Just a no frills grill..
1. BA has the A’s prospect list up. The order is different from the Sickles and Goldstein lists. There will be a chat at 11:30 for subscribers. Let me know if you want me to submit any questions.
2. Ron Paul hit it out of the FKing Park. I mean literally hit a home run.
3. To follow up on yesterday’s discussion of shrooms, some interesting research on MDMA and PTSD and antisocial disorders
Thanks for the grill.
I thought about putting one up, but nothing I’ve been looking at this morning has been SFW or of general community interest.
That’s the best stuff.
You would have been interested in the medical stuff, but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.
2. Glad to see that he pursued INDIVIDUAL LIBERTAH by eschewing a batting helmet.
FNOB FTW
In all seriousness, that’s a pretty sweet looking swing Paul has there. Also, nice ass.
I was going to post a long rant about hating having to take care of manager busy work (monthly call listening, year end reviews, etc). Then i thought about the fact that some pretty awesome FKers over the past year or two have had to rant about not finding jobs to hate. So instead let me state that I should be eternally greatful for a role that lets me work from home with sort of flexible hours and people I enjoy working with for the most part.
I still hate listening to customer calls though…
I wish I had a job I hated to give up to somebody who was looking for a job to hate.
I prefer my grill slow and clean…
Hey, you work with what you’ve got.
I asked BA about IFA’s and Soler, so hopefully that topic is covered.
Looks like it didn’t get answered. What exactly was the question?
Hmm. It appears that I no longer will be able to access FK at work, as it apparently is a security threat to my computer/network. “IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS.” Given what a pain it is to check/post on FK from the iPhone and the lack of free time I have at home, I shall be participating much less, except for maybe Mondays.
Bizarre. Misconfigured DNS?
I’ll open a support ticket and see what they say.
My spidey sense tells me that the TPTB blocked access for spending too much time here (not inaccurately) but the filters here, as I’ve said before, are getting increasingly weird, so who the FK knows?
Banned at the OC, blocked from visiting here, I am The Man Without an A’s Blog. /Edward Everett Hale
:(
Hmm…appears I have access this morning. Hopefully it lasts.
Maybe the DNS refresh our host did helped.
Wow, Peacock ahead of Gray and Cole? I’m surprised. Sure, he’s closer to the majors, but Baseball America’s never been one to weigh that as strongly as others.
Maybe they think he’s ready and can hold his own. Even though Sickels is a bit lower on Peacock, in a recent thread he said he thought that Peacock could hold his own in the majors right now if he gets the job out of ST.
OMIP jazz clarinet for the Funeral Potatoes
What’s up with all the missing #JLBait tags?
I figured with the FP you didn’t need one.
“OM?”
It’s the new IC.
…except that I know what IC stands for.
On mission.
Didn’t you get the secret mb decoder ring?
Yeah, but it just kept giving me some weird message about Ovaltine.
integrated circuit?
In college
grain and salt warnings:
Aren’t the Red Sox making a big push for him? They should be.
I am not sure what boston is up to. I am not the most front officy guy, but Scutaro for Mortonson, then signing Ross doesn’t seem like there is a solid plan in place.
They salary dumped Scoot to free up enough $$$ to pursue Oswalt.
https://twitter.com/#!/oakclubhouse/status/162262272050343936
I know its not pile on Willard time, but this:
is exactly his problem. I remember questioning why we expected someone else to take out our trash when we could easily dump it at the end of the hall. One of my supervisors, said, yeah, but do you really want to pay the City Manager to take out his trash? He has better things to do with his time.
Same is true for Mitt, if he would just say, yeah, I am rich, I don’t work, but I have all these great ideas, I think he would be more liked.
Personally, I don’t want my president doing laundry, or clearing hedges.
*At my job out of college I remember…
FAIL
The proper riposte there is: Mitt, laundering his money
Funny story. The very last communication from Robert Bobb to City of Oakland staff was a directive on June 29, 2003 that effective immediately there would be no more trash pickup in offices and cubicles; employees had to empty their own. The next morning Jerry fired him.
hmmm. I wonder if Paula is Jerry Brown?
So for people who have been having login problems (and for PDX’s problem loading at work) one thing our host’s tech support suggested is flushing the DNS cache on your computer.
Here are their instructions.
Let me know if that does/doesn’t help.
Didn’t work.
Hmm… Maybe they really are just blocking it.
I had a situation for awhile where the work internet screening software, I forget which brand, ID’d FK as a porn site and blocked it. I submitted a reclassification request (through the link to the vendor, not to my employer AFAIK) and they decided we weren’t porny enough, and my access was restored.
I shouldn’t have covered them nipples
It looks like the determination was made internally, not by the software, so, yeH, I’m being blocked.
From the chat:
I didn’t realize that he was being converted back. He’ll have to develop quickly.
Quotes are more like, he is a team leader and intangibles!. But I will take it.
On a scale of 1-Jeter, how calm are vinyl’s eyes compared to CD’s?
Also,
… whereas analog technology is a magical process with infinite dynamic range, infinite bandwidth, and perfectly flat amplitude and phase response curves that results in a perfect reproduction of sound.
Sigh.
I’d love to see what happens if recording engineers and masterers started mixing the vinyl version identically to the digital version. So the only difference between the two is the mediums.
right. The taste of new coke SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I liked new Coke a lot better than the original. It tasted like RC Cola.
taste testers agreed with you.
I am your father!
I worked at used record shops from the late 80s to the mid 90s. When we started selling CD’s to people at horribly inflated prices, I would often tell the customer after a purchase “Enjoy your 8-track”
I have a pretty large record collection, but all the stuff about hearing the difference is bullshit. I got into records because you could buy them for really cheap. Now I’m stuck on records because of totally irrational lust for the physical object. At no point have I ever thought that they sounded better.
See, that I can absolutely respect. But to claim that vinyl sounds superior? It’s, frankly, bullshit.
I don’t play records and CDs through the same equipment so I would never know. Plus, my sensibilities are such that if I ever did think there was a difference and it mattered to me I would have to punch myself in the throat.
Can I point out that we experience sound as individuals so whether or not digital technically sounds as good as vinyl doesn’t matter if we experiance better sound it is better. Who cares whether that reason is rational.
Sure, you could, but that’s not going to stop me from saying when you’re wrong.
How can you say that my experiance is wrong?
“Free Kraut’s background is orange.”
“No, it’s clearly white.”
“I experience sight as an individual, so whether or not it’s white or orange, it doesn’t matter because I experience it as orange.”
If I have some visual disability that inverts colors how would that be wrong?
Because!
Because you are no longer referencing the tacitly agreed upon notion of “white” and “orange” (i.e. the wavelengths we all decide to deem a certain color). Your experience there isn’t invalid and you’re not a liar or anything, but you are not conforming to the facts and agreed-upon reality. So in that sense, you are wrong. You would be seeing special DFA-White, not actual white.
Likewise for the sound issue here, it would be DFA-Better, not actually better. The sound stimuli between digital and analog are the exact same, but the receiver (i.e. you) is interpreting them differently. You are wrong that the sound stimuli is better, but not that you perceive it as better.
Why should I care about actually better if its not DFA better?
Not saying you should. Just saying that the progression needs to be “I perceive it as better, therefore I don’t care if it’s actually better” rather than “I perceive it as better, therefore it is actually better.”
You’re fine in the first progression, and wrong in the second. The first one recognizes that the difference lies with you (the receiver of sound) and your internal wiring/psychoses, while the second one equates the difference on your end with difference on the stimulus’s end.
if if the goal for actually better is that it is percieved better I think im good either way.
“Actually better” doesn’t rely on perception. Something is actually better if it’s better by an objective standard. Your subjective state doesn’t come into play there. So the goal of “actually better” really isn’t “perceived better” (although that’s usually the result).
However, I don’t think you’re arguing that here, and instead are saying that if you perceive it to be better then it doesn’t matter if it’s actually better, which, while true, doesn’t make for a very interesting philosophical discussion.
Nah, I’m with DFA on all of this. Better is subjective in every way. It’s solely an attribute of the individual. Now, I’d argue that such an opinion is best based on blind testing, but it’s still solely based on one’s individual perception and nothing more.
So do you think there’s no such thing as objectivity in general? Or do you just believe subjectivity to be inseparable from comparisons where ‘better’ is the standard being used?
If ‘better’ is totally subjective in every measurement, then it’s a meaningless word. I don’t think that’s the case. Like for most words, there’s a tacit agreement in society in general about the underlying meaning of the word, but you can have objective (and therefore ‘actual’) standards for ‘better’ in a lot of cases.
Better is subjective in every measurement, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are near universally agreed to be better giving it, on some level, giving it a sense of objectivity. You’ll always find someone out there that won’t agree that something is better. That’s just always going to be the case about anything.
Well, everything’s subjective in the sense that we can’t ‘know’ anything, but once you start going down that path, you end up at a solipsistic impasse. We operate under societal definitions that you agree to simply by being born into the society and learning language. That’s how we can make statements like “the sky is blue” and have them mean something.
When we talk about ‘better’ we imply an audience (better for whom), and that audience, unless otherwise specified, is society or humanity. Sure, anything can be better for an individual, but when the audience for that instance of ‘better’ is an individual, we’re not talking about “actually better” anymore. The scope of the word has changed.
Except something like “blue” or “sky” or even language all have a tacit definition in the “rose by any other name is still a rose” sense. “Better” is a scale on a rating. It’s hierarchical by it’s very essence making it purely a subject term. Even if society as a whole beliefs something to be better, doesn’t mean another society may completely disagree with it whereas someone pointing to the sky in one society and calling it blue will be universal, even if the other society has an independent word/utterance/burp/click/whatever to represent that wavelength.
No. Once you’ve agreed on a measurement you’ve chosen a metric, and “better” is defined as “greater than on that metric’s scale.”
The ambiguity is in the choice of metric, and you can always choose one simply to support the case you wish to make.
However if you want to advance that case to a wider public, then it is reasonable for that public to question the value to your case – or to discussion in general – of choosing that particular metric above all others.
Right, like ptbnl said. Better exists as a comparator. Something is better than something else if it more fully fulfills the criteria you’re measuring. Certain criteria are more subjective than others, but once the criteria have been established, you (often) can have objective measurements.
Certainly, there is a lot of disagreement in practice when people compare things, but I would argue that more of the time that is based on failing to understand the criteria of measurement rather than a disagreement over the rankings within that measurement. It wouldn’t be accurate to look at all that disagreement and claim that all hierarchy is subjective simply because language is imprecise.
When you start talking about criteria, you’re creating a subjective decision on how to classify valuation. Now you may, as a group, agree upon what subjective measures to use to make that classification in an effort to create something more objective, but the reality is the base component for establishing something as better will always have a subjective base.
What defines actually better than? If its more percise but makes the listener less happy is that better?
We’re getting into two different types of ‘better’ here. If medium A is superior to medium B for the features on which you judge a medium (such as sound quality for audio), then A is actually better than medium B.
If, for whatever reason, medium B brings an individual more happiness, then it may be existentially better for that individual (if happiness given is the standard on which the individual judges ‘better’), but it is still not ‘better’ in general.
For example, if you have an old, ugly, threadbare childhood blanket, and tell me it’s a better blanket than my new, stylish, super-warm blanket, I’m going to say you’re wrong, because the features we judge blankets on as a society are ones such as ability to keep someone warm and looks, not “happiness of memories associated with it for DFA.” However, if you tell me you like your childhood blanket better or value it more, that’s perfectly acceptable and understandable, as you’re confining your scope to the individual, not all of society.
Then how do you define “better” in general? What rules do you apply in order to come to that conclusion? Odds are it’s simply a heavily subjectively agreed upon measures that are quite clearly not universal given that you’re finding someone who’s subjective measures disagrees with this “standard.”
I am not reading this entire subthread, so pardon, but isn’t it a semantic thing that we are talking about 2 different kinds of better?
Depends. How do you calculate better?
if its about a societal definition of “better” then how do you explain a pretty large contingent of society believing that vynl is better?
@DFA What, society is monolithic now?
nope. but if you use UM’s definition it causes problems.
@dmoas I think the only objective definition of “better” that you could use for recorded sound would be accurate reproduction of the original performance. By this definition, CDs are at least as good as vinyl (the “warm” sound that people like with vinyl is a distortion of the original sound).
But for the case of both CDs and vinyl, the dominant inaccuracy is probably going to come from other steps in the playback chain (or even from poor recording technique). So I would claim that either medium is sufficiently good for nearly all music listening applications.
@DFA I don’t think I’ve been wording my argument very well if you think that I’m claiming that ‘better’ is a majority rule kind of thing. If I’ve been saying that anything is majority-based in this discussion, it would be the metrics we assume to be important when making a general ‘better’ comparison, unless we state otherwise.
In general, people are bad at articulating what metrics they are comparing things on. That’s where a lot of the confusion and disagreement comes from. For the vinyl v. CDs argument for example, the confusion comes from one group arguing that vinyl isn’t better (comparison based, like colin said, on how accurately it reproduces the original performance), and one group arguing that it is (comparison based on how it sounds to their own personal selves – something that is 100% subjective and therefore silly to argue about). The two groups there are really talking past each other.
@Colin But what if people prefer the warm sound. Why shouldn’t what gives people joy when listening to the music be the standard rather than how faithful the reproduction is?
@UM I agree.
@Colin Two issues. 1) You are now establishing, subjectively (though fairly), what constitutes a better sound. 2) No two people have the same listening experience so even based to that parameter of recreating a live sound (some seldom done in studios these days) that live experience will differ between different people, one of whom may think mp3/cd audio does that better, another may think vinyl will do that better. Even under those parameters, there’s no basis of fact, only subjective opinion.
@dmoas I honestly can’t think of any other objective criteria that could be used. Of course there is no reason to think that achieving the most accurate sound reproduction will lead to the most enjoyable listening. But if there’s a particular warm sound that you’re interested in, you could start with a near perfect reproduction and then just add a bit of filtering/distortion at the output.
@colin- you nailed it. If you want “warmth,” you can add it.
I still admire Steve Albini and his all-analog studio, but his sound comes from his rooms and his microphones and engineering skills, not the analog tape and mastering to metal disc.
One of you has read all the comments and the other hasn’t?
I think we’re missing a good opportunity to sell an expensive piece of equipment that adds “warmth” (aka white noise) to digital sound.
The new HTC Rezound phone that has Beats Audio built in just throws all of your music into a pre-set EQ filter. Most Creative computer sound cards come with a “Crystallizer” that is supposed to remove MP3 distortion. They’re waaaaay ahead of you.
Can I point out that we experience baseball games as individuals so whether or not players technically perform as good as others doesn’t matter if we experience better baseball it is better. Who cares whether that reason is rational.
I have never said otherwise. Claims as to what baseball players/actions make an idividual happy I have never disputed. Though generally enough people experiance wins in a happy way that figuring out what makes a team win is absolutely relevant and important
Experiencing wins in a happy way is so important that MLB should have all 30 of its’ teams play 162 home games against nothing but traveling patsy clubs to beat down and score lots of runs off of.
The four or six or eight teams with the best records make the playoffs, unless a team goes 162-0, in which case the playoffs are eschewed and the perfect team is declared the perfect champion.
I wouldn’t enjoy not real competition. Also what about the fans of the patsy teams?
Who would root for a touring team with no home games, other than some crazy bastard like me?
4 out of 5 FKers would root for the underdog.
So, if I experience Jeff Francoeur as a better outfielder than Nick Swisher, it doesn’t matter that he isn’t one?
Odd argument, especially coming from you.
Still can be true based solely on your perception of what constitutes being a better player. It’ll *never* be universally (nor wildly) accepted, ever. But if that’s your belief, it’s your belief.
If you enjoy watching Jeff Francoeur play more than Nick Swisher yes if you don’t care about winning he is better.
Was that some sort of Foxworthy-esque “You May Be A Royals’ Fan” joke?
If you like being able to add 25 new jerseys to your collection every single year, you may be an A’s fan.
Has Nick Swisher ever thrown a ball with $100 attached into the opposing team’s bleachers? I think not!
Frenchy has?
http://twitpic.com/6hi0do
…I think he is now and forever my hero.
Yeah I actually saw this happen at the game, and I couldnt believe it..
Was there any reasoning behind it? Or, just for the hell of it?
It was because some of the crew from the Right Field Bleachers had given him some bacon goodies the night before, they were having a bacon night and he asked them what they were doing and they told him, he said that he wanted some, so after the game was over the took him a plate…He told them that he would surprise them the next day and that is what he did, he threw like 5 or 6 balls up into the RF Bleachers with $100 Bills wrapped on them…the inscription on the balls says something like, “The first beer or bacon dog is on me”…
What an awesome story!
Do you remember when it was?
I think it was in September, but I’m not 100% sure
OK, yep it was September 7th…I was right..LOL..There is a Facebook video of the Bacon Exchange and him saying that he will surprise them..
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150285457328790
And also, does anyone know Anson Casanares, whose pictures these are?
I’d like to ask him if I could use the picture and the video. So far I’ve researched there hasn’t been a story about it and I think it deserves one.
I think that Nina (English Major) may know him somewhat…She sits out there with the RF Bleacher crew
I just wrote him a message on FB.
Also, EM, could you give me some background info, please? Is “Bacon Tuesday” a regular thing? Is there a history of Francoeur interacting with you guys, or was this the first time? Did you just shout to him “hey, we got bacon here?” :)
If roscoe/Ross is here, he knows the RF legends best because he’s there every day. I was not at the Frenchy Bacon Game, but I was in RF for an earlier visit by Kansas City. Francouer was getting the good-natured attentions that the bleacher folks extend to all opposing players, and instead of pretending he couldn’t hear as most do, he enjoyed it and was cracking up. Turned around and grinned, waved goodbye when he went in to the dugout, waved hello when he came back next inning. At one point some of us were singing, I don’t remember what — he kept his face turned toward the batter, but put one hand behind his back and made conducting gestures. After that, as I understand, the friendly relationship developed to the point of the bacon incident.
Umm… I’m concerned that it might get Frenchie in trouble and lead to him being teased about it at 12 other AL parks.
I don’t know if my concerns are legit, though…
@EM thanks. I might send you an email when I have the text finished, for some basic fact-checking. You OK with that?
@SPWC I don’t think so. He comes off great, and I think people appreciate the human note in an athlete
Anson answered, seems like a really nice guy.
I thought that was me
wow!
oc link to FF comment
We can measure better at producing wins, we cant measure I enjoy watching x player.
I think I’m going to bookmark this whole subthread.
The vast majority of the time we agree that the goal of being a baseball player is to contribute to team wins, that is measurable.
Maybe so.
But at this point we can almost certainly measure the degree of audio quality, and/or how that quality interacts with pleasurable sensation in the brain of the average person, pretty well too.
There is a “right answer” here– people may just not have done the research yet.
honestly I don’t have a dog in this fight. I was just picking one for funsies
The ideal vinyl listening experience is hard to achieve and can only be attained on the first spin of a well-manufactured record with a clean high-end needle.
Even if everything is absolutely perfect and the vinyl did happen to produce something that sounded a tiny bit better subjectively than digital, the experience is not repeatable. What matters is that the experience is not repeatable, even if it was a fraction better than digital, which I am not convinced of anymore in the first place.
asvd
It’s not bullshit, but it’s a skill one learns over time.
As in, over a looooong period of time where it’s an integral part of your job.
Chances are very slim that any recreational music listeners notice any change at all, it’s most likely a placebo effect.
I love playing records. I like pulling it out of the sleeve (shut up), slapping it on the turntable, placing the tone arm down and watching it spiral to the center.
I really do like playing records, too. Just something more physically satisfying about it, even if the record is getting slightly worse after every spin.
I’m with you there too. And I was fortunate enough to work at a music library where we had access to original records from as far back as the early 1900’s. Those are something special, hearing all the cracks and pops from the record.
Plus, those were the days where it was so expensive to record that they did everything in one take. If you listen to those older classical and jazz recordings, chances are you’ll hear at least one pretty noticeable flub from one of the performers. I love finding those little easter eggs.
that’s awesome.
All the high-selling vinyl is a bunch of weepy beard-folk bullshit anyway, other than the Beatles’ back catalogue.
No shit. Mumford and Sons, Fleet Foxes, and Bon Iver? It’s enough to make me want to throw my turntable out the window.
The few times I’ve dipped my ear in the weepy beard-folk bullshit waters, I’ve had the same reaction.
I liked Fleet Foxes better when they were called Simon and Garfunkel.
Sacrilege.
Paul Simon wrote a lot of hopeful happy songs, though.
Oh yeah, Simon and Garfunkel were rad. Paul Simon solo stuff too (though honestly I haven’t listened to much of that besides Graceland).
I still don’t like Fleet Foxes though.
I certainly hope that once 2012 passes, the doom trend in mainstream music will evaporate and we can go into an era of new hope and new genre-spawn, like my beloved ’77-’83 era…
new hope (well, except that the album is from all the way back in 2001)
It’s an interesting way to put musical Legos together. I give it a 78, Dick (Clark).
Put some hyper-spastic Bjorkian drums/programming on it, and I’d give it an 85.
Why don’t you like Mumford and Sons?
I had a good reaction to them at first, mostly because I like fast tempos. But then it got boring/repetitive really quick. Maybe I would have a better opinion of them if I didn’t hear it on the radio so FKing much.
To elaborate: With music I really like, repeated listens are rewarding. That is not my experience with Mumford and Sons.
I realize that this isn’t a very specific criticism.
I definitely agree with that first sentence.
Yeah I saw them live first then like 8 months later the radio discoverd them. It got bad but i listen to the album on the regular.
nm/mb/dfa bait
Or you know, you could sell your car.
SFWeekly: the Slate of San Francisco
Zero sympathy.
Follow the rules or (in the rare times you’re caught) pay the ticket. I’ve gotten a few tickets in SF, but the only ones that made me mad were for blocking the sidewalk (it was my driveway, but I definitely was blocking the whole thing during a move) and failing to curb my wheels (they definitely weren’t curbed, but it wasn’t a super-steep hill either).
LMLOCLFY.
The last apartment we had, it took us two months of ticket/looking for parking before we went to craigs list and got a garage space. It wasn’t that hard, or expensive.
I get super fucking mad when I get tickets. At the idiot that parked my car… oh wait… I am that idiot.
me too. irrationally mad at the parker. As an aside, I wrote a “brief” and SLF went and argued against one of our tickets and we won.
Yeah Ive never tried to argue them. Cuz I did it.
this one was a one hour restriction and the car was moved, but then parked on the same block. The code only calls for the car being moved 500 feet (or something). The car was moved that. but then reparked on the same block. DPT presumes non movement on those cases.
The bullshit tickets I got (and contested) were in Chicago. The street I lived on had totally unrestricted parking, so you could leave your car on the street while you traveled, carpooled, or cut a week of classes. Totally legally.
But their gimmick was that street cleaning was announced by putting up signs the day before they planned to come by (on no particular schedule). And if you missed the sign because your car was legally parked when you left it, you got 3 ~$50 tickets. One in the beginning of the street cleaning period, one from the cruiser traveling with the actual street cleaner, and one at the end of the period. Now that? That’s some shit. SF doesn’t do anything even remotely close.
that is messed up. SF would revolt if tickets were given less than 3 minutes after the sweeper went by.
Seriously. That’s some blatant money-making shit right there
Was that in Hyde Park? One of my roommates successfully argued his way out of several street cleaning tickets.
Lincoln Park (I lived here 2 and 3L years).
My car had CA plates, so when I dutifully challenged the tickets I never got any response. Still some bullshit though.
This.
I would never argue because I know I would freeze up and act like a complete idiot, no matter how sure I was of my case.
you just described my job.
Yeah I argue with way way worse cases than I clearly did this every day. Many times its they clearly did this and here is the video. I still win some of those.
At least 3 friends of mine, maybe more, have over the years accumulated enough tickets that it wasn’t worth it to them to retrieve their cars once they got towed.
In a related story, the weekly or monthly SF auto auction can be a source of fantastic used car bargains, though it’s harder for the automotively unknowledgable, and also a lot of scammers and thugs hang out there.
The only time I got a parking ticket was when I was visiting a friend in Portland. We parked at the zoo to take the rail into downtown for a concert and when we got back afterward I had a ticket. Apparently there was some sign someplace that said you couldn’t have your car parked there after a certain time, even if you were taking the rail.
I never paid it.
+1
I don’t know how much a parking ticket is, but here, I never put any money in a parking meter, for example.
First, I don’t like having any coins in my wallet, as it then doesn’t fit in my pocket.
Second, I normally have neither time nor will to look for a parking meter.
Third, financially it’s a wash. Instead of paying 1-2 Euro every time, I get a 10 Euro Ticket every 5-10 times I park, which I then pay at my convenience using online banking.
Fourth, it’s my contribution for creating/keeping local jobs. Can’t write the ticket from an outsourced company in Punjab.
Here the fines are higher relative to the cost of a meter, so it’s kind of dumb not to just pay for the meter, and even dumber not to put in the extra 25 cents in case you end up running a little later than you expect. Of course, I’ve done exactly that and ended up with an expensive ticket, as I would bet most people have at some point.
Also, if you get towed, that’s done by a private company that contracts with the city and basically has a license to gouge you for as much money as they want, however unreasonable.
yeah. for me its street cleaning when I didn’t drive my car the day before.
right.
(because the meter is too cheap)
But in SF, at least, they now accept credit cards, so E/C would be fine.
Zagreb was one of the first cities in Europe (if not the first one) to introduce paying parking by sending a text from your cell
teste-mail “motherfucker!” to 40112 and yourticketban will bepaidliftedfixed
heh
That’s cool too, I saw that in DC.
Eventually phones’ll just swipe for everything and we’ll break the Visa/MasterCard stranglehold.
but then it will be the google wallet stranglehold
Just as long as a separate underground network develops for black market transactions, and effective laundering mechanisms, I’m fine with it.
bitcoin
is it safe to Google?
Yes. There was a good article about it in the New Yorker last year but it seems to be behind their paywall now.
Basically it was an entirely electronic medium of exchange invented by some cypherpunks, and the main place it caught on was a site called Silk Road specializing in contraband.
But it turns out that bitcoins might be both more traceable and more vulnerable to manipulation than people hoped.
One thing that I find interesting about bitcoin is that there are a fixed and unchanging number of bitcoins in circulation, so it acts a bit like a commodity backed currency. The history of bitcoin valuation (over just a couple of years now) makes a very effective argument for why it would be totally stupid to try to put the US back onto the gold standard.
Not fixed and unchanging, but growing at a steady, predictable rate, no? If I understand correctly, the program periodically creates new coin to be “mined.” It’s the rate of growth in the supply that is fixed by algorithm, which differentiates it from “fiat money” that can be printed on a whim.
I was under the impression that the number was fixed, but you sound like you know more about it.
I don’t know anything more than what I read in the New Yorker, but that was my takeaway.
The way the Good Wife explained it (warning: may not be true) was that “mining” was a thing anyone could do with their computing resources, and the more computing resources devoted to mining the more frequently you get a bitcoin.
I think that was true when they were initially released, but there is now a shortage of them (i.e. you can’t obtain them by mining, only from people who mined them during the bitcoin boom).
The Good Wife did a whole episode about that.
I really doubt that. I mean, about breaking the stranglehold. Wouldn’t Visa/MC just get into the phone app business, then?
Yeah, but someone else could do it for less.
Square, for example, I’ve heard is planning to roll out their own payment product that doesn’t ping through the major credit companies.
Love Square. Mrs. Aces started her business last year and one of our first concerns was how can she use cards to conduct business easily, orver the phone, on line, etc.
We have had 0 problems with it and we continue to find uses for it. We are having a yard sale this weekend and have actually though of offering credit card payments for furniture (or for those who wont honestly haggle and instead play the “I don’t have the extra dollar on me” game..)
QR readers are huuuuge in Italy right now. People are paying for everything over there. I’d never seen anything like it.
Um, IIRC a year or more ago you were complaining that it was unreasonable that the city wouldn’t let you keep a car parked in front of your house (or anywhere) for more than 72 hours. Am I misrecalling this?
Not really. I found the thread.
I just re-read it, and I think Sal made the point that really gets to where I diverge (and, of course, a $50 parking ticket is different from $1400). Whenever I’ve gotten a parking ticket in SF, I’ve understood why and known I’ve done it. At that point, I had no idea about that rule. A four-figure penalty for a rule I didn’t know existed seems awfully steep.
Well, most of that $ was towing-related crap. Leaving aside the precipitating event, everything around the punitive auto towing industry is rife with corruption and the bleeding of innocents.
Right. But the guy with the car doesn’t care who he’s paying.
Can I have $1.7M?
not nearly as impressive as most of your picks IMO
But it’s on the Greenwich Steps!
Plus:
I love our old house (1910) but it’s definitely a mixed blessing.
si
Huh, ours is 1910 as well. Good year for Berkeley buildings, I guess.
Yeah, I think the big wave of building here was immediately after the quake.
When we were looking at houses, it seemed like just about every one we looked at was built between 1906 and about 1930. It must have been quite the transformation from cow town to city in such a short period of time.
We’re 1926, I think. Ours was a post Berkeley-hills fire. Do you guys have knob and tube wiring? It’s hard to get insurance on that stuff.
We still have knob and tube in the (non-habitable) attic, but modernized everywhere else. If we ever try to turn the attic in habitable space (note for Berkeley building inspectors: we will never do this), we’ll need to rewire it.
Another feature of seemingly every single house we looked at: significant renovations done without permits.
I think we also have some knob-and-tube left in the attic but modernized elsewhere.
what is knob and tube?
Yeah. I’m thinking I should know this.
Wiki:
It consisted of single-insulated copper conductors run within wall or ceiling cavities, passing through joist and stud drill-holes via protective porcelain insulating tubes, and supported along their length on nailed-down porcelain knob insulators.
Picture:
why is this bad?
The wiki article explains some of the drawbacks, but one which I’ve heard about from several people who had it (before their houses almost burned down): mice and squirrels like to gnaw on it.
Major fire hazards.
Well, it was the universal standard for American houses for decades, and most of them didn’t burn down, and many still survive today with knob and tube intact. But electrical wiring technology is just much safer and more efficient today, so where feasible it’s good to retrofit.
Overload now standard wiring and you blow a fuse. Overload knob and tube and watch esplode.
#yglesias bait
Most of our wiring is still knob and tube. When we bought 8 years ago our house inspector said it’s in perfectly good condition and didn’t see any reason to replace it. He recommended just replacing it as we’re doing upgrades to certain areas of the house. However I’ve only been able to find one company that will insure it, Allstate. Every other major carrier I tried said it would have to be replaced for them to give a policy. So there goes price shopping for coverage.
Hmm..we just had to pay extra for insurance for ours. We’ve since removed it, but, yeah, insurance does not like old wires.
OT, but every time I see your handle, I have to think of that twins blogger…
I know! I didn’t know she existed when I hurriedly came up with a name. Probably would have gone with something different but oh well! She was good–I loved those lego things.
those were magnificent!
little nicky punto…
the episode where they were awaiting white smoke from vatican…
she was the best
I used to live blocks away from a neighborhood where almost every house was between 90-110 years old. It’s a really nice neighborhood and the houses were really nice looking, but man, the few friends I had in that area had to crash somewhere else about once every 6 months because of some problem they were having with those homes. Mold, cockroaches, wood panels going crazy.
But I would have looooved to have spent a year or two in one of those homes. The character and weird designs were way worth the occasional problems, IMO.
The house in Sausalito that I grew up in (until I was about 10 years old) was from 1890-something. Really cool house.
Location, location, location (I could walk to my current work location, or our new location [anyone have anything they want me to convey to DiFi’s constituent-services team?]). Plus, the kitchen is wicked nice. And it’s a lot bigger than “2 BR.”
The kitchen is wicked nice. But the rest of the architexture isn’t as interesting as the ones you usually pick. Also IIRC little access to public transport/the cool parts of the city.
No disagreement on those points.
Work is moving to new office space as of Monday — at the very end of Montgomery St. I have to cross two hills to get there on foot. PT is a PITA (TWNS) — I’m an avowed fan of using the cable cars to commute, but I’ll still have a multiblock walk from the end of the Mason line, or a looooong wak/F trip from the CA line.
Yeah were also in very different parts of our lives
If and when I’m lucky enough to own my own home, I’ll take a place with an awesome kitchen over anything else.
If the place has a sweet kitchen and an area decent for a BBQ and smoker, then I’ll put up with just about any negatives that would come with the rest of the property.
Agreed, but the key word is AWESOME. We are actually moving from our house of 6+ years shortly. It has a big kitchen with island, but in the end it is more “big” than “awesome”. And that really made it more of a pain. Fantastic for parties where a bunch of people would gather, but day to day a lot of space that didn’t get used.
Visited a college pal when we were in Portland over break. They just moved into a new place (West Side) that probably dates from … eh, probably the ’50s? Anyway, it’s got a pretty spacious kitchen — but it still has the original Brady Bunch-style AEK appliances. Yoiks.
And away! My Craftsman’s Bungalow kitchen is teeny. It’s my dad’s childhood home that I inherited, praise God! And, when I first moved in, had this horrible olive green double oven thingy. A regular oven on the bottom with a 4 burner range top, and then a smaller oven above.
To be fair, my uncle replaced a classic wood burning range/oven with this monstrosity. My grandma cooked many a delicious meal in that thing. Yes, this is how old I am.
About a year after I moved in I replaced that awful thing with a Caloric range. But, it’s always been my dream to bust out the walls and make a kitchen I would adore, 24/7.
I hope you can do it some day. Our kitchen was teeny and had about 3 square feet of counter top when we moved in. Veeerry hard to cook in. We took down one tiny wall that led to an adjacent tiny sun room and voila, instant awesome. Best investment we ever made.
I have no idea how well they cook, but I love going in to the W-S flagship and drooling over the La Cornues.
Ooh, those are pretty.
We have a ’50s Wedgewood. Another mixed blessing.
The drawers are really cool
one of the big problems with PDX very little natural gas ovens/ranges
You have a problem with my very little oven?
few.
Everyone I knew in PDX had electric
Yeah, it’s unfortunate. At some point when we decide to knock out some walls to make a bigger and better kitchen, we may go gas. But we’ll probably wait until PDXSpawn2 is old enough to fear the fire.
What’s PDX? A county?
PDX is the airport code for the Portland, Oregon, International Airport and is a commonly-used abbreviation for the City itself.
Thanks
Its a magikal land of rain hipsters fixies and beer.
love that show
put a bird on it
I used to go up there every year for the Oregon Brewers’ Festival on the riverfront. Unfortunately that event just got too damned big in the last four or five years.
I use to do voter reg there. My favorite quote “IS IT LEAGAL TO REGISTER ME TO VOTE WHEN IM DRUNK?”
Yep. Ours is not that bad, but all of the pieces when we moved in were not our style. Old vinyl floor, cabinets a terrible peachish color, tile that doesnt really match either of them on the counter. And just a normal stove, oven, etc and a super tiny pantry. Now it has TONS of cabinet space, but most of it is too high to get to without a tall stepping stool.
In the haze of just bought delusions we convinced ourselves we could buy/fix/remodel it into the dream kitchen. In the end we just walked in every day and lamented all the unused space.
When we move out of our condo, my hope is that it’ll be to a place I can stay for a few decades. Given that, I’d rather buy a habitable fixer-upper and make it exactly the way I want.
We redid the kitchen/bath in ours, which was a good learning experience, and I think we did a pretty good job of being within the resellabe/normal range, but people’s definitions of awesome differ so much I don’t expect I’d find one that is exactly right.
I think it’s the best.
I am so happy we resisted the urge (which was never really there) to buy something on the upper limit of our price range, rather going lower and putting the money toward fixing the place right to our liking.
please tell her to quit.
I wouldn’t want to be quite that close to the office. 1700 sqft is nice though.
I’m not even sure I would enjoy living there.
Thanks, and go As.
More my speed
but I’d have to get rid of the horses in the barn so I could make it a gigantic shop with trucks and motorcycles and boats and stuff.
Thanks, and go As.
Check that.
This one.
Thanks, and go As.
Don’t forget the lathe and C&C mill to build custom parts!
hella.
Thanks, and go As.
ex-cons, fugitives, drifters, a–holes; men unfit for mankind.
Heh. That links to the MSN signup form for me.
Fuck yeah. Time to go to sleep
Maybe Mitt is right about voluntary deportation.
If only America could do as much for its low-skill workforce as China does.
May I please be voluntarily deported to the Klingon Empire?
The article is probably right that overall, global income inequality is gradually declining.
The problem is that 2010 global GDP per capita was only about $63 trillion, which some pretty quick math will tell you is only about $9200 per person. If we had zero income inequality in the world, everyone would be living on under 10 grand a year.
Can I just say how happy I am that you are here.
But if someone experiences their life on $10K/y as better …
We were happy in those days, although we were poor
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Economics recognizes a diminishing marginal return in utils when it comes to wealth.
Sure. But that doesn’t mean that continuing to decrease income inequality will result in anything like that.
also if we only had 10k a year I bet that would spur a bunch of economic growth.
black market, of course!
Not saying it would. Obviously we’re a very, very long way from any such scenario. Just making the point that it wouldn’t necessarily be all peaches and cream, at least not at current productivity levels.
What I’m getting at here is that claiming “overall inequality is decreasing, so your liberal whining about inequality increasing in the US is bollocks!” is not a valid argument. The fact that I recognize that the US enjoys, to a large degree, various unearned advantages over other countries does not mean that I cannot also recognize (and criticize) the fact that individuals within the US enjoy various unearned advantages over each other, too.
Just in case you haven’t already, time to unsubscribe from Politifact.
After picking a true statement as the lie of the year, they won’t even give Obama a “true” rating for two clearly stated claims that their own analysis confirms.
Factcheck.org is better.
Yeah, that was weak.
Mitch Daniels,
moderatedishonest conservative.I bet he opposed the auto bailout too.
Trouble in
ParadiseSanta ClaraI heard they hired Chuck Pangano.
Likely that Seely and Roman will both be back next year OMG 2 YEARS IN A ROW FOR AN OC FOR ALEX
Thanks, and go As.
That is great news.
That must mean they won’t be bringing Smith back. He’s not allowed to have the same OC two years in a row.
Im fine with Kaepernick for next year.
In college at least Colin Kaepernick = Tim Tebow.
You can’t be serious.
why not? Theyve had him for over a year by the time the season rolled around. Why did we spend a #2 pick on him if we weren’t willing to play him this year?
Because he needs more time than that, and Smith has certainly earned himself another year at least.
Thanks, and go As.
This.
I like Kaepernick a lot, and ultimately I think he’ll end up being at least a decent enough QB to play on winning teams like the Niners where the D is just so damn good you don’t have to run and gun it for 40 points/game. But he’s certainly a project, and I worry about trusting him with the offense this soon. Waiting and learning under another guy certainly did a helluva lot of good for guys like Rodgers and Steve young.
thats fine and all but he was picked so if smith sucked this year he would be able to take over next year.
But Smith didn’t suck. He was quite good nearly all season.
This is true. Im just saying he should be ready. Im fine with Smith on a short term commitment.
I have no idea why the Niners spent a #2 pick on Colin Kaepernick, but I also have no interest in throwing good playing time after a bad draft pick.
Why do you think he will be bad?
Because of watching him play a number of times in college.
His college system was a lot like Alex Smith’s, actually, except he was not as good at it. Lots of simple reads and options, not much pro-style action.
And he never struck me as a great athlete who could be incidentally taught pro quarterbacking, in the way that, say, Cam Newton or Robert Griffin III do.
It was a really bad idea to take a QB last year. It’s a damn shame they didn’t hold off until this year, when you can hardly throw a stick without running into a QB who dominated in college. I’d far rather have Brandon Weeden than Kaepernick, and the projections I’m seeing have Weeden going in the 4th round!
Weeden is too old.
This year’s QB class got FKed when Barkley and Jones decided to go back to school. It’s basically Luck, RG3, and then that’s about it. Tannehill is the 3rd best QB prospect now which is kinda weird.
Thanks, and go As.
If you’re talking elite QBs, yes. If you’re talking good, but possibly great QBs, no.
Kaepernick falls into that second set as well. He’s got all the physical tools and frankly I give Harbaugh the benefit of the doubt when hand picking a QB.
Thanks, and go As.
Too old?
He’s like 27. And that’s “27 with no miles on him”, not “27 after five years of getting beaten to a paste by NFL linemen.”
I hate to play the Kurt Warner card, but I feel justified because he’s hardly the only example. Jeff Garcia, Rich Gannon, hell, even Steve Young– the NFL’s had tons of good QBs who hardly played until their late twenties. Frankly, it’s a non-issue.
10/14/83
You really want a guy who is going to turn 30 his rookie year?
Thanks, and go As.
Hey! That’s my age!
I’d rather have a guy turning 30 than a guy turning 21 if you have any desire for him to actually start games!
So by the time he’s figured out the offense and is ready to be productive, he’s 32?
no thanks.
Thanks, and go As.
I don’t think we have any way of knowing if he was a good or bad draft pick.
If we keep him around long enough on the sidelines, Alex’ll get hurt.
I heard a rumor it was a panic move, they had actually traded up to get Dalton but Cincy took him
Thanks, and go As.
so was signing Carlos Rodgers.
Yeah but that worked out awesome.
Thanks, and go As.
Yeah; Smith must be banned across half of SBN!
Yessssssssss….
Sal, were you invited? (Via Felix Salmon, whose column touches on some issues regarding SBN.)
I know this isn’t fair to Mr. Dyson, but…
In any reasonable world, this would be noncontroversial.
I hope he checked with her before he started using her as an example.
She was there for the interview (and, I assume, this is a discussion they have had many times)
It’s in her contract.