Weiner and the News Cycle
“And maybe if the Internet didn’t exist? Like, if I was running in 1955? I’d probably get elected mayor.” – Anthony Weiner
An interesting statement that’s not as simple as it seems. On the face of it it appear that Weiner is blaming the internet for his lack of self control in using it. This sounds childish (and it is) but what he’s really saying here makes sense.
We all have urges and how we handle our urges defines us as human beings. When one is put in the public eye the way they handle their urges is put under a microscope. Is this fair? Not necessarily. But in Weiners case, as a politician who put himself in the public eye, he must take the good with the bad. The good is whatever came with having political power. The bad is that he could have no personal life because the public was always watching.
Unfortunately for Weiner the public didn’t have to look too hard to find something to criticize him on. He handled his urges publicly on Twitter.
But what if it was 1955 and there was no internet? Would Weiner have fallen the way he did?
We’ve had government officials who have done much worse than Weiner and gotten away with it. Keeping this in mind to be naive enough to believe that Weiner’s Twitter stupidity was the only thing happening in Weiner’s case would be silly. Weiner was a Congressman who was still rising at the point of his faux pas. There obviously were people gunning for him and he gave them what they needed when he stepped into a sex scandal, which may be the hardest thing for anyone in the public eye to overcome.
But getting back to the point, it’s not the internet that’s to blame for Weiner’s downfall. It’s the faster news cycle that comes with it. Taking this point further is that the internet actually feeds the stories to reporters. Weiner is just one example of this.
If it were 1955 Weiner’s sexual proclivities would have been easier to cover. The slower news cycle meant people and their handlers could do more damage control of a story before it went public, usually with the next day’s newspaper. Weiner did not have that advantage.
One correction I’d like to make to Weiner’s statement is that if this were 1955 he would probably still be a Congressman.
Comments to this post
Shipping Ships
This is the best tweet I’ve seen in a while:
This is a ship-shipping ship, shipping shipping ships. pic.twitter.com/T8aCvyDJ80
— Usman Masood (@usmanm) October 10, 2013
Comments to this post
My iOS7 Annoyances
Last week I upgraded my iPhone 4s to iOS7 and am mostly satisfied with the new version of Apple’s mobile operating system. But I wouldn’t be me if I weren’t annoyed by some of what I’ve seen.
Here are a few of my issues:
- Notification Center has been upgraded to be 3 screens rather than 1. The first screen is called Today and features Calender, Weather and Stocks. The second page is called All and it displays all of your app notifications. The third tab is called Missed and it shows you all of the notifications you have not yet acted on in reverse chronological order.
The Today page is actually quite useful but has a major flaw. When it shows your schedule it displays only the next 6 hours from your calendar in Calendar view. This actually only gives you part of your day and shows your appointments interspersed with open time. This takes up too much space on the screen and limits it’s usability. More helpful would be a List view similar to the iOS6 Notification Center that shows the time and description of all your appointments for today. If it’s late in the day or you only have a couple of items in your schedule for the day then maybe it could show tomorrow’s appointments too.
But my annoyance here is actually something tangential to this. Not only does it not display in List view but List view isn’t even an option. I can understand a default view but at least give me the option to change it.
- While on the subject of calendars, the Calendar app has an annoyance as well. It too defaults to Calendar view but gone is the toggle to switch from Calendar to List view. On first glance it seems like List view was removed altogether. But it’s not. If you tap the search icon you are suddenly in List view with a search field at the top of the screen. A better user experience would be to have the toggle and have the search field visible at all times. Or, if the search field would clutter the screen too much, have the toggle with the search button and when the user taps to search push the screen down.
- iOS7 introduces a new feature called Control Center. With a simple swipe up from the bottom of the screen you can pull up a subset of settings such as turning on and off WiFi & Bluetooth and setting the screen brightness. Control Center also displays a mini player, so you can see what audio is playing and control progress, as well as icons for four apps (Flashlight, Timer, Calculator and Camera).
Control Center is actually a really great feature and I use it regularly for turning on and off Airplane Mode, WiFi and Bluetooth, as needed, and controlling the music that’s playing. But I hardly ever use the Flashlight, Timer and Calculator features. Unfortunately I can’t customize this area of Control Center. In fact, I can’t customize Control Center at all.
- Unlike previous versions of iOS on the iPhone, iOS7 has a separate app for Facetime. (Previously it was a accessed through Contacts.) This is a nice touch that makes it easier to use Facetime. However, when you launch the Facetime app you see an odd background. Examining it closely reveals that it’s an out of focus picture from your front facing camera (the one you use when in an active Facetime call). Why would they design this app, part of an operating system that is known to be a battery drain, to use a camera, which uses quite a bit of battery power, for a background? Especially since a static background would work better because it wouldn’t distract you from the foreground.
- App updates have changed in a couple of ways. The first is the ability to set apps to update automatically. I don’t like this feature but am not annoyed by it because I can see how it can be useful to many people. It’s the second way app updates have changed that annoys me.
In iOS6 and earlier when you would tap “Update All” to update several apps the system would limit the updates such that no more than 2 apps were updating at a any time. But updating all the apps at the same time causes the phone to freeze as several apps battle for the resources needed to update themselves.
Comments to this post
How To Rip Tapes To MP3
I was going through some old things at my mother’s house recently when I came across a couple of old audio cassette tapes from my brother’s old band circa 1988 & 1989. I was glad to have found them and decided I should rip them to MP3s so I can listen to the tracks on my phone from anywhere until the novelty wore off. But before I could I had to figure out exactly how. With minimal help I was able to work it out. Here’s how.
The first step was to connect my tape deck to the line-in jack on my computer. This necessitated an RCA to mini jack converter cable which I actually had already. Alternatively there are newer tape decks made with a USB connector.
Next I fired up Audacity. Audacity is a must have for the amateur audio editor. There are versions for Windows, Mac and Linux. To actually capture the audio to the computer you’ll need to play the tape from the deck and record it in Audacity. The Devices screen in Preferences allows you to point Audacity to your tape deck so it can ‘hear’ what’s playing on it.
To record the audio in Audacity press play on the tape deck while the pause button is engaged. Click the record button in Audacity then release the pause button on the tape deck. Let the whole side of the tape record then press stop in Audacity. You may want to try a couple of test recordings of smaller audio clips from your cassette to be sure things are working ok before recording the whole side of the tape. Also remember to set any noise reduction and tape type settings on your tape deck that may be needed to get the best playback for the type of cassette tape you’re playing.
Once recording is complete you’ll want to maximize the volume of the recording. Just as in the old analog days it is possible to raise the volume to the point where the recording gets distorted. Luckily Audacity includes a tool that automatically sets the volume level to the highest setting possible without the audio distorting. To use it select the whole recording (CTRL-A in Windows) then go to the Effects menu and click Amplify. The highest setting is selected by default so all you need to do here is click the OK button.
The next step it to mark where the tracks begin and delete the slack silence at the end of the recording (if any). Click the location in the Audacity window where the first track begins. Now go to the Tracks menu and select Add Label at Selection. Enter the track number and click OK. Repeat this for all the tracks in the recording. When you’ve labeled all the tracks click after the last track and drag the cursor over the remainder of the audio track. Then hit the delete key to remove this extraneous silence.
Finally we’re ready to export the audio. Go to Export Multiple from the File menu. Select MP3 from the Export Format drop down and select a target location to save your MP3s. (It may be necessary to install the LAME DLL to save to MP3. Audacity will instruct you how to do this if you need it.) For each of the tracks enter the appropriate data for each tag. Once you’ve entered all the data the export will begin and you’ll end up with MP3s with filenames of the track number (1.mp3, 2.mp3, etc.).
It’s important to remember that your final MP3 will sound no better than the source tape. This is how I ended up with MP3s that include the old hiss you get on audio tape.
Comments to this post
Writing More
I’ve resolved recently to begin writing more again. I find writing to be very helpful. In addition to being a small respite in an otherwise busy day I enjoy translating an idea in my mind into words. To that end I’ve resolved to write daily. This doesn’t mean that I will publish a blog post every day. It just means sitting down and writing. It could be something new or working on something I’ve already started. The idea is to make a little time in every day to escape even if it’s only for a few minutes. Maybe it will lead to some more posts on this blog. We’ll see how it goes.
Comments to this post