https://m. Link to video

@LuFins-Dad said in A question about singing.: @Doctor-Phibes said in A question about singing.: @LuFins-Dad said in A question about singing.: There’s no such thing as a beginner piano, but there are beginner saxophones/flutes/etc… I would not want my son to start on a Selmer Mark VI Alto Sax, for instance… when you are starting, you need something that will create a tone and pitch easily and is easier to control. Is that true, though? I learned to play on an old Selmer alto, the main reason for buying it was that it was cheap. When it was produced in the 1930's, it was a top-of-the-line instrument. I'm not sure I buy the idea of a pro-instrument being harder to play. My experience was the opposite. Cheap saxes generally aren't as in-tune. I thought the reason for student instruments is that they're cheap, and kids will not typically treat them particularly well. Also, they'll most likely not stick with it, so there's no point buying them a good instrument. It was the way I was taught… And what I was told in school…When I had Luke start, I had him use my Cannonball. Decent instrument. Not a Selmer Mark VI or even a Super Action, but decent. He was all over the place and couldn’t hold the pitch. He was discouraged. Went out and got him a Selmer AS500 and it was much better. But tye AS500 is a nice little horn… OK, I hadn't experienced that, but I believe you. As far as Mark VI's and SBA's go, my understanding is there's really great ones, but also not so good ones. The intonation can be questionable on the less good ones, since there's more variance due to the old-fashioned manufacturing techniques. My old Selmer Radio Improved sounded great, but the action left a lot to be desired - it was very loose. Maybe not the best choice to learn on, but back when I started you kind of got what you were given. I found the biggest difference when I tried out student horns for a kid I was teaching was in the way it resonated/sang - or rather didn't. They felt fine to play, but they sounded a bit muffled by comparison to a better sax.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night.....

@George-K

@jon-nyc said in Home island for sale: Ima wait until interest rates peak and see if I can’t pick it up for $199MM Yep, always better to pay cash.

It's funny how "democracy" has become the buzzword of the last 4-8 years. Basically, it boils down to, as Jon points out, "something I don't like is anti-democratic."

@Copper said in USMA at West Point under attack: This sort of thing shouldn't be approved. Just do it. Correct; always better to ask forgiveness than permission.

@George-K said in Victory Warnock: NRO: The case against run-off elections Two states, Georgia and Louisiana, use what political scientists call a two-round system in general elections. Under the system, if no candidate receives over half the votes cast in the first round, the election proceeds to a second round in which only the top two candidates from the first round are on the ballot. Proponents of this system extol its majoritarian virtues, highlighting the way it ensures that the victor’s win is legitimated by the support of an absolute majority of voters. Why did only Georgia and Louisiana adopt this system? Well, given these two states’ segregationist past, it should come as a surprise to no one that this originally was done to dilute the black vote, by requiring the winning candidate to receive a majority in a multi-candidate race in a place where African Americans are a minority of the voters. Of course, an institution’s racist origins aren’t necessarily an indictment of its modern-day legitimacy if it no longer exists to disenfranchise black people. But history aside, the two-round system is bad on the merits. For starters, the absolute majority that the runoff system yields is artificial. Ranked-choice-voting systems produce a victor with an absolute majority that reflects the entirety of the candidate field in much less time and at a lower cost. That’s not to say that ranked-choice is perfect. It has its fair share of problems, but it’s superior to the two-round system. The runoff system also carries its own set of assumptions. Why is a candidate’s election through a runoff inherently more legitimate than a win through plurality-voting systems such as first-past-the-post? A candidate who beats out all the other candidates in a field is worthy of elected office, irrespective of whether he made it past an arbitrary threshold. Proponents of runoffs have failed to explain why 50 percent is the magic number that engenders legitimacy. Who’s to say it’s not 66 percent, 75 percent, or 100 percent, for that matter? And perhaps most dubiously, supporters of runoff systems rest on the assumption that elected officials must always be the choice of a majority of voters. Why is that the case? This mobocratic approach to politics is precisely what Edmund Burke and the Framers of the Constitution rejected. Majority support isn’t the only path to political legitimacy. Nothing improper occurs if a candidate gets elected through a simple plurality. This is just democracy at work. First-past-the-post is easier for a politically unengaged electorate to understand and can be processed more seamlessly than preferential-voting systems, good qualities to have at a time when the counting of ballots has become politicized. Republicans control Georgia’s state government and have already made other positive changes to the electoral system. Why not ditch this racist rel They're incorrect. Blacks represent a large percentage of Louisiana voters. They can, and do, swing elections by bloc voting. Their political power is not diluted.

It's interesting watching Elon talk about this for an extended period of time. For those interested in the tech the whole video is worth the 15 minutes.

One of the comments to the Forbes article: "Seeing situations from various perspectives brings greater love and under standing. Then all benefit from the realizations that occur. Life should be about win win for everyone and through hard work and consistent effort great things are achieved. Elon is a great and magnanimous person who has a lot of love for humanity a great and loving man. There needs to be a shift in the way he is viewed to much more positive he is a great leader and a great light. I pray for his protection that he be surrounded by a bubble of divine protection and love always." . . She could easily be talking about Chairman Mao!

Last week was in the 30s, 40s, with the right clothing, is tolerable. My wife is negative for Covid, so I'll give it a try in the morning, slow and easy.

Nothing from Thailand would help in the slightest. Quite the opposite.

@Copper said in The UK Invasion?: @Renauda said in The UK Invasion?: how a person perceives what is reasonable. For example, 4 unsayable, followed by 4 sayable That Donald Trump is not such a bad guy sometimes No problem and I am sure his wife and grand kids think the same Having a few guns in your closet shouldn't bother anyone Again, no problem so long as they are safely stored. Abortion is violence against women And I would say it is really no one’s and especially not the government’s damned business whether a woman wants an abortion or not. Immigrants want to follow the immigration rules Absolutely they should. The law is the law. 5-year-olds should explore their gender preference I cannot see any reason why they should or have need to explore anything other than their immediate surroundings. So the answer is no. Shoplifting should be legal No. Let's eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities I don’t believe Blacks as being oppressed. But then I don’t believe aboriginals are being oppressed either. I do wish though some white and black male Gentiles would stop playing the victim. Defund the police Nonsense, police budgets should be increased.

Letterman’s more recent stuff that I’ve seen has been really good entertainment. Typically he knows the person already, or at least gives that impression. I’ll need to give this a look.

I don't know that I agree we were lied to, at least not intentionally. Authorities were mistaken at times, but that was at a time where no one knew much of anything. I do believe the imposition of vaccines was way, way too heavy-handed.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how teapots are mass produced in a factory. Link to video In a mass production factory, it looks to me the way a tea cup is initially made into shape is very similar to how the solo teapot maker initially makes a teapot into shape, but the way the factory initially makes the teapot into shape is markedly different — it looks more like a n injection mold sort of process. (The teapot part starts at the 4:35 mark in the video.)