(Well, yeh, even with its matte finish: still shiny!)
Heizer DoubleTap. Methinks I’d need some wrist exercises… (but, isn’t that what a range is for? ;-))
The Friday Lineup
Well, Drudge has rounded up the usual suspects. Caption his Friday Lineup if you will:
(I’m think along the lines of, “If you don’t get that finger out of my face… “ *heh*)
Oh, Mr. Zero?
Missing the Point
I received an email today that contained the following:
If course the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind can see the differences. The point is that the Hivemind hates normal, everyday folks who pay their own way in life and assemble in an orderly fashion to petition their government for a redress of legitimate grievances while showing respect for their country. (It’s that last part that particularly gripes the Hivemind.) The Hivemind despises honest, decent, hardworking, productive citizens.
OTOH, the dirty, disrespectful, “I just came to this ‘protest’ to skip school, score some dope and sex and hack off my parents” Wall Street Occupation dumbasses? The Hivemind’s cuppa tea, folks.
THAT is the point of the Hivemind’s propaganda concerning these two very groups of people.
BTW, how many of these “protesters” in these “spontaneous uprisings” are getting paid for the gig (instead of taking time off and sacrificing income as most of the TEA Party folks did)?
It’d be interesting to know more about just who is funding these things. If we had actual journalists in the Hivemind we might find things like this out, eh?
Now That’s Just Not Nice!
Not nice at all! Someone needs to think these things through before publishing the web page…
Don’t take these folks’ unthinking cruelty seriously. RIP, Steve.
Who’s Actually Running This Mickey Mouse Outfit, Anyway?
Hint:
NOT Part of the Solution
First, a couple of graphics, then a brief (not quite *heh*) disquisition.
And a fuzzy blow-up of part of that screencap:
Now, the problems:
1. The graphics are the result of a screencap from a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson to a group of “more than one hundred school superintendents from around the world” at the 2008 Apple Education Leadership Summit.
2. School administrators, in the US at least, are arguably the stupidest people in education (Check their scores on the GRE, for example: bottom of the barrel.)
3. The talk in the video linked is about creativity and education, and in particular the links to divergent thinking. Sloppy thinking and presentation creates a false dichotomy between divergent and linear thought (something Robinson also does in his book, “Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative,” IIRC).
4. No matter that Robinson does briefly allude to the fact that divergent thinking is but a part of creativity and “genius” (he’s remarkably chary in his description of either) notice the graphic accompanying his talk on the decline of divergent thinking from ages 3-5 to ages 13-15. That’s right. Although his words say he’s talking about divergent thinking, his graphics say he’s talking about “genius”–whatever that is. And remember: he’s talking to what is likely a group of the dumbest people in education…
5. Robinson also makes absolutely stupid and false comments like, “…all children are born artists…” *faugh!* Not even all children are born with enough creative spark to be artists, and NONE of them are born with the talent AND the disciplined training, practice and experience to BE artists. It’s comments like this that encourage idiots to admire their own inartful scribblings, ugly dabblings and awful screechings as though they were art, and also encourage the appreciation of such crap by dullards made even duller by people who buy into Robinson’s stupid meme.
Mozart wasn’t BORN a creative genius. He was born with the POTENTIAL to BECOME a creative genius, and by means of his father’s (often harsh, excessively so, perhaps, if my reading of Mozart’s upbringing and the record itself is accurate*) tutelage, developed that potential to amazing heights.
I could go on and on (and on), but the point is simple: school administrators–as a general class–don’t need to hear this kind of poorly thought out tripe. They’ve already heard too much of this stuff over the years and from the evidence do not have the mental capacity to filter it for nuggets of wisdom or even understand them if they could do so.
Gotta Love the Sharp Stuff
“A man who doesn’t have a sharp knife handy when he needs it just ain’t very sharp.”–anonymous sage
I quite literally have no idea how many knives I own. I probably ought to do an exhaustive inventory of them, but I also have a lot of other chores on my plate, so that’s not likely to happen any time soon. Still, every now and then I drag an old fav out of some pile sitting around and clean it up, sharpen the blade and just generally work it to make certain it’s still usable… then after a few weeks’ use it’ll drift on back into some stack and I’ll fall back on my three or four most-used knives.
I dug this one out today and did a tuneup on it. (These aren’t pictures of MY knife but some of the exact same model kyped off an ebay display.)
That’s supposedly high carbon steel (though it “takes” an edge more like stainless steel and “stains” like high carbon–the worst of both worlds *heh*) and the “ivory” handle is Delrin. (See here.) It take a LOT of work to get a decent edge on this blade, and it doesn’t really hold an edge all that well. But. It fits my hand very, very well and has a nicely designed shape and is well balanced for skinning and general knife work, so I used to carry it in my right boot almost all the time, for quite a few years, back in the day when ropers were daily wear for me. Daily attention to the blade was enough to maintain the edge, once it HAD an edge of any decency. Heck, if it already ad a fair edge, the bottom of a coffee cup would do some fair daily maintenance.
Have to keep the blade oiled (I’m still going on a very small bottle of an IBM synthetic oil that was used on some of their old tape drive technology), but if I do that (I hadn’t in a couple of years so that needed attention), the blade stays pretty clean.
It’s a handy knife when it’s been maintained. I gave a like knife to my brother who has reported that he found it quite useful in deer season.
Imperial Frontier Model 432. Pretty cheap. The ebay listing had it around $20, IIRC. Imperial, of course, is history as a knife maker. (Yeh, yeh, I’m sure the brand name has been acquired by some company that’s now making knives in Bangalore or somewhere, but they’re bound to be not as good as even this mediocre knife. AND they’re really, REALLY not “Imperials”.)
I have some other Imnperials–pocket knives–from the early 1900s that are really nice knives for their intended uses: hold a good edge, nice “hand” etc. This one, though… if I carried a boot knife on a regular basis again, this would probably be it.
Re-Post: The Principles of Classicism
I linked this in my previous post, but thought to myself, “Self, this ought to be brought back out into a more prominent place,” and so here it is.
Bear with me for a bit. This is all about why I’m a fan of classical (though especially Classical–the small “c” is different) music. It’s not (exactly) what you may think. At least, not entirely.
In music, the term Classic Period refers to a period from roughly the middle of the 18th Century into (and perhaps a little beyond) the first decade of the 19th Century during which certain “givens” of musical expression were practiced and the major forms of most of what is viewed as “classical” music were developed. Do note: in architecture, the graphic arts and the like, the period is more likely to be called Neoclassicism.
(That darned small–or uncial–c”. *heh* So “Classical Music” is NOT what most folks think of when “classical music” is said… )
One of the primary reasons I am a fan of Classical (and even much classical) music is not just because the music is complex, beautiful and compelling but because it is the expression of a particular ethos which our society sorely lacks.
Aside from technical matters of form, the principles of Classicism as found in Classical Music were
- balance
- clarity
- accessibility
- expressiveness
- edification
Although two of these principles are still found in abundance in contemporary music (though not in contemporary “serious” or “academic” music, IMO) it is the lack of the others, especially the last, that has seriously harmful effects upon our society. Continue reading “Re-Post: The Principles of Classicism”
I Demur
So, David Cope, a retired professor, composer of 20th Century “modern music” in the “serious composition” vein that musically mirrors Holly Lisle’s prescription for writing literary trash has written a computer program to “create original, modern music” that some musical dullards call “beautiful”.
Yeh, yeh. I’ve heard some of David Cope’s “serious” compositions. Hate ’em. Meaningless UNbeauty, for the most part. His computer program “composes” similar stuff: OK for Muzak, in limited doses perhaps, but what I’ve heard simply goes nowhere. It’s music in a less real sense than the manufactured Top 40 crap that dominates the music industry nowadays, IMO. Here’s a sample:
[audio:emily_howell_1.mp3]Not ugly, but boring. It goes nowhere, has no sense of direction or teleos, and that’s a killer for me. It has no implicit “why” but just meanders along, like most mind-numbed sheeple nowadays (which, I suppose, makes it fitting “music” for that audience). The only feeling it inspires is an urge to yawn. Glurge. It seems to me that those with a purely intellectual, detached (musically lobotomized by Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries as opposed to musically lobotomized by the recording industry) grasp of “music” would be the ones something like this vapid, sugar free cotton candy would most appeal to: pseudo-intellectuals with pretensions of good taste. (Hmmm, that would also seem to make a good fit for most congresscritter who are “pseudo-smart with delusions of grandeur”… )
“No musical calories! Yipee!”
*feh*
Here’s another:
[audio:Emily_Howell_Track2.mp3]*gak*
Compare and contrast on your own:
[audio:fanfare%20common%20man.mp3]Now THAT was from one of the few “serious” 20th Century composers who could write worth a dam*. Even at volume levels seriously lower than performance levels and with just my lil 2+1 computer speakers, that raised the hairs on my arms and neck. Good stuff, Maynard, not the kind of crap that speaks to the David Copes of the world.
*sigh*
Oh, well.