Singapore is ‘organized as hell,’ but the Philippines is where the party is – Weekender

The not-so-little-anymore parking-lot fair grew its audience to 22,000 in 2016 from 6,000 in its inaugural edition. From occupying a single floor of The Link Carpark in Ayala Center, the fair, now on its fifth year, is taking over four levels. Satellite activities, collectively dubbed “10 Days of Art,” will spill out into the city from Feb. 9 to 19. The highlight: the projection of James Nares’ Street on the facade of Ayala Tower One & Exchange Plaza, marking the video installation’s Asia premiere and its first non-museum showing. The number of participating galleries has almost doubled from 24 in 2013 to this year’s 46, with 12 coming from other countries.

Source: Singapore is ‘organized as hell,’ but the Philippines is where the party is – Weekender

Do CDs Sound Better Than Vinyl? | L.A. Weekly

“I’d just listen and go: ‘Jesus, after all that work, that’s all I get?’ It was sort of a percentage of what we did in the studio,” he says. “All that work and trying to make everything sound so good, and the vinyl just wasn’t as good.”Not only did records provide only a sliver of what he’d done in the studio but they also came with plenty of sounds that hadn’t been there in the first place: ticks and pops.”If you’re a musician like Bob and I,” Ludwig says, “and you get to do a mix and you listen to it and you love the way it sounds, and then it’s transferred to vinyl and suddenly it’s got noise and ticks and pops, for me that’s an extremely unmusical event.”

Source: Do CDs Sound Better Than Vinyl? | L.A. Weekly

rePost:Critic After Dark: Best of 2016

Terrific films, terrible yearCan’t include any horror films because to my mind the entire genre has been rendered not only unfrightening but totally redundant by the world’s recent turn into fascism. Can’t in good conscience include any film that deals directly with aforementioned recent events because 1) there aren’t that many and 2) I suspect we need to digest what’s happened for a few years before the proper level of disappointment and anger and artistry can be expressed.

Source: Critic After Dark: Best of 2016

Kidnap cops | Inquirer Opinion

Mr. Duterte’s flagship campaign was also ostensibly about rooting out the corruption and criminality that have tainted law-enforcement operations. By smashing the drug syndicates, he was cutting off the supply of money and influence routinely used to make cops look the other way, or worse, to protect and participate in the drug business. But, as concerned sectors have repeatedly warned, using the same compromised police force without first cleaning up their ranks, urging them to employ the most ruthless methods while assuring them of ready pardon any time they violated their own protocols of conduct or engagement, was an open invitation to abuse.

Source: Kidnap cops | Inquirer Opinion
 
The same people who don’t trust the police are arguing that tokhang is good.
Fucking stupid.

SSS hike: finance with no numbers | Inquirer Opinion

The SSS campaign is a stark contrast to the intelligent tax reform initiative of Sen. Sonny Angara and Rep. Miro Quimbo. They presented compelling numbers, such as how 84 percent of individual taxpayers do not pay income tax, leaving the 16 percent with an impossible burden. They pinpointed what items in the national budget could be cut back to support tax relief.If we bewail fake news, should we not elevate public discourse and demand that demagogues and populists emulate Angara and Quimbo instead of instigating rallies?Why do we consistently glorify those who, like drums, speak loudest, yet ring the most hollow when they demand quick fixes, and demonize those who pursue the slow, unglamorous task of nation-building?React: oscarfranklin.tan@yahoo.com.ph, Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan.

Source: SSS hike: finance with no numbers | Inquirer Opinion

George Marshall's 1920 Letter on True Leadership

Churchill put Marshall’s best qualities — his leadership in the worst of times — on display when he wrote: There are few men whose qualities of mind and character have impressed me so deeply as those of General Marshall … He is a great American, but he is far more than that … He has always fought victoriously against defeatism, discouragement and disillusion. Succeeding generations must not be allowed to forget his achievements and his example. Sadly, outside of military circles, that example does seem a

Source: George Marshall’s 1920 Letter on True Leadership

NYC's brand new subway is the most expensive in the world — that's a problem – Vox

This is a lot of words about one project in one American city, but it does carry a broader lesson.

It’s relatively easy to look at an example of a foreign country that is doing something well — whether that’s Germany in using apprenticeships to connect young people to meaningful blue-collar work, Finland in supporting new parents, or Paris in building subway tunnels — and say that we ought to do it too. Certainly providing people with quality public services costs money, but the United States is a very rich country, and finding the money for something worthwhile is never impossible.

But this kind of discussion too often elides the real practical difficulties in implementing big domestic policies like those, and the ways in which the US system is uniquely bad and inefficient about doing so. Between the Second Avenue Subway, the $10.2 billion East Side Access tunnel for the LIRR, and the $4 billion World Trade Center PATH station, the New York City region is in fact spending a lot of money on upgrading its mass transit system. The money is simply not going to generate as much transit service as a comparable amount of spending would in Paris or Copenhagen, because New York’s institutions don’t seem up to the task of spending it as effectively. Improving is both possible and desirable, but it would take actual time and skill and effort.

Source: NYC’s brand new subway is the most expensive in the world — that’s a problem – Vox

USEFUL WINDOWS SOFTWARE: Ditto clipboard manager

Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, …..

Features

Easy to use interface

Search and paste previous copy entries

Keep multiple computer’s clipboards in sync

Data is encrypted when sent over the network

Accessed from tray icon or global hot key

Select entry by double click, enter key or drag drop

Paste into any window that excepts standard copy/paste entries

Display thumbnail of copied images in list

Full Unicode support(display foreign characters)

UTF-8 support for language files(create language files in any language)

Uses sqlite database (www.sqlite.org)

Source: Ditto clipboard manager