patrick.net

Sweet baby Jeebus, I shouldn't drink and blog.

Mr. X,

So we're definitely on for the third?

Okay, I see a few sources that say that median family income has been pretty much stagnant since 1970. Here is one that says that it has been up 0.3%:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/family_a.htm

While here is a guy who claims that it is up 35% and up 48% for married couples:

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/05/inequality_v.html

It is hard to know who to believe. The Census Beaurea does not publish inflation adjusted numbers and I am too lazy to do the math myself tonight.

I shouldn’t drink and blog.

Well at least you did not say that I am responsible for all housing bubbles in the world. :)

Hold on, let me check the colander on my bipod. Yup, we're on!

The angry X-ers do have a way of talking about Boomers like people talk about WWII era Germans, or 3rd world dictatorships. :)

I'm Catholic about MP3 players, I actually prefer Winamp and non-iPod music players, since they tend to play more formats. I also don't like the Apple interfaces and hardware I've encountered, open source freeware usually seems best.

My Shuffle is "borrowed" from my boyfriend. I find it more handy than an iPod, since there's really no reason for me to carry more songs then the amount playable on a single charge. Also, a mp3 player and a decent set of sound insulation ear plugs are pretty much essential for any user of public transportation.

Digital cameras are so nice. I actually saw a couple using one of those disposable cameras on my last trip. It was like spotting a pair of dodos.

But wow, DVD burner! HARM you tech pimp you! :)

Actually, I am in the same boat as Surfer-X, too tired (from overwork actually) and too buzzed. Hopefully, Randy H will come to the rescue with some hard facts.

Actually, I am in the same boat as Surfer-X, too tired (from overwork actually) and too buzzed.

Easy, just try to work less. Work is a means, not an end.

X,

Sounds fun. Sadly, I can't really afford to drink and blog at the same time, unless I want to wake up with a fortified wine induced headache in the morning.

I'm more likely to slack off to Futurama commentary tracks and post rock, but I guess they're all the same.

Jimbo, as stated prior, Randal H. Esq. is otherwise engaged, that is, Clerks has a 1:32 min run time. Kindly check back at 2:00 am or so.

Do Dogs like Margarita's? Mine are implying that they in fact do.

So Astrid why do you find an mp3 player essential on public transit? I ride muni and BART to work every day and I never use anything like that. I usually drag along a magazine but end up spending most of my time watching people board and stuff.

I imagine that you are an attractive young woman though, that might explain it. Us (prematurely) grey haired guys don't have to worry much about strangers trying to strike up conversations with us, though it still happens fairly often to me. I grew up in small towns and can't shake myself of making the faux paux of eye contact.

I find the Sig-Sauer P226 essential for public transit in the BA.

I know from experience that dogs like beer. I have never tried to give a dog a margarita though. Don't let him drink too much though.. remember he weighs a lot less than you and it is pretty easy to get him drunk.

You probably already know all this though.

But are they any good for us either?

I recommend downloading Pearl Jam "Better man" live at State College PA.

How about single malt scotch? Is that good for you too?

Jimbo,

Nah, I just have a low tolerance for background noise. Before I got the music setup, I used to ride the subway with foam earplugs. iPod's standard earplugs suck though, I don't know why more people don't accessorize on that front.

I don't mind talking to strangers, that's often a lot of fun. But I find most subway commuters do not like to engage in contact with strangers.

I assume Bailey's Irish Creme is not good for dogs.

Pearl Jam is a little too grungy for me. Nirvana's fine though. Funny that, since I didn't even know about Nirvana (yeah, I was that sheltered) til 5 years after Kurt Cobain shot himself.

Yeah, I actually really get a kick out of riding transit. It is much more fun to me than driving, except for when someone really smelly gets too close.

I find that when I ride with Ava (my six month old) people talk to me all the time. Otherwise, people mostly don't strike up a conversation at all. Something about having a kid makes you accessable to strangers. Having blue hair works too, but I have not done that in a long time.

1:05 AM already? I am a pumpkin.. should have been an hour ago.

How about the Transplants "gangsters and thugs"?

Best radio station I ever heard, equal to live 105 in the early 90's was recently in El Segundo (the second, named as such because it was the second Standard Oil refinery), indie103, they have a 'net cast.

How about single malt scotch? Is that good for you too?

I only drink Scotch that's old enough to have sex with, legally, in Non-Southern States. No offense to those Southerners that have an age of consent less than 18.

So X…
You getting married soon?

I need a fast car and an alibi.

So X…
You getting married soon?

I need a fast car and an alibi.

Guess I went to bed too early last night. Missed all the fun.

Jimbo, it is hard to find any universally agreed upon data supporting the 1970s peak family real income for the reasons you cited. The books I pointed to by Howe & Strauss reference a lot of research verifying the claim. I have no doubt one could find just as much research claiming the opposite. I once saw something in B-Week with a little graph showing the Boomers were the LOWEST family income earners since the Civil War (I kid you not), even including the Depression. People can do amazing things with statistics.

I tend to be neoclassical so I pretty much only care about GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation (chained dollar method) and then applied to period census data. MSNBC had some articles recently which referred again to the 1970s peak. I'll see if I can find those, perhaps they have decent data references.

And to be fair in showing what would be an alternate explanation of the data I claim: it could also be simply that the 1970s saw the beginning of massive wealth consolidation, accelerating in mid 80s, which has had the effect of driving the median family real income down significantly while increasing the mean due to increases in the massively wealthy.

Randy H,

Just by my vocation I tend to miss a lot of the late night fun. I've gotten used to it. I have seen Harry Dent echo your sentiment on several occasions. I believe there is a chart in "The Roaring 2000's" that exhibit exactly that. In ways Dent is as much a demographer as he is economist.

I'm a Randian. No really, I am.

Jimbo Says:

I find that when I ride with Ava (my six month old) people talk to me all the time.

We have a 6 month old too! Fun as hell, eh?

I've got a big fat iPod 40GB. I have a ton of music, and I like it to be portable. My iTunes currently reads 36.26GB (23days, 3hours of music), so I'll need a bigger one soon.

I use iTunes on Windows, but I ripped my giant collection of CDs all with MP3 format, not the default AAC. I used to buy music on iTunes instead of CDs, and then stripped the DRM with jHymn and converted their lossy AAC to MP3, and because I have a right to fair use regardless of what Apple & RIAA's lawyers claim.

I quit buying any iTunes music after they released 6.0, which broke jHymn. I will only buy CDs until the Hymn team cracks DRM again.

I used to do a good amount of internet radio DJing, as if anyone cares. But I do love my iPod. I can take my library anywhere I go.

I’m a Randian. No really, I am.

I think Alan Greenspan was a Randian too. :)

mi,

I listen to at least 70% of my music, I assure you. I listen to something different every day of the year. The remainder is primarily classical, which I store uncompressed and thus it takes up a disproportionate amount of storage space.

I have 30 genres, so I can't "shuffle" without serious paring, otherwise I'm likely to get something off "The Land of Rape and Honey" right after listening to Handel, capped off with Weather Vane.

I have slight (but progressing) hearing damage, so I don't miss what MP3 cuts from the spectrum. I am skeptical that any more than 1% of the adult public over age 30 can hear the difference either, unless maybe using $400 headphones on all optical equipment. In your car you ain't gonna be able to tell.

Looks like inventory has resumed its healthy climb.

http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2006/08/tracking-san-josesanta-clara-county.html

On 8/10 I thought it slowed down.

When will we see 10K inventory? :)

mi,

Although I'm not sure I buy your theory, I agree with regards to real instruments. My catalogue of Classical, Opera, Jazz, Blues, and Neo Jazz, and Jazz Fusion is all uncompressed. I don't buy into the "all digital sucks" crowd though. I think vinyl sounds like scratchy ass crap, and only serves straight rock and some punk well.

A good portion of my library is classic industrial (Einstürzende Neubauten), classic industrial dance (Front 242) and postindustrial fusion (Luxt, Kidney Thieves). If I cue up some old Front Line Assembly remix I doubt you're going to hear any missing samples or spectrum, because you won't know which are missing by design and which are missing by happenstance.

mi,

So if MP3 is too lossy, which format do you recommend?

anything uncompressed that equals the original 44.1k cd.

CD only has 2 channels though. I am surprised that SACD and DVD-Audio are not more popular. They support many more channels at much higher sampling rate.

One may not be able to discern the sampling rate immediately. But the 5.1 surround should be immediately noticeable.

Peter P, the music has to be mixed in 5.1 first which is less than .1% of the music out there. all the great music was recorded in mono in the 50’s and 60’s anyways.

True. But new recordings can always be made. :)

The husband just bought a squeezebox for ripping our gargantuan CD collection. Seriously, two people with a history of running clubs/DJing/music obsession soon find the CD to wall-space ratio too much to bear.

As its his 'baby' to rip them, I'm not sure what format he's using - 'lossless' is as far as I got this morning asking him. As most of our stuff is techno/electronica/jungle, you don't really miss the finer points...

To be honest, despite trying hard not to damage out hearing over the years, we both have slight mid-range damage , so MP3/wav files are fine for us.
Just as long as the base makes my clothes vibrate, I'm happy. Women respond to base ;-)

I'm for non-compression of classical though - especially Glenn Gould and his mad humming and squeaky piano stool over Bach.

I need to start digitizing music. I usually lose a CD in about two months. :(

But the 0's and 1's will make my music semi-permanent. :)

I do prefer a standalone, non-portable system with okay speakers though. I hate headsets.

I’m for non-compression of classical though - especially Glenn Gould and his mad humming and squeaky piano stool over Bach.

Absolutely. Lossless compression may be acceptable though.

I do not like heavy bass. I just like slow, depressing music.

I'm on the laptop at the moment, so have no access to them, but we both know/use Soundforge and Acid, so we can basically pick and chose our compression CODEC.

I'm letting the husband sort it out - 20-odd 24x18 boxes of CDs piled up in the living room just depresses me...