip) > Yes, it does, we aren't as well standardised as the European there > phase to phase > (They don't have single phase AFAIK) 380V/sqrt(3) = 220 V That is the way I understand it, too. Three phase to homes. You have to get more homes off a transformer, but at that voltage it isn't so hard to do. Also, as I understand it 50Hz was chosen when the transformer steel available wasn't as good as US silicon steel. > I don't see how the Delta works unless that have a > separate winding, 240 phase to phase > would need 208 phase to neutral. sqrt(3)/2 * 240 I have heard about, but never seen, a system that uses three phase delta with the center tap of one of the delta windings as neutral. The result is two legs 120V from neutral, the other 208V, and 240V between phases. The 208V one is called the wild leg. Google for "three phase" "wild leg" and you should find sites, such as www.3phasepower.org explaining it. -- glen ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:53:47 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <47dcb5f5$0$28116$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? For instance, OPEN/WRITE temp "dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt" followed by a few WRITES would then create a text file usable on a mac ? (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it doesn't). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:34:49 -0600 From: Jeff Campbell Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <1205648780_164@isp.n> JF Mezei wrote: > Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being > created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? > > For instance, OPEN/WRITE temp "dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt" > followed by a few WRITES would then create a text file usable on a mac ? > > (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read > it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a > good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it doesn't). Would $ create/fdl=stmlf..fdl dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt $ OPEN/WRITE temp dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt work? Jeff ----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups ---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:39:15 -0600 From: Jeff Campbell Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <1205649047_165@isp.n> Jeff Campbell wrote: > JF Mezei wrote: >> Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being >> created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? >> >> For instance, OPEN/WRITE temp "dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt" >> followed by a few WRITES would then create a text file usable on a mac ? >> >> (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read >> it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a >> good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it >> doesn't). > > Would > > $ create/fdl=stmlf..fdl dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt > $ OPEN/WRITE temp dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt > > work? > > Jeff > > > > ----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet > News==---- > http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 > Newsgroups > ---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- minus the fat fingered stmlf..fdl 8-) should be stmlf.fdl ----== Posted via Pronews.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.pronews.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups ---= - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:56:25 +0100 From: Gilles Pion Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <24opt3l8f7ch8j0lc450l7mgoml6m63v22@4ax.com> Ref: <1205648780_164@isp.n> de Jeff Campbell >$ create/fdl=stmlf..fdl dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt >$ OPEN/WRITE temp dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt Better: $ OPEN/Append temp dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:36:16 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <47dcea20$0$23864$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Gilles Pion wrote: > Ref: <1205648780_164@isp.n> de Jeff Campbell >>$ create/fdl=stmlf..fdl dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt > Better: > $ OPEN/Append temp dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt yeah, I knew about that trick. However, i am seeking more of a "default rms" thing so that existing applications such as ALL-IN-1 would create text files in stmlf or other by default. (aka: using NFS, write text files on a macintosh disk such that a Mac can read them). If it proves too myuch of a hassle, I'll just FTP the files over. (FTP takes care of text file translation reliably). ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:10:50 -0400 From: "Richard B. Gilbert" Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <47DD0E4A.40408@comcast.net> JF Mezei wrote: > Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being > created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? > > For instance, OPEN/WRITE temp "dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt" > followed by a few WRITES would then create a text file usable on a mac ? > > (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read > it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a > good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it doesn't). FTP should get the job done! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:39:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Hein RMS van den Heuvel Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: On Mar 16, 1:53=A0am, JF Mezei wrote: > Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being > created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? > > For instance, OPEN/WRITE temp "dnfs1:[Users.JFMEZEI]mymacintosh.txt" > followed by a few WRITES would then create a text file usable on a mac ? > > (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read > it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a > good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it doesn't)= . ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:48:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Hein RMS van den Heuvel Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <9fbf91f0-dfcc-421d-9b15-405283f4d32d@z38g2000hsc.googlegroups.com> On Mar 16, 1:53=A0am, JF Mezei wrote: > Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being > created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? No. It would seem a reasonable SET RMS feature, but it does not exist today. Mind you, it would create `unexplainable' havoc and tghus support issues at time. The current super-set of VFC + PRN allows process permanent files to 'suck' up redirected smart-formatted output from Cobol as well as Fortran. You'd loose that. Transferring the files in FTP (Ascii mode) or ZIP tends to make this a non issue (for me) The classic workaround, as others outlined is to pre-create with FDL. Or copy an empty template in place and append to that. On OpenVMS 8.3 you do not even need a explicit or embedded FDL file. Just use: $ cre/fdl=3D"r; f stream_lf" file.txt ! "record; format ..." $ open/append file file.txt > (creating in VMS native format on VMS, and then getting the mac to read > it via NFS is not relaiable since the NFS server on VMS sometimes does a > good job of translating from VMS to unix format, but sometimes it doesn't)= . What kind of lame description is that ?! Surely you figured out the criteria which make this seem to work or not?! Cheers. Hein. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:58:03 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: Creating STLMF files by default ? Message-ID: <47dd4356$0$90265$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Hein RMS van den Heuvel wrote: > On Mar 16, 1:53 am, JF Mezei wrote: >> Is there some magical logical name that would result in text files being >> created in streamlf or other "unix" file format by default ? > > No. > It would seem a reasonable SET RMS feature, but it does not exist > today. > > Mind you, it would create `unexplainable' havoc and tghus support > issues at time. > The current super-set of VFC + PRN allows process permanent files to > 'suck' up redirected smart-formatted output from Cobol as well as > Fortran. You'd loose that. It should not be RMS default, but something that could be explicitly set as default. For people working in a Windows/Unix/C/Java environment it could make sense to set that. For those working in a true VMS environment (including Cobol and Fortran) would just stick to default. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:09:03 GMT From: "PL" Subject: Old VMS version supporting compatibility mode? Message-ID: Hello, I'm looking for an old VMS version supporting compatibility mode version 3.0 bootable on a VAX 785, does anyone has a copy available? It's only for test purposes. ^P ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:44:11 -0700 (PDT) From: AEF Subject: Re: Proof that macintosh is better than VMS Message-ID: <4e7e482c-d37b-4084-8cec-1ce8dcc42976@p73g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> Hello, Comments interspersed below. Sorry for the delay, but it took me a long time to write this. I have tried to be as clear as possible while still not spending too much time on it. The better thing to read is Feynman's The Character of Physical Law and his Lectures on Physics book. Abstract: I'm showing how I'm basing my convictions on not just QM, but on the wave-particle duality, the de Broglie relation, the results of a vast array of experiments, one of which is described here in detail. Nevertheless, QM is so amazingly successful for such a huge range of phenomena, that there must be something very right about it. All this leads me to conclude that Nature, at the level of atoms and below, is intrinsically probabilistic, even if QM is eventually superseded by a better theory. It's a little long. Please be patient as it takes a little while to explain it properly. Enjoy. AEF On Mar 13, 11:01 am, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > In article <42e3bcd3-a7d0-4fd6-badf-bc7623f68...@u72g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, AEF writes: > > >On Mar 12, 8:11 am, davi...@alpha2.mdx.ac.uk wrote: > >> In article , AEF writes: > > >> >On Mar 11, 1:19 pm, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > >> >> In article , > >> >> koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: > > >> >> > In article <960d254f-6ae7-4334-ab8e-e58e2b1ed...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, Doug Phillips writes: > > >> >> >> You are confusing quantum mechanics math with reality. If you mean > >> >> >> that the mathematics of quantum mechanics is not concerned with > >> >> >> resolving apparent randomness, then you are correct. You might want to > >> >> >> look into the de Broglie-Bohm theory, more recently called Bohmian > >> >> >> Mechanics. > > >> >> > Quantum mechanics math vs. reality? You think reality differs? > > >> >> I'll bet a lot of people do. When science requires faith than religion > >> >> in order to accept that which can neither be observed nor satisfactorily > >> >> proven I think more and more people will see the difference. > > >> >I assume you meant "When science requires *more* faith..." > > >> >Scientists have faith in the scientific method which requires > >> >evidence. Religious people have what James Randi calls "blind > >> >faith"[1]. That makes all the difference in the world. > > >> >[1] Seehttp://www.randi.org/jr/072503.html(Mostlya good article, > >> >but I disagree with his opinion of the Wizard of Oz.) > > >> >As far as using local hidden variables to restore determinism that > >> >only "appears" probabilistic, the experimental evidence ruling these > >> >out is more compelling than ever. Many, many experiments have been > >> >done and QM always, always wins. > > >> This is a strawman since there are non-local hidden variable theories. > > >> >We're not talking about the > >> >possibility of experimental error clouding the results. The skeptics > >> >who complained that the early experiments could still allow local > >> >hidden variables because of events missed by detectors because said > >> >detectors were not 100% efficient. OK. But the efficiencies have been > >> >greatly improved and the room for determinism has been all but wiped > >> >out. Then there is the GHZ paradox which largely sidesteps the issue. > >> >There is simply no way to explain the results of GHZ experiments using > >> >local hidden variables. > > >> These experiments rule out local realistic theories. > >> This just leaves two choices > > >> 1) non-locality > > >> or > > >> 2) non-realism > > >But what about Feynman's argument? > > >All these things combined (which includes stuff I don't have time to > >document here) leads me to believe that there is almost certainly no > >way out. > > >> To my mind the latter doesn't actually make much sense. If the wave function > > >What makes sense is not as important as experimental results. See, you > >know the drill (Beginning of Chapter 6 and parts of Chapter 7). > > >> doesn't actually have a physical existence and a particle doesn't have any > >> properties until you measure them then how are entangled particles actually > >> linked. (If the wave function does physically exist then it's collapse will be > >> a non-local effect so such versions of the Copenhagen interpretation are > >> non-local). > > >I think the realism quandary is a red herring. QM tells you what you > >will observe and that is what you observe. > > The problem I have is that such an interpretation is just > > "thats the way it is" > > which to me isn't a scientific statement. With non-local interpretations there > is at least some possibility that in the future it might be possible to explain > the non-locality. If you just take it thats "thats the way it is" then you are > in effect giving up on trying to find an explanation. As to what's "scientific", please read Chapter 6 of The Character of Physical Law and get back to me. (Parts of Chapters 1 and 7 are also relevant.) You will find the answer to that in this book. Obviously I'm not going to quote entire chapters of the book. But I'll say this here: How does gravity work? Think about it. Any two masses, no matter how far apart, attract each other. Isn't that kind of amazing? You say there is a field that permeates all of space. Just what is this field made of and how is it generated by mass? How can it be like that? But we grow up with gravity from day 1 and it becomes so familiar we think of it as being totally normal. So what mechanism could be behind this? At the classical level, physics has indeed given up. In QM, it is thought that it is the exchange of virtual gravitons that causes the attraction, just like it is the exchange of virtual photons that carries the electromagnetic force. But these virtual photons -- or gravitons -- materialize out of nowhere, travel between particles to carry the force, and then disappear (thanks to a variation of the uncertainty principle, a violation of conservation of energy is allowed if it occurs over a short enough interval of time, and this allows virtual particles to have their fleeting existences). And you're still stuck with trying to find a mechanism for the virtual particles. Good luck. We don't grow up experiencing QM at all, so it seems really strange. But we are not to tell Nature how She's got to be. [Until we detect actual gravitons, the existence of virtual gravitons remains speculation. However, most physicists, AFAIK, believe they must exist.] So you're always going to reach a point at which you say, "But what is that? What is the mechanism behind that?" I think with QM we've hit rock bottom. > Note. All the interpretations agree on what you will observe so in that sense > it doesn't matter. However interpretations can give insight into how to produce > a more complete theory and as I have pointed out QM is not the final theory of > everything. [I'm not basing my claims solely on QM. I still think a more accurate theory will still not be able to get rid of the intrinsic probabilistic nature of things. See below.] And how will you test it? As for QM being "final", I think certain aspects will survive. Note that Ehrenfest's theorem shows how quantum mechanics goes over into classical mechanics at the macroscopic level. This theorem gives an equation (derived from the QM equations) that looks strikingly like F=ma. When the uncertainty in x is small, you basically recover F=ma. In fact, this is related to "the correspondence principle which in essence states that classical physics results should be contained as limiting cases of quantum mechanical results"[1] (e.g., when quantum numbers are large). In fact, the correspondence principle was used in the early days of QM development as a guide to guess the correct QM equations. So classical mechanics not only survives, it is an essential part of QM in this respect. Similarly, I believe the probabilities and the particle-wave duality of nature will survive any future, better theory, as will the reality of atoms. Furthermore, many facets of classical mechanics still hold in QM -- conservation of momentum, conservation of angular momentum, and conservation of energy, e.g. And this is not an approximation: these quantities are conserved in QM just as they are in CM (well, aside from temporary violations as in the creation and destruction of virtual particles -- and you cannot directly observe these violations, which is why the virtual particles are...well...virtual). [1] Quantum Physics by Gasiorowitz And I'm not basing my claims strictly on QM; I'm also basing them on all the wild and wacky experiments, all of which show that particles exhibit wave-like behavior and waves exhibit particle-like behavior. That's very unlikely to change even if QM is superseded by a better theory. (The fact that ordinary matter is made of atoms isn't likely to change either!) Note that you can have one particle at a time go through your apparatus and when you wait for enough statistics to accumulate you still get an interference pattern, a sure sign of waves, and strong evidence in favor of there being intrinsic probability in nature. As Merzbacher says, "The conclusion is almost inevitable that psi [the wave function] describes the behavior of single particles, but that it has an intrinsic _probabilistic_ meaning." [His emphasis.] Also, I've been there, done that. I wrestled with this problem myself on and off over many years. I used to think it can't be "random" or probabilistic. I even tried to come up with a hidden variables theory to explain the spooky correlations seen in polarization experiments! (I failed, of course.) And I have come to the conclusion that the randomness (or as I prefer to put it, the probability) is almost certainly an intrinsic apsect of nature. I know you're saying, "But how can it be like that?" But as Feynman says, "No one knows how it can be like that". (Not only is Feynman a great teacher, he is strikingly honest, even about the shortcomings of physics.) I really can't imagine that anyone will ever find a way out. Look at the situation. You have wave phenomena such as interference and diffraction of light. These things are strictly wave phenomena. Then you find that these light waves are actually "quantized" into little bundles of energy called photons. And the energy in each photon follows a very simple relation: E = h*f where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the light (which is how many crests (or wavelengths) pass you per second). So if you have monochromatic light, all the photons have the same energy. There are no half-photons. They come in fixed-size "lumps". Experiment has shown over and over again that even when you reduce the intensity of the light so that only one photon is traversing the apparatus at any given time, you STILL get interference patterns. Consider reflection. Approx. 4% of the light is reflected from clear glass. So if you have 100 photons striking the glass, you know that on average 4 photons will be reflected. But which photons? The same applies in the case of polarized light traveling through a polarizer oriented so that only some of the light gets through. A photon can either be absorbed or pass through. But which particular photons will get through? There is no way to tell. What any individual photon does in such situations (and more generally, what any individual particle of any kind does) is unpredictable, but the probabilities of the various possible outcomes are calculable via QM. I don't see any way out of this other than intrinsic probability. (See part 1 of the Feynman video at www.feynman.com (it's free!) for an excellent explanation of this in more detail. I'm just more or less summarizing here.) Here's an excellent example to drive the point home. I saw a talk about this in graduate school in the late 1980's. Consider the following experimental set up: F A B [-LASER-]-----|-------\-----------------\ | | | | | - LCD | | | | \-----------------\ C D The laser beam is split by beam splitter A. It is reflected towards D by mirrors B and C. The beams are combined by the re-combiner D. When you put detectors around D you find that interference patterns are produced. Next, put an LCD "switch" in the BD segment. If it is ON (opaque) you get some of the beam striking the LCD and the rest traversing ACD and giving no interference patterns. If it is OFF (transparent), you recover the interference because then the light then traverses two different paths and exhibits interference when the two beams recombine at D. OK. Everything seems okay so far. (Remember that interference results from two light beams overlapping.) Now, the laser beam intensity can be reduced by filter F so low that only one photon traverses the apparatus at a time. If the LCD is ON, then the photon either travels along ACD and is detected at D or it strikes the LCD and is absorbed or reflected. The LCD then serves as a detector that tells us which way the photon went after it goes through A. If the LCD is OFF (transparent) you *still* get an interference pattern after allowing many photons to individually traverse the apparatus. So it looks like each photon travels over both paths. How else can you get interference? But with the LCD on it travels only over one path or the other. How are you going to explain this without probability and the wave function of the photon being in a superposition of it traveling in one path with it traveling in the other? You cannot get interference without having two things "interfere", yet you never see a single photon in both paths. With the LCD on you always see it in one or the other, never both. It gets better. The LCD can be switched ON or OFF rapidly enough so that it can be switched AFTER the photon passes through A but BEFORE the photon (if it's in the ABD path) reaches it (the LCD). You can guess what happens. If you switch the LCD from OFF to ON while the photon is in mid-flight, you lose the interference pattern. Some of the photons traverse path ACD, thereby striking the LCD, and some traverse the path ACD. No interference is observed. If you switch it from ON to OFF with the photon in mid-flight, you regain the interference patterns at D. So tell me how the photon, after being "split" by beam splitter A and is therefore "committed" to one path or the other or both, knows whether the experimenter is going to have the LCD ON or OFF by the time it reaches it? How does the photon when it is at A "know" whether it should randomly choose one path or the other vs. "splitting up" (which we know photons never do!) so it can produce the interference pattern? (Keen readers will notice that this is very similar to the two-slit experiment, except that here it is made painfully obvious that slit-1 photons and slit-2 photons are really in totally different paths because here the distance between them is so much greater, and we get the extra fun of the rapidly switching LCD detector which makes it clear that when you detect the photon in the two-slit experiment, you are doing so AFTER it has already gone through the beam splitter, or the two slits, and is therefore "committed" yet can't know in advance whether it will be detected before it hits the screen or not. Also, there is no significant overlap of the wave function between the two paths, unlike the two- slit experiment.) The bottom line in all interference experiments is this: If it is possible, even in principle, to somehow determine which of the two interfering paths the photon takes, you lose the interference. If you see the interference, you cannot even in principle determine which path the photon took. And you can delay your observation until after the photon passes through the beam splitter A and therefore has to be "committed" to one path or the other or both, and somehow the result is the same. (How else could things be self-consistent?) It's still "spooky". Now the question becomes: can you predict which path the photon will take after passing through the beam splitter A with the LCD ON? Hidden variable theory says you could do this by observing something at or upstream of A. But if you could do that, then it makes no difference whether the LCD is ON or OFF. Anything you observe with the LCD ON you can observe with it OFF, and at the time of this observation, the state of the LCD when the photon gets to it is still unknown. And if you can successfully predict which path the photon will take, you can't ever get the interference pattern with the LCD OFF, because an interference pattern cannot be produced by photons traveling along a single path, and an interference pattern is completely different from what you would see if photons only traversed one path or the other. And there can't be any "secret communication" between the LCD and the source or beam splitter at A because you can change the state of the LCD AFTER the photon has passed through beam splitter A. Therefore, even with the LCD ON, there is no way to predict ahead of time which path the photon will take if the apparatus is set up in such a way that it can produce interference patterns with the LCD off. Please see Feynman's Chapter 6 of The Character of Physical Law (from which this explanation is borrowed) for the full story (well it's the full story at the layman's level -- if you know about how the wavelength of light affects resolution, and are comfortable with the de Broglie relation, you can go a little deeper, but the essential points are covered by the layman's version -- for the deeper version, see Feynman's Lectures on Physics. Also, Feynman's explanation is most likely clearer than mine!). [Some progress has been made: It used to be thought that this comes about because any detector gives an unavoidably large enough impulse to the particle due to the uncertainty principle [for an explanation of this, see, e.g., Feynman's Lectures on Physics], but it has since be found that this is not always the case. Still, you cannot follow the path of a particle that has contributed to an interference pattern, and still, what any individual particle does is still unpredictable.] Add to all this other "delayed-choice" experiments, variations of the Aspect experiment, the GHZ experiment, the recent results with quantum erasers, all of which always give the same results I have just described. So you end up banging your head against the wall until you start hemorraging. At that point, you might say to yourself that maybe nature really is intrinsically probabilistic and can then begin the healing process. But keep in mind that the probabilities have well- determined values that can be calculated using the formalism of QM. It seems to me that this is the inevitable consequence of particles that come in fixed energies for any given wavelength (or frequency) acting statistically as waves do. It is that, and experiments like the ones I have described, more than QM itself, that leads me to my convictions. IOW, even if QM isn't "exactly right", you will still have everything being particles and waves with the energy given by E = h*f for light and the very similar de Broglie relation for the momentum of a particle of matter (which actually yields E = h*f for light) because this has been established by experiment aside from QM. Even so, QM has been so spectacularly successful in describing such a humongous range of phenomena that there must be something very right about it. What you have here, if you wish to keep with "realism", is that the photon splits up into two parts at A (even though you will never directly detect the photon in both paths: any attempt to do so will find it in either one path or the other) and interferes with itself at D if the LCD is OFF at the time the photon reaches it; or, if the LCD is ON when the photon reaches it, one "photon-half" somehow jumps across space to join its other half. I don't see how your going save the day with "realism", or save "realism" itself, in light of this. There are many other experiments like this. There are the quantum eraser experiments, the GHZ experiments, and so on. They all produce the same results as I have already described. And you're going to explain this with "realism"? Good luck. I suppose with the Bohmian theory you can have the particle in one path with the "pilot wave" in both, but when the pilot wave strikes the LCD you have the pilot wave itself "collapsing", so what is gained? Nothing as I see it. And how is the pilot wave going to work when split up into two spatially distinct parts, only one of which has the photon? And how will it work at the re-combiner? It doesn't seem reasonable to me, though I can't explain why here. And what about the Aharonov-Bohm effect in which the interference patterns of electrons traveling around a fully contained magnetic field are shifted by varying the strength of the magnetic field, even though the electrons never travel THROUGH the field! How does Bohm's theory work with that? (Maybe it does, I just don't have the time to keep going, and this post is already long enough, no?!) The Bohm theory seems (to me) to say that the particle is where it would be if you could observe it without disturbing it in any way, which to me doesn't say much. But I think it also gets into trouble with the GHZ experiment. You still must have collapse of the wave function, or, as Merzbacher puts it in his "Quantum Mechanics" textbook: "reduction of the state (or wave packet)". > > >As for the "collapse of the wave function" I think of it more as > >"altered". The experimenter becomes part of the system. > > But where is the boundary. If the experimenter becomes part of the system > without the wave function collapsing then why not the whole Universe. > I think you've just moved from the Copenhagen interpretation to the Many > Worlds interpretation. The wave function still collapses. You're talking about the wave function that includes both the system and the experimenter? I'm not prepared to comment on that at this time. I've already spent a lot of time on this post and I must stop and post it already. I am NOT an adherent of the many-worlds interpretation. It seems to me that having entire universes created for every "collapse of a wave function" is vastly more unreasonable than Copenhagen. I like the phrase "shut up and calculate", but that's a bit overkill. Work is still being done on this question. Then there is the issue of locality and seperability for which there is landmark paper. But I'll save that for another post if needed. > Anyway we have discussed this in the past ad-nauseum and as Doug Phillips > said this is off topic for comp.os.vms. But you posted again, so I responded. I mean really -- you're saying that you can have the last word because it's off-topic anyway. Sorry. And I did add some new stuff. AEF > > David Webb > Security team leader > CCSS > Middlesex University > [...] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:33:56 -0700 (PDT) From: tadamsmar Subject: Re: Time changing after reboot Message-ID: On Mar 13, 2:27=A0pm, tadamsmar wrote: > On Mar 13, 2:02=A0pm, Brendan Welch wrote: > > > > > > > Here is a non-VMS approach, which I use on a PC which is probably unusua= l. > > > It has Windows 2000, purposely not up to date (for reasons not discussed= > > here), > > so it still has the old rules for the dates of Daylight Savings Time. = =A0 > > Also, it has a > > program, Atom Time Pro, which gets invoked by hand, whenever I feel like= it, > > to sync with a time server. > > > What I do, for these few weeks of difference of the rules, is simply > > tell the PC > > that I now reside one time zone to the east (which for me is now a Canad= ian > > Atlantic zone of 4 hours difference from Greenwich, rather than my usual= > > US Eastern zone of 5 hours difference). > > > This is my crude analogy to a VMS work-around which would say, once you = have > > the time correct, do not reboot; or if you do reboot, change the time by= > > hand again. > > There is a patch for 2000 to make the 2006 daylight saving rules > automatic: > > http://grystmill.com/articles/tz_update.htm#UPDATES:- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - makes the post-2006 rules automatic, I should have said ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:15:17 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: VMS Mail translates incoming tilde character into a dollar sign. Message-ID: Hi Heine, > Anyway... > I happened to sit next to Robert at the lunch table today. What does lunch cost there these days? > And the change was provoked/triggered/jousted by a multy-decade > experienced OpenVMS engineer under the guise of security concerns. Either that, or the desperate need to find something *anything* to stick on the timesheet and let Democles play another day? (A cost-centre, a cost-centre, my kingdom for a cost-centre!) If anyone else is at a loose-end, there's always that /PAGE qualifier that's "needed" adding to the $SHOW TIME command since before Guy Peleg left. (Not to mention that the sistine-chapelesque rewrite of the PCSI Developer's Guide that is surely too much work for one man?) Regards Richard Maher "Hein RMS van den Heuvel" wrote in message news:9db9f276-8e33-46c8-b09b-e30e57bc8aad@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com... On Mar 14, 5:22 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > Tom Wade wrote: > >> It has to be a process logical name, and it has to have value "1": > >> $ DEFINE/PROCESS MAIL$FILTER 1 > > > I can't understand the thinking here. Surely it would have been just as > > easily to query LNM$FILE_DEV as LNM$PROCESS ? > > While Mr Deninger admitted it was a "Great conspiracy", I disagree. This > was a much simpler issue. As part of his education on VMS, a indian > support newbie was given an assignment to use SYS$TRNLNM on a specific > table. They chose a little used utility (MAIL) to get him to play with I saw the smiley. But you know the thing about poking fun is that there is always this element underneat... Anyway... I happened to sit next to Robert at the lunch table today. He confided that it was in fact a 'Dying Swan Act' from a decade+ experienced OpenVMS sustaining support engineer. She left not too long ago. And the change was provoked/triggered/jousted by a multy-decade experienced OpenVMS engineer under the guise of security concerns. It's still wrong and it sucks (IMnsHO), but it was not an immature act by a novice. In fact, today while walking the hallowed hallways of Spitbrook road possibly for a last time I heard nothing but good about the support/ engineering skills of the Indian entensions to the OpenVMS team. Sure there can be communication problems, but there are some really good resource out there and they are helping you here and now to make OpenVMS become a better product whether you like it or not. Off to Boston Billards, Nashua. Happy Hour! Cheers, Hein ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 2008 13:54:58 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: VMS Mail translates incoming tilde character into a dollar sign. Message-ID: <644n5iF295i22U2@mid.individual.net> In article <47dc9baf$0$3883$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: > >> Until recently the hardwre didn't play DVD's, why include a player for a >> media the hardware didn't support? > > A 1999 Mac has a built-in DVD player. Your definition of "recently" is > askew in my opinion. Mac's have always done wierd hardwre configurations. We were talking about PC's and Microsoft. > > Note that there are licensing issues with DVDs due to the attempt at > protecting the contents. Which probably contributed a lot to their not being standard in PC's until recently. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:38:47 +0800 From: "Richard Maher" Subject: Re: Weekly Boot Camp Update Message-ID: Hi Sue, Is COV still the/a venue for the "weekly" bootcamp updates? I've been checking the bootcamp web-page but nothing much seems to change? And as far as an agenda goes, all I can find is: - "The agenda will be available in early March 2008". It's just that I've heard there's this new failSAFE IP technology out there that you can do reef-knots with, use to measure things, and even to hold up your pants, so I don't want to miss out or have it clash with my WSIT session(s)! Regards Richard Maher "Sue" wrote in message news:4257f316-166b-4e34-a44c-5987c830bc37@o77g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > Dear VMS Community, > > Great news! > > But first, my apologies for the delay, I was out sick last week. > > On behalf of the Boot Camp Core Team, I am happy to send you this > OpenVMS Boot Camp update. Things are coming along very well. This is > the final week that the session call for participation (CFP) in > Engineering will be open. The majority of the Keynotes are in place > which I KNOW you will enjoy. Once again this will be a very full > agenda - Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings are also occupied. > Last week Roxanne sent out the call for participation for the Partners > roundhouse was distributed and we have excellent response. The > roundhouse is one of the Boot Camp's outstanding evening programs > (Tuesday evening). > > Several folks have asked about scholarships, I will let you know when > I hear about partners offering scholarships. OpenVMS Engineering will > be offering several tuition scholarships. 2 Youth Scholarships, > hardship scholarship and testimonial scholarships (Public HP > testimonial about your company and VMS on Integrity, we do the work). > Total of 5 > > Here is the boot camp URL http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/bootcamp > > So how is registration going? We are 23% full with 155 remaining > seats. Aprox % of new attendees 50% > > Countries (no particular order) > > Sweden 10 > Switzerland 3 > UK - England 3 > UK - Ireland 1 > Germany 4 > Barbados 1 > Netherlands 2 > America - 16 > > Warm regards as always, > Sue > > ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.152 ************************