Idiocrosphere

Any thoughts or theories on this?

I'm not Mr. Online or anything, but over the course of a year or so I received fairly regular vitriolic, threatening, and/or generally hostile e-mail responses to a fanboy fiction story I wrote that was published online (I received more positive responses than negative, I might add). The story had a theme of race in it, which every "negative" response seemed to totally, utterly misread.

Is it possible that people who send these kind of violent, threatening cyber communications are, quite simply, fucking idiots?

I hope that's the case but somehow I think not.

(slapping self on forehead)

Remember last week when I updated the blogroll? I totally forgot to add Axis of Evel Knievel. Because I am an idiot.

Now the green grass grows

Wobblie's latest installment of Punk Rock Monday reminds me of a thought I had last night while listening to Ritual de lo Habitual. Wobblie wrote about The Pixies that, "While I can listen to every single track on every single album they released, it's obvious that Surfer Rosa and the Come On Pilgrim EP are head and shoulders above the rest of the catalog."

I think that's about right. What I was thinking last night was that although there was a time when I would have told you that my favorite Jane's Addiction record was the live album, or maybe even Nothing's Shocking, it seems obvious to me now that Ritual is the best of the bunch. I guess I used to have trouble believing that a record could both be ridiculously popular and awesome.^[1]

Just to throw some controversy into the mix, let me add that I think Check Your Head is the best Beastie Boys album.

----------
1 This even though I was one of the people who started listening to Jane's Addiction on the basis of the radio single from Ritual. I can even tell you where I first heard Been Caught Stealing. It was in Joe6Paq's car on the way back from selling plasma (or maybe on the way there). I didn't see the video until years later, but I understand that the kids liked it.

The innocence of youth

Here's a fun game: what did you write in junior high that would be most likely to get a student arrested nowadays?

For my part I'm pretty sure that it's the short story I wrote about the guy who had such bad luck that every time he stepped on a plane somebody hijacked it. The story that actually got my pops called in for a parent teacher conference, though, was a comic piece called A Day in the Life of a Mass Murderer. I'm not really sure why I thought serial killers were funny, but it might have had something to do with this.

Saturday sporting thread

Item:: Playoff games on NBA TV? Unacceptable.

Item: JaMarcus Russell is the second coming of Ryan Leaf and I'm excited to see that he'll be failing for the Raiders.

Item: I think we can all agree that the worst draft choice in the history of the Kansas City Chiefs^[1] was Todd Blackledge, but who was the best? Among players currently on the roster the choice seems to be between Tony Gonzalez (13th pick in 1997) and Larry Johnson (27th pick in 2003). Will Shields was a third round pick in 1993, Dave Szott was a seventh rounder in 1990. Neil Smith (2nd in 88), Derrick Thomas (4th in 89), and Dale Carter (20th in 92) should probably all be in the mix as well.

Item: The Detroit Tigers will have a great season if they can figure out a way to hold leads in the late innings.

----------
1 - I know, I know. If I had my way they'd rename the team 'The Monarchs'.

(Un)like father, (un)like son

I can't recall which class I read it for, but I believe Money by Martin Amis was the only book in it that I actually finished. Recommended. This is my first post in a good long while, and I'm just testing, bloggy blog testing...and tipping you off to a good article in the New York Times Magazine about Kingsley and Martin, the Amis authors. I wonder what it's like to be so close to one's father that one can recount information like the following with authority:

That Kingsley was an enthusiastic drinker and philanderer (someone who “lived for adultery,” his son says) was well known to most of his British readers, who watched with amusement or dismay as he turned himself over the years from a handsome young socialist into a monstrous caricature of an old buffer: fat, reactionary, alcoholic, rude and intolerant. He grew so devoted to the queen (who knighted him in 1990) that he had erotic dreams about her. They usually began, Martin says, with Sir Kingsley attempting to paw the royal chest and Her Majesty protesting: “No, no, Kingsley. We mustn’t.”

When I get paid I'm gonna get me some dope stupid gold

Duh.

Reader participation Wednesdsay, "how lossless is lossless?" edition

Items needed: A reasonably good stereo system capable of playing cds and accepting input from an iPod, an iPod, iTunes, a couple of cds.

Step One: Using iTunes, import a couple of tracks using the Apple Lossless Encoder. Be sure to pick tracks that you know pretty well and that exhibit a variety of sonic qualities.

Step Two: Put those tracks on your iPod (duh) and hook it up to your stereo (duh dum).

Step Three: Simultaneously play the encoded tracks and the source cd through your stereo, occasionally switching between sources and comparing the sound.

Step Four: Post your results in comments.

I tried this with Well, You Needn't off of Steamin' With the Miles Davis Qunitet, which is pretty much my go to track for testing stereo equipment. I found that while neither source had great flaws (no clipping or anything like that), the encoded track lost quite a lot of detail. This was especially noticable on Miles' solos, which were missing the breathiness that makes Miles' tone so remarkable. Also disappointing was the way that the encoded track rendered Paul Chambers' string bass solo. What was there was fine, but on the cd you can hear the sound of the notes reverberating within the bass, and that was entirely gone from the encoded track.

My understanding is that the Apple Lossless Encoder uses an algorithm that predicts, on the basis of what sound is being produced now, what sound will be produced not very long from now. I don't really see how that saves space, but whatever. Given my results, I'm left wondering if the algorithim just has a particularly difficult time with acoustic music because of the way that the notes trail off.

Reader participation Wednesdsay, annoying science reporting edition

I can't quite decide which paragraph from this article is more annoying.

Sample A:

There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is learned about it. But as galaxies go, it's practically a neighbor. At only 120 trillion miles away, the red dwarf star that this planet circles is one of the 100 closest to Earth.

The first problem here is right on the surface. Planets and galaxies are different sorts of things that exist on different sorts of scales, so telling me that the new planet is 'practically a neighbor' for a galaxy doesn't tell me anything at all. But then things actually get worse, because now my curiosity is piqued. How far away is this new planet? Oh, 120 trillion miles. What the hell does that mean? Just that if I were to drive I'd have to fill the tank 400 billion times and if I were to fly I'd get a bunch of free round trip tickets. Twenty lightyears is the right answer. Six parsecs also would have been acceptable, but only because I'm a geek.

Sample B:

Until now, all 220 planets astronomers have found outside our solar system have had the "Goldilocks problem." They've been too hot, too cold or just plain too big and gaseous, like uninhabitable Jupiter.

And now we see why the article had to be so dumbed down. The only cultural knowledge that the reader is expected to have is knowledge of fairy tales. Let me suggest, though, that Goldilocks' real problems only began after she found porridge that was just right.

Rove Probed

"We're in the preliminary stages of opening this expanded investigation," Loren Smith, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency, said Tuesday. "The recent suggestion of illegal political activities across the executive branch was the basis we used to decide that it was important to look into possible violations of the Hatch Act."

Links, links, links

Item: It's time to make some additions to the blogroll. Please update your lifestyle accordingly.

• Seasonville is graphic, bracing, and occasionally revolutionary.
  
• The blog previously known as The Blog and presently known as That Cagey Girl will be known on the blogroll as Ksenya.
  
• For the sake of consistency, the blog titled For Real Things I Know will be blogrolled as Solomon.
  
• And then there's Mike Bader, who should rename his blog The Constitutional Robot.
  
• Lastly, so this isn't just all people I know, I'm throwing up True Hoop.

Item: Speaking of the blogroll, several of the blogs over there seem to be moribund, so I'm removing them. Farewell to Confined Space, dailysoy, Fall of the State, funferal, Malcolm Gladwell, House of Labor, Glenn Greenwald (which I know just moved to Salon, but that's death to me), january girl, Running from the Thought Police, and Strip Mining for Whimsy

Item: There are a number of movers on the blogroll, some of which are shakers. The blogroll has been updated accordingly.

Item: I came across this video when clicking through to Uffish Thoughts for the first time in awhile. How could I not post it?

Item: I added a link to Jazz Discography Project under Useful Stuff because it's freaking awesome. Also, I eliminated the link to The NY Times Link Generator because the Times now makes it possible to get a permalink for any article.

On the spontaneous generation of applesauce

What Scott Lemieux said.

Nothing to see here

One of the finest moments comes when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., busts out a big, big chart. Which happens after almost everyone has gone home. The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice. You can just see zillions of small boxes nattering back and forth. It seems that just about everyone in the White House, including the guys in the mailroom, had a vote on ongoing criminal matters. |Lithwick|

Everything is applesauce

Indeed.

You are a demon!

A retraction

I don't know what universe I was in when I wrote,

I feel bad making fun of John Derbyshire, as he tries very hard (and usually fails) to keep The Corner anchored in something resembling reality

.
Whether it's thinking that the captured British sailors should maybe have broken free and taken the whole country, or that one of the VaTech victims should have gone all John McClaine on dude's ass, or whatever, he's proven to be the crack-smokinest one in the bunch. I must have caught him being sane about social security, or something, and drawn the wrong conclusion.

Sound, fury

When I bought a Judas Priest cd a few months back, a one time sound tech guy friend of mine took one look at it and told me that I had made a terrible mistake. You see, I'd bought the digitally remastered re-release and, he said, that particular remaster was notorious for the way that the sound had been fucked up. I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is what he was talking about.

So I guess I'm convinced. But what should I, music consumer that I am, do about it? Is there some kind of directory to tell me which remasterings to avoid, or should I just avoid them all? My casual acquaintance with the audiophile press suggests to me that while they do publish music reviews, they rarely publish reviews of music that I'm interested in listening to.