Tag Archives: monuments

Enough Is Enough: Cassette Tapes Died For Good Reason

by BeatrizMcGhee Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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I am, of course, familiar with the hipster love of music on vinyl. But I didn’t know that cassette tapes were making a comeback too:

Many people over 30 remember cassettes, with nostalgia, if not some disdain….Go to any indie show and inevitably, among the T-shirts and knickknacks, there will be tapes. Some record labels are now cassette-only. The National Audio Co., America’s largest manufacturer of audiocassettes, reported that 2014 was its best year yet.

But before the revisionists completely rewrite my adolescence, let’s be clear about something: As a format for recorded sound, the cassette tape is a terrible piece of technology….Each time you play one it degrades. Bad sound gets worse. Casings crack in winter, melt in summer.

Craziness. The only reason anyone liked cassettes back in the day was because they were better than 8-track tapes. When I was in college, you could hardly turn a corner without hearing an earnest conversation about Maxell vs. TDK,1 Dolby vs. Dolby C, chrome vs. metal, 60 minutes vs. 90 minutes.2 But those conversations only existed because everyone also understood that cassette tapes fundamentally sucked. There was lots of innovation, but it was all just part of a desperate attempt to improve the sound of a format that was inherently lousy because the tape was just too damn narrow. There’s a limit to what you can do when you cram four audio tracks onto eighth-inch analog tape.

But lots of people today have forgotten about all that, I guess. Oh well. I’m pretty convinced that about 90 percent of the population couldn’t tell the difference between music played on a half-inch reference tape and music played on a Teddy Ruxpin doll. So I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Still, cassettes? Seriously folks: a thumb drive is better in every conceivable way. Don’t get sucked in.

1I was a Maxell guy. I have no idea why.

2No one who wanted to be taken seriously ever considered 120-minute cassettes. And for good reason: they were just too fragile.

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Enough Is Enough: Cassette Tapes Died For Good Reason

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Obamacare Continues to Do Pretty Well

by Archie26Euwfzre Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Shorter Charles Gaba: For now, it still looks like Obamacare enrollment this year will end up at around 14.7 million. That’s not bad, especially considering that fewer people are dropping out of employer plans than expected.

For everyone except die-hard conservatives who are driven mad by the thought of poor people getting decent health care, this is a pretty good Christmas present. Enjoy it.

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Obamacare Continues to Do Pretty Well

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Quote of the Day: We Are Not Teaching Our Children Enough Vocabulary to Navigate the Modern World

by OCKLarae398127 Posted on December 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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From a recent study on swearing:

Both formats produced positive correlations between COWAT fluency, animal fluency, and taboo word fluency, supporting the fluency-is-fluency hypothesis. In each study, a set of 10 taboo words accounted for 55–60% of all taboo word data.

What this means is that people who cuss a lot are smarter than the rest of you. So there. Wonkblog’s Ana Swanson, who apparently has access to the full paper, explains further:

In order to use bad words appropriately, people still have to understand nuanced distinctions about language, the paper says. As such, cursing isn’t a sign of a limited vocabulary at all. Past research has shown that when people are really at a loss for words, they tend to say things like “er” or “um,” rather than cursing. Other studies have shown that college students are more likely to use curse words, and that this group tends to have a larger vocabulary than the population in general.

“A voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities rather than a cover for their deficiencies,” the researchers write.

Quite so. And on that score, the study’s findings should give us all pause. Take a look at the chart on the right, which shows the number of words people could dredge up in three different categories. Apparently the average American can come up with only 11 curse words. Eleven! That’s pathetic. I have dreams where I use more curse words than that. Of course, there’s much I don’t know about the methodology of this study. How much time did people have to come up with words? How unique did words have to be? Are fuck and fuckwit separate words, or merely different members of the vast fuck family? It would cost me $35.95 to find out, and you can guess how likely I am to spend my Christmas money on that.

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Quote of the Day: We Are Not Teaching Our Children Enough Vocabulary to Navigate the Modern World

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No Debate Liveblogging Tonight

by epxxatlw Posted on December 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sorry. I’m debated out. If anything interesting happens, I’ll write about it afterward. In the meantime, consider this an open debate thread.

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No Debate Liveblogging Tonight

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It’s Official: Donald Trump Can Say Anything

by AndreaRawlins60 Posted on December 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Apparently Donald Trump can literally say anything now and get away with it. Here he is on Vladimir Putin’s comments from this morning:

“It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond,” Trump said in a statement. “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.”

No doubt—though this “highly respected” man is now directly threatening American military forces in a crucial area of Syria: “Earlier this month, Moscow deployed an SA-17 advanced air defense system near the area and began ‘painting’ U.S. planes, targeting them with radar in what U.S. officials said was a direct and dangerous provocation.” No worries, though. Trump apparently thinks Putin is a great guy who’s eager to restore world peace.

By the way, I notice that most news stories about Putin have started to distance themselves from suggesting that he called Trump “brilliant” or “outstanding.” They’re now more correctly translating Putin’s description as “lively” or “colorful.” Nonetheless, the media still seems to be on the “budding bromance” bandwagon, even though Putin didn’t really say anything complimentary about Trump. I wonder if Trump will change his tune once he finds out?

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It’s Official: Donald Trump Can Say Anything

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Why Is WhatsApp Refusing to Comply With a Valid Warrant?

by JustineBallou Posted on December 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, a judge in Brazil ordered the temporary suspension of WhatsApp, a popular Facebook messaging app. Everyone went nuts. Mark Zuckerberg said he was “stunned.” The CEO of WhatsApp said it was “sad to see Brazil isolate itself from the rest of the world.” Users moved in droves to another messaging app.

Today, another judge lifted the ban because “it does not seem reasonable that millions of users are affected” over a tiff between WhatsApp and a judge.

Fair enough. The first judge pretty clearly overreacted. But apparently this whole thing started because the judge wanted access to messages from a suspect in a drug trafficking trial. The judge issued legal warrants several months ago, but What’sApp refused to comply.

Does WhatsApp have a response to this? Do they think the warrant is invalid? Do they think they don’t have to respond to warrants? Or what? I’m generally opposed to governments hoovering up messages and phone calls without a warrant, but if there’s a warrant in a legitimate criminal case, then you have to turn things over. What am I missing?

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Why Is WhatsApp Refusing to Comply With a Valid Warrant?

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How Old Should Kids Be Before They’re Allowed to Play in the Front Yard on Their Own?

by MahaliaGruner Posted on December 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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Pew Research routinely comes out with long, detailed surveys of interesting things, and I usually thumb through them looking for intriguing tidbits. Today it’s “Parenting in America,” and you’ll be unsurprised to learn that middle-class parents generally have a more positive view of things than poor parents. I may have more to say about this later, but in the meantime here’s a tidbit that answers a question I’ve pondered more than once: how old should kids be before they’re allowed to do stuff on their own?

I don’t know how this has changed over time, but these figures sure seem strange. I played on my own in front of my house when I was five,1 but today’s parents think you need to be 10—and a substantial fraction think you need to be over 12 to play in front of the house unsupervised.

Ditto for the others. I suppose 12 isn’t unreasonable for staying home alone, but again, a substantial fraction think you need to be 14 or 15 or even 18.

As for public parks, holy cow. The average age for allowing kids to play in a park without adult supervision is 14, and there’s a substantial fraction who think you literally have to be an adult yourself before you should be allowed to go to a park on your own.

Unsurprisingly, Pew says that the answers are correlated with income, which is correlated with the kind of neighborhood you live in. If you live in a safe neighborhood, the average age for playing in front of the house is 9. If you live in a poor neighborhood, it’s 11. This makes sense.

Still, the overall numbers sure strike me as high. Of course, I’ve led a sheltered existence, so maybe I just don’t get it. But the world is a safer place than it was 30 years ago. Do kids really need to be ten just to play in the front yard these days?

1I called my mother to confirm this. She did.

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How Old Should Kids Be Before They’re Allowed to Play in the Front Yard on Their Own?

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Vladimir Putin Calls Donald Trump Brilliant, Flamboyant, Lively, Colorful, Outstanding….Um, What?

by SonjaDeMole Posted on December 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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The opening line of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground is “I am a sick man…a spiteful man.” Or is it? I once read a fascinating introduction to Dostoyevsky’s famous novella that began by collecting a dozen different translations of that line, all of them suggesting a slightly different meaning. So what did Dostoyevsky really mean? It may be impossible to say for sure in English.

That’s how I feel today, reading the news that Vladimir Putin praised Donald Trump at a news conference. Here are eight different translations of Putin’s remarks:

He is a brilliant and talented person without a doubt…

He is a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt…

He is a very bright person, talented without any doubt…

He’s a very colorful person. Talented, without any doubt…

He is a standout, talented person, without any doubt

He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it…

He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about that…

He’s a very lively man, talented without doubt…

Needless to say, these are very different things. “Outstanding” suggests that Putin thinks well of Trump. “Bright” suggests a more neutral assessment. And “flamboyant” and “lively” suggest that he thinks Trump is a blowhard.

So what did Putin really say? Beats me. But video of his remarks is above for anyone who wants to provide a deeper analysis of Putin’s word choice and what it really means in Russian.

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Vladimir Putin Calls Donald Trump Brilliant, Flamboyant, Lively, Colorful, Outstanding….Um, What?

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China Adopts an Unusual Approach to Fighting a Stock Market Crash

by JerilynFremont Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hum de hum hum. Greece is in trouble. Puerto Rico too. And don’t forget China:

Chinese shares plunged Thursday, even as Beijing grasps for solutions to stem the selling, including relaxing rules on the use of borrowed funds to invest in stocks….The Shanghai Composite closed down 3.5% while the smaller Shenzhen market was down 5.6%. The ChiNext board, composed of small-cap stocks, sank 4%. Even after losing nearly a quarter of its value from a mid-June high, China’s main stock market has almost doubled in value over the past year.

….In a rare move late Wednesday, Chinese regulators set in motion draft proposals to ease restrictions on margin lending earlier than scheduled….Regulators’ sudden shift in attitude about margin trading comes after vocal warnings about its risks in recent months. In April, regulators took various steps to rein in the practice, which had allowed investors to borrow several times their investment money.

Inscrutable, those Chinese. Their stock market is crashing so they’re promoting an increase in margin trading. That’s sort of like lighting a tree on fire when it gets dark outside and all your flashlights are dead. It’ll work. For a while. But it’s really not considered best practice.

Then again, maybe there’s something I don’t understand here. All I know is that panicky measures to halt a panic don’t usually work. And the Chinese stock market still has a long way to fall. I sure hope they figure something out.

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China Adopts an Unusual Approach to Fighting a Stock Market Crash

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My $500 Pill Revealed

by Jarred2039 Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Have you ever wondered what a $500 pill looks like? Well, here’s your answer: it looks like pretty much any other pill.

Anyway, I’m supposed to take this for 21 days, then a week off, then another 21 days, etc. This will last a few months before we know if it’s working. If it does work, then I’ll be taking it forever (I think). So that’s $126,000 per year to keep Kevin alive. Of course, I pay only a fraction of that thanks to having excellent health insurance, and I’m sure that even Kaiser pays nowhere near that list price. Maybe half that, or a third. Still, pretty expensive!

Luckily I’m not on Obamacare. From what I hear, my case would have gone straight to a death panel, which almost certainly would have decided that my societal worth didn’t measure up to the cost of the treatment. And who could argue? I mean, blogging? Seriously?

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to mention something in my previous health update: I feel great. Not 100 percent, mind you, but pretty good. My stomach is in fine fettle (in fact, I’m overeating these days), I’m sleeping well, and my energy level has recovered almost to normal. The long-term prognosis for the multiple myeloma is obviously still uncertain, and that’s an unhappy thing, but in the meantime at least I feel good for the first time in eight months!

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My $500 Pill Revealed

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