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Sometimes genius begets genius, calls it out of the unwilling observer.
Johannes Brahms had decided to end his career as a composer in 1890, after his Viola Quintet in G Major (op 111). But his friendship with the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, whom he met in a year later, led him to reconsider.
We are lucky indeed that he did. His Clarinet Quintet, op 115, is probably his greatest piece of chamber music. His example, in turn, led to a flowering of compositions for the clarinet in the early to mid 20th century.
As a former clarinetist (though not, alas, a genius), I am grateful.
This is not related to the number 115 (Boo, Hiss!) but is related to the clarinet. How lucky are we lovers of the woodwind that there are two brilliant modern concertos for the clarinet by Carl Nielsen and Kalevi Aho on this album..
Why, heck, let's just be grateful for the magnificent Martin Froest!
Music... About 10 years ago, the Post Office released a series of stamps the theme of which was film composers. It greatly annoyed me that they had ignored Bernard Hermann while finding room for Dimitri Tiomkin's bombastic fanfare fare.
Apparently genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration ... and if I go by that metric, something pretty amazing should happen to my house after the housework is done. I fear, however, that what I'll end up with is a living demonstration of the powers of entropy...
Things occurring in the Year 115, per Wikipedia (all caveats apply):
* Trajan is cut off in southern Mesopotamia after his invasion of that region.
* Trajan captures the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.
* Jews in Egypt and Cyrene ignite a revolt against the rule of the Roman Empire, which spreads to Cyprus, Judea, and the Roman province of Mesopotamia.
* Alexandria in Egypt is destroyed during the Jewish-Greek civil wars.
* A revolt breaks out in Britain; the garrison at Eboracum (York) is massacred.
* The Pantheon of Agrippa is reconstructed in Rome.
* Lusius Quietus, Trajan's governor of Judea, begins a brutal campaign to maintain the peace in the region.
Being a former clarinetist myself, I always love finding out who else played. Eddie Izzard was a clarinetist, and Spielberg apparently sat third or fourth chair under John Williams for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (as he told James Lipton).
I was in 8th grade when I soloed on "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." I think my favorite part of playing was seeing sheet music, and playing it, and hearing a familiar song come out. I think it came out most with Tchaikovsky and the theme from Sleeping Beauty (da-da-da-di-da-da-da-dum-de-dah-di-da-da-da-da).
I remember always wanting it to rock, though. I used to pick up sheet music to popular songs in the hope of playing them. I discovered early on one can't rock "November Rain" on the clarinet, though. That was a sad, sad day.
And final aside (just in case it's been buried and no one has seen the request): is there you contributors can set the particles/sidelights to open in new tabs by inserting the "blank" into the code, rather than having the reader right click? Would it just be a whole lot more work for you?
Will @ #5, are you aware that the gentleman pictured in the post below actually attended Juilliard to study clarinet? And that he played professionally for a while?
Pity he didn't stick with music rather than moving on to apply his skills to finance.
Will Entrekin: I just hold the "ctrl" key (in Firefox) and a new tab appears.
I do this even for links I know will open that way; because there are so many that don't.
Will @ #5: It is preferable for links to act as they are intended to, that is, that they redirect the browser to a new site rather than opening up a new window (which is what target="blank" is intended to do). That you have your browser set to have all such links open in a new tab is your preference, you can also exercise your preference by right-clicking (in your OS). This is preferable to having everyone re-write their links to match your preference.
@Linkmeister: I was not. That's rad, in a way.
Woody Allen is a clarinetist, too, isn't he?
My favorite exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has always been Benny Goodman's clarinet. I wish I'd seen it with my grandfather.
@Terry: I was unaware of the 'ctrl' trick, but then again, I'm a lazy surfer. I understand if there's something in the coding/hosting that prevents it, but I remember when Neil Gaiman was finally able to default his site to open links in new tabs (he was happy enough about the development to mention it, in fact), and how it made things so much easier. I ask, in fact, more out of curiosity than anything else, and because, when I'm here on Making Light, I dislike navigating away from the page.
(also, there's a missing "a way" between 'there' and 'you' in the last P of my post)
Terry @ #7, thank you for that "ctrl" key tip; I didn't know that. Cool.
By the bye, I can highly recommend the periodic writing exercise of "compose a meditation of any length on the next number, suitable to generate comments". It reminds me, in its freedom, of the essay topic we had in all* of my Latin reading courses at university: "Pick any topic touched on in class, research it to appropriate depth, and write about it to appropriate length."
I've only ducked two numbers since I started at 96 (99, where Jim had a better idea, and 108, where Xopher did). I've already got plans for 116.
----
* Well, almost all. My Juvenal course instructor gave us other options as well, one of which inspired me to write a modern parody of his work. We read the essays aloud in class, and mine sent my classmates into a fit of the giggles.
Will Entrekin (#5) et al: If you have a three-button mouse (including ones where the scroll wheel can be clicked as a button), try middle-clicking on links. That will often open links in a new tab, just as ctrl-click (or on a Mac, command-click) does.
I am on a mighty quest for keyboard shortcuts. Most of my computer use these days involves websites designed for mouse-navigation. I can't use a mouse at all, and the laptop touchpads that seemed like a such good solution for the last 115 months is a Bad Idea for other ergonomic reasons (according to the occupational therapist.) Now I have a keyboard and touchpad that I can plug into the laptop separately, but I lose my place when I go back and forth between them.
I know about keyboard shortcuts for copy, paste, and cut. And for [tab] to go between fields in some kinds of form. And alt-[tab] to change windows. (Though sometimes I can look at the new window, but not scroll or do anything with it until I click it with the touchpad. Is there any way around this?) I'm looking for help navigating websites with a keyboard, insofar as that's possible. Sometimes I can scroll down with arrow keys or the spacebar, but it seems like I always need the touchpad to click on anything.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Brahms’s chamber music the last few months, though not the Clarinet Quintet. I probably should revisit that soon. (Ex-flutist here, by the way - maybe we can find a retired oboist, bassoonist, and horn player and not-play a woodwind quintet someday.)
Brahms writes such rich and complex parts in his chamber works, which are remarkably rewarding to listen to. Chamber music simplified greatly in the 20th century, perhaps because composers felt it was hard to go any further in the direction Brahms went. Arnold Schoenberg greatly admired Brahms, which may give some insight into where Schoenberg wanted to go, whether you like it or not (it’s growing on me, I have to admit, but I generally prefer a more tuneful approach).
While Brahms may have been the better chamber composer, I still think Beethoven was greater overall; his opus 115, however, was a minor work, the Namensfeier or “Name Day” Overture, a middle-period work despite the late opus number. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it.
Koechel no. 115 seems to be a Missa brevis that may or may not actually be by Mozart. He would have been around 18 at the time, with half his life and another 500 or so pieces to write. Imagine if he’d lived to be 56 like Beethoven, or 63 like Brahms!
An old marl-hole where rat-bats congregate
bears quiet witness to each hidden sin
not just to what we could not dare to win
by dint of effort, and so blame on fate;
this is no church for you to desecrate
but a dark place where many lives begin
and those who know will just conceal a grin
for nouns, not verbs, would seem to conjugate.
That was the story when the night turned cold
under a sky as dark as any soul
when all the blame was placed on certain wiles.
But others said the cause was merely gold,
unwisdom aiming at a pretty goal;
that journey will not end for many miles.
Adrian @ 13 ... It'd help a great deal if you mentioned what operating system you're using :) While there are certainly overlaps in what key combinations mean between different operating systems, I can assure you (based on swapping between Mac OSX, Linux (Gnome & KDE) and Windows on a regular basis) that there are enough differences to be challenging.
Under OSX, although I don't use it, I'm told Quicksilver would do a variety of things beyond generic defaults that might suit you well.
BWV 115,
Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit
Get thyself, my soul, prepared
As a young one, I loved Brahms, nowadays I'd as like pass entirely over the 19th C to explore more of the byways of the 20th and later C's, although my heart is tied firmly to the pre-19th, the further back often the better.
@#13 I am on a mighty quest for keyboard shortcuts. Many are available by a simple googling of "keyboard shortcuts" no matter the op sys.
adrian @ 13 ... and launchy is apparently a windows/linux equivalent to quicksilver.
Saw "City of Ember" today.
A nicely low-key, modest SF movie, made for tweens and teens but quite enjoyable for at least this adult.
I used to play clarinet, then bass clarinet, then contrabass-- which would have been better had the director mentioned that the expensive reeds he bought me were too soft and that I could practice in the band room after school-- then tenor sax (no. Baaaaad instrument.) then bassooooon.
I miss bassoon. However, it is not an instrument one can pick up lightly. There's too much involved in a bassoon-- other people to play with, acquisition of a bassoon.
(I posted this before on the decrepit tail end of a long and long neglected Open Thread 114. I hope it's not too egregious a protocol violation to repost.)
Is anyone from Making Light doing NaNoWriMo this year? Particularly anyone Australians or Melbournians?
I've signed up and desperately want to be good, but I think my working week is just about to switch from 40 hours to 60 hours for a little bit, so we'll see how we go...
Diatryma @ #21, which reminds me of the insult Charlie Brown once directed at Linus: "You're such a bassoon." Linus (of course) corrected him: "I think you mean buffoon, Charlie Brown."
Diatryma @ #21, that reminds me of the insult Charlie Brown once directed at Linus: "You're such a bassoon." Linus (of course) corrected him: "I think you mean buffoon, Charlie Brown."
Xeger: My computer runs Windows now. Thanks for suggesting Launchy. That looks promising.
Bah. Please excuse double posting.
Accent question:
Here's a news story on Stuart Ross, a British airline pilot who has built and tested the UK's first rocket belt over the past few years. He has not yet undertaken a free flight, but rocket belt buffs are confident that he will soon.
The narrator of the video, an ITN broadcaster, has an accent novel to me. Since my fictional relative Prof. Henry is unavailable, can anyone tell me where her accent originates?
Sounds antipodean to me, but I could be wrong, and unfortunately I can't be more precise than that.
Adrian @ #13
The Opera Web browser is fully functional using the keyboard, if that helps.
The World of Warcraft has been experiencing a large-scale zombie invasion in recent days. As you might expect, the notoriously quarrelsome populace has separated into pro- and anti-zombie camps:
Pro: Being a zombie is fun! Hunting zombies is fun!
Con: Being killed by zombies all the time is NOT fun, especially when it can happen on servers without player-vs-player combat. Also, conducting ordinary business is impossible when important NPCs are being zombified at legendary rates....
abi: I can, given the opportune timing, and one hopes happy victory over bigotry, see some uses for a thing with that number.
The ITN newsreader is definitely English, although I'm not sure exactly whereabouts. In return: Zod Kitchens
It not having a particular assigned meaning, different developers have used the tab key in different ways. This applies at an operating system level and also at an application level.
Alt-tab means "switch to the next application", on Windows and some Linuxes (Linuces?). Alt-Shift-tab means "switch to the previous application". The meaning of "next" and "previous" need defining, too: at least on Windows, the apps are sorted in order of most-recent-usedness, so Alt-tab, let go of the Alt key, then Alt-tab again will get you right back where you started from: the app you Alt-tabbed away from became #2 in the most-recent list, and when you pressed Alt-tab again, you switched back to it. Of course, if you had held the Alt key down and pressed tab twice, you would wind up somewhere entirely different.
Within an app, tab often means "give focus to the next control", and Shift-tab means "give focus to the previous control". Some controls visually indicate that they have focus, by displaying a dotted line around the control, or by brightening it, or by making a flashing cursor appear in it. And some do not.
When you try to scroll in a window and fail, it is because the control that you are trying to scroll in does not have focus. In a web browser, for example, the very large panel that shows the actual web page counts as a control, even though it's not obvious to think of it as such.
So: press down arrow. If nothing happens, press tab, then press down arrow again. Repeat. This may or may not work.
In some environments, arrow keys may also move you between controls. In some environments, if a control within a control has focus (such as a text box within a web page), arrow keys may be used for movement within that smaller control, rather than within the parent.
Again, the meanings of "next" and "previous" may be inobvious: controls have an order that is apparent to the developer, but not to you, so pressing tab may move focus to a counter-intuitive place.
Ctrl-tab also sometimes moves focus: for example, in Firefox, Ctrl-tab moves you between browser tabs.
On an unrelated note, it's possible that some other pointing device might suit you better: trackball and Accu Point pointing stick both spring to mind.
And as grackle @ 17 says, Google is your friend.
Adrian, #13, I don't know how different it would be from a touchpad (when I buy my Eee1000, I'm attaching a trackball), but would a trackball be better?
I played clarinet for many years until my father was stationed here at the Pentagon. I went to school for the first time, joined the band, and started at the bottom of the clarinet section, challenging my way up. When it became clear that I was better than the first chair and would beat him, the band director handed me an oboe and said "it fingers like the top staff of a clarinet." And after that, I mostly played oboe and English Horn. I think he didn't like having girls be first chair; he was a retired Marine Band director.
Thank you so much! The combination of Doug's advice at 33 and this result of my search http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/hack-attack-mouseless-firefox-139495.php
(most importantly, the use of control-L to reach the location bar, which I hadn't even known was called the "location bar") are already helping a lot.
Marilee, trackballs are even worse for me than mice, for some reason. Touchpads are the only pointing device that don't aggravate my right hand problems. Now that I'm doing OT for the left shoulder, and being told to raise the screen and lower the keyboard...which is essentially impossible when both are part of the same laptop.
Marilee @ 34 ... I find the action of a trackball and a touchpad to be dramatically different (although both are still better than a mouse for me).
Along those lines -- does anybody have recommendations on ambiguously handed trackballs that -aren't- nasty square blocks?
Adrian @ 35: First, my qualifications for pontificating: When it started to hurt to use a mouse with my right hand, I switched to my left, and messed them both up. I was diagnosed with all the computer RSIs: carpal tunnel, bursitis in the shoulder, tennis elbow, yadda yadda. I did physical therapy with a certified hand therapist and got better. No surgery.
Now the pontificating: you've got to hook a monitor and separate keyboard to that laptop. Get a keyboard tray - your keyboard should be practically in your lap, while your head is looking straight ahead at the monitor. If you can manage to use a mouse at all (or separate touchpad, or trackball), use it on that low keyboard tray. Mice and trackballs come in all sorts of subtly different styles, and little differences mean a lot. A wireless mouse is much more tolerable for me than a wired one. Get that monitor up where it belongs.
Good luck!
@ 35, 37:
It's not necessarily necessary to plug both an external monitor and an external keyboard into the laptop -- plugging in just one external device may be sufficient. If 'twere me, I'd plug in a keyboard, because external keyboards are available in a wide range of shapes, so you've got a better chance of finding one that suits your personal ergonomic desire.
To make the laptop's monitor higher, you can use a stand. Boing Boing Gadgets had a piece about a super-cheap way to this just a few days ago.
A new ironic Palin cartoon at the Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3 blog: "ItsAllMcCainsFault.com" (no. 2 in a series).
Sorry if this breaks the convention of open threads(this is my first), but I have a question nagging me for some time, that some people may be able to answer.I heard some time back, second hand, a claim that e-books are more expensive to make then dead tree books- this sounds strange:is it in the "strange but true" bin or the "rubbish excuses for not pricing stuff lower" bin?and if the first, what makes them so expensive?
Either here or at the tor.com discussion forum, you'll likely get some exceedingly well-informed answers on that topic.
Opher Lubzens @ 40... First, open threads have no conventions to break. Second, welcome to ML!
Adrian @ 35: Have you tried a Gyration Mouse? I've also used Wacom tablets when my wrist starts complaining about my ergonomic mouse. Both work well for me.
Earl Cooley, the "high price" assertion rose during a Tor.Com thread about the high costs of e-books, when someone reported it as the reason given by a US publisher during a Frankfurt convention.It sounds highly counterintuitive, which is why I would like to get more info from people with professional knowledge.
Not quite clarinets, but I think Mermaid Kiss are the only rock band I've seen that use oboe and cor anglais on stage.
Following the Wiki links sent me to this moving article on Brahms' relationship with Muehlfeld and the genesis of Op. 115.
That noted, I must confess to disliking the clarinet. Too hooty and slick - give me double reeds!
PS - the performance posted in the wiki article is unsatisfactory - too many wrong notes and tuning problems in the (admittedly treacherous) second mvt.
Ah, clarinets. I fell in love with the sound of clarinets listening to Pete Fountain and "Rhapsody in Blue" at my grandparents'.
Terry - "ctrl"+click best Firefox tip ever.
Abi - looking forward to #119, c.f. the Psalm (one of my favorites.)
another handy browser trick: ctrl + roll the mouse wheel.
it will change the text size, which is very handy for pages where the designer has used really small text.
Mark, 46: I'm just the opposite; the clarinet is nice, but the oboe is squally by comparison. The bassoon is okay, though, probably because its range is lower.
Many of the composers who wrote notably for clarinet seem to have had a pet clarinetist: Mozart had Stadler, Weber had Baermann, Nielsen had Oxenvad. And Benny Goodman (Bartok, Copland) went wherever Woody Herman (Bernstein, Stravinsky) didn't.
Bill Higgins @ no. 27:
The accent sounds basically BBC English overlaid on faint traces of another language, rather than being a "foreign" accent (like Australian or whatever), if that makes sense? I can't make a guess at what the other language might be, though. Looking at the list of ITN newsreaders, there are quite a few women who it could be, and there aren't sound files there.
Oh no! Tony Hillerman has died.
May he rest in peace.
Newsreader accent: I'd guess English from Afro-Caribbean background, possibly involving Birmingham. But this is highly speculative - British English accents vary wildly and confusingly. I've heard my own accent described both as Eton and as New Zealander, having never been to either.
Operating on the principle that there's got to be a pony in there somewhere, I rarely abandon a book no matter how poorly written, pointless, or stupid it may be.
However . . . . I am up to page 209 (of 1079) in *Infinite Jest* described on the book jacket as "Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy . . . ." I'm not finding much of either.
So please, anybody who's read this book, please advise. Is there a pony in there somewhere? Should I keep reading?
Browser tricks: In Internet Explorer and Firefox, there is a shortcut for entering URLs of the form www.foo.com. Just type "foo" in a blank address bar, then hold down Control and tap Enter, and the browser will automatically add the "http://www." and the ".com".
Shift-Enter does the same thing for ".net" addresses.
And, even if you don't have a scroll-wheel, you can change the text size by holding Control and tapping the + or - keys on the number keypad.
I'm not sure how that would work on a laptop, though.
If you're willing to invest some money, Naturally speaking is good with spoken commands to page up, page down, next tab, highlight all visibly hyperlinks, click link three, and so forth.
@40: I was thinking of the costs of implementation and access, but I'm not sure that could be correct. While it's possible to do it on the cheap, creating a quality e-book can require some specialty software for the lay-out/design (I'm thinking of Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Distiller) to ensure it doesn't look like rubbish. Each of those can run to several hundred dollars.
Access, too, in the sense that, like DVDs and CDs, e-books require secondary hardware for viewing. One can simply buy a book; $24 buys you a complete, basically DRM-free, whereas one needs a phone or an e-reader or a Kindle to purchase e-books that are often almost as expensive as their physical counterparts and which are often locked to the hardware they were purchased on.
Those are my guesses, anyway. They're probably more likely incorrect than correct.
***
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in any threads' comment sections, but I haven't heard much about our gracious host's condition/recovery lately. I'm hoping no news is good news, and that you're recovering well, Teresa.
Ctrl + mousewheel also works in Opera and Google Chrome
Opera, Firefox, and Google Chrome are all different in how they do the resizing. I happen to think Opera gives the best result when there is a mix of text and graphics, but the underlying structure/ptogramming of the page is also significant.
@will: Good point I hadn't thought about on the creation side- I use Open Office for that, but I guess it simply doesn't have the layout options professionals need.The cost can arguably be offset by the fact you need to pay for several hundreds(or thousands) copies less in ink&paper costs, but you people know much more about that then me.
The access point seems bogus to me both because the devices that are used to view them are either multi-use(I read Baen's on my desktop) or can theoretically contain many books.And DRM isn't a requirement of an e-book: Baen aren't using any and they make pretty good money our of their e-books by the accounts I hear.
As to the browser tricks:if you enter a non-URL word or phrase in the Firefox address bar and then enter it will Google them and either show you the result page or redirect you to the first page result- redirection seems more likely if the phrase/word are a main part of the page's title, but I haven't figured out the exact algorithm yet.
Tim Hall @ 45: Not quite clarinets, but I think Mermaid Kiss are the only rock band I've seen that use oboe and cor anglais on stage.
Some windy rockers:
Henry Cow (oboe, bassoon, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, sax)
The Muffins (all of the above except bassoon)
Roxy Music (sax and oboe).
Of these, I've only seen the Muffins, but can verify the others from live recordings.
Indeed, beautiful clarinet music.
Oh, and I believe 80s one-hit wonders Dream Academy ("Live In A Northern Town") had an English horn player.
My favorite clarinet piece is Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, written in 1940 in a POW camp for the instruments available (clarinet, violin, cello with a string missing, and piano).
The third movement ("L'abîme des Oiseaux") is for the clarinet alone, and is stunning.
Opher Lubzens @40, to expand on what Will said,* new technology is often expensive because you have to pay through the nose for someone who knows how to do it.
For example, wireless internet access in shared private spaces like coffee shops and airports. Just providing the connection is really cheap compared to billing and technical support, so it really makes sense to just install some access points and let it be free. But that requires someone who knows how to install some access points. So for quite a few years (including now, depending where you are) what happened is you'd call some company who would install some for you. But support costs too much, so the company would do it in exchange for access fees payed by people using the service, but that means *they* have to pay for billing and support instead. Which is why an hour of airport or hotel wifi can cost as much as a month of normal access at home.
Any publisher is going to have a copy of InDesign, and could put up a nice pdf without much extra effort. But that doesn't mean whatever software converts whatever they have into whatever proprietary ebook format they want to use is so affordable, or even works well enough not to require a separate layout. It doesn't mean whatever adds the magic DRM sauce doesn't charge a per-copy or per-title royalty, or that the ecommerce package or distributors don't, and so on. And since no one to speak of buys ebooks, any extra overhead is disproportiately expensive.
I'd guess, if the claim is true, that it's something like that. Of course they're not intrinsically expensive, but the contractual and workflow arrangements any particular publisher may have made at this stage could easily make it so.
---
* Without actually knowing anything about ebook publishing either.
Here's a nice living room version of "L'abîme des Oiseaux". There's a pro version on YouTube as well, but it starts in the middle!
toni,
Is there a pony in there somewhere? Should I keep reading?
i really enjoyed it, though it's been ten years or so since i last read it (i probably should reread it).
philosophy i would say yes. comedy, i don't know if i really laughed out loud at any of it. it's no terry pratchett or anything. i liked the observational stuff best, the multiple points of view getting into very different lives & experiences. there are images that still stay with me.
i don't think i'd have finished it if i was hating it at around 200 pages, though, so if you don't like the writing or structure, you probably won't.
For people who miss Lemmings.
Ted Stevens has just been convicted on all counts.
The pneumatic tube industry will never be the same.
Digby is bringing up the possibility that if Stevens still wins reelection to the Senate in the wake of his conviction, then Sarah Palin would reappoint his replacement, and could theoretically appoint herself. How do I find out if she can even do this? Who then would get to be governor of Alaska? The lieutenant governor, I presume?
The FBI has disrupted a plot by a couple of skinheads to assassinate Obama and kill "101" random blacks in a high school.
Do you think that they will be treated just as harshly as other terrorists?
Stefan Jones @71, given that the arrests were apparently made by the BATF, wich seems to be one of the pet hates of the US right, I expect talk radio to start talking about government oppression of patriots any day now.
Tim, #62: Steve Miller Band had an English horn solo at the end of their hit "Swingtown", but I think that was a one-shot. (And if I had a quarter for every time I've heard someone refer to that as an oboe solo... well, I wouldn't be rich, but I could buy some excellent chocolate.)
Clarinet isn't my favorite instrument, but my personal favorite clarinet piece was the arrangement of Levi Jackson Rag that one of our Nashville bands did. (Apologies for the sound quality on that video, but it gives you the melody; then you can imagine it with a clarinet playing lead.)
Stefan Jones #71: Since they planned to kill black people I expect somebody to say they weren't really terrorists.
Bill Higgins @27: I think the accent's just a somewhat affected posh drawl; definitely UK though.
And, more importantly, nifty rocketbelt footage.
Lila@52: Damn. I sometimes think Hillerman taught me more about understanding people from other cultures than anyone else.
I was at the Obama office last week doing data entry for the New Mexico calls, and I hit a Chee living in Crownpoint. Not Jim though.
It was a very odd feeling to see the same names I'd seen in Hillerman's novels on the log sheets. It felt like running into long-lost relatives.
Robert @ 30:
As someone who plays entirely too much WoW, I'll note that a) the zombie invasion is over today (which is good, because infection duration was down to a minute yesterday), and b) they're basically re-using the plotline from when Naxxramas, the Necropolis instance, first showed up a couple years ago. So I know to look for Marks of the Dawn being given away free, for example.
But yeah, it was annoying in a minor way, and the relative concentration of young jerks in any MMORPG ratcheted it up to "majorly annoying" at times.
I'll decompress once Hallow's End is entirely over.
--Dave
Joe @ #76: I had the same feeling when we visited the Navaho reservation (Shiprock and environs) several years back. Hearing the radio broadcast in Navajo was otherworldly.
Doug (38), I have problems with the refresh rate of most monitors. Having found a laptop with a screen that does not trigger migraines or seizures, I'm not so foolhardy as to go looking for a different monitor. I just put the laptop itself up on a box so the screen is at eye level, and plugged in an external keyboard. I have an external touchpad, but I'm finding it very much harder to use than the one integrated with the laptop (probably because I need to look down at my hands when going back and forth between touchpad and keyboard.) Keyboard shortcuts are helping. Thanks for your explanation in 33...it seems like it's starting to make sense to me. Though it's frustrating that so many of my searches for "keyboard shortcuts for [software]" end up recommending CNTRL+click = right-click. My keyboard does not have a "click" key!
OG (43), Thanks for suggesting the Gyration mouse, but it does not seem like the sort of thing that would solve my problem. I'm glad it helps you, though.
Rozasharn (55), Thanks for the suggestions. Typing addresses in a blank address bar is not a problem for me. I hardly ever go to a new website by typing in the address. I type a few letters and select from the autocomplete options. Or I click a link. But there's a related shortcut that has already saved me quite a lot of trouble, though I only learned it late last night--it's CNTRL-L for going directly to the blank address bar from anywhere on the page. That's what saves me from having to leave the keyboard
Adrian @ 78: On a Windows keyboard, the key with a little picture of a pointer on a list, between the right Windows key and the right control key, is equivalent to a right-click on whatever control or object has the focus.
Robert @ 30 and David @77:
I was firmly in the Anti-zombie camp after being enzombied twice - twice! - between the gates and the bank in Orgrimmar, and took to patrolling angrily on my paladin busily curing people whether they wanted it or not, on the basis that they were a public nuisance. So relieved it's over.
xeger: I use a trackball from logitech and it's got the shape of a flattened squid. Programmable, with four buttons (two large ones and two inset on the top of the curve). It's been a great help to my wrists, and fingers.
Rozaharn: My laptop has a keypad, but that trick also works from the number bar.
As a piece of housekeeping. In the sidebar it says SPC. That is wrong: he was a CPL. He earned that stripe, and it's wrong to take it away from him.
I did an elegant solution to one of those puzzles.
http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=3605781
In answer to my own #70, commenter Eric Scharf at LGM Says as follows:
When then-Senator Frank Murkowski was elected Governor of Alaska in 2002, he appointed his daughter Lisa to fill the Senate seat he vacated. This was too much even for Alaskans, and a ballot measure made Alaksa one of only three states not to permit governors to fill vacant Senate seats.Should Stevens win and then be expelled, his seat will remain vacant until a special election can be held.
That's a relief!
Taking a break from translating Sallust, I happened upon this--in a Ravelry thread of all things--the current political race in the style of Julius Caesar bellum gallicumque. Here's an excerpt of the article :
"Cum Quirites Americani ad rallias Republicanas audiunt nomen Baraci Husseini Obamae, clamant �Mortem!� �Amator terroris!� �Socialiste!� �Bomba Obamam!� �Obama est Arabus!� �Caput excidi!� tempus sit rabble-rouseribus desistere �Smear Talk Express,� ut Stephanus Colbertus dixit. Obama demonatus est tamquam Musulmanus-Manchurianus candidatus � civis �collo-cerviciliaris� ad ralliam Floridianam Palinae exhabet mascum Obamae ut Luciferis."
Sloppy Latin is decidedly easier to translate than the real stuff.
Taking a break from translating Sallust, I happened upon this--in a Ravelry thread of all things--the current political race in the style of Julius Caesar bellum gallicumque. Here's an excerpt of the article :
"Cum Quirites Americani ad rallias Republicanas audiunt nomen Baraci Husseini Obamae, clamant �Mortem!� �Amator terroris!� �Socialiste!� �Bomba Obamam!� �Obama est Arabus!� �Caput excidi!� tempus sit rabble-rouseribus desistere �Smear Talk Express,� ut Stephanus Colbertus dixit. Obama demonatus est tamquam Musulmanus-Manchurianus candidatus � civis �collo-cerviciliaris� ad ralliam Floridianam Palinae exhabet mascum Obamae ut Luciferis."
Sloppy Latin is decidedly easier to translate than the real stuff.
Taking a break from translating Sallust, I happened upon this--in a Ravelry thread of all things--the current political race in the style of Julius Caesar bellum gallicumque. Here's an excerpt of the article :
"Cum Quirites Americani ad rallias Republicanas audiunt nomen Baraci Husseini Obamae, clamant "Mortem!" "Amator terroris!" "Socialiste!" "Bomba Obamam!" "Obama est Arabus!" "Caput excidi!" tempus sit rabble-rouseribus desistere 'Smear Talk Express,' ut Stephanus Colbertus dixit. Obama demonatus est tamquam Musulmanus-Manchurianus candidatus -- civis "collo-cerviciliaris" ad ralliam Floridianam Palinae exhabet mascum Obamae ut Luciferis."
Sloppy Latin is decidedly easier to translate than the real stuff.
(my internet has been on the fritz, so please accept my sincere apologies if this is posted more than once!)
Bill @ 27: My vote would go for British Asian (as in, Indian sub-continent) and the accent is definitely from central or southern England.
I have an Inland mouse for my laptop (as well as a separate keyboard) because at my home desk where I usually use the laptop, the screen is up at a comfortable eye level/distance, which is NOT a good typing/mousing level.
The Inland mouse works with barely a light touch to click on things. It took a bit to get used to but it is so sensitive that it might as well be nearly a trackball.
And while I like the flexi keyboards, the new one I got needs a right pounding to make it work. (the old one lasted over five years but had started not recognizing letters on the lowest row, like 'b'. wheep, I loved it to death!) I will continue to take the new one when I'm on the road, but I needed a better solution.
I found a Microsoft extended keyboard, with a bit of a curve to help ergonomics, at our local salvage store for $10. WOOT! Thank you, Cargo Largo!
I have an Inland mouse for my laptop (as well as a separate keyboard) because at my home desk where I usually use the laptop, the screen is up at a comfortable eye level/distance, which is NOT a good typing/mousing level.
The Inland mouse works with barely a light touch to click on things. It took a bit to get used to but it is so sensitive that it might as well be nearly a trackball.
And while I like the flexi keyboards, the new one I got needs a right pounding to make it work. (the old one lasted over five years but had started not recognizing letters on the lowest row, like 'b'. wheep, I loved it to death!) I will continue to take the new one when I'm on the road, but I needed a better solution.
I found a Microsoft extended keyboard, with a bit of a curve to help ergonomics, at our local salvage store for $10. WOOT! Thank you, Cargo Largo!
sorry about the double-post, the mouse struck for the first time (I may have touched it a second time while posting).
Adrian @79: Have you had problems with other laptop or flat-panel monitors? My understanding (which may be insufficiently nuanced) is that laptop monitors and other flat panel monitors do not physically flicker, and thus don't cause the problems that CRT monitors do.
The problem with CRT monitors is that there is only one electron beam scanning across the screen, and so each pixel blinks brightly when the beam hits it and then decays back down to dark, creating a flickering at whatever the refresh rate is. However, at least in theory, the pixels on a flat-panel monitor stay on at constant brightness, and so they put out continuous light regardless of the refresh rate (which now is only the thing that determines how often they change if they're supposed to be changing).
Certainly, for me, I have problems with CRTs at 60Hz, but most LCD monitors do 60Hz and are fine for me.
Chris Quinones #70 and #84:
Should Obama win the election, Governor Rod Blagojevich will appoint a new senator from Illinois.
It's a big responsibility for a guy with a 13% approval rating. There's speculation that he might appoint himself, but there's also speculation that he wouldn't dare...
Terry Karney @ 83 ...
xeger: I use a trackball from logitech and it's got the shape of a flattened squid. Programmable, with four buttons (two large ones and two inset on the top of the curve). It's been a great help to my wrists, and fingers.
Hmm... I believe I have a quest now... to find a Logitech flattened squid ;)
(and having gone to try and look for squid at Logitech, I must admit that this is ... not really an image I'd choose for producing positive associations with my advertising -- at least -- not for this particular range of products, at any rate.)
good lord, a post in triplicate... I am so sorry. *hides*
xeger, #36, mine is a slightly curved rectangular block, but Kensington doesn't make trackballs this smart anymore. I don't know why. I bought a new one from eBay not too long ago so when this one dies, I still have one. Hey, two of the trackballs shown as other choices aren't squarish.
Adrian, #79, how about an external keyboard with trackpad? I found several when I googled. I thought of this because my desk is made for computers and I have a low keyboard plane and I put the trackball on the same plane to the right. I can move back and forth without looking.
xeger #94: Hmm... I believe I have a quest now... to find a Logitech flattened squid ;)
OG @ 43
I second the idea of a Wacom tablet*. I've owned two over the last 10 years, and use them for both graphic input in Painter, Expression, and Photoshop, where using a mouse is, as they say, "like trying to draw with a bar of soap", and to alternate input styles to give my incipient CTS a rest.
* and not just because I live where the plant is, though I always like to boost local companies.
Diatryma @ 21
Have you heard the Bassoon Brothers*? Aside from their schtick, which is amusing, they're good musicians (they're all in the bassoon section of the Oregon Symphony). I saw them live a few years ago in a small venue where they didn't need mikes to talk or amps to play, and enjoyed it greatly.
* One of them is actually a sister, but she wears the Blues Brothers outfit with the hat too.
Since I seem to be posting in threes today ...
Please put on your SF Story hats and tell me what you can about a series of vignettes written by an English writer, I don't know who, that, I think, appeared in New Worlds. The stories were space opera, about a bunch of pirates and other such rogues who cruise the "scale spaces" of the Mandelbrot set. I read them in a collection of stories sometime in the 90s, and I vividly remember the glorious sensawunda they contained, but can't remember any plot or character details at all.
Brooks (92), some laptops, and some external flatscreen monitors are ok. Some external flatscreen monitors aren't. I think it's the refresh rate, but I don't begin to understand it. I just look at them and say, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, ok maybe that one--OMG do you have any idea what that thing COSTS?"
I can still remember 25 years ago. I was in high school, and had a vague but persistent discomfort around computers. Somehow I couldn't look at one for more than about 10-15 minutes without starting to feel sick. And I could never keep track of what I was thinking, when I did anything with a computer even for shorter intervals. (There were lots of computers in my reality, but they all used tv monitors.) It took me an awfully long time to discover other kinds of computer screens and to learn to recognize the distinction.
I have an external touchpad, but I'm finding it very much harder to use than the one integrated with the laptop (probably because I need to look down at my hands when going back and forth between touchpad and keyboard.)
How odd. I'm the opposite, but then, I'm an oddity all 'round... It's always fun watching folks pick up their jaws off the floor when I tell them I've been gaming on a touchpad since the early 90s (mostly twitchy stuff like Diablo 2... no FPS tho since for years they gave me VR sickness). Everything else *hurts*, so I didn't have a lot of choice.
You'll find (if you can comfortably manage an octave reach on a piano) that your left hand carries the bulk of the work when typing. So it is possible to do quite a lot of touch typing one handed. That means your right hand lives on your pointing device, *not* on the keyboard. If you're a right hand dominant individual, you'll have a steeper learning curve. (left dominant tends to do this by default)
On systems where the touchpad is embedded in the bottom center of the keyboard, I end up doing things largely via keyboard (don't ask how... it's mostly autopilot *sigh*). Anything else gives my hands and wrists fits. And they're such useful body parts, so I try hard to be nice to them.
The Sidelights item about "Eight Ways to Survive..." has an interesting opening passage:
Hey there Democrat, just over a week left until election day! Bet you're excited huh?
What's that? You're about to put your own head through a wall? You keep pacing the apartment muttering "yes we can" over and over to yourself? You just carved a backwards "G" into your own cheek and you don't even know what on earth "G" could possibly stand for?
Maybe it stands for "Get a grip."
Sounds like the author is reaching for an echo of Eddie Lawrence's inspirational routine about The Old Philosopher ("Is that what's botherin' you, Bunky?"), but doesn't quite follow through. Needs more marching band.
Terry Karney @ 83: "I did an elegant solution to one of those puzzles.
http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=3605781"
That is quite nice! Elegant is precisely the right word for it. I came up with a solution to a another puzzle I;m rather proud of--not as elegant as yours, but fun nonetheless =)
http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=3622077
Is the comment I composed last night stuck in the moderation queueue, or did I space out and hit Back before I hit Post again?
Um, never mind. I should have checked my View All By first -- it's just further up the thread than I'd have thought.
#97
That's the kind of flattened squid I use. Works pretty well, but it's built for right-handed people. I still have my ancient rectangular Trackman, which can be used lefthanded, if you don't mind the cord coming out toward you.
Earl #97/P J #107: But it doesn't have tentacles! It can't be a proper flattened squid without tentacles.
Mary Aileen @ #108, nor, apparently, does it make use of ink-jet technology.
Earl Cooley III @ 97 ... the link chasing's appreciated, but I'm hunting for an ambiguously handed flattened squid[0]...
[0] It seems as though I should really come up with something more entertaining, like a 'low profile multi-directional cephalopod', but my inspiration's tangled up in barometric pressure and migraine.
"PRISON IS A SERIES OF CUBES." - the Poor Man does Time Cube (which is very odd in itself); Gene "Mr. Time Cube" Ray has apparently endorsed McCain...
Completely unrelated, and not written by me, here's some weird and hilarious, Obama-themed stuff that the people at Making Light might appreciate:
Barack Obama vs. Pirates of Wichita!
It's best described as a pulp-fantasy version of the current election season.
Just figured people in here might be amused by the fact - as discussed by Brian Hayes and myself, that Liechtenstein has a nonplanar, 5-colorable but not 4-colorable map, due to the many many exclaves among the communes of Liechtenstein.
Mary Aileen #108: But it doesn't have tentacles! It can't be a proper flattened squid without tentacles.
I expect that many of the knit-fu masters around here could produce a properly tentacled squid trackball cozy that would do in a pinch. I figure the tentacles of the trackball device in question were likely devoured by hungry Logitech factory workers.
With apologies for intruding politics onto the open thread:
I've got a question about terminology regarding the current election. McCain is getting quite shrill about Obama being a "socialist." Being antipodean (or lacking in clue - YMMV) I'm curious as to who, exactly, this is meant to scare.
Does he mean "socialist" as in "European (or, hell, Australian) moderate leftist who thinks a social safety net and universal health care are a good idea"? Does he mean to imply Obama is going to nationalise all industries and put a hammer and sickle on the flag? Is he invoking the Cold War? Or what?
I mean, he might as well call him a Ghibelline, for all the sense it's making over here - the squeal of the dog-whistle (if that's what it is) isn't carrying.
vian @ #115, "Does he mean to imply Obama is going to nationalise all industries and put a hammer and sickle on the flag? Is he invoking the Cold War?"
Both. He forgets that the number of voters who remember the USSR as a serious threat is declining, and that the idea of a social safety net for these parlous times doesn't sound all that bad to the rest of us.
Vian @ 115: He means something along the lines of "My opponent wants to take your hard-earned money and give it to the poor."
Whenever I hear a politician say that, I assume it means that the speaker himself wants to take my hard-earned money and give it to the rich.
So, it's just a generic sort of smear, then. Thought it must have been, but it's an odd ideology to invoke. Especially when your buddies have just nationalised the banks - talk about privatising profits and socialising loss!
Why is no one pointing out to the poor old duffer that people in glass houses, and all that? Oh well - under a week to go.
vian (#118): We have, we're just waiting for the Straight Talk Express to pass the right set of roadside signs.
You call him / a socialist / But it seems / You won't be missed / Obama-shave.
Allan @117: No, gracious no! It just means that he doesn't want to put any barriers in place of the rich people taking your money themselves. It's how the free market works, dontchaknow?
I used to play clarinet, but I've pretty much forgotten it all. (Which annoyed the heck out of my sister: it took her years to figure out clarinet in band clas, then I picked it up in an afternoon without help.)
Adrian: I don't know if anyone touched on this, but in most browsers on most desktop OSes you can use the tab key to move between links and form fields, and the space bar to follow the current link or activate a button/checkbox/radio button.
Adrian @ 101:
Could be temporal interpolation, though for most people that's not naked-eye visible.
Some (including all older) LCD monitors display each of red, green and blue at 256 different levels, giving 16,777,216 different colours. Some (including most newer) instead display each of R,G,B at 64 different colours, giving many less colours.
But here's the sneaky bit: if they want to display a colour between shade n and shade n+1, it will display shade n part of the time, and shade n+1 part of the time, rapidly flickering between them. The percentage of the time spent at each shade gives the perceived mix of colour. Usually, it's 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%. That means that each of R,G,B can be set to (sort of) 253 different levels, giving 253x253x253 = 16,194,277 colours.
You can tell the difference in sales literature in two different ways: firstly, monitors that directly represent the colours will be listed as supporting 16.7 million colours, while monitors that do temporal interpolation might be listed as supporting 16.2 million colours.
Secondly, "response time" is different: if it's 20ms (milliseconds) or more, it's direct, if it's 10ms or less, it's temporally interpolated.
Like I said up the top, the flickering is too fast for most people to see, but if you have a problem with monitor flicker, it's at least possible that this could affect you without you being consciously aware.
By the way, some keyboards do also contain a pointing device (usually a trackball or trackpad). Look perhaps for a "home theatre" keyboard.
My favorite mouse pointer technology is Trackpoint, which places a pointing stick (like a little finger-controlled joystick) in the middle of the keyboard, because you don't have to move your hands away from the home row of keys to use it.
Comments on Open thread 115: