Reader Tips

Reader Tips 31 Comments
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio.  Tonight, for your delectation, here are Saxton Rose & the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart‘s Concerto for Bassoon, II, III in 2007 (16:40). I was never before seen a Bassoon do like this.

NB: Please pick the Continue Reading link for an important
administrivia note about Small Dead Animals’ Reader Tips.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

The matter of the nature of Reader Tips and of my role at Small Dead Animals has come up again recently. (Since I perform a formal diurnal function here, I sometimes attract unnecessary attention, and I think that needs to be addressed from time to time.) Having discussed this further with Kate earlier today, I’d like to add this meta-entry tonight, for the record.

Historically speaking, and as we have discussed before, the principal purpose of Reader Tips is to provide a place for folks to post items that they think are important, but which would be off-topic if they were posted in any other entry (where there already is an on-going topic). This basic purpose continues to provide, to this day, the foundation upon which the Reader Tips entry is managed.

Also, historically, when I accepted this Reader Tips (Late Nite Radio) gig here at SDA, almost two years and circa 700 shows ago (as you may recall, Kate held a poll), you folks voted that Vitruvius should undertake this job (based on my previous performance as an amateur hereto). I had twice in the six months ante-dating said poll declined this job on the grounds that I didn’t think that LNR is that important and that I did think that it would distract from more important SDA matters. And I still think that, even as I enjoy producing LNR. (Humans are complex devices ~ apparently we benefit from both sides in the balance, including a little “canteen” time from time to time.)

So: what is this job that I’m supposed to be doing? I can’t say that I’m entirely sure, yet I do think that it has some interesting characteristics. Reader Tips, I would argue, is not like other entries at SDA, in the sense that there is no particular central topic. This implies that if we go off on multiple concurrent extended debates, then the admixture of those disrelated comment threads will make the whole exercise largely incomprehensible, because there’s no sense of ground on which to sort out the threads, and then there’s no way to pull back either, because there’s no there to pull back to. (We’ve seen this sort of phenomenon before, going back to the NNTP over UUCP days, in the second half of the ’80s, when I moderated a news group and ran a couple o’ mailing lists.)

But, and this is a big but: if the signals from the “real” readers’ tips comments become lost in the noise from generic chatter in the Reader Tips entry, then said tips commenters might just as well go back to posting their (what would be off-topic) comments in other entries, where at least they would get some attention by virtue of being off-topic. And that would then entirely defeat the whole reason for the existence of Reader Tips in the first place!

What’s a “real” reader’s tip? Well, it’s not just an opinion, is it? “I don’t like eating grass” isn’t a reader’s tip. But seriously, I think that for a conservative blog like SDA, we should be responsible about it: if one wants to provide a tip to the readers of SDA, then I think that one should put in the effort to do it well: provide a link to your source and/or to further information if possible, and provide an explanation as to why people might be interested in what’s at the other end of that link. It is, in my opinion, the height of rudeness to expect everyone else to do your work for you simply because you are too lazy to do so yourself.

And, of course, once we have such reader tips, it would be a bit brusque, I think, to not allow any comments on them at all. It’s only the multiple current discussions problem that I worry about, and so a comment or two per person, up to a reasonable limit per tip (of which the Late Nite Radio show is simply the seed tip) is not a problem (within the scope of the other provisos shown in cyan after the words “Post a Comment” near the end of this page).

So, the way I see it, this Reader Tips (Late Nite Radio) canteen, pub, club, service, genre, shtick, or whatever it is, requires a more conservative deployment environment than does a general one-topic entry, given the constraints Kate has placed on “chatting” here, and considered in terms of the cross-product of multiple concurrent conversations delivered via a non-threaded user interface. That’s why I would argue that this Reader Tips context requires its own particular management, and that’s what I’m doing when I occasionally question or limit some comments here. I’m not saying that I always hit my mark; I’m saying that’s what I’m trying to do.

Anyway, thanks for puttin’ up with me, and for tryin’
to help make Small Dead Animals’ Reader Tips work.

31 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Noted investor Jeremy Grantham makes some important points in his speech to the Graham and Dodd society. You can read the full thing at:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/article/jeremy-grantham-playing-fire-possible-race-old-highs
    In it, he actually praises Keynes, and shows how Keynes’ views often mirror those of Graham and Dodd, whose book Security Analysis is often considered the Bible of value investors. And he points out in particular that Keynes mentions the value of ‘animal spirits’ to investing – that Graham and Dodd would never have invested in, say, an Apple or a Google IPO because of the uncertainty of their future earnings.
    Which is why I think the Tory stimulus was important. Others have pointed out, rightly, that an $80 billion stimulus over two years is peanuts in a $1.2 trillion economy, but its value to keeping Canadians’ ‘animal spirits’ alive is difficult to calculate. At some point, new jobs depend on people willing to risk their capital and their sweat on something new and untried. In an atmosphere of fear, caution, and timidity, access to risk capital becomes exponentially more difficult to obtain. How do you put a price on “hope”?

  2. “Anyway, thanks for puttin’ up with me, and for tryin’ to help make Small Dead Animals’ Reader Tips work.”
    Posted by Vitruvius at April 26, 2010 12:01 AM
    Very helpful post Vitruvius – a bit of ‘reminder housekeeping’ helps newcomers and to the point for some of us wayward oldtimers who forget their manners and stray from the format.
    SDA is successful as it is, if “ain’t broke” don’t fix it by changing anything.
    Stay the course, I suspect, Kate would agree.

  3. Stalin in Russia is coming back as a hero. So I guess the farther in time you go, the less of a monster you become. Particularly when Liberals believe you are special, & must be rehabilitated. Even if your a psycho killer like Che Gavra.
    I figure in 70 years Manson will be portrayed as misunderstood.
    “Rehabbing” Dr. Death: HBO’s Revisionist History of Jack Kevorkian
    By Debbie Schlussel
    http://www.debbieschlussel.com/

  4. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ottawa-tells-energy-firms-to-start-powering-down-coal-fired-plants/article1546314/
    Environment Minister Jim Prentice has told Canada’s major electricity producers that they’ll have to gradually retire their coal-fired plants and replace them with cleaner sources of power – a plan that would be a boon to natural gas producers.
    As the U.S. Senate struggles to deal with climate legislation, Mr. Prentice met with power company chief executives in Ottawa last week and made it clear the government intends to highlight Canada’s relative advantage in clean electricity compared to U.S. reliance on coal.

  6. That’s a beautiful performance of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto. I watched all three movements.
    Say, Vitruvius, a couple of weeks ago you had Yevgeny Kissin play Rachmaninov’s prelude in g as an encore in an enormous concert hall.
    I’ve been trying to find out where it was, but with no success. Do you happen to know?
    Thanks.

  9. KevinB – there has never actually been an “open thread” tradition at SDA. Some of the threads get carried away, mostly because I have a life and work to fit in between babysitting comments.
    But I don’t encourage it because comments can bog down server responses, which is why the reminder exists at the top of the form.

  12. Vitruvius, some of us (well, me anyway) don’t know how to “post” sites of interest but can only vaguely articulate what we think might be interesting; and on that point, just this one last time, did you say you are an amateur hereto? Or was that a typo?

  13. OK, let’s see if I’ve got this right. I have two tips, they’re both about music, and readers can either look them up for themselves or (better) Vitruvius might offer them for our delectation.
    The first tip is Josef Petric. He is a truly fine musician, and (believe it) his instrument is the accordion. A surprise, and a treat. And he’s Canadian.
    Tip number two: when was the last time you listened to Larry Adler? George Gershwin heard Adler play the “Rhapsody in Blue” at a party, and was so impressed that he gave him the song. Play any time, anywhere, no fee. Wow!
    Added note: Adler was a pure ear player until his 30s, when he finally learned to read music.
    Give yourselves a treat with these two.

  14. Thursday, Apr. 22, Globe and Mail.
    “We must wipe out polio”. Link:
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/andre-picard/wiping-out-polio-we-can-and-must/article1543067/
    Maybe the environmentalists can tell us: Why is it a horrible catastrophe if the spotted owl or the snail darter disappears, but it’s imperative to wipe out polio, or smallpox (as was already done)?
    Technically, they’re all living biological species and the eradication of any of them may or may not adversely affect the ecology.

  16. larben: ” … some of us … don’t know how to ‘post’ sites of interest …”
    Here’s how you do it. I didn’t used to know how, either. Some of our collective ineptitude has to do with being computer/Internet challenged.
    Google the topic you’re posting on. For instance, for the Star taking over the National Post, I Googled “TorStar, National Post,” and, voila, up came a whole host of sites to click on. Once I’d found a good article on it (at the Globe and Mail), I cut the site “address” (beginning with the http:// in the upper left hand side, taking up most of the upper column of the page) and pasted it in my SDA comment.
    That’s all there is to it.
    Thanks for your clarification, Vitruvius. I know your gig isn’t the easiest!

  17. Al Gore’s Weather (AGW): It’s Ted’s seat; not mine.
    Ah love tea.
    …-
    Gore associate said to be named in brewing ethics scandal
    “You’re going to see the first ethics scandal in the Obama administration. We’ve got our hands on some internal
    documents revealing a serious conflict of interest at a very high level on these green jobs and stimulus and the
    policies that Carol Browner was talking about. It isn’t Ms. Browner, but it is someone tied to Al Gore.”
    The source of this information is Mark Gillar’s radio program, here
    Chris Horner advises that a story will appear Monday morning, and that he has documentation of the issue. When available, a summary and link will appear at WUWT.”
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/gore-associate-said-to-be-named-in-brewing-ethics-scandal/

  19. Thanks, Vitruvius, for the link to the Kissin encore. What I wanted to know was where it was played. The concert hall seemed to be an enormous stadium or something. In the comments someone mentioned that Kissin “brought the house down” and someone else remarked that it was “some house.” So I looked at it again but there was no mention where the concert was held. I wondered if you knew.
    [ Ah, understood. Alas, sorry, I do not know. ~Vitruvius ]

  20. Jonah Goldberg, What Kind of Socialist Is Barack Obama?
    Given his conduct and rhetoric as president, we have every reason to reopen the question from 2008 and ask, quite simply, What kind of socialist is Barack Obama?…
    But is it correct, as an objective matter, to call Obama’s agenda “socialist”? That depends on what one means by socialism….

  21. Thanks ever so much batb, I will work on that, I may not succeed but I will try. I think I was born before the transistor and when Bakelite was the only plastic known to the average family (bread came in waxed paper sealed by heat at the ends). My ideas on life and morality (and music, so-called popular culture) are pretty ancient also as may have been noticed here now and again.

  22. Indonesia hosts world’s biggest geothermal energy forum
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8643326.stm
    “The Lusi crater has been oozing enough mud to fill 50 Olympic size swimming pools every day”
    plus: “the drilling nearby had a number of drilling accidents and a major flow of water out of the well just a day and a half before Lusi started to errupt and we can now see there’s clear evidence linking the well to the mud flow.”
    http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201002/s2824030.htm
    Four years on a mud eruption with another 10 years expected – is it just me that believes global warming solutions are going to destroy the planet?

  23. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/liberals-outline-national-food-policy/article1546864/
    “As for farms, the Liberal program pledges to improve fertilizer and pesticide management and other measures to help farmers. ”
    Good idea because farmers have absolutely no idea how to manage that stuff. They need to get in contact with the liberal party of canada. Maybe we could also have a program where the liberals directly manage each farm.

  27. A new website with a focus on Venezuela has arrived in the past few weeks, his posts have been well written and with the research done to support the views he has published.
    … and some good reportage regarding the ongoing water / electrical / oil refining crisis there.
    http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/
    In the last photo of yesterdays post, “Cashier, with laptop that puts customers’ names on their receipts based on their state ID numbers. We lined up another five minutes to pay. We paid another exhausted-looking employee, after giving my friend’s state ID number. She said she knows people who are nervous about what they are going to do with those ID numbers. I couldn’t stop looking at the cashier. She saw me with my camera, and it was like she couldn’t be bothered to tell me not to take a picture, couldn’t be bothered to smile, couldn’t be bothered to do much of anything. Reminded me of the depressing feeling I got at most establishments in Cuba.
    Chavéz and Samán hoped to use the Arepera Socialista to teach the public the benefits of socialism. I think the lesson it’s teaching is more complex.”

  30. “Meet the Lobbyists”, aka “our industry”.
    Notice the grand euphemism:
    “Government Relations Institute of Canada”.
    What a load of tihs.
    “Is he giving our industry a bad name? Absolutely,” says Charles King, president of the Government Relations Institute of Canada’
    LibIffy says, Moi-I am not now; nor, have I-Moi ever been a member of the “Meet the Lobbyists” party.
    Q: Who “he”?
    Betcha it’s the Muslim non-lobbyist.
    The lobbyists and the IffyLiberals are discriminating ‘gainst Muslims. tsktsktsk …
    …-
    “Jaffer gets the cold shoulder from lobbyists”
    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/04/26/13728061-cp.html
    http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/04/26/and-a-fresh-organic-carrot-in-every-pot/#comment-80637

  31. Red-Green’s vs the dog?
    …-
    “Environmentalists’ fury at global watchdog’s call to legalise whaling
    Environmentalists have reacted with fury today after the International Whaling Commission proposed allowing the first legal commercial whale hunts in 25 years. The move would end an outright ban that had many exceptions.
    Japan, Norway and Iceland continued whaling under those exceptions. The proposal released late last night would replace the ban with strict quotas and would let the group strictly monitor all whaling.
    The proposal is an attempted compromise between whaling nations and others such as the U.S. and Australia, which have long been staunchly opposed to whaling.
    But it will not please environmentalists, who have already criticised the proposal.
    They say it could lead to an eventual return to the large-scale whaling of the past, which devastated many species.(sic)”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2501069/posts

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation