Oddly, this is a word which connects two of my passions. In cycling it refers to pedalling rhythm. In music it is a little more complex, not being about rhythm in the common sense most people might think. Rather, it refers to harmonic points of arrival and departure, and thus a harmonic rhythm rather than the pulse or percussive rhythm a non-musician might think.
A group of leading scientists and MPs attacks government plans to re-classify cannabis as a more dangerous drug.
I don't really understand what happened; studies led to legal reform on the basis that cannabis just isn't that big a deal, but lately it has all been wound back. Are we back to Reefer Madness days?
One of the last members of the left-wing Red Army Faction (RAF) that terrorised Germany in the 1970s still in prison will walk free in January after 26 years behind bars, a court has ruled.
This is one of two surviving members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, a man a little older than I am now.
Integration New Media has released Impressario, an Xtra extension PDF utility for Adobe Director 11. The software allows users to integrate PDF files into Director movies, even behind other objects. Personalized proposals, data sheets, or custom presentations can be created from within Director, based on templates built in Acrobat or LiveCycle Designer. Original page layouts and fonts are preserve...
I find this interesting because I really like Director, but it has seemed dead in the water for some years. I used to teach it, but decisions were made that Flash had replaced it. I'm not a fan of Flash for many reasons. Director's main criticism used to be that it had a steep learning curve, and it's true that it is not an easy program, and that Flash is easy to get some quick results with, but I find Flash a very confusing and convoluted program still. Having said that, Director did have many perceived problems, one of which was the lack of PDF integration. But this was never a serious problem. I worked on a project in the early 90s which used an Xtra to print from PDF from wihin Director. The extensible nature of Director has always been a plus.
Now here's a shocking admission; I'm a musician and a lecturer in music in a tertiary institution, and I didn't know we had a national academy of music!
A MAN who was pinned beneath a train at North Melbourne railway station for more than an hour yesterday has died in surgery.
A police spokeswoman said the man, 47, from Keilor Downs, had been
riding a bike on the platform when he bumped another passenger and fell
onto the tracks in the path of a V/Line train about 5.15pm.
And while we're on the topic, same day's news:
Police are appealing for witnesses to the death of a man hit by a train
as he walked on tracks at Newport, in Melbourne's inner west last night.
And a report the day after, also from Victoria:
A woman is dead after a high-speed smash between a commuter train and a car this morning. Emergency crews were greeted by a horrific scene after the six-carriage
Connex train collided with the woman's Hyundai hatchback in Dandenong
South at 7.20am, pushing the wreckage about 500 metres down the train
line.
This is insane; trains are very safe. Except when things go wrong. Because they are really, really big. And fast. And heavy. With sharp wheels. Actually it doesn't matter how sharp the wheels are.
After dropping F at work I drove to Alfonso's Cafe, snoozed in the car until 7.30 when the chaps started turning up. One was in civvies, not riding because he had come off the day before and was pretty sore. So it was just three of us doing the normal Alfonso's-Glenelg-Outer Harbour-Pt Adelaide-Alfonso's (the last stop in my case only to get the car) loop. There's an attractive American hippy, heavily tattooed and v alternative, who works at the Lipson St Cafe who offered me a taste treat. She held out what I can only assume was her lunchbox, full of berries, but what she wanted me to try was one of a half dozen small objects that were obviously (I thought) not berries. Picture a capsule like you might have some kind of medication in. Only made of very thin paperbark. Inside was a dark brown filling, oily, almost creamy with a texture somewhere between avocado and cashew, and exquisitely yummy in every way. It was a raw cocoa bean. Beautiful, rich and bitter; just how I like my women! After the ride I went home, showered and went back to one of the riders' for a BBQ with the cyclists and partners and the host's kids, mum and dad and sisters. It was his birthday. A fine Greek time was had by all. F got the bus there after work, stayed an hour, and then we toddled off to little sister's for pizza, salads and wine with big sister, and little sister and her small tribe. It was sort of a celebration for little sister's man having been retired from Defence, having fought them for years on the grounds of illness. Turns out it's in fact not such a great victory for various complicated legal reasons, but we celebrated anyway. I rode to work yesterday, but in spite of my expert mechanical work, the bike still wasn't quite right, so I took it to the bike shop this morning. One of the derailleurs was bent but I am assured it will be fine now. We'll see. Of course I spent some money on bike doodads.
9:39:43 PM
Sir Paul McCartney confirms a 14-minute long Beatles track many thought was a myth does exist - and says he wants the public to hear it.
It's probably pretty dull; a lot of us were improvising freely around this time. Great fun to do, but not necessarily all that interesting to listen to. It is another example of how it was McCartney who was the avant-garde artist (due to his association with the arty Asher family. Lennon used to send him up about it. Things changed for Lennon when Yoko, a genuine avant-garde artist, came into his life.
Research being published in the Australian Medical Journal has busted the myth that people who go to hospital emergency departments often are wasting resources.
Imagine that; people who turn up to hospital claiming to be sick may, in fact, be sick.
As NASA prepares to double the number of astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, nothing may do more for crew bonding than a machine being launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on Friday.
We'll all be doing it eventually; the astronauts may be the heroes who show the world how well water can be purified and recycled.
The story covers his importance quite well. But I have to ask, what does one do after Hendrix? He was a good drummer and deserved a post-Hendrix life. I'm not sure that he got it. Certainly 61 is in our time a young age to die. McCartney, Jagger etc. A drummer student at my institute of musical learning performed Fire at his final recital on the basis that it was the apotheosis of 60s drumming, which of course it probably was. I have to say he did well. Mitch's drumming was so busy and old school funky it was a wonder.
Nordic countries have retained their top rankings for gender equality, but Australia has finished outside the top 20.
I originally wanted to post this because the ABC had reported that Oz and NZ were in the top 10, but then I saw a report from the same website that both countries were out of the top 20. On closer investigation, it proved to be that the one report was a correction of the other. So what I thought was a cool-ish antipodean story turns out to be, frankly, a little depressing.
A man has been arrested over a stabbing in the CBD.
F (my wife) and K (my son) were driving through the city of Adelaide followed by police cars and ambulances attending this incident. I can't believe how many stabbings there have been in recent years. Yes, some of it is about new arrivals bringing old dispute solutions to our relative peaceful country, but it does freak me out more than somewhat. It also bothers me that it may be an easy grab for racists and anti-immigration lobbyists.
I thought this had all been settled, but apparently not. The argument is that doping testing has progressed so well that a month or two here or there doesn't matter, blah, blah, blah, and Lance will be strongly monitored blah, blah, blah. I'm glad he's coming here though.
It was clouded in doubt as the veteran was
told that he had to respect the UCI's "biological passport" rule
demanding that athletes must be registered with an anti-doping
programme six months prior to competing.
Ian Silvestein's house was destroyed three years when the Buncefield Depot in England blew up. The companies that operated the depot -- Total and Chevron -- won't help him.
Literally, nothing has been done to help him with his situation [~] or anybody for that matter. The local authorities have failed him, the governments have failed him, insurance has failed him, and the companies that operated the facilities [~] Total and Chevron [~] have ducked blame entirely. The massive companies made more than £18 billion in cash last year, but can[base ']t help a few people out when a leak in their tanks caused massive and catastrophic damage to dozens of people[base ']s lives.
Getting ready to go to work this morning, I pumped up my rear tyre (I'd had a puncture on the way to Mt Lofty on Sunday, and could only use a hand pump on the new tube) and wheeled my bike outside the shed. I went inside to don my cyclist drag and heard a huge bang. The tube had exploded, blowing the tyre off the rim! I drove to work.
I don't understand why influential Americans haven't been shouting this from the rooftops.
Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State, during his endorsement of Barack Obama on last weekend's Meet the Press:
I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I can accept stupidity among the populace. There will always be angry, scared, bigoted people. I can even accept that some of those angry, scared, bigoted people are powerful enough to wind up in positions of authority in places like the National Review that allow them to spread their angry, scared, bigoted ideas on a national stage.
But what's really demoralizing to me is that this is the first time I've heard a major public figure in American politics raise the appropriate response to the purely idiotic question of whether Barack Obama is a Muslim (or an Arab, since most of the angry, scared bigots don't understand the difference). The right response is so what if he is?
Bravo, Powell. I wish more public figures had the courage to say that.
For the first time I rode up Mt Lofty; the total distance was about normal for my Sunday rides (70 km plus or minus) but of course it was a hill climb to which I am not accustomed. I think I acquitted myself fairly well. So it was Henley to Hutt St (puncture on the way), up the old freeway to Mt Lofty, along the ridge to Norton Summit, down Norton Summit Rd, to The Parade, through Norwood, back to Henley. A quick shower, then off to the Peace Festival for a gig with The 3 Dolls. All very good. Sore legs though. This was only my second hills ride in my life, and my first was only two weeks earlier. Let me tell you about that Sunday. I needed the car to drop my bike off for a service in the afternoon, so I drove F to work before 7, with the bike in the back, then drove to the cafe in Hutt St, where I met the lads for a coffee. We then rode our bikes to Glenelg, along the coast to Hallett Cove, inland to McLaren Vale where we stopped for a bite to eat. Then we rode to Willunga, where I dropped in on an old friend for a few minutes. Then we went back through the hills, via Kangarilla, Clarendon, Blackwood and Belair. We got back to Hutt St and went to a different cafe for a parting coffee. While there I bumped into some old friends and two of their kids having a late lunch. It was lovely to see them, because I hardly ever do. It was so late by now that by the time I'd dropped the bike off for its service I could pick F up from work. It was a great ride with several milestones for me. It was the first time I'd ridden in the hills. I rode the slowest I've ever ridden (6 kph uphill) and the fastest I'd ever ridden (68 kph downhill), and the longest distance I'd ever ridden (117 k) for the longest time (6 hrs). I think I hit my highest heart rate too; 168 bpm.
Strictly speaking, this is not an exclusively iAnything tip, but it is a good one. In his Tangled Up In White post, John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes about the "green" revisions to the most recent batch of Apple headphones that serendipitously make them slightly more tangle free. I had to purchase a new set of headphones in September when my original iPhone headphones went from functional to complete disintegration in a period of about 72 hours. When those things fail, they fail. I probably should have done my research and bought some uber-headphones for a couple hundred bucks, but instead I dropped into the AT&T store a block from the office and got a pair of the new Apple headphones (the ones that shipped with the iPhone 3G). I can attest to Gruber's estimation that they are more "rubbery" than "plasticky," but that's not really the point of this post.
The point of this post is whether your headphones are rubbery or plasticky should be irrelevant to the effectiveness of keeping them untangled, because you should be following the One True Way Of Headphone Wrapping. Wrapi-do in Japanese, I believe. Also affectionately known as The Devil Horn Method. All snark aside (momentarily at least), this little hack really has kept my buds tangle-free for years now.
Here's how it works: Pretend you're at a Def Leppard concert and make the devil horns with your left hand. (Don't pretend you don't know what I mean -- middle and ring fingers bent and held down by the thumb, index and pinky extended.) Tuck the buds underneath the middle and ring fingers to secure them and use your devil horns as posts around which to loop the cord. (Some people advocate a figure-eight wrap, but I find a simple loop works fine.) Leave a couple inches of cord at the end. Slide the loop off the devil horns, and wrap the remaining cord around the middle of the loops, creating a little bundle. Thread the plug end through the loop opposite the buds and give it a gentle pull to tighten the bundle. This little package now fits neatly in your pocket, is almost entirely tangle proof, and unravels with ease.
There's no video of true wrapi-do, but here are two that come close. This dude has the right idea, but he has clearly never attended a Def Leppard concert:
On the other hand (haha, get it?), this fellow has nearly perfected the devil horn methodology, although the flailing thumb concern me a bit.
The figure-eight wrap is acceptable, if a bit ostentatious, but he goes off track with that whack tuck move at the end, instead of threading the plug through the loop appropriately. That's just wrong. You'll never get to nationals with form like that, bub.
UPDATE: Daring Fireball linked here and also to a perfect example of wrapi-do. This is dead on:
The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority
of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states.
Well maybe so. This may be the year when we finally come face to
face with ourselves: finally just lay back and say it [~] that we
are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all
the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing
anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his
mistakes and all his imprecise talk about [base "]new politics[per thou] and
[base "]honesty in government[per thou], is one of the few men who[base ']ve run for
President of the United States in this century who really
understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of
the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept
it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon.
McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem
almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every
day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect
expression of everything he stands for.
At first I thought, what a tosser. But then I considered the hours of riding every day in close confines. I thought about sledging in cricket. I thought about my own defensive use of niggling and holding the shorts of my opponent as a high school Australian rules footballer. Maybe he has a point.
It was just a standard Sunday ride; about 72 km. It was raining (not to mention the thunder and lightning) when I left home but everything cleared up pretty quickly. It was still, as it often is when raining, but after the rain cleared a south-westerly gradually started up, so we had a slight head wind for the leg between Glenelg and Outer Harbour. Fortunately the wind strengthened for the leg home when it was at our back.
