Monthly Archives: August 2009

I Have Strange Tastes in Music!

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I have to oddest musical tastes of anyone I know. I don’t dare say they are particularly good tastes, because while I do enjoy a bit of the highbrow every now and then and can be deeply moved by a complex piece of music for no other reason than it is masterfully played, I more often enjoy the decidedly low brow. Authenticity impresses me as much as artistry, and a voice cracking with emotion resonates as profoundly as a soprano’s high C. Energy, spontaneity and interaction more often appeal to me more than a perfectly timed, synced flawless performance.

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Case in point! I was there for this! Hard Rock Calling, Hyde Park, 2009

So why do I have odd tastes? Well, because this evening as I was relaxing after work, I had my iPod set on random, and this is what I listened to. The list was genuinely random. I did not interfere at all. I’ll describe the tracks as best I can, but it won’t be easy, first because the music I like tends to push the limits of genres and second because I often can’t apply genre labels well, given that I don’t pay much attention to them.
* Terra Umana – Patrick Fiori’s version of this well known classic from his album 4 Mots Sur un Piano.
* Denya Wezman (That’s Life) – By the simply amazing Algerian singer/songwriter, guitar virtuoso Souad Massi.
* Bread and Water – Ryan Bingham began his career on the rodeo circuit, then did his time playing in roadhouses. The song is From the album Mescalito.

* I’m Glad There is You – Jamie Cullum is a young jazz pianist/pop star from the UK. This is his interpretation of the Jimmy Dorsey, Paul Madeira classic. It took some nerve to do this. Carmen MacRae, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra are just three of the people who have recorded well know versions of this song. It’s from Cullum’s album Catching Tales.
* The Last of the American Girls – From Green Day’s latest, 21st Century Breakdown.
* Singin’ in the Rain – Yes, that Singin’ in the Rain. The Song that Gene Kelley danced to with the umbrella and the lamp post for his partner. Here the version is from Jamie Cullum’s debut album Twentysomething.
* Willie and Lauramae Jones – From Just A Little Lovin’, Shelby Lynne’s album of songs by Dusty Springfield. It doesn’t include “Son of a Preacher Man” though. Shelby says that’s Dusty’s song and she can’t imagine recording that one.
* Rosalinda’s Eyes – From Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. Joel’s tour to promote this album was the first concert I ever saw.
* Don’t Bang the Drum – This is from the The Best of The Waterboys 81-90. I was a huge fan of the Waterboys in the 80s.
* International Echo – Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello collaborated on this one, from the album The River in Reverse.
* My Heart Skips a Beat – From the album Dwight Sings Buck, songs of Buck Owen performed by Buck and Dwight Yoakam.
* Black Crow – Diana Krall’s version of the Joni Mitchell song from her album The Girl in the Other Room.
You can get some of these at iTunes through the iTunes Mix I made. I doubt anyone will want such a strange mix, but some of this is obscure, so this will give you a chance to hear samples.
And just for good measure, you don’t get more genre defying than this. Diana Krall, Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson performing together the song that Willie Nelson composed and Patsy Cline made famous.

University of Michigan's Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com

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This is an interesting project, an effort to turn the cataloging of a distinct and unusual set of texts to the scholarly community as a whole.

The University of Michigan Special Collections Library needs help cataloguing its vast Islamic Manuscripts Collection.
But the library doesn’t plan to hire an expert. Instead, almost all of its 1,250 pieces are being scanned in-house to put the work on the Internet.
And the library hopes interested scholars will get involved…
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Read more about the project at this page: University of Michigan’s Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com.
(Thanks to Nancy Millichap)

Maths and science to be taught in English – The National Newspaper

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ABU DHABI–All pupils in state high schools will be taught maths and science in English by 2012, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) said yesterday.
At the launch of its 10-year strategic plan, Adec said it aimed to see pupils graduating with equal proficiency in English and Arabic.
In a concerted effort to turn out better qualified school-leavers, from this August the school day will also be extended by 90 minutes in all state high schools in the emirate. Pupils in all Abu Dhabi’s state schools will study for 10 extra days a year.
It follows the publication of results showing that only 13 per cent of applicants to federal universities scored enough in their English exams to bypass remedial courses.
via Maths and science to be taught in English – The National Newspaper.

Language of instruction is always a sensitive issue in the Arab  world for a number of reasons: practical, political and religious, among others.  Arabic is regarding by Muslims as a sacred language, the language in God revealed the Holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad, so for many it has a special status above all others.
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Arabizing curricula is often a way of asserting a unique, independent identity.  That said, though, Arabization is quite controversial in places where there are minority populations that don’t speak Arabic as a native language.
English, on the other hand, is unquestionably the dominant world language at the moment and there is a certain practicality in acquiescing to that.
In terms of practicality, transforming the language of instruction is always difficult and some of the challenges are pointed out in this article.  Are teachers trained in one language capable of teaching a subject in another?  If you are changing a language of instruction, when do you do so?  Will the College student who was taught a subject in one language follow when they are taught in another?
It’s all very interesting.  I’ll be following how it goes.

Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians

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In a recent SF Gate Open Forum Post, Cyrus Farivar, a freelance technology journalist from California, looks at the ways in which technology has been used as a tool in the pro-democracy movement, official efforts to thrwart that, and technology developments that had made it more difficult for them to do so. He writes

But now that Iran has been experiencing turmoil surrounding its recent election, many Bay Area technology leaders finally realize the importance their technology and services can play in shaping world events. As foreign media have been kicked out of the country, information technology services suddenly have become a crucial tool to get and receive information from Iran.
Twitter famously received a call from the U.S. Department of State nearly two weeks ago asking the company to postpone its scheduled maintenance to suit those in Tehran’s time zone, rather than those on Pacific time.
Facebook recently added Persian language support for its iconic social networking site. Google took things to an entirely new level by launching its Persian version of Google translate, which allows for decent machine translation between English and Persian and vice versa. But why this newfound attention to the Persian language (and Iran) took so long remains a mystery. Google’s translation capability for Estonian even came online before Persian.

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So instead of superficial support, like Twitter users changing their avatars to green to support Iran’s reformist movement, Silicon Valley minds and money should pool resources as a way to help Iranians get around this information blockade by providing easier-to-use proxies, anonymizers and maybe even unfiltered Internet access through hardware.

Long-range Wi-Fi, 3G, satellite or other wireless communications devices from Iran’s neighboring countries or even the Persian Gulf could be used to get faster and better information in and out of Iran. One Arizona company, Space Data, even advertises the capability to use helium-filled balloons to provide Internet and mobile phone access. Much of Iran could theoretically be covered with one or two such balloons.
All of that may sound crazy, but not helping Iranian reformers at their darkest hour would be even crazier.

Read the whole article at: Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians, the San Francisco Chronicle.