Interweb

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In 1964 Terry Riley composed ‘In C‘; a piece comprising 53 sections that should be played in order but any of which can be repeated. The piece ends when the last player has finished the 53rd section. Riley’s recording of the piece was released in 1968 following it in 1969 with A Rainbow In Curved Air – two records that a young chap at the time would enjoy very much.

Today, in the post gramophone world, there is a webiste that gathers multiple recordings of In C and allows the visitor to enjoy them all at once. The site suggests adjusting the rate at which the recordings play so that they are all synchronised but I cannot imagine any sensible listener wanting to do that.

Screenshot of Incync site

Adding benches

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The Open Benches site collects images of memorial benches; usually comprising a close up of the memorial plaque, a view of the bench and the view from the bench. Previously I have failed to add a bench because of some GPS problem – possibly because I was uploading from the library on the iPad. But I found that I can add them directly from the phone so added this splendid example from St. Paul’s at Horn Hill on a recent trip to Chalfont St. Peter.

I have a few more to add.

Sloppy menus

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I was intrigued by this drop down menu:

Menu displaying a list of countries

It opened by default at United States, presumably because Americans would struggle to find it otherwise, which is not a problem as it is a short hop to United Kingdom. But there was no UK. Perhaps it is listed as Great Britain. As we scroll to Gr we do indeed find… United Kingdom. But why is United Arab Emirates at the top? Switzerland under C? Spain under E? Croatia under H? Ireland between Indonesia and India? South Korea under K (I guess)? Luxembourg before Latvia? Mexico amidst the Ma’s? Norway before New Zealand? Sweden the first S and Taiwan the last T? South Africa can be found at the end.

Presumably it was vibe coded and just accepted as is without anybody actually checking what was spewed out. This was from a commercial site. Why would I trust you with my order if you cannot be bothered to get even such basic things right?

Welcome to our AI future — what can possibly go wrong?