Scott Henderson's album "Tore Down House" (1997) has been on my play list for about a month or so. It's Robben Ford meets Jeff Beck meets Stevie Ray Vaughn. If your curious, I can cite many of his improvisation licks to these guitarists: the long "Gittar School" is a tribute to Steve Ray Vaughn, "Dolomite" is a tribute to Robben Ford, and "Xanax" is a tribute to Jeff Beck.
His vocalist Thelma Houston is a fantastic vocalist, too, and she does a duet with Masta Edwards, in this song "I Hate You" (see lyrics below). On face, these two people hate each other, and they really can hurl insults at each other, both raw and refined:
Of course, no one wants do any job poorly, but sometimes certain jobs aren't suited for us. In my youth, I had a couple jobs that I did really poorly. Sure all those jobs were about having some pocket change. Now maybe I'd do them much better now, but I did them poorly when I was 9-12 years old ...
Mowing Lawns
I don't remember how much ... maybe $5? Although I mowed the grass fine, it was all the trimming work (sidewalks, bricks, fences) that I didn't really want to do, and I did it sloppily. My father (not the neighbors) made me go back and do the job right. ...
Ya know how you're mindlessly surfing YouTube? I was looking for live versions of Scott Henderson's blues song called "Mocha" (a tribute to his dog, presumably hit by a car). Well you can listen to studio version, which is excellent excellent blues ... great stuff from Mr. Henderson.
But surf a couple videos and WatchMojo Top-10 Lists start showing up in your YouTube suggestions.
With WatchMojo's top-10 videos at about 10 minutes in length, I clicked for a couple minutes of fluff. So what kept me in for 10 minutes was the ridiculous criteria. Here are some quotes:
How densely can crowds be packed? This is a world-wide question, but I thought about it recently at event where I was doing crowd control. There is a good article Crowd Risk Analysis and Crowd Safety, from the Event Industry Association of Ireland.
In honor of Independence Day in the United States, here's my perspective looking back five decades.
Looking Back To Third Grade
Wow, third grade - was it really was five decades ago? At the time, I remember a couple events:
our country was sending rockets to the Moon
I distinctly remember the day 6/6/66 as having as special numerological significance
I think it was the first year that we had Monday holidays (I could be off be a year), because previously Memorial Day was always celebrated on May 30, George Washington's Birthday always on February 22
and so on.
It would be fourth grade social studies where we had to watch the nightly news and report on current events, which was reporting on the count of soldiers who died that day in Vietnam, typically 100-200 dead each day.
Now, tears usually come to my eyes when I hear the Star Spangled Banner, Stars and Stripes, or God Bless America (which was sung at Sunday's Mass). Why the tears? Third grade you're not an adult; college you're nominally an adult' your 20s, 30, and 40s are building your life, family, etc.; and 50s can start with some looking back on what has been accomplished (or not).
I was towards the end of the Baby Boom, and there was so much to look forward to in third grade. Landing on the Moon? Wow! We all had TV sets on that day in 1969 (and then it rained every day for the month afterwards). But it wasn't until the late 1980s with the collapse of the Soviet Union that we could breath a sigh of relief that we wouldn't be annihilated in a nuclear holocaust.
In light of US Independence Day, and some our well-known freedoms, such as the First Amendment and "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; [...]" (Freedom of Religion), I explore some current thinking on religion.
Essentially, Bill Maher makes the point that if one is religious, one can't be intelligent. In an interview with NY Times columnist Ross Douhat (who is Catholic), Mr. Douhat defends the point. While there might be points to make on both sides, I discourage the idea of these broad conclusions without much basis and support - maybe it makes for Good Comedy, but it's Not Good Intellectual Thought. (Reminder: Mr. Maher is doing a comedy show.)
Does Religious Belief Mean You're Not An Intellectual?
Mr. Maher's show seems to be about Mr. Maher mugging smug for the camera, and having a cheering audience. I have a close friend who very much likes Mr. Maher's comedy, and while I see some comedic moments, Mr. Maher is distracting in his close-mindedness and apparent disdain for those who have opinions different than him. Mr. Maher is a champion of various political causes (which I happen to agree with), but just because we are much-aligned politically, that doesn't imply that I'm in agreement with Mr. Maher's show or his rhetorical tactics.
Mr. Maher believes he is an intellectual, and a strong one, yet I find his on-air presence to be so intellectually un-curious of others' ideas. If you watch the video, I think you'll find him pushing his perspective more than listening to Mr. Douhat's ideas.
I should also explain that I happen to disagree with good portions of Mr. Douhat's politics (as expressed in his NY Times column), but I wanted to hear his thinking. Here is the interview:
Have you wondered about Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How? These seem to be the main questions (interrogatives) when one is gathering facts. However, this appears to be closely related to journalism and story-telling (in general). In fact, we might even say that these interrogatives are fundamental to humans acquiring knowledge (assuming "knowledge" includes something about "truths" in the world around us).
I've been doing research on "data" for several decades, and this kind of inquiry comes from a long history of trying to understand several core problems, developing theories, and following this area of research (including areas of computer science, information science, terminology science, metadata, data types, knowledge management, context, etc.).
This article focuses upon my interest in: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. A follow-up article will discuss turning this kind of information into data (not as obvious/easy as one might think).
Well maybe it's time that I have my own blog, certainly I've commented
on many others. I have a good number of interests, and I like
communicating with people to share ideas - we don't have to be in
agreement, and we don't have to have the same aesthetic, but there needs
to be a serious interest in discussion (even if the topics themselves
aren't 100% serious). What kinds of things am I interested it? I like
the sciences, I like music, and I like thinking about consensus-building
on areas such as policies and standards.
So some do's and don'ts. Do identify yourself. I don't want to waste
time with anonymous people or pseudo anonymous handles. Do expect that
your thoughts/opinions might be challenged, just as you would expect
to challenge my thoughts/opinions. I learned a goofy acronym in some
corporate training session: "ELMO", which means Enough Let's Move On.
It seemed to allow just enough discussion, but it helped putting limits
on things, and maybe sometimes I'll just have to say "ELMO". Oh yeah, I
make mistakes, too - so maybe this do/don't list is incomplete or
whatever, so I'll adapt.
