It's About Time C

[saturnian]

So does the any judge know about this to make sure we have acurate times? And can we fix the Window Media Player to not run fast so that we don't have to get a new program and what not?

I noticed it last year and contacted national so site. I had hard time convincing anyone that it was an issue, but eventually there was a "clarification" on the website. Unfortunately, it did not say clearly that files should not be run with windows media player, but only that there may be an issue with some computers that would not run them correctly (I am yet to see a computer, either windows/mac/etc. that runs these files correctly with media player: I did try it with different versions of windows and on the mac). The national website suggested that event supervisors test the files with the software they intended to use.

You can go to last year's archive of the event to see Mr. Chalker's explanation on how the files were created. He also said that his media player runs them correctly, but even after I downloaded the latest version of that, I had no luck.

It seems that this year more people noticing the problem, so, hopefully, if we all voice it, perhaps the clarification can be stated differently.

[andrewwski]

There is definitely something wrong with playing back the file in WMP. I opened the 300.0 second file and played it in VLC, my default media player, and timed it to 300.13 seconds - so I'd say the file is accurate and the discrepancy is my response time.

I then opened the file with WMP 10, and timed it to 296.31 seconds. That's definitely not right.

I then used VLC to transcode it to an MP3 encoded at 44.1 khz at 8 kbps, and got 300.19 seconds - again, probably response time error. So that seems to be accurate.

That seems to indicate that WMP is having trouble playing the low sampling rate accurately. I'm going to play around with some of WMP's settings and see what happens. But as many people seem to be having the problem, it is a very legitimate concern.

[saturnian]

... so I'd say the file is accurate...

The files are accurate (I did not time them this year, but I assume they are the same ones from last year) and they play accurately (and the same) on every single player I tried except for windows media player. I tried changing some settings on mine, but to no avail, so I "googled" the issue and found people complaining about the same issue when they play music (no relation to SO or time sound files). If I recall correctly (it's been over a year now), someone suggested a solution on one forum or other, I cannot remember now what it was because when I tried to follow the steps, it did nothing (or at least it did not fix the issue we are facing).

[texan92]

how do you build an escapement for a pendulum? we built a regular pendulum last year and from looking around on the internet we've found that escapements can really help. can someone explain how they work?

[chalker]

The issue with Windows Media Player is known to us, but unfortunately as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, we can't control exactly what all the event supervisors use.

The sounds files on the national website are the same as last year. You can find them here:
http://soinc.org/its_about_time_c

I just noticed that the clarification from last year has disappeared on the website. I'll get them to repost that so that more people are aware of the issue. And for those of you interested, here is a post I did last year giving all the technical details of the files: http://www.scioly.org/phpBB3/viewtopic. ... 570#p17570

[fleet130]

I remember that post. Unfortunately no amount of mathematical calculations can insure the accuracy of a time interval. The accuracy also depends on the the time-base of the device producing the interval. Determining the certainty of generated time intervals requires knowledge in several disciplines and is probably beyond the capabilities of most supervisors of the event. I think many will take the accuracy of those provided for granted, without regard for how they are reproduced.

[AlchemyRocks]

Hey everyone.
I was wondering if anyone knew what an eptotic month is? It appeared on our regional test last year and I've been having difficulty locating what it is. I'm starting to think it doesn't exist.

[vofbassist]

I've never heard of it before. I just searched it and everything came back relating to pregnancies. Perhaps a physics, biology, or anatomy teacher would know?

[walkingstyx]

I tried a few searches on google, and I think it may have something to do with vision, rather than pregnancy (which is ectopic), but you'd be best off asking a greek teacher what the roots are, or emailing the writer of the test to ask them directly.

[Flavorflav]

I tried a few searches on google, and I think it may have something to do with vision, rather than pregnancy (which is ectopic), but you'd be best off asking a greek teacher what the roots are, or emailing the writer of the test to ask them directly.

The root "ptosis" means a fall or drop. The eye results all relate to ptosis or drooping eyelid, which is unlikely to be related. The only other results I found were typos for epiotic, which relates to the skull bones around the ear. In short, if you are right about the spelling then I suspect it was either a mistake on the part of the test writer or a word invented as a wrong answer.