Explorations » In Passing

Tech Issues for PJM

Charlie — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:07:11 +0000

I’m sort of the editor who looks at tech issues now (be nice, kids, the other editors are pure writers, not impure ones like me) and until/unless I convince Roger we need an editors blog within the site, use this to leave comments about the tech.

And yes, this will be moderated to, don’t get all excited.

In case the blog seems somewhat moribund…

Charlie — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:36:14 +0000

… there is a good reason: I’ve been made Science and Technology Editor at Pajamas Media. That’s occupying a lot of blog time.

Oh my God what a voice.

Charlie — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:02:51 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUsDNho9ajY

And what a face.

Buck Rogers Returns

Charlie — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:07:08 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YY0-lSg3-k

Wow. And this is a pure webcast.

Notice who is playing Ma and Pa Rogers,

Teaser:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvx6BBkxz4

OK Go Strikes Again

Charlie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:04:58 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

PBS Documentary: The Buddha

Charlie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:30:31 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaIKS2ul67o

This link should embed properly and work better.

This is a test

Charlie — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:13:31 +0000

I’m trying a new blog editor called myBlogEdit, from MOApp. I used some of their other applications, which are generally very lightweight and a little geeky.

This is an update, and I’ve got to say, it seems to work reasonably well. I think this might be just the sort of thing I need to make quick blog entries. I’ll continue to review it as I do some more wotk with it.

This is a test

Charlie — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:12:10 +0000

I’m trying a new blog editor called myBlogEdit, from MOApp. I used some of their other applications, which are generally very lightweight and a little geeky.

It doesn’t hurt that she’s hot, either

Charlie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:51:22 +0000

Pretty damn funny.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1va9Jdt7g

Serialism

Charlie — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:31:29 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-WYm9nl32Q

Ed Driscoll pointed this out. It’s the title and end-credits music from the original Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, and it’s an example of Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. This is sometimes called serialism but the serialists do lots of other weird stuff that I don’t hear in this.

Schoenberg’s idea was to get away from the usual notions of Western music. Instead of picking a tonal chord and all, you take any chromatic scale, and pick one of the 12! (479,001,600) permutations of the 12 tones in that chromatic scale, and base the music on that, applying mathematical operations on that sequence (which is called a tone-row) to built the music.

A lot of times, that just doesn’t work, because what a lot of serialists are trying to do is break away from the constraints of music. The result is a bunch of noises that just don’t work very well as music.

Sometimes it does.