Quickfox Notes

I spend most of my online life in Firefox. And when I need a scratchpad to jot down stuff I tend to use Stickies (Mac only). Now, there's Quickfox Notes. http://inbasic.mozdev.org/root/ext3/home/index.html
Looks interesting. Also, the notes sync online via XMarks, so theoretically they will be available on any computer I use to log in to Firefox. Let's see how much use I actually get out of it.

Ruminations on Albums Three - Primo

Susan Boyle - I Dreamed A Dream



A glorious showcase for this lady’s remarkable voice with some predictable song choices and one truly inspired, unlikely winner. For Ms Boyle to have recorded I Dreamed A Dream (from Lés Miserables) was a foregone conclusion since that was the song from the British talent show that launched her into YouTube stardom and brought goose bumps to millions, yours truly included.

Other chestnuts, while perfectly worthy renditions are nevertheless fairly predictable (though no less beautiful for that) when a voice like Ms Boyle’s is on display. Amazing Grace? Check. Cry Me A River? Check. How Great Thou Art? Check. Silent Night? Check.

Ms Boyle’s voice seems custom-fit to soar in cathedrals and echo in spires and the apparent preponderance of religious-themed songs or, at least, songs that sound religion-inspired on her album is not very surprising. A hint that Ms Boyle may be more than a one-trick pony, however is provided by three song choices on the album.

One is Daydream Believer, originally recorded by The Monkees as a chirpy, peppy uptempo pop song. Ms Boyle slows it down and gives it gravitas and depth. Another is Madonna’s You’ll See, again suitably measured in pace yet dramatic.

But the song that really blew me away was the unlikeliest choice of all: Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. Susan Boyle doing Mick Jagger? Holy guacamole! She pulls it off and how! Wild Horses is a stand out bluesy number from the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album and Ms Boyle treats it with great respect. The delicate piano accompaniment and her wonderful voice, restrained at first, then soaring gloriously through the chorus makes this an instant and complete classic, a beautiful reinterpretation of a great song that transforms it into something wonderful and fresh.

On my personal, arbitrary scale, I’ve rated seven songs of the twelve as five stars, two as four stars and half a star, two as four stars, and one as three stars and half a star.

Ruminations on Albums Three

Over the last three days, while alternately galloping and plodding through the dying days of NaNoWriMo, I encountered three new albums, one by an established multi-Grammy Award winning artiste and two freshman efforts by newcomers, each of whom had been the runner-up in their respective talent competition.

The contrasts could not be starker.

Watch this space for entirely subjective reviews of:
I Dreamed A Dream - Susan Boyle
For Your Entertainment - Adam Lambert
The Wall - Adam Lambert

NaNoWriMo Euphoria

50,000 words, 30 days, blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Okay, skip the blood, sweat and tears (and the Earth, Wind and Fire), but make that t a capital one: Toil

And Fun with a capital F.

I'm now tuckered out from all that writing but two consecutive years of this puts me up there up Herman Melville, no? Probably not.

Watch this space.

Euphemisms, PC and problems

The continuous trend towards the use of euphemisms in the service of political correctness has resulted in a dangerous blindness (visual challenge).

Let's take the current economic crises (there are more than one of them around) that are plaguing the world. The crises have some of their primary roots in the collapse of the US housing market and its consequent domino effect on the hundreds of financial institutions that were participating to some degree (often third- and fourth-hand) in this bubble.

This participation was encouraged and facilitated largely because either nobody understood what was happening or nobody gave a damn as long as their short-term goals were being met. Assuming a charitable mantle and discounting the effect of the second alternative, why did no one understand what was happening?

Because, financial markets and marketeers have proven themselves past masters of the euphemism.

"Subprime" is such a reassuring, gentle description. It has the merit of having "prime" in there, which conjures up such rosy optimism that the mind shuts off the prefix "sub". No one really cares that sub denotes "below" - it doesn't register. That's a classic euphemism. These weren't just subprime loans. They were loans that never had the remotest chance of being repaid.

Ninja loans, in fact. Doesn't that sound macho and action-oriented? Try (loans given to those with) No Income No Job as an Acronym. Ninja. Masters of spin.

Let's get back to calling a spade a bloody shovel. That way, we just might recognise it when someone clobbers us over the head with one.

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Federer - Nadal / Michelangelo - ?

The 2009 Australian Open final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal made me restless. Not the duel - that was entertaining. But I couldn't think of a suitable analogy to compare these two artists and my reactions to them. Until the morning after.

Nadal is all power and fury, brute aggression, grimaces, grunts, mad dashes across the court. But one can't deny that he has the shots, he finds impossible angles and he can play the delicate drop shot as effectively as any. Federer is grace, artistry, elegance, magic - understated power and effortlessness.

Federer never looks like he's trying like mad, even when he is. Nadal always looks like he's trying like mad, even when he doesn't need to.

Nadal shares a name with a sublime artist - Raphael or Raffaello. Raphael was Michelangelo's contemporary and competitor, though he was eight years younger. The comparison is tempting, given the five year age gap between Federer and Nadal. Federer is undoubtedly Michelangelo, but Nadal is no Raphael.

Nadal is Jackson Pollock - insane energy, controlled chaos, relentless, pumped-up, tireless - "action painting". Federer is Michelangelo - sublime wizardry, poetry, adriotness, legerdemain, finesse - "beauty for the ages".

Jackson Pollock's "No. 5, 1948" became the world's most expensive painting in 2006, when it was sold privately to an undisclosed buyer for the sum of $140,000,000.

Michelangelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel are a priceless gift to humanity.

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Facebookness

After several days of steeping myself in Facebook-ness (for which Suzy is mostly to blame :)), I have come to the conclusion that being on FB is like living in a commune. Privacy dissolves into transparency. The Wall is really a glass window. Or a mirror.

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Loose? Please lose!

I've about had it up to here with misuse of "loose" when the stupid idiot means "lose". I just received a spam SMS (don't get me started!) on how to "loose body weight". This seems to the most popular malapropism out there, ranking at the top of the charts with "your/you're" and I've seen this in the newspapers (almost daily some team or the other manages to loose the match), on the Net (particularly in comments by obvious loosers) and now on my phone. Enough already. Go back to school.

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Posterous | Re: Blogging technology hiccups

So, now I can link either of my duplicate blogs into FB or I can link Posterous into FB, but I can't post directly to Posterous via Flock's internal blogging editor, but if I post to Posterous that can autopost to my FB.

I need kopi.

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Blogging technology hiccups

A post just to check if this Posterous thingie is working. The last post updated one blog but not the other. As an aside, this is how we complicate our lives. I had a blog called Return of the Son of Blog at blogusinterruptus.blogspot.com but that was linked to an email id that I don't normally use. I couldn't transfer that to my regular email id, so I duplicated the blog at returnofthesonofblog.blogspot.com (which was suprisingly easy).

If I want to link the blog into Flock, I need to use the second version which matches the GMail id I'm normally logged into on Flock. But I like the URL of the first blog better, so I want to keep that alive.

Enter Posterous, which allows me to post to multiple blogs with a single email. (But maybe that means using Flock's integrated blog poster needs to be tweaked - next to-do). I goofed on the blog id on the last post so it only posted to the old blog not the new one.

Hence, this post, which should post to both. Let's see.

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Privacy on Web 2.0

I've been fooling around with Flock and the way it integrates a variety of services around the Web. I've been a reluctant user of much that is Web 2.0 and have taken more than a while to get the point of Facebook.

Well, I ain't got it yet, but I spent the better part of last morning chatting online with an old and very dear friend, something that wouldn't have happened if we both hadn't been on Facebook. So I'm willing to give FB a second look and more time. (It's all your fault, Suzy.)

The one thing that strikes me is the approach to privacy that use of these services entails. More so because privacy advocates have been decrying much of what is happening in the world of the Web. Essentially, when you use Facebook or Delicious or Picasa or Shelfari or any of the myriad other such services, you're putting much of your personal life out there for the world to peer at and pore over.

Of course, if you blog (as I do occasionally, more for the fun of it than as serious commentary, or as a way to experiment with online tools - as this post is with Posterous), then you are making a conscious choice to go public with your thoughts. And when you update your status on FB you're doing pretty much the same. So how is FB different?

I think the difference lies in the, well, for want of a better word, the spontaneity of the way in which one yields up one's privacy. In a blog, you think about what you want to write and you can revise it and republish it and so on. On FB, you twitter (and that's another service I haven't cottoned onto yet) on about what appears to be inconsequential stuff but a lot more people are privy to it and a lot more of you is revealed than you might realise.

Which may not be an unmixed blessing. Food for a weightier philosophical discussion here.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Blogging via Flock - Flogging?

Testing how the post to blog via the Flock browser works. If it does, it will go some way towards consolidating my Web 2.0 existence.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

PWC

PWC are the auditors of Satyam, the "Truth" software company that falsified accounts and earnings for "several years".

Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Perhaps We Couldn't
Pricey Watered-down Certifiers
Purblind Weak Consorts
Pusillanimous Wasted Cretins

Am I too harsh?

Shelfari

Interesting book library management online software. Good links to book info, covers and recommendations. Cool interface. Free.

www.shelfari.com

Beats most desktop solutions on aesthetic grounds, but the one to beat on features is Book Collector from collectorz.com

Sliderocket

Phenomenal!

Great online presentation software. Snappy effects, superb interface. Free account (more goodies with paid accounts). Rivals Powerpoint and Keynote. Create presentations to embed in your site.

www.sliderocket.com

Satyam. Not really.

Satyam means Truth in Sanskrit. Ironic.

If generations survive, they will look back at the closing years of the opening decade of the 21st century and mark a cusp, a tide in the affairs of men. And women.

In the interest of completeness, not that anyone gives a...

I shall upload the test posts I made to posterous earlier today.

Apropos this blogging thing

And it does! Typos and all!

A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (Arthur C. Clarke approximately)

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Apropos this blogging thing

Prodded on by my posterous experiments, I re-checked my old blog and discovered, to my amazement, that has been two years since I last blogged. 2006 was the last one.

Except for the prolific Chiffonesque, it has been similarly long since the other bloggers I was following have blogged.

Which begs the question, what happened in 2007 to turn all of us off blogging?

Will 2009 revive the blog?

Will this auto-post from posterous to blogger work?

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