Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Ed White is the first American to walk in space; Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and Pope John XXIII die; Britain’s Duke of Windsor weds Wallis Simpson; Poet Allen Ginsberg and entertainer Josephine Baker born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.
The Counted is a project by the Guardian – and you – working to count the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States throughout 2015, to monitor their demographics and to tell the stories of how they died.
The database will combine Guardian reporting with verified crowdsourced information to build a more comprehensive record of such fatalities. The Counted is the most thorough public accounting for deadly use of force in the US, but it will operate as an imperfect work in progress – and will be updated by Guardian reporters and interactive journalists as frequently and as promptly as possible.
These days, prominent experts and politicians seem determined to keep the American people in a perpetual state of trembling fear. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations thinks “the question is not whether the world will continue to unravel but how fast and how far.” The outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, told Congress last year that “[the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been.” (Someone really ought to tell the general about the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, and a little episode known as World War II.) Not to be outdone, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believes the United States “has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War.” And then there’s CNN and Fox News, which seem to think that most news stories should be a variation on Fear Factor.
One could multiply alarming forecasts such as these almost endlessly. As investigative journalist David Sirota tweeted in response to a recent speech by New Jersey governor and erstwhile presidential aspirant Chris Christie, where FDR told Americans the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” today’s politicians and pundits mostly tell us to “Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.”
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
Breakfast Tune: Kid Thomas Band at Preservation Hall: When the Saints Go Marching In (1982)
Banjo solo starts at 3:37
Today in History
The Johnstown Flood kills more than 2,200 people in Pennsylvania; Israel hangs ex-Nazi official Adolf Eichmann; Bombing suspect Eric Rudolph caught in North Carolina; Actor-director Clint Eastwood born. (May 31)
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first to scale Mt. Everest’s peak; President John F. Kennedy born; Patrick Henry gives his “If this be treason” speech; Comedian Bob Hope born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything till noon. That’s when it’s time for my nap.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
This is the essence of deductive reasoning, the elimination of the impossible. Inductive reasoning (which is just as reasonable) argues from similarity- because the sun rises in the east every day it is not unreasonable to assume that this replicatable experiment (get up some morning and watch) also expresses truth in the sense that science understands it. Testable conjecture, experimental evidence that confirms it, theory that relates it to what we already know to be true enough.
You know all that hype about a holographic universe? What serious physicists mean when they say that is that their equations that predict the observable perfomance of the universe can be resolved using only two dimensions which really says more about the math than the universe.
And why is math the arbiter? Well, because equations give predictions that should be testable by experiment and give duplicatable results. No, Karl Rove does not get his own very special kind of math where one and two make five. Brother Maynard, read us from the Holy Book of Armaments-
There you go. 5 is right out.
So this problem should be a piece of Π. Expressed algebraicly-
a+((13*b)/c)+d+(12*e)-f-11+((g*h)/i)-10==66
Didn’t get that? Well, you’re not alone because there are over 100 unique solutions. Be careful about the maths because they are tricksy and in some cases (Economics anyone?) simply represent fictional concepts reduced to Cartesian curves (the Universe is a hologram!).
Today’s problem is deductive. The solution is to eliminate the impossibilities one by one.
Albert, Bernard and Cheryl became friends with Denise, and they wanted to know when her birthday is. Denise gave them a list of 20 possible dates.
17 Feb 2001
16 Mar 2002
13 Jan 2003
19 Jan 2004
13 Mar 2001
15 Apr 2002
16 Feb 2003
18 Feb 2004
13 Apr 2001
14 May 2002
14 Mar 2003
19 May 2004
15 May 2001
12 Jun 2002
11 Apr 2003
14 Jul 2004
17 Jun 2001
16 Aug 2002
16 Jul 2003
18 Aug 2004
Denise then told Albert, Bernard and Cheryl separately the month, the day and the year of her birthday respectively.
The following conversation ensues:
Albert: I don’t know when Denise’s birthday is, but I know that Bernard does not know.
Bernard: I still don’t know when Denise’s birthday is, but I know that Cheryl still does not know.
Cheryl: I still don’t know when Denise’s birthday is, but I know that Albert still does not know.
Albert: Now I know when Denise’s birthday is.
Bernard: Now I know too.
Cheryl: Me too.
So, when is Denise’s birthday?
Science Oriented Video
The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Golden Gate Bridge opens to the public; U.N. Tribunal indicts Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic; the British Navy sinks Nazi Germany’s battleship Bismarck; Actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
“If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it’s not politics – and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy – but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, ‘That’s what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?’ But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, ‘Bad monkey.'”
Going from one extreme to another is a hallmark of climate change. Scientists predict more droughts in the coming decades, as well as more intense rainstorms. In the midwest, the number of storms that drop more than three inches of rain have increased by 50 percent, according to an analysis from the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Well, Happy Memorial Day! Hope you all have a good day today and that you take a moment to reflect those who have fallen. And since it’s a holiday, I’ve got mostly fluff for your morning – but good fluff!
There will be prayer vigils and pilgrimages, policy briefings and seminars, and sermons in parishes from the U.S. to the Philippines.
When Pope Francis releases his much-anticipated teaching document on the environment and climate change in the coming weeks, a network of Roman Catholics will be ready. These environmental advocates – who work with bishops, religious orders, Catholic universities and lay movements – have been preparing for months to help maximize the effect of the statement, hoping for a transformative impact in the fight against global warming.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
Breakfast Tune: Love Minus Zero / No Limit (clawhammer banjo) Marc Nerenberg
Today in History
Highlights of this day in history: Samuel Morse opens America’s first telegraph line; Four men sentenced for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Britain’s Queen Victoria born; The Brooklyn Bridge opens; Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan born. (May 24)
People who are not really familiar with Art Music (and even some who are) have a tendency to think that modern orchestral instrumentation sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. The truth is that composers often look for novel sounds and instruments and players instruments that are easier to play.
Consider the valved Brass instruments I’m most familiar with. Until the late 18th, early 19th century there was no such thing. Instead you were limited to major harmonics controlled by your embouchure (basically the tightness of your lips and facial muscles). Sure you could flatten or sharp it a little, but if you wanted to play in a different key, you had to use a different instrument.
Even an unvalved French Horn (the oldest of the modern brass instruments) was invented as recently as 1725.
During the Baroque and Classical periods instrumentation changed quite a bit, so much so that there is now an Early Music movement dedicated to Renaissance and Medieval instruments and performance styles. Concert strings switched from fretted to unfretted (which makes certain obvious and non-obvious changes to the harmonics that are too difficult to get into here). Flat backs were replaced by shaped ones that sound louder. Lutes are replaced by guitars.
The Woodwind instruments (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon) owe their modern shape to Theobald Boehm who in 1847 introduced a simplified (Hah! Too many for me.) fingering system that used a complicated set of levers and pads to control the airflow, and thus the harmonics.
You may be somewhat aware of the development of the Pianoforte (means Soft/Loud) from the earlier Harpsichord by replacing a plucked string system with a percussive hammer action. Well, that happened in 1700, 400 years ago but not, you know, in the dim dark mists of some pre-historic time. New York City had over 7,000 inhabitants and was to publish it’s very first newspaper in a mere 25 years (same time as the French Horn).
The Saxophone, the newest of what is generally considered a “classic” orchestra instrument was patented in 1840 by Adolphe Sax. The Tuba in 1835.
So what occasions this discussion of the history of musical instruments? The 81st birthday of Robert Moog.
There is an unfortunate prejudice against electronic instruments in Art Music. Because they are programmable (with the right kind of controls) they are derided as mere recordings and, because they can replace many imperfect musicians with one that always does what you tell it to (which may not be what you want), are rightly viewed as an employment threat.
In their earliest forms though a considerable amount of skill and practice was required, just as with any instrument. One of the first electronic instruments was the Theremin. It was patented by Léon Theremin in 1928. You don’t physically touch the instrument, it senses the capacitance between your hands and the sensors to control pitch and volume. While it did gain some novelty attraction in Art Music world it is best known for lending its 87 year old “futuristic” sound to movie sound tracks and TV theme songs.
Robert Moog built one himself and later put together a fairly popular (among electronics geeks) kit.
A really popular electronic instrument is the Hammond electric organ from 1935. It was intended as a low cost, lighter, semi-portable alternative to a traditional pipe organ and quickly saturated the ecclesiastical market. The sound is produced “by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup.” While it has many buttons and sliders that can produce different sounds none of them actually sound like an organ and the greatest similarity is the stop switches and keyboard controls.
What Moog did that was different with his synthesizer is that he didn’t try to duplicate anything. I had an opportunity to work with an early model and it was basically a wave form generator patched through an amplifier.
There are 3 basic types, Sine, Square, and Sawtooth, so named because that’s what they look like on an oscilloscope which is your main output device (other than your speakers). You can control amplitude and frequency and (in the case of Sawtooth) rate of attack and decline. Using these fundamental tools it is theoretically possible to reproduce any sound at all.
Theoretically. Most of my efforts sounded like that annoying hum you get when you haven’t plugged your components together properly, but I am decidedly unmusical and only had a couple of hours to play with it.
Modern practice is to sample the sound you want to duplicate, analyze it to its components, and tweak the output until it sounds the way you like. Computer generated sound is capable of things human musicians can not duplicate any more than John Henry, on the other hand you still have to imagine it and tell them what to do. 60 Hz AC is perfectly acceptable noise, but it’s hardly a symphony.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign the ‘Pact of Steel’; Richard Nixon is the first U.S. president to visit the Soviet Union; Actor Laurence Olivier born; Johnny Carson hosts his last ‘Tonight Show.’
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Now all of us can talk to the NSA – just by dialing any number.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”