News Cut: August 7, 2012 Archive
Hey, classical music is only human (5x8 - 8/7/12)
Posted at 7:35 AM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8
A musical assault on muggers, good morning Mars, reunited brothers in North Dakota, science and the traffic light
Continue reading "Hey, classical music is only human (5x8 - 8/7/12)"
The Parry-Dayton feud
Posted at 9:29 AM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(10 Comments)
Filed under: Politics
The New Ulm Journal has provided video from last night's fundraiser for congressional candidate Mike Parry, who makes the assertion that Gov. Mark Dayton "popped 15 or 16 pills" during some unspecified negotiation session.
It's at the 2:40 mark.
The assertion didn't seem to have much impact on the audience. Note the woman in the front row who keeps checking her smartphone.
Curiously, the Journal left Parry's comment out of its story about the fundraiser near Hanska.
The reporter covering the event tweeted it last night.
Parry says Dayton pops 15 to 16 pills when he sitting across from you in negotiations. Says Dayton is scary
— Josh Moniz (@Josh_Moniz) August 7, 2012#stribpol#mngop
Gov. Dayton's father, Bruce, is a contributor to Parry's congressional campaign.
The Parry-Dayton feud goes back a ways.
(10 Comments)The Cat Immersion Project
Posted at 11:26 AM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Let's just take a break from the news of the day for a moment to acknowledge more people who do their part to make life a bit better.
In Seattle, a young cancer patient can't be with her cat during her many visits to Seattle Children's Hospital for treatment. So the hospital asked its Facebook "friends" to help out.
And they did.
Well done, people.
Not every cat video on YouTube is pointless.
And now this word from the young lady...
" You guys remind me that there is so much good in the world, and its just makes me feel so much better, and connected. I can't tell you how it feels sometimes, feeling disconnected and cut off from the world, and then with something like cat pictures bringing me back. Thank you all for your kind words, and well wishing. Its means more then you can ever know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you..."
Last call at the neighborhood pub
Posted at 1:03 PM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(4 Comments)
Filed under: Regional history
Say it ain't so, Wisconsin! The corner taps are drying up, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
The corner bar and grill is Wisconsin, what with its usual Packer memorabilia and the four guys at the bar who look like they've been there awhile. It's particularly true in Brew City -- Milwaukee, but perhaps not for much longer.
We're losing something with these places," Deb Seibel of the city's Plainfield Pub said. "My husband and I are in our late 50s. We always have gone to corner bars. We don't go downtown. We're more friendly. We cater to the working people."
But people are looking for more nowadays. You can't smoke inside, and there is, of course, more focus on not driving drunk. And sports bars and larger joints are pulling people from the corner pub.
At one time there were more than 2,000 corner bars in the city. Last year, the newspaper says, only 127 renewed their licenses.
Parents, kids, sex, and spaghetti
Posted at 2:21 PM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Marketing and advertising
Not for nothing does NewsCut have a "Marketing and Advertising" category.
A kid sees his parents having sex and what else would cure the problem but a big heaping plate of spaghetti.
It's one of the few times I encourage people to read the YouTube comments purely for entertainment value.
And, yes, the ad is causing some controversy. What doesn't these days?
(3 Comments)A Parkinson's diagnosis may soon be a phone call away
Posted at 2:42 PM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
Filed under: Health, Science
What if you could call a phone number and find out if you have a -- so far -- incurable illness?
Mathematician Max Little is collecting thousands of voice recordings as part of research into the possibility that merely listening to a voice can determine the point that is the difference between health and disease.
He says subtle changes to the voice, including tremor, breathiness and weakness are detected by specialized algorithms.
His Parkinson's Voice Initiative records a large sample of voices. Anyone who is healthy or with Parkinson's can call in and leave a recording that will be used in the research.
He first described it a few weeks ago on NPR:
Last month, Little and his team asked people all over the world to call up their phone banks and record their voices. The caller follows a series of prompts -- asking them to say "ahh" for as long as they can and say a few sentences.
"We expected to it to run for six months and collect 10,000 voice recordings over that period," Little says. "In just under a month, we got 5,000 voice recordings."
The algorithm listens for three main clusters of symptoms in the voice: vocal fold tremors, breathiness and weakness, and the way the jaw, tongue and lips fluctuate during speech.
Little hopes the algorithm will improve enough so that eventually a person could get a diagnosis and track their illness through the phone.
The TED video was released today.
If you're in the U.S., the phone number is 1-857-284-8035.
The disowning of RegBarc
Posted at 4:02 PM on August 7, 2012
by Bob Collins
(8 Comments)
What would it take to disown your son?
One of the hottest threads on the website Reddit today is the letter a poster received from his father five years ago, after the son acknowledged he's gay (click for larger version).
The son posts on Reddit:
"I've never done drugs, was an excellent student, an obedient child (far less trouble than many of my classmates), didn't drink until I was 22 because it terrified me, and have had just 1 speeding ticket in my life. Yet I am still seemingly deserving of this terrible act of hate and cowardice that one person can place on another. 5 years on and I am still doing fine, though this letter saunters into my mind every once in a while."
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