Category: rePosts

The important thing about the relationship between music and technology is that it’s entirely circular. Composers or instrument-makers notice a new way of making a noise – an electronic valve for example.
They then build a rudimentary instrument using that. Composers and musicians start working with it and immediately demand improvements, so the designers go back to work and an improved version appears. The improved version immediately offers musical possibilities that never existed before, so people start making new music with this new instrument, music they had never thought about making before. Then of course the instrument-makers respond with further modifications as the nature of the new instrument begins to become clearer, so the cycle is self-feeding.
The grand piano is a good example. The concert grand piano as we know it today really depended on the state of iron-casting technology. Prior to the pianos of the mid-19th century, frames were wooden, so the pianos could only be put under a certain amount of tension and therefore could never really be that loud. The first iron-framed pianos were called pianofortes: the important part of that word is “forte”.
The piano forte could be used against a full orchestra and still be heard. That led directly to new forms of music which would not have been conceivable before. So it’s that kind of process that is going on all the time in music.
Music always co-opts whatever is the state-of-the-art technology at any given time, so it’s quite consistent that in the Forties and Fifties, people started looking at electronics. Electronics had started becoming available and people could start making things. In fact, the particular form that Oram worked in, which is basically drawn sound, was pioneered by some Russians in the Twenties, who realised that optical soundtracks on films could be a way of making music, so that became their experiment.
via Brian Eno on bizarre instruments – Telegraph.

Gilbert Wong, the mayor of Cupertino, California, calls his city council to order. “As you know, Cupertino is very famous for Apple Computer, and were very honored to have Mr. Steve Jobs come here tonight to give a special presentation,” the mayor says. “Mr. Jobs?” And there he is, in his black turtleneck and jeans, shuffling to the podium to the kind of uproarious applause absent from most city council meetings. It is a shock to see him here on ground level, a thin man amid other citizens, rather than on stage at San Franciscos Moscone Center with a larger-than-life projection screen behind him. He seems out of place, like a lion ambling through the mall.”Apple is growing like a weed,” Jobs begins, his voice quiet and sometimes shaky. But theres nothing timorous about his plan: Apple, he says, would like to build a gargantuan new campus on a 150-acre parcel of land that it acquired from Hewlett-Packard in 2010. The company has commissioned architects–“some of the best in the world”–to design something extraordinary, a single building that will house 12,000 Apple employees. “Its a pretty amazing building,” Jobs says, as he unveils images of the futuristic edifice on the screen. The stunning glass-and-concrete circle looks “a little like a spaceship landed,” he opines.Nobody knew it at the time, but the Cupertino City Council meeting on June 7, 2011, was Jobss last public appearance before his resignation as Apples CEO in late August and his passing in early October. Its a fitting way to go out. When completed in 2015, Apples new campus will have a footprint slightly smaller than that of the Pentagon; its diameter will exceed the height of the Empire State Building. It will include its own natural-gas power plant and will use the grid only for backup power. This isnt just a new corporate campus but a statement: Apple–which now jockeys daily with ExxonMobil for the title of the worlds most valuable company–plans to become a galactic force for the eons.And as every sci-fi nerd knows, you totally need a tricked-out battleship if youre about to engage in serious battle.
via The Great Tech War Of 2012 | Fast Company.

this is plainly stupid.

‘Bistek’ to sign QC socialized housing ordinance
by Atom Araullo, ABS-CBN News
Posted at 10/17/2011 8:55 PM | Updated as of 10/17/2011 8:55 PM
QUEZON CITY, Philippines – Quezon City’s Socialized Housing Tax Ordinance (SHTO) has passed third and final reading in the city council on Monday.
Mayor Herbert Bautista is expected to sign the new ordinance on Tuesday, and it will be fully implemented by January of 2012.
In a press conference Monday morning, city councilors led by Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte defended the SHTO, which will impose an additional 0.5% tax on land owners in quezon city.
Only homeowners with city-assesed real property values exceeding P100,000 will be covered by the new tax.
via ‘Bistek’ to sign QC socialized housing ordinance | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features.

The highlight of my trip was visiting schools in Finland. Of course, Finland is much in the news these days because of its success on the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) examinations.
For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That’s equality of educational opportunity, a good public school in every neighborhood.
What makes the Finnish school system so amazing is that Finnish students never take a standardized test until their last year of high school, when they take a matriculation examination for college admission.
Their own teachers design their tests, so teachers know how their students are doing and what they need. There is a national curriculum — broad guidelines to assure that all students have a full education — but it is not prescriptive. Teachers have extensive responsibility for designing curriculum and pedagogy in their school. They have a large degree of autonomy, because they are professionals.
via Ravitch: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t) – The Answer Sheet – The Washington Post.

Why occupy?
By Dave Winer on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 12:30 PM.
Susannah Breslin went to Occupy Chicago and asked Why?
Worth reading, but I think I know the overall answer.
People want to do something, anything, to help the world work.
We’ve reached a point where things aren’t working very well, and there’s a good chance that there will be a collapse.
via Scripting News: Why occupy?.

The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves.
via To Cure the Economy – Joseph E. Stiglitz – Project Syndicate.