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| Monday, July 20th, 2009 |
adrexia
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11:40p |
Jacobite/Hanoverian fiction
Following on from this, have any of you read any historical fiction books set around the (2nd) Jacobite rebellion* that you would recommend? Non-fiction I sort of have/can find, but the closest Historical Fiction I've got is a book about Mary Queen of Scots, which is a couple of hundred years too early. ;) Actually, I also have a book by Sir Walter Scott (The Heart of Mid-Lothian) that seems to be set around that time but... not the easiest read. For example: "Dinna speak on't, Jeanie," said her father; "I wish never to hear it named mair - that is, after the rouping is ower and the bills paid. But I brought a' the beasts ower-by that I thought ye wad like best. There is Gowans, and there's your ain brockit cow, and the wee hawkit ane, that ye ca'd - I needna tell ye how ye ca'd it - but I couldna bid them sell the petted creature, the the sight o't may sometimes gie us a sair heart - it's no the poor dumb creature's fault - And ane of twa beasts mair I hae reserved, and I caused them to be driven before the other beasts, that men might say, as when the son of Jesse returned from battle, 'This is David's spoil.'" I'll probably read it anyway. It's been in my collection for years, I've just never worked up the effort it's going to take to read it. -- * Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion of 1745. As opposed to the rebellion of 1715. Current Mood:  okay |
vizi
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10:32p |
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badasstronaut
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12:15p |
mayonnaise party?
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) boyzici posted about a pack people could buy to help them have a party to celebrate their prejudice. It hasn't ever occured to me to have a party to celebrate something I'm against. However, perhaps I should have a party about mayonnaise. Actually, that sounds like a really disgusting idea. Current Mood:  okay |
hairymonster
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10:34p |
Holidays
Well its the first day of my holidays, two whole weeks off. Pity I don't get to choose when I get off, but still nice to have the time. Rose has been spending the weekend with bumponalog and seems to be doing so with not too many complaints this time. Did a huge shop today, $300 on groceries and hardly actually got anything. Don't think it will even last a week. Piper and I both seem to have become addicted to facebook games. Kind of sad really, the whole idea was to make more friends, not spend time playing on the computer. * * "Emerald" - Dealing with life * * Current Mood:  contentCurrent Music: Enya - Trains and Winter Rains |
linuxdude_tux
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9:57p |
Fuck you Internet, Fuck you!
Our lecturer gave an interesting talk about the way in which the dominant entertainment medium affects the population. The basic idea of it was that 50 years ago people predominantly read books and had time for reflection about what they read, then along came TV which gave people the expectation that their entertainment would be spoon-fed to them and people therefore became a lot more passive and didn't reflect on the content at all. More recently the Internet has come along where people can get just the content that interests them, when they want it and with links to other interesting content thereby reducing people's attention spans. So thanks to this progression we now have people who are lazy, don't reflect much on the content they view/read and have short attention spans. It explains a lot. Obviously this is a broad generalisation but I thought it was an interesting thing to think about anyway. Current Mood:  happyCurrent Music: Abba - Love isn't Easy |
niennahirilfea
|
8:26p |
More bullets than a mob hit :p
Weekend: - Spent most of the weekend with Zakzahn, who is (as I think I might've mentioned once or twice) completely wonderful :p
- We saw the new Harry Potter on Friday. I enjoyed it, but I think it could have been better in places. Still, given the size of the book they did well imo.
- Watched the first few episodes of the 9th Doctor again, he really was excellent, wasn't he. I need to re-watch the rest of that season.
- Made a brief appearance at the KAOS mad science party Saturday night, was feeling a bit anti-social so didn't stay long, but had to be there to give my brand new lab coat and goggles an outing. *grin*
- Sunday was spent doing not much of anything, spent a lot of it on the computer, accidentally blew my 20Gb data cap for the month, leaving me with dial-up speeds till the 15th of August *headdesk* Oops.
Today: - I had my first bio lab, unfortunately it was the "introduction" lab, which could have been lifted directly from my 6th-form year, complete with a tutorial on "how to find things in the library" and the basic health and safety walk through ("Now, why do you think it might be important to wear covered shoes in the lab...anyone?" *sigh*) I understand it's important to have a gradual introduction to concepts for those new to bio (or returning after a long break, like me), but honestly, if you can't work some of this stuff out on your own, I really worry for your safety in the outside world.
- Next week in the lab we'll be dissecting broccoli. I kid you not. I'm so starved for science that I'm actually looking forward to it.
- Still adjusting to new glasses, not helped by the fact they keep slipping down my nose. Have had them tweaked and they're better, but still annoying, work in progress.
- Am surprised and pleased by Atlas's music *sings along*
- Noodle-invention-super-fun-happy-dinner is made of tasty win.
And now I'm going to go and play with the downloads my internets died for :p Current Mood:  cheerfulCurrent Music: Fragile - Atlas |
aigantighe
|
3:47a |
Happy Tranquility Day!
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and if that’s not worth celebrating, I really don’t know what is.
Lots of people are celebrating, of course. Here’s a few sites worth checking out:
Incidentally, NASA itself is just over 50 years old, having celebrated its 50th birthday on July 29 last year. The 50th anniversary website is still up, with videos, lectures, articles, and a photo set called “50 Images, 50 Years“, containing many cool photos.
While writing this, I got to thinking: “40 years is quite a long time, I wonder how old those astronauts are now”. Turns out the youngest man alive who has walked on the moon is Charles Duke, who is 74 years old, while the oldest is good old Buzz Aldrin (whose foot you see at top right), at 79. That’s just a bit scary. We’re probably only 5-10 years from losing first hand experience of walking on another world. While I totally grok that unmanned spaceflight is a far better bet for science and exploration, it’s still a little saddening.
There’s one other celebration I didn’t mention yet. After at least two years of work, we’ve finally launched the new Orion’s Arm website. You might think two years is a long time to make a website, but bear in mind that this was done entirely in volunteered spare time, and involved a complete overhaul of the site’s entire content, which at a recent count was 1.4 million words in total. While I did all of the technical work, the real credit goes to Todd Drashner, Stephen Innis, Steve Bowers, and several others assisting them, who painstakingly read, edited, marked up, and in some cases, completely rewrote the whole thing.
Edit: I just had to include this link to “The Eagle Has Landed“, an award winning documentary from 1969 full of Apollo footage, stills, and audio recordings. Hat tip to Abstruse Goose
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lutramania
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7:24p |
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qarl
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7:04p |
Game project for lesson 6
This project for the Game Design Concepts course is from the Games and Art lesson. I topic I chose was to "Design a game that has intentionally incomplete rules, requiring player authorship of rules during the play of the game in order for it to be playable." I'm not that happy with what I came up with, but it seems to have generated a reasonable amount of positive comment and discussion on the course forums. ( Progress? by Carl de Visser ) |
pepperbeast
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2:52p |
Yay! They've registered my name and arms! |
zilent1
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9:24p |
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blairette
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11:43a |
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| Sunday, July 19th, 2009 |
aigantighe
|
6:07p |
On Music Appreciation – III – Facet Types
This is the third in a series of posts about music appreciation. In previous posts, I argued that:
- Explaining our preferences with ‘taste’ doesn’t help a lot. All it really does is hide their complexities and protect us from the challenge of having to explain ourselves.
- Preferences are better explained using ‘facets’ of appreciation that each captures a different way that music might stimulate us. This by no means eliminates subjectivity, but providese a vocabulary, we can use to more easily understand and talk about preferences. In particular, we become able to describe different people’s taste as differences in the priority or content of the facets they use.
So, what are some example facets? Here’s a list of the ones I’ve been able to identify so far:
- Structure – The simplest facet is that of musical structure. It’s obvious to every listener that different styles of music have different structures to them, and it seems that, likewise, different listeners have different affinity for different structural elements. Some listeners like complex layered melody, while others prefer simple, accessible tunes. I’m no expert in music theory; my point is that musical structure plays a role in defining our preferences, and that there is no universal agreement on what makes for ‘good’ musical structure (excluding, perhaps, chaos and discordance). Here are some structural elements I commonly consider when trying to explain my own preferences:
- Harmony
- Melody
- Beat & Percussion
- Complexity
- Tone
- Nostalgia – There is some music that I like simply because it reminds me of a particular time, place, or event in my past. This facet is extremely subjective, and often difficult to explain in other ways. For me, examples of this are the Phantom of the Opera (which I listened to a lot when I was about 10), remixes of the music from old Commodore 64 games, and music like Shriekback, Sisters of Mercy, and Headless Chickens, all of which remind me of parties. Depending on the emotional character of my response, nostalgia might cause me to really like a piece of music, or really hate it.
- Milieu – Similarly to nostalgia, some music evokes a particular setting, or place, or environment, and gains emotional significance from this that affects appreciation for it. The difference is that the association is not based strongly on a particular past experience. For example, one might appreciate music that evokes a particular historical period, or music that is ’science-fictiony’. This is less subjective than nostalgia, but still quite so.
- Emotional – Music very often evokes particular emotional responses that are not associated with any particular memory or milieu, but are the result of the music’s style, key, tempo, use of motifs and so forth. This form of emotional response to music seems the least subjective; for example, people can often agree easily on whether music is sombre, cheerful, or inspirational.
- Utility – A lot of people seem to appreciate music that is good for some particular purpose. This might be music that’s good to code to (for me, that’d be Jeroen Tel, Machinae Supremacy, and similar stuff), music that’s relaxing, music that’s good to dance to, or even music that’s good to garden to (Vangelis’ Soil Festivities).
- Skill Display – Some music is attractive because of the performer’s skill. This occurs often when there is strong emphasis on a solo performer, such as in violin concertos, jazz, and some prog rock. I also get this feeling when I watch group performances where, in addition to their skill in playing their instruments, the performers exhibit great skill in coordinating their performance. For some people, there’s a point at which displays of skill shift from awesome to pretentious, but to some extent, I think virtuosity is a fairly universal facet of apprecation. Incidentally, in his cluster definition of art, Dutton identifies skill display as one of its key features (see my previous post).
- Fellow Musicians – I’m not particularly skilled in any instrument, but I know that players of an instrument can appreciate music using that instrument on a level that non-players cannot, because they can consider in more detail the skills and techniques that the performer is using. Fellow musicians might also appreciate music because of the joy it gives them when they perform it themselves. For example, I particularly enjoy music that I can sing to.
- Social – Music often plays important social roles. It might signal membership of some group, it might be linked with particular social or cultural phenomena (birthday songs, carols, Auld Lang Syne), it might have some ritual meaning (hymns), or it might be a way of establishing group solidarity (anthems). This can apply to groups of any size, from nations to couples (”it’s our song!!”, she exclaimed).
- Novelty – Novelty definitely affects appreciation. Songs can get old over time, and there’s a definte good feeling associated with discovering a new band. That said, there’s a point where nostalgia takes over, and old songs are revived (80s music!). While I enjoy finding new music, I think this facet isn’t as important to me as it is to others; I’d usually rather let other people go searching, then ask for their recommendations.
- Narrative – Music, like much other art, can tell a story, and appreciation of that story affects appreciation of the music overall. Narrative might be overt, dominating and structuring the music (musicals), it might be more abstract, where the relationship between the narrative and music is less clear (movie adaptations and medleys), or it might be subtle, where the narrative is embodied in the structure of the music and not made explicit (The Firebird, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade).
- Lyrics – Music often has lyrics, and these can significantly affect appreciation, not at the level of narrative, but at that of words and phrases. Depending on the topic, lyrics are often unimportant to me, particularly given the normal topics of love, sex, and betrayal. Lyrics that are political or philosophical, though, seem better able to grab my attention. One good example is ‘Amused to Death‘ by Roger Waters.
Obviously, this list isn’t exclusive, nor does it correspond to anything empirical – it’s almost entirely a product of introspection, with much inspiration from talking to others about their preferences over the years. I’m simply trying to build a vocabulary of ways in which we can think about our preferences for music so that I can avoid having to talk in simple terms of taste.
I’d be particularly interested to hear suggestions for other facets if you’ve got them..
As mentioned in my first post, I doubt any of this is original, but this doesn’t concern me. In fact, I’d be really interested to see research looking at this sort of thing – I’d be particularly interested in seeing, for example, some sort of data analysis performed on responses given by listeners trying to explain their reaction to particular pieces of music.
In my next, and probably last, post on this topic, I want to talk about the why of all of this – why I find preferences interesting to discuss, and why I get driven insane by people taking my desire for analysis of taste as being somehow critical of them.
|
badasstronaut
|
7:13p |
Going to Jeremy's hen
I felt slightly under-prepared yesterday morning and left home slightly later than planned. Am inclined to be over-protective of myself, as I worry a lot about feeling unwell/disoriented and thereby being a pain in the arse - these are the things that drive me to stay in my house instead of going out. However staying in my house generally leads to me feeling worse. However. ( Going to the hen in Ox. (with a couple of pictures) ) Current Mood: okayCurrent Music: Maria (Talvin Singh Remix Edit)-Blondie-Maria |
| Monday, July 20th, 2009 |
hravan
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12:01a |
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| Sunday, July 19th, 2009 |
hairymonster
|
11:41p |
More Child Drama
Well Nik (who is 15) went out to a party without adult supervision last night. The results were rather predictable. Yes he came home slightly drunk, he threw up, he wasn't keen to get up this morning and his mother was severely traumatised, However I'm rather proud of him. He didn't drink that much (three or four beers and a vodka cruiser), he called us to pick him up, he was able to get to the toilet before he threw up and he was (after a little prodding) honest with us about what he had drunk. However he still had to clean up the toilet today though :) * * "George" - Grown up and safe * * Current Mood: amusedCurrent Music: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Everybody's Jumpin' |
phfa
|
11:13p |
Harry PooTeaHook
HP6 on Tuesday night? We're probably aiming for Moorhouse instead of Riccarton, cos it's closer to Ness and I think it's easier for Jen. Also the LFoD have wheels now :D Also also little bro Sam might be coming and in that case we can probably con a parental into giving people around out side of town rides home. So, Moorhouse. Does 7:15 or 8:30 suit people better? Current Mood:  coldCurrent Music: Cannonball - Vienna Tang |
xenogram
|
7:30p |
There Will Be Blood!
Alex suggests that perhaps a swap would be in order, and I ask, why stop at one? Why indeed.
( Move 17: Ec1 → Ec3, Queen takes Queen )
After all, what self respecting Dark Lord would pass up the opportunity for bloodshed? Current Music: Franz Ferdinand - I'm Your Villain |
zilent1
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4:44p |
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xenogram
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3:28p |
Eeevil
An interesting conversation last weekend; it seems I'm obviously evil. I hastened to point out that I like ballerinas and kittens* and stuff like that, but apparently that just makes me a nicer kind of evil.
So, there you go.
* Kittens are delicious, I used to have a poster of kittens in my kitchen. That journal isn't consistently SFW by the way. Although it does contain cool things like this. Current Music: Ministry - Just One Fix |
marsden_online
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12:40p |
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| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 |
hairymonster
|
10:24p |
Further To Yesterday
Our broadband rolls over and resets itself on the 10th of the month. Its now the 18th and our allocation of 10Gb has been used. This is a new record. Needless to say I am not happy with the children. Neither are they at having found they've suddenly had all the P2p programs deleted, parental controls loaded, large numbers of sites blocked and admin privileges revoked. Nik threw a huge spaz about it when he found out. Seems they are of the opinion that this is totally unfair. * * "George" - Grown up and safe * * Current Mood:  aggravatedCurrent Music: None |
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 |
ickaimp
|
11:45p |
Posted using TxtLJ
Lousiana, at night, through the fog... It's kinda eerie. All the weird floating lights in the trees. But gotta be in Houston by 6am >p |
| Saturday, July 18th, 2009 |
adrexia
|
4:35p |
Larp Ideas
I have an idea for a Larp set at a wedding not long before or during the beginnings of the Jacobite rebellion. It appeals mainly because I think I could do it with 10 or 11 characters. Writing something on that scale isn't something I've done yet, and I think I'd find it less taxing. Admittedly, it's more taxing than not writing anything at all. I think I could use a different process for a small scale thing though. This might not actually happen. It's fuelled by finishing the last Larp, and I'm probably just looking for a excuse to read more about the Jacobite's. ;) Current Mood:  thoughtful |
marsden_online
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3:19p |
Checking off topics
Having an actual reason to get out of bed on time is good for me. In addition to helping N&N move furniture down & up stairs first thing I've also managed to knock a number of other outstanding tasks off my to-do list. I will have to take a nap before the party tonight tho'. Remember Mad Science starts at 7! ~~~ ( some other introspective bits I've been meaning to post ) Current Mood:  contemplativeCurrent Music: Trn the Page [Metallica] |
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kaosians
happy otter!
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