The Big Think

Don’t miss Giles’ great essay on Billy G’s most recent speech. Read it to find out what the is is. Great Stuff, Batman.

Eighteen Quadrillion dollars. This marks the first time I’ve seen this number in the popular press. The only other time I’ve seen it in print (other than in just a description of numbers) is in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series (the population of the human galaxy).
In this context, it’s an estimate of the cost to clean up global warming. Yipes.

“Artists can color the sky red because they know it’s blue. Those of us who aren’t artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we’re stupid.”
— Jules Feiffer

A portfolio of computer animation from the Ringling school of art and design. Under “student portfolio” on the left, click on “Computer Animation”. 2 favorites: “Poor Bogo” and “After You”

Erin’s aunt Denise (and her husband Dana) both play in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (and P.D.Q Bach’s Greater Hoople Orchestra). Thanks to her for the following musical Haiku:

Squeaking and squawking
All eyes roll to the heavens
The clarinet speaks

Here’s the girl singer
Stepping to the microphone
Pitch, time, all gone now

Gig is going well
Some jerk requests “In the Mood”
I look at my watch

I once had a dream
Big house, new car, big money
Now I play the bass

Gorgeous chick tells me
“You sound just like Kenny G”
My ego shatters

Three-eight, eleven-eight
Damn you, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Five-eight, seven-eight

The woodwind doubler
Practising the piccolo
Frustration defined

Pit orchestra gig
Days and nights become as one
I have no damned life

Bad intonation
Strings are sharp and reeds are flat
Brass too loud again

An oxymoron:
“He played the accordion
With delicacy”

The accordion
“Squeeze box,” yes, but more often
“The Stomach Steinway”

Bassoons forever
Try in vain not to sound like
A farting bedpost

The strings slowly tune
When they’re done the unisons
Are anything but

“I can’t find my note”
Bemoans the confused singer
“Quit now,” we all pray

Money’s everything
Playing any gig that comes
Whores, we are all whores

Break time is over
Rest of band is returning
Now for that phone call

Rock drummer, lounge keys
Classically trained singer
Welcome to sub hell

My drummer helped me
Count the syllables

So many good quotes in my book today. I want to list them all. But even my personal stash of 1000+ will eventually run dry if I don’t ration them. So I’ll go with the one that seems to sum up the way I feel today. Thank you Mr. Hawthorne.

“Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

via buzzmodo“If blogs are printing presses, and if Big Media is the Catholic Church, then clearly Dave Winer must be Martin Luther!”

How Microsoft’s Misunderstanding of Open Source Hurts Us All

Currently listening to the Durufle Requiem. Followed that up with a dose of Patrick Doyle’s score to Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (WOW). I’ll put money on the guess that Doyle was listening to Durufle when he wrote this. Both are beautiful, transcendent works. If you haven’t seen Branagh’s movie, you owe it to yourself to get some Shakespeare into your life. And if you have never heard the Durufle Requiem, shame on you.

Here’s a little song (1 minute, 1.1Mb) that I’ve been working on today for a corporate project. I’m happy with the results, especially since it’s Midi. If you can play MP3’s give it a listen and let me know what you think. (semi-slow download)

According to ventureblog, Dartmouth is issuing VoIP handsets to students for $50 each . Look out Ma Bell.

The chickens come home to roost. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either.

Something strange is happening to Jupiter.

“It’s way cooler than a projected image,” Brezina said. “It’s like seeing a person, really lifelike, standing in front of you.”

An example of what’s wrong with our legal system.
We received a letter from a lawyer the other day informing us that we were part of a class action lawsuit. Our health insurance company cancelled our wellness benefits a few years ago and one of the policyholders had hired a lawyer to sue the company on our behalf. If the suit goes through and if the insurance company loses (notice I didn’t say if the customers “win”), each customer gets one coupon for $40 off a standard physical for the next three years ($120 total), the lady who is named in the suit wins $15,000, and the lawyers get $1,900,000.
Tell me we don’t need tort reform.

…current estimates of the number of political prisoners in the lifetime camps alone, run to between 150,000 and 200,000.
I had the pleasure of spending 9 days in Seoul about fifteen years ago and found South Koreans to be a happy, hospitable, open people. Spending just a small amount of time as a cultural minority was a great experience for me, and I look back on it with wider eyes and mind. South Korea was a wonderful place when I was there.
Contrast this with the atrocities we are only now finding out are happening under Kim Jong IL’s leadership in North Korea, and some things become clear. Among them is this: The global community cannot allow this brutal leader, this dictator, this Pol Pot/Saddam Hussein/Hitler clone to continue to develop nuclear weapons. The global community. Not America. Not “the Western World”. Not even “the first world”. Everybody. The possibility that this nutcase will control the means to reign down apocalyptic destruction on any one of his neighbors (or anyone anywhere period), and thus trigger Much Worse Things should finally- finally - get us all into the same freaking boat already.

*kwan-li-so: Korean word “which translates as “political penal-labor colonies”–to which political offenders are sentenced for life, without recourse, sometimes with three generations of their families, without even the show of a trial, and sometimes without even knowing why they are there.” . Not for felons, not for murderers or rapists, but for ordinary citizens, and their families, who anger Kim.

Wikipedia. Remember that word. My money is on it becoming as common a term as blog or email.
Wired mag had a great article this month about the Open Source movement. More than just a new way of developing software, Open Source methodology has recently broken out into the world of ideas and products. Wikipeda is an open source encyclopedia of everything.

Their words: Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia.

Here’s the idea. If you have any kind of knowledge of a specific subject, say, mufflers, you are invited to submit an essay to the Wikipedia. They’ll post your entry under “mufflers” and link to related topics. If someone comes along and has anything to add to your post, they edit your entry. Over time a vast collection of topics can be covered, because the work is being done by a volunteer army of writers - and one’s that are “experts” in the appropriate fields.
This idea has been applied to great success over at epinions.
Ultimately, Wikipedia’s creators want to publish the whole “encylopedia Wiki” on CD (DVD?) ROM.

Today Apple released specs on their new iBooks:

12&14″ displays
Airport Extreme/Bluetooth
256DDR RAM
Combo Drive (Burn CD, Watch DVD)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9200/32 AGP 4X
4.9lbs
$1099/$1299

Sounds like these specs fit somebody’s requirements pretty closely. Heh.
Seriously, while Macs are rarely more expensive than PC’s on a feature-by-feature basis (spec out a similarly equipped Dell and see for yourself), the price difference where they are different is now so little that it hardly bears mentioning. The difference use to be a grand plus. Now you might have to pay 10-15% - certainly an acceptable spread in any industry between a “value” item and a “premium” item. Glad to see Pat at least considering one…

Okay, it’s not really a toy. I went to Fry’s tonight because I was going stir crazy working at home the last 4 days without getting away (and mowing the grass doesn’t count). I originally went to start pricing replacements for my dearly departed PalmPilot and I ended up buying a laser printer. The Samsung ML-1710:

Pros:
It works on PC and Mac, OS 9 and X.
Prints WAY faster than my old Ti Microlaser Pro,
4x as much memory (8meg instead of 2) as the Ti
prints 17 pages per minute (the Ti did 6… maybe).
Energy Star so I can leave it on all the time (or maybe just plug it into an X-10 module and cue it when I need to)
New ink carts are only $80
250 sheet feeder, all types of paper (even card stock!)

Downsides:
it’s USB only. I can’t network it, but I can printer share when the main machine is booted into OS X
It’s loud when it runs, but quiet when it doesn’t
lightweight. It’s easy to push around when you load up the paper tray and getting the tray door closed is a pain
The ink cart it comes with is only 1/3 filled 1000 pages max. Then 3K when I get a new cart. (Those wiley buggers)

The old Ti has been a workhorse for 10 years. I’ve run approximately 17,000 pages through it in that time and only replaced the ink cartridge once (but for $189!!!). A couple of years ago it began streaking pretty badly and lost its networking ability, so it was time to retire it. I could have fixed it, but it would have cost more than it was worth. The $1100 I paid for it was more than made up for in the thousands I made printing music.

The new printer? $97 after rebate. I just got a new color inkjet with my G4, but wasn’t happy with the quality of the BW prints, plus, the new black ink carts are expensive (approx $20 for 250 or so pages). My cost per page on the new printer is around .03. It was .11 in the inkjet. At that rate, I only have to put a dozen reams or so through the new laser and it’ll pay for itself. Plus I can still use the inkjet for color letterhead.

I’m still playing around with it, but so far I’m pretty happy. I thought a new laser printer was going to cost me $500. Good to see low cost lasers coming out.

It had to happen. Question is, why didn’t I think of it?