Speaker 1: Welcome to hows to Works Now. I'm your host Lauren Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at hows to Works. Every week,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
Speaker 1: This week, Spotify rolled out an update to fix a
Speaker 1: bug in its desktop app code that could seriously damage
Speaker 1: computers and unrelated, some Californians are getting serious about seceding
Speaker 1: from the United States, but first, Unfortunately. Senior writer and
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind co host Robert Lamb brings
Speaker 1: us a soothing story. Listening to music has been shown
Speaker 1: to have real benefits to our mental health. Here's how
Speaker 1: it works. In times of strife and uncertainty, music feels
Speaker 1: both rage and optimism. It stirs us to action and
Speaker 1: provides catharsis. It also soothes the fissures of an anxious psyche.
Speaker 1: The therapeutic use of music is way back in India.
Speaker 1: The roots of therapeutic music traditions extend through ancient Vedic
Speaker 1: and sanscrit texts, as well as the ethics Baga, Bagita,
Speaker 1: and Ramayana. Music therapy in Africa may date back to
Speaker 1: at least ancient Egypt, and continues on in every modern
Speaker 1: African state. Eastern traditions to incorporate the power of music.
Speaker 1: The Chinese Han dynasties, the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor,
Speaker 1: often considered the fundamental text of traditional Chinese medicine, went
Speaker 1: so far as to connect specific musical notes to corresponding
Speaker 1: elemental aspects of the human body. Yet musical healing isn't
Speaker 1: mere magic and myth. Modern medical science also weighs in
Speaker 1: on the subject, As Professor Urika Nielsen points out in
Speaker 1: The Anxiety and Pain Reducing Effects of Music Interventions, a
Speaker 1: systematic review, numerous studies reveal the power of musical interventions
Speaker 1: to reduce pain and anxiety in hospitalized patients. Nielsen reviewed
Speaker 1: forty two randomized controlled trials of music intervention, and while
Speaker 1: the musical genre and durations varied on lyrical, slow and
Speaker 1: flowing music had the greatest effect on relaxation and pain release.
Speaker 1: Today we roughly categorize such music as ambient. It's a
Speaker 1: broad musical genre that emerged out of nineteen seventies electronic
Speaker 1: sound experimentation, but has come to encompass everything from the
Speaker 1: minimalist acoustic compositions of Steve Reich to the electronic soundscapes
Speaker 1: of Affects Twin. These sounds comfort us, But why the
Speaker 1: most commonly accepted theories define music as a distractor. It
Speaker 1: draws us away from the experience of negative physical or
Speaker 1: mental stimuli with familiar soothing acoustics. Neurological musical therapist Michael
Speaker 1: h Thought goes further, however, stressing the effects of music
Speaker 1: on multiple brain regions related to memory, learning, motivation, and
Speaker 1: emotional states. There is, after all, no music center in
Speaker 1: the human brain, be at the works of Vivaldi or
Speaker 1: van Halen. Music saturates multiple cognitive systems with its influence.
Speaker 1: For instance, since music shares neural pathways with motor control,
Speaker 1: it may improve movement in stroke or Parkinson's disease patients.
Speaker 1: Music runs deep within us, and so too may our
Speaker 1: appreciation of ambient soundscapes. In a two thousand twelve interview
Speaker 1: I conducted with Hearts of Space founder Stephen Hill, the
Speaker 1: host of the long running Slow Music for Fast Times program,
Speaker 1: shared his own personal take on the power of ambient music,
Speaker 1: relating it to the evolutionary importance of auditory environmental awareness.
Speaker 1: Quote what happens with ambient music is that the continuous
Speaker 1: stream of sound, the lack of sudden sound events, the
Speaker 1: consonant harmonies, and the slow pace all conspire to send
Speaker 1: us the message that everything's cool here. You don't have
Speaker 1: to keep scanning the environment for danger. This is the
Speaker 1: relaxation response that is shared by ambient chill, New Age
Speaker 1: and some styles of folk, jazz and classical music. Unquote.
Speaker 1: So you can look to evidence both medical and mythological,
Speaker 1: pilosophic and personal. Ambient music demonstrates an ability to soothe
Speaker 1: our minds in the wake of negative stimuli, both immediate
Speaker 1: and distant, abstract and tangible. Naturally, this doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: should hide away in our ambient caves or ignore life's challenges,
Speaker 1: no more than we should denounce the physician in favor
Speaker 1: of Philip Glass. But for many modern humans, the ancient
Speaker 1: prescription holds true. Ambient music can calm the inner storm
Speaker 1: and perhaps provide the clarity we need to make the
Speaker 1: next step in survival. And who couldn't benefit from a
Speaker 1: little of that right now? The text component for this
Speaker 1: segment on now do how staff works dot com includes
Speaker 1: ambient listening recommendations from a handful of guests such as
Speaker 1: Mary Anne Hobbs and DJ Food. But if you'd like
Speaker 1: to hear an example of ambient music, continue listening at
Speaker 1: the end of this podcast to hear American ambient recording
Speaker 1: artist Helios his track All You Are Off the two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen EP Remembrance, available at unseen music dot com.
Speaker 1: Next up, senior writer and tech stuff post jump in
Speaker 1: Strickland explains how an error and Spotify could be taking
Speaker 1: years off the hard drive life of its desktop app. Users.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, there's update available. Here's what's going on. Did
Speaker 1: you hear that Spotify Streaming music desktop app might have
Speaker 1: been killing your hard drive for months? What's up with that?
Speaker 1: There's a bug in some versions of Spotify's desktop app
Speaker 1: for Windows, Mac and Lennox that overwrites the same database
Speaker 1: file every few minutes, even if Spotify is just running
Speaker 1: idle in the background with no music playing. The culprit
Speaker 1: appears to be a vacuum process for a file containing
Speaker 1: the string mercury dot dB. Here's a bit of irony
Speaker 1: for you. The purpose of the vacuum process is to
Speaker 1: pack database files so that they take up less space.
Speaker 1: Get it It's like vacuum ceiling a digital file. It
Speaker 1: involves rebuilding a file to be as efficient as possible,
Speaker 1: which is generally a good thing. But savvy Spotify users
Speaker 1: notice that this process was happening far too frequently. That's
Speaker 1: a big problem, particularly for people who have a solid
Speaker 1: state hard drive or ss d s. S d s
Speaker 1: are fast and efficient, but they also have some limitations.
Speaker 1: For example, as you write and overwrite data to a
Speaker 1: solid state drive, it slowly loses data storage capacity. It's
Speaker 1: similar to how a battery's charge capacity decreases after many
Speaker 1: charged cycles. Spotify's buggy vacuum process overwrites the Mercury dot
Speaker 1: dB file frequently enough to amount to gigabytes of data
Speaker 1: over the course of a day. If you leave Spotify
Speaker 1: active whenever your computer is on, you could be taking
Speaker 1: years off the life of your solid state drive. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the worst bit of news is that this seems to
Speaker 1: have been an issue since June two thousand sixteen, so
Speaker 1: it may have been affecting thousands of hard drives for months.
Speaker 1: One semi bright spot in this mess is the bug
Speaker 1: is a purely local phenomenon. Spotify isn't downloading massive amounts
Speaker 1: of data and chewing through any data restrictions you might
Speaker 1: have with your internet service provider. Yea, here's some actual
Speaker 1: good news. Spotify has fixed the bug in an update.
Speaker 1: If you use the Spotify desktop app, check to see
Speaker 1: if your version is one point zero point four two
Speaker 1: or later in the about Spotify menu option. If it is,
Speaker 1: you're in the clear. Oh and if you only use
Speaker 1: Spotify on mobile devices or on the web, you never
Speaker 1: had anything to worry about in the first place. The
Speaker 1: bug only affected the desktop versions of the program. Finally,
Speaker 1: this week, I'm exploring exactly how difficult it would be
Speaker 1: amidst all our current political strife for state in the
Speaker 1: US to secede from the Union. Special thanks for our
Speaker 1: freelance writer John on Donovan for this one. People have
Speaker 1: different ways of venting their post election emotions. Some take
Speaker 1: to the streets or let loose on social media. In California,
Speaker 1: where almost six of the voters picked Hillary Clinton over
Speaker 1: President elect Trump, they're talking leaving, as in getting out,
Speaker 1: splitting up, seceeding, and yes they're serious tech industry insiders
Speaker 1: like Shervan Peshavar and Iranian American Silicon Valley executive and
Speaker 1: entrepreneur from Sherpa Capital and Hyperloop One took to Twitter
Speaker 1: after the election, vowing to fund a campaign to launch
Speaker 1: California as a new nation. Peshavar told Snen Money in
Speaker 1: an email quote, it's the most patriotic thing I can do.
Speaker 1: The country is at a serious crossroads end quote. Even
Speaker 1: before the election, California citizens have pitched the need to
Speaker 1: break up with Uncle Sam. The Yes California Independence Committee
Speaker 1: filed for nonprofit status in it's demanding quote the liberation
Speaker 1: of the people of California. From its end quote, it's
Speaker 1: not quite as violent as it sounds. They say that
Speaker 1: they explicitly reject conduct or speech inciting open rebellion against
Speaker 1: the American government. Yes, California got more than fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: new likes to its Facebook page last week, up more
Speaker 1: than four thousand two. But talking about breakup, as in
Speaker 1: all matters of the heart and mind, is a lot
Speaker 1: easier than actually breaking up. You'll recall perhaps the Civil War,
Speaker 1: although some states have discussed walk out since then, Texas,
Speaker 1: We're looking at you. Any state that seriously considers secession
Speaker 1: runs up against a wall bigger than the one Trump
Speaker 1: said he wants to build on the US southern border.
Speaker 1: The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution has provisions
Speaker 1: for joining the Union in the New States Clause. That's
Speaker 1: happened plenty, But the other way around, there's nothing in
Speaker 1: the Constitution about a state leaving the Union. But Yes
Speaker 1: California points to an eighteen sixty nine Supreme Court decision
Speaker 1: that may provide them with a literal out. The case
Speaker 1: is Texas v. White, in which the Court ruled that
Speaker 1: states could not unilaterally secede from the Union. Yes California agrees,
Speaker 1: but they point out this passage from the decision. When
Speaker 1: therefore Texas became one of the United States, she entered
Speaker 1: into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the
Speaker 1: other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble
Speaker 1: as the union between the original states. There is no
Speaker 1: place for reconsideration or revocation except through revolution or through
Speaker 1: consent of the states. Yes California is ruling out revolution,
Speaker 1: but insists the way out is if they get the
Speaker 1: other states to go along. What they're looking for is
Speaker 1: an amicable divorce. The people at Yes California see two
Speaker 1: routes to get that done. In the first scenario, after
Speaker 1: a majority of Californians vote on a statewide ballot to
Speaker 1: pursue secession, and it passes, a state delegation heads to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And proposes an amendment to the U. S
Speaker 1: Constitution to allow secession. According to s California, two thirds
Speaker 1: of the House of Representatives and two thirds of the
Speaker 1: Senate would have to approve the proposed amendment would then
Speaker 1: have to be okayed by thirty eight of the fifty states.
Speaker 1: The second scenario skips the Washington step, and after the
Speaker 1: statewide ballot passes, calls for a convention of the States,
Speaker 1: a secession proposal would have to be approved by two
Speaker 1: thirds of those delegates. If passed Yes, California says it
Speaker 1: would go to individual states, where legislatures would vote on it. Again,
Speaker 1: thirty eight of the fifty states would have to pass it.
Speaker 1: Even if the Calaxeters got that far, they might come
Speaker 1: to regret it, and the rest of us along with them.
Speaker 1: On the Skoka Blog, the executive director of the California
Speaker 1: Constitution Center at the University of California Berkeley School of Law,
Speaker 1: laid out the prospects of secession. They're referred to such
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment as unleashing the Kraken. Once one such
Speaker 1: change started looking like it might pass, they say other
Speaker 1: groups could and would flood Washington or a state convention
Speaker 1: with their own ideas for large scale change. Anyway you
Speaker 1: look at it a calax. It wouldn't be easy, but
Speaker 1: we're not going to say it would be impossible. That's
Speaker 1: almost all for this week. Stay tuned after my closing
Speaker 1: speel for a bit of ambient music to help get
Speaker 1: your brain through the day. If you're not subscribed to
Speaker 1: the show, do that thing and send us a link
Speaker 1: to anything you'd like to hear us cover, plus your
Speaker 1: favorite holiday recipe cocktails included. You can send us an
Speaker 1: email at now podcast at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and of course, for lots more stories like these, head
Speaker 1: on over to our home planet now that how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Thanks to Helio's for use of their
Speaker 1: track All You Are Off the EP Remembrance, available at
Speaker 1: Unseen hyphen Music dot com.