I've been slowly putting my collection of vinyl into the computer, and found the best program to do it so far. I have an ION USB turntable, so the turntable goes straight into the computer, no issues there. Not the best turntable, but certainly good enough. I had been using Audacity, but it seems to really run the CPU even when it's recording. Don't know if it's a PPC issue, or just the program in general. I like the click/pop filter it has, and the MP3 encoding with LAME. I tried doing the recording with Final Vinyl, which works well enough to just record, but is a bit too simplistic.

So I just started using VinylStudio, and it's great. Interface isn't totally Mac, but it makes sense from a process standpoint, and works great - especially since this is the first Mac version (v7) of a longtime Windows program. It's worth the $30 registration for making the process that much easier - the automation of getting and inputting MP3 tags is a huge help and the biggest thing missing in my other methods. Audacity helps a bit with that, by at least remembering the tag info within the same recording, but it still requires manual input, and if you record in different sections you have to type it all in over again (yes, you can save the info and reload it, but it's a cumbersome process).

• Beach House - Teen Dream
  
  • Great dreamy lazy melodic pop - perfect for the Pet Sounds (or Animal Collective) lover in you. The more I listen to this, the more I love it.
• Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
  • More melodic dreamy psychedelic (not my favorite normally, but love it here) pop from the Brooklyn folks. Modern with a good beat, and beautiful layering. (check out a sweet video of theirs Brothersport - how much fun must the filmshoot have been for those kids!)
• Flaming Lips - Dark Side of the Moon
  • Great re-do of a super classic album. WIth White Dwarves, Stardeath. Vocals by Henry Rollins and Peaches!
•  Pajo - Scream With Me
  • The cover art looks like it would be dark and noisy, but the music is lo-fi and folkish, although the lyrics are dark. Sounds good so far. Hadn't heard of him before, but looks like he's been around - Slint, Royal Trux, Billy Corgan/Zwan, Tortoise...

In a great blog post for the NYTimes, Stanley Fish tries to tease out the basic idea behind the two sides in the Supreme Court decision on whether restricting corporate (that is, non-individual) campaign spending is contrary to the first amendment. I fall into the ‘consequentialist’ camp that he names – that there is a reality to things, and ideological opinions, while nice in discussion, do not fit the messiness that is the campaign process.

I am always amazed that this country has a guiding document that is still so relevant, and can still be looked to and quoted for major issues of the day. The constitution is great – but it is not perfect. And the world is a different place today than it was 230+ years ago (see for instance the continuing fight over the 2nd amendment). It seems pretty well accepted that financial markets, along with most other ‘markets’ of ideas and commerce in general, do not function fairly without regulation. The ideal world of a self-regulating market never happens in practice, because information does not flow freely and instantaneously, and large players can quickly game things in their favor.

I think that this well applies to the market of ideas and speech that constitute political campaigns. I know that the corporation is considered a person legally, but in reality the corporation and the individual are not equal. Very few people have the resources that corporations have – not just money, but people, market reach, and the layer of anonymity that comes with the ‘corporate person’ not actual being a person (and the people with resources of corporations are often the leaders of the same corporations, negating the counterbalance that could result). The reality of campaigns is that money talks – it buys ads and tv time and etc.. – and the individual is easily drowned out by the larger sources of money.

To me, enabling the outsize influence of one group does not forward democratic principles and that is what the first amendment should ultimately be trying to protect.

Hopefully I’m wrong, and this decision doesn’t have a bad effect on campaigns. I guess we’ll see.

Note: I say corporations, but that means unions and other entities also.

Finally got a chance to watch/listen to the CUNY Graduate Center program 'Bob Dylan: American Poet.' It's always interesting to hear Dylan's music deconstructed, to hear about the details behind the making of and meaning of his songs. Especially the political ones, which while they may have timeless meaning, can have a lot of mentions of events that happened when they were written or before.

The music performed is interesting - I didn't really care too much for the classical-type interpretations of John Corigliano, but that's more because I'm not too much for that style of singing (I was subjected to way too much opera as a child). It is interesting to hear how he interpreted the lyrics poetry of Dylan in the music, not having much reference to the original music.

I like the Howard Fishman stuff. He sings with good understanding of the lyrics, and the arrangements are well matched. I'll have to go back and listen to 'I'm Not There' from The Basement Tapes and see how his interpretation jives with I think it should be.

 It may be in a days work for me as a transport planner, but how to explain the complex interrelatedness of all the aspects of transportation, and how it shapes our world? Land use, air quality, mode shares, travel times - how we move around is affected by and affects many other things. The Transportation Research Board gave out some awards for web site and other things that did the best job of helping to educate people on what transportation means in their lives. Transportation Town, the winner, is an interesting, small-scale planning sort of thing that allows people to make choices and see what happens. Always a good thing.

 Volkswagen (or their marketing company) dreamed up this website, and it's pretty cool. The professionally produced videos they have there are great. Piano stairs? Recycling bin game? Trash can with sound effects?

They've got a good point though. We're all supposed to do certain things, but adding a fun element makes it much more enjoyable...

• Novalima - Coba Coba
  • Based in Lima, Peru, but bringing a cross-south american sound. Good rhythmic stuff. Album was nominated for a Latin Grammy this year - Best Alternative Album. Also have a Coba Coba Remixed album that I'm thinking I'll be picking up quite soon...
• Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
  • A great rec/gift from Jackie's sister. Catchy, folky, jangly, with some smooth vocal work. 
• Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
  • Great energy in this music. Interesting label 'new rave' for them. I get feelings of good 80s alt-music, electro, punk-ish. Another good rec from Stephie.
•  Jazzflora Compilation (Dealers of Nordic Music)
  • A great compilation of nujazz from an unfortunately defunct label. Much more on the jazz side than the electronic side

Photo: takomabibelot

From the Washington Post, a good article (actually talks about both sides of the argument, skeptically) about red-light and speeding enforcement cameras. I’m quite interested in this topic. You may have noticed that I’m not a big fan of official camera surveillance in general, but have generally been in favor of automated traffic enforcement cameras. Is there a big difference? Am I being inconsistent just because I’m a public transit person?

I’m starting to rethink my support of the traffic cams, mainly because if it’s driver behavior modification that we’re interested in, there are better ways – less punitive ways – to accomplish it. The big answer is the complete streets design/movement/philosophy. If streets are designed so that speeding is physically – and mentally – difficult, then people won’t speed. Highways can be designed like highways, but anything local should be designed for all modes – walking, biking – on the same level as autos. If a driver has to be more aware of their surroundings, if they don’t feel as comfortable stepping on the gas, they will actually slow down and pay more attention.

One statistic which doesn’t solicit much handwringing by anyone except transportation people: there were 37,000+ people killed in the US in 2008 in traffic-related crashes. That’s way past epidemic level for anything, and if it were a disease, we’d be scared witless. But since it’s the normal state of affairs, we ignore it (because we have to get around) until someone we know gets seriously hurt or killed. Travel, a necessity for pretty much everyone, shouldn’t be so dangerous.

 Two trees in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden were named to the New York State big tree registry. I didn't even know the state had a big tree registry. A simple search shows that many states have them, and there's a national big tree registry - the national champions - kept by American Forests. Did I mention that I'm a fan of trees? And that I love the book Tree: A New Vision Of The American Forest by James Balog?

Photo: markhillary

Good article on recycling, composting and waste in the NYTimes yesterday. I remember when I was younger, maybe back in the late 80s, the lack of landfill capacity became an issue. The projections that we were going to run out of places to put our garbage brought up recycling on a larger scale.

I had thought that the growing amount of recycling happening in the US had made the lack of landfill capacity not too much of a big deal - we weren't going to fulfill those projections, and we'd have enough space for a while. Well, I guess the coming (again) lack of landfill space has got people talking about how to throw out less stuff. The conversation seems more advanced now - how to get people to recycle more, to compost, and to just have less garbage to begin with.

We had been composting for a while, and while I definitely helped out my wife with it, I saw it as not too necessary - organic waste in the landfill breaks down, and probably creates lots of nutrients in the end product fill, so what's the big deal. I never thought that the organic wastes are a main contributor to the methane that landfills create. Bummer. Learn something new every day.