Facebook is probably 1/3 fake accounts so I wonder how they came up with this "126 million Americans" figure? I'd put the number closer to 85 million, which is still substantial, but fb has a fake account problem.

I had a discussion once with a friend who has both a Masters and PhD in electrical engineering. He was working at a company and told me that they had technology for 'eavesdropping' that he would've thought was technically impossible before working there. I'm not surprised by someone using tape and no longer think it's paranoid to use it.

I found this most interesting:

I'm in my mid 40s and know more about music (emerging artists) now than I did 20 years ago. Part of that is because I don't have children and have been able to spend as much time as I want on discovering new music. I still see plenty of live shows where I'm standing around a bunch of 18-30 year olds seeing a band on their first national or international tour. Another part is that the internet makes it really easy to discover artists. You can follow various online playlists and let them do all the work for you. https://open.spotify.com/user/... (1 song per artist discovery playlist) https://open.spotify.com/user/... (indie rock favorite songs of 2014) End the end, you have to be open to discovering new music and give it time to grow on you. If I hear something and think, "it's ok." There is a decent chance it'll get better with repeated listens. In fact, most of my favorite albums took time to grow on me. The songs that turn me off right away rarely/never will appeal to me with more time.

You don't really need all that much free time. It's pretty easy to discover new music with all the various forms of internet music playlists, charts, etc. I found this most interesting:

I'm in my mid 40s and know more about music (emerging artists) now than I did 20 years ago. Part of that is because I don't have children and have been able to spend as much time as I want on discovering new music. I still see plenty of live shows where I'm standing around a bunch of 18-30 year olds seeing a band on their first national or international tour. Even if I didn't have as much time I have no doubt that I'd still find ways to learn about new artists. I wouldn't still be listening to the same stuff I did from high school and college.

this is a common practice. it's called advertising and marketing! see an example from 2003 here: http://bit.ly/MS-ad