Sunday, March 04, 2007
Why is this news
Ann Coulter made the following remarks about John Edwards:
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”Later adding:
“C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”Ann Coulter is not in the least bit politically correct or out of character. This isn't even that funny either. Consider, though, this line from the Edwards campaign:
“John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power,” said his campaign manager, David E. Bonior. “Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter’s resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion.”Here you have John Edwards, who lost his home state of North Carolina in 2004, asserting that he is the greatest threat to power to the Republican party. That is much funnier.
Labels: Other News Items, Politics
Friday, March 02, 2007
So many CDs it's Bach-Breaking
You can get the complete works of Bach at Amazon.com for $108 (HT: Marginalrevolution). This takes up 155 CDs. The product description does not reveal the complete runtime, so I will make some estimates.
Let's assume that each CD is filled to the brim - 80 minutes apiece. In that case, it's about 207 hours, which is over 8.5 days of continuous Bach. Suppose you listen to music only in the car on the way to work, and that you have a 30 minute commute each way. If you buy this set and get it when you return from work on March 2nd, you will not finish until two days after Christmas, December 27th.
It is much more likely that the average length of these CDs is closer to 72 minutes. If that is the case, then the total playing time reduces to 186 hours, and you will be done by November 27th.
Sticking with that 72 minute assumption, suppose then that you encode this into a 192kbps MP3 file (a slightly higher sound quality than the standard 128kbps). In that case, it will take up 16194.55 megabytes. The largest iPod currently available, at $332.49 on Amazon, has a capacity of 80000 megabytes, so it can hold this collection nearly five times over. For $100 less, you can get a 30000 megabyte iPod, but that's only enough for the complete works of Bach twice.
Let's assume that each CD is filled to the brim - 80 minutes apiece. In that case, it's about 207 hours, which is over 8.5 days of continuous Bach. Suppose you listen to music only in the car on the way to work, and that you have a 30 minute commute each way. If you buy this set and get it when you return from work on March 2nd, you will not finish until two days after Christmas, December 27th.
It is much more likely that the average length of these CDs is closer to 72 minutes. If that is the case, then the total playing time reduces to 186 hours, and you will be done by November 27th.
Sticking with that 72 minute assumption, suppose then that you encode this into a 192kbps MP3 file (a slightly higher sound quality than the standard 128kbps). In that case, it will take up 16194.55 megabytes. The largest iPod currently available, at $332.49 on Amazon, has a capacity of 80000 megabytes, so it can hold this collection nearly five times over. For $100 less, you can get a 30000 megabyte iPod, but that's only enough for the complete works of Bach twice.
Labels: Economic Stuff, Fantasy
