Ani DiFranco on Patience and Happiness

I am a huge Ani DiFranco fan. If you don't know her, she's a folk/punk/rock singer who at the age of 19, founded her own record label and started touring the country. She's released an album a year for nearly two decades now, and can sell out 5,000 seat auditoriums at will. She is an icon in the music world, being one of the most successful truly independent artists of our time.

Ani was interviewed on last week's Sound Opinions, and they asked about the steady, patient grind she has exemplified for twenty years. In response, she said:

Yeah, I think I've grown my patience, as I got older. But I think what I did have in the beginning was just a lust what I do, for making music. It was so exciting to me to play in a bar for five people; especially if I could see their eyes and smell them and you know, making that connection was always very exciting to me. So, I wasn't holding out for the rock star dream or waiting to be happy or fulfilled with my art. I think what passed for patience for me in the beginning was just sincerely being thrilled with whatever kind of performance or low, obscure situation I was in.

There is a koan, "If you meet the Bhudda, kill him." Whatever your conception of enlightenment, whatever your conception of your goal, it is wrong. You must discard ideas of the form "If I could just... then I'd be happy." Do not hold your happiness hostage. Find satisfaction in the present, and in the process of striving toward the future.

Hanford, WA

Since moving to Seattle almost six years ago, I have heard several mentions of the Hanford Downwinders. I knew this group had suffered medical problems related to some kind of nuclear facility, but until today I had never knew that the Hanford site was the source of the plutonium for the bomb exploded over Nagasaki. There are some remarkable photos of the site here.

Minneapolis versus Seattle taxes

After hearing the Minnesota state senate has proposed a new income tax top rate of 9.25% (which does not apply to me) to deal with our huge budget shortfalls, I remember my friends who moved to Seattle told me there is no income tax there.

A bit of background for drive-by readers: I do not enjoy what Republicans have done in our state. They seem aggressively politically divisive. They advocate lower taxes under all conditions while allowing fees to rise billions, borrowing billions, and pushing costs back onto local government (county or city). Also, they talk a lot of distracting nonsense about social policy. I mostly vote Democrat, although I do worry about Democrat tendencies to champion government without reigning in seemingly ever-rising expenses (and taxes I suppose). I consider myself socially liberal and fiscally conservative, although I recognize those can be at odds (you can't have government without paying for it). With that political background, I look at a simplistic comparison of Washington state and Minnesota, and a more sophisticated comparison of Minneapolis and Seattle.

A simplistic comparison at the state level from census bureau data:

                      Minnesota/
                      Washington
-----------------------------------------------
Total tax
revenue (1000s)       $18,320,891/
                      $17,944,925
Estimated population  5,220,393/
                      6,549,224
Revenue/capita        $3,509/
                      $2,740
Median income         $55,802/
                      $53,515
Rev/cap as %
of median income      6.2%/
                      5.1%

Total tax revenue and estimated population are both for 2008, from the census bureau, via Wikipedia for population numbers.

Revenue/capita looks silly because it's so low. Presumably it's not right to count babies and such in the denominator. I wonder what the differences in population between Minnesota and Washington are, and if those differences are germane to this question.

Moreover, comparing the potentially silly revenue/capita to median income might be doubly silly. Still, these are numbers I could get ahold of easily.

From these numbers, it looks like Washington is a lower tax state. However, they are not as different as "9% income tax" versus "no income tax" would suggest. It turns out Washington gets more of its revenue from property taxes and sales tax, while Minnesota gets more from income tax. The $8.8B in Minnesota's property tax is almost the same as Washington's delta in sales tax ($7B). So, don't earn in Minnesota, don't buy in Washington.

                    Minnesota/
                    Washington
---------------------------------------------
Total tax revenue   $18,320,891/
                    $17,944,925
Property tax            712,643/
                      1,741,691
Sales tax             7,433,063/
                     14,400,668
Licenses              1,011,289/
                        938,205
Income tax            8,817,738/
                              0
Other                   346,338/
                        864,361

All numbers are 1000s of dollars.

Refs:

http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/0848wastax.html
http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/0824mnstax.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota


A sophisticated comparison at the city level based on modeling all sorts of factors:

A study comparing District of Columbia burden to the largest city in every other state, conducted by the DC government:

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/DC_Tax_Burden_07.pdf, pages 18-24

For a family of three (hmm), the percent tax burden:

income        Minneapolis  Seattle
----------------------------------
$25K          10.7%        11.4%
$50K           8.4%         5.7%
$75K           9.1%         5.0%
$100K          9.4%         4.9%
$150K          9.7%         4.2%
combined
total         $37,696      $20,631

The inescapable conclusion is that Seattle is a MUCH lower tax city than Minneapolis. Furthermore, Minneapolis is progressive, while Seattle is regressive. Congratulations rich Seattleites (where rich is >=$50K per year for a family), you win, if winning means paying less in taxes.

I am puzzled that the raw census bureau numbers for total revenue of the states are closer, while the per-city estimates are wildly different.

The DC report has two pages on exactly that (page 29). Possible differences include: income taxes on businesses, snow removal (!), wage levels, tax base, whether the city has privatized services (e.g., garbage collection), and higher state and local taxes reduce federal tax burden (through itemized deductions).

So, that's the cost, complicated as it is. Now if only there were some way to compare the benefits to see if Minneapolitans are getting more benefit for their additional money.

Seattle seems pretty cool. Housing is more expensive, but how long would the payback period be if one paid 4% less in taxes? (Awhile, it turns out.)

(Edited many times to reformat the tables.)

Drummers and clicktracks, again...

A few weeks back, John found the following out on reddit:

http://musicmachinery.com/2009/03/02/in-search-of-the-click-track/?rss

We found this fun, and e-mail discussion ensued. I'd offered this:

When I first read that article, the drummer I thought of was Steve Gadd: a favorite from my fusion-listening youth who I always thought created a great groove. I suspect that going over the studio albums I owned back in high school - Chick Corea, Brecker Brothers, Steve Kahn, etc - would reveal early click-track use, but who knows.

And Dan responded:

Steve Gadd is well-known in the music community, both for deep groove and drug use. The song "Aja" on the album of the same name is legendary.

...which led me to:

I've read stories of Gadd's Aja session that describe him as all business, showing up and burning through the track in one or two takes. He was in his drug-using years, so who knows how altered he was - I suppose he was to some extent through all those years.

Anyway, I downloaded the package referenced in John's linked article and had it look at some tracks. Four of them are Gadd (Steely Dan - Aja; Paul Simon - Late in the Evening; Steve Khan - Daily Bulls & Tightrope), and one should be from the pre-click-track era: Gene Krupa on Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing.

Gadd tracks:

---

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---

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Gene Krupa - Benny Goodman. Probably 60-70 years ago is before the click-track age...

---

The Khan pieces (Daily Bulls, Tightrope) have very steady tempos, so you'd expect quality players to maintain a solid groove, but even so I guess there was some artificial help. Beyond all the coke they might have been on...

The Simon piece feels like click-track too: the slowdown in the middle is when all the horns come in (edit?). Aja and Sing, Sing, Sing look more organic, and I'm pretty impressed by Krupa and the Goodman band keeping basic tempo solid for eight minutes.

BTW, I also tried to capture tempos for a live version of Weather Report's Teen Town, but it crashed the program. Not a Pastorius fan, I guess.

The Case Against Clowns

Clowns are bad. My daughter has given me insight into clowns and their sordid ways. My daughter is terrified of clowns. At first I didn't understand why, but I fully understood that her fear was real, not feigned.

When I'd take my daughter with me to the grocery store she'd ask "there aren't any clowns there right?" I'd laugh and say, "no, of course not". One day, to my surprise, and to my daughter's horror, there was a damn clown at the grocery store! I think the store's management, in their ignorance of clown ways, might have hired the clown to make stupid balloon wiener dogs and amuse the kids. The unintended consequence was a significant degradation of my daughter's trust in me.

Having recently become aware of the problem I now see clowns everywhere. Good luck having a parade without those S.O.Bs. You may see a mini-cooper and think "Wow what a cool little car." I think, "I bet there are 8 or 10 clowns somewhere that can't wait to jam their bulbous nose, goofy painted clown butts in that little car."

Research has shown that Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, is common in children, and is well known in adolescents and even adults. The fear is related to not being able to discern a clown's sometimes malicious intent from his facial expressions which are hidden by his ridiculous painted on smile.

I say jump back Bozo. Get your big shoe wearing ass a real job and leave us alone!

RFC standard white socks

I was sorting laundry today, and had a geek moment. Sometimes I have fun socks, but mostly they're just white. Target white. However, as I have bought them at different times, there are fourteen different kinds of white: gray or not at the heels, gray or not at the toes, various sized little ripples at the top. I am spending considerable mental effort matching little ripples and various grays! I would like an RFC for plain white socks. Then they would be standard and I wouldn't have to do all the damn matching.

Computing wattage

I am pondering a new computer for gaming. The dudes I game with all have recently replaced their rigs, so I'm the holdout. They're PCI Express, I'm still AGP. Many are the reasons I don't want to buy something new: $$, time, and abusing the earth. To address the last, I pulled out our Kill-A-Watt and hooked the computer power bar into it.

Network-only: 22W
Computer on but screen off (or in "I'm off" blinky mode): 106W
Computer in normal mode (or with screen saver, which is equivalent): 174-200W (usually 174)
Computer while playing video games: 200-220W

I suspect if I buy a newer computer, it'll be much higher wattage. In particular, Tom's Hardware says powerful video cards are not very good at dialing themselves back when rendering Firefox or Word.

What is your computer rig, and what is its wattage?

DF

A song

I enjoyed this cover of "How Deep is Your Love" by The Bad Plus.

They are a band, united in musical purpose. Wendy's singing is wonderfully spare.

DF

I'm not really into poetry

I don't get most poetry. Maybe I'm not creative enough, imaginative enough or thoughtful enough. That said, I do like Billy Collins. You just can't beat Litany. The Revenant isn't too bad either.

Thought versus emotion

Here is an experiment in the telepatch. I am attempting to write liner notes for my almost-complete album (tentatively titled "Thought versus emotion"). I can't think of anything I'm interested in writing that others would care to read. So, I just started writing, with the result below. Reactions?

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In Al Gore's book "The Assault on Reason" he starts by asking, "Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" In our historic 2008 election, Barack Obama said, ".. children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white." The truth is, a white youth with a book also stands accused, or at least they did when I was in school. I was called "four-eyes" because I had glasses, and "professor" because I was smart. How many people have you heard say, "I was never any good at math" to the smallest demand on their numeracy, and everyone smiles and laughs! My personal favorite is having someone hand me the check at a restaurant, saying, "You were a math major" .. as if math were years of study of how to figure 20%. (It's not.) I am saying we don't think, and our society says it's okay to not think, by now encourages us not to think. What we do is feel.

Feeling is cool, feeling is gangsta, feeling is great. Movies make you feel, music makes you feel, advertisements, and definitely politicians make you feel. Liberal politicos simply "raise awareness" of issues, as if being aware of soul-killing tragedy #837 is as good as doing something about it. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh or the mercifully banished Sarah Palin do the same (though they don't call it that), inciting their followers to rants and bigotry through feeling. I am claiming, then, that reason is good and under attack, while feeling is used for ill but widely admired.

However, it's easy to tell the opposite. How many good ideas died quietly because something should be studied more carefully? Many talk of "death by committee", but there is also "analysis paralysis" at the individual level. (I know something about that.) Feeling bursts through barriers. It focuses our attention, makes us respond "without
thinking" as they say. Feeling is a call to action. You don't think alive, you feel alive.

So where does music lie in this spectrum? The media and common wisdom describe it easily as feeling. Great artists are always quoted in emotional terms, and often judged that way as well. However, anyone who has actually studied music or performed it should recognize the power of thought. Technique is often gained through rigorous repetition, but also through painstaking, compulsive analysis of physicality. Even deeper, the reason that music evokes feeling is often a combination of intuitive understanding of what universally makes people respond, and a knowledge or mastery of the underlying vocabulary of a particular musical discipline. Jazz sounds like jazz, punk sounds like punk, because the performers have picked up the right accent for that music.

And what of the ultimate challenge, to create your own vocabulary, or at least your own dialect, of a musical language, one that makes logical sense and inspires great feeling? Well, wouldn't that be something.

The bright side of the credit crisis?

When I bought my house five years ago, for various reasons, I got an adjustable rate mortgage. I am easily a prime borrower, and was able to make a substantial down payment, so I didn't get one of the crazy negative-amortization-ninja-ARMs you heard so much about last summer, but it's an ARM nonetheless. Last year I started thinking about refinancing into a fixed rate mortgage. I'd eye interest rates from time to time, but never pulled the trigger.

As a result, I was happy to see a piece of mail from my lender the other day. I gleefully tore it open to find that my mortgage payment has gone down $130/month. My mortgage is tied to the 1-year t-bill, which due to the credit crisis is at historically low levels. When my mortgage reset, the interest rate actually went down, lowering my payment.

Next year at this time I may not be so happy about my situation. I'm still looking to refinance, but 30-year rates aren't great right now, at least compared to where they were last summer, so I'm holding off. The are many scenarios where long-term rates will rise significantly higher, so my position remains somewhat precarious.

That said, for now I'm happy to report that the credit crunch isn't all doom and gloom.

Improv Everywhere and the power of collaboration

I've recently been working a proposal for an innovation program at work. Today, I met with one of my peers to discuss it and he suggested adding an element of competition to the program as a means to drive quality and interest.

I recoiled at the suggestion. My reaction was something like "Competition is such a cheap way to drive people, the value created through collaboration is much more interesting." I was thinking of the work of Improv Everywhere, a group I first heard about on This American Life. Their original No Pants stunt is now an annual event in New York City.

When I got home, I set about reviewing the work they've posted on their site, and I ran across a couple of "missions" that made me so happy I wanted to cry. First, "Rob!" in which they turn a significant part of a baseball stadium into willing collaborators. And second, "Best Game Ever," in which the participants in little league baseball game are gifted with what may well recall as one of the best days of their lives.

More collaboration, less competition. Truly a goal worth striving for.

Tomatoes and canning

M and I recently read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver for a book club, and we were inspired to try the canned tomato sauce recipe therein.

We started out by canning a ha'bushel of tomatoes into 7 quarts of Kingsolver tomato sauce. "Canning" for historical reasons means putting something into glass jars in a sterile way, and boiling them so that you don't die of botulism. Kingsolver emphasizes that it's important to preserve the acidity of the recipe, so you're not supposed to mess with it. This turned out to be about 7 hours all told given our equipment, i.e. 1 hour per quart of sauce, i.e. a pain in the ass.

However, the farmer's market tempted us into more tomatoes, so we canned another bushel of tomatoes into 17 quarts of ..well, canned tomatoes, using a Fannie Farmer recipe which was basically tomatoes and salt.

More temptation pulled us into another ha'bushel, but this time we decided to make S's uncle's sauce. Since we didn't know if it is canning-safe, we've been eating some and freezing some. It is awesome. We've made two 4-quart recipes. A lot of water boils off, and it turns into 3 quarts or so. It's so good!

All told, we've probably cooked more than 100 pounds of tomatoes in the past 4-6 weeks. (A ha'bushel is ~25 pounds.) If you're not, you should really be buying farmer's market tomatoes, you lazy Seattle alcoholics. (j/k?)

Embarassed of my Minnesota heritage

JR and I proudly wear the badge of our former Minnesota citizenship out here in Seattle. Or rather we did, until Michele Bachmann started spouting off.

It's pretty tough to convince our West Coast friends that Minnesota isn't a bunch of poorly-educated, ill-informed hicks when Michele keeps spouting her verbal diarrhea. Can you remaining Minnesotans please get this neanderthal out of office?

Tax evader appears to have no grip on reality

Did I mention following this tax evader's story? He seems not in touch with reality.

DF

rlwrap, a geek's friend

Have you ever used a UNIX command-line utility that doesn't have filename completion? Painful, isn't it? Someone clever produced a wrapper to add filename completion. Here's the example for gnuplot:

$ rlwrap -c -a gnuplot
...
gnuplot> plot "

now hitting tab at that spot (the double-quote) gives you file options. Yay!

DF

Internet Memes

Jenny hadn't seen the Weezer Pork and Beans video, and watching it sent us on an internet meme-fest, reviewing all the referenced videos. I was surprised/saddened that the Back Dorm Boys weren't represented. After Gary Brolsma, they might be my favorite YouTube sensation.

Feymann

Feymann has so many incredible stories.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feymann is a classic, but here is a web post. He lived many lives. The only problem with his writings is he set the bar so high for the rest of us.

DF

Five Daily Show segments

The Daily Show makes M and me laugh.

5. Conan fight, the culmination of a week of trash talking on the
daily show, the colbert report, and conan o'brien during the writer's
strike, when they are desperately trying to fill airtime.

4. John Oliver.

3. Kristen Schaal, that made us laugh most recently.

2. Aasif Mandvi in his breakout role (according to us).

And of course,

1. the master of ceremonies.

Lightning and rightness

I found it amusing that it is lightning awareness week because I actually know someone who would care. A quote from the National Weather Service:

In 2007, 45 people were struck and killed by lighting in the U.S.; hundreds of others were injured. Of the victims who were killed by lightning:

• 98% were outside
• 89% were male

M has always decided to get away from lightning by remaining indoors. I have sometimes claimed it's not such a big deal. It turns out my chance of dying is higher.

The best news is, M gets to be right, which most people enjoy greatly.