Unusual News in English

aureliano · ♣ El Capitán ♠

Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific

An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said.

physorg.com

aureliano · ♣ El Capitán ♠

25% of American public thinks that the Internet is a satisfactory substitute for a partner

Now imagine yourself in this romantic beach scene, cuddling your MacBook: The results of a poll commissioned by a Washington PR firm says that a whopping quarter of the American public thinks that the Internet is a satisfactory substitute for a significant other.

Although the article claims that the poll was done in a scientific manner -- sending out the survey to 9,800 "scientifically selected"(?) people -- I have my doubts. Even if the target group is selected "scientifically", it's a self-selecting bunch that chooses to respond to a survey that asks you if you think the iPhone is sexier than Halle Berry.

For example, I wouldn't have responded. And I bet there are others like me, who received this survey and think that the Internet is no substitute for their cuddlykins, and severely skewed the response.

The point of the survey was to stir up discussion, said Tom Galvin, a partner of the communications firm that commissioned it. Well then: What do I think about statements like this?

Apparently, a good broadband connection and all the possibilities it opens up would compensate for not having a companion who might, after all, leave the cap off the toothpaste, fail to put the seat down on the toilet or hog the TV remote.

I'm frightened. How about you?

wired.com

aureliano · ♣ El Capitán ♠

Does cyberspace provide enough companionship? Some say yes

No person is an island, or so it's been said. But a recent survey suggests that, in this networked age, nearly 1 in 4 Americans wouldn't mind being left all by their lonesomes, as long as they were able to access the Internet.

"This has as much to do with making new friends and social networking as it has to do with the traditional porn stuff," said Tom Galvin, a partner with 463 Communications, the Washington public relations agency that commissioned the survey.

Although the survey questions were light and quirky - respondents were asked, for instance, to compare the allure of Apple's iPhone with the sex appeal of various Hollywood stars - the method was not.

Conducted by Zogby International, a polling firm in Utica, N.Y., the survey questions were e-mailed to a scientifically selected sample of nearly 9,800 U.S. adults, who offered precise feedback to not-so-burning questions like, "Can the Internet serve as a substitute for a significant other?"

To that question, 24 percent answered "Yes." Apparently, a good broadband connection and all the possibilities it opens up would compensate for not having a companion who might, after all, leave the cap off the toothpaste, fail to put the seat down on the toilet or hog the TV remote.

Singles, as expected, are more likely (31 percent) to consider the Internet sufficient companionship. That men and women responded that way in equal numbers either supports Galvin's "it's not just smut" thesis or suggests that the wild side of the Web is an equal-opportunity lure.

The survey found a big split politically, however, as 31 percent of self-described progressives felt the Web could substitute for a significant other, while only 18 percent of those who said they are very conservative felt that virtual companionship could replace the tax-paying kind.

The reasons for that split could surely lead to debate, and that, said Galvin, is the point. "The objective was to ask questions that are quick and to the point and will stir up some discussion."

In addition to asking about the Internet and companionship, the survey queried Americans about their social-networking habits and the extent to which their Internet persona became their overall identity. Here, it appears that 1 in 4 grown-ups belongs to a social network, a figure that shoots to 78 percent for adults under 24, and that Democrats far outnumber Republicans in social networking (32 to 22 percent).

But whatever their degree of engagement with the Internet, only 14 percent said cyberspace was an important part of their identity, while 68 percent said their primary identity was in what might be called the bricks-and-mortar world.

Other findings:

-- Asked whether they would want a brain implant with Web access, only 11 percent responded affirmatively, and men (17 percent) were more than twice as likely as women (7 percent) to desire a direct link to the Web.

-- And in a question likely to make the dearly departed roll over in their graves, 1 in 5 survey respondents - and 34 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds - said they would gladly sell their name for $100,000.

-- Three out of 10 respondents thought it so silly to compare the sex appeal of the iPhone to celebrity guys and dolls that they skipped the question.

Of those who played along, however, 27 percent said Halle Berry made their hearts go ring-a-ding-ding; Scarlett Johansson ranked second in overall sex appeal with 17 percent - but garnered 30 percent of the hearts and minds of the under-24 crowd; hunky Patrick Dempsey was third with 14 percent; and the iPhone tied for last place with New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, with a 6 percent sex appeal rating.

San Francisco Chronicle

aureliano · ♣ El Capitán ♠

Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin

As counterintuitive as it may seem in this age of iPods and digital downloads, vinyl -- the favorite physical format of indie music collectors and audiophiles -- is poised to re-enter the mainstream, or at least become a major tributary.

Talk to almost anyone in the music business' vital indie and DJ scenes and you'll encounter a uniformly optimistic picture of the vinyl market.

"I'm hearing from labels and distributors that vinyl is way up," said Ian Connelly, client relations manager of independent distributor alliance IODA, in an e-mail interview. "And not just the boutique, limited-edition colored vinyl that Jesu/Isis-style fans are hot for right now."

Pressing plants are ramping up production, but where is the demand coming from? Why do so many people still love vinyl, even though its bulky, analog nature is anathema to everything music is supposed to be these days? Records, the vinyl evangelists will tell you, provide more of a connection between fans and artists. And many of today's music fans buy 180-gram vinyl LPs for home listening and MP3s for their portable devices.

"For many of us, and certainly for many of our artists, the vinyl is the true version of the release," said Matador's Patrick Amory. "The size and presence of the artwork, the division into sides, the better sound quality, above all the involvement and work the listener has to put in, all make it the format of choice for people who really care about music."

Because these music fans also listen using portable players and computers, Matador and other labels include coupons in record packaging that can be used to download MP3 versions of the songs. Amory called the coupon program "hugely popular."

Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs.

Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound.

Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary.

"The digital world will never get there," said Chris Ashworth, owner of United Record Pressing, the country's largest record pressing plant.

Golden-eared audiophiles have long testified to vinyl's warmer, richer sound. And now demand for vinyl is on the rise. Pressing plants that were already at capacity are staying there, while others are cranking out more records than they did last year in order to keep pace with demand.

Don MacInnis, owner of Record Technology in Camarillo, California, predicts production will be up 25 percent over last year by the end of 2007. And he's not talking about small runs of dance music for DJs, but the whole gamut of music: "new albums, reissues, majors and indies ... jazz, blues, classical, pop and a lot of (classic) rock."

Turntables are hot again as well. Insound, an online music retailer that recently began selling USB turntables alongside vinyl, can't keep them in stock, according to the company's director, Patrick McNamara.

And on Oct. 17, Amazon.com launched a vinyl-only section stocked with a growing collection of titles and several models of record players.

Big labels still aren't buying the vinyl comeback, but it wouldn't be the first time the industry failed to identify a new trend in the music biz.

"Our numbers, at least, don't really point to a resurgence," said Jonathan Lamy, the Recording Industry Association of America's director of communications. Likewise, Nielsen SoundScan, which registered a slight increase in vinyl sales last year, nonetheless showed a 43 percent decrease between 2000 and 2006.

But when it comes to vinyl, these organizations don't really know what they're talking about. The RIAA's numbers are misleading because its member labels are only now beginning to react to the growing demand for vinyl. As for SoundScan, its numbers don't include many of the small indie and dance shops where records are sold. More importantly, neither organization tracks used records sold at stores or on eBay -- arguably the central clearinghouse for vinyl worldwide.

Vinyl's popularity has been underreported before.

"The Consumer Electronics Association said that only 100,000 turntables were sold in 2004. Numark alone sold more than that to pro DJs that year," said Chris Roman, product manager for Numark.

And the vinyl-MP3 tag team might just hasten the long-predicted death of the CD.

San Francisco indie band The Society of Rockets, for example, plans to release its next album strictly on vinyl and as MP3 files.

"Having just gone through the process of mastering our new album for digital and for vinyl, I can say it is completely amazing how different they really sound," said lead singer and guitarist Joshua Babcock in an e-mail interview. "The way the vinyl is so much better and warmer and more interesting to listen to is a wonder."

wired.com