The overwhelming majority are innocent
I hope that you're talking about the population in general here, and not crime suspects in general. The majority of criminal suspects are not innocent, and they are in fact, suspects, because the evidence indicates such. Usually, where there's smoke, there's fire. Note that I did not say always, but usually. That's majority.
The Law, and not the government, presumes innocence. It is always a scary thing when people confuse government with law, even scarier when they equate the two
True, but in this context, I think you're splitting hairs. Laws are executed and enforced by whatever Government is current at the time, so, for the posters intents and purposes, the same.
It all boils down to common sense. If a strange guy comes running out of an old woman's house with a bloody knife in his hand, blood all over his shirt and face, wads of jewelry and cash hanging out of his back pocket, and hops into a car and takes off leaving behind a stabbed-to-death, burglared woman in the house, chances are pretty good he's guilty. There's always a chance he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and didn't do it, which is why our system presumes innocent until proven guilty, but it doesn't take rocket science or advanced statistical analysis to figure out he's more than likely the murderer.
I have always disliked the concept of a political party. I think democracy would work much better without them. Then we could spend much more time choosing people to represent us upon their own merits. Instead I see most political debates featuring two entrenched groups.
Which brings us to a chicken vs egg kind of scenario: Are we so polarized because thats the general way of human nature, or did it simply become easier to go along with the institution of two large political parties, forming an almost vicsious cycle of increasing idealistic separation ?
In either case, our current system seems to be a symptom of lazy thinking or content-free philosophy, it's much less work to label everything as black or white, rather than acknowledge that there are infinite shades of grey, and that every rule has an exception, no matter which side you're on.
Funny thing is, it's mostly the politicians who fall into the trap, I suspect the real silent majority prefers to be right in the middle.
In short, the Gimp is just that; a gimp. Its UI is so unintuitive, it's a nightmare to use. I am no fan of proprietary software, but all I have to say is vive la Photoshop.
I had to chuckle reading the various comments of how intuitive or nonintuitive the UI is, because I'd always thought Photoshop's UI wasn't all that intuitive, having first used Paint Shop Pro.
I kind of forced myself to learn PS, which I'm fairly comfortable with now, (not a pro by any stretch) and to an extent, the Gimp, but I'd have to agree that da Gimp does have a strange UI, for any app.
I was slightly panicked the first time I tried to save my file by clicking on "File" in the main (?) menu but didn't see the usual fare in the drop down menu.
I'm willing to take a risk that someone might get away with a crime here and there, in exchange for not having my every move monitored by camera, GPS, credit cards, or whatever. And if I get killed as a result -- then I guess my number came up. At least I had fun while I could.
There's a certain ring of truth in this, and what you say about people working their whole lifes just to extend it BUT...
I think if you actually found yourself on the other side of this, the actual victim of a crime, or worse yet, your wife, husband, son or daughter in a situation, the reality of it might change your mind. Maybe not. I don't know your social or marital status, but a lot of people change their perspective after having a family. I know I now give evil stares at dudes who come barrelling down my street in their low riders with subwoofers blaring, because I have a 3 year old now that likes to play outside and it only takes 2 or 3 seconds for an accident to happen. Before he was born I never thought much of it. Except the subwoofer part. That always annoyed me.
Likewise, a lot of people complain about government intervention and then complain again when something happens to them because the police or government didn't stop it.
Sometimes we expect too much of police, they're not mind-readers, after all, so they can't tell who is bad and who is good, but even if they could, it'd just be another breach of privacy.
Laissez-faire Capitalism and Communism have the same problem: they're systems only angels could live within.
I think you hit the nail right on the head there !
No system is perfect, and never will be, because people aren't perfect. Maybe we just don't entirely agree on where to draw that line of balance: If I understood you correctly, I'd say you feel that Socialism is that ideal balance between Laissez-faire and Communism, but please tell me if I've misinterpreted. I more or less believe that a balance between Laissez-faire and Socialism is the ideal balance, pretty much what we have in the States.
Having said that, it's obvious that some of the large Corporations are clearly out of control, which is why Governement regulation is a good thing (child labor laws, the Sherman Act, etc.), but I am worried about those who feel that all Corporations are so evil that they're willing to give Government too much power, thus upsetting the delicate balance. Some idioms are just as applicable today as when they were coined, so,I'll say, Absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter the source of the power.
In general principle, however, it seems we agree.
While I don't disagree with everything you've said, I have issues with at least half:
Remember, the US is a country where 90% of the population consider themselves middle class and yet 50% are below the poverty line.
Where did you get these statistics from ? And at what dollar point exactly is the poverty line ? It sounds like you're pulling stats out of thin air to make your point.
You know the reason why Europe went 'socialist'? (though I'd better point out that social democracy is far from being socialism) The laissez-faire experiment of the 19th and early 20th centuries failed.
Again, failed by whose definition? I assume you're talking solelyabout Europe here, although I have doubts.You have to keep in mind that Europe was not and still isn't united, at least not at all like the US. Two world wars might have had something to do with it too.
What people forget is that government is there to protect those who can't protect themselves. It's not a tool of business, but a counterweight to balance it's excesses.
Government was around long before anything that remotely ressembled the current business model evolved.
Back when peasants were trading and bartering oxen for loaves of bread or beanstalk seeds, governments were around to tax, oppress,punish, enforce laws, and take land from it's people as well as from people outside their established borders. If anything, history has shown that governments, more so than businesses, abuse and exploit people. But not all governments, naturally, just as not all businesses are crooked.
Anytime you get into broad generalizations you're stepping into a troublesome area.
We don't have laws to prevent you and I from commiting crime.
Yes we do. That's exactly the point of laws. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Not only that, but many laws are subjective. Some are just plain wrong. Some are even repealed.
We should not fall victim to the mindset that "Corporations are Evil, Government is Good". Human nature is what it is, some are good, some are bad, most are somewhere in-between.
But I would agree that the two form something of a system of checks and balances in today's times.
This might be a little too forward looking, but if we are still to have true convergence at some point, ala carte seems to me to be the logical result. I can't imagine going to my computer/media center in the near future and not being able to control what I want to watch and when I want to watch it, much like I can currently visit nearly any website anywhere in the world at any time. This is all part of the point and a benefit of digital technology.
Of course, the ads will always be around to annoy the heck out of us.
In the meantime, I'm paying for 150 channels of garbage, I only watch about 9 of them. (Comcast digital)
Wrong. Language studies have shown that computer langauges are not equivalent to conventional lanugages.
Ah, that helps explain why so many coders can successfully program an app containing thousands of lines of code, but still can't spell "loser". :-) ( I hereby envoke Godwin's law !!)
I'm "stuck" with my Toshiba e550g genio - I love the screen, and it's got a 400MHz XScale CPU, but there is no 2003 upgrade for it. PPC2002 is as far as it goes. I don't understand why, or what the difference there between it and a PocketPC that is upgradable to WM2003.
How hard would it be to put linux on this thing ?
Now that's some history !
on
Unruly Milky Way
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
I wonder if they'll find anything to indicate dramatic climate changes, as has been speculated, due to radiation I think.
Right now we're in the arm of Orion, which is a relatively calm place to be, but we (or should I say Sol) tends to drift a bit.
Hey, to each their own spin. Really, what is "but I digress", but a quick shot and withdrawal with the hopes of avoiding a counter shot? ;-)
We're getting offtopic but.. oh what the heck:
One can argue that CNN spins in the other direction, IMO, so in a way, "fair and balanced" means the news media overall.
Okay, so Foxnews doesn't mean it that way, and sure, they're slanted right,( even more so on weekends, oddly ) but when ya lump them all together, you get a soupy mix that has something approaching more even coverage than you traditionally get from the CNNs and Dan Rathers of the world. Also, Foxnews often puts a liberal punduit in the hot seat, so to speak, but at least he/she gets some airtime before getting shot down in flames. The other networks often don't do that much for the other side - you just hear the one side. Funny thing is how Foxnews has become the posterchild for conserative TV news, when some of the reporting I saw out of MSNBC during the height of the Iraq war was waaay more right-wing, and Michael Savage (until he got fired) was much right-wing than say, Bill O'Reilly.
<Off soapbox now>
BTW, that first cast of SNL rocked ! I'm old enough to remember, and it was never the same after the first cast; that was SNL at it's peak, but I think you had to be there. Just one question: what the heck ever happened to Lorraine Newman ?
Hey, I dont' think you're being arrogant at all. I guess it just depends on what context you would define "decent".
The context is which I'm placing all this is the rock and pop genre, remember - the ones who make the most money at it but are typically schooled the least, as a group.
I can certainly see your point, where you get deeper and deeper into theory, studying more advanced concepts and applications with increasing complexity. At your level, some form of written record becomes enormously important. Having the abilty to visualize is key to getting your head around it, as you're essentially using 2 senses, then, to master the domain of one.
You're working on a PhD,(more power to you), to you, I'm sure that modes, circle of fifths, harmony, all those basic things I mentioned above are very elementary. To a rock/pop musician though, like me, I just have to say I think that constitutes a "decent" grasp. I'd be a little surprised if many of today's alternative, grunge, or rock musicians know much more than how to do a "power-chord", honestly, not that there aren't exceptions, of course. But you don't really hear progressive rock like you used to on mainstream radio, you have to go hunt it down.
you find much richer possibilities available to you as a result of being able to read and write music
I agree - I didn't mean to sound like I was knocking notation or those who can read, in fact, I'm a bit envious of them, of course.
The main gist of my post was that I found it a little odd that anyone would go to so much trouble to reinvent something that probably didn't need to be, partly because preexisting products do a pretty decent job, and partly because the demand isn't what it used to be. Or so I would think, because it seems to me that a good chunk of amatuer and semi-professional musicans fall into one of two catagories:
1) Those who play by ear, tend toward the creative side but lack a real command of the instrument, and
2) Those who sight read, exhibit discipline, and play very proficiently but can't play a thing unless there's a piece of sheet music in front of them.
It's the really good musician who can do both, who uses reading and wrting as a tool for their creativity, not just as a set of instructions. I used to work at a music store with a really good flautist, she could sight-read and play all kinds of complex melodies, which just amazed me to no end - but she confessed to me that she was awed by the way I could sit at the piano or pick up a guitar and just play all kinds of things with no music to read off of - she didn't know how to improvise ! It almost makes for a split in the definition of musician.
music monkey n
1. A person who is capable of making music without actually understanding what they are doing.
Also see: code monkey
That would be somebody who doesn't understand music theory, the relationships between notes, harmony, intervals, chords, contrapuntal motion, et al.
Reading and writing notation probably makes all that easier to grasp and they're taught hand in hand, but the two aren't absolutely married. I have a decent basic grasp of theory, I just don't know which of those lines is supposed to be a "d" and whether a half note is drawn solid or hollow, at least not right off the bat. Make take a minute. Forget sight reading! The thing is, it really doesn't affect my ability to understand why the Dorian mode is basically a minor scale except it doesn't flat the 6th along with the 3rd and 7th intervals.
I wouldn't fancy being a studio or classical musicican without being able to sightread my rear off though.
It seems to me that they're trying to redefine "score editor" and yet generally, that's what it seems to be, more or less.
While the printed output is asthetically pleasing, it strikes me as an odd technology to persue, because I wonder how many musicians today can actually read music. I'd wager the vast majority of rock musicians can't, and that roughly half of pop musicans can't. I can't, and I've written "plenty" of material and play several instruments. It's not truly a necessity anymore, with a good ear and modern equipment, ideas can quickly be stored for future embellishment or shown to others in the absence of an actual instrument. It's not even necessary for registering with the library of congress, an audio tape will suffice.
Gojira was always a bomb reference. As long as we have super-weapons, he'll never be irrelevant. I'll miss the big guy.
I'd go a step further and say the Godzilla is a representation of the United States itself, not only because he comes from/across the Pacific ocean, and is born of radioactivity, but think of the reference Yamamoto made when they bombed Pearl Harbor: " I fear we have awakened a sleeping Giant".
Not only that, but while the first Godzilla film portrays him as a destroyer, in subsequent films he becomes a savior, almost a God, which parallels our rebuilding Japan.
He ain't da bomb, he's Uncle Sam !
F.Y.I. The worst you could do to a microwave by putting metal inside is break the magnatron, and when it breaks, it will just die, not explode or any cool shit like that
Well, it kinda depends what else is in the microwave too.
Years ago I had a girlfriend who put a box of chinese food in her parents brand new microwave - this was around 1983, when they were still relatively expensive - the little metal handle sparked and set the cardboard on fire, and the flame proceeded to melt the top of the inside of the microwave into a black gooey gaping hole! Needless to say, that was the last anyone used it.
Most people do not realize the magnitude of US military spending. But today, we spend more than the next 25 nations in the world *combined*. At the current rate of increase, the US will soon be spending more on its military than the rest of the world *combined*. That is, IMO, a bit too much.
In terms of absolute spending, yes, we outspend them, but in terms of percentage of our Gross National Product, we don't really spend that much at all. The USSR far outspent us, in terms of GNP, during the cold war, and we have actually spent less and less over the course of the nineties.
Only about 3% of our national budget is spent on military spending, according to at least one web source I found.
(http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaffairs/we/curr ent/schweizer_1200.pdf)
I'd rather us spend the money on high tech military gadgets that enable us to spare lives (even the enemy's, if possible, with some of the new weaponry)or dissuade threats, rather than send in our troops on foot to get maimed or killed.
You see many people (I think a growing number) are starting to realize that music is not property. To be fair, no information can be "property".
Oh well, there goes my chance to mod any posts in this thread. I had to respond.. (silly me)
I think people should realize that music is not "information" either. It's not a law of physics or mathematics, it's not "data" other than in the sense that it's a digital file, in the context of internet swapping.
Music is Art. If a musician gives away his or her copyrights and publishing, that is his/her perogative, but I don't believe that all artistic works should automatically be treated as public domain, any more than you'd demand that all fiction authors give away their works and novels, or at least allow the public to freely swap them. Taking this scenario to the extreme, only one single copy of any given book would ever have to be purchased, and that would form a pool from which any trade or swap could be conducted by simply copying the work.
Speaking as a musician myself, but one who has made not a dime from publishing or original works (at least not yet:-), I can attest to the long hours, weeks, and years of practice, training, writing, recording, for which some financial return is not unwarranted.
Then, there is the matter of the expenditure on equipment. It's still a little hard to believe that a Gibson Les Paul Standard is well over $2000 these days, to me.
Having said all this, I don't particularly sympathize with the RIAA, because they're not really looking out for the musicians, they're just looking out for themselves. Sure, it costs a lot (millions!) to promote, produce, and distribute musical works but the percentages that the bands get per track are not commensurate with the much larger contribution artists make to the song itself, without which, of course, there would be nothing to promote, produce, or distribute in the first place.
From what I've read, NASA (or maybe the White House) isn't as keen on the ISS as the Russians would like us to be, and they've expressed concern that we might be looking to back out of it in some way or another.
Here's one link I dug up, but not the best:
http://www.space.com/news/russia_iss_011106.html
The upshot is, the US can afford to abandon the ISS if necessary, but it'll practically bankrupt Russia. Wouldn't be too good for relations.
My high school biology teacher had an interesting theory on why poor eye sight was not eliminated by evolution: While the cavemen with the good eyes went out hunting, the poor-sighted cavegeeks stayed home - with the cavewomen!
Yeah, you'd need poor eyesight to get aroused when you think about how those cavewomen looked - beer wasn't invented yet.
I'm also wondering if anyone will find any code in there that deliberately breaks other apps, as often claimed in the past.
Of course, this would be vehemently denied by MS, and claimed as added in by the thief. Is there any kind of CRC check on this thing ?
It should be perfectly acceptible to put your registrar's contact information in WHOIS instead of your own. The registrar can pass communications to you if necessary; they know who you are.
Godaddy.com already does this, for $9 , you can get private registration.
https://registrar.godaddy.com/dbp.asp?isc=&se=%2B& from%5Fapp=&authGuid=
Slashdot Mirror
The overwhelming majority are innocent
I hope that you're talking about the population in general here, and not crime suspects in general. The majority of criminal suspects are not innocent, and they are in fact, suspects, because the evidence indicates such. Usually, where there's smoke, there's fire. Note that I did not say always, but usually. That's majority.
The Law, and not the government, presumes innocence. It is always a scary thing when people confuse government with law, even scarier when they equate the two
True, but in this context, I think you're splitting hairs. Laws are executed and enforced by whatever Government is current at the time, so, for the posters intents and purposes, the same.
It all boils down to common sense. If a strange guy comes running out of an old woman's house with a bloody knife in his hand, blood all over his shirt and face, wads of jewelry and cash hanging out of his back pocket, and hops into a car and takes off leaving behind a stabbed-to-death, burglared woman in the house, chances are pretty good he's guilty. There's always a chance he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and didn't do it, which is why our system presumes innocent until proven guilty, but it doesn't take rocket science or advanced statistical analysis to figure out he's more than likely the murderer.
I have always disliked the concept of a political party. I think democracy would work much better without them. Then we could spend much more time choosing people to represent us upon their own merits. Instead I see most political debates featuring two entrenched groups.
Which brings us to a chicken vs egg kind of scenario: Are we so polarized because thats the general way of human nature, or did it simply become easier to go along with the institution of two large political parties, forming an almost vicsious cycle of increasing idealistic separation ?
In either case, our current system seems to be a symptom of lazy thinking or content-free philosophy, it's much less work to label everything as black or white, rather than acknowledge that there are infinite shades of grey, and that every rule has an exception, no matter which side you're on.
Funny thing is, it's mostly the politicians who fall into the trap, I suspect the real silent majority prefers to be right in the middle.
to "Longshot", given requirements like those :-)
(Moore's law not withstanding)
In short, the Gimp is just that; a gimp. Its UI is so unintuitive, it's a nightmare to use. I am no fan of proprietary software, but all I have to say is vive la Photoshop.
I had to chuckle reading the various comments of how intuitive or nonintuitive the UI is, because I'd always thought Photoshop's UI wasn't all that intuitive, having first used Paint Shop Pro.
I kind of forced myself to learn PS, which I'm fairly comfortable with now, (not a pro by any stretch) and to an extent, the Gimp, but I'd have to agree that da Gimp does have a strange UI, for any app.
I was slightly panicked the first time I tried to save my file by clicking on "File" in the main (?) menu but didn't see the usual fare in the drop down menu.
I'm willing to take a risk that someone might get away with a crime here and there, in exchange for not having my every move monitored by camera, GPS, credit cards, or whatever. And if I get killed as a result -- then I guess my number came up. At least I had fun while I could.
...
There's a certain ring of truth in this, and what you say about people working their whole lifes just to extend it BUT
I think if you actually found yourself on the other side of this, the actual victim of a crime, or worse yet, your wife, husband, son or daughter in a situation, the reality of it might change your mind. Maybe not. I don't know your social or marital status, but a lot of people change their perspective after having a family. I know I now give evil stares at dudes who come barrelling down my street in their low riders with subwoofers blaring, because I have a 3 year old now that likes to play outside and it only takes 2 or 3 seconds for an accident to happen. Before he was born I never thought much of it. Except the subwoofer part. That always annoyed me.
Likewise, a lot of people complain about government intervention and then complain again when something happens to them because the police or government didn't stop it.
Sometimes we expect too much of police, they're not mind-readers, after all, so they can't tell who is bad and who is good, but even if they could, it'd just be another breach of privacy.
Laissez-faire Capitalism and Communism have the same problem: they're systems only angels could live within.
I think you hit the nail right on the head there !
No system is perfect, and never will be, because people aren't perfect. Maybe we just don't entirely agree on where to draw that line of balance: If I understood you correctly, I'd say you feel that Socialism is that ideal balance between Laissez-faire and Communism, but please tell me if I've misinterpreted. I more or less believe that a balance between Laissez-faire and Socialism is the ideal balance, pretty much what we have in the States.
Having said that, it's obvious that some of the large Corporations are clearly out of control, which is why Governement regulation is a good thing (child labor laws, the Sherman Act, etc.), but I am worried about those who feel that all Corporations are so evil that they're willing to give Government too much power, thus upsetting the delicate balance. Some idioms are just as applicable today as when they were coined, so,I'll say, Absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter the source of the power.
In general principle, however, it seems we agree.
While I don't disagree with everything you've said, I have issues with at least half:
Remember, the US is a country where 90% of the population consider themselves middle class and yet 50% are below the poverty line.
Where did you get these statistics from ? And at what dollar point exactly is the poverty line ? It sounds like you're pulling stats out of thin air to make your point.
You know the reason why Europe went 'socialist'? (though I'd better point out that social democracy is far from being socialism) The laissez-faire experiment of the 19th and early 20th centuries failed.
Again, failed by whose definition? I assume you're talking solelyabout Europe here, although I have doubts.You have to keep in mind that Europe was not and still isn't united, at least not at all like the US. Two world wars might have had something to do with it too.
What people forget is that government is there to protect those who can't protect themselves. It's not a tool of business, but a counterweight to balance it's excesses.
Government was around long before anything that remotely ressembled the current business model evolved. Back when peasants were trading and bartering oxen for loaves of bread or beanstalk seeds, governments were around to tax, oppress,punish, enforce laws, and take land from it's people as well as from people outside their established borders. If anything, history has shown that governments, more so than businesses, abuse and exploit people. But not all governments, naturally, just as not all businesses are crooked.
Anytime you get into broad generalizations you're stepping into a troublesome area.
We don't have laws to prevent you and I from commiting crime.
Yes we do. That's exactly the point of laws. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Not only that, but many laws are subjective. Some are just plain wrong. Some are even repealed.
We should not fall victim to the mindset that "Corporations are Evil, Government is Good". Human nature is what it is, some are good, some are bad, most are somewhere in-between.
But I would agree that the two form something of a system of checks and balances in today's times.
This might be a little too forward looking, but if we are still to have true convergence at some point, ala carte seems to me to be the logical result. I can't imagine going to my computer/media center in the near future and not being able to control what I want to watch and when I want to watch it, much like I can currently visit nearly any website anywhere in the world at any time. This is all part of the point and a benefit of digital technology.
Of course, the ads will always be around to annoy the heck out of us.
In the meantime, I'm paying for 150 channels of garbage, I only watch about 9 of them. (Comcast digital)
Wrong. Language studies have shown that computer langauges are not equivalent to conventional lanugages.
:-) ( I hereby envoke Godwin's law !!)
Ah, that helps explain why so many coders can successfully program an app containing thousands of lines of code, but still can't spell "loser".
I'm "stuck" with my Toshiba e550g genio - I love the screen, and it's got a 400MHz XScale CPU, but there is no 2003 upgrade for it. PPC2002 is as far as it goes. I don't understand why, or what the difference there between it and a PocketPC that is upgradable to WM2003.
How hard would it be to put linux on this thing ?
I wonder if they'll find anything to indicate dramatic climate changes, as has been speculated, due to radiation I think. Right now we're in the arm of Orion, which is a relatively calm place to be, but we (or should I say Sol) tends to drift a bit.
Disc space.
Actually, as cheap as it is these days, I guess, why not ?
We're getting offtopic but.. oh what the heck:
One can argue that CNN spins in the other direction, IMO, so in a way, "fair and balanced" means the news media overall.
Okay, so Foxnews doesn't mean it that way, and sure, they're slanted right,( even more so on weekends, oddly ) but when ya lump them all together, you get a soupy mix that has something approaching more even coverage than you traditionally get from the CNNs and Dan Rathers of the world. Also, Foxnews often puts a liberal punduit in the hot seat, so to speak, but at least he/she gets some airtime before getting shot down in flames. The other networks often don't do that much for the other side - you just hear the one side. Funny thing is how Foxnews has become the posterchild for conserative TV news, when some of the reporting I saw out of MSNBC during the height of the Iraq war was waaay more right-wing, and Michael Savage (until he got fired) was much right-wing than say, Bill O'Reilly.BTW, that first cast of SNL rocked ! I'm old enough to remember, and it was never the same after the first cast; that was SNL at it's peak, but I think you had to be there. Just one question: what the heck ever happened to Lorraine Newman ?
Hey, I dont' think you're being arrogant at all. I guess it just depends on what context you would define "decent". The context is which I'm placing all this is the rock and pop genre, remember - the ones who make the most money at it but are typically schooled the least, as a group.
I can certainly see your point, where you get deeper and deeper into theory, studying more advanced concepts and applications with increasing complexity. At your level, some form of written record becomes enormously important. Having the abilty to visualize is key to getting your head around it, as you're essentially using 2 senses, then, to master the domain of one.
You're working on a PhD,(more power to you), to you, I'm sure that modes, circle of fifths, harmony, all those basic things I mentioned above are very elementary. To a rock/pop musician though, like me, I just have to say I think that constitutes a "decent" grasp. I'd be a little surprised if many of today's alternative, grunge, or rock musicians know much more than how to do a "power-chord", honestly, not that there aren't exceptions, of course. But you don't really hear progressive rock like you used to on mainstream radio, you have to go hunt it down.
you find much richer possibilities available to you as a result of being able to read and write music
I agree - I didn't mean to sound like I was knocking notation or those who can read, in fact, I'm a bit envious of them, of course.
The main gist of my post was that I found it a little odd that anyone would go to so much trouble to reinvent something that probably didn't need to be, partly because preexisting products do a pretty decent job, and partly because the demand isn't what it used to be. Or so I would think, because it seems to me that a good chunk of amatuer and semi-professional musicans fall into one of two catagories:
1) Those who play by ear, tend toward the creative side but lack a real command of the instrument, and
2) Those who sight read, exhibit discipline, and play very proficiently but can't play a thing unless there's a piece of sheet music in front of them.
It's the really good musician who can do both, who uses reading and wrting as a tool for their creativity, not just as a set of instructions. I used to work at a music store with a really good flautist, she could sight-read and play all kinds of complex melodies, which just amazed me to no end - but she confessed to me that she was awed by the way I could sit at the piano or pick up a guitar and just play all kinds of things with no music to read off of - she didn't know how to improvise ! It almost makes for a split in the definition of musician.
music monkey n 1. A person who is capable of making music without actually understanding what they are doing. Also see: code monkey
That would be somebody who doesn't understand music theory, the relationships between notes, harmony, intervals, chords, contrapuntal motion, et al. Reading and writing notation probably makes all that easier to grasp and they're taught hand in hand, but the two aren't absolutely married. I have a decent basic grasp of theory, I just don't know which of those lines is supposed to be a "d" and whether a half note is drawn solid or hollow, at least not right off the bat. Make take a minute. Forget sight reading! The thing is, it really doesn't affect my ability to understand why the Dorian mode is basically a minor scale except it doesn't flat the 6th along with the 3rd and 7th intervals.
I wouldn't fancy being a studio or classical musicican without being able to sightread my rear off though.
It seems to me that they're trying to redefine "score editor" and yet generally, that's what it seems to be, more or less.
While the printed output is asthetically pleasing, it strikes me as an odd technology to persue, because I wonder how many musicians today can actually read music. I'd wager the vast majority of rock musicians can't, and that roughly half of pop musicans can't. I can't, and I've written "plenty" of material and play several instruments. It's not truly a necessity anymore, with a good ear and modern equipment, ideas can quickly be stored for future embellishment or shown to others in the absence of an actual instrument. It's not even necessary for registering with the library of congress, an audio tape will suffice.
Gojira was always a bomb reference. As long as we have super-weapons, he'll never be irrelevant. I'll miss the big guy.
I'd go a step further and say the Godzilla is a representation of the United States itself, not only because he comes from/across the Pacific ocean, and is born of radioactivity, but think of the reference Yamamoto made when they bombed Pearl Harbor: " I fear we have awakened a sleeping Giant".
Not only that, but while the first Godzilla film portrays him as a destroyer, in subsequent films he becomes a savior, almost a God, which parallels our rebuilding Japan.
He ain't da bomb, he's Uncle Sam !
F.Y.I. The worst you could do to a microwave by putting metal inside is break the magnatron, and when it breaks, it will just die, not explode or any cool shit like that
Well, it kinda depends what else is in the microwave too. Years ago I had a girlfriend who put a box of chinese food in her parents brand new microwave - this was around 1983, when they were still relatively expensive - the little metal handle sparked and set the cardboard on fire, and the flame proceeded to melt the top of the inside of the microwave into a black gooey gaping hole! Needless to say, that was the last anyone used it.
Most people do not realize the magnitude of US military spending. But today, we spend more than the next 25 nations in the world *combined*. At the current rate of increase, the US will soon be spending more on its military than the rest of the world *combined*. That is, IMO, a bit too much.
r ent/schweizer_1200.pdf)
In terms of absolute spending, yes, we outspend them, but in terms of percentage of our Gross National Product, we don't really spend that much at all. The USSR far outspent us, in terms of GNP, during the cold war, and we have actually spent less and less over the course of the nineties. Only about 3% of our national budget is spent on military spending, according to at least one web source I found.
(http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/pubaffairs/we/cur
I'd rather us spend the money on high tech military gadgets that enable us to spare lives (even the enemy's, if possible, with some of the new weaponry)or dissuade threats, rather than send in our troops on foot to get maimed or killed.
Oh well, there goes my chance to mod any posts in this thread. I had to respond .. (silly me) :-), I can attest to the long hours, weeks, and years of practice, training, writing, recording, for which some financial return is not unwarranted.
I think people should realize that music is not "information" either. It's not a law of physics or mathematics, it's not "data" other than in the sense that it's a digital file, in the context of internet swapping.
Music is Art. If a musician gives away his or her copyrights and publishing, that is his/her perogative, but I don't believe that all artistic works should automatically be treated as public domain, any more than you'd demand that all fiction authors give away their works and novels, or at least allow the public to freely swap them. Taking this scenario to the extreme, only one single copy of any given book would ever have to be purchased, and that would form a pool from which any trade or swap could be conducted by simply copying the work.
Speaking as a musician myself, but one who has made not a dime from publishing or original works (at least not yet
Then, there is the matter of the expenditure on equipment. It's still a little hard to believe that a Gibson Les Paul Standard is well over $2000 these days, to me.
Having said all this, I don't particularly sympathize with the RIAA, because they're not really looking out for the musicians, they're just looking out for themselves. Sure, it costs a lot (millions!) to promote, produce, and distribute musical works but the percentages that the bands get per track are not commensurate with the much larger contribution artists make to the song itself, without which, of course, there would be nothing to promote, produce, or distribute in the first place.
From what I've read, NASA (or maybe the White House) isn't as keen on the ISS as the Russians would like us to be, and they've expressed concern that we might be looking to back out of it in some way or another. Here's one link I dug up, but not the best: http://www.space.com/news/russia_iss_011106.html The upshot is, the US can afford to abandon the ISS if necessary, but it'll practically bankrupt Russia. Wouldn't be too good for relations.
My high school biology teacher had an interesting theory on why poor eye sight was not eliminated by evolution: While the cavemen with the good eyes went out hunting, the poor-sighted cavegeeks stayed home - with the cavewomen!
Yeah, you'd need poor eyesight to get aroused when you think about how those cavewomen looked - beer wasn't invented yet.
I'm also wondering if anyone will find any code in there that deliberately breaks other apps, as often claimed in the past. Of course, this would be vehemently denied by MS, and claimed as added in by the thief. Is there any kind of CRC check on this thing ?