April 8, 2024
New York, N.Y.
When called upon to perform basic arithmetic these days, most of us grab the nearest device with a calculator app. On the rare occasions when the power is out and the batteries have run down, we might need to resort to doing the calculation by hand. In either case, we’re performing a digital calculation, meaning that we’re manipulating discrete digits in an algorithmic procedure.
February 21, 2024
New York, N.Y.
Some crazy stuff pops up in the news these days, but I truly wasn’t ready for the Chief Justice of a state Supreme Court to invoke the “wrath of a holy God” in a court ruling.
January 31, 2024
New York, N.Y.
Music has the power to speak very directly to us over decades and centuries. Yet often some context and additional information can enhance the experience. The innovations of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, for example, can become more evident with knowledge of the earlier symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. Familiarity with the later works of Beethoven and other composers allows us to consider the Third Symphony as a pivotal work in western music.
January 26, 2024
New York, N.Y.
Vienna, 1901. A budding 19-year-old author named Stefan Zweig has written something for the feuilleton section of the Neue Freie Presse (“New Free Press”) — the part of the paper that covered literature and art rather than news and politics. He brings his “little prose essay” to the feuilleton editor who, to his surprise, begins reading it on the spot, and when finished, puts the manuscript in an envelope and tells the young man “I am glad to tell you that your fine piece is accepted for publication in the feuilleton of the Neue Freie Presse.”
January 22, 2024
New York, N.Y.
Can an AI experience music? Has an AI ever had an emotional reaction to music? Has an AI ever felt its heart rate increase while listening to music? Has an AI ever felt the hairs on the back of its neck stand up while listening to music? Has an AI ever swooned while listening to music?
December 29, 2023
Roscoe, New York
Earlier today I published a blog entry with an interactive graph that had some visual flaws. Here’s that questionable graph again:
December 29, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
One argument sometimes advanced in favor of the Electoral College is that if the voters happened to blunder and select someone who was clearly unfit, unsuitable, or unqualified to serve as President, the Electoral College could step in to override the people’s choice and choose a more appropriate candidate.
December 22, 2023
Roscoe, New York
Two candidates face off in a Presidential election: One candidate gets 22% of the popular vote and the other gets the remaining 78%, but the one who gets 22% is declared the winner. How is this possible?
December 18, 2023
New York, N.Y.
The concept of one-person-one-vote is central to democracy. No person’s vote should have more power or influence than anyone else’s. In a 1964 case Wesberry v. Sanders, the Supreme Court stated this explicitly: “As nearly as practicable, one man’s vote in a Congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” In Reynolds v. Sims the concept was extended to state legislatures. In 1964, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote “People, not land or trees or pastures, vote.” (These quotes are from a 1986 New York Times article “One Man, One Vote: Decades of Court Decisions”.)
October 23, 2023
New York, N.Y.
When Nicole Kidman strides into an AMC cineplex and begins extolling the joys of seeing movies on the big screen, I believe every word she says. That is exactly the way that I too like to see movies, and AMC has done a lot to improve the theater experience, such as reclining seats comfortable enough for a nap. But with these improvements, blatant missteps become all the more painful and inexcusable.
September 12, 2023
New York, N.Y.
When I was a teenager, I was an Aldous Huxley “completist.” I didn’t know that word at the time. It was not in common use. But I exhibited all the symptoms: After being blown away by a reading of Brave New World at the tender age of 14, I thought the author’s genius probably wasn’t limited to just one book, so I began an obsessive search for Huxley’s other works. Most of the novels were readily available, but I didn’t stop there. Fortunately I grew up just a 45-minute bus ride from New York City, and when I was 15, my mother started letting me take that bus by myself. I would visit the used bookstores on the famous (but now merely a fond memory) Book Row where I found many of Aldous Huxley’s collections of essays, short stories, travelogues, and yes, even poetry, all of which I ravenously read.
August 11, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
When some Facebook friends recently began posting prose and poetry generated by ChatGPT, I had an odd reaction. I didn’t feel astonished, or amused, or intrigued, or frightened, or threatened. (Well, maybe a little.) Mostly I felt disgusted. I felt that I was witnessing a travesty of human creativity, a mockery of human communication, and a belittling of human morality.
July 2, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
The 100th anniversary of the birth of Hungarian composer György Ligeti was this past May, and I celebrated with daily posts of Ligeti’s music on Facebook that went on for 50 days. Here are those posts on one convenient webpage.
July 1, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
In 1977, I had a Univox Electronic Piano that had stopped working well, and I had an idea that I could adapt the core electronics into an electronic music sequencer — a device that repetitively plays a sequence of notes. But I had no idea how to do this. My adolescent forays into electronics and four years at an engineering and science school had given me only a background in analog circuits. Consequently, I imagined some kind of electro-mechanical wiper switch.
June 26, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
It’s well known that MSN shovels a lot of crap onto the homepage of Microsoft Edge, but sometimes it reeks so bad that I want to scream. The latest offense was this (seemingly innocuous) headline:
May 17, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
Today I finished installing all the jacks in my Zuckermann Troubadour Virginal with Celcon plectra and red cloth dampers:
May 11, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
The virginal that I’m building from a kit now has 20 jacks installed, each with a plectrum and a cloth damper, ranging from B♭3 through F5, a range that allows me to play the first four measures of Bach’s Prelude in C Major from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier:
May 10, 2023
Roscoe, N.Y.
One week ago today — on Construction Day 20 — I prepared all 55 jacks for the Zuckermann Troubadour Virginal that I’m building. As I discussed in my previous blog entry, the jacks connect the keyboard with the strings (i.e., wires). They come supplied with tongues held by a stiff little metal wire that allows them to swivel, and a slot for some damping cloth: