A couple of songs

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(Click on the links to play. Blogger doesn't host MP3s so I'm using box.net).

I'm rather proud of these pieces, even if they are one-off doodles.

No Expectations (aka "wheat")

In this piece I was playing with a few melody ideas, and one new left-hand idea: a quick 3-chord descending progression that I never used before. My right hand got inspired by the newness of what the left was doing, and this is the result.

A Mood

This piece is a lot more intense, and far more textured. Might make good background in an intense movie scene. I don't think I could do this on an acoustic piano because I'm holding the sustanuto pedal down the whole time, relying on the piano's polyphany limits to reduce the mushiness. I was intentionally trying to be repetative, at least in the beginning, but I hear a lot of nice variation anyway. The variation is more rhythmic than tonal, although there is some interesting melody/harmony stuff after the mid-track dynamic shift.

I'm proud of both pieces, and this is the first time I've publically posted anything to the internet. Anyone who's heard me play knows that this is basically what I do: I compose on-the-fly.

Dance with Dragons: an Index (spoilers)

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3 Prologue Scary Skinchanger & Others vignette
16 Tyrion Voyage to Pentos and Ilyirio
31 Daenerys Ruling Mereen; Drogon murders a child
46 Jon Difficult dealings with Stanis over defeated Wildings
60 Bran North of the Wall with Jojen, Meera, Hodor and Coldhands, looking for "Three-Eyed Crow"
71 Tyrion Leaving in Pentos with Ilyrio
83 The Merchant's Man (Quentyn) Quentyn Martell quest for Daenerys' hand seeks passage Volantis to Mereen
95 Jon Kills Janos Slynt
112 Tyrion Leaving Ilyrio with Duck, Haldon & Griff on a river journey
123 Davos Marooned at Sweetsister by Sallador Saan
134 Jon Executes Mance Rayder; Melisandre destroys horn of Jaromun; the wildings come through the Wall.
148 Daenerys Dealing with insurrection at Mereen "Sons of Harpy"; two dragons in chains
161 Reek (Theon Greyjoy) Theon has been tormented by Ramsay Bolton; used to legitamize marriage to fake Arya
169 Bran Meeting with Greenseer!
179 Tyrion Bonding with sellsword companions over games and learning.
192 Davos
203 Daenerys
218 Jon
232 Tyrion
243 Davos
253 Reek (Theon Greyjoy)
267 Jon
276 Tyrion
293 Daenerys
306 The Lost Lord (Griff/Tyrion)
320 The Windblown (Quentyn)
332 The Wayward Bride (Asha Greyjoy)
351 Tyrion
372 Jon
382 Davos
395 Daenerys
407 Mellisandre
420 Reek (Theon Greyjoy)
434 Tyrion
448 Bron
461 Jon
473 Daenerys
484 The Prince of Winterfell (Theon Greyjoy)
500 The Watcher (Balon Swan)
514 Jon
524 Tyrion
549 The King's Prize (Asha Greyjoy)
564 Daenerys
579 Jon
593 The Blind Girl (Arya Stark) We follow her training as a Facedancer
605 A Ghost in Winterfell (Theon Greyjoy) Mysterious murders at Winterfell.
618 Tyrion Sold as a slave with Penny at an auction by Yunkish outside the gates of Mereen
632 Jaime Wrapping up the war at Riverrun; taking hostages; meeting with Brienne of Tarth
647 Jon
661 Daenerys
673 Theon Escapes?!
687 Daenerys Jumps on Drogon and flies away from Mereen
700 Jon Dealing with Wildings
717 Cersei
730 The Queensguard (Bold Barristan) Barristan gets wise to intrigue
741 The Iron Suitor ()
754 Tyrion Escapes from Yezzan
769 Jon
783 The Discarded Knight (Bold Barristan) Baristan takes charge
793 The Spurned Suitor (Quentyn Martell) Plots to ride one of Daeny's dragons
801 The Griffin Reborn (John Connington)
814 The Sacrafice (Asha Greyjoy)
827 Victarion
835 The Ugly Little Girl (Arya Stark) Arya's first assasination as a Facedancer
848 Cersei The former queen is run through Kings Landing naked to atone for her crimes.
860 Tyrion Signs on to the Second Sons; Promises Pentos and plots to turn them against the Yunkai
872 The Kingbreaker (Bold Barristan) Barristan captures the king on suspicion of plotting.
887 The Dragontamer (Quentyn Martell) Quentyn is mortally burned by a dragon.
899 Jon Stabbed at least 4 times in treacherous betrayal. Probably dead.
914 The Queen's Hand (Bold Barristan)
929 Daenerys
940 Epilogue (Kevan Lannister) Varys murders Kevan to destabilize Westeros for Daeny's imminent reconquest.

Tim Bray on Web vs Native

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Tim Bray wrote a little blog post on Web vs. Native apps and makes a really important point: actually, all apps these days use the web. The only distinction is the execution environment.

I wrote a comment where I noted he missed a very important property that webapps mix well together. The same cannot be said for Android or iOS apps. Native apps can pull in resources just as well as webapps, but they don't do mashups. The data-structure of the web-interface, the DOM, is understood well enough that you can enable collaboration between programs.

After I posted this comment it occurred to me that this common format, the DOM, makes certain UI consistent across applications in a way that native apps don't achieve. You can select any text content, for example. You can zoom in and out of a webapp. You can send people links to parts of a webapp (maybe).

Edge cases: bookmarklets don't work on non-HTML pages?

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Consider this funny post. It's plain text. If you try to run a bookmarklet (like "Share in Google Reader"), it will fail because there is no DOM to modify. Not really sure there is a work-around, but it's an interesting edge case to keep in mind, both for bookmarklet writers and publishers (who may want to avoid serving non-HTML content to user agents).

SMS is new Telegram. Stop.

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Watching Jeeves & Wooster. Struck by telegram silimarity to SMS. Telegram less convenient, far slower, much more classy.

Length contstraint makes brain express self succinctly. Enjoy observed connection with past.

"Forgive me for sending you this long letter. I did not have time to write you a short one." - Blaise Pascal

Stop.

The most important fact of your existence.

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The Oil Drum | Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever

The purpose of this, my second (and much longer) piece on resource limitations, is to persuade investors with an interest in the long term to change their whole frame of reference: to recognize that we now live in a different, more constrained, world in which prices of raw materials will rise and shortages will be common.

Jeremy Grantham is part of the monied elite, CIO of a $106 billion investment firm. And here he writes about a vast economic inflection point that we are currently experiencing. This reflects my own observations, and is perhaps the most important fact of modern life. The entire article is of value not only for building a compelling case for the reality of the inflection point, but for highlighting the reasons for it, the reasons why it is ignored, and the lessons we should be taking from it.

The key point is that we live in a time of unprecedented abundance. If we want to continue living in abundance and not experience a painful contraction, then we need to use this windfall wisely: to produce replacement energy sources which are sustainable.

To realize how threatening it would be to start to run out of cheap hydrocarbons before we have a renewable replacement technology, we have only to imagine a world without them. In 17th and 18th century Holland and Britain, there were small pockets of considerable wealth, commercial success, and technological progress. Western Europe was just beginning to build canals, a huge step forward in transportation productivity that would last 200 years and leave some canals that are still in use today. With Newton, Leibniz, and many others, science, by past standards, was leaping forward. Before the world came to owe much to hydrocarbons, Florence Nightingale – a great statistician, by the way – convinced the establishment that cleanliness would save lives. Clipper ships were soon models of presteam technology. A great power like Britain could muster the amazing resources to engage in multiple foreign wars around the globe (not quite winning all of them!), and all without hydrocarbons or even steam power. Population worldwide, though, was one-seventh of today’s population, and life expectancy was in the thirties.

But there was a near fatal flaw in that world: a looming lack of wood. It was necessary for producing the charcoal used in making steel, which in turn was critical to improving machinery – a key to progress. (It is now estimated that all of China’s wood production could not even produce 5% of its current steel output!) The wealth of Holland and Britain in particular depended on wooden sailing ships with tall, straight masts to the extent that access to suitable wood was a major item in foreign policy and foreign wars. Even more important, wood was also pretty much the sole producer of energy in Western Europe. Not surprisingly, a growing population and growing wealth put intolerable strains on the natural forests, which were quickly disappearing in Western Europe, especially in England, and had already been decimated in North Africa and the Near East. Wood availability was probably the most limiting factor on economic growth in the world and, in a hydrocarbonless world, the planet would have hurtled to a nearly treeless state. Science, which depended on the wealth and the surpluses that hydrocarbons permitted, would have proceeded at a much slower speed, perhaps as little as a third of its actual progress. Thus, from 1800 until today science might have advanced to only 1870 levels, and, even then, advances in medicine might have exceeded our ability to feed the growing population. And one thing is nearly certain: in such a world, we would either have developed the discipline to stay within our ability to grow and protect our tree supply, or we would eventually have pulled an Easter Island, cutting down the last trees and then watching, first, our quality of life decline and then, eventually, our population implode. Given our current inability to show discipline in the use of scarce resources, I would not have held my breath waiting for a good outcome in that alternative universe.

But in the real world, we do have hydrocarbons and other finite resources, and most of our current welfare, technology, and population size depends on that fact. Slowly running out of these resources will be painful enough. Running out abruptly and being ill-prepared would be disastrous.

If you want to read about the effects of a contraction, written in a realistic if chilling way, read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. That is not a world in which I personally would want to live.

Realistically, what can we do? First, lets stop burning incredible quantities of resources and lives in pointless wars. The fact is we are vulnerable to terrorism, it's time to just learn to live with it. Second, let's stop burning resources on mindless consumerism. We don't just burn resources like money, but the producers burn resources on engineering and marketing - people fritter away their days in cubicles making products that rational people wouldn't want. Alas, this is a cultural problem and so difficult to fix, but I personally have hope. Third, perhaps the single most important way to reduce demand for oil is to let people work from home. Indeed, we need to require that a larger fraction of the workforce work from home. (Critical to this is ubiquitous and cheap internet - which needs to be a public utility.) Last and not least, we need to stop getting distracted from the big problems by all the little problems. A good first cut at that problem would be to simplify everyone's lives with a flat tax, and a new law requiring that all legislation passed by congress be read aloud (and heard) by all members before being voted on - the idea being that short legislation is good legislation.

Silence The Great Critic

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The Great Critic has sat in patient judgement over the thoughts, opinions, and art of countless generations of thinkers and artists. He observes everything ever produced, and renders his judgement in a universal language that has always been understood, and will always be understood.

The Great Critic is nothing less, and nothing more, than Silence. (If you add a comma to the title of the post, you will see it is "Silence, the Great Critic.")

When we create and share our work and receive no reaction, none whatsoever, that is the sound of the Great Critic, and it is not easy criticism to hear. When the Great Critic has passed judgement, over and over again, on your life's work, it is hard not to think that he is also passing judgement on your life.

But, life itself is loud, and The Great Critic cannot pass judgement on life itself. There is never a moment when his stinging judgement can be heard. There is always, at least, the breath. The beating of your heart. So, even if the Great Critic has been harsh about your writing or your work, take heart and listen to the resounding non-silence which is your life, and rejoice.

Why we deserve President Donald Trump

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Ok. The right (and some on the left, like Blagojevich) have innovated and profited from the innovation: they've made the startling realization that the public has neither the attention span nor the will to hold individuals or organizations accountable for lying, cheating, stealing, or profiteering.

When there is literally no recourse for gross injustice, up to and including the inability to sway public opinion against those who are obviously selfish, devious and wrong, then we have truly crossed a line as a society.

It is honesty, it is personal responsibility, it is a sense of community and shared sacrifice which made America great. People cheated, sure, but if they were caught they had the good sense and the shame to withdraw from public life (if not into prison). No more. Now our politicians stand up and lie to our faces, their sense of entitlement palpable, the sniveling practicality of those who realize that there is no social cost any more to supporting a liar, a cheat.

We deserve Donald Trump as our president.

Worst excuse ever.

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"I really wish I could help you, but our system won't let me do that." - Purple Yoga studio manager, Sequanna Williams. (Yelp review)

Sequanna is not the first person to use this excuse to not do something, nor will she be the last. However, I expect better from small business, particularly one that values morality (as any good yoga studio should).

There are many reasons to say "no" to a customer request. Perhaps it's unreasonable, perhaps it's against long-standing company policy and there is no compelling reason to make an exception. Perhaps it's too much work, or the person just doesn't feel like it. Or maybe it's too expensive. But to say that you cannot make an exception because "the system won't let me" is not a valid reason.

Why is "the system won't let me" not a valid reason? First and foremost, because it's a lie. Businesses, especially small business, have extraordinary freedom in the types of contracts they enter into. Or, another way to look at it: if the Dalai Lama was the one making the request, do you think Sequanna would tell him, "I'm sorry, the system won't let me do that"?

Second, because it places "the system" above human judgment. Basically, the person is telling me that both of our actions are circumscrived by the whim of the system. They are saying that "the system" is actually above them, controlling them, and indeed above all people at the business, including customers. "The system" makes decisions. "The system" controls what they can and cannot do. If "the system" doesn't allow it, then it cannot be done.
She can, and should, do better.