HoodedHawk

I went to see Suzanne Vega at Ram’s Head tonight (Tuesday). Great show; front row table at this intimate venue. I had never seen Ms. Vega live before and I can say she didn’t disappoint. She played songs from her first album (Suzanne Vega), through to her latest (Beauty and Crime). I really enjoyed myself (hey, they have “Genius Stout” on draft – made there).

I recorded the show on a Zoom H2 audio recorder. I just finished processing the first 17 songs of the set, and I have to say, the Zoom H2 in combination with Audacity on my MacBook really does result in good sound! Highly recommended. I’ve put three links below to mp3 snippets. They are saved as high quality VBR, so they are each about 1 MB. This is my first foray into “good” audio recording; I’ve avoided it in the past due to the cost of equipment. But the (relatively) inexpensive H2 has me hooked!

I had tried to record a Wilco concert recently at Tanglewood in MA, but that was a stadium concert, and I had set the gain too high (as well as playing with other settings), so most of the sound was clipped. This time I did more research, and left the gain on the low setting, and did not boost the “level” via menu options on the recorder. I also recorded at 48k/16bit, as my reading indicated that the “native” sampling rate of the ADC chip was 48k, not 44.1k. And 16bit was more than enough dynamic range. Also, it appears that all the “options” (and there are many) available on the recorder are done in the digital domain, *after* the source is recorded by the ADC chip. So post-processing on the computer will accomplish the same thing. Thus, I left things as “raw” as possible for the recording and I processed the files in Audacity, increasing the gain there to normalize, and split the large sound files into smaller individual song tracks. Note that iTunes read in the 48k sample tracks just fine, but when I tried to burn a cd via Toast, the sound was icky. I guess I’ll have to export as resampled 44.1k files to burn to cd. Anyway, the snippets are below:

Frank and Eva snippet
Pornographer\’s Dream Snippet
The Queen and the Soldier snippet

[Read 2/01/2008] Science Fiction. 1968

I’ve watched the movie (Blade Runner) based on this book about 4-5 times now, and plan to watch it again; but only now have I read the book. Wow. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I can see why people call it a classic. The edition I read was part of the Library of America edition of “4 novels of the 1960’s”, which included 3 other Dick novels: The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Ubik. I like the quality of Library of America books; this volume will last a few lifetimes!

There are significant differences between the book and the movie. I have to say that while I really enjoy the movie, the book as they say, is better. The movie relies on dark sets for “mood”, and the androids (“andys” in the book, “replicants” in the movie) are a lot more militaristic in the movie. \n\n

The basic plot is of a future where radioactive fallout from a world war has forced most of humanity to emigrate to colonies “offworld”. To help the colonists, humanoid robots (androids) are created as servants. The more recent models are indistinguishable from humans (hey! Cylons!). The only way to tell humans and androids apart is by application of a psychological “empathy” test. Since androids lack empathy, they fail. What happens when a deviant human (without empathy) takes the test is not explored.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter working for the San Francisco police. His job is to hunt down and “retire” (kill) androids – because by law they are illegal on Earth. Eight androids mutinied from a colony world and are loose on earth, and all happen to be in the San Francisco area. Rick spends the novel tracking down 6 of them (his predecessor got 2 – and now he’s in the hospital).

The development of Rick’s character in the book was very engaging. Yes, I felt empathy. He hooks up with Rachel – an android from the Rosen Corp (which manufactures the androids). Unlike the movie, Rachel learns early that she is an android, and just accepts it.

One of the ideas in the book is “Mercerism” – where people empathically connect with some guy Mercer who is trudging up some hill in an obviously Sisyphean task. Anyone holding on to their Empathy Box will join all the others currently holding on to theirs, including Mercer. I don’t really get the point to doing this (masochism?). Also in the story is a more appealing machine: the Penfield Mood Organ. You can dial in any mood you want, i.e. “Total Bliss”, or “Desire to watch tv no matter what is on”, or the recursive “Desire to dial in a mood”.

Note that in the book there is a ~2year lifespan for androids, but it is not intentional; they simply can’t get the body cells to last longer. In the movie there is an artificially imposed 4yr lifespan – in other words no technical reason that androids have to die (young). This adds an extra dimension to the movie, as it turns out Rachel was actually created without an expiration date.

Since the price of the new iPhone 3G is now half of the original price (bringing it in line with the cost of a new Razor or similar phone), I could justify (to my wife) getting one. I went to the local AT&T store on the day they were released (July 11), but they didn’t have any left. I had to get the phone from AT&T vs. an Apple store due to a technicality on our AT&T account and “upgrade pricing”. Anyway, I ordered one (only to discover they were on backorder already). I ordered one for Kirsten as well; I had convinced her to wait to get a new phone until the 3G came out so she could sync with her office email (Exchange), etc.

I got a notice that my phone was in one week later (this past Friday). I picked it up after lunch, but had to wait until after work to play with it. All was rosy for an hour, and then the screen became all washed-out, and began to flicker. Ick. I went through all I could think of (restored phone via iTunes, complete wipe, etc.) to no avail. I called the AT&T store where I bought and they said to try an Apple store! I guess AT&T can’t do much more than send in a defective phone.

Anyway, by Saturday morning the phone seemed fine again. But by late evening the screen washout problem was back. Sunday (yesterday) I stopped by my local Apple store (in Columbia, MD). I didn’t have an appointment to see one of the “Genius” bar assistants, but got on a “standby” list. Within 15 minutes I was squeezed in between appointments (thankfully someone was late for their scheduled one), and an iPhone specialist was helping me. I showed him my phone with the washed out screen, and he immediately went [paraphrased] “whoa – that’s not right. Obviously a problem with the LCD screen”. I explained the problem more fully to him and he said he could go ahead and give me a new phone (new, not refurbished, etc.) right then to replace mine – under warranty. He swapped out sim cards, and verified for me that the new phone was working. He also had me go ahead and do a complete reset of my old phone (deleting my personal data for security). After filling out the paperwork, I was out the door with a new, working, beautiful iPhone. Total time in store: <30 minutes. I just love Apple, and the service at the Columbia, MD, Apple store! BTW, the iPhone is great. Now if I can just keep my 13 year-old from grabbing it to watch YouTube videos or playing Texas holdem... Also, Kirsten has had her iPhone for about a week now, and she loves it - especially the ability to check her work email, contacts and calendar from anywhere.

A bookseller on ABEBooks.com is selling a first edition of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for $25,000.00. That’s quite pricey for this book – however they are throwing in the typewriter Adams (presumably) used to write the book. I’m a big Adams’ fan, but this is a bit much.

I went to see Salman Rushdie give a reading from his latest book, The Enchantress of Florence on Monday night (June 30). The event was at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC (presented via Politics and Prose Bookstore). Quite engaging speaker. The event was sold out (you got free tix if you bought the book, as I did, at Politics and Prose) and I’d estimate 300 700 people were there. After the talk he answered audience questions, and then he did a signing in the hall in the basement of the synagogue. Long line, but they served refreshments so time passed fairly quickly.

I’ve read the book, and while I liked his prose very much (beautifully descriptive and evocative), I didn’t find that the book gelled. Part history and part fantasy, it was often a blurry line between the two and hard to follow with any sense of cohesion. But it was a quick read, and enjoyable if taken as a few loosely-coupled fables. This was the first book I’d read by Sir Rushdie (he was recently knighted by the Queen), and I liked his prose enough that I will be going back and reading one or more of his other books.

I video recorded the talk (the above is a still).