Why Apple Is Now Apple Car

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The Apple electric car project, codenamed “Titan”, is undergoing research and development. It is rumored a substantial number of Apple employees are working on this project. That’ll probably be too many for me…

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk stated that Apple will probably make a compelling electric car: “It’s pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it”

Apple-CarSo why is Apple now a Car Company and not a Computer Company ?
Simple: They removed Computer from their name in 2007.

Unfortunately the corollary of this is that Apple Computer users are suffering from a lack of true innovation, hardware no longer updated, software full of bugs and vapid cosmetic changes. Apple are no longer making cutting edge computers, they won the battle to become the world’s biggest company and have since become distracted and complacent, their eyes on bigger and more useless things.

So they may have lovely shops selling computers, but consider this:

  • No Pro computer available for over a year 2013-2014
  • No new Display Monitor since 2011
  • The current Mac Mini is much slower than the previous model
  • Still selling computers with slow Hard Disks while the system is designed for SSD
  • An obsession with making thinner, but slower computers
  • 2 Year old systems (Mavericks) no longer fully supported
  • No Thunderbolt 3, now available on Acer, Lenovo and HP laptops (March 2016)
  • Dell and Samsung Computers much faster and cheaper
  • As PC World says “the Mac Pro is an iPhone 4 in an iPhone 6s world”
  • Oculus Rift headset will only be available on OSX if Apple release a “good computer”
  • Computers you can’t upgrade or fix
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Yes 1 out of 10 Repairability Score – Don’t bother !

Forgetting that software is for life, not just for Christmas, Apple have withdrawn the following products in the last few years:

  • Aperture
  • iPhoto
  • Quicktime 7 Pro
  • Quicktime VR – silent update in a hidden folder finally kills it
  • iDVD
  • iWeb
  • iChat
  • iMovie HD
  • Final Cut Pro Studio – withdrawn overnight
  • Front Row
  • Ping
  • Cover Flow
  • Rosetta
  • Mobile Me

In addition iWork was “dumbed down” to iOS level and Disk Utility no longer burns disks or makes RAID volumes. In particularly, R.I.P. Aperture – millions of man hours wasted.

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With more than 200 new features and enhancements, it can help you take your photography to the next level. Errr not now…

Apple produce a new system every year but most changes have been cosmetic and confusing, apparently out of a desire to unify OSX and iOS. These new systems have been making changes for the sake of it, removing capabilities, destroying older software and are not faster. Meanwhile a slew of bugs proliferate and important underlying issues are not addressed, while Human Interface Guidelines are ignored. This is a long list…

Recently in El Capitan OSX v10.11:

  • Continuing Finder Errors copying and moving files
  • USB3 code rewritten for no apparent reason, now full of incompatibilities
  • Unable to change bright turquoise folders or grey sidebar
  • Unable to stop Photos opening
  • Unable to remove Games and other apps
  • Mail causing people to lose data
  • Gatekeeper fooled by a faked certificate
  • Being forced to sign into the App Store or iCloud to use apps
  • Constant incomprehensible internet calls to Apple – for apps you have never used
  • Requirement to use Terminal to make computer usable
  • Silent updates which kill your computer – latest was ethernet bug
  • OS X Installers Downloaded Prior to February 14 2016 No Longer Work
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This is the incomprehensible message you receive from Apple when trying to use one of their own installers. There is nothing wrong except Apple mis-management of Certificates.


And for the last 5 years since Snow Leopard OSX v10.6.8 issues have proliferated:

  • Save As removed for some apps – now 2 entirely different Save paradigms in OSX
  • Documents being Date Modified by the Finder without user input
  • Folders unable to remember how you last viewed them
  • iCloud – Not even Apple can explain what it is doing with your data
  • iTunes – A design quagmire aka shop front which replaces your data with theirs
  • Disk Utility incapable of fixing disks and making a new Disk Directory
  • AirPrint and Airdrop don’t work for anyone I know
  • Bookmarks and Contacts forced to use iCloud
  • mDNSResponder replaced by discoveryd, then replaced by mDNSResponder
  • We are still ejecting drives by dragging them to the Trash as if deleting them
  • Hidden and Incomprehensible Buttons e.g. the x in iTunes opens the window
  • Nannying the User by hiding and locking folders
  • Missing software in the App Store
  • Security Updates casually removing usability
  • Silently “upgrading” drives to core storage – not readable by older systems
  • Disks you can’t eject, Trash you can’t empty, because they are being “used”
  • A Search function which doesn’t find everything and has no preferences
  • Unable to stop upgrade Notifications
  • Malware detection not updated for older systems
  • Software rush released when unfinished e.g. Photos, FCPX, Tags
  • Issues with multiple monitors, perhaps fixed now
  • No CUDA support, no 10-bit video card drivers
  • Enforced system and app updates
  • Apple Discussions are now unusable aka “There’s less to the conversation..”
  • Removal of Help Pages and Undocumented Changes

I hope this list makes chastening reading for Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi, 2 Apple Executives who recently claimed software quality has improved significantly over the course of the last five years. Complacency never looks good.

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A silent auto-update by Apple requires use of Terminal to fix their self-inflicted problem, but of course now you can’t access the internet to find out how !

The last thing we need now is for Apple to forget their DNA, their raison d’être: better, faster, more efficient, more usable computers.
There are myriad car makers, there is only one Apple Computer.

References:
Mac Performance Guide: Apple Core Rot
Daring Fireball: Apple’s App Problem
Mac Strategy: Upgrading
MacRumors: El Capitan Bugs Forum
MacInTouch

Postscript 20/12/16
Yes it is sadly all true – there is no longer a dedicated Mac operating system team.
How Apple Alienated Mac Loyalists

Postscript 14/04/17
Apple eats Humble Pie and admits neglecting Pro Users
Phil Schiller: Apple cares deeply about the Mac… and if we’ve had a pause in upgrades and updates on that, we’re sorry for that, what happened with the Mac Pro, and we’re going to come out with something great to replace it.
Craig Federighi: In hindsight, we would’ve done that differently. Now we are.

Mac Pro Interview

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Postscript 01/12/17
Critical “root” security failure in macOS 10.13 High Sierra

The result of Apple re-organizing its software engineering department so there’s no longer a dedicated Mac operating system team was seen in the latest security debacle. In MacOS High Sierra anyone by entering the word “root” and twice entering a blank password could gain full access to any computer, even if using FileVault encryption. This could be accomplished remotely using screen sharing. The magnitude of this error is breathtaking and makes Apple boasts about security into a laughing stock.

While they did promptly issue an update once this issue was publicised on Twitter (several weeks after first being mentioned in an Apple Forum), the update broke file-sharing. They issued an advisory to fix file-sharing using Terminal, incomprehensible to most users.

They updated this broken update. They then proceeded to install the update remotely, but failed to tell people to restart their computer so the update would work.

They also failed to update their system installers, so any user updating their system re-enabled the bug and had to apply the update patches again! Currently the latest MacOS High Sierra system install 10.3.1 contains the root security failure.

Apple said in a statement:
“We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.”

Postscript 18/06/18
Apple WWDC 2018 with no hardware updates

How long has this been going on?
We are being forced to use out of date machines, yet the older computers are still better than the new ones! A succinct article from Rogue Amoeba states “It’s very difficult to recommend much from the current crop of Macs to customers”, hence they are purchasing old, used Apple computers.
On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware

I myself am using a 2009 Mac Pro 4.1 modified to 5.1 with a 6 core 3.46ghz processor, OWC PCIe SSD Drive, 8TB RAID 0 storage disk, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4k video card (Metal supported), Orico USB3 card, 24GB ECC Ram, Blu Ray Recorder and DVD Recorder, Firewire 800, dual Ethernet – all internal. It is easily as fast as the current cylindrical 2013 Mac Pro, and much more productive.

Postscript 01/03/24
Finally proven right!
Abandoned $10 billion Apple Car project referred to as ‘Titanic disaster’ by employees.

*

Soul Diva 2015

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I am not American, Black, or a Woman, but I could not fail to be moved by this inspired performance of Aretha Franklin. She was singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman by Carole King and Gerry Goffin at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors.

Moving, because despite the trappings, it appears so spontaneous and genuinely soulful. Aretha starts off simply at the piano, belting out the chords, singing as if not a moment had passed since her original recording back in 1967. Soon she is moving off the rhythm, interpreting, comping and finally testifying, to an audience now on their feet. The 4 minutes seem like an entire concert that builds to a final operatic moment, with the audience in thrall to a true diva.

The atmosphere is heightened by the presence of the songwriter Carole King, who appears both surprised and delighted at this unexpected performance. In the same way the presence of The President and his wife lend the proceedings a gravity and wider meaning, given that back in 1967 America was riven by racial strife, and no-one expected to see a Black President in their lifetime.
~
In one sense, to say that the best vocal performance of 2015 is by a 73 year old of a 50 year old song is a sad reflection on contemporary popular music. Where are the truly memorable new songs? What happened to singing with soul, conviction and meaning? We still need more of that…

PS Original High Quality Video withdrawn, hope this one works !

In the Church of The Necks

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The Necks, the Australian jazz trance trio played 4 nights at Cafe Oto November 13th to 16th 2015. Each night they played 2 continuous improvised 50 minute sets to a rapt, reverential and appreciative audience.

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The Necks at Cafe Oto © Douglas Cape z360.com

To give you some idea of the unique nature of their playing here are my interpretations for each set over the four nights:

Friday 1 – Walking by a river then nearly drowned in the waves
Friday 2 – Scratching around to find the power of Rachmaninov

Saturday 1 – Simple – Building – Hypnotic – Incantatory
Saturday 2 – Birds in an African village later viewed from a huge helicopter

Sunday 1 – The Temple becomes a huge production line that is washed away
Sunday 2 – Starts with a bang and becomes a rhythmic tourbillon

Monday 1 – Millions die when the thunder rolls in
Monday 2 – The old Steamer beaches and is torn to shreds by nanobots

The closest antecedent to their style is the classic 1969 Miles Davis album In A Silent Way which summons a similar ever unfolding rhythm which develops slowly and organically to a quasi religious moment of trumpet satori. However The Necks have taken this template (which was in fact assembled by Miles and Teo Macero from studio edits) and created a unique assemblage incorporating nearly every form of modern music using the simplest of acoustic instruments – piano, bass and drums, to create improvised symphonies. It all seems to start so simply with a repeated loop of percussive sound which slowly builds, but before long you can hear an organ in the repeating changes, there is a sheet of electronic chatter, someone is shouting in a storm, the drums are obviously on a loop, the piano is an automaton…none of which is true. You are actually hearing classical piano, elements of Gamelan, the airport music of Eno, the systems music of Reich and Glass, the trance of The Orb, the chaos of Punk, the ear worms of Pop and the repetitive beats of EDM all working to a new maxim.

25 Second Timelapse movie of The Necks

The three members of The Necks arrive without pretension. Chris Abrahams the pianist is the artist lost in his own romantic motorik world, barely looking away from the keys. Lloyd Swanton the bassist is the businessman, looking sharp centre stage and taking care of the sparse announcements. Tony Buck the drummer is the hippy muso playing polyrythmically with his ethnographic percussion set. They are all leaders.

The Necks at Cafe Oto

Ethnographic Percussion Set

On the fourth night The Necks were joined by the legendary British free saxophonist Evan Parker. Their first set was the worst of the residency with Parkers squalling circular sax dominating in a much too saxophonic kind of way. Maybe words were said, but the second set was a revelation with the piano archly echoing the long lines of the sax which became just part of the movement and flux. It was over before we knew.

The Necks at Cafe Oto

Evan Parker hiding at the back

Thank You and Good Night to The Necks…

The Necks at Cafe Oto

All photographs and video taken on an iPhone 6

Largest File Ever ! Not !

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Yes I found this 1.13 Petabyte file while repairing an iMac
There had been backup problems….

A Petabyte is 1015 (1000000000000000) or a thousand billion bytes to you and me.
If this data were mp3 files it could playback for over 2000 years…

Did not have more than a million gigabyte drives spare, so took alternative action.

1pb folder

After some grief, the disk was repaired and the data (c.250mb) recovered.

Sun Ra at Cafe Oto 24/11/14

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Edited iPhone Photo of Sun Ra Arkestra at Cafe Oto

Once again the Sun Ra Arkestra led by the dynamic 90 year old Marshall Allen graced the intimate confines of Cafe Oto with their vibrant presence. This was not one of their crazy barnstorming sets, but built slowly and very lyrically to a beautiful and charming moment at the end of the first set with the whole audience, virtually unprompted, chanting “Space is the Place” as the band wandered through them to take a well deserved interval.

A good part of the unique atmosphere of this show came from the commanding musical presence of Farid Barron playing grand piano, singing and unveiling the wonders of the Roli Seaboard. During the gig I could not understand where the new spatial sounds I was hearing emanated from. Of course I knew all about the wondrous use of synths Sun Ra had himself employed, having seen him with his Arkestra at The Venue, Victoria, back in the 80s, but this was something entirely new: both dynamic and luxuriant. There was none of the slight clumsiness and didacticism of the classic electronic keyboard – in fact I could not even see one. No, there was just a beautiful grand piano with what appeared to be 2 keyboards, one of which was taking me somewhere else entirely. If you look at the lo-res photo above you can just make out the light grey stripe (3cm deep) atop the piano, this is a Roli Seaboard GRAND Limited First Edition, with 88 keys which can be stroked, pushed, squeezed and pressed. I started hearing sounds and seeing playing which seemed impossible, but ok this was Sun Ra, so expect the unexpected!

During the second set, orchestrated carefully by Marshall, we had masked dancers, some great sax and EVI (electronic valve instrument) solos, yet the singing and the keyboards seemed to take us back in time to the grace and wonder of a 1930s spaceship, rather than the overheated modern version. This was in fact being accomplished by the unique rubbery and adaptive seaboard which “reimagines the piano keyboard as a soft, continuous surface” and allows “you to sound a note and then take it on a musical journey”. I was indeed transported…

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Roli Seaboard with continuous touch

After the gig I congratulated Farid and discovered the secret (and name) of this unique keyboard. It was a prototype made locally in Dalston which he had never seen before the gig and had only one hour to rehearse with. More information was forthcoming from one of the Roli technical team who was carefully putting away the seaboard, and yes this does indeed appear to be a revolutionary instrument which they intend to be a multi purpose interface with many different applications for music, gaming, you name it!

~

Meanwhile here’s the Arkestra in full infra swing at Cafe Oto in 2011 with an old synth

Sun Ra Arkestra

And an even older panorama at Cafe Oto on the actual Sun Ra website here

~

Scrolling Music Notation Player

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This scrolling music player will automatically scroll when the cursor is placed on the right (or left) hand side, and will pause with the cursor in the centre.
The speed is relative to the cursor placement and can be finely controlled.

Requires Flash for full control, but will play in HTML5 without auto scroll.
Right click or control click for a proper fullscreen experience.

To stop any jerkiness play through entire score before usage.

~

This Player was developed in conjunction with the Conductor John Landor. You can see it being used here at a rehearsal in St Martin Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, London.

John Landor Workshop at St Martins

The musicians no longer need music stands as the scrolling music is projected onto moveable screens, here we are experimenting with 3 different screens.

John Landor Workshop at St Martins

Potentially this allows free movement by the musicians during performance and brings up their eyeline to more directly connect with the audience.

John Landor Workshop at St Martins

You can see more photographs here…

The greatest Dylan song you never heard

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bob-dylan-series_of_dreamsTo think you could record a track such as this and then not release it for several years is staggering to me. It was recorded for the Oh Mercy album in 1989 and the producer, Daniel Lanois, believed it should have been the opening track of that album. It finally appeared at the end of 58 tracks on The Bootleg Series, Vol 1-3: Rare & Unreleased 1961-1991. As if to make up for this omission it has now appeared in various versions on at least another 4 compilation albums. However a song of this quality deserves a place at the centre of a great album, which perhaps Oh Mercy could have been if another famous track recorded at the same time, Dignity, had also been included along with classics such as Everything Is Broken and Most Of The Time.

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Back to the song, its resonance comes from the way it updates the classic Dylan of the 60s and is one of his last songs to still rock as if he wanted to be a Beatle or even Bruce Springsteen rather than a gravel voiced bluesman. The galloping drums (Daniel Lanois also produced U2) promise a redemption which of course never quite arrives, but we are certainly hurled towards another world by the building, chiming guitars of Mason Ruffner. The vocal phrasing is particularly strong and dylanesque, constantly tripping you up with the unexpected meanings, and when he gets to the punchline (Into the path you are hurled) the music soars, and his voice rises to the occasion.

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This is a song which takes his dazzling work of the 60s and refracts it to render a more modern and mature vision. The lyrics are neither verbose nor florid, as they could have been in the 60s, they are simply trying to accurately describe a state of mind. In a sense it is a summation of his career, which can indeed appear as a series of dreams given his chameleon like metamorphosis from folk, protest, rock, surrealism, country, troubadour and guignol into an elder statesman on a never ending tour. There is a sense of sadness and languor, an absolute belief in his refusal to be a spokesman with all the answers, yet the mystery of existence still haunts and the extra terrestrial cards are nearly within his grasp. The emotion of a life lived pours through this song, a joyous requiem to the mystery of the unconscious.

Series of Dreams video 3

The point he is making – that life is seriously a never ending Sisyphean task and yet also a series of vignettes which repeat outside comprehension, that his dreams have constructed his reality and so it has come to be, reflect a desire we all recognise – to arrive at a moment where we are at peace with our own dreams. In their bare and graphic descriptions we understand these incoherent dreams, perhaps we feel we have shared them. (I certainly do.) This man is no longer haunted by the history of his vivid imagination and crazy life, nor his frightening dreamscape, it has all become one and he accepts it for the madness that it was and may still be. There is still wonder, but no longer any fear, he is an observer who does not have to understand everything in order to see the chance of redemption. Surely the sign of a man who has gone the distance, no more worries, just thinking.

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Bob Dylan thinking of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), author of Illuminations.
Stills from the official video for Series of Dreams 1991.

A sense of the series of dreams referred to in the song can be garnered from the official video, which quotes from many historical aspects of Bob’s life:

Original Release 1991 : The Bootleg Series, Vol 1-3: Rare & Unreleased 1961-1991.
This track also appears on : Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994), The Bootleg Series, Vol 8: Tell Tale Signs (2008), The Real…Bob Dylan (2012), Side Tracks (2013).

The Official Lyrics
Some versions contain this extra verse:

Thinking of a series of dreams
Where the middle and the bottom drop out
And you’re walking out of the darkness
And into the shadows of doubt
Wasn’t going to any great trouble
You believe in it’s whatever it seems
Nothing too heavy to burst the bubble
Just thinking of a series of dreams

F.O.N.A. : Fear Of No Aliens

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“God is always with us even through the storms.. “

Finally here we are at the end of 20 Centuries alone, our greatest fear realised. We are shivering in our new found isolation as the reality dawns that there really is no one out there. For eons human beings have found comfort in a cornucopia of gods who have slowly become more distant and evanescent, until now when they have finally slowly evaporated into the myths of former ages.

Surely no-one really believes that, for example, the Bible is the actual word of god, since we now know who wrote it – the Gospels were written not by disciples or eyewitnesses but by Romans a century after the death of Jesus.  As initially the Age of Enlightenment, followed by the observational and predictive nature of science engulfed us, we lost our pagan belief in the supernatural. The initial reasons for our pagan beliefs were swept away piece by piece: the world is round, there is an invisible force called gravity, we are all related, invisible germs do exist, we are a speck on the edge of the universe and amazingly E = mc2. Just as our notion of the universe has expanded, so the gods have inevitably been placed further away. We may not find them for sometime. In my lifetime god was initially living behind a cloud just up there, then perhaps in another dimension or time immemorial, now he is way out beyond the big bang. This is so far away as to be meaningless and certainly not the nearby bearded grandfather figure we initially invented to help soothe our troubled souls.

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God Creates Adam, Sistine Chapel 1508 by Michelangelo

Yet the nebulous desire for some sort of supernatural relationship is buried deep in our psyche, as evidenced by our positing of external spiritual influences in nearly all historical societies. Recent times have seen the supplanting of supernatural forces, whether they be ghosts, spirits or gods, with a fresh look to the heavens for salvation. There must be something out there, and we attempt to will it into existence through science fiction. The near universal popularity of Star Wars ($27 billion income) and Star Trek (by 1972 it was being syndicated in 60 countries) demonstrates the contemporary desire to meet an alien, to have a family, to not be alone.

By doing away with our gods and their self-appointed agents we have lost some comfort and certainty in our lives, yet the benefits of freedom from the savagery of the Old Testament and hell-fire damnation are myriad. In the harsh light of our modern scientific reality, there has been a more realistic look at our own behaviour and the mutual responsibilities to our isolated planet, which should eventually have a positive outcome.

fona-books Science currently tells us there must, by the law of probability, be more life in the universe. An example of this is the Drake equation, which gives an estimate of the number of civilisations in our galaxy. Since we have yet to find extraterrestrial life we are confronting a new universal existential anxiety: Fear Of No Aliens or FONA. This is not a new idea, but a contemporary restatement of the eternal conundrum “Why are we here?”, which our historical myths and religions have claimed to answer for many centuries. Now if we can’t find those pesky aliens, we will invent them, we are used to doing that. Perhaps it may be better to “unask” the question as some eastern philosophies do.

Mars Spirit Rover Photograph 2008      

NASA Mars Spirit Rover Photograph 2008

Once recognised FONA can be seen coursing through our culture in many different guises, from the medieval fear of a godless world to our adoption of the Gaia hypothesis, which posits that Earth is a self-regulating system. With the decline of violence (cf. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker) and the cultural opposition to xenophobia, we can finally embrace the so called alien and hence make our discovery of it more realistic.

FONA is simply the latest development in a seemingly never ending quest, a more mature yet still perplexing reaction to our perceived place in the universe. Is there anyone out there? We fervently hope so, to the point that we have already invented a panoply of anthropomorphic aliens, just as we once did with our gods. The difference is now that we recognise our own creations for what they are: science fiction. Nevertheless the emotional desire to find the alien/god/creator/teacher remains strongly within our human psyche. It looks like FONA will be with us for some time to come, maybe it always has been.

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WMAP image of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, shaped by Quantum Effects

Perhaps we are here with our unique self-awareness just to strive to explore…and one day find those aliens.

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

Stephen Hawking Der Spiegel (17 October 1988)

For further information see The Fermi Paradox
Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) saw the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, such as in the Drake equation, and the lack of evidence for such civilizations.

aka: Where is everybody? • Where are they? • The Great Silence • silentium universi

•••

 

Taylor Wessing Prize : A Critique

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Katie Walsh by Spencer Murphy

The Prize Winner: Katie Walsh by Spencer Murphy

Well the state of contemporary portrait photography does not appear to be the healthiest judging by the show at the National Portrait Gallery. Or maybe it is the judges who are incapable of choosing examples of truly photographic images which amaze and excite us. This possibility is suggested by giving the £12,000 prize to an enlarged photo booth style picture which is badly cropped and flatly printed. Many other entries appear to be box ticking exercises to fulfil some imagined social criteria not directly relevant to the art of photography. Some pictures were parts of a monograph which do not stand up when taken out of context, or journalistic commissions featuring famous people and formula photography. The number of people either sitting on chairs or looking straight to camera is stultifying and there appears to be a strange obsession with gypsies and twins. Of course there is a photograph of The Queen, in this case a tiny and unpleasant snatch shot. In these portraits nobody is doing or expressing anything, there are hardly any actual physiognomic examinations (surely the essence of portrait photography) and certainly a lack of technical exploration. The formulaic and unadventurous nature of the Taylor Wessing Prize is demonstrated by the previous years entries which could replace this year without anyone noticing.

The exhibition was cramped (£3 for 3 small rooms) and clumsily laid out with the prizewinner hidden in a corner (halving the potential viewers) and many pictures stacked one above the other making viewing difficult. The lack of respect for the skills of photography was demonstrated by the fact that there were no technical details whatsoever.

My criticism of this show was reinforced when I nipped upstairs to see the free Starring Vivien Leigh: A Centenary Celebration exhibition, featuring 2 portrait photographs by Madame Yevonde and and Angus McBean which are truly photographic images and far superior to anything on view downstairs.

NPG P742; Vivien Leigh by Madame Yevonde

The Madame Yevonde portrait was taken at an acute angle in vivid dye-transfer Technicolor in 1936 and was more daring in its posing and use of colour than anything on view in the 2013 selection.

NPG P62; Vivien Leigh by Angus McBean

The Angus McBean portrait is a monochrome double exposure print from 1952 nearly in silhouette, both more technically adventurous and revealing than any of the contemporary work. Surely the judges could have found some equally strong work in 2013?

PS “Fabio” did raise a smile..

Postscript 2016
The Guardian says the 2016 £15.000 winner is “An apparently simple and straightforward picture of a boy in his school uniform”. The Judges say “something beautiful out of the everyday”. Oh yes the Judges have chosen another incredibly boring photobooth shot !

Volvo in Mario’s Cafe

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Paul Shearsmith’s Volvo Amazon in Mario’s Cafe, Kentish Town

Life size car photography by Douglas Cape, Z360

Kuma Lisa at St Mary’s

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Right click for the Fullscreen button
Another splendid night, Cheers!

Marc Ribot Trio at Cafe Oto

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The Marc Ribot Trio dropped into a packed Cafe Oto with Henry Grimes on acoustic bass as the NY history man of 60s free jazz, and on drums the muscular Chad Taylor from Chicago. Just visible in the corner on his chair was a middle aged workman in a dirty T shirt, his body folded over his guitar. Marc played 2 seamless symphonic sets, with nary a word, just a few applause breaks, especially for the septuagenarian Henry. The music was free jazz but encompassed show tunes, cartoon breaks, marching songs, pop riffs, angular funk and metal shredding runs. It was a capsule history of 20th century American popular music, of which more later…

Ribot_5809

Marc Ribot plays a Gibson ES-125TDC circa 1962. This is a semi acoustic thin bodied dual pickup electric guitar (famously played by George Thorogood) which he used for every guitar style known to man. He accomplished this with a unique but simple setup of one pedal and one guitar mic, allowing full usage of the electro-acoustic qualities of the guitar. For the the riffing and the metal runs the guitar mic was pushed aside, but for most of the set the guitar mic was just a few inches from his guitar allowing a unique blend of sounds, and then suddenly a lever was flicked and we were back in the prairie with a steely acoustic country guitar whispering to us. Most remarkably he leant over his guitar, his chin appearing to rest on the body, the guitar mic a fraction away as screeds of notes poured out in concentrated flurries – completely hunched over but his arms flying up and down the guitar. At one point you could hear his gritted breath through the guitar mic, no doubt intentionally.

Ribot_5829

During the first set we went a from classic click-clack drumbeat into what sounded to me like Gabor Szabo’sThe Beat Goes On, well it was funky and Latin anyway! Marc’s cover versions often have a very remote relationship to the original and in no time the music had metamorphosed into angular 80s Bill Frisell style jazz funk, finishing with a chomping Stevie Ray Vaughan blues flourish. A lyrical show tune began the second set echoing the smooth classic jazz of Wes Montgomery and we sped through a catalogue of American styles rapidly coming apart at the seams, at one point sustained riffing drawing applause. As the music splintered, only lightened by bass and drum solos, we heard snatches of the American songbook being deconstructed, reaching its lyrical apogee with a version of Bob Dylan’s Lay Down Your Weary Tune. Yes he sang a song both appropriate and somehow elegiac, Marc’s tremulous voice following not the vocal but the guitar line:

Lay down your weary tune, lay down

Lay down the song you strum

And rest yourself  ’neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum

It felt like a Requiem for America…

 

Update 14 May 2019
Marc played a solo acoustic gig at Cafe Oto
Magnificent and quieter tonight –

But better photos:

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Everyone loved it
Thank You
∞

Shabaka Hutchings – Britain’s new jazz master?

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Well seen Shabaka a few times, always very impressed with his bass clarinet, but this was a revelation. Maybe all bands with 2 drummers are awesome (pace Nils Petter Molvaer and Khmer) but here we had 2 drummers, a tuba, and Shabaka. Wow! They are called The Sons of Kemet.

Of course it helps if one of the drummers is Seb Rochford, already a legend on the modern London Jazz scene with Acoustic Ladyland and the other, Tom Skinner, is highly experienced with Matthew Herbert. Meanwhile Oren Marshall is a tuba player to compete with the legendary Bob Stewart of Arthur Blythe‘s Lenox Avenue Breakdown – who was actually the last tuba player I saw really holding down the bass seat. But wait, the best was yet to come, since at several points there were 7 Tuba players, which as you can imagine was awesome!

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So in one overpowering sax moment (probably a version of Beware, from the yet to be released album) Shabaka went from the broken melody of Ornette to the wails of Coltrane, finishing on some bass notes from Hamiet Bluiett. Just on a Tenor, I believe. There is a remarkable sense of melody to his improvisations as he weaves like a snake and then chirrups like a bird, entrancing the listener. In the background there is a pulsating double drummer tuba rhythm shaking the foundations and at the front Britain’s new jazz master. I couldn’t ask for more.

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The Finale was with the 7 tubas (alumni of Oren) which swept us away on a crazy wave, followed by an improvised Rivers of Babylon with the tubas requested to drone an E Flat. Awesome!

All happened at The Forge, 3-7 Delancey Street, London, NW1 7NL

Photos taken on iPhone 5, next time I hope to use a proper camera…

UPDATE : Saw Shabaka at the great Boat-Ting and took some proper photos04_shabaka_hutchings

A Short History of Quicktime VR

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In 1992 Quicktime 1.0 was launched. This was followed in 1994 by Windows friendly Quicktime 2.1 which, along with QuickTime VR 1.0, could play Panoramas and Objects in a discrete QTVR Player or in a browser plugin for Netscape Navigator.
In Quicktime 2.5, with an updated QuickTime VR 2.0, these items were integrated to make a free universal VR Player. Interactive multimedia had arrived!

So the Player was free, but to make this interactive multimedia you required the QuickTime VR Authoring Tools Suite which comprised of 2 huge binders, a video and lots of floppy discs. There was no GUI (graphical user interface), you had to write code in MPW 3.2 (Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop) and use Hyper Card and ResEdit. This Tools Suite cost $2,000 and could only run on a $4,000 Apple computer. Despite regular crashes (normal in those days) and a long learning curve, it all worked.

Panorama made using MPW 1997, but the Quicktime VR Player no longer works. Part of a Camden Lock Tour which appeared on a MacWorld cover CD in 1999.

It is worth remembering there was no broadband, only modems working at a fraction of the speed, and that digital cameras were in their infancy, so most projects had to be digitised from film, often using Photo CD.

In late 1997 QuickTime VR 2.0 Authoring Studio with a full GUI and batch mode was released for $500, bringing VR into the mainstream. The Authoring Tools made cylindrical panoramas, object movies and tours with internal and external links. For many years this programme was the default panorama maker, despite later competition from RealViz Stitcher, Powerstitch and VR Worx.

Quicktime was steadily updated, although Quicktime 4.1 notoriously re-numbered all your hotspots so you never actually went where you had intended. At the same time other panorama players appeared, unfortunately including the litigious Interactive Pictures Corporation (IPIX) who threatened to sue anyone who distributed software to create 360 degree panorama images, including the software developer Helmut Dersch and also Live Picture’s PhotoVista. IPIX, which charged $25 per panorama created, were to go bankrupt in 2006, hoist by their own petard: patent violation.

Apple supported Quicktime VR with special Showcase pages and a vibrant Apple QuickTime VR mailing list. The flexibility of Quicktime VR allowed the creation of true multimedia experiences. These 2 huge tomes in the Quicktime Developer Series illustrate the potential power of this technology.

Perhaps inspired by Helmut Dersh’s Panorama Tools, in 2001 Quicktime 5 introduced the spherical (360ºx180º) panorama player which we know today. By this time Quicktime supported mp3, Flash 4, streaming and “wired” movies. These wired movies allowed an authoring application to unlock the power of Quicktime, of which the prime example was Livestage Media Pro, allowing you to skin Quicktime and integrate different media and players interactively. Sadly this example no longer works as it did from 2004 to 2015.

Console Tour with panoramas, video, audio, text, hotspots, controls

With the advent of spherical panoramas new software appeared such as PTMac, IBM Hot Media, Cubic Converter, PhotoWarp and finally PTGui, the current stitcher of choice. Apple never updated QTVRAS (QuickTime VR Authoring Studio) to stitch spherical images or run in OSX except under emulation.

During the early days of Quicktime VR a large amount of effort was spent persuading PC owners to download Quicktime, so they could view the media. This problem evaporated after Apple launched iTunes in 2001 (after buying Soundjam) and in effect Quicktime became the de facto music player. It was all looking rosy, but in retrospect it was at this time that Apple started to lose interest in Quicktime VR, and now iTunes can now no longer play interactive media.

With the advent of Quicktime 7 in 2005 the writing was on the wall when Flash support was dropped in version 7.3 along with several other interactive features due to “security concerns”, breaking many interactive projects. In the same year a very smooth Open GL panorama player called Cubic Navigator was launched using the latest graphics technology, but Apple did not respond. Since Quicktime 7.5 in 2008 the feature set has not been updated apart from security and compatibility updates. Quicktime 7.6 is now an “optional install” on Apple computers. It should be remembered that Quicktime 7 in the Pro version ($30) is a very powerful and flexible movie editor and compressor using the the same codecs as Final Cut Pro Studio ($1,700).

In 2009 Apple dropped support for Quicktime VR with the launch of Quicktime X, which does not play QTVR or edit movies, despite claiming it was “ideal for any application that needs to play media content”, and that it would “advance modern media and Internet standards”. In doing so they handed over the multimedia baton to Flash (now the default panorama player), their alleged opponents. Apple’s eventual response (link now removed by Apple) was an HTML5 player which was an insult to the rich tradition of Quicktime VR. It was an ignominious end for the very technology Apple had invented and promoted so strongly.

So try making this today, it might be possible in Flash using KRPano, but in 1999 we had a cool GUI in SoundsaVR to edit the multiple overlapping loops. This panorama, only 1.2mb so it could be delivered over a modem, was a big hit at MacWorld 1999.

Echo City with Sound Loops, using SoundsaVR

Coda
Of course interactive multimedia plays on, with incredible gigapixel panoramas in Flash and swishy cool HTML5 panoramas on the iPhone and iPad. However to make these we are back hand coding in XML, while the wired possibilities of Quicktime have been abandoned. Quicktime VR still functions (in some browsers) and Quicktime 7 is still available, but for how long?

Update 8/12/15
Today Apple finally destroyed their own creation, Quicktime VR.
In a “Security Update” Apple silently removed the Quicktime Plug-in which played Panoramas.
Apple stated “If you’re using the legacy QuickTime 7 web plug-in to display panoramic images, use an HTML5-based panorama viewer instead. Search the web for a panorama viewer that doesn’t require a web plug-in.”
Appallingly disingenuous since there is no HTML5 player that can play Quicktime VR without the author re-encoding the original panorama. Shame on you, Apple.

PS
To restore the Quicktime VR plug-in on OSX
Go to Library/InternetPlug-Ins
Move these two files from the Disabled Plug-Ins folder to the Internet Plug-Ins folder:
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
nslQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
Hurrah !

All VR examples © z360.com

Thanks To :
Tim Monroe
Ken Turkowski
Joel Cannon
David Palermo
and many others on the Apple QuickTime VR team

World’s Fastest Mac Pro

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Or How to Transform a 2009 Mac Pro into a 2012 Mac Pro

I have installed a 3.46ghz Zeon W3690 (3.73ghz Turbo Boost) processor into my 2009 Mac Pro, replacing the original 4 core 2.93ghz chip, making it a 6 core machine with 12 virtual threads. This chip is faster and better specified than any currently available from Apple (They only sell an older 3.33ghz), yet is a simple replacement job. Hence the headline grabbing “World’s Fastest” claim, along of course with the many others who have doubtless carried out this conversion, so let’s call it first equal.

Rather sad that this processor is not available from Apple and that no improvements were made to the beautifully engineered Mac Pro line in 2011, here’s hoping they will be upgraded in 2012, despite the rumours.

Well when I say simple replacement, I still had to upgrade the firmware to turn my computer from a 4.1 model into a 5.1 2010 Mac Pro, apparently the only actual difference between 2009 and 2010 models. Many thanks to MacEFIRom at netkas.org for his Firmware Upgrade Utility which worked seamlessly and has the side benefit of enabling faster 1333mhz RAM and allowing audio out from the Mini Display Port. Naturally applying any unsupported firmware update or changing the processor will void AppleCare and your Guarantee.

The only tool required was a very long 3mm hex wrench to unscrew the heatsink, and then some Arctic Silver Thermal Compound for the CPU. All went smoothly if nervously and my renewed Mac Pro restarted first time with nary a crash since. The power requirements and temperature limits of the new Xeon chip are identical to the older one. There are some thorough instructions here at MacRumors. This procedure may also be carried out on dual processor machines, but is a little more complicated.

Following this other improvements were made, including 24gb RAM from OWC, an internal RAID 0 hard disk, and a faster graphics card. For me, who needs a machine like this for making gigapixel panoramas (5-10gb files), the biggest improvement in actual usage was the increased RAM. Results for the real world retouchartists.com speed test showed an improvement from 21secs to 11.2secs, which demonstrates the faster processor. To put this in perspective my 2005 dual 2.7ghz G5 Power Mac took 65secs to carry out this test. That’s Progress…

Update 11 June 2012
Apple today updated the dual processor Mac Pro line with some minor improvements to the processor. On the We Want a New Macpro facebook site these improvements were variously called a minor tweak, a joke and an insult. There is still no Thunderbolt, no USB3, nor the latest Intel processors, but they do provide an ancient 2009 video card. A Macbook Air now has faster memory!
Update 12 June 2012
Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently says there will be a new Mac Pro in 2013.
Here’s hoping…
Update 19 February 2013
Oh Dear! There is no Mac Pro available in Europe. I thought Apple used to be a computer company… Why not make a serious computer ? No Mac ProI can only say Seriously not Great…
Update 11 February 2014
Aha! Now there is a new Mac Pro, but only in the USA.
It is not available in the UK until April, so that is well over a year with no Mac Pro.
Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 14.08.44

Well I think it looks small and cool and am relieved it exists. I certainly don’t need one though since it will hardly be any faster for my work, plus it has no internal drive space and so requires an expensive external Thunderbolt drive array for any real work.

Since the new Xeon E5 processors only represent a minor upgrade over my current Xeon processor I am happy to wait for a new faster generation, if there is one! Still the new Mac Pro does have PCIe-based Flash Storage, which certainly does speed things up so I have installed an OWC Mercury Accelsior_E2 SSD in my own Mac Pro. It’s great!

Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 14.10.17
Retouch Speed Artists Test now under 10sec, reportedly much the same as the new Mac Pro. However if I spent my time video editing in Final Cut Pro X I might make an effort to get one of these new machines, due to the power of the AMD FirePro GPU graphic cards.
Update 11 March 2015 Re-Edited 21 February 2016
Nvidia 5k Video Card
In 2015 I said: “However I am much more likely to simply install a better video card, roughly equivalent to the AMD D500 in the current Mac Pro, which can run 4k screens at 60fps on any Mac Pro dating back to 2008 (Mac Pro 3.1): The PNY Nvidia Quadro K5000 Graphics Card for Apple Mac”
This information is now out of date, the K5000 card has now been superceded and was very expensive, explaining why I never actually bought one. Now I have installed a much more powerful card for a quarter of the price, the NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970.
PNY XLR8 GeForce GTX 970 OC 4GBThis graphics card has 4095MB of VRAM, HDMI 2.0 and can run a 5k monitor, as well as excellent Open CL, GL and CUDA benchmarks. A new Mac Pro cannot even run CUDA, since it uses AMD cards and in most tests the GTX-970 beats the fastest Mac AMD cards.
There are however some issues since the GTX-970 is not officially supported, so on startup you get a black screen, not a boot screen. This has been the only non-issue so far since Nvidia is now providing a well updated Driver for Yosemite and El Capitan. On installation I had no NVRAM issues as others have reported, having already installed the driver, and I also have an old and unused Nvidia GT120 card installed for backward compatibility.
If you want to spend more money the GTX-980 and 980Ti are also available, but beyond this you may run into power supply issues. Incidentally make sure you have 2 of the slightly obscure pci-e to mini pci-e 6 pin power cables.

I have also installed a cheap Orico USB3 card which works natively and is more reliable than external SATA. So my advice is to buy a second hand Mac Pro 4.1 or 5.1 and upgrade it to your required specification, rather than purchase a new Mac Pro 6.1, which is both expensive and inflexible.

Update 12 February 2016
Still the Fastest!
According to Novabench Benchmark Testing my computer is faster than a new Mac Pro! So much for Moore’s Law, and recent Apple engineering…
943326Tha average modern trashcan Mac Pro scores 1595 and the latest iMac 5k 1250, so unbelievably my 2009 Mac Pro is still the Worlds Fastest in 2016 !

Update 14 April 2017
Apple eats Humble Pie and admits building the wrong Mac Pro
Phil Schiller: We made something bold that we thought would be great for the majority of our Mac Pro users. And what we discovered was that it was great for some and not others. Enough so that we need to take another path.

Phil Schiller: Apple cares deeply about the Mac… and if we’ve had a pause in upgrades and updates on that, we’re sorry for that, what happened with the Mac Pro, and we’re going to come out with something great to replace it.

Craig Federighi: The architecture, over time, proved to be less flexible to take us where we wanted to go to address that audience. In hindsight, we would’ve done that differently. Now we are.

Mac Pro Interview

Update 15 December 2017
Hot Sierra Apple
I have just installed macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on my 2009 computer so I could use the updated Final Cut Pro X 10.4 with support for 360° VR Editing. I must say the transition went smoothly and remembered nearly all my previous preferences and tweaks. FCPX is a great piece of software and I am pretty impressed I am running such a recent system on a computer this ancient, even though Apple says you can’t. I did not have to do any special install tricks, although I had previously updated the firmware to 5.1 as mentioned above. So kudos to Apple.

I have no desire to update further to High Sierra, which still appears to have teething problems with the new and slow APFS file system. Meanwhile the new iMac Pro, while very expensive at £5,000 or more, looks like a serious machine and bodes well for the modular Mac Pro promised for 2018.
Update 15 January 2019
10 Year old Computer running Mojave

mojaveApple have withdrawn support for Nvidia graphics cards, preventing them from running in Mojave. Under Sierra my NVIDIA GeForce GTX-970 was working well and supported Metal. Despite this Apple has forced me to buy a new AMD graphic card to run my 4k monitor on a newer system. The recommended card is a Sapphire Radeon RX 580 8GB, which while rather large works as a direct replacement. Specification wise it is not much better than my previous card, but does have 8gb video ram. The good news is that it works natively with Sierra 10.12.6 and higher, allowing for simpler system upgrades. Also had to buy a new dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin PCIe power connector, previous one was 6 pin of course.

RX580To upgrade my Mac Pro 5.1 (see above) it is advised to update first to High Sierra 10.13.6, to receive the required firmware updates. FileVault should be switched off, since it is no longer compatible with this old computer, fine for me since I never use it. The startup disk is a PCIe Accelsior SSD, which is converted to APFS, no problems so far. (There is a firmware update for this card from OWC, which avoids the need for an extension, I applied this before upgrading). Mojave Installer will crash if you have an additional incompatible video card installed, like the Nvidia GT120 or Radeon HD5770, so remove it first.

I was upgrading mainly to use the latest version of FCPx, a great application requiring a recent system. Still awaiting the new modular Mac Pro, now forecast for 2019.

Update 5 June 2019
The Cheesegrater is Back!
At WWDC 2019 Apple unveiled the 2019 Mac Pro.
It looks awesome and costs as much as a car. Wheels will be available.

mac-pro-2019

Well Done Apple !

See All Hail the Mac Pro

*

You couldn’t script it better

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Thierry Thierry Thierry

After 5 years playing abroad Thierry Henry comes on at The Emirates to score the winning goal after only his 5th touch.
Despite dominating possession for most of the game Arsenal still did not look like scoring until with just 20 minutes to go Henry came on as substitute for Marouane Chamakh. In the 78th minute, following a pass from Alex Song, he unleashed a poacher’s unerring kick across goal right into the corner of the net. Thus a man with his own statue outside the stadium had scored his 227th goal for the club and knocked out Leeds United from the FA Cup 1-0.
What a night and what a hero and yes he milked it. You couldn’t script it better.

Here’s my favourite goal from the Arsenal’s all time leading scorer.
Thierry Henry against Liverpool in the FA Cup 2007.

In this amazing goal Henry passes the ball to himself like a 1 man team, beating the renowned English international Jamie Carragher en route.

Single of the Year 2011

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I Confess  by K. D. Lang

Again and again and again have I played this great simple sing-along love song.

Drenched in emotion, her voice booms and cracks, great waves of sound bounce me off the floor, the spirit of Roy Orbison crying and shouting into a dark country night leaves me exhausted and exhilarated.

From a great album, Sing it Loud, this harks back to her wondrous breakthrough Ingénue in 1992.

I confess
I need you badly
Hold me in your arms
Love me madly