Althouse: At the One-More-Weekend Café...

October 19, 2018

At the One-More-Weekend Café...

... you can listen to old records, write the first pages of your book, watch the Brewers game, and talk all night.

75 comments:

Roger This said...: Go Brew Crew (are they still called that?).; 10/19/18, 7:29 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Jeff Sessions is allowing anti-Russian zealots in the Justice Department and FBI to persecute Russian women for "meddling" in US politics.

Sessions should withdraw the indictments, reassign all the relevant DOJ/FBI officials to remote locations and order an immediate termination of all those absurd "investigations".

The Republicans won the 2016 presidential election. Why is DOJ/FBI persecuting Russian women for supporting the NRA?

Sad.; 10/19/18, 7:32 PM
Karen of Texas said...: Just wanted to thank you for all the time and effort you put into creating this place, Althouse. I've learned a great deal by visiting. You and many of your regular commenters have helped me up my game. Kudos.; 10/19/18, 7:32 PM
Drago said...: Robert Michael Culhane: "Go Brew Crew (are they still called that?)."

Not after the Kavanaugh hoax charges....; 10/19/18, 7:35 PM
Drago said...: Has Sherrod Brown suspended his campaign over the credible charges of sexual assault against him yet?; 10/19/18, 7:41 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/19/18, 7:46 PM
rcocean said...: When you're retired every day is the weekend.; 10/19/18, 7:48 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Yesterday the The Markets Work website published an article by Jeff Carlson titled NSA Director Rogers Disclosed FISA Abuse Days After Page Warrant Was Issued

Carlson's article tells how the FBI schemed and rushed to obtain the FBI warrant against Carter Page just a couple days before NSA Director Mike Rogers informed the FISA judges that the FBI was committing many serious violations of regulations that govern access to the NSA databases.

When Rogers put a stop to the violations and informed the FISA judges, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary tried to convince President Obama to fire Rogers. Obama declined to do so, and so Rogers remained in office as NSA Director long enough to inform President-Elect Trump that his communications were being collected and exploited by the US Intelligence Community's Resistance.; 10/19/18, 7:49 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Drago at 7:41 PM
Has Sherrod Brown suspended his campaign over the credible charges of sexual assault against him yet?

Suspending his campaign would not suffice.

Brown should resign his Senate position immediately.

His accuser seemed to be distraught, which means that she is telling the truth.; 10/19/18, 7:52 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: a couple of Q's for Our Most Gracious Host (and/or the legal types)

Never Disney princesses say you cant kiss a sleeping person-- can a parent kiss their kids?

The spousal privilege re: Nellie Ohr-- why cant she be questioned at all, and how did that work in the Rosenberg case?; 10/19/18, 7:59 PM
Birkel said...: 2-1 Brewers. Going the opposite way works.; 10/19/18, 8:04 PM
Birkel said...: 3-1

And a lot of excitement in the stands!; 10/19/18, 8:05 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: Is Jeff Sessions' DOJ/FBI persecuting any Russian women for meddling in US politics in favor of the Democratic Party?

It seems to me that the indicted Russian women were "meddling" in favor of the Republican Party and its supporting organizations (e.g. the NRA).

Who won the 2016 presidential election?

Any DOJ/FBI official who is spending even one minute of his time persecuting Russian women for meddling in favor of Republicans should be reassigned immediately to the office in Nome, Alaska; 10/19/18, 8:06 PM
stevew said...: Sox are in. I'm cheering for the Brewers. Dodgers, like the Yankees, also originally from New York, suck.

-sw; 10/19/18, 8:07 PM
AllenS said...: WOOT WOOT WOOT WOOT; 10/19/18, 8:07 PM
Birkel said...: Spousal Privilege:
None of the privilege claims survive if there is a criminal conspiracy. Under such a condition , everybody can assert their own 5th Amendment claim.; 10/19/18, 8:10 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Helluva start Brewers.; 10/19/18, 8:10 PM
Birkel said...: It is the crime/fraud exception to privilege claims.; 10/19/18, 8:12 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: @Birkel
thanks; 10/19/18, 8:20 PM
Birkel said...: I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.; 10/19/18, 8:21 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/19/18, 8:33 PM
M Jordan said...: Brews gonna do it. I can feel it in my bones.; 10/19/18, 8:33 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: I was in Savannah recently antique shopping with the gf and was flipping through a stack of old vinyl. And there was Jimi Hendrix's first album. Not the American release but the English release - $15. I'm thinking they left off a 0. Scratch free, perfect condition and the album cover is excellent too. No split seams. Sold. I get it in the car and ask the gf to look up the price - $150 right. Ummmm no. The value on an English website was $1000. I'm in shock thinking no way. We get back to Jacksonville and I take it to my neighborhood used record store. The owner looks at some markings on the vinyl and taps at his computer screen and tells me it in the very first 1000 albums pressed. Valued at $300+ in the U.S., $1000 in Europe and upwards of $2000 in Japan. Score! I am Experienced. Framed and on the wall.; 10/19/18, 8:35 PM
Birkel said...: Is it just me or do the Dodgers have a Viking playing for them?
That red beard is brilliant.; 10/19/18, 8:40 PM
gspencer said...: Com'n, Brewers, Fenway awaits. The pressure's on; win 2 in a row and you're in the Series.; 10/19/18, 8:55 PM
Birkel said...: Win 12 in a row and they're 6-0 to start next season.
Plus free hamburgers!; 10/19/18, 9:01 PM
Mr. Majestyk said...: Some on the left have said they want to pack the Supreme Court with two new appointments. I think the Republicans should say, "That's such a great idea, why wait? Let's do it now!" And they should prpose legislation that would expand the Court to 11, and make the Dems vote against it.; 10/19/18, 9:28 PM
Michael McNeil said...: I like Glenn Reynolds' suggestion that the Supreme Court size be increased to 59 — with the additional 50 Justices appointed by the governors of the several states (then approved by the Senate). Let the Dems try to pack the court beyond that!; 10/19/18, 9:35 PM
gilbar said...: some guy won a woman's bike race, and real women are complaining.
but the guy says: "When it comes to extending rights to a minority population, why would we ask the majority?”

clearly ONLY minority's should be allowed rights; this is the basis of democracy!
if a bunch of guys want to win woman's bike races; Who the HELL are women to complain?; 10/19/18, 9:36 PM
Michael K said...: Oh Oh, Trouble ahead. Republicans might win.

The end of Robert Mueller’s investigation. The loss of health insurance for several million people. New laws that make it harder to vote. More tax cuts for the rich. More damage to the environment. A Republican Party molded even more in the image of President Trump.

Go for it ! Illegals can't vote. Health insurance is fixed. Bigger US surplus tax receipts.

What a catastrophe !; 10/19/18, 9:38 PM
320Busdriver said...: Crazy at Miller Park ....; 10/19/18, 9:43 PM
Mark said...: The prosecution of someone for engaging in various protected First Amendment activities, even if that person is a foreign national -- when millions of immigrants, documented and undocumented are doing the same thing daily -- seems a little suspect and infirm.; 10/19/18, 9:45 PM
gypsy rose said...: Surfed: Great find!; 10/19/18, 9:46 PM
Mark said...: That's it. The sales window is closed. Drawing in 12 minutes.; 10/19/18, 9:47 PM
Saint Croix said...: write the first pages of your book

It was a little awkward because I had stolen his fiancé. And I wasn’t sure why he was at my door.

“She’s not here,” I said. “She’s visiting her sister.”

He nodded. “May I come in?”

I looked at him. Roger was a little guy, Japanese-American, maybe 160 pounds. I couldn’t read him. He had no expression in his eyes.

I would have been pissed, if somebody had stolen Dr. Suki from me. But he wasn’t mad. He wasn’t anything. He was just there, at my door, waiting to see if I would let him in.

“Okay,” I said. And I opened the door wide and he walked inside. I was almost twice as big as he was.

Spike was happy that we had a visitor. My dog was running in circles, not touching Roger. Because I had sort of trained him to not jump up on people. But he was still excited, so he was running and running and running. I think it was freaking Roger out a little, but he didn’t say anything.

“Would you like a beer?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I hoped he wasn’t planning on waiting for Suki, because she wasn’t coming back until Friday. “What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I want to know something,” he said. He was quiet and still. Spike had calmed down by then. He was sitting on the floor, with his tongue hanging out. He was looking up at Roger, happy. I was watching Spike to make sure he behaved, and then I looked up and saw that Roger was staring at me. I was seeing some emotion now, a flash of anger in his eyes. I waited for him to ask his question.

“Why?” he said. “Why did you do it?”

“It just happened,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I wanted to tell him that he would find another woman and be happy again. But I didn’t say that. I just looked at him, waiting to see what would happen next.

He was scowling a little. He made a bunch of tight little nods, like he was expecting me to say something stupid, and that’s exactly what I had done. And then he started taking off his shoes.

I had little warning bells go off in my brain, but I ignored them.

“You’re a policeman, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you know any martial arts?” he asked.

“No,” I said. He wasn’t going to attack me, I said to myself. That would be crazy. “I have a friend who has a black belt in jiu-jitsu.” Why was he taking off his shoes? Maybe it was a Japanese thing. I decided to take my shoes off too. “He told me one time that jiu-jitsu was the toughest of all the martial arts. The only thing that could beat jiu-jitsu was a striker.”

“Are you a striker?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said. And he kicked me in the face.; 10/19/18, 9:51 PM
Saint Croix said...: Whodidit With a Senator?

Coming soon!; 10/19/18, 9:51 PM
Robt C said...: @surfed:
Good for you. As for me, I bought the Beatles' Butcher Album new for $3.95. Still have it. Framed, on my wall.; 10/19/18, 10:06 PM
Jaq said...: At Queens University in Belfast Northern Ireland, where she recently received an honorary degree, the school has set up a scholarship program called the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Peace and Reconciliation.

I think that the "award" should come with a little statuette of Hillary with "We came! We saw! He died!" engraved on a little plaque at the base, and a pull cord on the back that when you pull it, it says "Trump stole the 'lection! Bawk!"

Seriously though, if they gave a Nobel Prize in irony, a "peace and reconciliation" award named after Hillary should not only take the award, but the Nobel Committee should then retire it for lack of the possibility of a worthy successor.; 10/19/18, 10:26 PM
Jaq said...: I crack me up.; 10/19/18, 10:29 PM
Saint Croix said...: oops, fiancee!; 10/19/18, 10:41 PM
AllenS said...: Nothing says Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Peace and Reconciliation like Benghazi.; 10/19/18, 10:43 PM
William said...: If you can only frame it and put it in the wall, what good is it. The album cover, I suppose, has some value in being authentic and colorful, but where's the beauty in the vinyl pressing, especially if it's kept under the album cover and looks like every other LP ever made.. How is the tenth pressing worth more than the twentieth. Are vinyl pressings like olive oil? ...... How much would you pay for that old shoe Van Gogh painted. I bet that's worth a lot, I don't suppose it's as beautiful as Van Gogh's painting, but it's authentic......Sometime back Napoleon's penis was sold at auction. That's an interesting collectible.; 10/19/18, 10:43 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: We live in amazing times for finding stuff. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I spent years looking for a copy of the Beach Boys "Party" album. (This was before they patched things up with Capitol, and the label was punishing them by keeping their catalog in disarray). This was not a rare record, it was a certified "Gold" album, so there were lots of copies pressed and sold, but I couldn't find one. Every time I went to a new town, I would hit the local used record store. Every time I saw a garage sale, I would stop and flip through the albums. Nothing doing. I literally looked for that album for 10 years before finding a copy.

Now with Google/Ebay/Amazon, you can find a vintage copy in seconds. (Of course you don't have to because all the Capitol ablums are back in print, with lots of bonus tracks).

I used to do the same thing with used bookstores and hard to find SF books. I haven't been in a used bookstore in years now..; 10/19/18, 10:47 PM
Ken B said...: When they go low, we go Schiff. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-rep-slams-dems-false-charge-of-bigotry; 10/19/18, 10:55 PM
Etienne said...: I write short stories just for fun. Without a professional editor I'm sure they are full of punctuation errors. I also find the Amazon Kindle editor to be not very useful.

When I was in college they had little ads at the library where English majors would edit your thesis. Course I needed a couple of passes to get all the red ink marks off.

I remember one girl circled my thesis title and wrote "keep this" and then drew an X through the rest of the pages. oof...

Anyway, the lowest you can go is 99 cents on Amazon, and so far my only sales have been to West Africa.; 10/19/18, 11:05 PM
Jaq said...: My millennial kids bought a record player which they run through my Bose setup that I use to play music through my phone over BlueTooth, which sounds great, of course. When they play vinyl, it takes me back to the era of lousy sounding music. It's still a very recognizable sound to me, the sound of not being able to pick out the instruments, etc.... They seem to like it. The first time I heard a CD, there was no looking back.; 10/19/18, 11:11 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: When they play vinyl, it takes me back to the era of lousy sounding music.

They need to tape a quarter to the tonearm!; 10/19/18, 11:15 PM
Original Mike said...: Yay!; 10/19/18, 11:15 PM
AllenS said...: ... and to the 7th game we go!; 10/19/18, 11:15 PM
Jaq said...: I liked the comment on the Brewers' Facebook Page: "Home field advantage is real, and it's spectacular.; 10/19/18, 11:23 PM
Etienne said...: My early music purchases were all 45 RPM, because we would take them to dance parties and everyone would bring a few.

Later in 1969 the local FM stereo station would play albums after 10 pm on Saturday, and my sister and I would record to a reel to reel recorder and stereo receiver my brother bought in the military PX just before he shipped out.

When he came home after a year we had lots of tapes recorded for him. Then they came out with better tape media. crap! You can't ever win.

My brother didn't much care for the Bubble Gum music craze though, while my sister and I loved the Archies, etc...; 10/19/18, 11:25 PM
eddie willers said...: When they play vinyl, it takes me back to the era of lousy sounding music.

Don't really want to start anything, but the day a CD sounds as good as an analog record is still in the future.; 10/19/18, 11:26 PM
walter said...: How are the pro sports teams doing in Venezuela?; 10/19/18, 11:35 PM
Etienne said...: I can't remember his name, he recently died, but he had a recording studio south of Portland.

Anyway, he mastered to cassettes!

Can you imagine in this day and age?? But the people he mastered for loved the result.; 10/19/18, 11:38 PM
Jaq said...: but the day a CD sounds as good as an analog record is still in the future.

OK.; 10/19/18, 11:39 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Bubblegum was great. Producers en masse finally figured out what Brian Wilson & co had been doing in the studio, so all of a sudden you had all these insanely catchy well produced singles. You didn't have to have a fractious group to record an album and tour, all you needed was the local wrecking crew, some decent singers and one great song.; 10/19/18, 11:54 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: I have an original American release of "Are You Experienced". It gas a better track listing and songs not in the English release. I usually play that one.; 10/20/18, 12:04 AM
walter said...: Tim in vermont said...
but the day a CD sounds as good as an analog record is still in the future.
--
Hey..you can always mix in some snap crackle pops to get yer nostalgia on.
Maybe there's an algorithm to mimmick the suspense of whether your copy will skip..; 10/20/18, 12:29 AM
320Busdriver said...: That was fun...we kept up the booing of Machado at the plate until he retreated to the dugout, every at bat.; 10/20/18, 12:31 AM
Ken B said...: CDs can sound exactly as good as vinyl. Just simultaneously play random popping sounds, place the speakers at the end of a corridor, and random smack the player with a hockey stick to cause skipping.

You might also enjoy coffee perked with day 9ld grounds.; 10/20/18, 12:41 AM
Achilles said...: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/opinion/sunday/midterm-elections-republican-party-trump-senate-house.html#click=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FaupBKtZnlr&commentsContainer>Democrats are starting to come to terms with what is going to happen on Nov. 6th.</a>

The comments are better than the article.; 10/20/18, 2:01 AM
FIDO said...: 'I feel a panic in my life. A churning anxiety in my gut, giving me knots in my stomach. A sense of dread and worry. You see, Democrats keep attacking and harassing random Republicans, shooting at them and giving them concussions..

But there is a cure for this anxiety. Go to the booth...the shooting booth and get your concealed carry license. Carry a legal firearm and keep aware of your surroundings. Take pictures of them before hand. So next time a group of self important entitled women attack and harass you and your family, you have alternatives for safety.

And if God forbid things escalate, just start a GoFundMe drive for your legal fees. We will take care of you...'

Oh, and you might try voting too. Couldn't hurt. But if they lose again, this year, expect that it's to get worse.'; 10/20/18, 6:15 AM
rhhardin said...: CDs don't have the same spectrum as vinyl. Vinyl is recorded to an RIAA curve, suppressing bass and augmenting highs, which is undone in a corresponding playback amplifier. The whole process produces a different sound.; 10/20/18, 6:22 AM
Jaq said...: I would say it that the spectrum available to vinyl is a subset of the spectrum available to CDs and if somebody genuinely wanted to take a musical performance and smush and pack it into the limited spectrum and sound shape of vinyl, they could. The question would be why didn't the musicians perform it that way if that's how they wanted their performance to sound in the first place? What may lie in the future is a perfect digital recreation of the limitations of vinyl, but it would have been a pretty good joke by God if he made the double bank shot process of manipulating recordings so that they can be reproduced on vinyl the perfect way to reproduce sound.

This is like the argument between digital and film photography. I knew film was doomed when astronomers went digital with their high powered telescopes. Another thing that comes to mind is a opossum show. How do you judge the perfect opossum? The way they solved it was to say "Old Beauregard here is the perfect opossum and all future opossums will be judged against him."; 10/20/18, 6:47 AM
rhhardin said...: Digital photography has moire patterns that don't come up with random film grains.

If you take a picture of a chain link fence or house siding, you get dark and light bands turning up when the regularity of the fence interacts with the regularity of the pixels. With film grains there's no grain regularity so the problem doesn't happen.

To fix the digital problem, they use an anti-aliasing filter that spreads light out so it always hits two pixels, which unfortunately makes edges fuzzy. To combat that, they then use a sharpening filter to re-edge the edges. You can see the characteristic too-sharp edges with wrong-shade side effects around the edges.; 10/20/18, 7:04 AM
Jaq said...: Everybody roots for John Henry over the track laying machine too.; 10/20/18, 7:47 AM
Fernandinande said...: I would say it that the spectrum available to vinyl is a subset of the spectrum available to CDs

CDs can represent everything you can hear, so yeah.

and if somebody genuinely wanted to take a musical performance and smush and pack it into the limited spectrum and sound shape of vinyl, they could.

Just digitize the output of the phono-preamp.; 10/20/18, 8:35 AM
wildswan said...: Just seems strange to wake and not find out at once from my daily digital-news diet whether the Brewers had won. How many other important facts about the world are missing? Why do I at once know what happened at a bridge in Guatemala and not what happened at Miller Park? Why the news blackout on the Packers? Why do they promise "climate change" when it's already getting cold in Wisconsin - as always? Why is there no way to keep leaves out of gutters if a tree is directly over the roof on one side? Is there a good recipe for green tomatoes - one that I would like? Why do trees in Wisconsin have leaves that turn yellow, not red? Government ideas on a good indoor temperature - 68- are a macro-aggression. Suddenly, everywhere I look there are young men working - where did they keep them and where will they put them if Evers wins and stalls the economy again? Why can't I make barbecue sauce come out right? Will I ever find a gluten-free pizza crust that does not have the texture of the sole of my heels? When things go terribly wrong, I, MS Gluten-free, buy and eat a Cinnabon - will I need one on hand for November 7? Grits and brats do not taste good not matter what you to them but anchovies are excellent no matter what you do them. Why is none of this in the news? How can so many questions remain unanswered after a lifetime of cooking and questing after knowledge?; 10/20/18, 10:11 AM
eddie willers said...: Pretty late to add on to this thread, but to the guys talking about skips etc., you had pretty crappy stereos.

Here's the thing. An analog curve has infinite resolution. No amount of sampling can smooth the top end and CDs use block filters that can "ring" (early filters) and even the best create disharmonies that affect the "real" spectrum.

In the early 90's I worked at HiFi Buys in Atlanta and shared living space with a younger guy who also had just been hired there. I came home and he was listening to Steely Dan's Aja. He said, "This is really a great album!". I said, "You should hear the record, it sounds even better than the CD".

He said I was crazy. CD was Perfect. Sound. Forever.

So I took out my old record, opened up the Dual Turntable, dragged out my DiscWasher and went through the cleaning ritual required to play back an LP (said 'work', and having to turn the record over and do it again, was the real reasons CDs so quickly replace vinyl)

I tiptoed back to the couch and, indeed, there was the thump of the needle setting down and the inevitable clicks and pops of the run in groove....

However, when the first strains of "Black Cow" started and the height was higher, the width was wider and the depth was deeper, my roommate's jaw dropped and he conceded the point. We put the record back into the sleeve and probably never played the TT again.

CDs were [way] more convenient, but sound quality was not why we changed.

PS. All my music today is online. It may be the worst resolution I have ever played, but I am too damn lazy to drag out a CD when I can just pop up the remote and can play with album art and lyrics right there on my TV screen.; 10/20/18, 11:45 AM
Jim at said...: @surfed

Score. Few things beat 'stealing' a nice piece of vinyl.; 10/20/18, 1:30 PM
Jim at said...: Don't really want to start anything, but the day a CD sounds as good as an analog record is still in the future.

Agreed. Much more depth with the analog source.; 10/20/18, 1:33 PM
Fernandinande said...: Here's the thing. An analog curve has infinite resolution.

No, that's not a thing.

my roommate's jaw dropped and he conceded the point.

You might want to rent out your roommate's jaw as a replacement for audio engineers, their equipment and the apparently useless trouble of ABX testing.

What you heard, if it was really anything other than your imagination (which IS definitely a thing) was different mastering.; 10/20/18, 2:04 PM
eddie willers said...: Why don't you watch your oscilloscope while I listen to music.; 10/20/18, 2:19 PM
Fernandinande said...: Why don't you watch your oscilloscope while I listen to music.

Why don't you sacrifice some goats?

Why Vinyl Sounds Better Than CD, Or Not

Well, it's "Not".

But actually some people really might prefer the sound of vinyl, but compared to CDs vinyl has reduced and non-linear frequency response, reduced dynamic range, more distortion and much more noise, so any preferable characteristic of vinyl can be completely reproduced on a CD: just digitally record the record, and you'll completely capture all that lovely distortion, compression and noise.

Chick who works at a record store prefers vinyl:

First, though, here's Laura from Main St. Jukebox in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
LAURA: I prefer vinyl.

Guys who know stuff and do stuff and don't work at a record store much prefer CDs:

Sean Olive is director of acoustic research at Harman International.

Sean Olive, I have to ask you. I think I know your answer, but vinyl or CD?
OLIVE: Definitely CD.

And we were testing cartridges at that time, and it was quite apparent that the amount of distortion coming out of these devices was very high compared to CD.

So what we found was that vinyl was a limiting factor in our ability to do accurate and reliable listening tests on loudspeakers, and we had to find a more reliable and more accurate medium.

Scott Metcalfe is director of recording arts and sciences at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

METCALFE: I enjoy both formats, but my preference is definitely CD.

[dynamic compression] sometimes be applied to vinyl in that the physical limitations of what the medium is able to store and reproduce is such that it can be advantageous, particularly in the lower frequencies, to reduce the dynamic range - meaning the low notes that are being captured - to reduce the dynamic range to do a couple of things.
...
With CDs, there isn't that trade-off.; 10/20/18, 4:04 PM
Jim at said...: "They need to tape a quarter to the tonearm!"

Please. It's a dime. A gram.
A dime bag, even.; 10/21/18, 12:37 AM