September 23, 2003

My music collection

I’ve written before about the problems with CD storage. My approach has been to put all my CDs in binders (which are fairly cheap on a per-CD basis), and rip them all as 192-Kbps MP3s to an external hard drive. So I have all my music accessible on my computer, which is nice.

Just looking at the numbers

Via the always-interesting six different ways, I ran across pollkatz’ pageload of presidential-poll data. The Bush approval-rating graph in particular is interesting. Taken out of context, we see that whenever his rating gets near 50%, something happens to give them a big boost, after which they resume the prevailing trend: steady decline. Of course, context helps: the first boost was 9/11; the second, the invasion of Iraq.

Right now his numbers are perilously close to 50%, making me wonder what he’s got up his sleeve for the immediate future. The military’s already overextended, so I don’t expect he’ll invade anyone. Another terrorist attack would probably give him some altitude, but look at the glide slope he’s on: it would need to be a really serious incident to kick him up high enough to avoid a hard landing before November ’04. Either that, or he’ll need a succession of smaller incidents.