What often isn't recyclable is the tape medium itself:

In some cases, over time, the oxide coating that contains the magnetic information loses adhesion to the Mylar backing. How long the oxide remains bound to the tape is a function of manufacturing materials and process, and storage conditions. Tape manufactured in the 70s and 80s had specific problems in this area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome -some cassette tapes had this problem and sadly, most 'Pro' Reel to Reel tapes of that time had this problem.

In the '90s, as many people became concerned with transferring old stereo master tapes, or even remixing 2-inch master tapes to digital masters there were nightmare stories of irreplaceable tape recordings being destroyed because the oxide layer was rubbed off on the capstans and playback heads of the tapedecks when transfer was attempted (also messing up really expensive playback equipment). Many of these tapes are now stabilized for digital transfer by baking:

http://www.sonicraft.com/Tape_Baking.html

http://old.airmedia.org/PageInfo.php?PageID=197

Hopefully the new tapes they are making will not suffer from SSS or we will lose an entire generation of Mixtapes -the Tragedy!

-I'm just sayin'

I realize that Audio over ethernet is going to replace this stuff on Pro Audio in the next few years (my MOTU AVB uses that and I think Stenberg and Yamaha are both supporting that on some pro gear). because you can stream dozens of channels and combine multiple devices easily in that medium.

But both SPDIF and toslink are still pretty ubiquitous in thousands of amateur and semipro recording studios. There are also TONS of highend A/D preamp combos that have SPDIF and/or toslink

I currently use toslink to gang 2 8 channel Presonus A/D units together to get 16 tracks because that is preferable to using the ADAT connectors (another ancient format)

and I remember back in the day being able to use optical out from my MiniDisc walkman to other devices such as my Sony home DVD combo player.....Minidiscs -those were the days.....

I'm just sayin'

given the GP point about the Singularity being a return of God perhaps the new AI 'Prime Being' will require an army of Acolytes, Worshippers, Priests etc?

Thereby solving unemployment and giving the fading old religion's followers something to believe in and somewhere to go.

and of course -God will provide for all -Problem Solved!

I'm only half kidding -although it would be a larf to see the Fundamentalist reaction to an AI god -probably be seen as the antichrist or the ultimate inhumanist.

Those begins the first (and perhaps last) Robot War

I'm just sayin'

For the adventurous I think a good deal of the West Coast has really good non-commercial radio choices.
-Particularly the SF Bay Area:
College: KFJC, KZSU, KSJS, KSCU, KALX for starters -with dozens of genres of music I rarely hear anything I have heard before and have found hundreds of new bands I like over the past 25 years as well as the occasional Eno song or lost or new psychedelic classic
Hippie Radio: KKUP, KPFA -sadly KFAT/KPIG is only online these days.
Classical/other: KDFC, KSCM (Jazz -ostensibly part of College of San Mateo, but not really)

In Northern California and Southern Oregon there is JPR (Jefferson Public Radio) as well as College and some Joe radio stations and I have even heard good radio in the Sacramento area.

Eugene, Portland and Seattle also have local stations and promote local and indie bands -particularly KEXP.

and I have even heard a fair amount of diversity in LA music stations -even on KROQ as well as local NPR affiliates

I'm sure that there are also clusters of independent or non profit radio stations on the east coast.

But if you're in the midwest and not in the Denver/Boulder area or Lawrence Kansas, you may be out of luck...

As long as free non-commercial radio continues to thrive where I live I have no interest in a cable-like Satellite radio subscription, which is going to tend to try to silo me into a particular genre when what I want is to hear different things all the time from 40s radio serials to afrobeat to 'The Norman Bates Memorial Soundtrack Show' (KFJC) to Philosophy Talk (KZSU) to whatever emo or techno or trance some millennial in some tiny broadcast booth wants to throw down.

-I'm just sayin'

*Sigh* -I know there are not many *real* tech writers out there any more since most tech writer jobs these days want someone with 10 years of experience with Java internals on Tomcat or that sort of thing that is basically documenting methods or little snippets of code, but back in the day when people actually RTFMs and there were entire Tech Pubs groups writing TFMs (think Adobe), style guides were a great way to make sure that usage was consistent within a group of writers or titles.

And if someone got on their high horse about some usage that they picked up in Hahvahd or somewhere, you could beat them down by referring to whatever style guide was prescribed for your group as authoritative without it getting personal (maybe).

In addition to the Chicago Manual of Style and AP Style Guide, Sun produced a very influential one called Read me First! which was a little more tuned in to Tech writing usage, wikis, etc. Not sure what their take on pronouns was however....

As one could infer from the title, the AP guide is a more general guide for journalists and in my experience in SV Chicago and Sun style guides were used more.

I'm just sayin'

the one by my house actually has Arduino, Rasberry Pi and lots of good cables and connectors

Of course this is Silicon Valley (Fremont)

and we also have Fry's and Central Computing, so although I will be sad to see them go I will still be able to get stuff like what they carried and more

-I'm just sayin'

Charles Stross's excellent novel Halting State has an exciting sequence where an automated cab tries to kill our hero after it is hacked

not that far from possibility if self driving cars are not made secure

-I'm just sayin'

There's something to be said for the Black Cab's drivers who have a map of most of London in their heads. We were in London a few months ago in the hotel district north of Kensington and saw plenty of obviously lost Uber drivers stopped in the middle of the street looking down at their GPS or smartphone and loading and unloading in the middle of the street as well...

We had 2 great rides from Black Cabs - they both spoke English well and got us to our obscure hotel with no problems. On the way home the hotel set us up with a ride service and the guy didn't speak english, barely had room for our luggage and had trouble negotiating entry to the cab dropoff at paddington station due to construction, morning commute, etc.

I feel the same way driving around San Francisco -some of the stuff changes from day-to-day that I'm not sure the map applications can keep up with or suggest alternative routes to, so I am glad that I have spent hundreds of hours driving around there in the past 20 years, so that I have good knowledge of alternative routes....

-I'm just sayin'

reminiscent of the Nutripon food taken from a vat grown piece of chicken meat substance called 'Chicken Little' in John Brunner's most excellent (and somewhat visionary) novel called 'The Sheep Look Up':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheep_Look_Up

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-sheep-look-up-2

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41074.The_Sheep_Look_Up

The Nutripon is meant to be a cheap protein substitute and the bad things that happen in the book are not specifically due to the Nutripon itself although it does become a plot element,

-and as a bonus, for those who thought 10-20 years ago that Reagan or Bush 2 filled the bill for the cavalier Prexy character, Trump brings an evil clown vibe to it that makes it even scarier....

-I'm just sayin'

Ironically, at least according to the summary, those people with the least access to this information were the ones who felt the most overwhelmed by it.

Maybe because they can't actually wade through the information to get a handle on it?

Nevertheless, I still get more solid news in an hour with the physical San Francisco Chronicle newspaper than I do with any number of hours from the internet -double ditto for something like the Economist.

the hummingbird model of getting information is a very shallow slurp....

'We don't know what what we don't know' -probably the most apt quote ever by Bush 2 -or maybe it was 'knowable unknowns?'

I'm just sayin'

apart from the sexy dancers and sexual innuendo being probably too un-pc for current sheltered tastes I do remember one particular sketch where Benny was playing a talk show host interviewing himself as a Black African bishop who had African speech patterns and spoke in patois.

Then they started inverting the color and the talk show host started speaking in patois and the Bishop started speaking the Queen's english. Benny also wore blackface from time to time, but I don't think that was nearly as incendiary in the UK as it was in the US because the UK has treated Blacks better for about 150 years longer than we have.

Even though it made me cringe a bit at the time it was still pretty funny. There are things that make you laugh that you can still regret laughing at...but that is where comedy can also educate and expose the unpleasant corners of a society

'I'm just sayin'

There was a movie version of Stanislaw Lem's Futurological Congress that saw parent's point coming -
The Congress
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Robin Wright's character signs away rights to her likeness and voice and later on finds (after everyone has abandoned real life for a virtual existence) that her voice and likeness has attained cult following status and is used by many people as an avatar.

The book was a bit different (more of a psychedelic fever dream) and more political, but the movie was still very good and thought provoking on some of the similar themes -especially on the use of artificial reality as an escape from a mundane or unpleasant reality....Something which we already seem headed towards....

but it also means that truthiness will become more and more subjective

I'm just sayin'

notwithstanding the fact that Bush Administration's email coverup and war crimes will never be scrutinized with an eye towards criminal prosecution at the level that Hillary has been for her email server and Benghazi (along with everything else she has done for the past 20 years)....

I predict that if Hillary is elected the Republicans will imediately try to start impeachment proceedings against her.

  -although it will be as ineffectual as their Romneycare defunding votes have been for the past several years unless they gain an unexpectedly large majority or something particularly damning comes out...

There is certainly something 'October Surprise-ey' about the 2016 election endgame....

-I'm just sayin'

nice brush to tar those who are concerned about privacy and surveillance overreach with........Look for this term to be used more often to imply that there is something unpatriotic or anti-government about those with concerns about these things such as ACLU, etc

-I'm just sayin'

not to mention fantastic college and community stations (at least in the Bay Area):
KFJC (Foothill College) wave of the west -cutting edge non commercial indie rock for the past 30 years (sponsored some shows for my prog band back in the '80s)
KZSU -the zoo -Stanford also has a pretty strong signal and plays a wide variety as well as hosting Arabology music show, Philosophy Talk, Cardinals Games, etc
KSCU -Santa Clara U
KSJS San Jose State
KALX UC Berkely -punk and world music
and the hippie community stations:
KPFA -Berkely
KKUP -Cupertino Hippies
KALW -SF
and NPR: KQED FM
abnd there are a few over in Santa Cruz as well such as UC Santa Cruz
-I'm just sayin'