From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #372 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, October 20 2007 Volume 16 : Number 372 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: An Apple Story* [Tom Clark ] Tech question [kevin ] Reap ["Stewart Russell" ] Reap [hssmrg@bath.ac.uk] Re: Tech question ["Jason Brown" ] Re: Tech question [Benjamin Lukoff ] Re: Tech question [kevin ] Re: Tech question [kevin ] Re: Tech question [Capuchin ] Heh. Jump (in pitch)! [FSThomas ] Fwd: Package Shipped to You from Yep Roc Records [2fs ] Re: Heh. Jump (in pitch)! [kevin ] Re: random my ass [Rex ] Re: random my ass [2fs ] Re: random my ass [FSThomas ] Re: random my ass [Rex ] Paisley problem... [Rex ] Re: Paisley problem... [2fs ] Re: Paisley problem... [lep ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:09:55 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: An Apple Story* On Oct 18, 2007, at 5:09 AM, Steve Talkowski wrote: > Tom, if there's any tickets still available, i was thinking about > catching that Beacon show on Halloween myself! Do it! The show in Berkeley was phenomenal - you won't be disappointed. Why am I going you ask? Well, in 1977 I was going to go see Frank do his Halloween show at The Palladium. My parents wouldn't let me go (I was 14), but my two friends went without me. Now 30 years later the three of us are gonna go see Dweezil do the show. Take that, mom! On Oct 18, 2007, at 12:37 PM, Eric Loehr wrote: > I too have Parallels and have the same question as Sebastian; > what's better about VMWare? They're both quality products and I love them both for encouraging Wintards to have their senses of childlike wonder restored by buying a Mac. You'll be happy no matter which one you purchase. > > Oh, and FYTC. Thanks. I'm all warm and fuzzy now. Could be the bourbon though. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:11:04 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Tech question Anybody happen to know a reliable tech in the Seattle area who can fix a recalcitrant Sony Minidisc player? I know, it's clunky virtually obsolete technology but it's fun to play with. When it works. Which as of this AM it's not. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:10:00 -0400 From: "Stewart Russell" Subject: Reap Editor, broadcaster and amusing cove Alan Coren, 69. - -- http://scruss.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:36:14 +0100 From: hssmrg@bath.ac.uk Subject: Reap Alan Coren, 69. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7052510.stm - - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:04:00 -0700 From: "Jason Brown" Subject: Re: Tech question On 10/19/07, kevin wrote: > Anybody happen to know a reliable tech in the Seattle area who can fix a > recalcitrant Sony Minidisc player? Precision Audio/Video in the Roosevelt neighborhood as a real good rep. I don't know if they can fix mini-discs though. There are a bunch of similar shops on Roosevelt between 65th and 62nd so you could probably check out a few plces and find the best rate. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:36:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: Tech question On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, Jason Brown wrote: > On 10/19/07, kevin wrote: > > Anybody happen to know a reliable tech in the Seattle area who can fix a > > recalcitrant Sony Minidisc player? > > Precision Audio/Video in the Roosevelt neighborhood as a real good > rep. I don't know if they can fix mini-discs though. There are a > bunch of similar shops on Roosevelt between 65th and 62nd so you could > probably check out a few plces and find the best rate. And you can pick up a new needle for your turntable at JnS ("Standard") on 65th just east of Roosevelt! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:16:20 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Tech question >And you can pick up a new needle for your turntable at JnS ("Standard") on >65th just east of Roosevelt! I know those guys real well. And I'm about due to pay them a visit. The sucky news in that neighborhood is that there was a great little "record store" called The Landing that disppeared in August, when they lost their lease. They had a great selection of all kinds of stuff -heaps of used CDs, obscure jazz/blues/folk, a lot of very nice vinyl and not too pricey. It's where I found a used copy of the Rhino Soft Boys comp that's been in permanent heavy rotation ever since. Unfortunately the building needed some repairs, so the rents went up and the tenants left. The miracle of gentrification continues to improve the quality of life for us all... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:21:59 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Tech question >On 10/19/07, kevin wrote: >> Anybody happen to know a reliable tech in the Seattle area who can fix a >> recalcitrant Sony Minidisc player? > >Precision Audio/Video in the Roosevelt neighborhood as a real good >rep. I don't know if they can fix mini-discs though. There are a >bunch of similar shops on Roosevelt between 65th and 62nd so you could >probably check out a few plces and find the best rate. Thanks for the suggestion. I spent some time on the phone this morning with the wizard who runs Northwest Audio, and he suggested the machine may have experienced a power surge during the windstorm late yesterday and recommended a couple of tricks that might get it to turn itself back on. Failing that he suggested calling Teletron. (He specifically warned me away from Precision because he thinks their rates are too high.) So I'm sure things will get straightened out shortly, one way or another. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:11:25 -0500 (CDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Tech question On Fri, 19 Oct 2007, kevin wrote: > Anybody happen to know a reliable tech in the Seattle area who can fix a > recalcitrant Sony Minidisc player? > > I know, it's clunky virtually obsolete technology but it's fun to play > with. When it works. Which as of this AM it's not. What kind of equipment is it? I left all my minidisc stuff in Portland if you're interested in it. Also, if it's a component deck and it's having trouble with recognizing or ejecting discs, it's because of a design flaw that causes a microswitch to be incompletely pressed and it can be fixed with some careful disassembly and a piece of electrical tape. J. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:15:03 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Heh. Jump (in pitch)! I found this rather entertaining. (Taken from here: http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/jump-in-pitch/) /So what happens when youbre Van Halen, the last song in your set list is the million-seller bJumpb with its synthesizer-keyboard openingb&and the recording youbre using to play back the synth is accidentally run at 48K instead of 44.1K? What happens is exactly this (recorded in Greensboro, NC four days ago): <> I canbt tell which is funnier, this long-hated cheesebag-anthem turned into a much more interesting, atonal mess in front of thousands of paying customers or the hilarious soldiering on of the Van Halens as they look at each other from inside the trainwreck. Eddie tries to transpose on the fly and match the wildly fucked up keyboards but the great thing there is the difference in pitch is non-musical - about 1.5 semitones sharp. So therebs /no frets he can choose /to fix the problem! I know Ibm courting my own on-stage disaster by making fun of this. But so what, itbs not like youbre going to be there to see it./ - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:28:59 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Fwd: Package Shipped to You from Yep Roc Records Looks like they're beginning to ship... - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- On 19 Oct 2007 16:41:24 -0400, "Redeye Distribution Mail Notification" said: > Dear Music Lover- > > A package was shipped to you from 11spot.com in partnership with Redeye > Distribution and Yep Roc Records on 10/19/2007 via U.S. Postal Service > First-Class to the following address: > > Jeffrey Norman - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:59:51 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: random my ass Okay, I know we've talked about this before...but I refuse to believe iTunes random shuffle feature is truly random. Yes, I know: the same song coming up twice in short order is, in fact, accountable for in a truly random shuffle...but the same song thrice? Four times? And: the same set of about four or five songs coming up twice each? From a group of 125 songs? A bit of background: that 125 songs is from a playlist of songs I'm selecting as potential inclusions in my year-end mixes. So I'm playing them through, and deciding whether they stay or go. If I've already heard the song (and didn't delete it from the playlist - that is, decide it's not staying), I click to go to the next track. I think what happens is iTunes "chooses" a set of songs to play next...and if one of those tracks comes up, and I reject it by clicking to the next track, rather than have that song fall back into the random mush, it's somehow favored to come up again within the next handful of tracks (ten or twenty, I'd say). - ---------------- Now playing: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - That's A Good Question - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:49 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: kevin Subject: Re: Heh. Jump (in pitch)! You can only offend the muses for so long before they throw you under the bus... >I found this rather entertaining. (Taken from here: >http://warmowski.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/jump-in-pitch/) > >/So what happens when youbre Van Halen, the last song in your set list >is the million-seller bJumpb with its synthesizer-keyboard openingb&and >the recording youbre using to play back the synth is accidentally run at >48K instead of 44.1K? > >What happens is exactly this (recorded in Greensboro, NC four days ago): <> > > >I canbt tell which is funnier, this long-hated cheesebag-anthem turned >into a much more interesting, atonal mess in front of thousands of >paying customers or the hilarious soldiering on of the Van Halens as >they look at each other from inside the trainwreck. Eddie tries to >transpose on the fly and match the wildly fucked up keyboards but the >great thing there is the difference in pitch is non-musical - about 1.5 >semitones sharp. So therebs /no frets he can choose /to fix the problem! > >I know Ibm courting my own on-stage disaster by making fun of this. But >so what, itbs not like youbre going to be there to see it./ > >-f. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:27:51 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: random my ass On 10/19/07, 2fs wrote: > > Okay, I know we've talked about this before...but I refuse to believe > iTunes > random shuffle feature is truly random. Yes, I know: the same song coming > up > twice in short order is, in fact, accountable for in a truly random > shuffle...but the same song thrice? Four times? And: the same set of about > four or five songs coming up twice each? From a group of 125 songs? Look, all I know is that my iTunes right here says I have 67,850 songs, and there is no way in hell that "Cindy (Rotten Tanx)" by Thurston Moore can possible have been randomly selected as many times as it has been. Srsly. np. CHROME DREAMS II... so far so good, although there are some really cheesy keys cluttering up my new version of "Ordinary People". I must say that, almost empirically, this should be called FREEDOM II instead of CHROME DREAMS II: it shares more personnel, arrangement ideas, and overall feel with the original FREEDOM album than any iteration of CHROME DREAMS I've ever heard (chiefly, Rick Rosas on bass, sporadic horn charts, resurrected trunk songs, and, yeah, occasionally painful synth patches). Some of the lyrics on the aforementioned "Ordinary People" have not been updated since the '80's, but refer to stuff that hadn't happened in 1976, so there you go. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:30:22 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: random my ass On 10/19/07, Rex wrote: > > > > On 10/19/07, 2fs wrote: > > > > Okay, I know we've talked about this before...but I refuse to believe > > iTunes > > random shuffle feature is truly random. Yes, I know: the same song > > coming up > > twice in short order is, in fact, accountable for in a truly random > > shuffle...but the same song thrice? Four times? And: the same set of > > about > > four or five songs coming up twice each? From a group of 125 songs? > > > Look, all I know is that my iTunes right here says I have 67,850 songs, > and there is no way in hell that "Cindy (Rotten Tanx)" by Thurston Moore can > possible have been randomly selected as many times as it has been. Srsly. > Update: since then, *three* more of that group of four-five songs have come up, for a third (at least) attempted go-round (I again clicked through to the next track). Notice that that was less than an hour ago... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:43:00 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: random my ass 2fs wrote: > Okay, I know we've talked about this before...but I refuse to believe iTunes > random shuffle feature is truly random. From an old CNet article that's decidedly vague: http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,339274094,00.htm *iTunes: Just how random is random?* By David Braue on 08 March 2007 Think that song has appeared in your playlists just a few too many times? David Braue puts the randomness of Apple's song shuffling to the test -- and finds some surprising results. Quick -- think of a number between one and 20. Now think of another one, and another, and another. Starting to repeat yourself? No surprise: in practice, many series of random numbers are far less random than you would think. Computers have the same problem. Although all systems are able to pick random numbers, the method they use is often tied to specific other numbers -- for example, the time -- that means you could get a very similar series of 'random' numbers in different situations. This tendency manifests itself in many ways. For anyone who uses their iPod heavily, you've probably noticed that your supposedly random 'shuffling' iPod seems to be particularly fond of the Bee Gees, Melissa Etheridge or Pavarotti. Look at a random playlist that iTunes generates for you, and you're likely to notice several songs from one or two artists, while other artists go completely unrepresented. This phenomenon has been observed widely across the world, with many conspiracy theorists suggesting there was more method than madness to Apple's randomisation routines. Just what are they implying? Consider, for a minute, that you're a music industry marketer. There could be little more tempting than direct access to the ears -- and, indirectly, the wallets -- of tens of millions of iPod users around the world. Through payment of a fee, the theory goes, a record label could increase the rotation frequency of their own music by tweaking Apple's randomisation formula. Popular songs and artists from their catalogue would pop up on playlists time and again, potentially explaining why your 50-strong playlist includes half a dozen Jackson 5 tracks but no Jackson Browne. Less insidiously, iTunes could be tracking the songs you like the most - -- it already does this -- then rotating them more often into its playlists. Concerns over the randomness of Apple's randomness have even reached the ears of Steve Jobs, who has emphatically denied that the iPod's shuffle feature -- and the design of the iPod Shuffle itself -- is anything more than random. Just tell that to the hundreds of forum participants posters who have posted their complaints about the devices' playlist approach. After an afternoon spent listening to far too much Bon Jovi, we decided to put iTunes to the test. Building the perfect library To evaluate iTunes' randomness, we borrowed a Mac Mini from Apple, with its fresh install of Mac OS X ensuring that we were working with an empty iTunes library and an otherwise completely clean slate. We purchased AU$170 worth of Apple iTunes Music Store prepaid cards, then proceeded to go on a carefully planned shopping spree. As it was necessary to have multiple songs from one artist to observe any untoward clustering, we purchased five songs from each of four artists, with four artists chosen arbitrarily from the online artist lists of each of the major music labels (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner Music). This gave us a total of 80 songs. To see whether popular songs were being rotated more frequently, we also purchased 20 more songs from Billboard's current (as of late February) Top 50 chart, which represented a variety of labels. All told, we purchased and downloaded 100 iTunes songs from the iTunes Music Store (download the spreadsheet for the full song list here). We then used the Smart Playlist feature to force iTunes to make random playlists 25 and 40 songs long, respectively. Ten playlists of each length were created, providing a total of 20 playlists and 650 possible song positions. Each song list was exported to a text file for analysis using Microsoft Excel. If Apple and the labels were including any information to change songs' priority, it would arguably be stored in the downloaded AAC files. To test this, we also added another 100 MP3 files, previously ripped from a variety of CDs, that definitely contained no extra coding information whatsoever. These artists included Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Erasure, Maroon 5, Bob Seger and even John Denver & The Muppets for variety. With 200 songs in the iTunes Library, we then repeated the random playlist test, creating an additional ten playlists with each of 25 and 40 songs. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:59:37 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: random my ass Just a few snotty but, I feel, essential comments from the peanut gallery: > > This tendency manifests itself in many ways. For anyone who uses their > iPod heavily, you've probably noticed that your supposedly random > 'shuffling' iPod seems to be particularly fond of the Bee Gees, Melissa > Etheridge or Pavarotti. I've personally not noticed this particular phenomenon. > Less insidiously, iTunes could be tracking the songs you like the most > -- it already does this -- No, it can't read minds. It can track the songs you *play* most frequently, but it doesn't follow that those are the songs you *like* the most. Some people are masochists. then rotating them more often into its playlists. > > After an afternoon spent listening to far too much Bon Jovi, we decided > to put iTunes to the test. There's a more obvious solution to that problem... - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:12:12 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Paisley problem... So as detailed in the tl;dr series (which wasn't cancelled; the network just didn't put any money behind it and kept switching the time slot so the audience couldn't find it), I've been listeing to a lot of Rain Parade lately. So I finally decided to refresh my basic knowledge of the band, and was reminded of something that I'd totally forgotten-- Matt Piucci was briefly a member of Crazy Horse! He appears on the Neil-less album "Left for Dead". Now, as far as I can tell Piucci was the lead vocalist in The Rain Parade, so I'm thinking, cool, suddenly I'm interested in what's rated as a less than stellar Crazy Horse album (noting that I also really like the Ian McNabb album with Crazy Horse). But hey, AMG contradicts itself on a fairly key point: Here in the album review it cites Piucci as the "lead guitarist" only. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:gifqxqe5ldde That seems odd for a couple of reasons. Am I wrong in thinking that Piucci is the main vocalist in The Rain Parade? Further, I was under the impression that most of the lead guitar in the (early) Rain Parade was Roback. Was it actually more of a split-duties situation? And furthermore, who is this Sonny Mone clown? But here, Piucci is credited with vocals/guitar, and Mone with guitar only: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:difixqw5ldte~T1 So, anybody heard this? What's teh deal? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:01:43 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Paisley problem... On 10/19/07, Rex wrote: > Matt Piucci was briefly a member of Crazy Horse! He appears on the > Neil-less album "Left for Dead". Now, as far as I can tell Piucci was > the lead vocalist in The Rain Parade, so I'm thinking, cool, suddenly > I'm interested in what's rated as a less than stellar Crazy Horse > album (noting that I also really like the Ian McNabb album with Crazy > Horse). But hey, AMG contradicts itself on a fairly key point: > > Here in the album review it cites Piucci as the "lead guitarist" only. > > http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:gifqxqe5ldde > > That seems odd for a couple of reasons. Am I wrong in thinking that > Piucci is the main vocalist in The Rain Parade? Further, I was under > the impression that most of the lead guitar in the (early) Rain Parade > was Roback. Was it actually more of a split-duties situation? And > furthermore, who is this Sonny Mone clown? > > But here, Piucci is credited with vocals/guitar, and Mone with guitar > only: > > http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:difixqw5ldte~T1 > > So, anybody heard this? What's teh deal? Wait a second: Rex, are you asking *us* about something involving a NY-less Crazy Horse? Isn't that kinda like that Al Einstein cat asking us something about physics? I mean, does anyone else here *own* any NY-less Crazy Horse albums? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:32:59 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: Paisley problem... 2fs says: > Wait a second: Rex, are you asking *us* about something involving a NY-less > Crazy Horse? > > Isn't that kinda like that Al Einstein cat asking us something about > physics? I mean, does anyone else here *own* any NY-less Crazy Horse albums? or perhaps we have to go to heisenberg and ask whether crazy horse can even exist without neil young or are the two entangled in some sort of intrinsic duality? (this will involve a "crazy horse album", a copy of "live rust", a box, some radium, and, for good measure, a cat.) as ever, lauren - -- - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "People with opinions just go around bothering one another." - The Buddha ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #372 ********************************