Leave the wrist alone -- Let's focus on a different body part. How about a Smart-Truss? Who wouldn't want a 1.5 Ghz processor warming their junk? Cupertino, I expect a slice of the action for this idea....
Having written extensively on this perennially misunderstood yet profoundly influential genius, I can only add a vote of support along with a recommendation that the public also be given some teaching on the enduring meaning and influence of this man's music. For this is a composer who can be located in history but also rediscovered in contemporary culture. Beethoven and Chopin are the first modernists of the keyboard: as a young man I constantly heard Chopin's voice and his revolutionary technical inventions in the pop/rock of my era -- in Emerson, Wakeman, Simon, Joel, Manzarek, Wright -- and in the jazz of Zawinul, Tyner, and Evans. The phrasing, fingerings, use of dissonance and legato, the focus on loose, small-scale forms and structures...an entire year of coursework could be devoted to such a study.
Settle down kids, this product is almost certainly designed primarily for a demographic that is the elephant in the room of western culture. Here in America we call them Baby Boomers; you may look down your nose and merely say, "ugh, the OLD." They will go away, children, but not as fast as you or our youth-obsessed culture may like. Be that as it may, aging eyes and fingers need devices that accommodate them and their compromised functionality. And thanks to 401k's and Social Security, their little plastic cards are just as or more valuable and profitable than those held by Gen-x, y, or z. Currently, Madison Ave. continues to treat us as Gen-ZZZ -- they sell us sleeping pills and Depends. Perhaps Samsung will bow to that culture and call these the "GetOffMyLawn Phones".
My response to all this was written a month ago, so I wouldn't call it a "replacement," just a statement of principles that could form part of a fresh foundation. What I focus on in that piece is probably what's really driving the complaints of these psychologists -- that Big Pharma is being allowed to shape the biomedical model to fatten its own purse rather than support any forward movement toward mental health in western society.
It's a start, and something I was merely hoping for when I wrote this:
When it comes to mental health, our science is at an infantile or at best adolescent level of development. Next month, it brings us a new bible of pathology — the DSM-V, which will tell us again how many ways we can be sick, yet with no guide as to what mental health actually is or how it might be strengthened. That, it appears, must become a common effort — crowdsourced, if you will. One of the founding documents of our nation insists that government allow us the “unalienable right” to seek happiness; but no state or institution can actually deliver it.
There's an old motto among plumbers (the real ones who work with pipes and stuff, not Nixon-era crooks), which loosely applies here: "your s#!t is our bread and butter."
As I mentioned in a footnote to this piece (which I was writing while this all started), the Anonymous twitter feed had suspected a hack well before the AP delivered its confession. So if stock traders had been following Anonymous, they might not have had time for their panic sell-off. And BTW: what does it say about the stability of our markets and the people running them that such a report should cause them to melt down?
The astronaut will enter the BH and then turn into a lower middle class apartment complex. The key factor with this piece is the date tie-in: today is the 100th anniversary of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. If the Standard Model were valid then the Dodgers would still be here in Bklyn. String theorists correctly point out that Chavez Ravine is a parallel universe at the other end of a BH. Chalk up yet another point for string man and TV star Brian Greene.
I tried to take your side once, when my kid, who's a student at a conservatory in the UK, asked me: where are all the geniuses? She meant, of course, the likes of which were seen from roughly the 18th-20th c. I told her these assessments take time and that even Bach wasn't acknowledged as BACH until Mendelssohn and Schumann championed his work in the 19th c. She replied, correctly, that Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Verdi (among others) were appropriately recognized as masters within their lifetimes and made into the demigods they are today very shortly after their deaths. She wouldn't accept that any of those you mention are in that stratosphere, and I'd find it hard to argue with her except to remind her that any assessments of genius must be revised as musical forms are transformed and/or discarded. I hear genius in Lennon-McCartney of the White Album and Waters-Gilmour of Dark Side of the Moon. Are these symphonic composers, and does it matter? (I do hear a clear symphonic form in Wish You Were Here). Shostakovich wrote 10 symphonies, a few of them great; I haven't heard one to rate with his 5th or 7th since his death in 1975. But maybe that doesn't matter, and Glass and Schnittke are his equals in greatness. Copland wrote shining ballets and weak symphonies; Stravinsky altered the course of musical history with a single dance piece (The Rite of Spring). The old forms have perhaps passed into obsolescence or at least hibernation (strangely, several recent concerti and sonatas have come from old 70's rockers: Joel, Simon, Emerson, McLaughlin). Broadway musicals and more recently film have become the newest symphonic forms. Rodgers, Sondheim, Kern, Bernstein, Herrmann, Zimmer, Korngold, Williams, etc.: why didn't you mention any of these as equal or greater masters as Khodaly or Tomita? The point, I suppose, is not that genius has changed, but rather its vessels.
The really important next question here must be: what will happen to us in the 24th c. when Synthehol takes over? OK, note to non-Trekkies: that's the alcohol that doesn't get you drunk or hung over but (supposedly) tastes a lot like wine/beer/whiskey anyway. Consumed on board various incarnations of the Enterprise.
Well, are we listening to the complete Der God-Damn-Her-Dung (I'd be tweeting my ass off) or La Mer? All seriousness aside, however: in defense of those darn kids, most of the music heard at such events was made before there was recording. Lots of repetition. Certain performers have tried to deal with that by editing out (or down) thematic repetition. Yet that, too, is considered blasphemy in most quarters: how dare you not play every single note that Mozart or Beethoven wrote?
But what probably matters more than that is quality. Once upon a time in America, about 75 years ago, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Bartok lived in the same hood, within blocks of one another, in L.A. Toscanini, Stokowski, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Bernstein, all lived in this country and gave life to our culture. Walt Disney made a famous film with great music; our American Mozart, Gershwin, was an icon. Now, orchestras can't pay their musicians and a once-great culture is draining or drifting out of our cities. What rotted first, the chicken or the egg? Did we abandon quality or did it leave us? And, leaving America alone and taking a broader view: where are the new great composers? Since Shostakovich died (1975), has there been a significant symphonic composer? Can you name one?
Ha, good one. He's definitely a symptom of a disease, that's perhaps the most charitable thing I have to say about the child. As individuals, we often are aware that the presence of a symptom -- diarrhea, for instance (keeping metaphorically to topic) -- is a signal for us to consider possible viral, bacterial, or other causes of that symptom. As societies, we are not so good at looking beneath the surface, identifying and eliminating our disease processes. We merely attack or, worse still, identify with, our symptoms. As Thoreau said, there are a thousand hacking at the branches for every one who pulls at the root. Thoreau would have been a good IT manager.
Yeah, that and: how does exposure to goggles and light meters = tablet usage? I realize that I'll never get research funding for pointing such things out, but why is a simulation of experience X better than a direct test of experience X? And what God decides that the simulation accurately reflects the real world experience supposedly being "tested" by the sim?
As Orwell said, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. My employment history is a string of 10 and 11 month assignments brought to an end before the fish-or-cut-bait moment of hire-or-discard. So that this guy was cut loose is nothing to be shocked or surprised at: it's what the labor market is now. And even that the substance of the gig was misrepresented to him up front is hardly stunning: happens all the time, albeit not so dramatically. That he was offered no support or counseling amid such an appalling assignment is, the bizarre conditions aside, pretty ordinary too. So it appears the bottom line to this story is: Google is no different in its attitudes to contract workers than any other corporation. How perfectly shocking.
Slashdot Mirror
Leave the wrist alone -- Let's focus on a different body part. How about a Smart-Truss? Who wouldn't want a 1.5 Ghz processor warming their junk? Cupertino, I expect a slice of the action for this idea....
Having written extensively on this perennially misunderstood yet profoundly influential genius, I can only add a vote of support along with a recommendation that the public also be given some teaching on the enduring meaning and influence of this man's music. For this is a composer who can be located in history but also rediscovered in contemporary culture. Beethoven and Chopin are the first modernists of the keyboard: as a young man I constantly heard Chopin's voice and his revolutionary technical inventions in the pop/rock of my era -- in Emerson, Wakeman, Simon, Joel, Manzarek, Wright -- and in the jazz of Zawinul, Tyner, and Evans. The phrasing, fingerings, use of dissonance and legato, the focus on loose, small-scale forms and structures...an entire year of coursework could be devoted to such a study.
What we'd love to see is some commentary on this from Eben Alexander, the neurosurgeon of recent NDE fame.
Settle down kids, this product is almost certainly designed primarily for a demographic that is the elephant in the room of western culture. Here in America we call them Baby Boomers; you may look down your nose and merely say, "ugh, the OLD." They will go away, children, but not as fast as you or our youth-obsessed culture may like. Be that as it may, aging eyes and fingers need devices that accommodate them and their compromised functionality. And thanks to 401k's and Social Security, their little plastic cards are just as or more valuable and profitable than those held by Gen-x, y, or z. Currently, Madison Ave. continues to treat us as Gen-ZZZ -- they sell us sleeping pills and Depends. Perhaps Samsung will bow to that culture and call these the "GetOffMyLawn Phones".
Oh, I did worse than that! I tried to prop up an entire cosmology with the same metaphor.
My new project methodology is to be called Fragile. Called it, now everyone jump on board and pay me.
My response to all this was written a month ago, so I wouldn't call it a "replacement," just a statement of principles that could form part of a fresh foundation. What I focus on in that piece is probably what's really driving the complaints of these psychologists -- that Big Pharma is being allowed to shape the biomedical model to fatten its own purse rather than support any forward movement toward mental health in western society.
It might as well be, for if it can be healed with a pill then it rates as mental illness; if not, it's all between your ears and get over it.
That other sound you hear in the game would be Stanley Milgram laughing from his grave.
There's an old motto among plumbers (the real ones who work with pipes and stuff, not Nixon-era crooks), which loosely applies here: "your s#!t is our bread and butter."
Oh Bechtel! Yeah, they did SO well in Iraq, why not let them loose in space? What could possibly go wrong?
Really.. Tyma the guy's name is? Never heard of him. Let me know when Zefram Cochrane writes something like this. Then you'll have scoop worthy of /.
As I mentioned in a footnote to this piece (which I was writing while this all started), the Anonymous twitter feed had suspected a hack well before the AP delivered its confession. So if stock traders had been following Anonymous, they might not have had time for their panic sell-off. And BTW: what does it say about the stability of our markets and the people running them that such a report should cause them to melt down?
2 by 8's would be fine. Thick enough to stomp on and wide enough to run on (or away)
The astronaut will enter the BH and then turn into a lower middle class apartment complex. The key factor with this piece is the date tie-in: today is the 100th anniversary of Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. If the Standard Model were valid then the Dodgers would still be here in Bklyn. String theorists correctly point out that Chavez Ravine is a parallel universe at the other end of a BH. Chalk up yet another point for string man and TV star Brian Greene.
I tried to take your side once, when my kid, who's a student at a conservatory in the UK, asked me: where are all the geniuses? She meant, of course, the likes of which were seen from roughly the 18th-20th c. I told her these assessments take time and that even Bach wasn't acknowledged as BACH until Mendelssohn and Schumann championed his work in the 19th c. She replied, correctly, that Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Verdi (among others) were appropriately recognized as masters within their lifetimes and made into the demigods they are today very shortly after their deaths. She wouldn't accept that any of those you mention are in that stratosphere, and I'd find it hard to argue with her except to remind her that any assessments of genius must be revised as musical forms are transformed and/or discarded. I hear genius in Lennon-McCartney of the White Album and Waters-Gilmour of Dark Side of the Moon. Are these symphonic composers, and does it matter? (I do hear a clear symphonic form in Wish You Were Here). Shostakovich wrote 10 symphonies, a few of them great; I haven't heard one to rate with his 5th or 7th since his death in 1975. But maybe that doesn't matter, and Glass and Schnittke are his equals in greatness. Copland wrote shining ballets and weak symphonies; Stravinsky altered the course of musical history with a single dance piece (The Rite of Spring). The old forms have perhaps passed into obsolescence or at least hibernation (strangely, several recent concerti and sonatas have come from old 70's rockers: Joel, Simon, Emerson, McLaughlin). Broadway musicals and more recently film have become the newest symphonic forms. Rodgers, Sondheim, Kern, Bernstein, Herrmann, Zimmer, Korngold, Williams, etc.: why didn't you mention any of these as equal or greater masters as Khodaly or Tomita? The point, I suppose, is not that genius has changed, but rather its vessels.
The really important next question here must be: what will happen to us in the 24th c. when Synthehol takes over? OK, note to non-Trekkies: that's the alcohol that doesn't get you drunk or hung over but (supposedly) tastes a lot like wine/beer/whiskey anyway. Consumed on board various incarnations of the Enterprise.
Well, are we listening to the complete Der God-Damn-Her-Dung (I'd be tweeting my ass off) or La Mer? All seriousness aside, however: in defense of those darn kids, most of the music heard at such events was made before there was recording. Lots of repetition. Certain performers have tried to deal with that by editing out (or down) thematic repetition. Yet that, too, is considered blasphemy in most quarters: how dare you not play every single note that Mozart or Beethoven wrote?
But what probably matters more than that is quality. Once upon a time in America, about 75 years ago, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Bartok lived in the same hood, within blocks of one another, in L.A. Toscanini, Stokowski, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Bernstein, all lived in this country and gave life to our culture. Walt Disney made a famous film with great music; our American Mozart, Gershwin, was an icon. Now, orchestras can't pay their musicians and a once-great culture is draining or drifting out of our cities. What rotted first, the chicken or the egg? Did we abandon quality or did it leave us? And, leaving America alone and taking a broader view: where are the new great composers? Since Shostakovich died (1975), has there been a significant symphonic composer? Can you name one?
Tell me about it, I had that flu a month ago. But I had a serendipitous out-of-box thought about diverting myself with old TV, specifically NCC-1701-D.
Ha, good one. He's definitely a symptom of a disease, that's perhaps the most charitable thing I have to say about the child. As individuals, we often are aware that the presence of a symptom -- diarrhea, for instance (keeping metaphorically to topic) -- is a signal for us to consider possible viral, bacterial, or other causes of that symptom. As societies, we are not so good at looking beneath the surface, identifying and eliminating our disease processes. We merely attack or, worse still, identify with, our symptoms. As Thoreau said, there are a thousand hacking at the branches for every one who pulls at the root. Thoreau would have been a good IT manager.
I think the woman at the end of that film said all that needs to be said: "Mark, you're not really an asshole, you just try really hard to be one..."
I have a desktop computer 15 years from now? I even have a desktop 15 yrs. from now?
Yeah, that and: how does exposure to goggles and light meters = tablet usage? I realize that I'll never get research funding for pointing such things out, but why is a simulation of experience X better than a direct test of experience X? And what God decides that the simulation accurately reflects the real world experience supposedly being "tested" by the sim?
As Orwell said, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. My employment history is a string of 10 and 11 month assignments brought to an end before the fish-or-cut-bait moment of hire-or-discard. So that this guy was cut loose is nothing to be shocked or surprised at: it's what the labor market is now. And even that the substance of the gig was misrepresented to him up front is hardly stunning: happens all the time, albeit not so dramatically. That he was offered no support or counseling amid such an appalling assignment is, the bizarre conditions aside, pretty ordinary too. So it appears the bottom line to this story is: Google is no different in its attitudes to contract workers than any other corporation. How perfectly shocking.