Rants and Irritations

Amazon Irritation A4

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Why oh why does my Amazon search for A4 paper return lots of entries for US Letter sized paper?
Yes, there’s some A4 listings mixed in. But for what’s sake, if I wanted US Letter I’d look for it.

There are times when a suggestion for similar product is welcome. A case like this, when searching for a niche item and being offered the normal, is not one of them.

Play well with others

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The iPhones of 2016 and Google Pixel phones of 2018 do not have a headphone jack. Boo! Hiss!

In 2001 or so, this type of headphone jack saved me. Read on:

In Praise of Standards

I’m going to convert some cassette tapes and vinyl albums I have into digital format.

Any warnings or recommendations from someone who has been there and done it? The software I’m going to try first is referenced in Linux Music And Sound. (a good book then, it’s now out of print and out of date.) I still need to find out what the differences between “line in” and “microphone in” are and what the differences (besides stated device attachment) are between the two outputs.

Part of the motivation for this was a compilation tape sent to me by a friend. My ghetto blaster now has non-functional (ok, broken) speakers and it is the only cassette deck in the house. Before going to my car and driving around to listen to the tape I decided to try and pipe from the blaster into my PC and out. It worked. It worked even though I was using a computer sound system with components manufactured in 2000, a ghetto blaster from ~1983 and a stereo receiver/amplifier from the mid-70s. Here’s the whole
flow:

Tape from friend -> ghetto blaster -> line in on SB128PCI card -> mixing software on PC -> 70s era receiver -> speakers -> ears -> enjoyment.

All the connecting wiring was done with mini din plugs. Without the standards in the audio world, I would have never been able to plug it all together and have it work. With the standards, I was able to link together physical devices that shared nothing except a common interface, the mini din stereo jack.

PCs were unknown when the receiver was designed and built and not yet a consumer item when the ghetto blaster was built. When the PC was built they certainly weren’t thinking about compatibility with 25-year-old consumer analog audio equipment. It still worked. And worked well.

FootNote: It has been pointed out that they are no longer called ghetto blasters. That may be, but when this twin cassette desk, 4 band radio, amp, equalizer, and speakers were manufactured they were called ghetto blasters. I feel that using the slang for the box from the time it was made is fitting.

 

GOP Replacement Plan

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Think of our ACA health care system as a bridge. It enables people to travel from the mainland of life to the island of health care.

For seven years the GOP has criticized the ACA bridge. “It costs too much to maintain. It doesn’t do this or that. We will replace with an improved bridge.”

In the seven years they did not engineer a stronger replacement. They did not gather supplies to build a replacement. What they did do, incessantly, was criticize the existing, working bridge that millions depend on. In the form of Graham-Cassidy they will vote on removing the bridge people are using. They do so with no plans or materials for a replacement bridge. Millions will lose this lifeline of a benefit.

They will do this because they’ve been saying they will for seven years and somehow feel they must. It is more important to the GOP to win a vote than to continue protecting millions of Americans. It is more important to them to tear down a working bridge. They had years to prepare an improvement. Now all they have for a replacement is making a point about political power.

Making that point will certainly lead to the deaths of thousands and impoverish millions as the bridge they depend on is demolished.