Fiddly Bitsa tumblelog

Picky Bad Science Spotter of the Week Award

… goes to Jennifer Leech, who has been bothered for decades by an issue in The Lord of the Flies. “In the book it says that Piggy has myopia.” “So,” she continues: “how can the children marooned on that island have used his glasses to start a fire?”

From Ben Goldacre Thursday May 1, 2003 The Guardian

posted 2 months ago

Last Piano Roll

QRS Music Technologies, 1026 Niagara St., Buffalo, NY

The last new-issue piano roll that went off the assembly line Dec. 31 was the company’s 11,060th. The song was “Spring is Here,” by Rodgers and Hart, recorded by Buffalo-based pianist Michael T. Jones.

“The last roll goes against the grain,” Berkman said, since the company had been mostly making pop songs. “We looked through our list [of songs] and said, ‘There’s a great American song we had never issued.’ ”

The halt in production comes 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago, and 42 years since it moved to Buffalo. Rolls used in player pianos reached their peak in popularity in the early 20th century, when a roll of paper was able to reproduce music through perforations signifying notes played on the piano.

The company is now a leading manufacturer of digitized and computerized player-piano technology that runs on CDs.

Until Thursday, QRS was the only continuously operating mass producer of piano rolls in the world. The only other company, in Australia, stopped earlier this decade. Sales dropped about 80 percent from 15 years ago to around 50,000 annually, Berkman estimated.

posted 3 months ago

for starters...

Kyna Leski’s ten “Ground Rules for Navigating the Creative Process.” There are more, or less, of course.

1. The creative process holds internal guides for a project’s development and guides an individual’s growth as well.
2. Only by committing yourself to the authority of the work can you develop as artists.
3. You can get stuck in thought if you aren’t making at the same time. Or one can make mindlessly if one is not thinking while making. If making is simultaneous to thinking, instead of proceeding or following thought, one imbues material at hand with intelligence.
4. Listen and converse with the intelligence in the things you make; a conversation of reflection, conceptualization and critique.
5. “Art (or architecture) is the science of the unique and unrepeatable.” Principles are formed out of the conditions, content and forces of the situation of each project.
6. Problem making is essential to problem solving because the definition of a problem sets in play the direction and momentum of its solution.
7. There is a power to limits.
8. The whole cannot be seen from a single point of view.
9. Words are essential to developing a consciousness of the creative process…an intimate felt experience of a “material language.”
10. Everything is connected, somehow; from the astronomical to the metabolic.

Notes:

Great question. I can tell you what I mean by “material language.” I use it often and not as a reference to someone else’s usage. (Perhaps I should be aware of how others use the phrase.)

What I mean is the language’s physical properties…working directly with its physical workings and behaviors…for words…a play with their sound, rhythm and and graphic image apart…for a moment’s consideration…from content. For instance, considering the physical sensation of the sound of a syllable in the body…where and how it resonates.

What is equally important are the “immaterial” aspects of language… like the workings of mathematics that a physicist plays with in searching a route for a proof. Primarily for us architects, language’s property of syntax comes close to tectonics…or the order that defines the meetings of things…whether it be wall to wall, room to room, inside to outside, material to material, public to private, etc. …the abstract generative order of these connections.

John Maeda: Ah. Physicality = materiality in your book. I see it a bit differently. Materiality … is changing.

Kyna Leski: I think it is changing …or more precisely, our understanding is changing because our intellectual tools have changed. That is why I asked, in my next post, “what escapes material and what doesn’t?”

posted 4 months ago

Oven Roasted French Fries

Adapted from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Preheat oven to 450. Peel 2 russet potatoes (or don’t peel if they have a nice skin). Slice lengthwise, roughly into 1/2 inch width cuts.

Toss with olive oil and salt. Place on a lightly greased pan. Roast for about 20 minutes, flipping the pieces over once or twice during cooking so that they brown evenly. Take out and add more salt and pepper.

Eat. Try and be productive after this.

posted 4 months ago