This ad is so scientology.
Caught in a time warp. They still send “telexes” and wash windows with newspapers. They have a hard time moving with the times.
Literally nobody on earth uses CD’s any more, but this is still promoted as the “ultimate high-fidelity system.” It is not. It would be like them trying to sell rotary dial phones as the “ultimate” in communication technology.
They even try make the “Clearsound” CD system seem so convenient because they all fit in the custom carrying case “with ease” (how could they NOT fit in the “custom case”?)
Everyone else on earth abandoned CD’s more than a decade ago, scientology doubled down and released all the Congresses and Advanced Clinical Course lectures on CD.
Why? Because David Miscavige had invested millions in purchasing the “CD Manufacturing Line” to maximize the profits of lecture sales. CD’s cost about 10 cents to manufacture. If you have someone else do it for you, they probably charge you more than 25 cents. You understand the pressure to sell the “Basics” and the “Books and Lectures” when you understand that there were millions of dollars invested in manufacturing equipment for CD’s and book printing presses. Miscavige proudly showed these as “state-of-the-art” plants to all scientologists to prove how they were now in the “big time” — the largest in-house printing operation and able to churn out tens of millions of CDs. But the volume of sales of these items, despite the fact that many scientologists and all orgs have multiple copies of them sitting in storage, has never recouped the investment in the facilities to manufacture them.
And now they are stuck with these things, so they keep trying to sell CD’s. Even though all the lectures could be put onto a single thumb drive or be made available to stream at no cost… No more of those huge ugly binders. No more hassle of having to insert a CD and carry around a player (and even bulky headphones).
If they REALLY wanted to get “LRH tech into the world” they would make it ALL available digitally. They could even charge people for access, though it would cost NOTHING to do this. But, they would lose the profits and royalties. And that is what drives decisions in scientology. Not “getting the tech out.”
Here is another example.
No such thing as ““ultimate high-fidelity” on ANY 16 Bit, 44,000 Hz CD content. You’d have to go up to SACD 24/88 to even begin scratching the surface of ““ultimate high-fidelity”. And CLEARSOUND is antiquated technology of 25 years ago.
Furthermore, any SCN lectures are already on MP3s floating around the internet, so there’s nothing for the CO$ to offer, and nothing to sell.
In defense of CDs, as outdated as they are, once the music is burned onto a CD and digitally finalized it is not susceptible to “file corruption”, “write over” or accidental deletion. Over the last 3 decades I have amassed hundreds and hundreds. I just can’t seem to find the time (or desire) to convert them to digital files for use on my phone. All of my (old) cars have CD magazines so I just continue to play the CDs. And to top it off, a resurgence of vinyl records are the hot item for audiophiles of today. Talk about traveling to the world of obsolescence. So keep your CDs, nothing to be ashamed of. Just be careful to keep them from extreme heat.
Better do it quick. CDs can and DO become unreadable after a time… ESPECIALLY home burned CDs
Who want Clearsound when Idealsound is available?!?
Anything that claims to make LRHs voice more clear should be banned and destroyed 🤣
Scientologists are really Amish underneath. They’ll still be using telexes 100 years from now; if they exist 100 years from now.
Jethro, I’m pretty certain that they don’t REALLY exist, now, other than a half-dozen or so really old-timers and a few actors paid from Dwarfenführer’s slush funds.
I’m afraid I may be very out-dated. But I never knew CD’s were out-moded. I use them all the time to listen to music in my car.
I love listening to music in my car. I create CD’s on my PC and it is one of the best things in my life. I create them with the music I like and then I can play that music when I drive. I think my car CD player is just the very best feature of my car.
Can I ask if anyone could post me to a link that explains what I should be using instead of CDs?
I would need to get some kind of matching technology so that I could create USB sticks (if that is what it is) on my PC and then I would need to know what to do with my car – how to upgrade it to play USB sticks.
If the answer is USB sticks, I can create them on my PC with no problem.
I know it would probably be better for me to ask this on a PC advice forum. But I feel like I am among friends here and I hope you don’t mind if I ask you.
I seriously do not want to inconvenience anyone by asking you to write the explanation yourself. If you could just point me to a link or even recommend a search string that I can put into Google to look for my own links, I would very much appreciate that.
Thanking you in advance.
My car has a hard disk where I have copied most of my CDs. But even that is not very modern anymore… I think most people today listen to music in streaming (which I don’t like to do…)
Skyler!
Stick with your CDs, as long as they are working well for you and doing all you want. 🙂 CDs are still used, but now we have more choices.
streaming music is popular these days, and streaming sites allow you to make and share playlists. Paid streaming lets you listen while offline.
So I pay Spotify ten bucks a month to listen to music on I bought on a 45, an LP, then a cassette, then a CD, then loaded onto my iTunes and re-burned onto personal CD, and also loaded onto an IPod. 🙂 (that’s ok, I wasted way more cash-ola in the cult)
Spotify and other streaming services allow you to discover most new music being released, all the stuff you missed in the last 3 decades, plus most of your long favorite.
So if you want NEW music, sign up for the free versions of spotify or pandora, etc. sample, see if you like it. Free versions generally don’t allow offline listening, but many folks are always online.
SCIOs, now they’re expected to purchase 70 or more binders of Ron L. lectures on CD, costing thousands of dollars, taking up whole bookshelves in their homes. Vitally important data for for your survival as a spiritual being for eternity. It’s do or die stuff.
SCN are retards and liars, because all lectures could be streamed or loaded onto one MP3 player. They could bundle the bulk of this BS and sell it for pennies, and if it worked as proclaimed, we’d have a sane and happy planet of thetans climbing into DC8s to go off to Target Two
Instead they peacock strut about with big CD factories and rows of expensive bulky binders. It’s out of tune with technology AND our current views on environmental protections and waste.
Now, crank the tunes and LET’S DANCE!!!!
Thank you ever so much. Great info.
Yes Skyler, they became outmoded about 16 years ago. That’s when cars started coming with built in MP3 playing ability. Auto CD —> MP3 software (that you then load onto a USB) has been about since the last century.
ALTHOUGH, automatic smartphone (to play streaming music like Pandora) to auto entertainment system has been the norm for about 6 years now. So USB sticks are now outdated…
Wow! I never knew. I have really turned into a hermit.
Hi Skyler…
I’ll just tell you what I have used I don’t have links or anything. Just about all newer cars have Bluetooth. I put all my music on my smart phone which will hold tons and tons of songs. The vehicle has clear instructions on how to connect your phone through Bluetooth and the car will recognize it every time after that. If you have a vehicle that doesn’t have Bluetooth or an auxiliary jack in the stereo head unit (looks like a headphone jack) then you can buy a small device that plugs in your 12V power socket (I still call it a cigarette lighter plug in) and it will connect to your phone (or other device) through Bluetooth or through the headphone jack (with cable) and it will broadcast to a channel on your cars radio (you can select a channel in the low end or high end of the radio spectrum where there isn’t a lot of competing channels). The next step is getting the music to your phone. There is a big difference between an android and an iPhone. You will have to look up instructions on google depending on what you have.
Another option if you don’t want to go the smartphone way is to get an iPod Touch. It’s what we used to call an MP3 player but it’s now basically like a iPhone without the cellular capabilities. It’s also fairly easy to put your music collection onto and it hooks up the same way as a phone.
A third way is the USB stick you mentioned. You can buy them that have a huge amount of space. Plug one into your computer and the computer will recognize it as a drive. Copy your music files over to it. Most new cars have a USB port somewhere. Plug it in and your music should show up on your stereo. If you don’t have a USB port in your car most wireless adapters I mentioned earlier that allow you to play your music through the radio also have a USB port in them.
Believe it or not Sony still makes the Walkman only now it’s Bluetooth not CD. It has its own hard drive and I think it has the SD/micro SD card slot as well. Pretty much all new computers have the little SD/micro SD drive built in. You can get one of these and copy your music over to it and it will connect to your car the same way as the other devices.
So ways to hook devices to your car are Bluetooth, USB, Auxiliary Jack (not all vehicles have this) and wireless radio adapter. I use the USB port to charge my phone as well and when I plug it into USB to charge the vehicle instantly recognizes the device and loads my playlist even without Bluetooth.
Also I’ll mention that most newer cars have apps built in for streaming like Pandora or Spotify. You can also download these apps on your smartphone and use them to play through your car. My sister had a huge collection of music on CDs and when Spotify came out she subscribed to it and never uses anything else. There are several different streaming services out there but the bad thing about them is if you drive out of cell range…no music.
If I were you I’d stick to your CD’s. They are working for you and you’ve got no problems right now so why fix something that isn’t broken. These are just a few
I can think of. Have a good day!
Hey Linear13, Sorry I took so long to reply. I really appreciate your help.
My car is twelve years old but it looks and feels like a new car. I just bought it a year ago and it’s the best car I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, there is no place to plug a USB stick into the sound system. But it has the greatest CD player I have ever heard in my life.
It does have what you call a “cigarette lighter”. I will have to go into Best Buy and ask them for some help.
Thanks ever so much for your excellent help!
Hi OSA
IIRC, “clearsound” tek referred to their attempts to edit out clicks, pops and hiss which plagued the “original” tapes. It’s LOTS easier to effect once it’s gone digital, IMO. I also believe Dwarfenführer® also included editing out Ron’s mention of some names of once-important personages who have since been “unremembered” and written out of scn history by Davey’s minions.
Jere, old timers loved to hear the beginnings of the old Saint Hill lectures because their names were mentioned, welcomed by Ron. But somehow a lot of raving SPs and traitors were also mentioned, that Ron welcomed without noticing how evil they were.
So they edited all that out. In the later days it was digital, especially for the translated tapes. But early on they used modified pinking shears to make dagger-shaped cuts in actual tapes for the edits. No left-right bump, as you get with a 45 degree slice.
I am told they also edited any mention of Creative Processing, the idea Hubbard stole from Volney Mathison.
There is still some of it in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course tapes though. What today we would call “guided imagery”. Except no sane person could guess why Hubbard guided his victims through holes in the floor etc. Now that we know a little more about hypnosis and mind control we have a better idea about what he was really doing.
It seems that scn is so hung up on its past lives that it can’t come up to PT….
“Get your Clearsound”. Sorry, “Clearsound” is an adjective. Try it out-“Get your delicious!” or “Get your friendly!” Who proof-reads these things? Somebody who never did high school? Like Dave?
The picture of the user shows the old Sony MDR-V6 headphones, which were pretty good if you like an extra peak in the 6 kHz band. Matches the usual 6 kHz dip in the hearing of those with “rock-and-roll” hearing loss. Takes you back to the way it sounded in the 60s! If you were alive in the 60s….
The product photo shows some kind of shiny silver-looking cans. Probably what they are shipping these days.
Very few know what “Clearsound” actually means. Doesn’t mean the kind of sound you hear when you are Clear. It is a trademarked standard of sound production. Basically means it was approved by Dave as sounding OK. Since Dave has no training in sound engineering and depends extensively on the uneducated works of L Ron Hubbard for his expertise, it is truly a case of the deaf leading the deaf.
To be qualified as adhering to “Clearsound” standards, a production line has to be flat +/- 1 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, have decent transient response as compared to other similar production lines, and have low distortion as compared to other similar production lines. Also, it has to pass an “A-B” listening test.
An AB test is a cassette recording where certain sound samples (mostly from the Road To Freedom album and selected lectures by Hubbard) are recorded, three seconds of the original followed by three seconds of the product of the sound system.
Extensive research on the AB test by real sound engineers has shown that it is completely bogus. If you listen to it at high levels, as Dave always does, the ears will shut down during A and B will always sound dull. Allowing Dave to reject anything, which he generally does until he gets bored of torturing all and sundry with endless rejects and re-does over sleepless weeks of wasted effort.
Modern sound tests are done in the AB-X format, where you listen to A, then B, then a random selection of either A or B. If the listener can reliably identify the difference, it is a failed AB-X test. This does not stroke anyone’s ego or allow capricious rejects. Violently rejected by the high-end audio illiterati for that very reason.
If it sounds arbitrary, capricious and elitist, that’s because it is.
A Clearsound CD was produced on an approved CD pressing line, mastered on a Clearsound mastering line, edited on a workstation that somehow escaped the Clearsound moniker, mixed on a Clearsound mixing line, rerecorded from the original master at the Twin Peaks archival facility using a Clearsound tube recorder, originally recorded on some old grotty tube recorder in the 50s. In many cases they don’t have the original tapes, so what you hear are re-recordings of re-recordings done on ancient Wollensak recorders in the 60s.
Then you play it on Clearsound-approved headphones with a Clearsound special headphone amp, featuring “spatially enhancing” out-of-phase crosstalk, on a Clearsound approved CD player. Clearsound-approved all the way. Just another way of saying Dave-approved. For the benefit of Dave’s bottom line.
They could get dramatically improved sound quality using streaming services or downloaded sound. If they actually cared about sound.
Some day when you are bored drop by a local real church. Most have free bibles in stacks for anyone who wants to know more about their beliefs, or some other easy free way to find out what they are all about. Online, over the radio, TV, personal conversation, lots of ways.
Expensive Clearsound CDs instead? You would have to conclude that Scientology is all about the ego-stroking and the money.
Thanks for laying it all out Bruce. You are truly an expert, unlike Dave who just asserts he is.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Sorry If this is a daft question but I’m new to this. Is it about trying to squeeze out some sort of return from a disastrous investment, or is it about keeping the faithful away from the internet – after all, the truth is out there.
I can’t imagine Scientology is compatible with the internet and must be discouraged if not banned.
But If that’s the case how on earth is it enforced? Most people have the internet in their pocket these days. Surely basic human curiosity would drive you to having a look at what the outside world is saying about the ‘religion’ that dominates your life.
By the way Mike, I find you an intelligent, engaging and cable of reasoned, logical thought. Which makes me wonder, how the hell did you get so embroiled in that sh!t?
Thanks for the compliments. I was born into it. It’s hard to get it out of your thinking when it’s indoctrinated from childhood.
You are the man, Bruce. I read “Blown for Good” and enjoy that you post here. That damn cassette machine and cassette line!
I think the Gauss Cassette Duplication Line was the worst of them. Imagine still trying to manufacture cassettes in the early 90s. CDs were already getting old and the Internet was coming.
The issue was metal cassette tape. Needs special heads and electronics. My old nemesis Steve Marlowe came up with the idea of using a Japanese head that worked but made a random strange noise. As Senior Ron’s Audio Visual he forced Luigi and I to get them tested, and Gold spent $10,000s to install them. Then we tried to get into production and it became obvious that the noise was not acceptable. Oops.
Strangely the idea at that time was to put out the entire Saint Hill Special Briefing Course on cassette. For failing to do that, and wasting hundreds of cassettes, a Committee of Evidence fined 6 of us for $39,500. Not including Steve Marlowe of course. Some went to the RPF in PAC, others hung on sort of.
I got RPF’ed to PAC in the middle of it and they called me back after 10 days because Luigi just couldn’t stay up another day. RPFed for being late to muster…
That’s when Marc showed up, new blood. They put him on the night shift. I was just on the 24 hour shift. At least I got to listen to Depeche Mode while Marc was at the cassette QC machine. “Your own, personal, Jesus…..”
Soon after that there was a flood of mud – well, it’s all in the book.
I came here to find out what Clearsound is. Thank you Bruce for the expert explanation of it.
But now I’m absolutely LOLing at “Imagine still trying to manufacture cassettes in the early 90s. CDs were already getting old and the internet was coming”
In the early 90s cd sales were still rising rapidly (in 1993 they were only half of what they would be in 7 short years) and cassette sales, while diminishing, were still lucrative enough to be making millions and millions of them a year. The Internet was coming, but only in the way that it was coming since about 1974. The first place one could buy digital music files, mp3 .com was founded in 1997, the vast majority of which was stuff made by indie bands and bedroom electronic artists who most people didn’t care to listen to. The turn didn’t happen until 2000-2003 when Napster and Limewire began to destroy physical sales and then the beginning of iTunes was the real nail in the coffin.
As for the assertion in the original blog post that “Literally nobody on earth uses CD’s (sic) any more” while I know you’re exaggerating for dramatic flair, you might be interested to know that CD sales, while still being a tiny tiny fraction of what they were at their peak, in 2021 they rose for the first time since their plummet began in 2001. Most major label releases are pressed on CD, in much smaller quantities than they were 20 years ago, making them somewhat collectable.
Streaming is pretty great. Having any song you could want at your fingertips 24/7 is a miracle, but it still doesn’t sound half as good as a CD played on a decent CD player. By that I mean a component unit, attached to a decent stereo.
Bruce, those who remember the ’60s didn’t really experience them…. 😉
Oh GOSH, Bruce, I’d forgotten about those abysmal Wollensuck tape machines.
Bruce, NOBODY proofreads or edits in scn, unless Davey does it as he’s declaring it to be absolute excrement and unworthy of publication or whatever. Then again, He didn’t bother to show up for High school classes once he turned 16.
Bruce great comment. I am still laughing about the deaf leading the deaf.
They often pushed this idea of a bunch of sps called Illuminati trying to rule the world, but they are the Illiterati trying to save the planet putting scn tech in the hands of the people.
As a end result I don’t know what would be the worst.
Newspaper tech is my method of choice. The best way to keep the outside world smear free.
He FORGOT to mention that you have to use the newspaper BEFORE using it to line the bird’s cage…. 😉 (Talk about a SMEAR!
Also, whatever you do don’t read the newspaper! You never know what PR flap might be lurking in there.
Not only got rid of those CDs but all those big, bulky binders full of cassettes to free up some room in my basement. That freed up some psychic space as well.
However… I will take issue with Mike’s veiled criticism of washing windows with newspapers. 🙂
A small bit of vinegar in some warm water and some old newspaper does a great, lint-free job of cleaning my windows. More environmentally sound when compared to purchasing window cleaner and using new paper towels. Just sayin’…
No. Leaves ink on the window, not very absorbent, and not the right texture.
Give me Windex and paper towels any day.
Just sayin”…
Haha! To each his/her own. My newspapers must be so old the ink doesn’t run while wet. I’m happy if we each go our separate ways on cleaning our windows. That we both have clean windows to see out into the world is what’s important, IMHO. :o)
If you want to properly wash windows, do as the professionals do: a soapy water & ammonia & vinegar mix. liberally applied, then squeegeed off from top to bottom, the excess wiped away with a terrycloth towel. In the car, when the windows get fogged (Hey, we’re still on our honeymoon, 28 years in!) Just squeegee the windows from top to bottom. Faster & neater than any cloth or paper product.
OMG. Desperation comes in all forms. Once again I could potentially feel embarrassed for anyone trying to sell these. But not these con artists. They will do and sell Anything for money. Probably found an old crate of them in the basement of their rusty boat. Tragically they will use high pressure sales to sell them to people that can’t afford much, let alone useless crap like this.
I am a never in, but I got rid of my old CD’s (music mostly), sighting in my rifle before hunting season. The others we just threw up in the air and wasted shotgun shells trying to hit them.
Sailors & other boaters use CDs on strings all around the boat’s berth to scare off those poopy birds who LOVE to deface our beauties.
Hmmm. I DO have an old, working (AFAIK) cassette player on the left side of my desk, but I doubt I have anything that’ll read a CD any more.
Those “Clearsound” cassettes could take some time converting to MP3; I did a couple of albums I wanted to keep around, back in the day. Still have them in both formats as I’m not sure which will last longer; I’m expecting properly-stored vinyl to win since I just got my brother to take 1,000 of our parents’ 78s a short while back. He THINKS he has the time to convert them to MPS 🙂 (We’ll see.)
Really good CD/DVD/Blu-ray devices are $130, I found out just now. I’ve got some old DVDs I wanted to watch on this computer before they degrade from age. Additionally, a few people still use CDs for their “sneakernets”, or for playing their tunes in the car.
I bet they have a warehouse storeroom full of those, that was stocked up to meet “demand” for “expansion” – another “postulate” that failed. I checked, and the equipment is identical to what they were selling more than a decade ago, so it has to be old stock.
I wonder if periodically, someone gets stuck with having to try to “make it go right” and sell off the aging inventory. Maybe management has said that they can’t move on to new technology until they clear out what they aready have.
PeaceMaker soon they can try selling all that stored stuff as vintage.
I don’t remember if it was 20 or even more years ago they were selling again mark v as complementary emeter.
They had to empty some basement.
I think you meant “In ANTICIPATION of the great demand, or some such BS…. Reminds me of my friend heavily into Amway ‘way back when.
The first thing I did in early March when in forced isolation was take the thousands of CDs I still had laying around with photos and videos and load all of the data on to a 5TB hard drive with 3 redundant backup 5TB hard drives, then I shredded all my CDs in my industrial shredder. It freed up so much space. My paper files have been scanned, now my digitized files have been digitized to a smaller format. I have a go bag which consists of my laptop and a hard drive where I can grab all my precious memories in one fell swoop. It weighs about 1/20th what my camera bag does.
If I were to have to leave the house in a hurry, I would grab my dog, my camera bag, my laptop bag and my purse, where I have my iPad and phone stored (usually) and hope I have time to grab the charging cables. I would not regret anything else I had to leave behind.
I also have cloud storage and my grandchildren have access to it if they aren’t able to access my hard drive or computer.
Why anyone would even own CDs now is a mystery to me. I listen to my music through bluetooth from one of my devices in my car and my house. Scientology is truly missing the boat. They could stream their services like say, Netflix or Pandora and charge a monthly fee to all scientologists and have a monthly income (and keep track of the flock). They, however don’t have any “tech” that tells them how to do that, so they have to hawk outdated products instead.
And ValR, in response to this post of yours, once again I’ll share that, organization-wise, you are living my dream 🙂 Seriously, I lie in bed sometimes fantasizing about taking a month off from work to first LEARN HOW to do what you described above (because I am not very tech savy) and then doing it – all of it, work files, personal files, personal photos and memorabilia, books, tapes – ALL of it digital. And then, the shredding, the blessed shredding, and the space freed up. I also fantasize about NOT taking a month off and instead hiring someone to do this FOR me. I’m not sure what would be cheaper.
Lol Aqua – I’m right there with you! ValR is officially what I WISH my spirit animal could be. Right now it’s more like the Tasmanian Devil on steroids (or maybe that’s my 4yo…).
ValR – You go girl and now I’ve got to put together a plan and goal for how to get where you’ve gotten with files and memorabilia. (I have family in Santa Rosa, CA who lived though and lost homes, etc. so this suddenly became higher on my priority list!)
Hello Aqua. I have met many people who know a tremendous amount about technology. In almost all cases, they learned what they know in the same way – one item at a time. After learning about one or two items, most people think about how those items fit together and before they know it, they are making serious progress in learning about the topic in which they are interested.
If you want to learn more about some part of technology, I would like to make two suggestions to you.
First, there is a wonderful message board at techguy.org and it is completely free.
That is a site where people help each other with questions and answers about all kinds of technology. If you want to know something about your PC or your phone or your tablet or most any kind of electronic device, you can post your question on that board and most of the time, someone will give you an answer withing 20 minutes or so. In most cases, the people who are giving answers really know what they are talking about and even if they make a mistake, someone else almost always catches it and corrects it.
The second suggestion is there are many “tutorial” sites. So if you want to learn about some topic like say Windows 10, you can use Google to find a good tutorial site and then you can go through some tutorials that will seriously help you learn. Most of these sites are really a big help and even if you may find a turkey from time to time, someone else is almost sure to correct the info and give you a link to a better tutorial site.
If you ever need some personal help and you feel that you just aren’t getting the answers you need, I will be happy to try to help you. Just ask Mike for my email address. I give Mike permission to provide you with my email address and you are always welcome to contact me privately and I would be happy to try to help you. I may not be able to help you with the exact question you have, but I can always try to find a good site where you might get a good answer.
You have given me a huge amount of help with all kinds of problems I have had and I would love to pay you back if I can.
Skyler, I am – well, it sounds hokey but I can only say I’m very touched by what you’ve just written to me. I’m speechless, almost. Thank you, Skyler. I could use some I/T help right now; indeed I could. I will ask Mike for your email. I promise to not be a pest. And if I break that promise then I promise to be your favorite pest 🙂 Seriously, though, you don’t owe me anything. If I have helped you in some way – I have no idea how but if, as you say I have, then I’m very glad, but you owe me nothing. Thank you for reaching out to me in this kind and thoughtful way with your offer of help. I appreciate it more than I can express right now.
Skyler, I suspect that if I think long enough, I’ll remember something I’m less interested in learning than Windoze 10. At the moment, I have an old computer on OS X (10)v10.8.6, a newer machine on OS 11.1 (Bug Sur). Windoze has yet to catch up to the Mac OS from the ’80s, functionally.
IF you go all-digital, first devise a storage hierarchy and STICK to it. I’ve been going a bit balmy this past year or so, trying to figure out where I put some scanned pictures of Pat’s ancestors & relatives. Browsing through 250 GB of the files I’ve accumulated over 30+ years isn’t turning them up. And that’s even as my friends chide me for being a bit OCD about keeping things properly arranged and filed. Who else do you know who has 2-1/2 4-drawer filing cabinets in their library?
“ugly binders” Now that’s funny
Dice NoMore originated:
‘“ugly binders” Now that’s funny’
but TRUE!
I believe it was Marc Headley who pointed out that you could put ALL of Scientology’s materials – lectures, courses, writings, the lot – onto a single iPad. Indeed, one chap even wrote an e-meter app (the Theta-Meter), which can run on any device – just plug the cans in and you’re ready to go! But then if they went and did that, they wouldn’t be able to charge their 1000% markup on a ‘real’ e-meter, would they…
As “Chairman of the Board”, responsible for making decisions to enhance the financial viability of his organization, his decision to invest heavily in a “state-of-the-art” facility without assurances that this facility could achieve a return on investment shows that he isn’t this “genius” he wants everyone to believe he is….or the genius that he has probably convinced himself that he is.
His decision to keep trying to fit this square peg into a round hole despite the antiquated nature of this technology, without trying to modernize the facility to keep up with the latest in technological advances, shows that he’s derelict in his duties to be a good steward of the “church’s” funds and utilize them in the most effective manner possible.
This glorious “tech” of theirs keeps falling further and further behind the times, and will never “lead this planet” into the future. They can only hope to lead it back into the past, back to the good ole glory days of Scientology. Their future is bleak, to put it kindly, and they can thank Captain Miscavige for that.
Long story short….this guy is just a crap executive. His “board” should remove him, but of course, they’re not a “board” in the usual sense. They’re just sycophants fighting to be first in line to kiss his royal arse every day.
While this doesn’t address the main issue, people ARE still buying CDs (and SACDs and DVD-As). Granted, these folks are serious music listeners and collectors who are major fans of musicians, not those who just want that “one” song.
I just bought a retro 6-in-1 radio for a little over $50. This can do vinyl albums, cassette, CDs, radio AM/FM, Aux In, Bluetooth, and it comes in a nice sound-resonant wooden box with two nice sounding speakers. Even a headphone port. I proclaim this ‘clear’ for purchase for any and all to listen to any form of mainstream released sound in the last century (except 8-track tapes, you’ll have to get a player and hook up to the Aux In). For about $50, this suits everyone. No need to waste your money on overpriced garbage, like ‘Clearsound’.
Now we got that out of the way, I would like to hear more about the Masterson case. I think he’s out on 3 mil bail?
Back in the early 2000s, I was on he BC and they were still selling the BC tapes as cassettes.
Cassettes??? – can you believe it. Totally obsolete technology.
I was about half way through and up to that point had managed to avoid buying any of these things, using the ones in the library.
Suddenly, they realized that I did not have these materials and applied very heavy pressure to get me to buy these. They cost over $10,000 and, even more importantly, took up a huge amount of space.
I refused point blank and threatened to just leave the course if they insisted.
Well, to cut a long story short, they did and I did!
I was almost at the end of my time in Scientology anyhow!
Yikes! I paid $750 in 1974 and the org was using manila bound packs and 7″ reel tapes. Later the red vols came out at $175 for all 12. I would have done what you did when confronted with the strong arm tactics. Run, run, run.
As a teen I bought an old 47 Ford. I wanted some music, so I cut up some small plastic trash cans, installed speakers in them, and mounted them on the rear panel – voila! rear speakers to go with the front speakers I installed in the doors. Then I went out and bought a player – I did not know which was better, 4 or 8 track, so I bought a combination 4 and 8 track player. I think I had a total of two or three tapes – I hated the way you had to listen to a whole album in order, round and round and round again, with a click in the middle. Oh, and the tapes were expensive, at least to me.
One morning I went out to the car and discovered the little vent window broken out and my tape player gone. Stolen by a ‘friend’, no doubt.
That was the best thing that happened to me that whole year. I never listened to another 8-track in my entire life.
Are you saying that my 8 track is out of date? Are you sure?
OSD. Are you talking about the one I sold you? Look, it isn’t out of date at all and it works great!
THAT’s BECAUSE YOU HAVE IT!!!!!!!
GIVE ME BACK MY 8 TRACK!!!!! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OSD. I am still laughing.
Damn you are possessive.Okay, when I am done with laughing I will give it back to you.
Scamology has ALWAYS been about the money and NEVER about getting the “tek” in use. Because the “tek” was useless except as a vehicle to line Tubby’s pockets.
The Apple iPod was first sold in 2001 with up to 10GB of storage, enough for over 150 CDs. The most recent iPod Touch from 2019 has enough storage for over 50 DVDs or 4000 CDs. And Apple made neither the first nor the most capacious portable devices.
With less plastic tat, Scientology could have sold gold personally engraved iPods with a higher mark up and a lower investment than a CD and DVD press.
Now you are right it is all about the streaming. Scientology got a cable channel just as viewers ditched that technology. What’s true for Disney could be true for Scientology – the whole catalog available on demand, limited only by your position on the bridge.
Can you imagine a dedicated Ron voice on Alexa/Siri/Google speakers? Hey, Ron! Play the Phoenix lectures. I shouldn’t give OSA ideas, but they could even subvert/enhance a Scientology branded smart speaker to also act as an entheta listening post. No need for your spouse to file a KR, Sea Org operatives are driving over to collect you already for watching Aftermath.
Apple was YEARS late with a portable MP3 player. South Korean companies sold them in the US years before then. Both they and scamology are late to the party.
Funny how they skipped vinyl records and stuck with tape before jumping on CDs. A certain faction of music fans are buying so much vinyl now that some mainstream shops stock it instead of CDs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_revival
They didn’t skip vinyl records. Vinyl records started being used in homes in the 1940’s. The medium of choice when the CoS started selling was tape. Vinyl was older tech.
Speaking on behalf of all Public, we do not endorse any further spying by the Church of Scientology. In fact, they should run some ‘Not Have’ on the idea of a smart speaker.
We all know the 21st century has not done the Church many favors. I know for a fact that subverting some of the big tech APIs for any AI-related service would violate their terms of service, as the industry is trying to self-regulate before the gov’t steps in and begins ‘putting ethics in’ on AI tech. Scientology abusing AI services would be the preemptive move that gov’t needs as a catalyst to step in. I know that I would strongly publize the abuse of tech, personally.
Millions of non-Scientologists seem happy to have these listening bugs in their homes (and cars!) from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. and the repeated bad PR about low paid workers listening from random places on the planet hasn’t dented their sales.
In 10-20 years when we’ve all moved on to whatever is next, I bet the Org will try smart speakers.
You are right. The only reason I bet they haven’t done it is that they can’t get anymore Eastern European recruits into the US on religious visas to be the ‘listeners’ of the smart speakers.
Streaming would be a perfect fit for Scn’s control culture. Access can be easily revoked, the user owns nothing and, most importantly, content can be rewritten any time and no one will know.
Anything you can experience via streaming can be recorded onto the same device…
You certainly can, but you need to manually start a recording process for every piece of content.
This is not necessary with DRM-free downloads or CDs, because then you actually have something in your possession which is and remains playable without being under a third party’s control.
Giorgos ANYTIME you find a stream on a page you must manually download/play/record it. Once you record something like I said it IS in your possession which is and remains playable without being under a third party’s control. You need to learn more about internet viewable content.
True what you wrote, Mike.
I was sent a thumb drive with all of written and audio of Hubbard and other authors on Hubbard. To hold the entirety of the Great One’s output in my palm gives me a sense of……….. 1/2 ounce of mass.
I had 600 CD’s to throw away. I called the city of Clearwater and asked should I throw them in the dumpster or the recycle bin. The woman asked why dont I donate them to the library ? I said because they are all Scientology CD’s. She laughed and said. Yeah you can throw them in the dumpster.
When I worked for the Fanny Farmer candy shops in the late 70’s a newspaper was never used to clean glass.
Clearsound has always been a joke. I recall seeing it for the first time in the 80s, but back then CDs were just coming out and replacing cassette tapes as the best way to listen to music in the wog world. The Clearsound shit at the local org resembled a modified 8-track. Anyone old enough to remember 8-track tapes knows what a piece of shit they were and Clearsound was no improvement. My best memories of the 8-track era were being stoned trying to salvage a Pink Floyd tape that had just been eaten by the tape deck. Way more fun than sitting thru a scientology lecture with demo kit and dictionary in hand trying to make sense of whatever Hubbard was pulling out of his ass at the time.
“We’re sorry…the number you’ve dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service”….
I still have the entire Basics lecture series unopened in an almost unreachable cupboard in my hallway. Any takers? You would have to pay for transport from South Africa. I got to about lecture 15 in the PDCs, imagining flipping over your house, in front of you, behind you and two inches in front of your nose. That was it for me… However, the best thing is I’m damn sure I never even paid for it. The org accounting is so poor. I managed two years on OT7 without that little number ever coming up.
Sounds to me like you have some wasted space in your cupboard Doc. I’d recommend chucking the plastic and putting in some long term food storage ! 🙂
In my opinion, Scientology today has simply inherited the fundamental flaw in Hubbard’s mind and in his thinking. Hubbard thought that you could solve all of the world’s problems by reading the Encyclopedia and applying flawed logic. Case in point. Celia Green started at Oxford in 1952 and founded the Department of Psychology. By 1959, when Hubbard arrived in England at Saint Hill, she was researching “Out of Body Experiences”. Her books which are nothing more than cross-tabulations of written questionnaires, were picked up by Hubbard and referenced in ADVANCE in the 1970’s. Hubbard approved articles which basically laid the entire foundation of Scientology in psychiatry. Hubbard used out of date translations to discuss religion and was completely confused. It is not surprising that he ventured into Crowley and the Occult because you could have your own opinion without science. Hubbard, with a twelve year old mind, read mis-translations of King Solomon. He then buys into entities, demons and Targs to explain the formation of universes. So on and on he makes wrong assumptions and makes a fool out of himself.
True. I had already realized when I was still in the SO that we were running in circles without getting anywhere else if not where we were already.
Meanwhile, the Bodies in the Shop stat continued to decline year after year.
I thought that if the costs of the services were lower, more people could go quickly on the bridge and the planet would become clear.
I mean if you really have a damned emergency, you behave quite differently!
Putting tech into people’s hands includes: ‘hooking them’, bringing them into the org, being able to keep them from evading and then maybe being able to sell them conferences.
They are just putting tech in the hands of selected people.
It is only about money.
A friend and I put on music, poured the wine and stood in front of my garbage bin and my recycling bin and separated from all the books and CD’s what went into garbage and what could be recycled. That was my best day and the most fun I had with the Basic Books and Lecture Series.
Good job Mary! With the cult I have found that the recycle bin really is mostly empty but the garbage container is overflowing!
Yo Dave,
How ya doin taday good buddy? It’s Thursday again and y’all are gonna have another frickin big ‘downstat at too’ ….. sorry two say. But we know that given enough time and money that You can fix the problem big boy.
I suspect You will conjure up some sort of money grubbing scam to capitalize on recent tradegy. I know that would be a new approach fer ya but think about it Dave ……….. it might work. Get the cult followers to feel real bad and then explain how they can feel good again ………. if they would just free up a tad bit of cash.
Likely the sheeple are being hammered that if they had only gotten their Ideal Morgues done in time there would have been so much THETA out there that Covid wouldn’t have stood a chance…or similar BS. If only they hadn’t had all these other damned fish to fry. If only every OT7 had been serious about reporting for their Sec Checks the 4th Dynamic Bullbait would never have occurred. But in spite of this rampant dilettantism, the cult has a plan to save everyone’s bacon and its pure LRH, because LRH in his infinite wisdom knew that something like this would occur if they didn’t treat planetary clearing as the deadly serious activity that it is! And now that they see the mess that the planet is in and understand that its all their responsibility they need to give serious consideration to how they are going to help, and there no time to waste, the time is now, so will it be cash, check or credit card?
No cash? No problem
No balance in your account? No problem
No credit left? No problem
Tell yer reg and they will help establish a new credit card with a hefty limit and all yer problems are solved.
Now, when it comes time to pay yer minimum balance you can apply for a job at yer local Idle mORGue and have a weekly paycheck. If it’s not enough, have the mORGue apply for a PPP loan and y’all can get yer $20.00 pay along with the $600.00 added gov’t bonus.
What’s not to like about that. Times are good. Flourish and prosper baby. And don’t ferget to redo yer Pee Tee Ess rundown for fine tuning!
Yer problem-solving skills are outstanding.