Choir Stuff Part II

Last Fridays concert didn't go well - a lot of the male voices weren't able to come, and one of the two pieces we performed sounded very thin as a result. However, the second piece was hauntingly good, and apparently the audience was very impressed with us regardless.

Sunday went well. We scrapped one of the pieces during our practice on Saturday, to the relief of most people, and everything else sounded fantastic (in my opinion anyway!)

Just need to get through the mass this Sunday, and then I can get sick.

Only in South Africa

Will a world cup winning coach lose his job two weeks after winning the Cup. SARFU is made up of a bunch of morons who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=6&click_id=4&art_id=nw20071031133542569C940466

I am so angry about the way the Jake White has been treated by the upper echelons of South African Rugby.

Radio Ga-Ga

I had a call yesterday from one of these advertising companies asking me about what radio stations I listen to. I’ve stopped listening to the radio almost completely in the last six or so months. I have close to 400 cd’s, and my iPod – this allows me to listen to the music I want to listen to, when I want to listen to it. Ironically the radio station I listen to most is the classical one, mainly because I’m more likely to hear Led Zeppelin or the Doors there (even if it classical versions!) then on the local contempary station.

So the guy asked me to listen to some clips and rate them as to whether I liked them or not. It was a case of No, no, no, no, no, maybe, no, no, no…. Out of 30 clips, I probably liked 2 or 3. Which pretty much sums up why I don’t listen to the radio any more. I’m young, single, have plenty of disposable cash, and yet there is no radio station that plays the music I want to listen to. The times that I do turn onto the local station they will play one of the big hits at least 20 times during that day, it will be mainly dance music, and the occasional classic hit. It gets a bit annoying.

So what would make me listen to the radio again? Simple, more rock, more classics including stuff from the 60s and 70s (the station only plays music from the 80s onwards), and fewer adverts. Which basically means I won’t be listening to the radio any time soon.

Choir stuff

Busy week for Choir. I sing in two choirs at the moment; one is the church one and one is a small chamber choir. The Chamber choir has gone through a rough patch in the last few years, we're on our fourth choir leader, and a lot of the older members have left for various reasons. Thankfully the current woman taking us is absolutely awesome and fantastic, and has been serious about recruiting. So we've gone from a group of about 15 with me being the youngest to a group of about 30, and with most of those being younger then me. It's fantastic to be in a choir that is so enthusiastic! However it's going to be a busy weekend. Normal practice tomorrow, singing at a carol concert on Friday (whose bright idea was it to schedule a carol concert the same evening as the Springbok ruby celebration at Montecasino??), an extended practice on Saturday, and another concert on Sunday!

Church choir isn't much better - we also have an extra practice on Saturday which I have to skip as it is at the same time as the other practice! We're singing at a big mass in two weeks time in a joint choir, with the members of the choir from one of the other services on a Sunday. There is much politics involved in that service - it could be an interesting mass!

It doesn't help that I can just feel a niggling cold sneaking up on me! I just need to survive the next two weeks though!

BookLog: Until Proven Innocent – Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson

This book covers the events of the attempted railroading of three young men accused of rape. Two of the men could prove that they were not at the house where the woman claimed she was raped, at the time of interest. Despite this they were all indicted. The prosecutor knew that at least one of them couldn’t have been involved, he knew that DNA evidence cleared them, he knew that the woman’s story had changed several times, and yet he proceeded with charges. The DA, Mike Nifong, has now seen his surname become a synonym for being railroaded. This case is a strong indictment of how power can corrupt any person.

The three men received no backing from their college, Duke University. They, and the rest of the lacrosse team, were presumed guilty in the absence of any evidence for their guilt.

It’s hard to tell who the authors have the most contempt for – Mr Nifong, or the staff and Duke who left three young men at the mercy of a corrupt DA.

This book is a must read, particularly for the last few chapters which discuss the way that racial and sexual politics have come to dominate higher education in the last few years. Living in a country where racial politics is a strong feature of life, this section really struck home for me. It would be really nice where the dominant feature of deciding guilt or innocence was not dependant on your race.

CDQuest: Radiohead - In Rainbows

OK, so this isn't strictly a cd (yet). Downloaded it (5 quid if you're asking), gave it a listen, and I like it. Need to have a couple more listens but first impressions are good.

Ruby World Cup Champions: South Africa

Nice one boys!

Here's to the next four years

CDQuest: Johnny Cash - American IV

I have a playlist on my iPod that covers songs that are guaranteed to make me cry. It includes older songs such as Danny Boy and Going Home, as well as some newer ones such as Sometimes you can't make it on your own by U2. This list also includes the heart breaking Hurt by Johnny Cash, arguably one of the best cover songs ever.

I first came across the music of Johnny Cash in the film "Walk the Line". I purchased his Greatest Hits, which contained Hurt. I've since purchased most of the American Recordings series, and finally managed to get my hands on American IV - The Man Come Round. I think I may be adding one or two more songs to my sob story playlist.

The album starts with The Man comes round, a song full of imagery from the book of Revelations. It continues with Hurt, and then Give my love to Rose. Other notable tear jerkers include covers of Simon and Garfunkels Bridge over Troubled Water, The Eagles Desperado, and the classic Danny Boy, finishing with We'll meet again. This album is sad, and yet there is always an element of hope. He had a good life, and at the end of it, it is not surprising that there is an element of sadness and acceptance of death in this album.

Rating: 9/10. Note to self, don't listen to this album while driving again - it's very difficult to drive when you can't see through the tears

Open Source, Open Access and OpenOffice

There was an interesting article at ZDnet today on QuickOffice

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39290063,00.htm

Scrap that, the article wasn't so interesting, what was interesting was the comment by the chief executive at the end.

“Asked whether Quickoffice would at any point support OpenOffice's .odf format, a rival to .xml, the company's vice president of product management, Paul Moreton, claimed there "has not been a whole lot of demand" because, he suggested, most OpenOffice users saved their documents in a Microsoft format anyway.”

Now this is something that really irritates me. I work in a scientific environment, and the company as a whole is in the process of moving away from proprietary software to Open Source software. Our desktops will be moving onto Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntu.com/), our word processing package will be OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/), and as far as possible all software will be open source. Now, this is a very exciting move for me as a biological scientist. Most of the software I use has very good open source options, and much of the software has only been available on linux platforms. As such I have learnt a lot about linux in the last few years. Other people are not so excited and are incredibly sceptical; one of the biggests reasons for the scepticism is the need to publish.

A lot of journals are moving towards the open acess model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access), however a significant proportion, particularly in the Chemistry realm are not. Invariably, all of these journals require submission in a proprietary format be it .doc or .pdf. This includes the Open Acess journals. I've emailed journals asking them whether they will consider submissions that come in .odf format, and the answer is always no, because we can convert to .doc. Quite frankly that isn't good enough. I want to be free to chose what software I use, to use the best software for the job, not to have to worry whether conversion errors are going to ruin my manuscript and hence my chances of publishing, and to be able to submit in an open format, that I know I will be able to access in ten, twenty or fifty years time. Relatedly, it puts an additional burden on scientists in third world countries. Why should they have to purchase expensive software to publish, when there is a suitable alternative that is far more cost effective. The open access journals will not be truly open until they realise this.

Oblivion - New official addon

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_plugins_fightersstronghold.html

After the strongholds for Mages, Thieves, Generic Evil People, and Paladin types, the one for straight fighters had to be inevitable I guess.

It's looking like my most recent Morrowind run through will be put on hold for a couple of days; this new mod actually looks pretty cool. That's the thing about Oblivion - it's so pretty, it sucks you in. Unfortunately it looks like this is the last official plugin, which will be a pity. It would have been nice to have a couple of expansion packs such as the Morrowind expansions Tribunal and Bloodmoon. Oh well.