Posts Tagged ‘science’

Bookmarks for May 6th through May 10th

Bookmarks for May 6th through May 10th

These are my links for May 6th through May 10th: The first sign that humans are on the verge of evolving into another species [Evolution] – “What Carlson’s work suggests is that species whose brains are evolving fairly rapidly – hello, Homo sapiens – are likely candidates for speciation under the right circumstances. The key [...]


Bookmarks for December 27th through December 31st [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks for December 27th through December 31st [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from December 27th through December 31st:[del.icio.us]

  • Doctorow, How to Destroy the Book | Electronic Frontier Foundation -
    “When I buy an audiobook on CD, it’s mine. The license agreement, such as it is, is “don’t violate copyright law,” and I can rip that CD to mp3, I can load it to my iPod or any number of devises—it’s mine; I can give it away, I can sell it; it’s mine. But when you buy an audiobook through Audible, which now controls 90 per cent of the [downloadable] audiobook market, you get a license agreement, not a property interest. The things that you can do with it are limited by DRM; the players you can play it on are limited by the license agreements with Audible. Audible doesn’t do this because the publishers ask them to. Audible and iTunes, because Audible is the sole supplier to iTunes, do this because it’s in their own interest….”
  • how to make a living playing music | Ol’ Danny Barnes -
    “i hear so much complaining about this subject, i just wanted to lay my practical experience on you. free. first, three pre-conditions: 1. if you are a very materialistic person, skip this article, i don’t think you are going to like what it says. 2. if you don’t have the music where you want it art-wise, you might want to go work on that, this article isn’t going to help you much either. you will be better off by practicing and studying and working on your music instead. you will need to get the art pretty close to where you want it, before you should worry about making much of a living out of it. 3. determine if you are actually called to be a musician. if you aren’t called, all the gyrations in the world, won’t make it work. if you are called, no matter what you do, it’s going to work. this determination will solve most of the problems you are going to encounter. “
  • Mixed Meters: Could Terry Riley’s In C Be Accepted As Classical Music -
    “I fantasize that someday In C will be programmed on regular orchestra concerts. Yes, getting this piece into the standard repertory is a long ways off. If it happened, In C would change from a “minimalist classic” into an actual piece of classical music. That would provide strong evidence that classical music has some life left in it.” A chamber orchestra would be just the right size. Before the intermission the program could be, maybe, a Rossini overture and a Mozart concerto. And the second half would be a 35-minute performance of In C employing all the performers from the first half. Great concert! Of course, during In C the conductor should sit in the ensemble and play an instrument, provided he or she is capable. Otherwise tell the conductor to sit in the audience.
  • Militant Locationist Rant « 90042 -
    “Recently in our humble corner of Los Angeles, a brewery opened. Which is great news to anyone, (especially myself) who enjoys what Benjamin Franklin said was, “proof that God loves us.” Microbrewing is something I have supported for a long, long, and expensive time. Having a new microbrewery nearby is a wonderful thing. The only problem is the name. And what is in a name? To quote Shakespeare, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Maybe so, but out of the millions of names to engrave on your mast, the brewers of this new brewery have chosen to name their venture after a location here in Northeast Los Angeles. It’s good to represent, right? The name of this new establishment is Eagle Rock Brewery. Great, Eagle Rock is a fine place; home to many of my favorite festivals, restaurants, stores, and newspapers. The only problem is the brewery is not located in Eagle Rock 90041, but in Glassell Park 90065.”
  • Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » Gleevec -
    “I’m still reading the responses to my “Leukemia” missive. I appreciate the good will. But I’m reading slowly not only because the missives are all personal, directed specifically to me, but because I’m learning so much. I heard from Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. Did I know that Kevin Hearn from BNL had leukemia? Steven copied him on the e-mail. Turns out Kevin had CML too. Before Gleevec. He had a bone marrow transplant, and it worked.But it’s not. [snip] Because some guy who wasn’t in it for the money, who was willing to sacrifice everything for his passion, put together the pieces to come up with a breakthrough drug that allows me to live.”
  • UbuWeb Sound – Marshall McLuhan -
    “Marshall McLuhan appeared on the Dick Cavett Show in December of 1970 along with Truman Capote and Chicago Bears running back, Gayle Sayers. Both Capote and Sayers participated in the discussion with McLuhan. This recording was made on reel-to-reel audio tape in 1970 and directly transferred to computer in 2005. Unfortunately, the exact date of the show was not noted, except that the show did take place before Christmas. All commercials and breaks were removed from McLuhan’s appearance.”
  • The annotated world « BuzzMachine -
    “Tweet: A view of our annotated world: Hyperlocal is what’s around me and how I search that There are eight million stories in the naked city and soon every one of them will be available on your phone through visual, aural, and geographic search and augmented reality in our newly annotated world. Every address, every building, every business has a story to tell. Visualize your world that way: Look at a restaurant and think about all the data that already swirls around it — its menu, its reviews and ratings and tags (descriptive words), its recipes, its ingredients, its suppliers (and how far away they are, if you care about that sort of thing), its reservation openings, who has been there (according to social applications), who do we know who has been there, its health-department reports, its credit-card data (in aggregate, of course), pictures of its interior, pictures of its food, its wine list, the history of the location, its decibel rating, its news… “

Bookmarks for June 26th through June 29th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from June 26th through June 29th:[del.icio.us]

  • Los Angeles New Music Ensemble – looks like there is a new music group in town.  welcome aboard!  “The Los Angeles New Music Ensemble (LANME) is an organization created to promote new music, collaboration within the arts, the commissioning of new works, and the creation of multimedia presentations within innovative live performances. To further these goals, LANME is dedicated to learning and playing the best and most exciting new chamber music around.”
  • New school board members ready for challenge – LA Daily News -former John Marshall High School colleague Steve Zimmer is interviewed as he prepares to become a school board member. “Zimmer admits that scarier than dealing with a billion-dollar deficit is the idea of not being on the campus of Marshall every day. It will be interesting to see if someone immersed on the ground level can translate that experience to doing a good job on the board,” Zimmer said.” As a teacher, Zimmer has also been a very active member of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has prompted some to believe his vote will always follow the powerful union’s stance. I don’t accept that voting on the side of the union is siding against students,” he said “
  • laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in la | vegan food and living in Los Angeles -
    very interesting blog post that tests a number of LA restaurants to see if their food was really vegan. (fyi: i’m not and my wife is a pescatarian) although there were some meals that were obviously misrepresented as vegan, it seems the biggest culprit might be the mislabeling and mistranslation of food from the taiwan to us markets.
  • A Chapter from The Listen: Music for 18 Musicians – these excerpts are being touted as a new type of music criticism and a new way to attract audiences. i hate to throw a bucket of cold water on these ambitious young writer/composers, but the excerpts are overwritten and seem musically naive, trying to impress a faculty advisor in grad school. hence exhibit A and B: “
  • And now melody. And now melodies. The melodies here being the playings-out of the harmonies. The harmonies being the on-ringing of all the melodic notes” “
  • The harmonies are one harmony that absorbs the up-till-now waves of the other harmonies, that absorbs the leftover pulses. This accumulated on-ringing describes a recognizable environment… —a single addition to the bottom of the harmony—acts as a diaphragm, allowing this environment to open and to breathe in”
  • this play by play description doesn’t work for me and its certainly not the way i would want people to read about my music. i think a better tack would be to try and distill what makes these pieces great.
  • You balance the budget – Los Angeles Times -Try your hand at closing California’s budget shortfall, estimated at $24 billion. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Cut spending, raise taxes and/or borrow to get the state out of the red. For each choice — drawn from proposals from across the political spectrum — we’ve tried to give some sense of the effects. As you craft your proposal, the Deficit Meter will show your progress.
  • The tragic end of Michael Jackson: The Jeruselum Post – very tragic michael jackson quote that is further proof that fame is not a replacement for love “I am going to say something I have never said before and this is the truth. I have no reason to lie to you and God knows I am telling the truth. I think all my success and fame, and I have wanted it, I have wanted it because I wanted to be loved. That’s all. That’s the real truth. I wanted people to love me, truly love me, because I never really felt loved. I said I know I have an ability. Maybe if I sharpened my craft, maybe people will love me more. I just wanted to be loved, because I think it is very important to be loved and to tell people that you love them and to look in their eyes and say it.”
  • I’m in a band… -via S21, i’m glad to see other composer/performers starting their own groups
  • Just Released: “New World Ardor”- NetNewMusic – willam houston’s new (and very enjoyable) post-apocalypse party music. reminds me of john oswald’s ‘plunderphonics’