Random photos, comics, etc.

[Christopher Markiewicz]

Merry Christmas to everyone from County Tipperary, Ireland!

[Van Dalton]

Buchanan House; Vancouver, WA, 45.626065, -122.515326 (WGS84)

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I drive past this house every day on the way to/from work. They usually start installation the weekend after Thanksgiving and it usually takes about a week to get it fully functional (weather permitting). This shot doesn't show it well but they also have a giant lighted candy cane they install on the east roof slope (left side in this view; mostly obscured by blue tree) visible from a couple houses' worth south on Countryside Drive. It's also hard to see but the neighbours to the west (right) usually put up a little "ditto" sign above their garage, with an arrow pointing towards this house (below Santa; obscured by green tree).

His dad started doing a very similar installation (including the candy cane) sometime in the very early 90s, which was when I first remember seeing it as a small child. They started using LED lighting maybe 10? years ago. There was a period of several years in the early 2000s when his dad's health began failing and the installation shrank considerably, then it disappeared entirely for a couple years.

http://clarkcountytalk.com/2021/12/0...-clark-county/
Picture source: KATU; https://katu.com/resources/media/d29...1captioned.jpg

"Vancouver home brings Christmas cheer | KATU

Thu Dec 03 2020
Brant Buchanan's house has a way to bring you some Christmas cheer. Buchanan says he remembers, as a kid, his dad going all out for Christmas. Now as an adult, Buchanan has picked up the mantle, continuing a tradition that's been going on for 30 years. The Buchanan's holiday home includes this countdown clock to Christmas.

An engineer by trade, Buchanan says he uses the holiday display to put his dreams into reality. "People were so thankful to see all the bright lights to brighten their day, he said Thursday night. "Everyone's just been so grateful to see the Christmas lights."

The display consists of 100,000 lights, a suspended sleigh with all nine reindeer and a giant 35-foot candy cane. If you'd like to check it out in person, head to Northeast 7th Street at Countryside Drive in Vancouver. The lights are on from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
https://tinyurl.com/56zrh26d

(Political language removed from article)

[Frank Cox]

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This is in Warman, a town near Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

The "ditto" people said they weren't sure what the reaction would be but everyone loves it, including the neighbour.

[Frank Cox]

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[Randy Stankey]

Erik Satie was a strange, little Frenchman who wore wire rimmed glasses, a beard and a funny hat.

George Lucas is a strange, fat American man who wears wire rimmed glasses and a beard but doesn't wear a funny hat.

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Even if you gave Lucas a funny hat, Satie would still win.
Back in Satie's day, men could wear funny hats and write odd music without time signatures and people would think you were cool.
Today, if you did things like that people will think you are just strange.

Strange as he may have been, Satie did all of his own work. He wrote his own music and crafted his own image and lifestyle.

Lucas, on the other hand, could not have succeeded if he didn't have all of the people at 20th Centruy Fox backing him up. Yes, he created Star Wars but, if the movie was done his way, it wouldn't even have gotten off the ground. I've seen clips of scenes from Star Wars before the people at Fox fixed them up and they looked about as good as something you'd find on YouTube, today. In fact, there are a lot of YouTube videos that are probably better than Lucas' original cuts.

As far as I can tell, Lucas never really thought about what would come after the original Star Wars trilogy. As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure that he thought much about "Empire" and "Jedi" until after the original Star Wars became a hit. It was only after the original trilogy was a success and people wanted him to make more that he even began. It took him twenty years, probably, because he hadn't thought that far ahead.

Satie published "Gymnopiéde #1" and #3 in 1885 but waited until 1898 to publish the second. He did it on purpose just to mess with people's heads. He wanted to make them wonder what happened to #2. That's way cooler than what Lucas did.

In his later years, Satie drank absinthe and ate only white foods. Lucas smokes weed and eats hamburgers.

Satie wins, hands down, in my book!

[Marcel Birgelen]

There are three versions of "Gymnopédie." They were published in the order #1, #3, then #2. Satie could be a bastard like that, making people wonder what happened to #2. All three versions are really just variations of each other, changing chord progressions, etc., to sound dissonant or harmonious in different ways.

I'm still waiting for Sierra to release Larry 4.

George Lucas needed more than 20 years to deliver his missing parts to some space opera and some still claim to this day it never happened.

Regarding "Gymnopédie", especially #1, it's one of those compositions that has been used in movies, commercials and whatnot so many times, most people will recognize it after just a few notes, but ask anybody what it's called and who wrote it, almost nobody would be able to give you an answer.

[Leo Enticknap]

I could not imagine listening to somebody practicing Satie, over and over, for years, especially when played badly, at the wrong time signature.

That's the maddening thing: there is no wrong time signature in the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, because there is no time signature. For example, on a first, superficial listen, Gymnopédie #1 sounds like a waltz, but by changing the measures on which you put the emphasis, it's possible to play it in common time or even 2/4. Dave Brubeck's Take Five (as its name flags up, in 5/4 time), or The Unsquare Dance (7/4, so physically impossible to square dance to) have J.S. Bach level of simplicity counterpoint by comparison! Even large scale classical pieces that have unusual time signatures (e.g. the scherzos in Tchaikovsky's sixth and Bruckner's ninth symphonies) are easier to get your head round, IMHO.

[Randy Stankey]

There are three versions of "Gymnopédie." They were published in the order #1, #3, then #2. Satie could be a bastard like that, making people wonder what happened to #2. All three versions are really just variations of each other, changing chord progressions, etc., to sound dissonant or harmonious in different ways.

Satie called himself a "phonometrician" (one who writes or records sounds) rather than a musician. Most of his work could be considered experiments in combining notes, chords and rhythms.

I like Satie, too. In high school, I liked to listen to a lot of obscure music like King Crimson and Brian Eno. One of my faves was Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" which was conceived as "environmental music" or "background music" for various settings such as the bustle of people moving around an airport terminal. When I discovered Satie, I thought his work bore an interesting similarity to Eno's. When I eventually read up on Satie, I learned that he often conceived his music in the same way, as environmental, background music.

I'd suggest that, to listen to Satie, you shouldn't actually "listen" to it. Just play it at a moderately low level then go about your business. As you do, you'll notice that it blends in nicely and often punctuates events as they happen.

If you try to intentionally listen to a lot of Satie's work, you might find it difficult or even unsettling. If you listen to the three "Gymnopédie" compositions in order you might find them interesting on an academic level but boring or even maddening on a musical level.

I could not imagine listening to somebody practicing Satie, over and over, for years, especially when played badly, at the wrong time signature.

I would probably go postal on the guy!

When I worked at the Tom Ridge Center, I made a mix CD to play in the theater during intermission. Because it was a state-owned facility, I tried to keep it to more classical music than modern. Of the songs in the mix was "Gymnopiédie" #1, #2 and #3. At the time, I didn't know that they were published in the order, #1, #3 then #2. That was the only music on the disc that anybody commented on. People either loved it or hated it. I even got one request for a copy of the CD.

Eventually, I ended up taking #2 and #3 out of the lineup and replacing them with Mozart's "12 Variations on Ah vous dirai-je, Maman."

It was fun listening to people try to figure out what the song was.

Hint: "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman", "Twinkle, Twinkle," "Baa-Baa, Black Sheep" and the "Alphabet Song" are all the same tune.

[Harold Hallikainen]

I first heard Satie on an album by Chicago when I worked in radio. Really like it.

[Leo Enticknap]

Satie was a rather strange bird. He was an Absurdist, a Dadaist and he supposedly had some rather strange habits.

One of the more notable ones being the consumption of Absinthe, over decades, in quantities that existing knowledge about the effect of alcohol on the human body suggests should have killed him within a couple of hours.

His music, if you listen to it carefully, is rather strange, too.

And if you try to play it, it'll have you reaching for the bottle, too. He took Dave Brubeck's penchant for weird time signatures one step further, by doing away with them altogether in some of his compositions. I had to learn Jack In the Box for grade 6 piano, which is pretty conventional by his standards, but still includes some pretty nasty contrapuntal banana skins to slip on, especially in the left hand.

[Frank Cox]

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[Frank Cox]

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[Randy Stankey]

Neighbour finally loses patience with pianist next door after ‘six long years’ with excruciating note

Satie was a rather strange bird. He was an Absurdist, a Dadaist and he supposedly had some rather strange habits. His music, if you listen to it carefully, is rather strange, too.

Although I like "Gymnopédie #1" it's something I can only listen to when I'm in the right mood. Further, it's got a rather odd rhythm. The left hand, bass line, has a little hitch in it. I can see why somebody would need to practice a lot to get it right but being forced to listen to it played at the wrong time signature would be excruciatingly maddening for me!

I don't know whether I could listen to Satie, played over and over, for six years. I would probably go postal on the guy after the first day!

[Marcel Birgelen]

My understanding is that double redundant angle of attack sensors are now mandatory (i.e. a second one has been installed on planes that were originally delivered with only one), pilots have now been fully trained on what MCAS does and how to shut it off if they need to, and the MCAS software has also been tweaked. If so, then like the MD-11, I guess the Max will keep flying with a fundamental flaw that can be managed and mitigated to the point at which it isn't a major safety concern. I hope so, anyways: I was struck by how much quieter it is, and how much fresher the cabin air in it is, as a passenger.

AFAIK there have always been two AOA sensors on the MAX as on practically every other plane qualified for commercial passenger transport. Those indicators are SO important for instrument flight, they HAVE to be redundant and I think even the MEL consists of two WORKING AOA sensors.

The problem was that MCAS was just taking the input from a single AOA sensor and when that one was stuck, it would base its decisions based on that single, false input. This happened, because they outsourced the development of core software components to some dipshits not even knowing the fair basics about aviation and redundant system design.

The simple fact that they allowed such a design to be even inside a plane is sufficient reason for me to avoid any Boeing 737 MAX altogether. If this shit made it in there, what other completely braindead shit also made it in there?

They've should've scrapped the ill-fated 737 program all together, that airframe simply isn't suited for such big engines and trying to solve this deficiency in software should never even have allowed to happen in the first place...

[Frank Cox]

Neighbour finally loses patience with pianist next door after ‘six long years’ with excruciating note


https://www.classicfm.com/discover-m...atie-practice/

A pianist had been diligently practising a Satie miniature for a very long time – and a long-suffering neighbour finally cracked, with everything needed contained in this epic note.

Have you heard the C major Prelude to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier one too many times? Not such a fan of the same French piano music day after day? This might be the tale for you.

In many flats and apartments, sound isolation can leave a lot to be desired. Thin walls can transport a lot of sound and musical detail, especially when it comes to pianos.

And it seems that one neighbour, after many years of hearing two particular pieces of keyboard music ad infinitum, simply needed to request a pause.

There’s precious little context to the images posted on Facebook by Há Marci, but everything points to an intriguing piece of musical drama.

In the viscerally scrawled note, it feels as if an emotional dam has finally burst, releasing a torrent of frustration towards the our pianist.

And as a kicker, there’s an added note containing a critique of the player’s harmony and metre.

Musicians, take a deep breath, and have a read:

Dear neighbour,” reads the note.

“Understanding that Bach’s C major Preludium and Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 represent a refined taste and diverse repertoire, excellent choices to impress a new girlfriend...”

“BUT please consider practicing the pieces in their entirety. For us, neighbours listening [to] you endlessly repeat the first four bars for hours became displeasing after these six long years.”

The writer adds in a postscript: “Plus, let me point out, that the third note of the second bar in [the] Bach is not a G as you play it, and the Gymnopédie is in 3/4.”

Ouch.

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