Most people like music of some kind, even if they are not musicians themselves. But not everybody likes the same kinds of music. So what is music? Why do we like some kinds of music but not others?
Frankly, I'm not sure I can provide good answers, but I know where to start. I define music in a very broad and basic way: music is any sound or set of sounds intended for aesthetic pleasure. Pretty vague, eh?
So let's be more specific. Sounds are used in a variety of ways and situations. A car horn is honked, a doorbell rings, a computer beeps, or a phone rings. These sounds are not primarily intended to be music, but to indicate something--someone's at the door, someone's calling, the computer has a problem, or you've cut a driver off in traffic. But of course, you've probably heard a fancy doorbell, and who hasn't heard any number of cell phone ringtones? Their musical aspect is secondary, though, to their primary purpose.
So when a garage band gets together, or an orchestra performs, the primary purpose is for the listening pleasure of their audience. Whether or not the band is good is a secondary question, the intent is there. Even thirty seconds of silence could be considered "music" if a composer intends it for aesthetic pleasure (see John Cage's 4'33" for example).
While we commonly listen to rock, country, jazz, classical, showtunes, etc, with clearly defined instruments, parts, and musical construction (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.), usually based on the 12-tone system, much more variety is possible in music. While I'm very fond of artists like Genesis, Steely Dan, and Christopher Cross, more experimental artists like Tangerine Dream and Ned Lagin have created music that is undeniably different from what most people are used to, but which must be considered music, nonetheless, at least by my definition. Whether you like it or not is a different question.
Which brings me to another point: familiarity. Music in general seems to be pleasing to us because of pattern recognition--this is especially true with pop music, but even complex classical works are based upon a pattern that can be discerned, even if only after several listenings.
Of course, thanks to modern technology like multi-track recording and digital processing, even a modern pop song can be very sonically complex, although not in the same way as a Bach concerto. When the rock band Asia came out with their debut album in 1982, one of its impressive technological features was that it was recorded with 32 tracks (for a 4-man rock band, mind you).
On top of pattern recognition, though, is simple repetition. We often tend to like songs more after we've heard them a few times. Much commercial radioplay was based upon heavy rotation of popular songs, but were they in heavy rotation because they were popular, or were they popular because they were in heavy rotation?
One of my early attempts to understand popular music basically just stated that people want to hear what they are already familiar with, but with some slight difference or novelty to keep it interesting. An interesting idea, but ultimately, one that fails to consider the wide variety of musical backgrounds that people come from.
6/16/2011
6/02/2011
Intellectual Property and Theft
There's quite a controversy brewing over intellectual property (IP) these days, thanks to the computer and the internet. Music companies and movie companies want to preserve and increase their profits, and think that illegal downloading of music and movies is depriving them of revenues.
I've argued before that there is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between an illegal download and a lost sale. It's quite possible that someone would download a file where they would not be willing to pay the full retail price for an album or movie. Or someone might download it, and then decide they like it enough that they do go ahead and buy it, and/or recommend it to friends who may also buy it. Thus, there may well be no loss of sale related to the download, and it may actually increase sales.
But while that may be a good, practical argument, it is far short of an adequate moral argument. Does the downloader have the moral right to download a file without the creator or owner's permission? Frankly, as much as I might like it otherwise, I tend to think the answer is no, you can only justify downloading or copying if it is with their permission, allowing for fair use exceptions and back-up copies. After all, let's be totally fair. If I have legal ownership of the file, I may want to put it on more than one computer, or on a portable player, or back it up to an external drive or disc in case my hard drive crashes and loses the data.
And I might argue that the creators and companies should change their business models to recognize the ease of copying digital files, and how that can help sales as well as hurt sales.
One problem I see is in how the problem is actually defined. I referred to the problem as illegal downloading, but many pro-IP people refer to it as theft or piracy, and for that matter, we say that we are talking about "intellectual property". But ideas cannot truly be owned, only thought of. Only the physical media that an idea is saved or incorporated in can be property and be owned, not the idea itself. Real property is stolen by depriving the owner the use of that property so that the thief can use the property instead: a cd player, a computer, a television, a car, etc. When an illegal download occurs, the downloader can enjoy the content, but the owner is not deprived of the content, either. So how can it be considered as 'theft'?
Again, I'm not saying that it's okay to download without the owner's permission, but I do think that thinking about the problem in the wrong way, with the wrong terms and concepts, will do nothing but muddle the issue and make it that much harder to deal with and resolve. The law and the legal system too often gets in the way of achieving true justice, and this is just one more example of that, unless we start thinking about this issue in terms that are closest to the reality of the situation.
Epistemology has a profound impact on how we think about things and how we act based upon that thinking. A proper understanding of the problem is necessary to work on the best and most workable solution to the problem. Improper use of the terms 'property' and 'theft' not only makes illegal downloading more difficult to deal with, it also muddles our thinking about real property and real theft. More confusion in the legal system is the last thing we need.
I've argued before that there is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship between an illegal download and a lost sale. It's quite possible that someone would download a file where they would not be willing to pay the full retail price for an album or movie. Or someone might download it, and then decide they like it enough that they do go ahead and buy it, and/or recommend it to friends who may also buy it. Thus, there may well be no loss of sale related to the download, and it may actually increase sales.
But while that may be a good, practical argument, it is far short of an adequate moral argument. Does the downloader have the moral right to download a file without the creator or owner's permission? Frankly, as much as I might like it otherwise, I tend to think the answer is no, you can only justify downloading or copying if it is with their permission, allowing for fair use exceptions and back-up copies. After all, let's be totally fair. If I have legal ownership of the file, I may want to put it on more than one computer, or on a portable player, or back it up to an external drive or disc in case my hard drive crashes and loses the data.
And I might argue that the creators and companies should change their business models to recognize the ease of copying digital files, and how that can help sales as well as hurt sales.
One problem I see is in how the problem is actually defined. I referred to the problem as illegal downloading, but many pro-IP people refer to it as theft or piracy, and for that matter, we say that we are talking about "intellectual property". But ideas cannot truly be owned, only thought of. Only the physical media that an idea is saved or incorporated in can be property and be owned, not the idea itself. Real property is stolen by depriving the owner the use of that property so that the thief can use the property instead: a cd player, a computer, a television, a car, etc. When an illegal download occurs, the downloader can enjoy the content, but the owner is not deprived of the content, either. So how can it be considered as 'theft'?
Again, I'm not saying that it's okay to download without the owner's permission, but I do think that thinking about the problem in the wrong way, with the wrong terms and concepts, will do nothing but muddle the issue and make it that much harder to deal with and resolve. The law and the legal system too often gets in the way of achieving true justice, and this is just one more example of that, unless we start thinking about this issue in terms that are closest to the reality of the situation.
Epistemology has a profound impact on how we think about things and how we act based upon that thinking. A proper understanding of the problem is necessary to work on the best and most workable solution to the problem. Improper use of the terms 'property' and 'theft' not only makes illegal downloading more difficult to deal with, it also muddles our thinking about real property and real theft. More confusion in the legal system is the last thing we need.
No alarm clock
I don't wake up to an alarm clock. No harsh buzzing or loud radio to wake me up. I have an alarm clock in my bedroom, but it's just there to keep the time--I haven't set the alarm in something like fifteen years or so.
I just wake up at some point in time. I have a regular 8 to 5 job, and I usually wake up about 6:30 in the morning. It's a habit. I don't remember exactly how I got started without the alarm clock, but I remember that at some point in the early 90's, I didn't have a job for about six months. An aunt had given me a somewhat large sum of money, and so I quit my job and slept in every day until the money started running low and I decided I needed to go back to work.
During this period of unemployment, I went to sleep when I felt like it, and woke up when I felt like it--I wasn't on any kind of schedule, except that the Perry Mason TV show came on a local UHF channel at 11:00 am, so I always made sure I was up in time for that.
But when I went back to work, I still didn't bother with the alarm clock--I didn't need it, and I haven't needed it since then. I try to make sure I get to bed early enough so that I get a decent amount of sleep, eight hours, or something close to that. When I went to bed, I would tell myself what time I wanted to wake up, and lo and behold, I would wake up at just about that time.
Over the years, this has become a habit, and I don't need to tell myself what time I want to wake up, unless I need to make a change to my regular schedule.
I must admit it's not perfect. I've occasionally overslept when I've stayed up way too late past my normal bedtime, or when I've been sick. Usually I "oversleep" by waking up first and then going back to sleep instead of getting up, rather than just sleeping through my normal wake-up time.
So does this really mean anything important, or is just one of my peculiarities? I don't know, but I imagine if I can do it, then many other people should be able to do it, too. It's a matter of habit, and of allowing yourself enough time to sleep, and of putting your subconsciousness to work by telling yourself when you want to wake up. It really is nicer to wake up to silence, instead of to a harsh buzzer or loud music. If you need something to smash in the morning, keep some empty aluminum cans or something handy.
I just wake up at some point in time. I have a regular 8 to 5 job, and I usually wake up about 6:30 in the morning. It's a habit. I don't remember exactly how I got started without the alarm clock, but I remember that at some point in the early 90's, I didn't have a job for about six months. An aunt had given me a somewhat large sum of money, and so I quit my job and slept in every day until the money started running low and I decided I needed to go back to work.
During this period of unemployment, I went to sleep when I felt like it, and woke up when I felt like it--I wasn't on any kind of schedule, except that the Perry Mason TV show came on a local UHF channel at 11:00 am, so I always made sure I was up in time for that.
But when I went back to work, I still didn't bother with the alarm clock--I didn't need it, and I haven't needed it since then. I try to make sure I get to bed early enough so that I get a decent amount of sleep, eight hours, or something close to that. When I went to bed, I would tell myself what time I wanted to wake up, and lo and behold, I would wake up at just about that time.
Over the years, this has become a habit, and I don't need to tell myself what time I want to wake up, unless I need to make a change to my regular schedule.
I must admit it's not perfect. I've occasionally overslept when I've stayed up way too late past my normal bedtime, or when I've been sick. Usually I "oversleep" by waking up first and then going back to sleep instead of getting up, rather than just sleeping through my normal wake-up time.
So does this really mean anything important, or is just one of my peculiarities? I don't know, but I imagine if I can do it, then many other people should be able to do it, too. It's a matter of habit, and of allowing yourself enough time to sleep, and of putting your subconsciousness to work by telling yourself when you want to wake up. It really is nicer to wake up to silence, instead of to a harsh buzzer or loud music. If you need something to smash in the morning, keep some empty aluminum cans or something handy.
5/05/2011
Eating Orange Peels
I never used to eat orange peels, but I've started doing it recently. In my efforts to lose weight, I thought that chewing on the orange peels would keep me from munching on other snack foods. The result is not a complete success, but it does seem to help.
Of course, I was a bit worried about how safe it was to eat the peel, but a Google search showed several sites indicating that they are safe to eat. Just be sure to wash them first so that there's no lingering wax or pesticides on the skin.
Now the taste of the orange peel isn't all that good, especially the white stuff, technically called the pith, is pretty bitter. You can get around this by eating the peel along with the fruit itself, or here's a site with a recipe for chocolate covered orange peel.
A big suprise for me was the possibility that eating the orange peel may be healthier than eating the actual fruit.
5/25/2009
The Moral of Frankenstein Revisited
We all know the story of Frankenstein, right? We've seen it in countless movies, cartoons, etc. The evil, mad scientist working in his remote castle laboratory with his henchman Igor creates the monster Frankenstein, a creature so horrible that eventually the peasants storm the castle with pitchforks and torches and burn down the castle and monster.
Well, I just finished reading Mary Shelley's original novel, and quite a few parts of that are not in the story. The scientist may or may not be mad, depending upon how you interpret it, but he wasn't evil, and wasn't deliberately trying to create a monster. His workshop wasn't in a remote castle, but simply some rooms he had at or near the university. There is no henchman Igor. And the peasants never stormed the lab or monster with pitchforks and torches.
In fact, Dr. Frankenstein was so horrified by his creation (the creature is never given a name by the way, Frankenstein is the scientist's last name) that he runs away from it, and is terribly relieved to find it gone when he returns later. He doesn't tell anybody what he's done, and he doesn't try to look for the creature. In fact, he has no contact or awareness of the creature for something like two years. The creature eventually comes back into Dr. Frankenstein's life, killing friends and family until Frankenstein is finally determined to seek out and destroy the monster, but he dies without doing so. Once Dr. Frankenstein is dead, the creature says that he will destroy himself, and do no further harm to humanity, although the story only ends with his words, and no evidence that he actually does what he says.
The oft-referred to moral of the story is that Man is not meant to know some things, and that science can lead to some things getting out-of-control. But upon reading the novel, what strikes me the most is that the creature needn't have gotten out of hand if Frankenstein had simply not run away from his creation at the time of his creation. The story makes clear that creature knows little at its creation, and becomes essentially self-taught over time. Frankenstein could have been the one to educate the creature, and help ensure that he had a decent, moral upbringing, and thus little need to become the wretched hateful creature that he becomes.
In short, Dr. Frankenstein was trying to avoid the responsibility for his creation. This irresponsbility seems to be the fundamental moral of the story. As such, this is quite applicable to just about anyone, anywhere, and thus quite a timeless moral, however Victorian and stilted the writing may seem to the modern reader. But it seems to take away from it as a science fiction novel, especially since the extrapolation of the science, and the scientific creation's effect on society are not really explored.
Interestingly, the creature is not some slow-moving, lumbering giant as most of the movies make it out to be, but a being of superior strength, speed, and stamina, and at least equal in intelligence to regular humans.
Well, I just finished reading Mary Shelley's original novel, and quite a few parts of that are not in the story. The scientist may or may not be mad, depending upon how you interpret it, but he wasn't evil, and wasn't deliberately trying to create a monster. His workshop wasn't in a remote castle, but simply some rooms he had at or near the university. There is no henchman Igor. And the peasants never stormed the lab or monster with pitchforks and torches.
In fact, Dr. Frankenstein was so horrified by his creation (the creature is never given a name by the way, Frankenstein is the scientist's last name) that he runs away from it, and is terribly relieved to find it gone when he returns later. He doesn't tell anybody what he's done, and he doesn't try to look for the creature. In fact, he has no contact or awareness of the creature for something like two years. The creature eventually comes back into Dr. Frankenstein's life, killing friends and family until Frankenstein is finally determined to seek out and destroy the monster, but he dies without doing so. Once Dr. Frankenstein is dead, the creature says that he will destroy himself, and do no further harm to humanity, although the story only ends with his words, and no evidence that he actually does what he says.
The oft-referred to moral of the story is that Man is not meant to know some things, and that science can lead to some things getting out-of-control. But upon reading the novel, what strikes me the most is that the creature needn't have gotten out of hand if Frankenstein had simply not run away from his creation at the time of his creation. The story makes clear that creature knows little at its creation, and becomes essentially self-taught over time. Frankenstein could have been the one to educate the creature, and help ensure that he had a decent, moral upbringing, and thus little need to become the wretched hateful creature that he becomes.
In short, Dr. Frankenstein was trying to avoid the responsibility for his creation. This irresponsbility seems to be the fundamental moral of the story. As such, this is quite applicable to just about anyone, anywhere, and thus quite a timeless moral, however Victorian and stilted the writing may seem to the modern reader. But it seems to take away from it as a science fiction novel, especially since the extrapolation of the science, and the scientific creation's effect on society are not really explored.
Interestingly, the creature is not some slow-moving, lumbering giant as most of the movies make it out to be, but a being of superior strength, speed, and stamina, and at least equal in intelligence to regular humans.
1/06/2009
The Magic of Peanuts - Online!
The website Comics.com hosts a lot of syndicated comic strips, but for a while, you could only look at the last month's worth of strips. Now, they've done something pretty awesome. The entire collection of published Peanuts strips are available online, all the way back to the first strip, published October 2, 1950, to the present! Good Grief! That's an incredible resource for fans and historians.
I read the paperback collections of Peanuts strips when I was a kid. By high school, I had over fifty of the books, including some special books like Snoopy and the Red Baron, and two Peanuts cookbooks.
The books I had included reprints from the 1960s and 1970s. But now, I'll be able to read them all! The earliest ones seem pretty primitive, so it's hard to realize now how radically different and new the strip was when it first came out, with its highly abstract, simply drawn characters and their more subtle, less slapstick, deprecating humor.
Even from my books, it was easy to see the development of the strip over time, something that I always find interesting. Seeing it from beginning to end will allow one to fully appreciate the maturation of the comic over time, especially considering that Charles Schulz did it all, without assistants or ghost writers or artists.
And of course there are various landmarks to look for. When did Charlie Brown first start wearing the zigzag striped shirt? When did Snoopy start thinking words in thought balloons? When were the various characters first introduced? The strip started out with Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Patty, with Snoopy's first appearance coming very quickly. But Lucy, Linus, Sally, Peppermint Patty and others came later, some much later.
I'm currently reading Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis. While interesting, I find that I'm not really that interested in Schulz as a person--I'm more interested in the stuff that's more related to his strip and artwork: his development as an artist, his attempts to become a published cartoonist, etc.
Apparently, there's some controversy over how well Michaelis depicted Schulz as a person. I can't say for sure, but really, what would be interesting about a kind, warm, gentle person who didn't do anything but sit at his drawing board every day? Even with such a person, there must be something behind it all to make him that way.
Anyway, while I didn't always get the jokes, especially when I first started reading the books, I grew up with the Peanuts characters and loved them dearly, as I suspect did many others. I'm not sure I can recommend the biography, but I can certainly recommend reading (and re-reading) the original strips, all 20 thousand some-odd of them. Good Ol' Charlie Brown.
I read the paperback collections of Peanuts strips when I was a kid. By high school, I had over fifty of the books, including some special books like Snoopy and the Red Baron, and two Peanuts cookbooks.
The books I had included reprints from the 1960s and 1970s. But now, I'll be able to read them all! The earliest ones seem pretty primitive, so it's hard to realize now how radically different and new the strip was when it first came out, with its highly abstract, simply drawn characters and their more subtle, less slapstick, deprecating humor.
Even from my books, it was easy to see the development of the strip over time, something that I always find interesting. Seeing it from beginning to end will allow one to fully appreciate the maturation of the comic over time, especially considering that Charles Schulz did it all, without assistants or ghost writers or artists.
And of course there are various landmarks to look for. When did Charlie Brown first start wearing the zigzag striped shirt? When did Snoopy start thinking words in thought balloons? When were the various characters first introduced? The strip started out with Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Patty, with Snoopy's first appearance coming very quickly. But Lucy, Linus, Sally, Peppermint Patty and others came later, some much later.
I'm currently reading Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis. While interesting, I find that I'm not really that interested in Schulz as a person--I'm more interested in the stuff that's more related to his strip and artwork: his development as an artist, his attempts to become a published cartoonist, etc.
Apparently, there's some controversy over how well Michaelis depicted Schulz as a person. I can't say for sure, but really, what would be interesting about a kind, warm, gentle person who didn't do anything but sit at his drawing board every day? Even with such a person, there must be something behind it all to make him that way.
Anyway, while I didn't always get the jokes, especially when I first started reading the books, I grew up with the Peanuts characters and loved them dearly, as I suspect did many others. I'm not sure I can recommend the biography, but I can certainly recommend reading (and re-reading) the original strips, all 20 thousand some-odd of them. Good Ol' Charlie Brown.
12/30/2008
Money: The Root of All Evil?
Some ideas and sayings die hard, even when they are demonstrably wrong. In this case, the saying "money is the root of all evil".
To understand what the saying means, we first need to ask, what is money? Essentially, money is nothing more than a medium of exchange. It is a tool or means of allowing people to engage in indirect exchange instead of direct barter. It is usually considered the most commonly exchanged commodity in a society.
As such, money was developed spontaneously in society by people who were having difficulties engaging in direct barter--money solved a difficult exchange problem and made it easier for people to trade with other people in a more convenient form. Commodities like gold and silver were eventually adopted because they were considered most suitable for use as money, given their particular attributes.
Note that money arose spontaneously out of human need--it was not created by governments. Governments only later appropriated the money-making process, which was originally a private function. Only by government appropriation could we have reached our current situation, where debt-backed paper (Federal Reserve Notes) is considered to be "money". Switching back to a commodity-based money supply would currently be difficult and illegal; government would not allow it if they can help it.
So money is a tool that enables the convenient exchange of goods and services between people. To say that money is the root of all evil is to say that voluntary, indirect exchange between people is evil. To a libertarian, and I hope to most other people, this seems like an absurd thing to say. How can it be evil for me to give someone money in exchange for groceries, clothes, books, or other things that I want and need to live my life? Or for people to give me money in exchange for my labor, goods, or services?
Quite simply, voluntary indirect exchange is about as opposite evil as you can get--nothing has improved people's lives as much as the division of labor made possible by indirect exchange through money. It's true that through theft, fraud, or counterfeiting, some people can get money without producing any beneficial good or service in exchange, but that's a small subset of all economic transactions, and doesn't outweigh the benefits of money or change the moral equation.
It's also true that there are serious problems with our current Federal Reserve system and fractional reserve banking, so much so that some consider the Fed itself to be issuing "counterfeit" money. However, this is not fundamental or inevitable to money, but is simply a problem caused by the politics of government taking over the production of money instead of leaving it in the private sector.
In this light, it should be obvious that money is not the root of all evil, coercive power is. The next time someone brings up this old quote to you, perhaps you should ask them what they mean by "money", and maybe they, too, will see the light.
To understand what the saying means, we first need to ask, what is money? Essentially, money is nothing more than a medium of exchange. It is a tool or means of allowing people to engage in indirect exchange instead of direct barter. It is usually considered the most commonly exchanged commodity in a society.
As such, money was developed spontaneously in society by people who were having difficulties engaging in direct barter--money solved a difficult exchange problem and made it easier for people to trade with other people in a more convenient form. Commodities like gold and silver were eventually adopted because they were considered most suitable for use as money, given their particular attributes.
Note that money arose spontaneously out of human need--it was not created by governments. Governments only later appropriated the money-making process, which was originally a private function. Only by government appropriation could we have reached our current situation, where debt-backed paper (Federal Reserve Notes) is considered to be "money". Switching back to a commodity-based money supply would currently be difficult and illegal; government would not allow it if they can help it.
So money is a tool that enables the convenient exchange of goods and services between people. To say that money is the root of all evil is to say that voluntary, indirect exchange between people is evil. To a libertarian, and I hope to most other people, this seems like an absurd thing to say. How can it be evil for me to give someone money in exchange for groceries, clothes, books, or other things that I want and need to live my life? Or for people to give me money in exchange for my labor, goods, or services?
Quite simply, voluntary indirect exchange is about as opposite evil as you can get--nothing has improved people's lives as much as the division of labor made possible by indirect exchange through money. It's true that through theft, fraud, or counterfeiting, some people can get money without producing any beneficial good or service in exchange, but that's a small subset of all economic transactions, and doesn't outweigh the benefits of money or change the moral equation.
It's also true that there are serious problems with our current Federal Reserve system and fractional reserve banking, so much so that some consider the Fed itself to be issuing "counterfeit" money. However, this is not fundamental or inevitable to money, but is simply a problem caused by the politics of government taking over the production of money instead of leaving it in the private sector.
In this light, it should be obvious that money is not the root of all evil, coercive power is. The next time someone brings up this old quote to you, perhaps you should ask them what they mean by "money", and maybe they, too, will see the light.
12/17/2008
The Plucked Psaltery, Unusual Musical Instruments, part 3
The plucked psaltery is a simple musical instrument with a basic but pleasing sound. It's basically just a piece of wood with strings running across it, fretted at one end, with tuning pins to tune the strings.
While the origins of the psaltery are unknown, it must go back to at least the medievel period, and possibly as far back as Biblical times. Medieval engravings show a 'hog-nosed' version of the psaltery.
It also goes by other names: lap harp, Music Maker, Melody Maker, Melody harp, etc., but "plucked psaltery" seems to me to be the most basic categorical term for it. It belongs to the more generic category of "zither".
The most common version of it is the Melody Maker, a child's musical instrument often made in Russia or other parts of Eastern Europe. It comes in a trapezoidal shape, like a triangle with one tip cut short, and has 15 strings tuned in the key of G for two octaves, and thus is diatonic, not chromatic.
It's fun and easy to play: just pluck the strings with your fingers or with a guitar pick to make a louder sound. You can play familiar melodies, or with trial and error come up with more interesting sounds. Like most things musical, more practice and more understanding of music helps to make better music.
It's not very loud, so if you want to perform or record with it, you'll need to look into pickups or microphones to do so. One simple reason that it sounds so good is that after plucking a string, you just let it ring out until the vibration stops, or until you want to play the same note again. Thus, you get a warm, reverberating, echo-y type sound as you strike new notes while the older notes are still ringing. You can get a nice, swelling sound by playing several notes rapidly in succession.
It's even possible to dampen unwanted strings and play full chords, autoharp-style, although this is a bit difficult to do manually. Or use both hands to play more than one note at the same time.
The children's versions are pretty cheap, for about $40 or less. In fact, I saw that Wal-Mart now carries a version for under $20. However, some folk music instrument makers (like Craggy Mountain Music) make and sell higher quality instruments for more money. You can also occasionally find a decent one on E-Bay.
I'd recommend getting a cheap one to try out, and if you really like it, then go for a more expensive, quality instrument. It's a good instrument for musical beginners (children and adults) and fun even for more advanced musicians.
12/03/2008
The Golden Age of Online Comics
This is the golden age of online comics, or comics on the internet. So now that you know, you too can walk around and say, "Gee, I'm living in the Golden Age of online comics!" Heh.
But seriously, there are tons of online comics, with more being created every day, and they're almost all free! Of course, they vary considerably in their quality and style, from very crude to animation-style to cgi. Some strips are even made from photos or recycled, public domain art.
A lot of them are humor strips, and many combine humor with science fiction, fantasy, or some other genre. Curiously, I find very few super hero strips--maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places?
Many of the traditional syndicated strips are available online, as well. Check out comics.com, for example. However, newspaper syndication has always been difficult to break into, and is probably harder now that newspaper circulation is dwindling. Most online comics will never be seen on newsprint, although one revenue source for online comics artists is to sell collections of their strips.
Some online comics aren't done in the "comic strip" format of a few panels, but are done as full pages, like an online comic book, one page at a time. Girl Genius is like this, for example, but then it originally started as a real comic book before going online. And creator Phil Foglio has done quite of bit of comic book work in the past, too.
One thing that bothers me, though, is the creative limits most online comics artists place on themselves. Scott McCloud has already done two books and several online stories and articles of his own that explore the limits of comics on the web.
For one thing, why have panels or borders at all? Why not just a set of borderless pictures loosely separated by space (or in some cases, overlapping pictures for compression of time or action sequences)? Why should they even be in a straight line? Or another possibility is simply that each picture is a separate web page, and you click on the picture to go to the next picture.
There's always the possibility of animation, as in animated gif's, but I think if you do that too much, you really have an animated film, and not a comic, or sequential art.
And there are no practical limits on story content. Sci fi, mystery, romance, suspense, historical, humor, etc. As an online comic artist, you are free to tell the story or stories that you want to tell, without editorial constraint. Even adult material, although one still needs to be a bit more careful with putting it online.
So, just remember, we're living in the Golden Age of Online Comics. Enjoy!
There's only a few online comics I keep up with every day (I do have to get some work done for my employer!), although there are many that I check up on every now and then:
Diesel Sweeties
Sheldon
Sluggy Freelance
Girl Genius
Starslip Crisis
Chainsaw Suit
F Chords
Station V3
Other comics I occasionally check on:
Lost and Found
Fish Tank
Mansion of E
Penguins with Baseball Bats
I Can't Draw Feet
Chronillogical
Zortic
Marooned: A Space Opera in the Wrong Key
Rocket Llama
Z7
Ebb's Children
Silence in the Darkness on Q16
Two Lumps: The Adventures of Ebenezer and Snooch
The Bunny System
General Protection Fault
Emmaverse
Anarchy in Your Head
And I come across other new ones every now and then to check out.
But seriously, there are tons of online comics, with more being created every day, and they're almost all free! Of course, they vary considerably in their quality and style, from very crude to animation-style to cgi. Some strips are even made from photos or recycled, public domain art.
A lot of them are humor strips, and many combine humor with science fiction, fantasy, or some other genre. Curiously, I find very few super hero strips--maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places?
Many of the traditional syndicated strips are available online, as well. Check out comics.com, for example. However, newspaper syndication has always been difficult to break into, and is probably harder now that newspaper circulation is dwindling. Most online comics will never be seen on newsprint, although one revenue source for online comics artists is to sell collections of their strips.
Some online comics aren't done in the "comic strip" format of a few panels, but are done as full pages, like an online comic book, one page at a time. Girl Genius is like this, for example, but then it originally started as a real comic book before going online. And creator Phil Foglio has done quite of bit of comic book work in the past, too.
One thing that bothers me, though, is the creative limits most online comics artists place on themselves. Scott McCloud has already done two books and several online stories and articles of his own that explore the limits of comics on the web.
For one thing, why have panels or borders at all? Why not just a set of borderless pictures loosely separated by space (or in some cases, overlapping pictures for compression of time or action sequences)? Why should they even be in a straight line? Or another possibility is simply that each picture is a separate web page, and you click on the picture to go to the next picture.
There's always the possibility of animation, as in animated gif's, but I think if you do that too much, you really have an animated film, and not a comic, or sequential art.
And there are no practical limits on story content. Sci fi, mystery, romance, suspense, historical, humor, etc. As an online comic artist, you are free to tell the story or stories that you want to tell, without editorial constraint. Even adult material, although one still needs to be a bit more careful with putting it online.
So, just remember, we're living in the Golden Age of Online Comics. Enjoy!
There's only a few online comics I keep up with every day (I do have to get some work done for my employer!), although there are many that I check up on every now and then:
Diesel Sweeties
Sheldon
Sluggy Freelance
Girl Genius
Starslip Crisis
Chainsaw Suit
F Chords
Station V3
Other comics I occasionally check on:
Lost and Found
Fish Tank
Mansion of E
Penguins with Baseball Bats
I Can't Draw Feet
Chronillogical
Zortic
Marooned: A Space Opera in the Wrong Key
Rocket Llama
Z7
Ebb's Children
Silence in the Darkness on Q16
Two Lumps: The Adventures of Ebenezer and Snooch
The Bunny System
General Protection Fault
Emmaverse
Anarchy in Your Head
And I come across other new ones every now and then to check out.
11/17/2008
Drug policy and the community
For some time now, it has seemed to me that laws against recreational drugs were an attempt to protect people from themselves. This alone makes the drug laws unwarranted, and an immoral intervention into the personal rights and responsibilities of individuals. Furthermore, if we look at the drug abuse problem, it seems obvious to me that either addiction is real, and drug abusers need medical help, or it's not real, and it really is a matter of personal choice. Addiction might undermine personal responsibility, but neither possibility justifies criminal prohibition.
How will jail time and confiscation of personal property help the drug abuser? And why should such penalties be applied to responsible drug users who do not have an abuse problem? Exactly who is being harmed by these activities? Even if you say friends and families are being "harmed", that still doesn't justify the penalties. After all, does it make any sense that the way to save the "destruction of families" is to do just that: destroy the family?
Furthermore, after spending some time with a drug addict who can't seem to help herself, I'm more convinced than ever that criminal prosecution is a stupid way of dealing with the problem. In an old column (from the 90s, IIRC), George Will once wrote about drugs that it was better to have a localized criminal problem than a generalized social problem. Nice try, George, but the trouble with "localized criminal problems" is that they tend to not stay "localized". Even as a criminal problem, it is still also a social problem, but the criminal laws make it harder to deal with as a social problem. Also, these drug laws are diverting law enforcement efforts away from their legitimate function of protecting individual rights, providing us all with less general protection. Thus, the drug laws themselves are hurting society in general.
One other thought has occurred to me, besides the "friends and family" argument. Given that drug users are perceived as unproductive or underproductive members of society ("slackers"), it may be that the justification for drug laws is the productivity of society, that drug users are harming society by not being more productive. This is more of a communitarian argument, and depends upon the belief that the individual must be subservient to the community as a whole, or at least, that individual rights are no greater than the needs or rights of the community as a whole, and need to be balanced.
Once brought out in the open, this argument is easy to demolish. Wasting law enforcement resources on recreational drug users does nothing to make the community more productive. It also assumes that individual rights and society in general are in conflict, which is itself an unexamined and I think unwarranted assumption: the rights of the individual and the interests of the community are properly complementary to each other, and not necessarily antagonistic--the community is simply a bunch of individuals with certain things in common, like locality or interests. Finally, there are plenty of other unproductive or underproductive people in society, and they are not criminalized. In fact, some of them are "rewarded" for being unproductive: welfare recipients, farmer subsidies, corporate bailouts, etc.
The real problem in dealing with the communitarian argument may be making people aware that they are holding these assumptions in their subconscious, and not recognizing them as assumptions.
Ending drug prohibition (the War on Drugs) won't solve the drug problem by itself, but it will stop creating additional, unintended problems for us, making it harder and more intractable for society to deal with. Ending the assumptions about drugs and drug use is a good place to start towards ending drug prohibition.
How will jail time and confiscation of personal property help the drug abuser? And why should such penalties be applied to responsible drug users who do not have an abuse problem? Exactly who is being harmed by these activities? Even if you say friends and families are being "harmed", that still doesn't justify the penalties. After all, does it make any sense that the way to save the "destruction of families" is to do just that: destroy the family?
Furthermore, after spending some time with a drug addict who can't seem to help herself, I'm more convinced than ever that criminal prosecution is a stupid way of dealing with the problem. In an old column (from the 90s, IIRC), George Will once wrote about drugs that it was better to have a localized criminal problem than a generalized social problem. Nice try, George, but the trouble with "localized criminal problems" is that they tend to not stay "localized". Even as a criminal problem, it is still also a social problem, but the criminal laws make it harder to deal with as a social problem. Also, these drug laws are diverting law enforcement efforts away from their legitimate function of protecting individual rights, providing us all with less general protection. Thus, the drug laws themselves are hurting society in general.
One other thought has occurred to me, besides the "friends and family" argument. Given that drug users are perceived as unproductive or underproductive members of society ("slackers"), it may be that the justification for drug laws is the productivity of society, that drug users are harming society by not being more productive. This is more of a communitarian argument, and depends upon the belief that the individual must be subservient to the community as a whole, or at least, that individual rights are no greater than the needs or rights of the community as a whole, and need to be balanced.
Once brought out in the open, this argument is easy to demolish. Wasting law enforcement resources on recreational drug users does nothing to make the community more productive. It also assumes that individual rights and society in general are in conflict, which is itself an unexamined and I think unwarranted assumption: the rights of the individual and the interests of the community are properly complementary to each other, and not necessarily antagonistic--the community is simply a bunch of individuals with certain things in common, like locality or interests. Finally, there are plenty of other unproductive or underproductive people in society, and they are not criminalized. In fact, some of them are "rewarded" for being unproductive: welfare recipients, farmer subsidies, corporate bailouts, etc.
The real problem in dealing with the communitarian argument may be making people aware that they are holding these assumptions in their subconscious, and not recognizing them as assumptions.
Ending drug prohibition (the War on Drugs) won't solve the drug problem by itself, but it will stop creating additional, unintended problems for us, making it harder and more intractable for society to deal with. Ending the assumptions about drugs and drug use is a good place to start towards ending drug prohibition.
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