porcy62

You can bet there is, though not on the Q.I. tests.

Statistics are empty numbers, if you don't interpretate them "cum grano salis". Personally regarding children I am skeptical abou statistics, and Q.I. tests are questionable as well, though the NYT article is pretty honest, presenting the whole complexity of the issue. Usually newspapers look for strong headlines for circulation, regardless of accuracy and all the problems involved.

There is another theory that said exactly the opposite. It's based on the fact that the second born learns things from the firstborn, actually he growns in a more challenging enviromental.

Great, I had to replace my Dae Woo fridge, made in Korea, after 6 years, but my washing machine, Miele, german built, still works great after twenty five years. Obviously the german costed twice the price, at those times, but it last three times. I regretted I spared money for the fridge, at the end I would had spent exactly the same for a Miele fridge, but I would have avoid the hassle of paying the guy of the assistance for telling me that I had to replace it, because fixin will cost almost like a new fridge. I have an opinion about mass market: most of the stuff are conceived to last for a short time. Surely shorter then I judge, I want no problems and long lasting stuff. Life is too short for spending it in household or cars shops. So I prefer japanese cars, german motorbike , german household appliances. Apple computers, Nokia cellphone and a small number of brands of exotic stuff in the hi fi camps.

I am not referring to the cost, but to the quality, that usually has a cost, though since big corporations acquired the famous brands, like Harmann Kardon with Mark Levinson, the quality falls down. The point with cd players and, more with TT, is that they have more then PCB inside them. The most usurable parts are the moving ones. Like cd mechanics. Some serious brands improve existing mechanics in order to achieve better sound and durability. Other simply buy insertions in High End magazines.

More often then you think, expecially the cheap japanese stuff, all made in China or in Taiwan. So in the long run, it might be a bargain spend more in order to have a decent player of a brand with a serious customer service. Usually they keep parts for repairing for several years after a product is dismissed.

So do I, I am with Claude, check them out on one of those hig end players, the ones Chuck hates . If you have an hi end shop close to you, bring these cds with you and ask for an audition of some "serious" machines. No need to buy them and I'll have a proof. If the cds plays well you have to do some counts. If the total value of the unreadable cds are less then the value of the high end player, replace the cds, otherwise replace the player. Obviously you might discover that those players sound far better then your, so you might replace the cds, still thinking that, after all, those expensive stuff were a bargain, sonically speaking. About cd burners, I noted that some of them are unable to read overloaded cds.

That's the way my wife got me.

Do you write country songs in your "real" life? No, I presume he listen too much brasilian music

When your CD goes wrong... ...switch to vinyl...

If he's still alive, tell yo' daddy Rossini wrote "brothel's music" too. Sadly he is not. My dad was too clever for judging a music for it. He simply preferred Mozart, Rossini and classical music. I still have his records. BTW he was a decent accordion player and he loved popular brass band and "a capella" choirs, not the worst dad, musically speaking. I still can sing the whole Barbiere di Siviglia w/o reading the libretto, though I'd reccomend it

My dad despised jazz, he thought it was "a brothel's music" (his words), he loved Mozart and Rossini. He despised rock too. The main reason because I got into jazz was that I had to be "snob". Since I was an Art's student mainstream rock music (Pink Floyd, Dylan, ecc..) was too "easy listening". Ornette's Free Jazz or Coltrane's Ascension or Sun Ra, this were hip music for us. I even despised hard bop, too "mainstream". After some years of psychoanalisys I came to an agreement with music. Now I can enjoy Mozart, H. Silver and Deep Purple w/o any apparent problems. BTW John Mayall's Jazz Blues Fusion is a great record.

John Lee Hooker - Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive - ABC Records, the first blues album I bought, mid-seventies, it still sounds great and with Van "The Man" Morrison in the title track!

This is the very same consideration I started to write and never posted. With Mr. Nessa's approval, now I am safe to reveal it.

"Shake Your Hips" sung by Rolling Stones in Exile on Main Street

What's wrong with Yurup is what's wrong with (practically) everywhere else. It's got a centre of nothing. I mean that's OK while you're making lots of money. But if that stops, you'll be in big trouble, for there's nothing to fall back on. And, even if that doesn't stop, these societies are strangely dessicated with very little really new happening in terms of culture. You just can't go on like that, IMO. Sooner or later the whole thing falls in on itself if a society doesn't renew. I can't speak for Italy, but in the UK just about everything has to be tested for market friendliness before it's produced. That is just about the most conservative concept possible and accounts for the extreme lack of new ideas (also IMO). People need to wake up to the fact that market economics is really bad for new ideas and without new ideas a society dies. Even if it's making loads of money, it still dies. In fact there's probably a trade-off between extreme competetiveness and production of genuinely new - and thus threatening to the majority - ideas. Anything that's threatening to the majority is not going to be produced by the mega-concerns which now dominate the culture industries. For all of these are driven solely by the desire to make money. To say we're better than them (pick your them) does not make us fine. Simon Weil I totally agree with you. Just look at Italy, it lost the war, it was a destroyed country, no factories, no railways, nothing. Thanks to hard job, and Marshall's plan, now we are among the most industrialized countries in the world. we are "rich", so what? We are ageing, the best italian minds emigrate abroad, MIT, Stanford, Shangai. The hardest workers, and the richs of tomorrow, are immigrants from Bangla Desh or China. Our ruling class, politicians and economy's big boss, is the worst I remember. We are dying as country. Frankly I am not worried, tomorrow other people of different colour or languages will be in charge over here. Who cares? The big question is: will be "others" better then "us"? Will China, India or Brasil better then us? Will they cares about enviromental, poverty, civil rights, welfare, culture, art? I am pessimistic and I tell you why: italians were immigrants, all over the world they suffered of discrimination and racism. Well, you think that we should have learned the lesson. Not at all, we are racists and discriminate immigrants.

At last something we could agree about! though I have a stereo copy and i still prefer Jazz Raga

What's wrong with Yurpean? A part the fact that I'd like move to Bay Area, that Big One scares me out of hell, I'm fine with Europe. Btw my toilets are nicer, and the worms are good for my garden.

Grateful Dead American Beauty

Van Basten, who's that girl in your avatar? The lovely Adriana Lima I think we're disgressing but i feel i'll be pardonned Absolutely. In which film does this card game take place? Yeah, I too would like to know it.

Take it easy Dude! Everything's gonna be all right.

BRASS BAG - Pacific Jazz mono, with Tricky Lofton, Carmell Jones, Frank Stazzeri, ecc Gerald Wilson is the arranger

When did that ever stop anyone? I think that anonimous letter to FBI would be more exciting, even for your neighbours