sub_divided

My friend Chris’s personal growth project wherein he doesn’t listen to any song more than one time for the next 100 days. If I had the musical know-how to instantly appreciate each song the first time I heard it, and I didn’t think the “cure” was worse than the disease, and my memory wasn’t so terrible, I might try to do the same thing.  As it stands… yeah, interesting idea, but Imma have to pass.  Good luck Chris!  

norepeats:

A lot of great writing has been lavished in praise of music and how it speaks to our souls. A well played performance of Mozart’s Requiem or Jimi Hendrix has the ability to hold us prisoner, fixate us with total wonderfulness. We speak of the inherent beauty of music.

I’m talking about - everybody getting crunk, crunk

Boys trying to touch my junk, junk

Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk

Maybe not all music. I’m sure there are quite a few of us who, in the back of our minds, wonder why songs like this exist, or wonder if it would be possible to simply get rid of them.

After a lot of thought, I’ve decided: I don’t think so, and I have an explanation which involves some backstory.

P.S. This is the article I sent Chris about why dance music is so popular right now.

Five year old blog post, came up in a recent metafilter thread on exam villages in South Korea.  Some good stuff in the comments, but OMG, so much colonialist language. Take this sentence:  

“Few Korean lawyers are threatened by Uncle B, but the prospect of either “Koreatown Mike” or Chulsoo the yuhaksaeng calling themselves “lawyer” after US law school (Mike’s case) or, worse yet, some patty-cake nine-month LL.M./state bar exam combo (Chulsoo’s case) has them quite exercised.”

When I did my History thesis on the Philippine-American War (well, outlined it at least…) there was this same kind of slangy insider status display + dismissive slotting people into their place in the hierarchy thing going on. 

More things you can find out about people via how often they use pronouns.  

3 out of 4 for me.  I wanna point out, though, that clothes and personal care products *give you a competitive advantage* in the job market, especially if you are a woman.  We’ve been sloppy in the US for a long time I think, due to general prosperity. 

murketing:

3. Televisions Consumption: 287.4% since 2006 No, that’s not a misprint. The government adjusts for the size of the television, among other things, and the average size screen has soared since 2006. If we don’t adjust for size and other variables, Americans are spending 12.7% more on televisions today compared to 2006. Total personal consumption outlays on televisions, according to the BEA: About $40 billion, pretty much all imported. Do you really need an even bigger TV?

Interesting. So is the rest of his list of categories where consumer spending has gone up since 2006.

Also I must note that I mused about the possibility of measuring the aggregate square footage of American television sets in the Consumed Newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

This link via Marginal Revolution.

For posterity, they are: 

• Gelert Folding Shovel
• Aluminium Alloy Baseball Bat 30” 32” and 34” Sizes (34”)
• Cimac Telescopic Chrim Steel With Case Nunchaku (Colour : Chrome Plated)
• Highlander Glenderry Four Man Tent
• BB-1 baseball bat in aluminium
• Rucanor Aluminium Baseball Bat, Silver - 60 cm
• Pocket Shark
• Kubotan [Misc.]
• Metal Training Kubotan, Black
• Midwest Adult Slugger Wood Bat
• Bronx Baseball Bat & Ball Set
• Midwest American ash Wodden Ba
• Aresson Image Rounders Bat Green
• Bronx 32” Wooden Baseball Bat
• RDX Gel Weight lifting Fitness Training Gloves Gym White/Black
• Midwest Adult Aluminium Bat - Silver/Black, 34 inch
• Omron Walking Style Pro Pedometer
• Jansport SuperBreak Daypack / Super Break Daypack

Also, http://pitchfork.com/news/43474-sonypias-warehouse-burns-in-uk-riots/

You can predict how much two writers admire each other by how similarly they use “functional” words in their writing. Freud and Jung were on very good terms; Sylvia Plath’s writing style changed to match Ted Hughes’ more than the other way around.

Really cool paper, and you can read the whole thing if you click the link in the last paragraph.