The micro.blog March photo challenge provides a word as a prompt to inspire the images for that day. Today’s prompt was Early. So as I was awake anyway I recorded the chorus of birds:
Those more able to identify the birds than I may care to compare with this recording from April 2018:
At least we are no longer disturbed by the May 2021 woodpecker hammering away at 5am:
Apparently The Dark Side of the Moon first appeared fifty years ago. I did have a copy but had not been much interested in what they were doing since 1969s Ummagumma. As The Dark Side of the Moon was hugely successful around the world I was always amused by the local branch of W H Smith which sold it from a section in their record department labeled “Underground”.
But more than enough will have been written about that elsewhere let us explore the quieter backwaters with the less trodden paths where we can find delights such as a wonderful a cappella version: listen on Apple Music – Spotify – YouTube.
You mean countries within the EU are making their own laws as if they are an individual nation? Who knew that was a thing? But at least we are going to have Free Ports. Oh! Wait! What?
The annual subscription to the i news app is mostly due to their excellent puzzle section. There are interesting variations on Sudoku puzzles and some groan inducing crossword clues:
But the recent addition of a Wordle style GuessWord has fascinated more for the flaws than the puzzle. Apparently today’s five letter word has two Es, two Os, two Ts and two Ls. 🤔
It works as expected on the web site:
My email to the editor will also complain about the name, although similar to many such puzzles, one is not guessing random words but deducing the correct word from the clues provided.
A while ago I started following a blog after they posted some interesting music stuff but it transpired that the guy was one of those strange American conservative types who bemoan the intolerance of other people whilst displaying an equal degree of intolerance to anyone who may hold a differing view to his – which is probably most normal people. I continue to follow it somewhat fascinated.
To support his belief system he will often share some quote that someone else has cut and pasted across the Internet. More often than not these are fictions created on a whim and then attached to a famous name to give it some credibility or are an actual quote misattributed. So we may have a quote claiming to be from Solzhenitsyn that he did not actually write or say and probably never thought about either but it roughly aligns with what the blogger thinks so he cuts and pastes it anyway.
As is usually the case with such cherry picking the quotes are provided with neither a source nor any context. But in these information rich times one can spend a pleasant few minutes with a mug of coffee debunking the nonsense.
Today we had a quote by the Canadian born author Saul Bellow:
which was an interesting one. It is widely attributed to Bellow across the Interweb and Bellow does indeed use these words in a novel about a Jewish homosexual about to die from AIDS (a traditional right wing conservative theme) – Ravelstein but he is quoting:
The rule for the dead is that they should be forgotten. After burial there is a universal gradual progress toward oblivion. But with Ravelstein this didn’t altogether work. He claimed and filled a more conspicuous space in Rosamund’s life as well as mine. She remembered a text from her schooldays that went “Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.”
To Ravelstein this would have been the usual high-minded high-school kabibble.
Ravelstein – Saul Bellow – Viking Press – April 2000
The actual quote comes from the Scottish born philosopher Thomas Davidson. It can be found in a letter to his students collected in the book The education of the wage-earners; a contribution toward the solution of the educational problem of democracy. (Boston, Ginn 1904). It is number five in a list of twenty aphorisms.
The “Rely upon your own energies, and so do not wait for, or depend on other people.” part is from the first aphorism with an erroneous “so”. Cut and paste. Cut and paste.
There is an old post, from 2011, that is regularly visited (I assume it is linked on a forum somewhere) and so it is probably time to do an updated version expanded into several posts covering all the options available today.
To connect using a WiFi network:
Open Audio MIDI Setup which you will find in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder – or hit the Command and Space keys and type Audio MIDI into the Spotlight search box.
From the Window menu select Show MIDI Studio.
This will open the MIDI Studio window from where you can select Open MIDI Network Setup from the MIDI Studio menu.
You need to create a new session by clicking the + button
The default name is Session 1. Tick the box to select that as the network session you wish to use
With an app sending MIDI signals your device will be available. Click the Connect button for it to join the network session.
Your device will be listed as a Participant in the right hand panel – from where it can be disconnected if required.
In the iPad’s/iPhone’s app you will see the Session 1 option within the MIDI settings – sometimes shown as a Settings button or three dots …
or a cog wheel icon
Once connected to the Network Session it is all happening in GarageBand…
I am not you. I do not live your life. Just because something is perfectly normal to you and everyone you know please do not assume that it is so for everyone.
Just because you skipped that boring lecture on parsing regular expressions please do not tell me that my email address is undeliverable:
I would guess this email address was deliverable when you were still in nappies.
I, along with eight million other people across England and Wales, do not have a passport so please avoid requirements such as…
Whilst fairly trivial but annoying examples they are symptomatic of a trend which is resulting in people not getting housing or employment because they do not fit neatly into some arbitrary but erroneous requirements…. Dear Estate Agents, I can live perfectly comfortably on one third of the income you assume I need to rent a property.
Worryingly such problems reach right to the top; a Tory MP in today’s Times complaining about the “hordes of twentysomethings with an Excel spreadsheet”.
It transpires that the undeliverable email problem was caused by the company using some bodgers, rather than developers, to create their site and they are paying for the loqate verification services – which clearly do not work.
It has been very chilly lately but it is returning to a normal temperature today – which should please the iPad…
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