Disappellation

Unemployed

2009-03-28T15:09:46Z

disappellation @ 2009-03-25T09:17:00

2009-03-25T13:20:28Z

Jindal described the premise of the question -- "Do you want the president to fail?" -- as the "latest gotcha game" being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.

"Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, 'Why no sir, I don't want the president to fail,' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism," Jindal said at a political fundraiser attended by 1,200 people. "This is political correctness run amok."

We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

Four tuna

2009-02-26T23:05:58Z

I'm playing this tonight.

Library

2009-02-22T20:09:50Z

Today in the library, just as I was reading about "noisiness and annoyance" in a psychological acoustics text, someone slammed a door right behind me.

Coincidence

2009-02-21T19:32:25Z

I'm going to view it as coincidental that, while I'm here working night and day on an ever-increasingly annoying dissertation project, the latest trend in spam is to offer degrees for sale.

Lilypond

2009-02-19T19:58:50Z

Oh Lilypond, how I love thee. Critical error:

C:/Program Files/LilyPond/usr/share/lilypond/current/ly/init.ly:63:66: error: syntax error, unexpected $end
(ly:parser-error parser (_ "expected error, but none found"))))

Journalism

2009-02-19T18:24:27Z

This profound journalism from CNN:

New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.

..."The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.

I present the above with no comment.

How to win at video games without even trying

2009-02-05T02:05:17Z

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/botnets-beat-sp.html

Why play the game when you can just use DoS attacks against your enemies?

my life

2009-02-03T04:11:15Z

Just had to take a second to describe what I'm doing. This is one week (this week):

1) Played two professional orchestra concerts.
2) Taught music theory and eartraining.
3) Led a clarinet masterclass.
4) Worked on my Chaos Theory dissertation.
5) Listened to a premiere of my first Chaos Theory piece by a professional percussion quartet.
6) Learned how to integrate javascript and Max5 in a musical application of Conway's Game of Life/cellular automata.
7) Did play a Mozart concerto on basset clarinet.
8) Will play Mendelssohn Concertpiece #2 on basset horn in a concert.
9) Will premier a concerto in concert this weekend.
10) Will teach an orchestra repertoire class.

It's a crazy life, really, but I'll miss it when I'm done with school and have to have a job...

English?

2009-01-30T21:57:13Z

Dear Esteemed Colleagues,
It is without a doubt great joy to introduce Eardrumsz to the Charlotte area.
Eardrumsz offers the course to encourage and educate beginning musician
(drummers). I am please to be able to set up a course for the youth, as well as
anyone who wants to play. So if there is anyone that's in your mist that have
been wanting to bring out that inner drummer in them, please don't hesitate to
call me and set up an appointment to learn in more detail what the course
offers. The sessions are affordable and very exciting and still educative. The
facility that the sessions are held in or located in the downtown area of
Charlotte, at the prestigious North Carolina Music Factory.
Thank you for your attention, it is deeply appreciated and I look forward to
hearing from you very soon.

In other news, the GOP, having realized that the party has been completely marginalized in this country, have figured out the secret to Democratic success.

Yep: elect a black man.

Think anyone will fall for it?

Microsoft Songsmith

2009-01-27T03:23:08Z

Roxanne, as accompanied by Microsoft Songsmith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypycpKQxXR0

Oh, these are just too good...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM1GUk1SBmY&feature=related

How big is $825 billion?

2009-01-22T00:33:38Z

Obama's planning a huge stimulus package of over $800 billion. On NPR, Paul Krugman complained that it's not enough, and he's trustworthy in spite of the fact that he thinks the world is flat.

I just want to put this in perspective. The current U.S. population is somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million people. If you took that $800 billion dollars and just gave it out equally to all of the people in the U.S, to all of the men, women, and children, you'd be handing out about $2666 each (over $5,000 if you included the last stimulus package too). If you gave it out only to those living below the poverty line, it would be about $22,000 each; enough to raise everyone in this country out of the legal definition of poverty.

Or, heck, let's use it to fund food and housing initiatives, not to mention education. It's hard to imagine throwing all of this money into the banks, who took the first stimulus package and hid it away instead of using it to restart our failed economy.

Snow

2009-01-20T17:44:52Z

We actually had a two hour delay due to an inch of snowfall. I wonder what Williams would have been like if they closed school every time they got an inch of snow.

Oh well, got me out of teaching. And of course, they're not used to ice around here - everyone was fishtailing all over the road on my way in.

By the way, if I was the Poet Laureate for the Inauguration, I would have written an acrostic.

Maybe something like:

Better
All
Republicans
Are
Canned,
Kicked,
Or
Beaten
And
Mauled.
Amen.

For Sale

2009-01-16T20:07:57Z

For Sale: Slightly used airplane. Used to fly for USAir.

New interior and engines.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T14:08:23Z

2009, and 4 months away from completing my doctoral degree. I suppose I've earned the DMF now.

This year's winter break involved a few trips to Manhattan and an impromptu ski trip to Killington, VT. I survived mostly intact. Now, with 2 weeks left before school, I'm pretending to write my dissertation while instead I blog.

In other news, the U.S. Army is using video games to recruit. This in itself is nothing new, but the full-scale simulation - sitting on the back of a full-size humvee and shooting real scale weapons - is certainly a far cry from the video games of previous years. Essentially, if you try it out and you enjoy it, they'll sign you up right there to do it for real.

Craig's list

2008-12-20T17:06:26Z

It is amazing to me how much Craigslist has caught on. I remember back in '04 when it was huge in NYC and I sold everything I owned in a matter of days.

Last night I listed my car on CL and I got 5 calls within a half-hour. On a Friday night. I sold the car this morning.

Oh, by the way, I've apparently been suffering from pneumonia for about 2 months. It's the lamest case of pneumonia ever - just enough to make me cough and feel inconvenienced.

Google

2008-12-14T02:09:42Z

Google's been busy. They've been adding more and more streetviews - now when you ask for directions, you can see what the intersections actually look like at every turn.

I was home when the Google van went by, though I didn't see it.

Where are they now?

2008-12-07T15:06:39Z

Mr. T is schilling for Flavor-wave.

Economics

2008-12-07T04:17:13Z

So are we all just going to ignore the fact that Barack Obama just nominated the Harvard president who said that women are naturally not good at science to the top economic post in the country?

Mission Impossible

2008-12-07T02:51:28Z

Mission Impossible 3 features a skyscraper-jumping scene in Shanghai. It's far cooler once you've actually been there.

I imagine it'll be the same next time I see The Dark Knight. What is it about Shanghai that inspires movie-makers to toss Hollywood stars off of skyscrapers?

Pyramid Scams

2008-12-02T02:43:18Z

Is everyone in Colorado particularly susceptible to pyramid scams? I got two letters today from Colorado with the exact same letter as last time.

I left out the best part in my last post: the scam is not actually about the "pyramid"-part. instead, they offer to sell you marketing lists with names and addresses.

Alternative payments

2008-11-26T14:37:39Z

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665847

Raisin Brahms

2008-11-24T15:59:00Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKgBdrsqvjs

Mail

2008-11-18T01:23:28Z

I received a very important piece of mail today. It's a very exclusive financial document with some very interesting information. And, the best part is that a retired attorney has assured me that it's all COMPLETELY LEGAL!

Do people still fall for pyramid scams, and if so, doesn't that mean that they work?

So you send $1 to six people (this letter is different! It works because you list six people, not five! The letter told me that too), and then you mail out the letter to 200 addresses provided by a marketing company (for $45 - guess who's making the real money). Supposedly, you can make over $800,000, assuming 7.5% response rate (reasonable, considering that 20% of Americans think that the Sun travels around the Earth). Which means, if the letter went out to every single American, less than 170 people would make $800,000. Everyone else would get screwed.

Palin

2008-11-14T02:28:38Z

Can someone explain to me why Palin is still in the news?

Who cares about this woman?