
Title:
Experience: I had an erection for three weeks
Description:
I grabbed a wine-cooling sleeve from the freezer and wrapped it around my penis

( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 19:08, Reply)

Peak Grauniad.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 19:41, Reply)

But it's being filled more and more with utter horseshite.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 20:28, Reply)

It's the kind of publication for people who regard Stacey Dooley as a legitimate current affairs journalist. The kind of folk who will readily call out Islamophobic sentiment on social media yet will proceed to swallow their plane seat with their anus the moment a vaguely brown person walks down the aisle. Just awful.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 21:03, Reply)

( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 21:34, Reply)

( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 22:48, Reply)

Wow, I sur
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 15:12, Reply)

I guess that is a personal insult. More importantly though, what would you consider the bastion of integrity when it comes to reporting?
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 22:51, Reply)

Now I've heard it all.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 23:07, Reply)

post Brexit, whataboutery, which btw, is an EU regulation, will be banned.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 23:21, Reply)

*waves blue passport*
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 23:38, Reply)

But given the rant about the Guardian website and its users, is it really whataboutery to ask what alternative website someone would suggest using instead of the one they just ranted about?
(I am not expecting an intelligent answer from either of you)
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 9:25, Reply)

( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 10:38, Reply)

of what you consider to be the bastion of integrity when it comes to reporting.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 11:10, Reply)

When did I ever state or imply that such a 'bastion of integrity' in 'reporting' exists? How was that article reportage? It was a first person single source account published entirely uncritically. Is that reporting?
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 12:08, Reply)

It's the Experiences column in the Life & Style section. It's not meant to be hard-hitting journalism, or even just professional journalism. They solicit stories which are then submitted by not-journalists, and the "best ones" are picked by the editorial team for publication every Friday.
( , Sun 25 Aug 2019, 5:08, Reply)

( , Sun 25 Aug 2019, 10:01, Reply)

I do like the Grauniad's actual journalism, like actual news articles about things that actually fucking matter, but the sideshow stuff they rightfully get ripped for to either pad out the print edition or to go fishing for clicks does absolutely nothing for me.
( , Sun 25 Aug 2019, 22:50, Reply)

My favourite actual journalist is Owen Jones.
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 0:13, Reply)

My whole original post was that the Guardian website is getting more and more full of Horseshite.
Mr Penis ranted insultingly about the content of the whole site (and readers), and I asked him for his alternative, that's the entire sensible discussion, and it died out pretty quickly.
Prufrock separately being a twat unable to use words like "whataboutery" correctly or understanding concepts like "Guardian website" or "when the sun is shining" is pretty much a given. And since he somehow seems to link "horseshite" with "love" I can only assume he is a coprophilic weirdo. Which doesn't surprise me.
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 0:34, Reply)

( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 8:01, Reply)

I get the impression that the more additional characters I type now, the more you consider this some kind of victory? Okay, knock yourself out, you winner - especially for you - s shinosns Ed his hjsnshjs shjsnsjsn snksnjsnj snisninis snksnsnjska amankankskdhdjsnks bjdksk smism sjemplehdnd
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 9:38, Reply)

Are all Guardian fanboys this catty and brittle?
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 11:17, Reply)

Since my original post was "I do still like The Guardian but it's being filled more and more with utter horseshite"
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 12:02, Reply)

But I can't be bothered to waste any more effort on this, on such a nice day.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 12:17, Reply)

There's no arguing with that.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 13:06, Reply)

The silliest thing of all was that I was originally going to reply to your first post with something like "yes, the guy is a knob, but the Guardian can get even worse than that at times, still best of a bad bunch though."
Hope you got out to enjoy the sunshine like I did.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 18:16, Reply)

( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 22:31, Reply)

They're independent journalists, so they're free from bias and all external influences, it's incredible.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 9:43, Reply)

For news and investigative reporting the guardian is one of the greatest papers
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 2:15, Reply)

He was in the i last week
b3ta.com/links/Man_has_permanent_erection
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 20:51, Reply)

Don't let strangers inject medicine directly into your dick.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 22:10, Reply)

This would never of occurred to me previously.
I'm going to get these exact words tattooed on my dick tomorrow.
What an unbelievable dick (ahem) this guy was/is.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 23:20, Reply)

If the Pathetic Sharks from Viz wrote a newspaper, it would be a bit like the Guardian.
( , Sat 24 Aug 2019, 3:55, Reply)

I make sure that I don't write to the papers about it.
( , Sun 25 Aug 2019, 14:35, Reply)

Unfortunately didn't get to see them.
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 10:14, Reply)

"When I woke, I was no longer in agonising pain. I felt hope. My partner and I had become even closer and my friends started fundraising for my recovery".
"So how much have you raised so far, mates? £ 2.37 ?!" What the hell! I drifted back off to sleep and awoke a few days later. When I woke again, my friends, my partner, my penis, my hope, and the £2.37 were all gone."
( , Mon 26 Aug 2019, 20:52, Reply)

Been here before but a nice song and some surfing.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 19:02, Reply)

Well, who wouldnt?
Title:
Girl's before and after school photos go viral
Description:
Lucie's new school uniform is on the dishevelled side by the end of the five-year-old's first day.

( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 14:04, Reply)

It just looks totally fake. I can't wait for the uproar and forthcoming witch-hunt.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 20:37, Reply)

I bow to your superior internetting.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 21:24, Reply)

It's the bank holiday weekend, so you have permission to bring toys and games from home - and start drinking early!
BRING ON THE WALL!
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 12:48, Reply)

For about three weeks in 2016 you could talk to any random person in London and they'd all happily tell you about the Gyarados they found around the corner and if you hurry it might still be there.
Now everyone's back to assuming you're going to stab them for their phone.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 9:51, Reply)

rare (or so I'm told) 100-year-old film clips of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, and Edgar Degas. Monet paints like a pensioner playing bingo
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 0:29, Reply)

Always Ludovico Einaudi's I Giorni - the ultimate in-memoriam segment music
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 8:17, Reply)

some more #deepfakery for you...
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 14:01, Reply)

Can I be the first to suggest that anti-Boris sentiment is Islamophobia?
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 19:02, Reply)

The goose's name is George in case you miss it
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:00, Reply)

I would ask: "are you making a video of this? Because if you are, please put it on youtube so that B3ta people can comprehend this nightmare
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:23, Reply)

( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 11:50, Reply)

The only shopping I'd be doing with George is for sage, onion, breadcrumbs and potatoes.
Edit: Argh, I'm on fire.
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:26, Reply)

Lots of fire is helpful when it comes to roasting such a large bird.
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:51, Reply)

I want an emotional support Honey Badger.
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:44, Reply)

But I assume it's just a matter of time before these delightful little animals and their associated 'look at me I'm special' fat arseholes are waddling about in my local Tescos.
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 12:39, Reply)

Had a mild dose of the LSD yesterday and this helped me pull through. Thank you.
( , Fri 23 Aug 2019, 4:34, Reply)

I assume they've wrapped photos round a sphere object
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 0:12, Reply)

But it happened on the other side.
That is beautiful.
(it's Jupiter BTW)
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 0:37, Reply)

On what would have been his 67th birthday, here's Julien Temple's rather excellent Joe Strummer documentary.
Part 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQs2F0Y3Hw
----------------------------
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:43, Reply)

Another rejected trailer I made for my client...
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 13:04, Reply)

Looking busy is something I know you guys are good at. So here is my ode to it. In collaboration with a pianist from New Orleans.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 10:36, Reply)

"Neil Young, described here as “crankier than a hermit being stung by bees,” loathes Spotify, Facebook, Apple, and Steve Jobs, who it must be noted, is dead."
Title:
Neil Young hates what the internet has done to music
Description:
Spotify may not be literally damaging our brains, but he's not entirely wrong, either.

( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 2:12, Reply)

Since I started using Spotify and Bandcamp I've bought about 100x more records than i did previously - because it's easier to discover new music.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 2:26, Reply)

I see you've bought a house. Here's 50 more you might also like to buy.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 5:56, Reply)

I see you've been here for X years. Here are X candles
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 6:32, Reply)

Here's a page for you to tell jokes on STOP TELLING JOKES
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 8:30, Reply)

but I'm not sure I've ever owned a CD player with speakers good enough to notice the difference.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 11:20, Reply)

personally, I always get either a WAV or a FLAC to listen to my music.
Just got some new AKG headphones which are so good I get goosebumps listening to some music.
When I listen to the same files through BlueTooth (which has its own compression involved) I don't.
He would be better off arguing against lossy compression. That is the real enemy of high-quality audio.
I use Spotify in the same way I use thumbnails when looking for pictures. You can get an idea of the thing quickly and browse many files, but when you want to get the real thing, get a lossless copy.
Spotify has enabled me to increase my music collection in directions I would not have otherwise considered, but I would not use it to get copies of files to listen to.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 11:47, Reply)

What he did to Grunge with Crazy Horse or whatever was just as criminal.
Worst hard rock voice eva!
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 12:02, Reply)

And how much are due to a genuine perceivable increase in quality when listening to lossless files?
I studied Audio Engineering and Music Technology at Uni, so I'm effectively very much in the 'Audiophile' camp (although, audiophile is a term coined by pricks, for pricks who read What Hi-fi and believe that spending thousands of pounds on digital interconnects will give them an honest-to-God better listening experience than a £10 interconnect from Amazon would.) and I can say with certainty that I could not tell you the difference between a 256kbit Mp3 and FLAC, regardless of the equipment.
I'll admit that there might be some quantifiable aural disparity between Bluetooth and hardwired audio. But even then, you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference in the majority of cases assuming you're using a decent Bluetooth codec, you'd likely need a side-by-side comparison and it's a little irrelevant anyway, since Bluetooth is designed largely for convenience and portability, not ultimate fidelity.
That being said, I still keep all my music as FLAC as at the end of the day. It's a lossless format, and you'd be mad to archive your audio lossy. But can you really hear the difference? Or is your brain just telling you that you can?
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 17:29, Reply)

They are for persuading well off egotists that they have the best wires, the most 'taste' and spend bigliest because they deserve 'the best'.
See also, most expensive anything.
'The emperors clothes' rides again.
Edit: A fair dose of the placebo effect too.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:06, Reply)

I too would count myself on the saner side of Audiophilia, and as such I wonder if you can eloborate on whether there's any distinction between your brain telling you that there's a difference, and there actually really being a difference? What else could possibly tell you there's a differnce if not your brain? If you can really hear the difference, then the difference is surely really real.
Even in cases where there is no independantly measurable difference, if you really can hear an improvement, then this is objectionally no differnt to the case where there actually is a real measuable differnce. But then, I'm lucky enough to own some really fucking incredible speakers, and there are LOTS of ways to describe the quality of a listening experience that are completely different to the resolution of a digital file etc.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:32, Reply)

Would you still be able to tell the difference if you were going in blind (deaf)?
If you were listening to a 256/320kbps mp3 that somebody was passing off as a FLAC, would you be able to call their bluff?
You could probably tell the difference with some practise and some fantastically high end equipment, but that gear is going to be well beyond the capability of any set of AKG headphones. And well beyond the capability of most bank balances.
It's a bit like the 16bit vs. 24bit audio debate. There are folk out there who will stake their reputation on 24bit being a superior listening experience. It's not. It's just fucking not. But again, I'm sure some folk will claim that theres a perceivable difference in dynamic range when there isn't.
I get what you're saying. If your brain thinks it can hear difference, that's all that really matters. Whether or not the is an actual scientifically Audible difference is irrelevant.
I also agree that bit rate is only a tiny factor in the overall experience. If a track has been mastered like dogshit, then having the highest bitrate/most sonically transparent listening apparatus isn't going to be of any help whatsoever. Your £20,000 Martin Logan's aren't going to make your £150 Cambridge Audio amp sound any better - they're only going to highlight its flaws.
But yeah, if Naproxeno has a better listening experience using FLAC then it doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks. It's his experience.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 22:56, Reply)

but I can definitely hear a difference between MP3 and FLAC. MP3 doesn't have the depth, and the bass and top end sound clearly stripped out, almost tinny. Bluetooth is inconsistent, my car vanilla bluetooth is awful but the stick I use instead is actually not too bad. Wired devices just to seem to have a better tone. I doubt expensive connectors make much difference to ordinary ears though.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 20:23, Reply)

but whatever floats yer boat, man
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 21:49, Reply)

It's odd how your ears can learn 'where to look' for artifacts and from then on be tuned into them
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 0:14, Reply)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect
also: www.vox.com/2015/3/4/8147377/mp3-compressed-ghosts
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 17:35, Reply)

He even launched his own lossless digital music players.
And then, being Neil Young, he made his next album in a |Jack White's 1930's fairground direct-to-wax 2 mins a session booth. Fucking awesome!
www.clashmusic.com/news/neil-young-makes-entire-album-in-jack-whites-recording-booth
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:13, Reply)

Got the DAC, tube amp, tubes from the 60s back when they were good, Planar magnetic magnetic headphones.
Sounds fucking amazing for the 5 minutes a week a get to listen to them.
#Dadblog
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 23:39, Reply)

www.cnet.com/news/why-do-musicians-have-lousy-hi-fis/
While audiophiles tend to have a dull taste in music
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 12:19, Reply)

creativie vs techy people have totally different brains. Who will win
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 17:06, Reply)

I'm a musician and the only hi-fi I have now is in the car. I do now have a set of 'high def' headphones which are nice, but as I grew up listening to music mostly on a crappy cassette walkman, low quality audio has never bothered me and I've never thought a song was particularly improved by increased audio fidelity. If you have a very expensive hi-fi then I suppose you are only going to listen to music with very high production values and that's probably a bit limiting.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:08, Reply)

This is not entirely true. For an obvious example, most Aphex Twin music is not audiophile quality mastered, given his redisposition towards recording on casette decks and such. But do his incredibly complex soundscapes sound increasingly fippin' awesome on hi quality audio gear? Yes, the hell yes!
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 19:38, Reply)

1) I'm very familiar with it
2) It has a frequency range that will reveal how the set-up responds at both the low end and the high end.
( , Wed 21 Aug 2019, 23:08, Reply)

The audio quality is shiiiiiiiite but the soul of the music still comes through.
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 9:31, Reply)

so I couldn't give a fuck about the differences between mp3 and FLAC and vinyl. It all sounds good to me in comparison
( , Thu 22 Aug 2019, 0:16, Reply)
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