Just some random things I’ve wondered about.

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Pretty much everyone knows what “sampling” is in music, defined as “the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or piece.”

Sampling has gotten ridiculous, to the point where people have sampled a sample, not knowing the piece of music they are sampling was first sampled from an even older song, and so on and so on.

Some songs will have multiple samples in a single track, sometimes a ludicrous number of them.

Some time ago, it occurred to me that perhaps one reason for all the excessive sampling in the music business is that it provides a perfectly byzantine means to launder money.

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From “Everything Is Political Now” Dept. –

Sky & Telescope tells us the correct way to remember space acronyms.

Today’s classification scheme was born at Harvard College Observatory. Starting in 1886 under Edward C. Pickering, the observatory staff photographed and classified thousands of spectral types. They assigned them letters from A through Q, generally in alphabetical order from the simplest-looking to the most complex. But soon a more natural system became clear. By rearranging and merging classifications, Antonia C. Maury and Annie J. Cannon found that they could fit nearly all stars’ spectra into one smooth, continuous sequence. The sequence matched the stars’ color temperatures, from the hottest, blue-white stars at one end to relatively cool, orange-red ones at the other.

But it was too late to reassign the letters. When the dust cleared, the rearranged sequence ran O B A F G K M from hot to cool. Spectral types on the blue end were called “early” and those on the red end “late.” These terms are still used today, though the incorrect idea they embody — that stars simply cool with age — has been obsolete for generations.

…The time-honored mnemonic for remembering the spectral sequence, invented by Henry Norris Russell when astronomy’s leadership was all male, is “Oh Be A Fine Girl Kiss Me.” In 1995 Mercury magazine published a student’s rejoinder: “Only Boys Accepting Feminism Get Kissed Meaningfully.”

Even astronomy is feminist now.

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I refuse to refer to “the pandemic” because it was no such thing.

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Some languages place the descriptor before the object, such as “black cat” or “speeding car.” Other languages place the object before the descriptor. I wonder how this affects thought processes. Does one way lean more toward abstract thought and the other toward more concrete thought? Does language influence one’s thought processes, or do the processes determine the type of language? Some of both in a reinforcement loop?

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This is an interesting month for numbers. April 2 2024 is 2/4/24 or 2424. April 14 is 04/14/24, a nice numerical progression. April 22 is 4/22/24, or 42224. Today is April 24 2024 which s 4/24/24, or 42424.

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I got nothin’ else right now.