Adapted from Ramen and Rand
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Conservative Cat, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Conficker Worm Info
N.B., I know I said posting would be light this week, but this is lunch time and this is light. *heh*
For Windows users: OK, so it’s even been in the Mass Media Hivemind misreporting recently. Easy thing to do:
Note the octal address in the pic below. Scan your computer using the BitDefender utility that’s there. If it finds an issue, and that issue is the conficker worm, go here, using a clean computer elsewhere and a flash drive, if necessary, and pick up the BitDefender conficker cleaner:
(Click on pic to enlarge)
After scanning and cleaning (if necessary), Visit Microsoft Updates and scan your computer for any updates, download and install. Then update your anti-virus and anti-spyware software.
You’re good to go.
Hopefully I won’t have too many folks’ computers to clean next week, but that’s their lookout. Both my readers here (*heh*) will be fine.
R&R
Notalotta posting going on this week @twc. R&R (Rest and Reflection) time.
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The Sounds of Music IV
While my personal favorite of all time among composers is Beethoven, among Romantic era composers only Brahms seems to have the height and depth and breadth of reach that such as Bach and Beethoven achieved. Here, in a selection from the last song cycle–“Four Serious Songs” (Vier Ernsten Gesänge) (Op. 121)–Brahms wrote not quite a year before his death, is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing O Tod, wie bitter bist Du?:
Choice
One of the things I like about the PC platform vs. the Mac platform is the breadth and depth of choices available. But this isn’t a post about that, really. It’s a post about choice of platforms for a simple lil web browser. Heck, my youngest nephew was delighted to discover he could use this lil browser on his Wii, and the standard downloads available for this browser include a dazzling array of platforms:
Nice, eh? Choices. *heh*
Things Like This Chap My Gizzard
*sigh* AGAIN I heard some idiot speak of a “one month anniversary*“.
*feh*
I blame it on the schools, lax parenting (by exceptionally stupid parents) and the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, in part. The rest I blame on people who are willfully dumber than a bag of hammers.
*the “anni” part of the word means YEAR. One year, two years, three years, four… NOT “month” or “week” or whatever other idiotic word choice enstupiated dumbasses decide to place in proximity to “anniversary”.
“Missed it by that much”
Apparently some wires got crossed at M$ and some M$ofties posted a date for the Win7RC release…
One has to wonder just how much of an accident this was, though, since a technical release presaging the RC is already floating around. Still, it’s nice to know that the very first release of a new OS from Microsoft that’s held any sort of positive interest for me may well be on track for a Q3 RTM. Oh, it’s not quite good enough to pry my hands off Ubuntu (or perhaps another of the ‘nix OSes I’m still trying out–like Linux Mint or even–if it matures quickly enough–LinuxMCE), but it looks like an excellent candidate for a HTPC I want to piece together this summer, especially if the TVServer portion of MediaPortal works out well enough. (Still testing/trying that out on Win7 beta.)
Anywho, it would have been nice to see the actual page while it was up, but at least there’re text/screenshots at the link. Missed it by that much.
Obama: Still Campaigning for Office
Just an observation: all the O! knows how to do is run for office. He’s never held elective office where he actually did anything… except run for re-election or another office… or write a book about how wonderful he is. Now that he’s president, all he can do is continue to say, in essense,
“Vote for [me], [I] confuse cause and effect, mix up issues, and solve problems by tackling something else instead!”*
It seems to me that sums up the O!’s entire agenda; everything else is just the details of poorly-thought-out socialism by way of corrupt Chicago politics.
*The statement was adapted from “The Skeptic’s Handbook,” a manual for sensible people to use in debating members of The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming on the subject of carbon dioxide’s role in global warming.
The Sounds of Music III
For SJ Reidhead (and others who are inclined toward listening to really good music very well performed), here are a couple of alternate performances of songs featured at The Pink Flamingo recently.
Jussi Björling singing the Pearl Fishers Duet with Robert Merrill (in answer to SJ’s posting of Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes singing the same piece :-))
And since SJ has featured so very many posts of Nessun Dorma performances (go and check out all of them except for the terrible performance by Mario Lanza *gag* and–unless you enjoy a poke in the ear with a sharp stick, the “performance” by Michael Bolton), I thought The Definitive Nessun Dorma deserved a place here. 🙂
While I prefer baritone voices in general, some tenors such as Placido Domingo, John McCormack and Jussi Björling (among other great voices) always move me. Jussi Björling seems largely forgotten nowadays, and of course Placido Domingo is the greatest living tenor, but this guy’s recordings are the only tenor voice performances guaranteed to move me to tears of joy (with, to my shame, just the very slightest touch of envy *heh*) nearly as frequently as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s do.
The Sounds of Music II
Another baritone, some would say (and I would include myself among that number) THE baritone voice of the 20th Century: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. To this day, no one sings lieder as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau did. One could almost take any recorded example of Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert, for example, and say, “That is how it must have sounded in Schubert’s mind’s ear.”
Here is one of many examples of absolute excellence from this most excellent baritone artist singing a light piece from the master of art songs:
Schubert and Fischer-Dieskau: the ones who taught me that German can be a beautiful language. 😉 Oh, as an aside, notice the piano artistry of his accompanist. Schubert knew how to write accompaniment beautifully and Sviatoslav Richter captures Schubert’s artistry there very nearly as much as Fischer-Dieskau does with the song. Excellence all around.
But that was just a wee taste.
If I had to single out one Schubert song as my fav, I’d probably choose Der Lindenbaum from Die Winterreisse–my personal fav Schubertian song cycle–and the performance below is certainly a decent example (“decent example” for him being “surpassing excellence”) of Fischer-Dieskau’s mastery (although I have a couple of other recordings of his performances of this song I prefer, slightly, in terms of Fischer-Dieskau’s voice), and ALFRED BRENDEL (!) accompanying. Oh! Joy! Brendel does capture Schubert’s genius as well Fischer-Dieskau does, and that is a monumental accomplishment, but then, he is Alfred Brendel… *heh*
This is from Fischer-Dieskau’s 1985 collaboration with Brendel, when both were at their artistic peak, although at 60, Fischer-Dieskau’s voice had lost just a wee tad, just the slightest edge, of its former strength. His 1972 performance with Gerald Moore was, IMO slightly better vocally, but lacked the depth of artistry Brendel brought to this one, an artistry that seems designed to wed almost perfectly with Fischer-Dieskau’s artistry to make the whole much greater than the sum of its parts. In the earlier performances with Gerald Moore, Moore, while as always brilliant, was definitely “second fiddle” to Fischer-Dieskau, so the performances lacked the depth of partnership that mark the Fischer-Dieskau/Brendel performances in my ear. (What can I say, ALFRED BRENDEL! *heh*)
So, in spite of the slight vocal problems Fischer-Dieskau evidences (mostly in other songs in the cycle, but a bit here as well), the maturity of his artistry, his emotional depth and engagement with the music combined with Alfred Brendel’s masterful artistry on the piano makes this more than just the gold standard in performances of Schubert lieder; it makes it virtually unsurpassable, IMO. Pure joy to listen to.
It just doesn’t get any better than such as this. You can find copies of the entire Fischer-Dieskau/Brendel performance of Die Winterreisse here. Well worth the cost of a CD. More than well worth it.
By now you may have gathered I kinda like Fischer-Dieskau’s vocal performances. If you’ve somehow missed that lil point, then sign up for a remedial reading class NOW. 🙂
Trackposted to Nuke’s, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Faultline USA, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, Stageleft, and Highly Opinionated, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.