high fidelity snobbery?

I read a comment online from someone that suggested digital music was not going to replace the CD because of the bitrate (quality) of CDs.

I've been ripping most of my music either with a variable bit rate (VBR) or at 320 kbps, which is higher than what I've seen available for digital download. Naturally, I started researching it more, and found that there are two codecs that prevent any loss of data from compression during ripping, and since winamp comes with a FLAC codec, I ripped a song at 320 kbps in MP3 format, and lossless with FLAC.

Then I listened.

And you know what? I couldn't tell the f'ing difference. I went back and forth over and over again, and still I couldn't tell the difference with my $100 headphones. Thinking it was because the music was pop-rap, I then tried a digital recording of Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps.

Then I listened again.

And I still couldn't tell the f'ing difference!?%#$! It took me over 15 minutes listening closely, one after another, back and forth, and eventually I actually could hear portions of the second movement, Le Sacrifice, where the tonality changed from a group of instruments to a more muddled sound. I had expected the difference to be in the deep bass sections or the high trebles, but this was not the case; the differences appeared to be highlighted in the middle sections, usually when there was unison of several instruments. Isolated sounds of solo instruments didn't seem to be affected; perhaps they lacked the complexity of sound that a group of instruments has, and therefore harder to recreate if you're compressing data?

The way I tested the music was to basically close my eyes and use the keyboard to navigate between the FLAC, MP3 and CD track. Yes, I pressed the arrow keys up and down in a manner to try to randomize and disguise which file I was playing. I ended up being able to hear between the three, which was the MP3.

Anyway, it led me to believe that, until I get my 12" sub-woofer and vacuum tube amp, I didn't have much to worry about, because on the face of it all, no one would never notice that you were playing music at 320 kbps mp3s, FLACs or CDs, and the only way to tell would be to listen carefully, side by side.

Barack's righteous facts

Barack won the war of "In fact" and "fact" usage, 14 - 3, during tonight's debate in Ohio. I learned at an early age that when people use "FACT" or "IN FACT", they're frequently trying to pass a white lie. There is no reason to point out that a fact is a fact, if it can pass the test of truth. By the way, the same goes for those who use, "THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER"; when you start hearing someone use that phrase, you know they're telling you a half-truth. I thought I'd count the "facts" after reading an early story with a quote from Barack with "fact".

This is my favorite, contiguous excerpt from tonight:

And the FACT was, this was a big strategic blunder. It was not a matter of, well, here is the initial decision, but since then we've voted the same way. Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out. The question is, who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch? And the FACT is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but IN FACT she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue. So the same person that she criticizes for having terrible judgment, and we can't afford to have another one of those, IN FACT she facilitated and enabled this individual to make a decision that has been strategically damaging to the United States of America.

With respect to Pakistan, I never said I would bomb Pakistan. What I said was that if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key al Qaeda officials, and we -- and Pakistan is unwilling or unable to strike against them, we should. And just several days ago, IN FACT, this administration did exactly that and took out the third-ranking al Qaeda official.

That is the position that we should have taken in the first place. And President Musharraf is now indicating that he would generally be more cooperative in some of these efforts, we don't know how the new legislature in Pakistan will respond, but the FACT is it was the right strategy.

Read each portion closely, and see how much Barack is really trying to assign facts to Hillary, as opposed to discerning facts.

The desperation of Clinton's campaign.

I watched the SNL clip of the fawning of the media over Barack, in a Democratic debate, and couldn't agree more. I mean gawd, could the media be more overt than it is right now? Maybe that is the key: Capture the hearts and minds of the media, and they will, in turn, make you the winner. I'm going to repeat...Katie Couric accidentally blurted out, "Good news!" when she was announcing that Barack had won a state during the Super Tuesday results. She is not the only one.

And now, in what appears to be the late stages of the campaign, the Clinton team sounds a lot like a desperate campaign in search of anything that will hold traction against Barack. You know you're desperate when you're trying to pin plagiarism against an orator.

You know, it's not that hard to turn a negative into a positive, and I just don't get it why the Clinton campaign hasn't figured it out yet. You voted the wrong way on the war...so what? All that matters is that you learned from your mistakes and move on to deal with where the situation is now. And I've read his plan to extricate our forces; it's foolish. A specified timetable of gradual pullout, without any sort of leeway to deal with changes in Iraq or the Middle East. Compare that to Hillary. Her plan is to ask the JCS to draw up a viable plan. That's what leadership is about - delegating to the people that know the BEST. Barack is suddenly smarter than the entire armed forces? Give me a break.

Barack is good at speaking to vagaries of idealistic, if not populistic themes... but idealism and populism falter in the realities of the world. That is why we generally swing to the center of political discourse and not wildly to either the left nor the right.

Hulu is a great concept

They just need to expand their advertising repertoire beyond the small handful of sponsors that have limited appeal to me.

I'm an idiot.

I can't believe I waited this long (over a year) to supplement my dual dual-core xeon workstation at home with upgraded memory. My system shipped with 1 GB of 533 Mhz ECC FB-DIMMs, and I knew all along that my system was having difficulties because of the memory limitations.

However, you have to understand that my system already has Xeons running at 3.0 Ghz / 1333 Mhz bus speed and a 10,000 rpm SATA drive. Most people have the standard SATA-300 running at 7200 rpm, but let me tell you first of all, even at 150, the SATA running 10,000 rpms is still twice as fast.

Wow, I just received my (2) 2 GB chips today from Newegg, and the difference is huge. I thought my system ran fast before, now it blazes without sweating a drop. My hard drive barely moves (no caching). The same rendering that took my dual xeon workstation at work 10 minutes to do, that used to take my workstation at home 5 minutes to do, now takes 2 minutes...that's how it feels.

The renderer I use for my models allows me to select the number of processors to dedicate towards rendering, which up till now, made little difference because I only had 1 GB of memory. Now with 4 GB, it makes sense, and the speed is clear.

Also arrived with my new memory chips was my Panasonic NC headphones and my....drum roll....Taiyo Yuden CDRs. If you know what I'm talking about, then you know that Taiyo is considered the best of the best blank disks, and they were fairly cheap on Newegg. I can't wait to burn MP3 disks so that I can play them on my Philips micro stereo that I got a month ago for my bathroom. :D

Obama bashing.

McCain has already started taking his jabs, and the Obama team is already playing the politics-speak game to circumvent being tied down to what their candidate has said. Does the Obama camp have what it takes to survive the attack? Is McCain attacking the frontrunner because he's getting a head start on the race, or is he more scared of Obama than he is of Clinton?

I think the Democratic race is one of the best things to come along in some time. Let's hope the two sides' supporters don't become so adamantly egocentric that they can't bring themselves to help the eventual Democratic nominee, regardless of who it is.

Latecomer adopter.

I'm still holding out on:

• Buying a new LCD TV, even though my 25" tube is around 15 years old.
  
• Buying an iPod, even though my new Scion xB has iPod connectivity.
  
• Buying a new DVD player, even though my current DVD player doesn't do MP3s and likes to variably darken and lighten the video.
  
• Buying a second home, even though the money isn't the down payment is all but guaranteed (via special gift from parents).
  

But I figure as time goes by, I've saved a bundle from waiting this long, and I won't be getting old technology either, compared to those that rushed in. At some point this year, I'm going to splurge and get myself $2500 worth of audio and video equipment. The longer I wait, though, the cheaper this stuff gets...so when it's all said and done, I might only end up spending $2000.

No rush.

Why the prolonged Democratic nomination is a good thing.

In primaries past, the candidates wouldn't visit more than once in small states. Now that everything is up in the air, the two candidates are forced to pay attention to the small guys. If we're so lucky to still be in the mix, Oregon will actually become center-stage, late in the season! Now how about that?!?!

Small states have needs that often go unheard and unseen by the beltway powers-that-be. Can you imagine, McCain is already on the path of national matters, completely bypassing the point of listening to the concerns of people in small cities and rural areas. I see this as a distinct advantage to the Democratic candidates, as they will get a very good feel for what the people think.

Is Obama running for President...of the NRA?

Violence begets violence.

There hasn't been a single case of school campus violence stopped by armed civilians, police or campus security. In every case, the violence ends when these people committed suicide.

Violence begets violence.

And Obama clearly supports the rights of individuals to own guns. That is not definitive according to the 2nd Amendment, as the right is predicated on the need to have militias. If you're not in a militia, do you have the right to bear arms? Obama thinks so, as was evidenced by his speech today.

Violence begets violence.

Strategizing the election

Hillary/Richardson vs. McCain/Paul:

• Hillary wins over women, Latino and white liberals. Many blacks stay at home to protest Obama not being on the ticket. Catholics lean towards Hillary/Richardson.
  
• McCain wins over white males and splits the Independents, Protestants stay at home.
  
• Winner: Hillary/Richardson 51 - 48

Hillary/Obama vs. McCain/Jodi Rell:

• Hillary splits the latino and women's vote, wins the black vote by a wide margin. Most Independents move to McCain. Catholic vote split, Baptists definitively vote for Hillary/Obama.
  
• McCain wins white males, gains over 50% of the latino vote, gets into the ballpark of 50% of the women's vote. Protestants turn out as expected (high).
  
• Winner: McCain/Rell 51 - 48

Obama/Richardson vs. McCain/Paul:

• Obama wins handily the black vote, gains over 50% of the latino and women's vote. Catholics lean towards Obama/Richardson, Baptists come out in droves.
  
• McCain wins over Independents and white males in large margin, barely loses the latino and women's vote.
  
• Winner:McCain/Paul 53 - 46

Obama/Napolitano vs. McCain/Bobby Jindal:

• Obama wins the women's and black vote, loses the Independents, gains over 50% of the Latino vote. Catholics split evenly, Baptists heavily vote in favor.
  
• McCain definitely wins the Independents, splits the youth, handily wins the Protestants (though many will stay home), splits but loses the Latino vote.
  
• Winner:Too close to call.

Of course if Obama wins, I think Bloomberg enters the competition and splits the vote evenly with most Moderates and Independents voting for Bloomberg. The man has more money (over $11 billion) than what either candidate can possibly hope to raise.
Obama: 30 / Bloomberg: 38 / McCain: 31

Pimping out Chelsea?

It's like I said, there's a lot of people in the media that are pro-Obama, or at least anti-Clinton. David Schuster's comments are perfectly in-line with what we should expect to be seeing in the media, both TV, print and internet.

On Super Tuesday, Katie Couric let it slip from her mouth, "Good news", when it was announced that Obama had won in one of the states out west. I heard it, I couldn't believe it, I don't know how many other people caught it.

It's a sad time, when you cannot trust anyone to deliver news unadultered, unbiased, and free from commentary. In the case of Schuster however, he needs to be fired. There is barely a difference between Don Imus' comment about "nappy-headed hos" and "pimping Chelsea". That is purely sexist, and MSNBC should have taken the most severe action immediately and fired Schuster. Suspending him accomplishes nothing. Even his apology was forced. If you watch the video of him, he's reading from a prepared statement, and it makes him out to be a person carefully trying to walk on egg shells.

I'm sorry, but Schuster has to go.