# Singing tutor demands cassette recorder **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843 "2015-02-28T07:15:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/41 "2015-03-01T03:58:09Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Purely anecdotal…but I go to some few garage and yard sales 'round these parts…and it’s been literally years since I’ve seen cassettes or tape players. _Maybe_ Goodwill, but I can’t say I’ve seen any there in years either. > [@Sitnam](#): > > This may shock some but there exists a store called Goodwill where one can purchase a cassette recorder for a five spot. Dammit, now I’m going to have to go look at the local Goodwill store just to see who’s right. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/42 "2015-03-01T04:04:06Z")
BTW I’m aware that there are tape recorders that are much cheaper than 140 but the guardian got pressured into getting it ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/43 "2015-03-01T04:14:28Z")
Ambivalid: The woman I was talking about is someone I’m not meant to talk about here. I think the tutor is 60 or 70 Yes she might not be the best. The guardian tried to find a good one by doing an internet search. BTW she also wants someone who is affordable ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/44 "2015-03-01T05:19:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Waitaminute though, **Derleth** , that’s assuming that the ticket-buyer’s interest in seeing the movie depends **only** on the reviews. > > I took **JohnClay** to be saying instead, “Suppose you bought a ticket for a movie you wanted to see and it was nonrefundable, and then you found out that the reviews were poor: would that automatically negate your initial interest in the movie to the extent that you’d just eat the cost on the ticket and not even give it a chance?” If the reviews were irrelevant, why mention them? If the reviews were relevant but less relevant than other factors (excluding the sunk cost of the ticket price), why not mention those other factors? For example, if the movie was based on a novel I loved, I may well see it despite middling-poor reviews because of the draw of the story. However, outright terrible reviews might well sway me, unless the reviewers evinced absolutely no understanding of the material or its appeal. So I approached the problem as a hypothetical, and a hypothetical is usually stated completely, because that’s the point. Leaving stuff out just makes it more difficult to continue the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/45 "2015-03-01T05:28:59Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > Ambivalid: > > The woman I was talking about is someone I’m not meant to talk about here. _Ohhhhhh_, I see. Thanks for clearing that one up for me, **JC**! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/46 "2015-03-01T05:40:20Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > If the reviews were irrelevant, why mention them? I use reviews (and trailers) to make the initial choice of the movie. > [@](#): > > …So I approached the problem as a hypothetical, and a hypothetical is usually stated completely, because that’s the point. Leaving stuff out just makes it more difficult to continue the conversation. Well personally if there was a bad movie that I paid for and a bad movie I could see for free, I’d probably only see the one I paid for. If I didn’t see it and there were no additional fees it seems like a waste of money. I just don’t find the fallacy very obvious. BTW what if there was a club that cost a million dollars to join (that you’ve paid) and another one was slightly better in every way but meant giving up on the first one… I’d find it difficult to switch clubs. But maybe I could do it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/47 "2015-03-01T05:54:54Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > There is also the problem if you’re swapping tapes around you’ve got to have them on the correct side That’s not necessarily true, many players can play in both directions without flipping the tape. The Silver Survivor (of the Valencia floods) could, and the floods were in… _google_ 1982. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/48 "2015-03-01T06:04:03Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > That’s not necessarily true, many players can play in both directions without flipping the tape. The Silver Survivor (of the Valencia floods) could, and the floods were in… _google_ 1982. The $140 tape recorder doesn’t have a button to do that. And even if it did it would be confusing… I mean putting the tape in the right way wouldn’t guarantee that the correct side of the tape is playing. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/49 "2015-03-01T11:28:42Z")
The way the Survivor worked was, by default it played the side showing out. If you toggled “continuous”, it would keep on looping. If you hit “rev” and “ffwd” at the same time, without holding them, it would switch to the other side. Man, I miss it. That thing survived being turned into a brick mud by a flood, cleaned up, almost twenty years in my hands and my brothers’, and from my dorm room in college it would sometimes pick up the radio from the police station in the same block… hopefully your relative’s player won’t suddenly spout “hey sarge, did you see the football results?” in the middle of a song! ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/50 "2015-03-01T12:21:15Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > BTW I’m aware that there are tape recorders that are much cheaper than 140 but the guardian got pressured into getting it Every time you mention the guardian I feel a Lovecraftian vibe. Just sayin. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/51 "2015-03-01T17:59:01Z")
Really? Guardian/ward–total Batman vibe. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/52 "2015-03-01T18:15:13Z")
Hmm, a dark batman with Lovecraftian elements. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/53 "2015-03-01T19:33:42Z")
Sure, buy the tape recorder. Then demand all invoices be in cuneiform. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/54 "2015-03-01T20:46:51Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I just don’t find the fallacy very obvious. BTW what if there was a club that cost a million dollars to join (that you’ve paid) and another one was slightly better in every way but meant giving up on the first one… I’d find it difficult to switch clubs. But maybe I could do it. OK, let’s take that hypothetical, throw it away, and use a new one. Imagine you bought some food from a store. Imagine there are either no returns, or returns only for store credit, and you won’t be in the town long enough to use store credit. Imagine I don’t care about any objections to this part you could possibly come up with. Now, the price of the food is a sunk cost. You’ve paid for it, so the money you used to buy it is gone, and you can’t get it back. Every analysis has to conclude that the money you used to buy the food is gone for good. Imagine the food is rotten. If you eat it, you will get sick. Do you eat the food? No. Because if you ate the food, you would be out the money _and_ you would be sick. If you threw the food away, you’d just be out the money. **Throwing the food away isn’t wasting the money. You wasted the money when you bought the food, and nothing can undo that.** _That_ is the heart of the concept. Disagreeing with it is committing the sunk cost fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/55 "2015-03-01T21:26:18Z")
About the guardian - she’s the grandmother of the girl. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/56 "2015-03-05T23:48:01Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, these are all valid reasons to see the tutor, and makes this less of an example of the fallacy I mentioned. > > No, and this cuts to the heart of what the sunk cost fallacy is: The money I spent on the ticket is a sunk cost. It’s gone. No action of mine can get it back. Wave it goodbye. > > Therefore, my goal now is to minimize my losses, and seeing as how I value my time, I consider wasted time to be a loss. So I would not see the movie because wasting my time on the movie would not get my money back; it would only cost me time _in addition to_ the money, which is, per hypothesis, completely lost. > > If I don’t see the film, I’ve lost money. > > If I do see the film, I’ve lost money _and_ I’ve lost time. > > I consider the first option to be the better outcome. This assumes that having a bad experience watching a movie is automatically a waste of time. I could argue that it’s not necessarily true that you’re better off avoiding all bad experiences. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/57 "2015-03-05T23:53:00Z")
It’s her class, her rules or gtfo. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/58 "2015-03-06T12:43:58Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > About the guardian - she’s the grandmother of the girl. Did she erupt from the bowels of hell? ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/59 "2015-03-06T15:42:44Z")
The tutor is obviously getting kickbacks from the cassette player manufacturer. _Follow the money, people!_ ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2015, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843/60 "2015-03-07T23:44:33Z")
I’m not certain that this tutor sounds like a winner in any case. Being prepared to cut the family’s losses should be considered. Example - Her statement that " I teach piano 3 times as fast because I skip 2 of the standard lessons." Interesting. Valid? Candidly, I don’t know for a young learner. In combination with everything else, it gives me pause. Good money after bad does come to mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/singing-tutor-demands-cassette-recorder/713843.md?page=2)