Musician of the day: Lenny Breau

FM 91.1 (KCSM) is a SF Bay area jazz station and it is the top radio station in my car. FM 91.1 in Toronto also plays jazz and thus became my top radio station there! I listened to their show Jazzology when I was driving. That is a very interesting show: the host interviewed a guest, who is a jazz guitarist from Newfoundland studying at York University. They discussed the music they like and the approaches taken by those musicians. They also took the time to explain concepts like comping and II-V-I progression in layman's terms.

And I "discovered" a versatile Canadian guitarist named Lenny Breau. His approach to harmony was compared to pianist Bill Evans. The track they played came from Live At Bourbon St They also mentioned he played other styles like country and flamenco. I wonder how his flamenco playing sounds like!

Musician of the day: Matthew Applegate

Applegate is not your typical "electronic musician." He is creating new music at the National Museum of Computing in UK, using vintage computers, some dated back to World War II! Check out this video.

Topic of the day: commitment to blogging

I have not missed a day ever since this blog was started late last year but I am facing the biggest challenge so far: I'll be traveling. I am going to write whenever I can and upload whenever I get an internet connection. According to my buddy, Wifi is almost everywhere these days. I know it's hard to commit to writing when I don't even know if anyone is reading other than myself!

Topic of the day: story of another irresponsible mom

I think I have blogged too much about the mom of the octuplets already. More on her later. Breaking news from Hong Kong: a 14 year old kid is pregnant and photo-blogging herself. Her posts drew a ton of criticisms: some thought such act encourages more young girls get pregnant. On the other hand, some praised her being brave.

If you have been following this blog, you know I hate to sound like a close-minded conservative but I do have 2 problems with her thinking:
1) she claimed that the father of the baby as well as her parents urged her not to have the baby and that's a reason she's keeping it. Almost any reason is a better reason than that!
2) she didn't worry about not being able to take care of the baby when s/he is born because she could give him/her away. Again, giving away your baby should never be part of the plan!

Regarding the octo-mom, please please please follow her "blog" and videos. I am hoping the ad revenue generated will result in more companies sponsoring her and makes her less dependent on taxpayers like us!

Topic of the day: Stem cell funding ban lifted

What President Obama did was a no brainer: impeding scientific/medical advancement because of religious belief is simply ridiculous. Of course, there are always naysayers from the religious right. And some of them did raise an interesting question (see the comments on SFGate): when it was banned 8 years ago, the stem-cell research community in US has moaned about US would be lagging behind countries without such restrictions. So, what exactly have these country done in the last 8 years? According to those responded: progress has been made in Europe using cloning for liver tissue regeneration. One major advance in France was they were able to show that embryonic stem cells can regenerate heart tissue and other types of stem cells cannot. Well, it is time for US to catch up.

Tech of the day: the strength of DRM

For those not familiar with the term, DRM (digital right management) is what digital content provider put on their files to limit how users could use the contents. For example, the music files you bought from iTunes Store has DRM to make sure (a) you could only play it on Apple's devices and (b) you can't play it on more than 5 computers. Another example is eBook you checked out from libraries. The DRM on it make sure you can't keep the book forever (just like "physical" books)

DRM involves encryption for sure. Otherwise users could easily "edit out" the unwanted bits in the files and remove the DRM! And conventional wisdom related to encryption is that the stronger the better. When one encryption is scheme is broken, it is always replaced by yet another stronger one. One would logically think that applies to DRM too. However, I came across this comment on Slashdot that makes a lot of sense: the strength of protection is related to the values of the things it protects. It's all about opportunity cost. Petty cash doesn't need a million dollar safe. Likewise, DRM only needs to be strong enough so that enough users are not bother to remove them. After all, the contents are not that valuable. iTunes' DRM and Microsoft's "Plays for sure" DRM have all been broken before and those companies didn't seem to worry about that too much. (They did try fixing them but it has been a cat-and-mouse game) A lot of their users won't bother to use the tools to remove the DRM anyway.

BTW, the comment is a response to the story that a website hosting code that breaks Adobe's ADEPT DRM (a technology used by libraries) have been taken down.

每週冷飯﹕衝出亞洲﹐挑戰世界

摘自01年5月1號﹕

記得十多年前有人預言太平洋世紀即將來臨﹐不過隨著九十年代初日本經濟陷入衰退﹐以及九十年代末亞洲金融風暴﹐太平洋世紀的來臨似乎遙遙無期。

其實﹐雖然亞太區目前經濟方面實力如何尚需拭目以待﹐但在藝文界以至體育界方面的成績經已有目共睹﹐不少亞洲人經已成功打入以往由歐美人士壟斷的市場。

最明顯的例子莫過於荷李活電影圈﹐李安及其電影「臥虎藏龍」勇奪數項奧斯卡獎﹐反映其地位已被美國主流影壇所肯定。至於音樂界﹐日本指揮家小澤征爾(Seiji Ozawa)早於一九七三年起成為著名的波士頓交響樂團音樂總監﹐中國作曲家譚盾相信亦會因為「臥虎藏龍」配樂而更上一層樓。

今時今日的亞洲人不但能文﹐而且能武﹗早幾年日本棒球投手野茂英雄(Hideo Nomo)轉投美國職棒﹐掀起過一陣旋風﹐最近雖然沉寂下來﹐上月又投出一場No-hitter(即全場無人自其手中成功擊球上壘)﹐這已是他旅美生涯第二次作出如此難得的演出(不少成名投手一生從未投過一場No-hitter)。來自韓國的投手朴贊浩(Chan Ho Park)亦取得相當不俗的成績﹐現今是洛杉機隊的中堅分子。美國職棒最新的旋風則是今季才由日本轉投的外野手(Outfielder)鈴木一郎(Ichiro Suzuki)﹐此君是日本太平洋聯盟連續七年的冠軍打擊手﹗至於足球界﹐一九九九年楊晨加入德國法蘭克福足球隊﹐成為首位打德國甲組聯賽的中國人。目前在意大利的日本球星中田英壽更是公認的好波之人。此外﹐今年初王治郅成為首位進軍美國職業籃球(NBA)的中國人﹐而韓國女高爾夫球手朴世莉(Si-Ri Pak)則是美國女子職業高爾夫球界的前列分子。他們的成績實在令人鼓舞。

八年時間匆匆過去﹐全球經濟現正經歷一場破壞力比亞洲金融風暴厲害得多的金融海嘯﹐相對而言﹐日本"爛船"何止三分釘﹗中國更被視為救星﹐早已衝出亞洲。對筆者更有趣的反而是玩一次Where are they now?問答遊戲﹐藝術界生涯較長﹐以上諸君仍然活躍﹔體壇則較為殘酷﹐目前仍在高峰者僅鈴木一郎一人矣﹗(朴世莉於07年成為高爾夫球名人堂一員﹐可算功德完滿﹐如今比賽只是錦上添花)不過江山代有人材出﹐最新一期奧斯卡獎得主就有由印度人執導﹑主演的Slumdog Millionaire。至於音樂界﹐朗朗及李雲迪已是古典家一線的演奏家。體壇方面﹐投手王建民是紐約洋基隊的主將﹐中場姚明更是全美職業籃球最佳球員之一。只有足球較為遜色﹐歐洲四大聯賽僅得效力曼聯的朴智星比較搶鏡。