Parity Violation

So, as I’m in graduate school I’m always curious about the academic job market. I’ve come across several recent articles. First, the good news. College Professor ranks #2 in Money Magazine’s list of the Best Jobs in the country. This takes into account stress, money, job satisfaction, various things. So, that’s good, because I could end up a college professor some day.

Now for the bad news. A study of economics Ph.ds concludes that the prestige of the institution of one’s first job greatly influences someone’s overall success in the field. In terms of both producing papers and eventually getting into a Top 50 institution.

Also, while Money Magazine says college professor is a great job, it also notes that the job of an academic research scientist requires a large amount of training and not that great pay even if you get to the promised land. Gee, thanks.

Let’s face it, 70% of my music is Classical, so all these “random” samples are going to be mostly classical anyway. So why pretend? This week’s is entirely from my Classical smart list. Also, I’m posting via a modem connection on the road this week…. so let’s hear it for my dedication to this blog post that maybe four or five people will read.

1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus – The Magic Flute
   Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen- Klemperer/Ludwig/Popp
2. Shostakovich, Dmitri – Ballet Suite No. 1
   I. Lyric Waltz- Jarvi/Scottish National Orchestra
3. Grainger, Percy – Works For Chorus & Orchestra
   Molly On The Shore- Hickox/Stephen/Padmore/Varcoe/Tozer/Joyful Company of Singers/City of London Sinfonia
4. Mahler, Gustav – Symphony No. 8 – Mahler – BBC Legends
   “Waldung, sie schwank heran” – “Ewiger Wonnebrand” – …..Erdenrest”- Jascha Horenstein-London Symphony Orchestra
5. Händel, Georg Friedrich (1685-1759) – Messiah – Handel
   If God Be For Us – soprano air- Robert Shaw • Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
6. Stravinsky, Igor – Pétrouchka
   Scene 1: The Shrovetide Fair – Vivace – Russian Dance- Temirkanov – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
7. Sibelius, Jean – Symphony No. 4 in A minor
   Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio- Sir Colin Davis – Boston Symphony Orchestra
8. Beethoven, Ludwig – Symphony No. 6 Beethoven
   3. Allegro- Abbado / Berliner Philharmoniker
9. Bach – Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
   Variation 17 – Variation 18 – Variation 19 – Variation 20 – Variation 21 – Variation 22 – Variation 23 – Variation 24- Glenn Gould, Piano
10. Beethoven, Ludwig – Symphony No. 9 “Choral” – Beethoven
    II. Molto vivace- Szell – Addison – Lewis – Hobson – Bell – Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus

Why don’t web sites use titles intelligently? Look at this mess of titles at the AAA web site – each is a very different place in the navigation of the site yet they all have the exact same title. Many other web sites do this – they never bother to put the title in the … title!

This to me is poor web design, and I’m going to see to it that my blog here is properly setting the titles of every page.

I’m growing unsatisfied with randomizing iTunes. I either get all classical music or a bunch of songs I swear were in last month’s random ten. I should audit all of these and see how many repeats their have been.

1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus – Mass in C Major, K. 317, “Coronation”
   Gloria- Horenstein – Lipp – Ludwig – Dickie – Berry – Vienna Symphony Orchestra
2. Sleighride – Classics for Joy- Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
   Sleighride – Classics for Joy
3. Michelle Branch- All You Wanted
   The Spirit Room
4. Bernstein, Leonard – Mass – Bernstein
   Trope: ‘World Without End’- Bernstein, Alan Titus, the Norman Scribner Choir and Berkshire Boy Choir
5. The American Analog Set- Million Young
   Tonight at 8:30 Disc 3
6. Brahms, Johannes – Ein Deutsches Requiem
   Herr, Lehre Doc Mich- Klemperer, Schwarzkopf, Fischer_Dieskau, Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra
7. Buena Vista Social Club- Candela
   Buena Vista Social Club
8. Lisa Germano- It’s Party Time
   Tonight at 8:30 Disc 3
9. Dvorak, Antonin – Symphony No. 8 – Dvorak
   Allegretto grazioso- Kubelik-Berliner Philharmoniker
10. Garbage- Run Baby Run
    Bleed Like Me

MediaCentral, as I have mentioned is a Front Row style Music/Movies/Picture browser. I put in my iBook iTunes machine recently.

Problems are popping up. Keep in mind a pokey 600 MHz G3 is running this thing, and it’s mirroring video on the video out port to my TV.

• Shuffle only appears in albums. For some reason, you can’t shuffle a playlist. I don’t get that.
• It’s slow on long artist/album lists. There’s definitely a noticeable lag in opening any menu that has a lot of items, such as albums.
• There is no browse by composer option. This makes it almost useless for classical music.
• Playlists are not always in order. I don’t know what it’s sorting with, but iTunes playlists are definitely not always in the order they are in iTunes, ruining for example, the order of the songs in my hybrid vinyl/itunes/dvd Jesus Christ Superstar music list.
• Videos play incredibly slow. This is probably just a function if the 600 MHz G3 chip, but still.

So, I’m not as sweet on MediaCentral anymore, but it is free, so hopefully it’ll get better with time.

The Intel-Based iBook replacement MacBook was released today. It sports a 13″ widescreen at 1280×800 and a Core Duo processor at 1.83 or 2.0 GHz. The old iBook was 1024×768 and something like 1.3 GHz, I think? And of course that had one core. There’s also a fancy black version at the high-end, but more on that later.

The MacBook’s other advantages over the iBook G4 it replaces include:

• The ability to span monitors without a firmware hack.
• Built-in bluetooth
• Faster and bigger hard drives
• Gigabit ethernet
• Built-in iSight camera
• DVD Burning in the midrange models and higher. (The DVD burning “superdrive” was available in the iBook but only in the ungainly 14″ model.)
• Audio in/out (and optical digital audio out)
• Fancy “MagSafe” power connector.
• Front Row and the Front Row remote.

So what’s the problem?

• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with shared memory instead of a dedicated video card.
• The black MacBook costs $150 more than a comparably equipped white MacBook.
• They’re charging for the mini-DVI to VGA adapter, so throw in another $19 if you want to connect to a monitor.
• I’m not sure about this “glossy” display.
• No modem. Yep, it has a camera but no modem. Apple sells a $50 USB modem.

The lack of a dedicated video card is weak. The GMA 950 is the same lame graphics chipset in the Intel Mac Mini, which Bare Feats showed underperforms the PPC-based Mac Mini with a dedicated ATI graphics card.

The other thing, that black MacBook 2.0 GHz model? You’re paying $150 just for the color. Its only advantage over the white 2.0 GHz model is a 80 GB hard drive versus a 60 GB hard drive. You can build-to order the white model with the 80 GB hard drive for a mere $50 more, hardly closing the $200 price gap.

So, almost a homerun. Maybe a stand-up double. If it had a dedicated video card or even a build-to-order better video card, it would rock-out. But the Intel graphics… yeesh… I don’t know if I can buy one of these with that.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing about the evils of DRM (digital rights management). Apple occasionally gets grief for iTunes – either for having DRM at all or locking people into their Fairplay DRM scheme in iTunes, which only works on iPods. Of course, Apple makes little or no money on the iTunes store; they use it to sell iPods. Anyway, DRM is a little thing that the paranoid record companies and other media content owners created to combat rampant internet piracy of their property.

DRM isn’t really the fault of the evil media companies; I mean they did invent to create a song or a movie or whatever. It’s the fault of people who steal. We have to take responsibility for the existence of DRM. If millions of people didn’t go nuts and steal millions of mp3s in the Napster days, then the record industry wouldn’t be so spooked and insist on DRM in online music stores. If people didn’t use bittorrent to download movies they could just as well buy or rent on DVD, then the movie industry wouldn’t be so freaked out and insist on various DRM and DRM-like schemes (think broadcast flag) for HDTV and the next generation of DVDs.

These days, I buy CDs, I buy DVDs, and I buy songs on iTunes. I think it’s reasonable to think I should have the right to make a mix CD for a friend, or to put DVDs I own onto my iPod. However, the Evil Media Companies are so concerned I’ll just transfer all 15 gigs of things on my iPod to everyone I know and every person on the internet that they’re rightfully trying to think up some way to stop that from happening.

So, next time you’re annoyed your friends can’t play your shared iTunes-purchased songs over the LAN, don’t be so quick to blame Apple or BMG or whoever. The fault lies in all the people who never pay for a CD or DVD, but think they should just be able download for free whatever they want.

I should have put these online ages ago – the SubC M emails of 1999. I went ahead and made a static page of the letters which you will also find in the right sidebar. It’s password protected now, the password is my last name, all lowercase, for those of you who know it.

Apparently, sometime in 1999, someone emailed me thinking I was the rebel Zapatista leader. When I showed this to my friend Dave, he wrote a very amusing parody. Both are on the web page link above and to the side. Read and be amused. :)

It’s Sunday, but here’s a Random Ten anyway. Friday I was up entirely too late playing Wacraft III – something I haven’t done in a couple of years, but Jared was in town so it was like old times.

1. Brahms, Johannes – Ein Deutsches Requiem
   Denn Wir Haben Hier Keine Bleibende Statt- Klemperer, Schwarzkopf, Fischer_Dieskau, Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra
2. Verdi, Giuseppe – La Traviata Highlights
   Act One: E Strano! … Ah, Fors’E Lui… Sempre Libera (Violetta, Alfredo)- Maazel/Lorengar/Aragall/Fishchr-Dieskau
3. Debussy, Claude – Piano Works Volume 3, Naxos
   Images II: Cloches à travers les feuilles- François-Joël Thiollier (pf)
4. Händel, Georg Friedrich (1685-1759) – Messiah – Handel
   Then Shall The Eyes Of The Blind – Alto Recitative- Robert Shaw • Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
5. Mahler, Gustav – Symphony No. 8 – Mahler – BBC Legends
   “Alles Vergängliche”- Jascha Horenstein-London Symphony Orchestra
6. Verdi, Giuseppe – La Traviata Highlights
   Libiamo ne’ Liete calici (Brindisi)- Maazel/Lorengar/Aragall/Fishchr-Dieskau
7. Sarah Harmer- Lodestar
   Tonight at 8:30 Disc 2
8. Cardigans, The- Love Fool
   
9. John Williams / Boston Pops- String Of Pearls
   Swing, Swing, Swing
10. Peter Graham – Signatures
    Harrison’s Dream- USAF Band -Washington DC

MediaCentral is a Front Row style Music/Movies/Picture browser. The coolest thing is that it’s free. I’ve installed it on my old iBook which as you may recall is now my iTunes-machine.

With large fonts and a navigation system designed to be used with a keyboard, it’s a nice counterpart to my Keyspan USB media remote and my M-Audio USB Sonica, which sadly no longer exists. The Sonica gives me optical audio out over a USB port – it’s not something they continue to make it seems.

Anyhow, as Macworld also noted, MediaCentral isn’t perfect. A shuffle option doesn’t appear to exist, even in the newest version, and there’s no good way to browser Classical music as it lacks a Browse by Composer option.

Still, it’s better than trying to use iTunes with a remote. What I notice now is how poorly the music on my “iTunes iBook” is organized, compared with my G4 iBook that I use daily. I’ll have to solve that problem some other time though.

MediaCentral requires Tiger, so I had to put Tiger on the old iBook and then upgrade it to 10.4.6 just to be safe. This broke the M-Audio USB Sonica, until thankfully I found M-Audio had updated the driver on this no longer manufactured product. Thank goodness.

Equinox’s MediaCentral

Keyspan USB media remote

M-Audio