Our politicians (all politicians) need a reality check.
Admittedly the issue is based in a lack of critical (reality based) thinking. Americans especially are teetering at the brink of a decline in science-educated and hence, rational people. But our entertainment and, indeed, our culture seem to be glorifying the stupid.
So it is, that when something outrageous, and exceedingly rare, occurs we are mollified by the posturing of our politicians that they appear to be “doing something” even when that “something” is either completely irrelevant to the issue or worse, layering yet another set of restrictions on our lives.
I was reading this article this morning that was instigated by an unfortunate incident where a man was hit by, wait for it, a helicopter while fetching his mail. The actual issue was the “danger” posed by listening to loud music what what needed to be “done about it”.
I’ll tell you what needs to be done. Nothing. People get preoccupied, people close their eyes, people look the wrong way sometimes and they get hurt. Ah well.. life’s lessons. If listening to loud music, and reducing or eliminating ambient sounds is a danger, then I suppose we’d better get all over those deaf folks walking around obviously in mortal danger every waking moment of their lives…
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Living in the sunny south where GOOD music is the norm, (and let’s face it, country, western and gospel music are not played that loud) I don’t think you apreciate the magnitude of this problem. Here is another example just this week:
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2008/05/17/5594956-sun.html
2 in one week in canada. If the US had the same problem, with 10 times the population, that would be 1000 deaths a year.
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With all these ‘ipod-deaths’, my current depression and suicidal tendencies, I deceided on Friday to join the 90’s and got my first mp3-player. A Sandisk Sansa e260 with 4Gig. I was going to get the ‘cheapest thing’ when I went in the store, but this was only 50 bucks and looked ‘cool’, so I took the plunge.
Unfortuenatly, unless when I read the manual I find I’m doing something very stupid, I’ll have to take it back. The fron dial will light up, but the screen remains completely black.
hmmmm… I do take issue with the mother’s assessment about how “if he didn’t have that iPod on he could h ave gotten out of the way”. I figure, if you’re drunk enough to be sleeping on railway tracks, not much can help you….
I think the legeslators will have to hop right on this one and outlaw… let’s see…. Maybe 33 year olds who live with their mom who’d rather get drunk than go home?
Vis-a-Vis the MP3 player. Yes, there are plenty of good ones out there I’m sure. But it just seems to me that so many of them are playing “wannabe” or catch-up with the iPod. I absolutely LOVE mine. It just… well… works as I expect it to. I listen to it when I work out, when I commute and when I shower in the morning and it is simple and reliable.
If you can afford it – the premium is a *little* steep, you will NOT regret it and you’ll have the gold standard in your hand.
I think the law should require drunks to stay were they are once drunk until they sober up. If that is at a neighbours house, they just got an overnight guest. If it’s in a bar/restaurant, they have to keep the drunk. If drinking at home, then the drunk will have to get sober on occasion, just to get out of the house to load up on more booze.
Well, I was just looking for a cheap one to start. This 4 gig one says it will hold 1000 songs. Well I have 1000 ALBUMS (give or take), and while growing more slowly then 20 years ago, it is still growing.
*Generally*, I think the law needs to get out of our hair.
Quoting Churchill: “If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.”.
I think we exceeded his off-handed number quite some time ago. Now, there are so many laws governing every aspect of our lives that we cannot possibly know them all or even know if they apply. The best that a cautious person can do is to try to keep off of a vindictive bureaucrat’s radar because there is always some law, ordinance, charter or whatever that any one of us is surely always violating at this very minute.
Drunk laws don’t serve much purpose save to assign blame after the fact, and often unfairly. They often demand that one free citizen exercise control over another free citizen in the absence of objective proof of intoxication (barkeeps need to stop serving, homeowners need to grab the car keys of inebriated guests). The onus being on either that third party or the drunk themselves, who by definition is no longer capable of rational decision-making. I suppose we need the codified ability to assign blame, but the only laws I agree with are those that place responsibility for the decision to become drunk – and any ensuing repercussions – in the lap of the drunk themselves.
Basically just discard the volumes and volumes of legal crap and replace it with “You are responsible for your own actions.”.
Yeah, I know I’m being Naive, but harkening back to the original premise of this post, I believe an awful lot of the junk law out there is premised on dealing with rare, inconsequential or irrelevant issues that are pet peeves of people who either have a very distorted view of the import of the issue at hand or just like to exercise control over others.
With respect to MP3 players – I’ve got a 30 Gbyte iPod. I could have chosen the 80 Gbyte version but I knew I would not need that much storage across the lifetime of this device. In that space I am able to hold EVERY song that I know I like plus assorted TV shows (I’m making my way through “The 4400” by viewing it on my iPod during down times), Audio Books and MANY podcasts that are updated daily.
Do you *really* like EVERY song in your Album collection? When I started ripping my collection into MP3 format I consciously evaluated the songs and only pulled in the ones I liked. If I was so-so or didn’t care I didn’t bother. When I had less time I would rip an entire album and then evaluate the songs when I was listening later – I just gave them a rating that I would later key on and delete.
80 Gbytes – at the typical storage rate of 1 Mbyte / Minute of play time gives you 80,000 minutes of potential audio-only storage. Assuming a very generous 5 minutes per song and 15 songs per album that should give you a capacity of 1,067 albums assuming you like / keep every single song.
If you don’t feel the need to carry your entire collection at all times, you can still rip the songs and store them on your PC and maintain only your current whim of favorites on the handheld unit at any time. iTunes allows you to do this very nicely BTW.