Category: Uncategorized

Disclosure

Last October, there was a ruling from the FTC that proposed
hefty fines for bloggers who fail to disclose “compensation” for
their reviews. It’s described in indignant detail on the
Teleread blog.

I’ve been ignoring that ruling. It certainly doesn’t apply
directly to me. I’m not organized enough to ask for free copies
of the books and DVD’s I review, and I certainly don’t have any
other direct compensation for what I do on this blog.

I don’t know how to explain my relationship with Google Adsense
in terms that won’t violate my agreement with them, but I found a
place to point
to that does.

When I link to products on Amazon.com, I allegedly get a cut if
you order them. But I really don’t think I’ve been telling you to
order the products unless I really like them, and I certainly
haven’t been telling anyone to get books or movies there unless
that’s really the way they like buying books and movies.

It’s been a long time since I actually got a check from either
of these programs.

I personally get almost all the movies I watch from Netflix. When I buy ebooks,
I get them from Fictionwise, which has a
much more enlightened policy on DRM than does Amazon, and a
discount structure that allows you to at least pretend you’re
getting a lot of free books. I get most of my hard copy books
from the library; if I think I really want to own a dead tree
copy, I either go to a bricks and mortar bookstore or order
online, often used.

Lots of the other things I buy I haven’t gotten from Amazon,
either, even if I pointed to the picture that Amazon keeps
online for us.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

I would have enjoyed
this
movie a lot more if there hadn’t been quite so much graphic
violence.

I’m not saying it was gratuitous violence — part of the point
of the movie is that the cops are violent in roughly the same
way as the criminals. I’m just saying I didn’t enjoy watching
the violence. I almost turned it off after the first scene, and then I
thought I hadn’t yet seen any of what had been recommended to me
about the movie, namely the relationship between the
Quebeçois and the Ontarian policemen. I thought they
might show less violence when describing the police than when
showing the criminals.

In terms of percentages, that was true — part of how the
relationship is developed is having the two cops meet each
others’ families, so you see not only gruesome scenes of murder
and other mayhem but family dinners and teenage ballet
recitals.

So if you don’t mind gruesome, this is a very well-done movie.
I particularly enjoyed the bilingual nature of the
relationship.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0015UKX4M&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

A Christmas Tale

I think I liked this
movie as much as I did because it’s so much like a large
family-saga novel. You can get a review about how good the
acting, directing, costumes, and set decoration are lots
of places.

I’m going to tell you a story about the soundtrack, because I
think it illustrates how a good movie can be both better and
worse than a good novel.

One thing mentioned in the movie, which probably would be
expanded on at more length in a novel, is how musical the family
is, and how they all play instruments. The playing is only demonstrated
occasionally in the movie, but there is a lot of listening to a wide variety of
recorded music.

In one scene, there’s a background that sounds like Christmas
carols in English. When I watched the credits, it turned out to be English
Village Carols, recorded live in the pubs around Sheffield,
England, where there’s an active tradition going back several
hundred years of singing carols in the pubs.

A friend of mine owns that CD, and he tells the story that he
was listening to it when a friend came over. The friend said,
“That sounds like a bunch of drunks singing Christmas carols.”

And then she looked at the liner notes, and exclaimed, “It
is a bunch of drunks singing Christmas carols!”

My point is that a novel would have a lot more explanation of
how some member of this elegant French family happened to be
interested in this off-the-beaten-track genre of music, and it
might well be part of the description of the various kinds of
tension between the various family members. But you wouldn’t
have anything like as much idea of what the music actually
sounded like.

I’d say this is one of the best films I’ve seen this year. It
isn’t a typical Christmas movie, but it isn’t as depressing at
the one-sentence plot summary (A mother dying of liver cancer
(played by Catherine DeNeuve) celebrates Christmas with her family) would imply, either, so you might
enjoy it for Christmas viewing.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B002PHVGYA&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00000JY6D&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Christmas Shopping Status

It’s a busy day (the afternoon at the Pub
Carol Sing and the morning turning an old
client site into a the
new wordpress-based site).

So I’ll just tell you how the Christmas shopping is going.

I don’t do all of it online, but I have a firm rule
that I never go into any store that I don’t like. Which is most
stores during the Christmas shopping rush. After all, what would
I be doing buying presents for someone who doesn’t share enough
of my tastes to want something from one of the places I
like going to?

I don’t have that much to do, since I only buy things for my
mother and my sister. Occasionally the dogs, and occasionally a
stocking stuffer for someone else, but nothing very strenuous.

My sister’s birthday is December 15, so that means waiting
until the Christmas deadlines is out for her. And she’s a
musician who makes about 60% of her income in the month of
December, so I try to get her something for her birthday that
she can enjoy without spending time on it.

She doesn’t read this blog regularly, but there’s no
guaranteeing that she won’t peek at it sometime, so I can’t give
you details at this point. But I got her an article of clothing
similar to something I’ve really enjoyed wearing, and a book I’ve really enjoyed reading. Then she
asked for an LED
piano lamp, so I ordered her that. I’ll be going down
there next weekend, so if the lamp arrives in time, that will be
the birthday present, and the surprise items will be the Christmas
presents. Otherwise the article of clothing will be the birthday
present and the book and the lamp will be for Christmas.

My mother pretends to not be able to turn her computer on, so
there’s no chance of her reading this blog item by accident, so
I can tell you in a little more detail about her presents. Her
asthma is even worse than mine, so I’m passing on the Asthma
book I talked about a few days ago, and a roll of the surgical
tape I’ve been using since I read it, and
I got her some Tea
Tree Therapy Eucalyptus Chest Rub, which I use as a lip
balm.

Incidentally, using the surgical tape to keep my mouth closed
when I sleep is working well — I seem to sleep better and wake
up more refreshed.

I should still get something more major for her, maybe a
houseplant or a heftier, prettier book. And I don’t have any
good ideas for the dogs. But this is farther along than I
usually am at this time of the year.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000P0HL2U&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00137P5HC&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1573243728&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0009Q2OOK&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

We are a Schwerpunkt

A couple of days ago, I added the Counterize
II wordpress plugin to this blog, so I’ve been wasting
time looking at all the information they pull out of the logs
for me.

It turns out that one of the top sources of referrals is a site
called notenseiten.de,
which says:

* laymusic.org
Von Laura Conrad transkribierte Stücke, Schwerpunkt Renaissance.

My German comes mostly from singing Schubert, but this might
mean something like “From Laura Conrad, transcribed pieces,
Focal Point for Renaissance music.” Instead of “Focal Point”, you
could say “Center of Gravity”, too. There might be some more
idiomatic translation, but I like both of these too well to go
looking for it.

I had to look up “Schwerpunkt”, since Schubert and his
publishers don’t use the word. And the first definitions I
found were from the military use of the word as one of the
possible tactics in a blitzkrieg. So I wasn’t sure it
was much of a compliment, but I decided they probably meant that
this was a good site to go to for transcriptions of Renaissance
music, which is a good thing to have people say.

I did write them and point out that the music transcriptions
have been moved to SerpentPublications.org,
so they might want to change their link.

Another opinion on Ubuntu 9.10

I reported on my
experience with the October release (9.10, Karmic Koala)
of ubuntu linux. The
respected hardware site Tom’s Hardware has
benchmarks
relative to 9.04.

If you don’t have time to read the whole article, the
conclusion is that this time the Ubuntu developers bit off more
than they could chew in 6 months, and while most of the
innovations they attempted would have been good if they’d come
through, the release is too buggy to be recommended either as an
upgrade or to a new user.

The reviewer rolled back his production system to 9.04. I was
concerned enough about the problems I found on the laptop that I
never upgraded my desktop. I haven’t rolled back the laptop,
but if I were doing anything more critical than browsing or
reading PDF’s on it I probably would.

I was interested that he didn’t
seem to find the same problems I’ve hit, unless his experience with
the system hanging was the same bug I found with the
screensavers. I haven’t had hangs since I told the screensaver
not to run. But of course, the screensaver is the most
sophisticated graphics I ever do, and that might not be the case
for him.

So if you’re thinking you should try Linux, I agree with the
recommendation in this review that you use Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope).

Cutting a program

When I ran through the program I had drafted for the December
17 concert, I found it took me 55 minutes to play. That’s
with playing everything roughly the right number of times
through, but without the 2 pieces I wasn’t playing, and without
doing any patter between pieces. Since we’d like the actual
performance to run about 50 minutes, and absolutely can’t go
over an hour, this meant it was too long.

We postponed making a decision about what to cut until last
night, but since there will be at most two more full rehearsals, and
possibly only one, it’s time to make the cuts.

There was one obvious piece (Susanna
Fair by William
Byrd) that I hoped we’d have time to learn, but we were
still fumbling for notes last night. So doing that will take
time away from doing ensemble work, so that one’s out. Another
piece (Judith
and Holofernes) was put in to go with
Susanna, so it’s out, too.

About half the program is going to be Morley Canzonets of two
and three voices. I’d love to do a whole program of
these, but I was a little worried that the set was too long for
people who don’t listen to this kind of music all the time. The
other sets are broken up with catchy dance tunes, but this one is
all 16th century polyphony, all the time. So I cut a couple of
those, too.

There’s still one more piece that’s pitched a bit high for my
current vocal
difficulties, and last night when we sang it our pitch
drifted sharp, so the high D’s that sounded a bit
strained in the first verse, I couldn’t even hit in the second
verse. We’re going to try singing it a step down, which will
make it on the low side for our tenor, so if we turn out not to
like it at either pitch, we’ll cut that one too.

If you’re recording and don’t feel like using a stop watch to
time things, the program exiftool will tell you all kinds of
things about a number of file formats, including MP3 files.

Asthma-Free Naturally

I mentioned having been intrigued by this
article a couple
of weeks ago. I decided that buying this
book by Patrick McKeown would make sense if I were really serious about doing
breathing exercises.

Like a lot of these self-help books, the “science” is probably
completely bogus, but the anecdotal evidence that the advice
helps is interesting if it’s advice about a problem you really
need to solve.

I had independently figured out that breathing through the nose
actually helped during an asthma attack. So I believe some of
the rest of the stuff about practicing breathing through the
nose and I have been doing some of the recommendations. I’m not
going as far as figuring out how to laugh with my mouth closed,
but I did order some surgical tape to try taping my mouth shut
while I’m sleeping. Instead of his nose unblocking exercise for
nasal congestion, which sounds uncomfortable, I’m continuing to
do the alternate nostril breathing I learned in Yoga class.

The advice about diet and exercise is fairly standard, and not
particularly well-written. For example, here’s the paragraph
about meat:

Fruit and vegetables are of primary importance. A
little meat is essential for good health, but for some people in
the Western world it has become an obsession.

I don’t know how many vegetarians the author would have known
in Ireland in 2008, but you certainly can’t talk to the population
of Cambridge, Massachusetts that way.

I have completely stopped taking my steroid inhaler, and am
controlling attacks by a combination of breathing exercises and
the albuterol (rescue) inhaler. I’m not saying it’s a complete
solution, and when I get over the undesirable side effects of
taking the maximum dose of steroid inhaler for so long after
that cold in October, I may well go back to using it a bit. But
it’s possible that these exercises will help reduce the need for
it.

So I’m making a qualified recommendation of this book. I don’t
really believe the thesis that asthma is a result of a shortage of
CO2, or that asthmatics take in 4-6 times as much air
as normal breathers. But some of the recommendations probably
help some people, and if you’re having trouble with your asthma,
it’s worth thinking about.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1573243728&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Mulled Cider

This is simple enough to be more of a procedure than a recipe,
but since I’ve seen people spend a lot more time and money for
less good results, I’m going to tell you about it anyway.

I do this pretty much any time in the winter that I’m having
people over. You have to be able to buy cider without
preservatives. For this purpose, pasteurization doesn’t matter,
but I’m sure the preservatives make a difference in the flavor,
and they aren’t at all necessary.

I always use the crock pot, because having the drinks out of my
(small) kitchen is a good idea if I’m also doing any kind of
cooking. But if you have the right traffic path, you can
certainly use a large pot on the stove.

Then you need something like a tea ball or a small cloth bag or
just a handkerchief or other cloth. Put all the whole
spices in your cabinet into the center of the handkerchief or
other receptacle and close it. (In the case of the
handkerchief, you tie the opposite corners together.)

I think you should buy cinnamon sticks for this purpose if you
don’t have them. Otherwise, use whatever you have. Some possibilities:

  • The little
    slivers of nutmeg that you can’t grate any more on the grater
    without grating your fingers, too.
  • Cloves
  • Whole allspice
  • Cardamom. (Take the seeds out of the pod, if you have the
    pods.)
  • Star Anise

Put the cider and the spice ball or bag into your chosen pot.
Bring to a boil and turn down to a very low simmer. If you do
this before the guests arrive, you can offer them hot cider when
they get there. They will appreciate this if it’s a cold day.
Otherwise, have it with dessert.

There are people who will sell you official cider mulling
spices, and if you don’t have any of the above items in your
cupboard and can’t think of anything you want to do with them
except make mulled cider, that makes sense. But if you put
cloves in ham or star anise in pork or fresh ground nutmeg in
anything, you don’t need the mulling spices too.

For some reason most of the recipes add sweetener, but I’ve
never seen any necessity for it. Maybe they used to make cider
with less sweet apples, and the recipe writer haven’t noticed
that plain cider is plenty sweet enough now.

If you’re thinking about one-ingredient hard cider, this is the
wrong way to go about it. After the boil and simmer, the cider
doesn’t ferment anything like as fast as the stuff straight from
the store does.

Food Stamps

There’s a long
article on the front page of the New York Times this morning
about the increasing use of food stamps.

It does mention that it’s been government policy over the last
three administrations to encourage the use of the program, but
completely leaves out (or maybe postpones for another article) the
changes in eligibility requirements that have enabled the
increased numbers of people to use it.

I think the article would lead a casual reader to believe that the
people in Orange County who are getting the food stamps now
could just as well have gotten them ten years ago, except that
they’d have been embarrassed to have their neighbors see them
using the stamps in the checkout line.

I don’t know anything about eligibility requirements in
California, but I looked at the Massachusetts ones 8 years ago
when I ran out of unemployment compensation and was going to
have to start dipping into savings.

At that time, in Massachusetts, you couldn’t get food stamps if
you had more than $600 in a bank account (including an IRA with
penalties for accessing it before you were 59 1/2), or a car
worth more than $2000. $600 is less than a month’s rent for
most people in Massachusetts, and a car worth less than $2000 is
probably going to lead you to miss work several days a year. The combination of the car worth less than $2000 and the less than a month’s rent in the bank is likely to tempt you to put off fixing your brakes when they break.

I was becoming increasingly alarmed as I read the article about
all the counties where nearly half the residents are eligible for
food stamps, so I googled for the current requirements in
Massachusetts.

It turns out that some time in the last eight years, they’ve
stopped asking you about assets at all unless you’re also
getting certain other means-tested benefits. So I would
probably have been eligible 8 years ago, and all those people getting the food stamps
may well have enough money to pay their rent and fix their brakes.