Logic & Sanity

The rich are fleeing New York

New York billionaire Tom Golisano is taking his big bucks elsewhere.

Furious over a new "millionaire's tax" that could cost him an extra $1 million this year, the Rochester-area resident and three-time gubernatorial candidate says he's fleeing the state for Florida's Gulf Coast.

Income tax rate is being raised to 8.97% (up from 6.85%) for those making $500k+, in the New York state. Our idiotic government is chasing wealthy tax payers out of state, instead of attracting them. They are happy to have him in Florida, ofcourse, but the idiots who pushed for this tax hike are a bit upset.

Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor, who championed the tax hike, called Golisano's move "selfish."

"It's a disgrace that this is how he pays back the state where he was presumably educated and that's been so good to him," Cantor said. "Taxes are the price you pay for civilization. He's moving to a space where there's a little bit less civilization."

It's all nonsense, since Mr.Golisano was paying taxes. Curiously, Dan Cantor is missing the irony of his words. If taxes are the price you pay for civilization, then what does it make the people who pay little or no taxes? The very same people who he's claiming to represent?

"Snapping like a dog..."

A respected Russian artist was arrested after mixing wine and prescription drugs before allegedly drinking liquid soap and attacking flight attendants on a trans-Atlantic flight.

British-based Galina Rusanova is accused of of punching and kicking flight attendants and - at one point - 'snapping like a dog' while trying to bite a crew member's leg.

I flew to Kiev end of March, and as part of keeping ourselves occupied during the 10 hour flight, we got a bottle of whiskey from the on board duty free catalog. Got to love AeroSvit - the steward brought the bottle along with three plastic cups and my cousin, I, and a girl (we met at the terminal before boarding) had quite a good time consuming it.  A couple sitting in the next aisle got creative with their whiskey bottle and juice, by using a Starbucks commuter mug as a cocktail shaker. We had a great time without bothering other passengers or giving the flight attendants a hard time.

I fear that due to idiots like this they are going to forbid alcohol consumption from flights altogether.  It's almost as if people have to get licensed to drink when flying.

Syava

This is pretty damn hilarious.

Kindle 2

 

Kindle 2 has been officially announced today and is available for preorder. So I did!

What's going on here??

There could not have been a worse time of year for revelations to emerge about unpaid taxes by Tom Daschle and other prospective members of Barack Obama’s administration.

And what's up with India?????

India has warned US President Barack Obama that he risks “barking up the wrong tree” if he seeks to broker a settlement between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

And why is the European Union acting up?

How dare theey question The Messiah? Don't they not know that ethics and geopolitical realities are for the mere mortals?

Abortion

Regardless of where one stands on the abortion issue, this ad is powerful!

Grado RS1

Two words? Headphone heaven. Two more? Read further. The first time I came across these headphones was about five years ago. I was browsing the web for G-d knows what and accidentally ended up at the Grado RS1 product page. The page design was outdated (and hasn't changed since!), the headphones looked weird, and I most likely ended up sending a link to one of my friends commenting on their preposterous price (which hasn't changed since, either). Well, about two and a half years ago I got me a pair of Grado SR80. At $95, these headphones are the second cheapest in the Grado offering, but they've made me an instant fan of the brand. The first night I brought them home, I ended up doing nothing but laying on the couch listening to two cd's back to back. Who does that anymore? With all the cable channels, the internet, and the video games, nobody just listens to music anymore. Sober, anyway. Yes, the SR80's are that good. At $95 they simply can not be beat, the tight bass, the  clarity of the mids and the treble, and just the ability to hear each instrument separately was new to me. Needless to say, when I decided it was time for a headphone upgrade, I knew I wouldn't be buying anything other then a set from Grado. Grado GS1000 looked very appealing, but who has $995 to spend on a pair of headphones? So, the RS1 it was. Having put about 15 hours on them, I am still not done breaking them in, but they have already impressed me a great deal. Way clearer then the RS80's and a much wider sound stage. The mp3's encoded at 192k/s don't cut it anymore. To get the fullest out of them you probably need LP's and CD's, but even listening to mp3's encoded at 320k/s gave me goosebumps. Listening to Digicult's Icarus One brought back (ahem!) some college memories and made me grind my teeth. Listening to Enya's Winter Came album lowered my blood pressure dangerously low. And they did a damn good job conveying Collie Budz' disdain for fawkin' hataz. In all seriousness, you simply have to check out the way the guitar sounds on Collie Budz' Moving On with the RS1's. To conclude - money well spent!

Here's my test setup - the RS1's with my Cowon S9. These two are great paired together, as the S9 can easily drive them at half volume - I usually have it on volume 20-25 out of 40. Also, I highly recommend exploring the BBE equalizers available on that player. 

I'll be testing the RS1's with my hometheater set up shortly. I am sure t

Hamas' "victory"

Syrian President Bashar Assad congratulated Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal Saturday on his organization's "victory" in the Gaza Strip, Syrian news agency SANA reported.

If that's what arabs consider a victory, then I'ld hate to see what a defeat to them is. In any case, I wish them many more of such victories.

Cowon S9

 As I've mentioned, my old mp3 player, Cowon D2, died a painful death last week, so it was time for an upgrade. Got my brand spankin' new Cowon S9 16 gig  a week ago and I am loving it. The s9 has a 3.3 MOLED display - that's right not an LCD - and you can definitely see the difference.  The screen is bright, the colors are rich, and the dynamic range is excellent. Some other properties of MOLED displays are that they are light and consume a lot less power then LCD displays which, I am guessing, makes for a smaller/lighter battery. This makes itself known even before you turn the unit on, as not only will the S9  fit into any of your pockets, but you'll end up checking up on it to make sure its still there. It's that light! Only 77 grams (~2.7 oz).

To keep this short and sweet I won't cut and paste the Cowon press release nor will I cut and paste the full tech specs (you can see them here). Here are the highlights:

- Is very light and portable

- Everything about the MOLED display is amazing - great color, contrast, and is very watchable under even the most extreme of angles.

- Supports your favortie formats: XVID, WMV9, MP3, FLAG, OGG, etc.

- Is mass storage compliant 

- FM radio sounds great and is recordable at up to 256k/s

- Built in microphone (and line in!) records at up to 256 k/s

- Bluetooth headphone/speaker support

- Has dedicated buttons for volume, play/pause, fast forward/rewind, so you wont have to fish it out of your pocket every time you'ld want to control any of those functions

- Flash support! Custom themes are already available - or make your own! Can play flash games as well.

- 55 hour audio, 11 hour video battery life

- Cowon stands behind all their products with fairly frequent firmware updates.

And in the interest of fairness, here are the "negatives":

- Though the unit is mass storage compliant, the cable itself is not the regular mini USB cable, but a 20 pin one. While it's not impossible to find if a replacement is needed, it's a potential inconvenience. You'll need to carry yours around if you'll need to copy files (or recharge) away from home.

- No SD slot, so it's not expandable.

- The menu system can be somewhat fiddly, but not a big obstacle (specially for previous Cowon owners).

Now you might be wondering why I put quotes around the word negatives. The reason is that I don't believe that those things I've listed take anything away from the fact that the Cowon S9 is a great portable audio/video player. The 20 pin cable doesn't affect the sound, does it? The lack of an SD slot... Well, Cowon did not  market S9 as a media library, hence, I think 16 gig memory is a reasonable amount of musuic to have on the go. As fo the menus, it just takes getting used to. I am sure that this paragraph makes me sound like a Cowon fanboy... Well, I am, and before you blame me - pick up the S9, hook it up to a pair of Grado SR80 and then get back to me.

Oh, and bout those grados, stay tuned as they are getting upgraded to the RS 2's shortly...

The culture of death

I've refrained from posting on the events in Gaza recently. Mostly because I feel that what's going on is obvious and speaks for itself. Unfortunately the reaction to Israel's defensive mission from most of the world is a fine display of how the two world wars were allowed to happen.  People just chose to stick their heads in the sand and talk in cliches without taking the reality into account.  You know, the whole diplomacy-must-be-given-a-chance shpiel from the peaceniks - never mind that it has been given quite a few chances over the course of decades and has failed. The european peaceniks will sing that song as long as the rockets are not falling on their heads. Anyway, I thought this article from the last week's New York Times encapsulates the Palestinian modus operandi quite well.

1. Hamas are firing from the civilian areas, Palestinian civilians get hurt:

He said Hamas militants next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. Israel fired back with force, and his apartment was hit. His wife, Albina, originally from Ukraine, and his 1-year-old son were killed.

The above is from Dr. Awni al-Jaru, a Palestinian surgeon.

2. Palestinian gunmen are using civilian houses:

But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

Above is an admission from an Islamic Jihad gunman, and he has another one below.

3. Palestinian combatants don't care about the Palestinian civilians:

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

Not much concern there - you'ld think that Europeans would be protesting the Hamas (who, by the way, started this conflict by firing rockets into Israel), but I guess Europeans will always be Europeans.