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Home » Open thread 1/29/22

Open thread 1/29/22

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember how Holden Caulfield wondered what happened in wintertime to the ducks of the Central Park pond? This may answer the question. It also will give new meaning to the phrase “eat like a bird”:

Comments

Open thread 1/29/22 — 62 Comments

  1. In St Paul, MN, where I lived for many years, we had crowds of cardinals all winter long. We fed them sunflower seeds.

  2. Speaking of birds, in particular pigeons.

    The only place I have ever seen pigeons is in a city. I have never seen a pigeon in rural areas, the countryside, wooded areas, etc.

    Can anyone explain that.

    Where I live (not rural ,more of a suburb, but there are farms within a stone’s throw of my home and not even a 5 min drive many more farms) there are all sorts of birds; little ones, big ones (turkey vultures) and everything in between; but zero pigeons.

    Any idea why pigeons reside only in cities??

  3. During the Texas snowstorm last year, some of the poor birds were not prepared for the unusual cold and the ground being covered for so long with snow. I found several dead birds, as if they had frozen or starved to death. And the cats were preying on the birds.

  4. I grew up on a midwestern farm. All our barns and all the barns around had pigeons. They seem to have adapted to live with humans. The area where I grew up is now totally corn and soybeans, the barns have been taken down and the areas farmed over. There are no pigeons anywhere.

    I loved the video. Our world is an incredible place.

  5. tcrosse,

    I’m pretty sure the plural for a group of Cardinals is “a cloister,” or maybe, “a mass.”

  6. We have Doves. A good number of them, at least until the resident Hawks have dinner. I live Front Range CO.

  7. In Phoenix a group of Cardinals is a “squad” and in St. Louis they are a “lineup.” Oddly, on the Stanford University campus they remain strictly solitary.
    🙂

  8. We feed sunflower seeds, niger seed, and suet all winter. So far since January 1 we’ve seen 26 or 27 species, and we have seen 104 in total over the years. We have mourning doves, but no pigeons, and very few house sparrows. This is in a suburban-rural garden.

  11. The page neo linked makes a statement about pigeon predators’ numbers decreasing due to DDT thinning their eggshells. In grammar school I was taught that DDT had that impact, but I thought that has since been disproven?

  13. In these dark and dismal times a laugh is a precious thing.

    Check below for a link to a video from England of what has been called an equivalent of Judge Judy, “Judge Rinder,” who mugs his way through both serious and silly cases, with both Rinder and the courtroom spectators often laughing uncontrollably. A lot of the English cultural references don’t resonate but, nonetheless, his show is worth watching.

    P.S.–A bonus is that a lot of the litigants look like they are straight out of a tale by Dickens.

    See, for instance, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVGQfdxkIiQ

    For a collection of Judge Rinder’s moments see https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLxi1KrCqwJS49d50vsw0_w

  15. I wonder if DDT did not also impact bird populations by eliminating mosquitoes, a source of food for some birds?

    Malaria is bad news. Google tells me DDT is still widely used in India, China and North Korea. I guess many African nations are led by UN policy directives and that’s why it’s not used there?

  16. Neo:

    EPA and DDT
    is it true or politics
    after all conceptual models
    change and conceivably
    yet Science remains
    now tainted
    CDC and Anthony

  21. Geoffrey Britain:

    Well, Barry Manilow isn’t known for having any memorable or significant songs, IMO. And there is Peter Frampton, right there in the same level of significance IMO. Just my opinion.

    But just to show that not all are useful idiots, Eric Clapton has been quite vocal in opposition to the WuFlu tyranny,

  23. When neo mentioned the Neil Young kerfuffle on a prior thread I stated that I thought it could end up being very significant.

    The culture matters.

    As the great, Andrew Breitbart said, “politics is downstream from culture.”

  24. Snow on Pine,

    Thanks for the links to Judge Rinder. Watched the dog wedding case with one of the Little Fireflies. We both laughed quite a bit.

  25. om:

    Manilow was an enormously popular pop singer, with songs like “Mandy” and “Copacabana” and “I Write the Songs.” I have no idea how popular he is now. Like the others, he’s rather long in the tooth these days.

  26. Neo:

    You have indeed nailed his entire opus (exaggerating just a little). 🙂 But he did indeed sell a lot of songs.

    I saw a title in PJMedia earlier today saying that Barry actually wasn’t on board with the Spodify posers. If that is the case, he is wiser than Neil and Joni. Again just my opinion. I’ll leave pop music now to the regulars here.

    Age takes its toll.

  27. Spotify Inspired Idle Curiosity:

    How many here listen predominantly to internet streamed music as opposed to radio / CD / Vinyl / reel-to-reel / wax cylinder / piano roll collections?

  29. Zaphod, I don’t stream anything, though I do go to the you-know-what-tube for Brilliant Classics and, sometimes, quirky telephone-hold music. I’ve transferred a number of my favorite CDs into iTunes in the past, but have distrusted that program and its masters for some time now, ever since it made a few of my online purrchases magically disappear from my collection, apparently in an attempt to force me to ‘buy’ them all over again. I guess I’m wary of streaming services for similar reasons.

  30. @PhilipSells:

    Brilliant Classics Channel is great!

    What would be even more great would be if they ever fully solved the metadata issues for digitised classical music. It’s getting better. When I use Roon, I never have to see the word ‘song’ — which induces the urge to nuke Cupertino whenever I see it in iTunes.

    Kind of similar past experience here Re iTunes rips and later confusing and irritating changes in Apple’s policies putting me off the whole experience. Also, Apple’s desktop music apps (whether iTunes or Apple Music) have pretty awful user interfaces and are in dire need of full re-writes.

    I started on ripping roughly a thousand CDs into iTunes around 2005. Got side-tracked after a few hundred, and then they all went into storage as I hit the road again… and haven’t looked at them since.

    Not a huge fan of Apple myself for a bunch of obvious ideological reasons.. but continue to use their mobile devices and services because for me they’re the Least Bad Option short of going to live in a cave.

    Anyway, I now rely mainly on Tidal streaming at home and Apple Music streaming for casual on the go use. With either of these one can download pretty much unlimited amounts of music to one’s mobile device and it stays there for as long as one remains a subscriber. Some value in this if you’re on the go and expect to be spending time on planes or in foreign parts. At home with reliable fast Internet there’s no real need to think about downloading anything anymore.. I just stream it on demand.

    Due to some home audio hardware / software integration personal preferences, I like Tidal. But could just as well be Qobuz or Spotify or Apple Music all other things being equal.

    Spotify is supposed to be genius level for suggesting music one might like based on one’s listening habits, plus throwing some algorithmic curve-balls to keep things interesting.

    I don’t think many people buy ‘ownership’ of CDs in iTunes anymore… it doesn’t make any kind of economic sense when one can access a library of millions of tracks for a reasonable monthly fee. It’s at the point where I think I would only bother to rip those CDs from my collection that still languishes in storage that are too obscure to have ended up in Apple Music or Tidal… and I suspect that the number of these CDs is very near to zero or zero.

    Which brings me to where I was going with my original question. Music streaming looks from one angle like a classic case of the WEF’s mantra ‘You will own nothing and you will be happy.’ But it *is* also an embarrassment of riches. Until someone at Tidal decides that Bach was a homophobe, maybe. I sense a disturbance in the Force here.

    Perhaps the answer is to hang on to the physical media one already owns, rely upon streaming for three things: (i) saving money on new music, (ii) algorithmic goodness which expands one’s musical horizons, (iii) Convenience (Likely the epitaph of our civilization).

  32. @AesopFan:

    It’ll be very telling if this thing grows legs and has the mob pressuring more singers to pull their songs…. and even more so if there’s a woke Spotify staff putsch to ditch Rogan. Stranger things have happened. And will happen.

  33. Durham-Horowitz “Hey, how’s-it-going?” howitzer:
    “Durham Court Filing Reveals DOJ Inspector General Horowitz Withheld Key Evidence From Special Counsel”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/durham-court-filing-reveals-doj-inspector-general-horowitz-withheld-key-evidence-special

    Looks like “Biden” is going to have to shut down Durham BUT GOOD AND FAST.
    (Hey maybe that’s what the “Ukraine Crisis”(TM) is all about…or what at least PART of it’s about: THERE REALLY IS SO MUCH FOR “BIDEN” et al. TO CONCEAL…)

    …Of course, it could all just be a…misunderstanding…
    – – – – – – –
    And while we’re at it, here’s a bit more on that “uncontested election”(TM)…
    “Pennsylvania Court Rules Mail-In Voting Unconstitutional”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pennsylvania-court-rules-mail-voting-unconstitutional

  36. zaphod,

    Shortly after Spotify paid Rogan $100 million!! to move his show to their service there was a staff putsch, “either he goes or we do*,” but Spotify took the same tack as they did with Young.

    *It is purported that Oscar Wilde became ill, lapsed into a comma and was carried to a room and layed in a bed there. At some point he came to, looked about the room and stated, “Either this wallpaper goes or I do.” Not long after he died. Witty to the very end!

  37. “How many here listen predominantly to internet streamed music as opposed to radio / CD / Vinyl / reel-to-reel / wax cylinder / piano roll collections?”

    CDs and vinyl, thanks. The bastards can’t mess with analog. Re: vinyl, a recommendation from the dental-hygiene-in-the-Middle-Ages thread from earlier this month (https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/01/14/open-thread-1-14-22/):

    “Finally, for people who still have vinyl, a product plug. Get a Pro-Spin acrylic turntable mat, preferably through the Amazon link on Neo’s site. I got one a few weeks ago for my 47-year-old Thorens turntable. The improvement in sound quality is astounding, even with old and beat-up LPs.”

  38. @ Rufus in re Oscar Wilde > “Witty to the very end!”

    Also the middle and beginning.
    Our college did a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” which was one of the few stage shows on campus that I wasn’t in, but AesopSpouse did the set design and a good portion of the construction.
    When our boys were young, PBS broadcast a filmed stage production, which we recorded (VHS!) and played back regularly.
    In high school, two of them starred as Algernon and Jack/Ernest.

    I like other works by Wilde, but that one is a family tradition.

  39. @BarryMeislin:

    Firstly, if I had that much money, I wouldn’t want to live in Yuen Long — billionaires generally live on the South Side of HK Island or in the Clear Water Bay area. You still get some on the Peak, too. I wouldn’t even stick my eleventy-first mansion there in a reclaimed New Territories Fish Farm on the outskirts of Yuen Long (too many Nepalese and some very in-bred locals… only thing of note comes from there is a famous brand of Moon Cake.) Nice view view of Shenzhen across the bay, to be sure. That’s about it though. You couldn’t even warehouse a mistress there. She’d freak if you stuck her that far from the nearest Birkin Bag Emporium.

    If you ask me, this guy slapped this gingerbread monstrosity in the middle of his development because (a) looks good on brochure to the kind of Mainlander who is snapping up speculative real estate in HK. and… (BBBB) You guessed it… a bit of useful collateral in a ‘safe’ jurisdiction which he could leverage into the stratosphere. Perhaps more than once. While a Howard Marks would be certain to dot his i’s, cross, his tees and squiggle his alephs just so, I have less faith in the due diligence done by (say) CalPERS when shown the same Sure Thing.

    Since this boils down to Fu Manchu vs. The Tribe + A Moment of Truth for HK’s Famed Impartial Legal System (at least where commercial law is concerned)… I’d say popcorn, beer, BarcaLoungers are in order. No deeper insights, alas.

  40. @Hubert:

    https://theanalogdept.com/thorens_tweaks.htm

    Forget about *Music*… gotta tweak!

    Just bought two magnetic cartridge ground wires and I don’t even own a turntable. Some digital doodad boxes and their linear power supplies come with the same spade-lug friendly terminals for ground wire connections.

  42. @Rufus:

    I remember the 100M bit, but must have missed the staff revolt.

    Strikes me as (a) amusing and (b) a bit terrifying that the Wokesters see Rogan as being some kind of Far Right Pied Piper. He’s Stoner Milquetoast.. Stoner Milquetoast speculative curiosity about observable phenomena in Base Reality is enough to freak the Woke out of their minds.

  43. I saw the Independence and later the Kittyhawk when they were based at Yokosuka. Used to make port calls in HK roughly once a year.

    And quite a sight to bank over Bremerton on the approach to Sea-Tac and see the mothballed carriers.

  44. Here you go:

    https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-01-30/spotifys-platform-rules-and-approach-to-covid-19/

    “… Today we are publishing our long-standing Platform Rules. These policies were developed by our internal team in concert with a number of outside experts and are updated regularly to reflect the changing safety landscape. These are rules of the road to guide all of our creators—from those we work with exclusively to those whose work is shared across multiple platforms. You can now find them on our newsroom, and they’ll live permanently on the main Spotify website. They are being localized into various languages to help our users understand how Spotify assesses all content on our platform.
    We are working to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about COVID-19. This advisory will direct listeners to our dedicated COVID-19 Hub, a resource that provides easy access to data-driven facts, up-to-date information as shared by scientists, physicians, academics and public health authorities around the world, as well as links to trusted sources. This new effort to combat misinformation will roll out to countries around the world in the coming days. To our knowledge, this content advisory is the first of its kind by a major podcast platform.
    We will also begin testing ways to highlight our Platform Rules in our creator and publisher tools to raise awareness around what’s acceptable and help creators understand their accountability for the content they post on our platform. This is in addition to the terms that creators and publishers agree to governing their use of our services…”

    Thus Saith The BugLord.

  46. Shamelessly Stolen from Gab:

    why Conservatives are useless
    —-
    > hey, i have an idea—
    * gets punched in face *
    > how about instead of hitting each other—
    * gets punched in face *
    > we have a calm, rational, and—
    * gets punched in face *
    > civilized debate instead?
    * gets punched in face *

  48. Zaphod: that’s my turntable model (TD-160C), but I’m too lazy to go to all that trouble to pimp it out. Maybe as a retirement project for those long winter nights, along with re-doing the power boards in an old Heathkit AR-1500A receiver of the same vintage. Or maybe I’ll just get a Sprout100 and be done with it.

    Om: I wonder if we could build the Kitty Hawk today. Or maintain it. The question answers itself, I fear.

  49. @Hubert:

    The Heathkit looks the part! Their catalogs were always full of good stuff.

    You could maybe have a bit of cheap experimental learning by doing fun with Raspberry Pi based streamers plus messing around with Pi HAT DACs, etc.

    Have never owned anything by PS Audio, but religiously watch anything Paul McGowan posts on YouTube. He’s a masterful no-nonsense explainer.

    The Sprout100 would do a good job if you don’t need any extra post-retirement hobbyist rabbit holes to explore.

  50. Hubert:

    The USN is having some problems with the USS Gerald Ford (catapults mainly IIRC) and is currently building the USS Enterprise (CVN80). USS Enterprise is scheduled for completion in 2025 and to be in service in 2028.

    If you listen to Z it can’t be done. After all we aren’t the CCP or the SuperHan.

    Wait for it, ….., destroyers that can’t navigate in congested waters, firefighting and damage control that allowed the loss of a major vessel in port during maintenance, LCS, DDG ….. Yes the USN has problems.

    Ok Z, now sing the praises of the PLA’s navy. Earn your keep. Xi is watching.

  51. @Om:

    Haw haw haw.

    All a bit above my pay grade, but can’t help wondering if CVNs are a bit of a wank in 2021. They’re great as national prestige items and for impressing the natives of smaller countries. There’s a lot to be said for sailing a battle group into (random pick) Sydney Harbour and having the natives grok that here is more military power than we could ever hope to amass. It has a certain moral effect. As did Teddy’s Great White Fleet Back When.

    But against peer level competitors, I don’t think so. Not sure you’d want to take them anywhere near China when SHTF.

    Truth is CVNs are built these days because politicians and contractors like them. Lots of graft and money flying around. Because the Navy is incapable of change, because you don’t make it to the Joint Chiefs or the Board of General Dynamics by skulking around in submarines.. No siree… you’d better be a naval Jet Jockey and rise to command a CBG.

    Read an article a few years back how when PRK became readily available the quality of USN Submarine Officer recruits dropped because guys were getting their vision corrected to be better than 20/20 and going off to be Naval Aviators because everybody knows that’s the only way to become one of the USN’s real high flyers (sic). Prior to PRK the visually non-Uebermenschen had to go into submarines because you can’t throw High-G turns after LASIK… the flaps are gonna flap right back out again. Scary.

    It’s just one of those things. You get really good at something (whether company, institution, civilization) and eventually being too good for too long makes it impossible to adapt to new developments. CVNs were the miracle of the Age. Problem is that was the previous Age.

  52. Z knows all about all there is to know about the USN. Otay. Who is the near peer Z? And who keeps your rice comming to Hong Kong?

    As if the friction between the brown shoes and the black shoes of old still isn’t a thing in the USN. Such as between carriers (fly boys or targets)
    vs submarines (squids or bubbleheads?).

    Has your PLA navy actually ever, you know, fought anyone, ever? Skulky submarines good at sowing skulky mines, maybe near CCP. Skulky, ah so!

    I’ll wait.

  53. “As if the friction between the brown shoes and the black shoes of old still isn’t a thing in the USN. Such as between carriers (fly boys or targets)
    vs submarines (squids or bubbleheads?). ”

    It’s hardly breaking news, as you say, Om. The point is that there’s even still a debate and that the Flyboys still run the show. That’s dysfunctional. Piloted fighters… a bit old hat soon. Piloted fighters flown off floating cities with giant targets painted on them… that’s very C20.

    You keep one or two for fleet reviews and impressing Tongans or something. No need a whole bunch.

    Doubtless the PLAN will learn some hard lessons should they get into a real fight. Learn the hard way. But it’s down to can anyone learn?

    Kind of hard to sink the East Asian Landmass, Om. Probably best to try luck elsewhere. That’s really all I’m saying.

  54. Z, another newsflash the USN has been working and deploying prototype pilotless aircraft already, they are called “drones.” You aren’t the only one thinking about these things; see arrogance and ignorance.

  55. The Z die-gest:

    Americans and especially the American military never learn or innovate; they can’t, they aren’t SuperHan.

  56. “…USS Gerald Ford…”
    Hmmm, whether justified or not, there’s got to be a joke there somewhere…(i.e., not just catapults).

    In any event, there may be some good—or even very good–news, depending on which side of the silk curtain one’s on, I guess (or if the report’s even believable):
    “Chinese Top Scientist working with Hypersonic Missiles Defects To The US”—
    https://sofrep.com/news/chinese-top-scientist-working-with-hypersonic-missiles-defects-to-the-us/

    If true—and if he’s legit(!)—it’s quite a way to kick off the new year!
    (In any event, it certainly looks like the Olympics is well under way.)

  58. Om: thanks for the clarification. So we still can build supercarriers, sort of. Good to know. Whether it makes sense to do so in this day and age is an open question, as is the maintenance issue. I check in on CDR Salamander’s blog occasionally, and just stopped by there this morning. He does not, in general, paint an encouraging picture of our naval readiness. And I don’t just mean the Rusty Ships Controversy from last fall (https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/drydocks-matter).

    Deco: “There are 14 posts on this thread from one person.” So don’t read them.

  59. Deco: “There are 14 posts on this thread from one person.” So don’t read them.

    I did not read them. The question is why he compulsively puts down so much verbiage. It’s not as if anything well-considered is ever uttered.

  60. You load 14 posts, and whaddya get?
    Another day older, and deeper in debt.
    St. Deco doncha call me, ’cause I can’t go.
    I owe my verbiage to the New Ne-o.

    Dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum.

    If you don’t know the tune, listen to Tennessee Ernie belt it out.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLVtJkpl_ug

  62. Actually there was one more post. I composed a (humility alert) very witty fortune cookie utterance just for Om… a masterpiece of allusive compression with so much to unpack… and that Big Bad Meanie Neo went and deleted it six million times.

    Ars Brevis Vita Longa.

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