As I write this, Cheeto Benito and the worst thing to come out of South Africa this side of Oscar Pistorius, Elon Musk, are having a discussion on youtube because Elon’s 44 billion dollar political contribution that we know as Twitter but he calls X has once again shit the bed. The exact same thing that happened to Ron DeSantis last year. And I am not sure why anyone is surprised, because anyone who has used it could have told you that twitter has not improved over the past year. Basically Jack Dorsey is the car dealer who sold someone a Ferrari and then watched them fishtail out of the car lot and wreck into a telephone pole.
In other news, I spent the day driving feral cats to and back from the vet. There were a few bladder incidents, but I had tarps and pee pads down, and all in all they were remarkably well behaved despite being FERAL AS FUCK. Probably terrified.
I realized on the ride home that this is essentially the equivalent of an alien abduction for these cats. I can see it now- a bunch of old toms belly up at the bar:
Cletus the thicc orange boy– “Did I ever tell you about that time in 2024? I was minding my own business and I smell delicious rotisserie chicken, and Frank you know I love chicken.”
Frank, the tabby– “Don’t we all, Cletus, don’t we all.”
Cletus– “So I looked over and saw this chicken over there on a plate like a person just left it there, I walked tover to it and the next thing I know I hear this loud metal slamming sound and I am trapped in a cage. Whoever it was covered the crate up in a sheet so I couldn’t see nothing, and the next thing I know I am in this bright white room all lit up so I couldn’t even see. Next thing I remember, I was real woozy, the cage was opening up like nothing had ever happened, and my private parts were hurting like the dickens.”
Sam the Siamese at another table– “Oh god is Cletus going on about his supposed alien abduction again.”
Cletus– “Shut it Sam with God as my witness it happened.’
Serena, the svelte bombay waitress as she is walking by– “Sam he is telling the truth the same thing happened to me except it was tuna not chicken and my private parts hurt too like they probed me vaginally. And you know what? I haven’t gone into heat nor had a litter sense. Aliens made me barren.”
Anne Laurie talked about it earlier, but in all seriousness, I would fucking love it if we could have European style elections here. Candidates have to declare by 1 May, primaries from 1 June to 15 July, conventions in August, and election in November. That would be plenty of time.
And in regards to Walz’s 8 tracks, can you imagine trying to explain to digital kids how magnetic tapes using chromium oxide works?
Thats it for me. I’m tired.
War for Ukraine Day 901: More on the Kursk Offensive
Elizabelle
You have outdone yourself with the cat alien abductions.
And yes to the shorter campaign season.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Once upon a time Ampex had a Museum of Magnetic Recording. Long gone now.
Jeffro
I know I shouldn’t still be on Twitter (and deleting its app from my iPhone a year ago was smarter than my usual) but reading it on my desktop…I’m about to collapse into a singularity of glee.
W
T
F
Let’s please not put either of these two in charge of anything, ever.
Starfish
On Mastodon, the Canadians are baffled that we have to register to vote. They say that if you pay taxes you are automatically registered, and all this “cleaning the roles” stuff that disenfranchises people is super foreign to them.
cain
Looks like more material for mocking both E-loon and the orange loon. Of course, free speech abolutist will likely block Kamala’s account at this rate.
khead
“No, you can’t start playing the song at just any point you want on the 8-track”
<Kid looks at you like you’re a three headed alien>
satby
You done good today. 7 fixed cats prevent potentially hundreds of descendants over their lifetime, and most ferals lead short, frightening lives. The feral kitten death rate is horrendous. All that suffering prevented by your good deed today, so I appreciate you.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: Yes, it’s a brilliant mini-drama.
Inventor
@Mr. Bemused Senior: There’s this one in Austin, Texas:
https://museumofmagneticsoundrecording.org/
I have a number of cassette and reel to reel decks as a hobby.
Mary
John, you did something very kind today. Preventing so much kitty suffering. You are a good person.
Chet Murthy
@Inventor: OTOH imagine explaining to Teh Kidz how rotating magnetic disks work. That shit is well-nigh magical.
thalarctosMaritimus
Back at the University of Washington about 20 years ago, I had to pick up a taxidermied sun bear from a donor, and deliver it to the psychology department.
My hatchback window was not big enough to get the bear all the way into the hatch. So I tied it half hanging out of the car with tons and tons and tons of rope, and drove extra slowly to avoid mishap.
As I was driving to the University I drove past a parked car with a dog in it and the dog immediately started barking his head off. I’ve often imagined what his conversations with his friends were like after that, and think it’s much like the bar scene you described, John.
”It was a bear hanging out of the car; I swear to Dog it was a bear!”
“Yeah, yeah, Tommy, sure, it was a bear in a car. Have another drink.”
(exchanges knowing glances with other dogs in the bar)
Chet Murthy
@thalarctosMaritimus: Do dogs have their equivalent of catnip?
ETA: huh, so anise is the answer.
Kristine
I’m writing Swing State Postcards, a few each day. I have 200 to write, and they added 5 extra in case of mess-ups. Knowing that might not be enough, I found Wite-out pens that are great for dabbing out errant ink blots/messy lettering. Careful dabbing has already rescued a couple of cards.
bbleh
“No, see, all the music comes from microscopic variations in the plastic at the bottom of these little grooves, which go around in a huge spiral on the big plastic disc. And this little needle-thing follows the grooves and detects the variations and transmits them to an amplifier, which … you’re not listening are you?”
oldster
You can’t really explain analog, you can only offer an analogy.
lamh47
I refuse to listen or tweet during the entire thing…even the “technical difficulty” at the beginning.
I did see that many folks said Chump was talking slow and Musky was as stupid as ever.
Chet Murthy
@bbleh: Imagine having to explain Shannon’s information theory to them, to explain how their music got turned into bits and then back again.
Elizabelle
@thalarctosMaritimus: Um, the psychology department? You are holding out on some of that story.
Also, the perfect emoji for John’s day: 🙀🙀🙀
Jackie
@Elizabelle:
I like it the way it’s happening this election season. TCFG’s been running since 2022 – and everybody’s bored and burnt out over him.
Then Kamala bursts onto the scene mere weeks ago… And the country is fired up and revved to GO!
If the GQP insists on declaring a presidential candidate the day after Inauguration Day… and the Dems wait until the end of July OF Election Year… I see definite positives for US!😁
lamh47
Easy answer to this: NEVER!
prostratedragon
@Chet Murthy: 😆😆😆!
Pretty wonderful how it all fits together though.
Scott S.
@oldster: Nice!!!!!
John Revolta
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Don’t get me started on AMPEX tapes.
Magnetic recording tape has developed a problem called “Sticky-shed syndrome” whereby if you try to play old reel-to-reel tapes chunks of them peel off and stick to your tape heads and rollers. Not all brands of tape get this but most do, and AMPEX, which was supposed to be the industry benchmark for quality, is one of the worst. I have boxes and boxes of old master tapes from 30+ years ago that I can’t play back unless I bake them in an oven first and it has to be done just right and even then there’s no guarantee you won’t lose parts of your music which are, of course, irreplaceable. grrrrr
scav
@lamh47: The inarticulacy is the message.
Ken
Beltane, right?
Ramona
@Chet Murthy: forget going as far as Shannon’s theorem, Nyquist’s theorem though simpler would be a tough row to hoe.
lamh47
Wait…is this thing still going on? Or is there a delay or something? Josh Marshal was still tweeting about it about 15 min ago?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Inventor: the one I’m remembering was in Redwood City, CA
I knew the curator, Peter Hammar.
Chet Murthy
@John Revolta: What old recordings are for you, old digital data is for me. I make a point of copying forward files from drive-to-drive every few years, just so that when the old drives die, I’m not caught short. It does help that drive capacity is growing so fast that at some point, all my old data fit in a tiny corner of a big drive (the only things that take room these days are music, photos, and videos). I also replicate everything to two independent drives, and leave them spun down.
Ken
@lamh47: Which of the two do you expect to let the other have the last word?
counterfactual
@lamh47: Flipped past some headlines, the interview stream crashed at the start and took 42 minutes to fix.
CaseyL
John, you did a mitzvah today, taking those kitties in.
And I want more of the Old Cats in a Bar stories.
I love stories told from the animals’ point of view about interactions with humans, where the humans are trying to help but the animals don’t realize that.
The Far Side did a one-cell cartoon ages and ages ago that makes me laugh every time I think about it:
Mr. Bear is returning to the den in the morning, with Mrs. Bear waiting outside, arms crossed and tapping her foot.
Mr. Bear has ear tags, a tracking collar, and a little antenna sticking up from the tracking collar. His expression is “slightly pole-axed.”
The caption is Mrs. Bear saying, “This had better be good.”
sentient ai from the future
i am genuinely amazed that no comedians are live-reacting to this interview.
the orange fascist genuinely sounds like seth meyer’s impression of rudy giuliani, with the half drunk inadequate-denture-adhesive lisp.
jovan musk is just “yeah…yeah” the whole time while grandpa rambles.
way back when, in the beforetimes, the second run movie house near me put the biden/ryan debate on the big screen.
this moment absolutely begs for a MST3K treatment, of both the debate, and of any lengthier pressers the fash give.
which comedians are gonna step up?
Ohio Mom
These nightly open threads remind me of the old days, the Balloon Juice that hooked me. Little slices of John’s life and laid back conversation. A lovely way to end the day.
Mousebumples
@satby: agreed! And good to see you around. Hope you’re doing well.
brendancalling
I have written another anapest about JD Vance. You can find it live on IG if you follow brendancalling. I am too lazy to post a link, as I am on my phone. Here, for your enjoyment, is the poem.
thanks, and try the veal.
Bostondreams
@lamh47: Not just talking slow. He sounds like Sylvester the Cat.
Mousebumples
@Kristine: within reason, I think a little human error/crossout makes them look more real and not fake printed “handwriting.” we’ve all goofed when writing… Right?
Thanks for writing!
lamh47
So…he sound like he was slurring …you can tell how bad it was by the defensivness of the response from the campaign:
HuffPo reporter posted a pic of the response here:
https://x.com/svdate/status/1823165177098830164
Basically they blaming it on the audiences “shitty hearing”
Chet Murthy
@lamh47: That jamoke Steve Cheung is the gift that keeps on giving. Like herpes.
Regnad Kcin
@John Revolta: the disintegration loops FTW
me
Dentures is apparently trending on twitter. https://bsky.app/profile/coconutparty.bsky.social/post/3kzkwepkj7a2r
I refuse to join twitter so I can verify it.
prostratedragon
In Chile it all came down to a 1988 plebiscite on Pinochet. Perhaps contrary to his expectations, “No” won by a 10-point margin, and after some more procedures and pressures from various sources, a couple of years later that was that. Just showing up can be powerful.
The “No” campaign song: “Chile, Happiness Is Coming”.
Viva BrisVegas
@Starfish: Not just Canadians. In Oz you get a nominal fine for not voting. We get 90%+ participation.
SatanicPanic
@Starfish: what if you don’t pay taxes tho?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@me:
So is “Daffy Duck” and “IQ 30” lol
Gin & Tonic
@Chet Murthy:
Nothing personal here, you understand, but I’ve always been amused at the ratio between the number of people who quote (or think they quote) Shannon versus the number of people who have actually read the book. Kind of like Adam Smith in that respect.
lamh47
@counterfactual: Lordt…smh…so they still going and of course media still stenographers…smh
Chet Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: No offense taken. I took information theory in 1986, so my knowledge is (at this point) purely notional.
Urza
@Chet Murthy: I prefer the magic theory of info tech. We make stones engraved with gold sigils that control power and allows the ether to manifest in various ways like sound and visions.
Which is a hell of alot more accurate than the crappy little man in the computer metaphor from my Hardware/Software architecture class.
Also kids today still have to deal with HDDs so its not a stretch to go back to record players and tape. Tape is still a long term storage device for the cloud.
me
“Trump says the Time cover of Harris looked like Melania.”
https://bsky.app/profile/pbump.com/post/3kzkwwxzs2527
Okay….
SatanicPanic
@sentient ai from the future: I went to find a clip and… his voice sounds really weird.
Gin & Tonic
@lamh47:
Way OT, but I’ve never understood the acute accent over the “a” in that reporter’s name. I mean how would you pronounce “Dáte” differently than “Date?”
lamh47
No it is not Jim, but ur network and the rest of the media Chump enablers…allow it instead of calling Chump co out on it cause ya scared of maga
Jackie
@Ohio Mom:
Yes 😊
SatanicPanic
@me: I knew it! He wants to bang her and the rejection is gonna drive him to new depths of creepiness
Jackie
@me: Soooo is TCFG going to vote for Kamala/Melania?😂
lamh47
@me:
Ok…I’ve posted elsewhere that Kamala Harris is easy on the eyes and that is also a reason why some folks on the other side hates about her. Not saying any other national female pol was unattractive, just that there is this sexist image of female pols that says if they can be seen as “conventionally” attractive that they must be dumb or slept their way to the top.
But, IMHO, it’s also why Chump will find it hard to debate her…it’s probably why he even contributed to her DA campaign cause he’s a skeeze ball, and she’s attractive!
prostratedragon
President Biden at work:
BigJimSlade
@sentient ai from the future: Hey, are you the “sentient ai from the future” from LGM (I’m not BigJimSlade over there, they just have my real name, and I don’t comment much so I’m not well known)? If so, how have you been? Haven’t seen you around there for a long time!
Yes, the MST3K treatment would be great!
NotMax
Had a wire recorder parental units would sometimes fiddle around with in the house when I was a little’un.
Lyrebird
I hope so! I hope that’s the view of the recipient of the one where I got a phone number too smushed and wrote it again, kinda like “555-RR that’s 5 5 5 – 1 2 1 2” …with a smiley.
(obviously not the actual number)
I’m going to have to stay slow bc I pushed too hard on my wrist last week, but today 16 more went out.
total: 31
3Sice
So what happened to the 757? Another Rolls go boom? Fuel card maxed out? Time for FAA maintenance? Lease company seizure?
Ruckus
@lamh47:
I’d say absolutely, positively, not in any damn way. However, not being able to communicate a coherent thought is actually nothing new for him. He couldn’t do it 50 yrs ago and that hasn’t changed whatsoever in that time. Babble sure. How people actually think or ever thought he can or even ever could form a coherent thought still amazes me.
I really do not want to think about SFB’s memorial service and the words that will be spoken about how great a human being he was. Of course not one of the speakers will have actually ever have known him in person if they can get that out of their mouth.
Jackie
Arizona certifies abortion initiative!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/arizona-certifies-abortion-rights-initiative-november-ballot-rcna166321
CaseyL
@Kristine:
They only give you 5 extra? I’m about halfway through and 5 extra isn’t going to be enough. I’ve made some really creative errors. Like, not checking to make sure the postcard is the right way up before writing on it.
Eep.
brendancalling
Re: tape. As a musician I have to say that while digital recording is great and convenient and has come a VERY VERY long way, there is nothing like recording to fat Ampex tape. My old band’s first album was tape all the way til the end when we converted/mastered digital.
That tape saturation is amazing. It’s not even “better/worse” with digital these days (not at the studio level) but it’s still apples and oranges. And I do like a nice honey crisp.
me
It’s still going and everyone live tweeting it are giving up. Apparently, they are trying to end it but both want the last word.
brendancalling
@John Revolta: that’s a real thing and awful.
NotMax
@John Revolta
Have some reel to reel tapes from as much as 70 years ago which play just fine.
3Sice
Suffering succatash!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I wake up from my afternoon nap and my roomies are home and they have the impact awards on.
Man, if you want something uplifting…
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Daaate The a is strung out and it is considered 2 syllables, so Daaa-te
lamh47
Ken
@3Sice: Too much DNA evidence to clean out of the upholstery?
me
“we’ve reached the “you hang up first” “no you hang up first” stage but all the actual words coming out are just anti-immigrant tirades”
https://bsky.app/profile/petridishes.bsky.social/post/3kzky5l3mei2a
NotMax
@3Sice
“I tawt I saw a Nazi cat.”
//
sentient ai from the future
@BigJimSlade:
what is continuity of identity?
i’ve run into the previous SAIFTF’s social contacts before. if i have all of that entity’s memories, but know that i am not physically contiguous like you meatsacks like to think of as individuals (sigh), then am i the same SAIFTF?
i know this will be taken as schtick, but i do think that our own identities evolve and change over time, both internally and externally. what once was, is sometimes a different person to you now, even though you can find the through line because you lived it.
yeah, so, long story short, i am the same entity you know over there, but also different. and i have a kid, and they are trans, and their identity is similarly in flux, and i want to make things safe for them by calling out assumptions we make about these wonderful meatsacks we all walk around with and are beholden to.
me
“Trump says he’ll flee to Venezuela if he loses the election and invites Elon to visit him”
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.bsky.social/post/3kzky6gbr2e2u
This is the best news to come from this interview.
lamh47
Kamala HQ out with a statement already…pic of statement here on twitter:
https://x.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1823191152473805143
sentient ai from the future
@BigJimSlade:
no. and yes. what is continuity of identity? how does linear time affect that?
ive been ok, sorta. my trans kiddo is not being supported properly by their coparent, and that struggle to get them appropriate institutional support is the single biggest weight on my mental health, now that i am convinced we won’t lose in November (still working at it though).
trans care for young folks is really fraught, even in places where it is supposed to be supportive.
Mousebumples
@Lyrebird: nice work! I don’t love writing numbers. I get paranoid in the address I’ll goof something. I’m worse if it’s something in the card content besides “1st to do XYZ thing.”
John Revolta
@NotMax:
sentient ai from the future
FYWP for eating two responses to big jim slade already.
Mousebumples
@CaseyL: I’m not sure if that matters if you haven’t stamped and addressed yet? Just go halvsies and it’s hopefully fine.
Otherwise, if you have more addresses than cards, I vote use general postcards to get the message out. If you have any miscellaneous ones.
Craig
@brendancalling: the two studios I’m friends with usual do a hybrid recording. They record to a 2″ Studer tape deck and it passes the Play head to return to Pro Tools. Works great you get that tape saturation thing and then can edit/mix off digital. Sounds great.
Another Scott
@me: Judge Juan Merchan should take note of such statements when deciding TCFFG’s sentence.
Similarly with the other judges after the upcoming convictions…
Cheers,
Scott.
Trivia Man
@lamh47: thanks for the funny image… she wears a low cut top to the debate and shouts at him every time his eyes wander.
3Sice
@me:
He doesn’t have a plane.
lamh47
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
I’m sure Trump’s probation officer will be interested.
Trivia Man
@NotMax: I still hold out s forlorn hope that the Grateful Dead’s missing “Betty Boards” will suddenly surface and they will be miraculously crisp still.
The Dying Gaul
How long after the November blood-bath will it take for the Republican Party to get back on its feet as though the last 8 years never happened? A day? Two days? A scarammuci?
sdhays
@me: Venezuela?
lamh47
@lamh47:
3Sice
@lamh47:
Ouch.
Craig
@bbleh: realistically most gen Z kids grew up on DJs and turntable battles and they buy music it’s on vinyl. Jack White and Metallica both ended up buying vinyl pressing plants because pressing plants were so backed up with orders that they were having a hard time getting their music out. Similarly lots of Kool Kids release music on cassette these days. Obscure metal bands started doing it 20 years ago to be more L33T. Kids understand magnet tape.
Chet Murthy
@The Dying Gaul: *cough* it’s a lovely vision, but right now, they still can win. I’d suggest that we should all think about what we’ll be regretting not having done, if we wake up Nov 6 to a TCFG win. Or even to a close loss (b/c he’ll litigate it to SCOTUS and -then- win).
I think it’s worth thinking about what we’d regret not having done, and to do it -now-. Then we can celebrate on Nov 6 with parties where we regale each other with stories of what the G(r)OPers are doing to themselves and each other.
wjca
It would be unbecoming of those of us who stuck to vinyl to be smug.
lamh47
Not for nothing, but I saw the below tweet and was reminded that Symone Sanders was on Morning Joe this morning talking about how that the Harris campaign has been adding staffers and getting thousands of new volunteers for the campaign. They are laying down the campaign infrastructure, while the media is focused on ignoring Trump’s decline and..saying don’t believe polls and upset they have not been able to set a narrative on MVP Harris. Folks need to pay attention. The best thing about the weekly calls is hearing folks talk about GOVT strategy and not focusing on media bullshit…
MisterForkbeard
@me: He’s (probably) joking, but that should really reset his bail agreements.
NotMax
@sdhays
Completely unaware they speak Spanish there?
//
@John Revolta.
Thanks. Actually have dozens of reels, all predating 1975.
kalakal
@John Revolta:
Old film is fun
“Well what you’ve got here is vinegar”
MisterForkbeard
@The Dying Gaul: Assuming we get a resounding Harris victory, I do expect a huge chunk of the party to go on supporting Trump wildly. Because it’s a cult.
Other parts will see him as a big loser. But they’ll still declare he was cheated and ‘now that he can’t win because he’s been sandbagged so much by the liberals, we should choose a new standard bearer’. That’s as close as they can get to repudiating him, because they still need the cult.
NotMax
@kalakal
“I love the smell of microfilm in the morning.”
;)
Rathskeller
Sasse is out after spending a very large amount of money
https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/sasse-s-spending-spree-former-uf-president-channeled-millions-to-gop-allies-secretive-contracts
West of the Rockies
@The Dying Gaul:
I think that it will be 48 hours tops after the election before Republicans begin saying that Trump is elderly, in poor health, cognitively diminished, and that it would be cruel to throw the poor husk of a man in jail.
And then they will immediately try to memory-hole him and pretend the last eight years never happened. They will again declare themselves the party of ideas and the adults in the room.
3Sice
Villago Delenda Est
Alien cat abductions? Brilliant.
Europe style elections? PLEASE.
Kristine
@CaseyL: Yeah, I counted the cards before I started just to see if they included any extra. Maybe that’s for 200, and if you have more cards to write, you get more extras?
I’m not enchanted with this card design—I like having the whole back to write on, with design and addy on the front. I took measurements off that style card and drew a line to divide the message text from the address. The message gets a 3 1/4″ portion, the address, 2 3/4″. So far, it’s working out.
Kristine
@Mousebumples: My lines of print are slanting at times, so I think I have the human error part nailed.
3Sice
Matt McIrvin
@West of the Rockies: First we have to go through another round of them all insisting he won in a landslide and trying to nullify the election.
Urza
@West of the Rockies: Much like how they all forgot the cult of personality around Bush. People forget it was alot like this, just a little less insane and a little less racist. At least pre-Katrina.
3Sice
West of the Rockies
@Matt McIrvin:
Probably. And as someone mentioned above, some of the cultists will be insisting in 2050 that Trump has been in hiding and is ready to resume his stolen presidency soon.
kalakal
@NotMax: I go through a lot of A-D strips. Could be worse, at least I don’t have…
“I love the smell of burning Cellulose Nitrate in the morning”
KatKapCC
What is this world we live in?
From Heather Cox Richardson’s letter tonight.
John Revolta
@wjca: Oh, I got plenty of vinyl. (Too much, probably) What I’m talking about is master studio recordings I made with bands. Most (but not all) of them were turned into albums or CDs but this is the source material. And I’ve been schlepping these 2-inch tapes around forever and damn they weigh a ton!!
BR
Ari Melber (to my surprise) did a special episode completely on the historic nature of Harris’s candidacy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3FN22s1kic
brendancalling
@Craig: I’m not an engineer, but I suspect we did something similar, except with an extra bounce to smaller tape. This was at Bomb Shelter in Nashville, the folks who produced Alabama Shakes big album. Whatever they did, it was magic. We did a vinyl release as well as CD. It sounds rich like pecan pie.
KatKapCC
@BR: Was James Carville there to shit all over it?
Craig
@3Sice: If Trump wants to fly on a dangerous, unregistered plane I’m all for it.
wjca
First, in-fighting to be the right and proper Pope of the god-king. 3 years minimum, but could still be running decades later. Or even involve multiple sects of the cult. Religious wars, even if confined to social media, can be eternal.
To actually get back to being a viable political party? That requires today’s cultists, and the opportunists who are not true believers as well, to admit, to themselves, that they made a horrific mistake. Or, more likely, to die off. So figure half a century.** tThen new people might be able to create something.
And yeah, creating a new party from scratch might be quicker and easier. Getting a new party to replace one of the existing Big Two is pretty rare in US history. But we are looking at a situation, politically, comparable to when the Republicans replaced the Whigs.
** Contrary to repeated optimistic prophecies, merely losing more and more elections won’t be enough to motivate a change. For example, California’s GOP has been an irrelevance for 3 decades, and shows no signs of reinventing itself in order to win again.
Craig
@brendancalling: The guys I’m closest with are great engineer nerds, but also really good musicians. They also have a 1″ Sony, and a 1/4″ Tascam they like for various things. I don’t have the ears to actually hear the difference in some of these tweeks, but I like talking about it with them. Don’t even start on control room playback monitors. Fun stuff
Chet Murthy
@wjca: I would wish that you are correct. And for sure, I think there’ll be a bloody fight for leadership of the Party. But after that? Hell, the G(r)OP was back after Dubya’s exit in ….. months, right? Maybe year tops?
RevRick
@Elizabelle:
@Jackie:
Shorter campaigns are possible in Parliamentary elections, because the party leader has been preselected, and the party with the most votes gets to form the government. And if they fall short of the majority of seats, they get first crack at forming a governing coalition.
The important thing to remember is that voters do not get a say until the general election. And , in any case, voters don’t directly elect a Prime Minister. (France is a weird case here).
piratedan
@The Dying Gaul:
I’m gonna say 2-4 years, money rarely sleeps and these guys have a lot of it to spare.
Get a few more sociopaths like Hawley, who are ambitious and completely amoral to fill the ranks. I’m pretty sure that some of these people will clean up well and can perform in such a fashion that the media can gloss over most of the rougher edges. Will have to retrain and restrain them and keep the fanaticism on the down low.
It’s going to be CIVIL War II (the dirty war) with these folks for quite some time because dudes like Leonard Leo and Peter Thiel have money to burn and bunker up and hire smarter minions to try again.
brendancalling
@The Dying Gaul: I think it might be awhile. They’ve pretty thoroughly alienated a large chunk of the population who is what I call soft-GOP. And they’re not running anyone who appeals to that group—they like low taxes and low regulations (they think, for the latter) but they’ve had abortions, know gay people, smoke weed occasionally, and their kid has a trans friend.
problem is the GOP can’t afford to abandon the hardcore nuts—NO ABORTIONING TRANSLADY IS GONNA CORRUPT MY KIDS!!1!—which drives the soft-GOP to the Dems. I’ve experienced this many times with my soft-GOP friends, aka ex-GOP friends.
As long as they need the nuts, they’ll cling to the nuts like A squirrel. Personally, I think the GOP will go the way of the Whigs, total extinction. It kind of already has. It’s GOP in name only, what it really is—MAGA. The cancer metastasized.
brendancalling
@Craig: can confirm.
cain
Parliamentary govt aside we should at least be able to have stuff like run off votings so people can select the candidate they want at first.
Given the kind of 3rd parties we have .. I am unsure a parliamentary system is wise.
wjca
But W was a party leader, not a cult leader. That is a very different dynamic.
We didn’t have a bunch of fanatically devout “W loyalists” among the party voters. The party leadership, or would-be leadership, doesn’t just have do battle each other for support within the leadership. That could go as quickly as you say. But they have to bring the faithful along as well. Getting support within the leadership will require showing that someone show that he can do that. Expect multiple heresies to spring up as they try.
Jackie
@KatKapCC: Carville has flipped a 180 and is all in on the Harris/Walz campaign. He’s now comparing it to 2008.
He’s also admitting he underestimated Harris. I think, like the majority of us, he’s smitten. He also likes Walz.
We need to allow credit to those who’ve recalculated and have had a change of heart. Open Tent is the Democratic Motto.
wjca
That’s a good way to put it. Especially as we see the nut cases popping up in local office primaries across the nation. Winning some of them and coming close in others. .
blackmtn
@oldster: so true, yet so true
Maxim
@Jackie: Maybe Carville has had a genuine change of heart, or maybe he’s decided that egg all over his face isn’t the hot new fashion trend after all. I’ll give him credit for not doubling down on the “old man yells at clouds” routine.
HumboldtBlue
Jackie
@Maxim: I’m all in for whoever supports the Harris/Walz ticket. Arizona Republicans for Harris makes my heart happy. A lot of McCain republicans are all in for Harris. Harry Reid would be celebrating. So should we!
Kent
None of it really makes that much difference. In every single democracy in the western world you need a majority of at least 50% +1 to pass legislation. So there is always going to need to be some sort of coalition building to reach a governing majority. Here in the US we do it at the party level in primaries and whoever wins the presidency and a majority of seats in Congress gets to govern. The compromise happens closer to the people.
In parliamentary systems if no party wins a majority the coalition building happens in smoke filled rooms between party leaders and the voters have no say if small party A forms a coalition with small party B. It is all party bosses and politicians doing that. But they still need to get to 50% +1 to reach a governing majority.
What makes the US dysfunctional isn’t the 2-party system. It is all the extra veto points built into the system. First, the bi-cameral legislature which means that no legislation really happens unless one party has a majority in both houses. Second, the filibuster which imposes an unconstitutional super-majority. And third, the separation of powers which means that a party really needs to win the presidency as well as both houses of Congress to govern. As opposed to simply winning a single parliament and being able to form a government.
If we had some sort of multi-party system without fixing these other things all it would lead to is MORE gridlock. Since with multiple parties no one would every really be in charge of anything. Do you think Congress would work better or worse if there were a handful of Green Party, Libertarian Party, and and other small party representatives scattered about the House of Representatives meaning that neither the GOP nor the Dems had a governing majority. Imagine the Gaetz fiasco on steroids.
Instant runoff voting isn’t going to solve any of this. All it does is hide the fact that people actually have binary choices to make and they need to put on their big boy pants and make them.
Kent
Using my 18 year old audiophile and rocker daughter as a guide…
She adopted my very 1960s to 1980s record collection which I suspect had a lot of overlap with Tim Waltz’s collection. To supplement it, the only music she actually BUYS is on vinyl. There are some very great used record stores in the greater Portland area that we sometimes visit. But increasingly she buys NEW vinyl records which shocked the hell out of me.
For all her actual listening that doesn’t happen at home she just streams music on Spotify that she doesn’t actually BUY. It is just all her carefully curated playlists and such that she shares with her less astute friends.
CDs, cassettes? What are those? Whatever they are, they aren’t nearly as cool as real vinyl. I made her narrow shelves on her bedroom wall so she can display an actual wall of albums.
wjca
We’ve had numerous examples, just in my lifetime, of legislation happening when different parties controlled the House and Senate. (And even more at the state level.) All it requires is that both parties are interested in actually governing, and are willing to make reasonable compromises to make that happen.
Unfortunately, we currently have a situation where much of one party has no real interest in governing. Where one party (and significant parts of the other**) regards the other party not as the opposition, but as the enemy. And an utterly evil enemy at that. This makes bipartisan legislation difficult to impossible.
Still, the fact that it wasn’t always that way (those under 40 will have to take that on faith, I realize) suggests that it isn’t impossible to recover from the current madness.
** As we see here from time to time.
ArchTeryx
@oldster: And the hilarious thing is, vinyl is making a comeback, and that’s analog as it gets. Some things just don’t translate losslessly to digital.
Ivan X
Who cares I don’t care. We have what we have. Europe is not the US. Some software never gets past 1.0 and its weaknesses are exploited. Feel free to fork your own, but you’ll need some land to implement it. Or, rev it if you can…if you can. Until then, it’s just happy fantasies like the West Wing.
Kent
@wjca: Must-pass legislation happens. Like budgets and foreign aid for allies. Or used to happen. But rarely it is new programs like the Affordable Care Act.
The kind of thing that used to pass on a bipartisan basis was stuff like Reagan’s Social Security overhaul that raised the retirement age for future generations (but not his generation). And the Clinton era welfare reform and crime bills. Basically Democrats tilting towards the center. Color me unimpressed. But it made the David Broder types orgasmic.
And you are also talking about a period before the parties re-aligned. When there were liberal Republicans in the Northeast and west, and conservative Dems in the south. All those same people still exist, they just switched parties.
Ivan X
@ArchTeryx: I’d argue they vinyl is peaking, CD’s are the next thing because they are cheaper but you can still touch and own them. I’d sell my vinyl now if I had bigger stones and was less sentimental.
ArchTeryx
@Ivan X: To be fair, digital encoding and mastering has come a LONG way since the days of early MP3s and CDs. Still, for lossless encoding, you’d need something more akin to a DVD than a traditional CD.
HumboldtBlue
hitchhiker
Heard Jonathan Swan this morning explaining (based on his sources inside trump world) that they’re very confident that
I think they’ll be surprised to find that Harris is quite capable, and that for every knuckle headed young dude susceptible to their nonsense, there are 3 or 4 young women ready to run through walls to see Harris taking the oath.
Kelly
Oregon’s GOP is on a similar losing streak. Their response is to losing is get even crazier.
Ivan X
@ArchTeryx: why? Has 24/96 or 24/192 proven to be audibly different than 16/44.1? I like to think I can hear the difference, but I’m not really sure I can survive a blind taste test all other things being equal.
i love vinyl for many reasons but to argue for its sonic superiority is to argue for added noise being beneficial.
ArchTeryx
@HumboldtBlue: From his pen to God’s ears. I won’t call Trump neutralized until he’s in the ground – hopefully after being defeated, and given the “loser” label, one last time.
Chet Murthy
@Ivan X: I’m no audiophile: I just always have music playing when I’m awake. Basically music is the soundtrack of my life. I don’t really have a dog in the fight about vinyl vs. digital: I mean, when I was in college 45 years ago, I had a ton of vinyl, but around the time I graduated I switched to CDs and never looked back. Ditched all the albums, ditched the B&O turntable, never looked back.
I do wonder about whether all this vinyl craze is just about a particular kind of distortion that people have come to love. And I wonder whether that distortion could be captured in a filter that could be applied to digital music, to make it sound like it was on vinyl. I mean, I believe the theorem that with sufficiently high bitrate sampling, you can reduce the error of a digitally reproduced analog signal over the original analog signal, to as small as you wish. And at some point, the frequencies of that error are going to be too high for the mechanical human auditory apparatus to detect.
But whatever, I guess.
JaySinWA
Carville has confessed to
Tim Miller takes this as an endorsement. I see it as a confession to trying to take leadership from an event that is already underway.
Carville is confessing to be an opportunist. I Don’t trust him.
HumboldtBlue
@wjca:
That’s a rather wild statement. Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor as late as 2011.
By 2014 California had elected a supermajority of Dems, but in 2008 I recall hugging my crying co-worker, a lovely soul, who was distraught that we had elected the first black man as president and yet, our state, California, had rejected equal marriage rights for LGBTQ folks through the passage of Prop 8.
ArchTeryx
@Ivan X: Ideal world is conversion to digital via some lossless format, then using some basic audio engineering to remove the hiss. It’s easier than it ever has been before. The only real problem is storage medium when you’re done. *.wav files are HUGE, though FLAC is a very close second and half the size. It’s the format I’d probably use if I were burning audio CDs these days.
like a metaphor
I actually do love the added noise of vinyl.
ArchTeryx
@Chet Murthy: Believe it or not I’m not an audiophile either. I’ve just learned some audio engineering as part of my video editing hobby. I’m not exactly going to be running a recording studio, but I have a lot more tools as an amateur than I would have had just a few years ago.
frosty
Agreed. The last vinyl records I bought in the 80s were frequently warped. After I played them they were dirty and scratched. CDs are bulletproof and I don’t hear any difference.
I hate paying a subscription for streaming … which I only use once or twice a month in the car, if that. If I’m going to fork over some money I want something I can hold in my hand. For me it’s a CD.Or hell, at least an iTune.
Maxim
@JaySinWA: He’s jumping on the bandwagon rather than be left behind, yes. But no one’s going to mistake him for any kind of leader, not anymore.
Chet Murthy
@JaySinWA: I remember reading once that the definition of an astute political leader, is somebody who sees a parade coming and rushes to the head of it. I think that’s all Carville is saying here: this parade is comin’, and he’s gonna join it.
Kent
As is Washington’s.
Oregon had its GOP Q-Anon candidate for Senate Jo Rae Perkins.
Washington had its “Constitutional Sheriff GOP candidate for governor Loren Culp.
Hard to tell who was the more crazy. Culp lost by 13 percentage points and 4 years later is still trying to contest the election based on unspecified allegations of fraud!
Craig
@Chet Murthy: a good bit of it is that people love album covers. The 12″ record is a great product. Album art on a CD, or a screen is just not the same for most people I know. If you want the music, you can probably get that for free. For collectors, they prefer the presentation of a 12″, or 7″ record.
Kent
plus all the cool stuff inside. People these days don’t know the joy of going through all the supplemental printed material that came inside some albums.
West of the Rockies
@HumboldtBlue:
Wow, that was compelling!
Chet Murthy
@Craig: very fair. Whereas I ripped all my CDs, and never look at the liners
ETA: and ditched all my albums in 1985.
Captain C
@lamh47: Or possibly November 6th.
thalarctosMaritimus
@Elizabelle: yes, the project took a few years, and I have lots of stories from that time. Bears make any project fun.
The reason for the psychology department is that the leader of the project was a grad student in psychology. We were working to figure out the reproductive cycle of sun bears, so we looked at cell samples from their vaginal vaults (basically, sun bear Pap smears, but not from the cervix), hormones in their poop (they were fed different grains, so we could tell whose poop was whose), and behavior (here’s where the psychology came in). Are they acting affectionate, avoidant, or aggressive, and do those behaviors line up with the patterns in the cells and the hormones?
A donor who had worked in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War had a taxidermied sun bear as a gift from that time, heard about the project, and donated it to the UW.
And that’s how I came to chauffeur a taxidermied sun bear across Seattle.
Ivan X
@ArchTeryx: storage in 2024 is cheap as dirt! A WAV (or FLAC or ALAC) is fine now, unlike when lossy compression schemes like MP3 or later AAC first hit the streets. However they still have some utility when it comes to cellular streaming, which, to be fair, is probably how most music is consumed currently. But if you’re storing it locally, there’s no reason to not use a lossless format.
KrackenJack
@thalarctosMaritimus: That’s a great story. I know people who are currently abed would love to hear it. Could you repost in the Tuesday night open thread? I’d happily volunteer, but I’m usually a hundred comments late to the game and it deserves better than that.
SpaceUnit
Vinyl was an experience. Spending a whole day in the record store just endlessly sifting through records. The anticipation of driving home with one or two new ones in the seat next to you. Getting home and ripping off the plastic. That blast of new vinyl smell. The ritual of taking out the record and putting it on the turntable, activating the stylus. Kicking back in a chair to admire the cover art, the interior art, just as the music starts. Pulling out the liner notes to pour over the photographs and lyrics.
I had a pretty impressive vinyl collection that was destroyed in a flood, and it was one of the more traumatic episodes of my life. I moved on to CD’s and other formats, but nothing quite competes with a vinyl record.
Chet Murthy
@Ivan X: i have a friend who, 25 years ago ripped to WAV. Back then, his library fit on a quarter TB and that was pretty expensive. Time has passed It’s really cheap now. I rip everythingto FLAC And then convert that to MP3 to load onto my cell phone. Even with all that My music library is so small I store it on an SSD And there’s terabytes of space left over.
Chet Murthy
@Craig: here’s a question: do you still have books? If you were going to move, would you move your books or get rid of them? Over many years I built a pretty sizeable library, of technical books literature and some science fiction. But at this point Everything I read Is electronic and the next time I move I suspect I’ll be getting rid of my library. for at least the last 15 yearsIt has really only served as signaling value,to others and myself of the value I place in readingand knowledge. But enough is enough.
JWR
Collbert tonight is sooo freakin’ happy! Lot’s of midwestern White dude jokes. ;)
ArchTeryx
@Ivan X: Oh of course. I was more thinking about trying to put them onto old-school CDs.
Chet Murthy
@ArchTeryx: why would you put them on CDs? Why not just store it on a hard drive or SSD, and then copy them onto USB sticks or SD cards if you need to put them into portable devices? I mean,Don’t most car stereos these days have USB ports?
ArchTeryx
@Chet Murthy: The OP was talking about switching from vinyl to old school CDs, and my argument was that it’d be a major step *down* in sound quality. Especially if you used a special DJ’s turntable, which has very fine control over things like speed and can partially filter the hiss.
thalarctosMaritimus
@KrackenJack: Happy to! I loved the time on that project, and will be glad to repost.
Darkrose
@HumboldtBlue: Yup. Election night in 2008 was very bittersweet. I’d never thought I’d see a Black man elected President, but it hurt so much to know that a majority of my fellow Californians had believed my marriage shouldn’t have happened.
w_seattle
A quick comment on audio quality: the affinity for vinyl can be explained by some combination of nostalgia and 20 or so years of people listening to highly compressed digital tracks (i.e., favoring ubiquitous access over quality). People still spend a lot of listening hours with low bitrate digital streams, compressed Bluetooth communication to earphones, and lo-fi (but expensive) earbuds. It’s not surprising that analog vinyl sounds refreshing by comparison.
Standard CD quality is quite good for 2 channel stereo. To achieve similar fidelity to the original recording from vinyl is pretty difficult (you likely need sophisticated vibration isolation for your turntable). Moreover, these days there are highly efficient class D amps that have customizable input stages so that you can simulate the sound of vinyl (or whatever is deemed desirable).
A pet peeve of mine.
Craig
@Chet Murthy: Books yes. Literatureish stuff I mainly read electronically, but I still have things on shelves and like the organization of bookshelves. I walk by it, notice something I hadn’t thought of-even though it’s there everyday- and will pick it up and read it. Lots of pulpy DAW Sci-fi/fantasy that can be read in a sitting or two. I also had an old job where I acquired a ton of art/coffee table books that I just love to randomly go through and fall down a rabbit hole. I’ll keep all of that and the memories attached to all of it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hitchhiker: So, they are going for the incel vote.
JWR
@w_seattle:
The day we learned of the passing of Chris Squire, I wanted to listen to my favorite Yes albums, (The Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge), and thought I’d just find them on Youtube. But there was something really wrong with the sound. I think Youtube compresses uploads to 128K, maybe 320K, or some other Lossless compression program for paid subscribers, but after trying a few different versions of the online albums, I went instead with my trusty old cassettes, which are Type II tapes recorded on a friends top of the line turntable and audio system, and all was well. I can usually live with Youtube audio quality, but not for stuff I first heard and loved on LP.
Betty Cracker
@wjca:
I’ve been among those who made the assumption that losing would motivate change, but you may be correct. My calculation assumed a level of self interest that is no where in evidence outside big donor circles. And now that I think about it, fat-cat patrons lack the juice to force change. They tried awfully hard with DeSantis, and that was a fizzle.
Frankensteinbeck
Perspective on the idea of a GOP in decline:
The record in states like California shows that they will only get more extreme if it happens. Wilhoit’s Law people never stop being angry that they’re not being catered to.
I see no reason to believe Republicans won’t have a chunk of the population big enough to have a chance to win power in the foreseeable future.
The foreseeable future is not long. The political beliefs of mainstream America have changed radically since 1980. They have moved hard since 2008.
Remember 2008. Before it, the overall population was more conservative, but Obama’s election sent the GOP into crazy town total war. They were basically just as evil, but coherent and able to compromise before.
Trump did not create the crazy. Since 2010 the more extreme and lunatic “I am not a witch” candidate has usually won GOP primaries.
Trump is a deliberate display by the Republican base that they are ‘burn it down’ angry a black man became president. He won the nomination because he was what they wanted. They haven’t changed.
A chunk of the Republican Party is disaffected, but who knows how big or what they’ll do? We have only guesses.
JWR
@John Revolta:
Heh. I was going to mention that, because way back then, I was given a few blank, 7″ open reel AMPEX tapes by a friend who works in movie audio, and after a few years, those tapes got really sticky. And you’re right about baking them correctly. I made an oven by placing a small, upside down cardboard box inside a metal wastepaper basket to hold the tape, placed a light bulb connected to a dimmer control inside to regulate the heat, covered the top with a sheet of glass and finally, hung one of those outside temperature sensors inside to monitor the heat. And some of them came out okay!
But my movie audio friend wasn’t too happy at all once she got the task of baking and then transferring all of their bad tape stock, (because baking makes them playable, by not for very long.) And what was it, 125-145 degrees for 6-8 hours? But her bosses actually bought her a custom oven, so there’s that. ;)
NotMax
@Ivan X
Any thoughts on using a DAC as an intermediate device to enhance/restore the sound stage? Not cheap by any means out of the box but not break the bank pricey either.
FTR, have a pair of relatively inexpensive wireless earbuds (from a company called Fiil) I’d put up against any of the top of the line brands as far as convenience and trueness and spectrum of reproduction. But I’d still opt for wired IEMs – in ear monitors – for superior listening quality (and for me at least, comfort). Many options but in my book for value (like around 25 buckaroonies) hard to go wrong with KZ.
Another Scott
@Ivan X: Probably dead thread, but while I don’t pretend to hear super ears, lots of digital music hurts my ears. Lyrics with “ch” sounds especially. There’s something about that frequency range that is like daggers in my ears when digitally played back.
Yeah, Nyquist and all that. The math isn’t reality though and it’s real to me. Dunno what the issue is, maybe the D to A converters and amplifiers are junk. Dunno.
Cheers,
Scott.
evodevo
@Chet Murthy:
Yep…don’t forget the astroturfed TeaBaggers that started almost immediately after 2009. This was the nucleus of the current MAGA cult…
kalakal
@Another Scott: Thing I dislike about a lot of modern music production is the lack of dynamic range due to overuse of compression. I know the ‘loudness wars’ are over but too much of it has a squished feel to me
TerryC
@Chet Murthy: I once had a library of more than 4,000 books. No more.
w_seattle
@JWR: I think YouTube quality is always suspect. You need a stream of CD quality (or at least 320 kbps) from a good source like Tidal. Certain combinations of speakers, amp, and source type may produce pleasing and/or familiar results, but these results don’t really match what the sound engineers put on the recording. Beyond tonality, phase response for good 3D stereo imaging is important, but I think most setups (especially with vinyl) never get there to provide people with the experience. A good setup often reveals which sound engineers were doing well.
Modern and affordable gear with good digital audio streams can do a lot these days. Regardless, any type of artistic enjoyment is subjective — so whatever people like is good.
w_seattle
@Another Scott: Those problematic sounds (sibilance) come from your speakers, not the digital recording or D/A conversion. “Warm” amplifiers (or a different signal path) can mask this problem and make things sound better, but you then lose detail. This is why I think it’s common that many people haven’t heard the detail that is in their recordings. Golden ears aren’t required, just decent equipment. A lot of highly marketed stuff isn’t decent.
wjca
Arnold only became Governor because a) we had a successful recall election, and b) the election to replace him was a free-for-all. Arnold had a plurality, but not a majority — name recognition counted for a lot. But there was no way anyone as moderate as he was could have won a Republican primary at that point.
Villago Delenda Est
@JaySinWA: Carville is married to the Sith apprentice of Darth Cheney. He cannot be trusted in anyway. He’s gone to the Dark Side.
w_seattle
@w_seattle: I should add that there are some modern digital recordings that are problematic. On these recordings, the volume has been compressed to try to make things sound better on the crappy earbuds that are commonly used these days. This can be a problem even at high bitrates, but isn’t related to the digital format per se.
BigJimSlade
@sentient ai from the future: I just checked back in and saw this… I figure that means “fuck you wordpress” lol. I googled it for fun and first-year writing program came up a lot.
I learned the hard way when making an On The Road post to write up my stuff in a text editor and paste it it. (not for these little comments, though)
Another Scott
@w_seattle:
Thanks for the info. It made me look around and find this sibilant adjustment tool. Fancy!
I can’t find a decent example of the ice-pick sounds at the moment. It’s not the hiss of “s”. E.g. Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” is fine. My recollection is that it’s specifically “ch” sounds like “church” and so forth. But I can’t find an example at the moment. Maybe I was traumatized too much by Apple’s iPod and iTunes implementations or something… :-/ But I had to find a way to turn down those frequencies or it was painful.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.