Friday Hodgepodge

Four Things

1. Quote Investigator delves into the origins of the following quotation: "A boy of fifteen who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at twenty."

The ages cited are much lower than for a superfically similar saying -- which included modern party affiliations -- I recall hearing as I grew up. (Something like, "If you're a young Republican, you have no heart; if you're an old Democrat, you have no brain.") And now, I would be shocked if anything less than a majority of adults in the United States think it is a democracy.

I blame a century of "progressive" government schooling for that shocking change.

I nevertheless share that sentiment, and take pains to remind anyone I am conversing with that democracy means mob rule whenever that is relevant.

2. I get much out of Suzanne Lucas's Evil HR Lady blog, including the occasional good laugh. To wit, her take on the term The Great Resignation: "This makes it sound like it's some asteroid or maybe sharks, and all we can do is brace ourselves, get our post-apocalyptic jumpsuits ready, and invest in crypto-currency. Or something."

It's not that bad, but it's a real thing, and it's surely coming.

3. The list isn't systematic, and although I think Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time, I'm not sure I'd call everything shown a skill.

Nevertheless, some are. See especially the first, which combines a flick of the ball upward and a skip over the legs of a defender attempting a sliding tackle.

In any event, it's an amazing eleven minutes of highlights.

4. Recently, some relatives were having problems with inconsistent video quality sent from their iPhones:

The other day I sent a video of my daughter playing at the park to my brother and my parents. Later, my parents said the quality of the video was very low with poor sound and blocky images. I asked my brother about it and he said the video looked great.

Since then I've tested out a few other videos to the same end. Half the people I've sent them too have said they look great and half the people have said they look pretty blocky and like old camera phone videos. What gives? How can one group get crystal clear video like I copied the video right over to their phone and the other group get something that looks like an old webcam? Help!

If the above example rings a bell, read on there for the solution.

-- CAV