April 16, 2006: 10:32 pm: acedtecteastmeetswest
The show focuses on listener comments. Roger and Tom discuss train travel, immigration, how the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908, leaving San Francisco, the meaning of Google in Chinese, and much much more.
April 16th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
it good to hear the show again ,another great show keep on entertaining ous
April 17th, 2006 at 12:10 am
i heard on kfi that the chinese president is not going to have dinner at the white house any time in his visit but is going to bill gates house .whats microsoft up to . i love windows but this gives me the chills
April 17th, 2006 at 1:13 am
Hey, good episode. since Roger mentioned about the wages, Bill Maher also talked about it along with immigration on Real Time episode 74, April 7th. He said SOME congressmen and lobbyists are responsible for that..and of course, that leads to whole new issues. I know Roger thinks Bill Maher is bitter, but anyone interested can check it out.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:40 am
You guys always manage to push my buttons! :)
First, Acela is NOT high speed rail. It’s overpriced bulletshaped trains that run little faster than traditional service. BOSTON Magazine did a feature a few years back & noticed that after years of expeditures & hype, the Acela schedule between Boston & NYC was within a few minutes of the mid-50s schedule. except for the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak owns no tracks, the freight carriers are required to lease them to Amtrak, but these companies have zero incentive to upgrade the railbeds to carry anything faster than a 20Mph freightcar. It’s no surprise that US railservice is a joke. Once again the govt has chosen to pay lipservice to something to mollify constituents, and couldn’t care less about really making it work well. David Gunn – a longtime railroad exec with an impressive turnaround record came out of retirement to “fix” Amtrak, only to be forced out by admin lackeys on the Amtrak board. SOP at many gvt agencies the admin wants to kill from the inside.
Amtrak could bring adequate rail svc to the US, but with all the diverse politicos who exercise influence over it’s budget, I’m not holding my breath.
Other countries nat’l railservice have many issues of their own, but there are so many clear ways to add rail back into the ‘transportation triad’ by either giving it equivalent gvt $ to highway projects and airline bailouts… or just cut out the pork to airports & highways & level the playing field.
Meanwhile don’t compare Amtrak to auto & air transit, it’s like comparing apples & tumbleweeds.
I highly recommend checking out nationcoridors.org for a modestly biased look at the railbiz… It is written by railfans & people in the industry after all. :)
Joe in Boston – home of the most ‘buried pork’ in US history ;)
April 17th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Hey guys, just a technical issue, (I haven’t listened to 18 yet) for some odd reason, none your podcasts will play in WinAmp (and this is the first time i’ve ever seen a nonDRMed file not play). Just wanted to let you know.
Thanks for all the great work :)
April 17th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Interesting show. Nice info on rails. How much can Jango pulled? I agree, railroads are just a flashback to the past. Granted, the only thing I know of rails is ruby on rails, http://www.rubyonrails.org/.
carry on or be carried away… cheers,
gil
April 20th, 2006 at 11:14 am
I can’t play these files in winamp either. Also when I try and play them in my Zen Micro the speed was slowed way down.
I think the reason (for the Zen issues anyways) is the 11hz sampling rate.
I re-encoded them using dbPowerAmp and they seem to work fine now. :)
April 20th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Really. Huh. What did you re-encode them at? And is this a problem with all eps? Fascinating.
April 20th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Regarding Greyhound, It has been somewhat replaced by private service bus-lines in the east. Ever heard of the Chinatown Bus? It’s evolved into a whole network of bus companies compiled under the gotobus.com domain, offering supercheap travel between cities (NYC-Boston $15) pretty cool and way cheaper than Greyhound for the same service.
April 20th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Sorry, I should have mentioned that.
I re-encoded them at 128 kbps, 44.1 khz, stereo. I’m sure the original bitrate of 96 kbps would work just fine. I really think it was the 11 khz sampling rate that was causing problems.
Just as a test, I re-re-encoded a file I had previously converted (episode 16) back down to 96 kbps, 11 khz, mono and once again Winamp 5 was unable to play it.
Episode #1 works fine. As far as I can tell, all the subsequent episodes have this same issue. Then again, I’m still working my way through them.
Great show btw! :)
April 21st, 2006 at 1:22 pm
loved the show, its great to listen to a podcast thats not 100% tech related,Being half asian and half white this podcast has the best of both worlds.
Concerning that I’ve notice that most of my white friends tend to be bad with money yet my asian friends are always better off, what are your guy’s thoughts?
Also you guys need a better mic (or to touch the one you have less), have you seen the one on costco.com its made for podcasting
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11114840&whse=&topnav=&browse=&s=1
April 22nd, 2006 at 6:12 pm
congratulations to Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final. better luck next time Chelsea fans, don’t feel so blue.
debate i remember from a poli-sci class is the political and economic influences leading to the land of asphalt and automobiles of our present America. Charles Wilson, GM CEO was chosen as Secretary of Defense by Eisenhower in 1953. the Federal Highway Act was enacted by Eisenhower in 1956. of course, there are a myriad of factors leading up through the Great Depression, World War II, the Korea War, and the escalating Cold War.
ah, Beringia and the peopling of the Americas via the ice-free corridor (McKenzie corridor) theory. i do agree that it is more than likely that some people did migrate across Beringia which was fairly stable through the Upper Paleolithic but, it is unlikely there was a land migration down through the length of North America and subsequently South America. another theory which has been gaining traction as of late is the Kelp Highway Theory which is a basic coastal migration theory. a coastal or marine migration theory has been well established and widely accepted for some time in regards to the colonization of Papua New Guinea, Australia, Tasmania landmass (Sahul) during the same time period and the initial migration of people through the Mediterranean from the areas of SW Asia (Near East). also, i think that the Atlantic ice-floe migration theory is quite unlikely and near pure rubbish aside from its purpose as academic sensationalism.
oh yeah, i actually looked it up on the K-Mart website but you guys have a couple stores, not too far in Pinole, San Leandro, San Mateo, and Hayward to name a few. I’m sure your family members will appreciate this info Tom.
sorry for the long post.
April 22nd, 2006 at 6:21 pm
sorry, forgot two things. there is of yet, sufficient archaeological evidence for the Kelp Highway Theory but there has been no archaeological evidence for the ice-corridor theory.
here’s a link for an article regarding one of my old professors and the Kelp Highway Theory.
http://waddle.uoregon.edu/?id=439
April 22nd, 2006 at 7:04 pm
sorry, came across some EMW fodder. i’m pretty sure you guys heard about the Whitehouse MC gaffe during the ceremonies when introducing the Chinese anthem, “Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem of the Republic of China, followed by the national anthem of the United States of America.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060420/ap_on_go_pr_wh/hu_visit_gaffe_1
April 23rd, 2006 at 6:35 am
Just wondering if you guys are going to talk about the gas scam. After all the blackouts when Enron gamed the power grid, does this feel like deja vu? I think that was a beta-test of what the oilcos are doing now.
Am I the only one who seethes when the muttonheads on the news say “gas is SIX dollars a gallon in Europe” (where much of their social safety net money comes from gas taxes, so when they get asthma from particulate pollution they can at least afford to see a doctor.)
What about the people who say oil prices are China’s fault? Since with their new prosperity they’re ditching their bikes & buying cars, driving up demand. Hey, while we’re add it, let’s blame them for global warming too! :P
btw – wouldn’t you think an emerging economy would use us as a role model – like Goofus – & build an energy infrastructure that they could control – like Brazil & Argetnina?
…just some grist for the mill… :)
btw-Tom, did high gas prices impact your moving expenses?
April 23rd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
global crude oil prices are not China’s “fault” but there is a positive correlation between their increased oil needs since DEC 11, 01 (WTO induction), their prolific econ growth, and . China’s real GDP grew 8% in 2002, 9.1% in 2003, and 9.5% in 2004 (sorry, those are the latest numbers i had). using the PPP method, China accounted for 24% of world econ growth from 2001-03. in 2003, China’s oil demand of 6.5 million barrels per day surpassed Japan for the first time to rank 2nd only to the U.S. and they have remained so ever since. China has also accounted for 40% of world oil demand from 2001-05. enough said.
don’t forget Hugo Chavez’s election in 1999. Venezuela was the single largest exporter of crude oil to the U.S. from 1995-98. you can imagine what happened after he took over.
another thing is the CAFE, of which i can’t find the numbers on but i do recall in previous searches that it has steadily decreased since 1988 i believe.
sorry, i did a paper on this last year. ok, no more posts until next week.
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Shame on you, Tom for thinking that World Series championships are the only possible basis for best team ever. I much prefer to have extremely lovable characters come out fo the franchise. What would the world be like without guys like Ernie Banks and Ron Santo? I know I wouldn’t want to be around.
Back to the dishwasher thing again, just because you have one doesn’t mean you have to use it exclusively. My mom always at least rinses dishes before throwing them in the little wonder box.
Go Cubs!