text:
Two Matts
Two music nerds with diametrically opposed tastes make each other listen to records.
Category Archives: Responses
The Chemical Brothers: Further (pt. 2)
Dear Matt:
Alright. It's past midnight on a Saturday; I slept in this morning; I've been idly passing the time all day. Basically, feeling great. Time to pour myself a wee dram of the Glenmorangie and check out these Science Siblings you keep going on about. Okay. (Ah, that's nice scotch.) Going to start this right now.
Well, I'm staggered. That had everything. Seriously, what doesn't this album have? I'm glad you had me watch the video, because it only added to the sensory overload. There's a famous editorial cartoon about Mahler (my favourite composer, you'll recall) that I suspect is relevant here:
(The caption reads, approximately: 'My god! I forgot to include the kitchen sink! I'd better write another symphony.')
There is nothing I appreciate more than complete sensory overload. That is a characteristic that's common across my whole taste profile, from music to movies to radio programs. To demonstrate how deep it goes, and by extension how well Further worked on me, I need to engage in a little musical autobiography. Bear with me.
The first music that I remember liking, way back when I was too young to make musical choices for myself and I just heard whatever my parents had on, was always either dominated by orchestras or synthesizers. It was slim pickings for orchestral music: usually either Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks or Yanni Live at the Acropolis — music that I categorically rejected as soon as I discovered Mussorgsky and Shostakovich. (I remain ashamed enough of these early taste indiscretions that I can't even bear to link to Lloyd Webber or Yanni. This speaks more negatively about me than about either of them, I suspect.)
But the synthesizer selections were immediately more promising: I remember an immediate affinity for Vangelis — particularly his collaborations with Jon Anderson — and for Rick Wakeman. This led swiftly to an obsession with Yes, and subsequently to my entire adolescent identity.
But the thing that those early fascinations pointed towards — even the inauspicious pop orchestral stuff — was an obsession with what I'll call timbral variety. The orchestral music had scores of different instruments with their own unique sounds working in tandem. The synthesizer music seemed to work towards the same goal with different tools. There was a 'muchness' to it, even when it was subtle and quiet.
And most of the music that I've intuitively loved over the years shares that same muchness. Prog was always partially defined by its expansion of the typical rock ensemble to include racks of keyboards, wind sections, auxiliary percussion and tape. Psychedelia is almost wholly defined by its sonic variety. The jazz I like tends not to be quartets and quintets, but rather stuff like Mingus, or electric Miles. And my preference in classical music has always been for huge orchestras used judiciously in the vein of Mahler, or indeed John Luther Adams.
Radiohead. Amon Tobin. Kanye. CHVRCHES.
It's only comparatively recently that I've begun to appreciate music that operates with a smaller sonic palate: old-school rock, string quartets, combo jazz. And yes, punk.
I hadn't heard the Chemical Brothers before, and I'm not at all well-versed in techno. All the same, listening to Further really felt like home. I may not have a tumultuous summer of 2010 to look back on, but I do have an entire life story scored by sonically massive, grandiose music like this. It felt like a walk through all of the elements I have ever appreciated in music in the past. I'm reminded of my brief dalliance with Tangerine Dream, much to my friends' confusion. I'm reminded of the period when old Yes records were the centre of my universe. I'm reminded of the hours spent listening to Vangelis as a child and thinking 'how does one guy make all those sounds?'
And the trip down memory lane culminates in an insight — a minor one, but an insight nonetheless: music has been the central throughline of my life because of its capacity to overwhelm.
The Chemical Brothers overwhelmed me. Basically, feeling great.
— Matthew
Posted in Responses | Tagged 10s, electronic | Leave a reply
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (pt. 2)
Posted on August 31, 2015 by Matt
Dear Matthew:
I don't think I get David Bowie.
Like, this is an OK album, I guess. I'm glad I listened to it. Art this legendary is always at least worth checking out, and this album is nothing if not legendary. I always try to remember that, if a lot of people really like something, they can't all be wrong. But I've got to be honest: I didn't love Ziggy Stardust.
Maybe this is just my own prexisting feelings about Bowie. I know his singles, because it's kind of impossible not to, and I find them very hit or miss. 'Fame' is a jam, and I guess I can tolerate 'Changes'. But I absolutely loathe 'Space Oddity'. Everything about early Bowie is just so overwrought — whiny, almost. And sorry, but Ziggy Stardust is, for me at least, definitely still early Bowie. (Give me 80s Bowie any day.)
I realize that this is hugely hypocritical of me. I have no problem with musical ridiculousness. Perhaps more pressingly, one of my favourite records of all time is also a concept album about space bullshit. So, as I was listening and it was becoming clear that I wasn't going to love Ziggy Stardust, I tried to figure out why that was. Why do I love the gritty weirdo space rap but not the gay space alien glam rock?
Maybe it's that the gay space alien glam rock is too legendary.
I hate to keep coming back to this, but you know how I called Wu-Tang Clan the Seinfeld of underground rap? (By which I meant that they were so profoundly original that everything they did has been so thoroughly emulated that their profound originality isn't obvious unless you know what came before?) I don't think that's what's going on here. In the case of Wu-Tang and Seinfeld, their imitators aped what they did with completely straight faces. Subsequent generations of rappers and TV producers saw something that worked, so they adapted it for their own purposes. It was doable, because they weren't aping specifics of the work so much as general principles. TV sitcoms are now populated exclusively by sociopaths, but specific Seinfeld parodies are pretty thin on the ground. Rap songs with campy movie samples and bitcrushed drums are now a dime a dozen, but no one ever tries to literally be another Wu-Tang Clan.
But with Bowie, there aren't really any general principles to ape, other than 'overwrought androgynous rockstar'. Everything about what he's doing is so wildly, inventively specific that the only way to cash in on its success is to parody it, or directly reference it. It hit me like a thunderbolt about halfway through 'Starman': I am more familiar with homages to / parodies of David Bowie than I am with actual David Bowie.
Flight of the Conchords. Daft Punk. The Venture Bros. My own cultural experience is littered with caricatures of all things Bowie, to the point of cliché. I feel like I've heard 'Starman' a million times, when really what I've heard is a million things referencing 'Starman'. So is it that I actually find 'Starman' overwrought and annoying, or has that sentiment just been clouded by endless secondhand exposure?
I am, of course, doing that thing where I'm making it seem like I liked the album less than I did. I am still glad that I listened to it, and there are some great moments on the album. ('Suffragette City' kicks ass.) And for what it's worth, I listened to Aladdin Sane immediately after I finished Ziggy Stardust. (Don't hold your breath — my feelings about the two albums are pretty much the same.) But as with a lot of things from the 70s, David Bowie just isn't really my bag.
— Matt
PS: Do you watch The Venture Bros.? I think you'd like The Venture Bros.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 70s, rock | Leave a reply
Wu-Tang Clan: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (pt. 2)
Our little project has gotten me thinking a bit about the appropriate way to express a first impression of an album. I know we've both struggled with this on occasion: this format forces us to pretend that we have something meaningful to say about albums we've only just heard, and for which we only have the context the other provides. (Which, I mean, sometimes that's plenty.)
Sometimes there's nothing for it but to express total bewilderment. Occasionally, we've been merely nonplussed, or slightly distasteful. There have been expressions of immediate enthusiasm. And on occasion we've had something genuinely interesting to say, right from the get go.
I'm just going to be forthright here: I have nothing interesting or insightful to say about the massively dense album that I finished listening to for the first time mere moments ago. Frankly, I still have mild whiplash (and possibly tendonitis) from clicking all of the links in your assignment.
Let's just acknowledge that the appropriate response to a first hearing of 36 Chambers is to marvel at its obvious brilliance and not pretend like you have anything special to add. Having acknowledged that, I'm going to reel off some things I love about 36 Chambers.
I love the unified aesthetic of the album. Considering that it's basically a cavalcade of great verses from rappers that have almost no stylistic common ground, it is a testament to RZA's guiding vision that 36 Chambers feels cohesive.
I love the interview at the end of 'Can It All Be So Simple.' The members of the Clan are such interesting people that I could just listen to them talk about themselves and each other for the duration of the whole album. Which, come to think of it, I basically just did.
I love GZA. 'Clan in Da Front' is, indeed, genius. I feel an urge to check out Liquid Swords coming on.
I love the way Wu-Tang collectively assumes that we know everything about them. It's like picking up a random issue of a long-running superhero comic and trying to follow the plot. This may sound facetious, but I mean it sincerely. The phrase 'world-building' can easily be made to apply to Wu-Tang, and they accomplish it by implying that you're listening in on a small portion of a much larger saga. I love that.
I love Ol' Dirty Bastard, because WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING NOBODY RAPS LIKE THIS
I love RZA's verse on 'Tearz.' It's got to be one of the most heartfelt rap verses I've heard, up there with Killer Mike's on 'Crown.'
I love complex dynamics between radically different creative individuals. One of the reasons I love writing about music is that music always involves throwing a bunch of creative people into rooms together, and that is a story-generating machine. The Wu-Tang Clan are every bit as fascinating an assembly as the Second Viennese School, the Canterbury Scene, or the lightly fictionalized glam rockers of Velvet Goldmine (the latter of which is explicit foreshadowing of your next assignment).
I love ostentatious displays of cleverness.
I love recognizing the DNA of music I love in much earlier music.
I love when universally acclaimed classics live up to their reputations.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 90s, hip hop | Leave a reply
Berlin Philharmonic & Herbert von Karajan: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (pt. 2)
Posted on August 8, 2015 by Matt
I'm not sure I'm sold on recordings of classical music.
Don't get me wrong — this is a heck of a piece of music. The last movement is particularly striking. Everyone knows 'Ode to Joy', but we're really only familiar with the main hook of it, and the final fifth of this piece is spent doing all kinds of interesting things to that hook — and, as you'll recall, I love musical recontextualizations.
But the problem I was having while listening to this was this: I kept losing focus. Maybe the problem was, as previously discussed, that I'm doing it wrong — I was doing more mindless data entry as I listened. Even so, my mind kept wandering in the quiet parts.
Maybe it's a function of the way music is recorded. I'm sure you'll agree that dynamics make music interesting — a song that does the same thing at the same volume all the way through is probably going to get boring after a while. In my experience, classical recordings feature pretty huge dynamic range. I don't want to get into a whole debate about sampling rates and bit depth, but the salient point is this: I listened to this recording on a set of studio monitors in a soundproof radio studio, and I found myself constantly adjusting the monitor volume. I had to turn it up to hear the quiet bits, but I'd have to turn it back down for the loud bits to keep things at a comfortable volume. It's like that thing when you're trying to watch an action movie and you have to crank it to hear the dialogue, but then something explodes and your neighbours call in a noise complaint.
So maybe the problem is that I should be using headphones? You're a headphone guy — do you find you have this problem? Don't get me wrong, I love a good pair of headphones, but it seems pretty limiting to have an entire genre of music that you can't listen to on speakers without deafening yourself. Say what you will about the loudness war, but at least I can listen to (most) modern albums without riding the volume knob the entire time.
It's a bit of a copout to write off an entire segment of the Western musical canon for something like that, but the fact remains that most of the rest of the symphony still didn't really grab me. Has pop music ruined my attention span? Am I still having that kneejerk 'ew, classical' reaction that young people have to most things their parents like?
I would really like to think it's not either of those, so the only thing I'm left with is that maybe recordings just aren't the best way to experience a symphony. I can't help but think how much more impressive this sort of music would be in a giant concert hall directly in front of the 50+ people performing it. It's the same problem I have with live albums in general: it's a losing battle to try and capture the live experience in a recording, especially if sonically superior studio versions already exist. With a few exceptions, I really don't like live albums.
You pointed out in a real-life discussion that a major problem with live classical music is that quality can be hugely inconsistent, and having a good experience hinges entirely on living near a good orchestra. That may be true, but isn't that true of any live music experience? You'll only see big international rock shows if you live near/visit a city big enough to warrant a tour stop. The sound guy might have an off night and ruin the entire show with awful mixing.
I don't know. Again, this symphony is full of some seriously impressive music. But the entire idea of a symphony — of getting 50+ people to play an hour-long song in a giant concert hall on, let's face it, some totally ludicrous instruments — it's insane. It's a spectacle. It seems like some of that spectacle is lost when all you have is an audio recording.
But hey, this piece did stir something in me that I had completely forgotten until this week: when I was a kid, I'm almost positive I had Beethoven Lives Upstairs on VHS. Only 90s Kids Will Remember Beethoven Lives Upstairs.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 60s, classical | Leave a reply
LCD Soundsystem: 45:33 (pt. 2)
Posted on August 1, 2015 by Matthew
BING-DUNG! Activity started. Warm up: five minutes.
In criticism — I'm using the word here in the sense that academics use it — the notion of authorial intent has been nearly irrelevant since 1967, when Roland Barthes wrote this thing, and probably for some time before. I know this is a thing you think about because you wrote this on your other, Parsons-less blog. (Can I call it "One Matt?")
As I understand it, in the limited way of somebody who's never formally studied any of this, author-based criticism reached a tipping-point around the time of Barthes' piece. Barthes railed against critics who attempted to use the life experiences, politics and social milieu of a text's author as evidence for a single, authoritative (I use the world pointedly) reading of the text. He called for the author's voice to be drowned out by the voice of the text itself, which is the thing that truly speaks.
In criticism, on the other hand — now I'm using the word in the sense that most people do, as regards movie reviews and blog posts by armchair scholars like us — we seem to still be holding on to the author, such that questions like "To what extent is Mr. Oizo taking the piss?" "Does Ian Anderson secretly love prog?" and "Is James Murphy fucking with us?" still seem to be worth posing.
BING-DUNG! First interval: zero. point. five. kilometers. Fast.
I listened to 45:33 while running, with regular interjections from the female robot voice of Runkeeper, my workout app of choice (and also the source of this post's silly structural gimmick). I took this approach because I wanted to assess, with the benefit of knowing the background you outlined in your assignment, whether 45:33 is actually good running music or not.
It is. It's quite excellent running music. Slotted right in with my intervals. So, if we accept that 45:33 is good running music, what does that say about James Murphy and the critics who took him at his word when he lied to them about his jogging habits?
BING-DUNG! Next interval: two minutes. Slow.
Let's work backwards. The story as you told it ends with a legion of overzealous writers having egg all over their faces. They had failed the Emperor's New Clothes test. Shorn of all credibility, they stood exposed as charlatans; mountebanks; hacks.
Except, of course, that they weren't. Murphy's truth may have been that 45:33 has nothing to do with running. But the text's truth contradicts that. And the text is the thing that truly speaks. I daresay that if Murphy believes that this album isn't running music, he's misunderstanding his own work. As such, I hereby find those critics innocent of these particular charges. There are other charges they will have more trouble dodging. But more on that shortly.
BING-DUNG! Next interval: zero. point. five. kilometers. Fast.
Before we move on, I want to address how angry I sometimes get about the derision levelled at critics by artists. Frank Zappa comes to mind, immediately. So does Birdman. The theatre critic in that movie (which I love in every way except for this) has a shitty attitude towards art, but the movie has an even shittier attitude towards that critic. It makes her openly, gleefully malevolent, which I sincerely don't believe is a truthful characterization of how respectable critics think.
No doubt many individual critics deserved Frank Zappa's derision. But, I personally believe — in utterly self-aggrandizing fashion — that criticism, journalism, and related disciplines are arts no lesser than the arts they critique. I had an epiphany to that effect near the end of my music degree program, at which point I immediately applied for journalism school.
Evidently, you disagree with me on this, or at least you did in February of 2012. But Barthes appears to be on my side. If the author is metaphorically dead, that leaves only the reader. Good critics are very skilled readers and thus, invaluable — so long as they focus on the texts themselves. If, you know, you agree with Barthes on this. Which I only sometimes do.
The narrative you outlined with respect to 45:33 suggests Zappa-like malevolence on Murphy's part. If we accept for argument's sake that there was something for Murphy's critics to be ashamed of when the 'truth' came out, that means that it was Murphy himself who pulled the rug out from under them. And that would make him a more mean-spirited, slightly lesser human (though not a lesser artist, because the art speaks for itself).
But, like you, I'm not exactly convinced that Murphy was actually pulling an Emperor's New Clothes swindle. If there was a swindle afoot (pun?), one suspects that Nike (pun.) may have been the target.
But, naturally, we now come to the point where I say that none of this matters. I've already absolved Murphy's fawning critics for praising his possibly bullshit workout mix, on the basis that it is a good workout mix. But there's another sin that I can't absolve them of, and that's the fact that they so resolutely based their critiques of 45:33 on any professed authorial intention at all.
In other words, we're charging these critics with the wrong crime. It isn't that they have faulty bullshit meters. They are not charlatans; mountebanks; hacks.
They are fetishists.
They fetishize the personalities behind the things they are ostensibly critiquing, such that the novelty of Murphy making a workout mix supersedes the music itself. Indeed, the fact that LCD Soundsystem could become a 'buzz band' at all comes entirely down to this critical approach.
Perhaps that's why criticism — in the common sense, not the academic sense — is derided in so many quarters (not least of which is academia — someday, I'll introduce you to the work of Joseph Kerman). It is at least partially about applying value judgements to people's personalities. And that is ever-so-slightly skeevy.
Here's the part where I capitulate.
Naturally, music criticism and journalism that focuses on the musician often makes for deeply interesting reading. I am endlessly fascinated with the process of making art, and I don't have any desire to see music writers stop interviewing artists, or taking note of the autobiographical elements in music. But, I would like to see close listening take more of a role in what music writers do.
(I admit that I'm saying this partially so that I don't have to hold myself to the standards I'm setting up in this post. Take heed of my current Twitter bio: "Opinions mutable, fatuous and best ignored.")
Thanks for this one, Matt. 45:33 is fantastic, and thinking about all of this really put me through my paces.
BING-DUNG! Workout complete.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 00s, electronic, indie | Leave a reply
John Luther Adams: Become Ocean (pt. 2)
Posted on July 24, 2015 by Matt
I don't think you're going to like this post.
Become Ocean is fine. It's pretty. It's interesting enough to listen to it ebb and flow, to build from silence to full blast and back again. But in the end, I have the same reaction to this piece that I did with the only other classic drone record I've listened to — Sleep's Dopesmoker* — and it's a question we've both posed on this blog before: What is this music for?
One thing this blog has caused me to examine about myself is the ways I like to experience music — and how that might affect my tastes more broadly, in a way I hadn't really considered before. I think there might be a medium-is-the-message sort of component here, and if you'll indulge me, I'd like to try to unpack it.
Generally, I listen to new music in only a few specific settings: while commuting and/or exercising (these have been one and the same for a while now, since I bike to work and almost everywhere else); while doing primarily rote and/or visual tasks, like cleaning or organizing or photo editing; or while playing the popular computer game StarCraft II. I also like to listen to music while I drive, cook, and do certain computer-based tasks, but I don't like these situations for brand new music because I can't devote enough attention to it and/or there's too much background sound.
What I like about commuting/exercising, sorting/editing and StarCraft is that they don't take a lot of processing power, or at least not all at once. (Not at my StarCraft skill level, anyway.) I find I can almost never listen to music while I 'work', because my work generally either involves writing and thus consumes essentially all of my available brainpower, or involves working with audio and thus precludes music listening altogether. I usually don't even listen to music when I'm just surfing the internet, because I either won't absorb what I'm reading or I won't absorb the music, so I've realized at this point in my life that it's a lost cause to try and do both. And even StarCraft isn't perfect; if a skirmish gets particularly heated, I'll completely lose the thread of whatever I'm listening to for a few minutes.
Now, what these situations all have in common is this: while listening to the brand new music, there is something else that is actively demanding at least partial attention from me. With the rote/visual tasks or the real-time strategy, I'm diverting at least some attention away from the music, and sometimes all of it for brief periods. Commuting/exercising is probably closer to ideal, particularly when public transit is involved, but while this avoids the problem of concentration lapses, you're also competing with other sounds. Cars, people, wind noise if you're on a bike — all of it makes it harder to pick up on details in the music.
The more I think about this, the less of a coincidence I think it is that my favourite music tends to be energetic, driving, loud, bizarre, cerebral, and other similar adjectives — my favourite music tends to be stuff that really commands attention. I think this may be due at least in part to the types of situations in which I generally consume music, combined with my obsessive personality. (I'm one of those people who keeps entire albums despite only really liking one song, and I almost always prefer to listen to entire albums versus songs on shuffle or in a playlist or whatever.) In other words, I think my taste is at least somewhat affected by the use I see the music as having for me. Simply put, I seem to generally want music I can bob my head to while doing other things.
So, with that in mind, let's consider my original question about Become Ocean a bit differently: What can I use this music for? It's not rhythmic enough for bike riding. It doesn't work for StarCraft at all. It's far too droney and atmospheric for the bus. What I ended up doing was listening to it at work where, as you know, I'm currently doing some glorified data entry, so it worked well enough for that. But really, I find that music like this is of only limited utility to me. There's only so much data I have to enter, only so many photos to edit. And besides, rote tasks like that are great opportunities for music that is too cerebral — some lyrically dense rap, say — for more attention-demanding situations. For me, this music falls into the same category as bands like Mogwai or múm: bands I really like, but whose music I really only ever listen to in specific situations, like at three in the morning on a deadline and I need something besides the silence to keep me clinging to consciousness.
I don't know, maybe it's my fault. Maybe I'm not approaching the music on its own terms. I mean, this piece clearly isn't meant to be a workout mix, or a video game soundtrack. I'm sure it's spectacular live. And I realize that it's incredibly selective and hypocritical of me, given that one of my favourite musicians recently released an EP of moody space music, and I love it. But even though it's selfish, the reality is that this kind of music is of limited use to me just because of how, why, and where I tend to listen to music, and I think that might be why I find it hard to get especially excited about.
All of this is to say: it's fine music. But I think I understand your response to the Micronauts a lot better now.
But hey, speaking of workout mixes and long compositions, I think you'll really like your next assignment.
*OK, I guess it's kind of obvious what a record called Dopesmoker is for.
The Offspring: Americana (pt. 2)
Posted on July 18, 2015 by Matthew
Previously, on Two Matts:
Matthew has complicated feelings about punk. He doesn't like it in principle, but when confronted with the actual music, he has to admit that there's more to it than he usually tends to think. Matthew's complicated feelings got even more complicated when he found that he absolutely adores NoMeansNo's Wrong, the second album Matt assigned him. Matthew was forced to admit that there's a tremendous chasm between the Platonic ideal of punk rock he has in his head and the reality of a genre that has evolved and fragmented over the course of decades. Now, Matt has assigned Matthew a successful late-90s pop-punk album, and Matthew's complicated feelings are being dredged up again…
Dear Matt,
Well, shit. I like this one too.
I've got to admit, I wanted to despise this album. In general, on this blog, I've tried to keep an open mind. I've written before about how I generally think that when I don't like something it's my own fault, so I always approach new music hoping to like it. But when you assigned the Offspring, my first thought was 'Ah, here's my opportunity to really tear into something.'
I'm not quite sure why I had it in for Americana. I certainly didn't feel the same when approaching Wrong. Maybe it's because, now that we've established that I can't attack punk at its ideological roots and have it be anything other than a totally facile critique, I feel more comfortable lashing out at a band that's signed to a major label and scoring massive radio play. But that doesn't make any sense, because the whole notion of 'selling out' doesn't actually upset me. Plus, I don't even have any sympathy for the SoCal skatepunk DIY values that the Offspring were probably betraying, here.
All the same, for whatever reason, I came to this album expecting some blend of annoyance and outrage that could only be mitigated by writing something angry and indignant about it. But around three songs in, I was unable to deny that I was enjoying myself. No matter how hard I tried not to.
You pitched Americana to me as a disc of summer jamz, and it is that. I listened to it on a bus, on a sunny day, after work. When the album was over and I found that I was early getting to my destination, I immediately listened to 'Why Don't You Get a Job?' three more times. Then 'She's Got Issues' twice. Then 'Pay the Man' again.
So basically, I've once again been confronted with the difference between the way I think about punk and the way that punk actually works, and I come out looking like an ass.
I want to try out an idea, here. You'll know by now that I spend an awful lot of time thinking about prog rock. To me, one of the watershed moments in the history of that music was a point somewhere in the 80s when a wave of 'neo-prog' bands emerged, playing music that was explicitly modelled after the prog of the prior decade. This, as opposed to working in the original spirit of progressive rock, which dealt with genre fusion and independent experimentation. There was never a prog 'sound' in the 70s. In the 80s, with bands like Marillion and IQ cribbing the aesthetic trappings of a few key bands, there suddenly was.
We could define this as the point where prog calcified into a 'genre' in the strictest sense — a category of music with a defined set of traits — rather than a 'movement,' or perhaps a 'scene.' The result, initially, was a lot of pretty formulaic music: quite the opposite of what King Crimson and Magma were trying to do. But more recently, bands like Opeth and the Mars Volta have found a way to use what they've learned from classic prog bands to create music that sounds distinctly different.
All of which is a self-indulgent aside leading up to this relevant insight: clearly, something similar has happened to punk. Punk was a scene or movement prior to becoming a proper genre, and the aesthetics of that genre (as opposed to the ethics of the movement that produced it) have been stripped for parts and used for various purposes with varying degrees of relation to the original source.
One of those purposes turns out to be writing pop songs. And I do love me some pop songs.
So, you're batting two for two in terms of punk assignments that worked out. However, I suspect that I remain one of the least punk rock people that either of us know. And that is unlikely to change…?
Posted in Responses | Tagged 90s, pop, punk | Leave a reply
Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (pt. 2)
We've been pussyfooting around this conversation for a long time, but I don't think we can avoid it any longer. Since you brought it up, I think we have to talk about the race politics of the last century of American popular music.
The history of the music industry is fascinating, and there's a constant theme that has run through it since the days of Tin Pan Alley: the exploitation of black people by white people. The American music industry is, essentially, a cycle of black people inventing something new and interesting — and uniquely black — which is then discovered by white people, who proceed to sanitize it, whitewash it, and sell it to the (predominantly white) masses — often with little or no compensation to or real acknowledgement of the creators. It happened with roots music (gospel, etc.) after the Civil War; it happened with rock and roll after the Second World War; it's happening right now with hip hop; and of course, it happened with jazz.
This is, I assume, what you're hinting at when you talk about the 'gentrification' of jazz: you're talking about white people taking a distinctly black art form and, over the last few decades, turning it into an institution of whiteness that, at this point, is rivaled maybe only by golf in terms of sheer albedo. (The 1970 Walt Disney film The Aristocats is a very good example of this process at work.) This once vibrant, provocative, iconoclastic art form now oozes cloyingly from the speakers in elevators, and sits conveniently packaged on compact disc for you to impulse-buy at Starbucks so you can feel more cultured.
In fact, that last bit — the weird inexplicable obligation white people feel to be into jazz, and the resulting guilt over not being into jazz even a little bit — is the giveaway that jazz is part of the institution, now. It's the same way you're supposed to feel about other middlebrow art forms, like Shakespeare, or Romantic poetry, or the Classical music canon (sorry). What did it take, 50 years? Probably less, even.
But we, as a society, have very short collective cultural memories for this sort of thing. Teenagers are the primary target of the American pop music machine, and I'm willing to bet the average teenager these days (what is that, Generation Z? do they have a horrible buzzword yet?) has little to no context for the history of the music they are being assaulted with on a daily basis. For them, Iggy Azealia isn't the latest incarnation of the endless parade of white people fetishizing the art of cool black people — she's just a pop star with a very large ass. Like Elvis before her, the (white) kids love her, the (white) parents are afraid of her, and it's only the (predominantly white) armchair academics who notice the cycle repeating, who recognize her role in the project of hegemonic American whiteness. In 30 years, those elevator speakers will be pumping A Tribe Called Quest, and the Starbucks compact discs will have titles like The Golden Era of New York Hip Hop and Classic Dirty South, Vol. III. Time is a flat circle.
Is that sort of what you're getting at when you talk about the gentrification of jazz?
Anyway, Mingus. The main reason I bring up the whole whitewashing-of-jazz thing is because my first coherent thought after the first few minutes of Black Saint was: 'This isn't what jazz is supposed to sound like.' With all of these decades of context in mind, what an absurd thought to have! To a relative jazz novice / young white guy like myself, jazz is a bunch of guys soloing one after the other, Benny Goodman- or Glenn Miller-style. My experience with instrumental jazz is largely limited to the greatest hits collections my parents would listen to when I was a kid. So this unified, sprawling, almost orchestral style of New Orleans-inspired jazz is a total eyeopener. The ebb and flow of the arrangement, combined with the callbacks and leitmotifs, make this feel almost symphonic. There are, as you suggest, still entire worlds of jazz untouched by that gentrification.
In a morbid sort of way, I'm very curious to see what happens to hip hop as the cycle of white appropriation continues. What will the gentrification of rap music look like? Which elements will the white institution canonize, and which will it leave by the wayside? Fifty years from now, who will the modern Mingus equivalents have turned out to be?
Jazz!
You're right — it's a pretty great word to look at.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 60s, jazz | Leave a reply
Major Lazer: Guns Don't Kill People… Lazers Do (pt. 2)
If this seems like a poorly thought out response, fair enough. It's been a week.
This album is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for from this project, like A Walking Fire was for you. It strikes me as something that's as central to your sensibility as a music fan as Brooklyn Rider is to mine — which means that Guns Don't Kill People was always going to be a tough sell for me. I have some problems with this album, but I'm intrigued.
I'm definitely not the right person to attempt to parse the probably somewhat problematic cultural appropriation on this album. (I fully acknowledge my cowardice.) But I can certainly understand your preference for this over an album full of 'bass drops and white people.' That sounds terrible. Whereas Guns Don't Kill People is the complete opposite of that sort of lazy blandness. Its entire appeal comes from how totally bonkers it is (those videos!), and the fact that it takes inspiration from sounds that come from outside of Diplo and Switch's narrow cultural sphere.
Now comes the part where I say denigrating things for several paragraphs, in spite of my general admiration for the album. I know it's becoming a habit, but I can't help being perverse.
To me, Kala absolutely towers over this. The reason for that is, for all of its eclecticism, Kala still has one foot in pop songwriting. And the fact that my favourite track on that album is still 'Paper Planes' probably indicates that I value that characteristic. Hell, even Thick as a Brick is structured around (deeply unconventional) pop songwriting. I tend to like my pop songs clothed in somewhat flamboyant garb — be it prog rock bombast or a Diplo beat — but that doesn't change the underlying value.
(The fact that your next assignment will have absolutely nothing to do with the craft of songwriting ought to indicate just how inconsistent my musical value system is. I am not at all sorry for this.)
Basically, my issue with Guns Don't Kill People is that there's no figure equivalent to M.I.A. on it — nobody to provide the raw goods for Diplo and Switch to dress up in mad, eclectic sonic outfits. (Though I did love that B-side with her on it.) Instead, we get a cavalcade of guests who each seem somewhat incidental to Diplo and Switch's central concept. Aside from the Paul Simon-esque colonialist implications of that, which we've agreed to blithely ignore, this presents an aesthetic problem for me: for all of its internal cohesion and its high-concept grandstanding, Guns still feels like it lacks a core. It feels like a very attractive coat that nobody's wearing.
And as for the guest artists — who occasionally wander by the coat, but never really consider putting it on — they're a bit hit-and-miss, aren't they? M.I.A.'s politics may piss a bunch of people off, but they make for more interesting listening than 'Mary Jane.' Granted, that's an easy target and I'm a humourless d-bag. 'What U Like,' then.
So clearly, I didn't love this. I liked it, basically. But I'd stick it at the lower end of my positive responses on this blog — above the Micronauts, certainly. But significantly lower than, say, Belle and Sebastian.
Okay, then. On to your next assignment, which I hope will be as challenging for you as this was for me.
Posted in Responses | Tagged 00s, electronic, hip hop, pop | Leave a reply
Bryce Dessner & Sō Percussion: Music for Wood and Strings (pt. 2)
Posted on June 18, 2015 by Matt
You're right — this is pretty good.
I have to admit, though, that it wasn't quite what I expected from a group that describes themselves as a percussion ensemble. I mean, I get that a dulcimer or dulcimer-like instrument is technically percussion in that you play it by hitting it, but there aren't really any drums to speak of on this record. Which was a bit disappointing, because I love me some drums.
I don't really know or care that much about the National. I think I listened to their album Boxer in undergrad once when it was the hot new thing that all of my indie rock friends were into, but I don't remember it doing much for me. So, I can't really say if this is 'in keeping' with Dessner's earlier work or anything. But what makes good indie rock and good minimalist percussion ensemble music seem to be pretty different worlds. I guess I could give the National another go? I mean, a lot of people like them, so they have to have some redeeming qualities, presumably.
I do definitely see the minimalism you're talking about. This isn't a concerto or a suite or anything — this is definitely one 35-minute-long song. It's always fun to hear a leitmotif come around again, to hear a familiar sound being recontextualized again and again. (In fact, a lot of the reasons I enjoyed this pieces are reasons why I like Bleep to Bleep so much. I'm not sure how you'll feel about me saying that.) And whatever mode the piece uses (you'll have to tell me this part, it's been literally more than a decade since I did any music theory) is very dynamic and epic-sounding.
Aurally, this piece reminds me a lot of an Icelandic band called múm, if you're familiar with them at all. I can't really say why, because now that I listen to them side by side they're actually quite different. But they have similar characters, if that makes sense? I don't know. They're both the kind of music I like putting on at three in morning when I'm up late working on something in my dimly lit room and the rest of the world is asleep.
The main other type of music I go for in that situation? Post-rock. Are you into post-rock at all? Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, that sort of thing? In fact, I put it to you that Music for Wood and Strings is, itself, a post-rock song. I put it to you that this is the kind of music Mogwai would make if you gave them Dessner's chord sticks. I think I know what your next assignment is.
Well, your next next assignment. Confession: while I do definitely love M.I.A. and did want to assign her, Kala also doubles as a setup for your next assignment. I hope you're ready for some soothing island rhythms…
New assignments on Mondays. New responses on Thursdays.
psychedelia


text:
Driver wins yellow box challenge
Last updated at 10:28 08 November 2006
This is the yellow box junction that has been ruled illegal. A driver who was fined three times in a fortnight and decided to challenge Transport for London has won her case.
Dr Krystyna Fielden was shocked to receive three £100 fines along with CCTV images of her offences after making the same journey home from work in central London for 10 years without incident. She complained to the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service that the junction of Green Lanes and the North Circular near Palmers Green was faulty. She said it comprised two separate boxes - with just a car's length between each - and did not conform to official guidelines that there should be only one yellow box at a junction.
Dr Fielden, who works at the Department of Health, said it was impossible to negotiate the crossing in one manoeuvre because the phasing of traffic lights forced drivers into the junction. She also said the lines marking out the junction were faded and difficult to see.
This week, the adjudicator agreed with Dr Fielden, 46, of Cheshunt, and quashed one of her fines.
After studying photographs of the scene, he also said the yellow box junction was painted incorrectly as it did not run right up to the kerb.
Today, Dr Fielden was jubilant after winning her case but said that thousands of other drivers must have been unjustly fined too. She is now waiting to see whether Transport for London will refund the money she paid to settle-the remaining two fines. She said: "I am delighted - but I wonder how many other people have been caught here.
"Suddenly, Transport for London must have decided to interpret the rules differently and started fining people, but got it wrong."
Dr Fielden wrote to TfL under the Freedom of Information Act to discover how many other drivers have been fined at the junction. But she says the organisation failed to respond within the statutory 21 days and before her appearance at the appeal.
Dr Fielden, who was travelling north along Green Lanes and attempting to turn right on to the North Circular when she was caught on camera, said: "This is a very busy junction indeed that is difficult to cross but I was always careful to do it properly."
In a statement, Transport for London said: "We will be reviewing the outcome of the hearing when we are formally notified of the outcome by the appeals service.
"This will include considering the layout of the box junction."
Paul Watters, of the AA Motoring Trust, said: "Transport for London should get this right. It believes it is leading the way on this kind of enforcement but whether it is leading the way in terms of fairness is another matter."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In the thoughts of spring we are adding in something NEW this month.
Add in a new technique to your photography.
Your image must include at minimum 1 of these 3 colors, Pink, Orange and Yellow.
This "New Technique" could be a device that you are adding into the mix such as, a new lens, camera, film, lighting, filter etc or it can be a new technique you are adding into your photography such as long exposures, motion blur, a new printing process, combining photos (compositing), night time photography, etc.
The colors give us a cohesion as a group when presenting our work. They will create a type of rhythm moving from photo to photo. Giving us a cohesive body of work made by many unique individuals.
As always I encourage you to make photos that your passionate about in this challenge. The challenge/theme is just to get you out of your box and push your creativity, growth and activity level as a photographer. Utilize this opportunity to create the best work you can.
These photos will be presented at our meeting, 7 pm sharp, on April 10th. 20 photos will be selected for the Blue Sky Gallery in the Drawers for the next 4 weeks. For more details please see more in the "Blue Sky Drawers Specifications" File as well as the April Event invitation in the Event tab on the FB page.
We will need to you complete the New Members Form before participating in the meeting. Please find that in the Files tab of the FB page.
Find your passion. Make your photos.


Rahul Gandhi, who was elected the President of the Congress party on Monday, formally took responsibility from her mother Sonia Gandhi today at a function held in New Delhi.
In his opening speech as the party President, Rahul Gandhi did not mince his words to attack his nemesis PM Narendra Modi without naming him.
He said that the current Modi politics is devoid of kindness and truth. "Today, the politics is not being used to serve the people, but it is being used to crush the people," Rahul said about the politics of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He added that those in power today lie and distort and represent those structures that keep India poor. "Congress brought India to the 21st century, but PM (Modi) is taking the country backwards," Rahul said in his speech.
The Congress President also held Modi and BJP responsible for the ongoing hatred and violence in the country. "Today people are being hated for who they are, beaten for what they believe in, and killed for what they eat," he said.
"This ugly violence shames us in the world and no amount of hugs can repair the damage done to the country," Rahul Gandhi ridiculed Modi's weird habit of forcing his hugs on foreign leaders.
Addressing the party workers and leaders, Rahul Gandhi concluded that BJP is spreading fire (violence) in the country and Congress will extinguish it.


Specializing in video and live comedy production!
Looking to boost venues sales, I can help. I have been producing standup comedy shows for over 20 years, from Washington, DC to Hollywood, CA, let me show you how I can bring comedy to your venue for one low price and how you can double your profits through tickets sales and added revenue. Ian is also the creator of Old School vs New Jacks and Cinderella Cares Comedy for Cure.
Cafe Japone - Washington, DC (Consecutivly for 6 years) venue now closed!


Contemporary artist, Tim Hussey presents a new collection of paintings titled, "LISTING." "LISTING" takes place at the T. Hussey Studio opening Saturday, May 21.
Tim shares, "There's a constant and deliberate masking of any solid explainable moment..." and his approach to the canvas remains fresh, free flowing and complemented by his abstraction of typography, forms and mixed media placement.
You can see more of Tim Hussey's work here and TUMBLR here. Additional blog posts and interviews: Aphasia Interview , Contemporary Painting and Interview , True Story , Video Interview .
Long Island visual activist, Anthony Freda, presents a spirited brand of visual narrative that may provoke discussion.
Anthony Freda's latest mixed media art exhibit will be featured at the Mills Pond House Gallery, Saturday, April 22. With everything going on in the United States of America, I thought it appropriate to introduce you to Anthony's latest work, L.O.L., 24 x 48 inch, mixed media assemblage on found materials and panel. .
Mark Whalen is a Los Angeles artist constructing new relationships with conceptual sculpture.
Building relationships with iconic human shapes, color, and chromed elements, Mark Whalen expands the narrative into vivid depictions of life's folly.
Sculptural storytelling is revealed as a harmonious stacking of disturbances, conundrums and entertaining questions about life and beyond.


text:
Watson appointed President of Australian Cricketers Association
Shane Watson, the former Australian all-rounder, is one of the finest talents produced by the country's soil. Playing 59 Tests, 190 ODIs and 58 T20Is, the explosive cricketer made his nation proud on various occasions. Even after quitting the International cricket, Watson loves to portray his tough nature in the franchise-based T20 cricket.
However, this time, the 38-year old cricketer will be up against a new challenge as Watson has been appointed as the President of the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA), which is a representative voice of all the domestic and international cricketers of the country. The decision was finalized in the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Sydney.
With this, the stalwart has joined his fellow teammates Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch and Moises Henriques in an extended ten-person board.
The Queensland born was immensely excited with the news as he decided to share his feelings on his official Twitter handle. Watson promised that he would aim to give his best shot to his latest assignment as he considers players as the key to any cricket setup.
#Australia


Twilight is a vampire-romance novel which was written by Stephenie Meyer. This novel has become an instant bestseller and the biggest selling book of 2008.
Firstly, it is the first book of Twilight series. Twilight is a story about a seventeen year old girl, Isabella "Bella" Swan, who moves from Phoenix to Forks ( it is a small town which is located in Washington) to live with her father, Charlie, who is a policeman of rainy Forks, because Bella's mother, Renee, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. But Bella does not want to live with her mum's new husband (but Bella thinks if Renee loves him,she will be happy) even she loves her mum so much. Then Bella comes to a new school where she attracts a lot of attention by students because in the small town she is new and comes from sunny Arizona. She is befriended by several students quickly and finds her true love, Edward Cullen, who is a vampire. And it starts adventures of saving Bella's life from James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport but the Cullens attempt to distract the tracker by splitting up Bella and Edward; meeting the family of Edward and trying to save their forbidden love which is between a human-being and a vampire.
Secondly, I adore twilight because it is the best book I have ever read in my life. There are a lot of things that I like in this book, especially the cover because Stephenie Meyer has stated the apple which represents the forbidden fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This symbol shows Bella and Edward's love. Stephenie Meyer has worked in details and each small thing gives us a key of understanding the novel deeply.
Thirdly, Twilight is for everyone who wants to read a good book because it captures you and you want to continue more and more reading.
Finally, Twilight was a dream of Stephenie Meyer about a human girl and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood on June 2, 2003. And now it becomes real in publishing the Twilight series in 2005.


This is top quality mens biker trousers with some light padding.
They also have the extra zipper attachment on the back to connect to the jacket.
Stretch panels on hips and back also on knee to stop'baggy knee syndrome' with leg zips they are extremely comfortable and practical.


It's Marion (a.k.a Kickherout) and I've found a new outfit for you, hope you'll like it !
The reason why I chose to capture her is very simple. I wanted to find the perfect way to wear a long skirt - which is according to me very difficult (you can easily look like a potato bag). I like the cute effect she gave to it thanks to her hat and the purse. I mean, maybe she won't catch your eyes as a very stunning outfit with tons of stuffs and so on, but she manages to keep very simple and remaining stylish.
This is a very modern outfit. The hat and bag are just perfect together. Just absolutely gorgeous! I could do with a brown vest, but I get where she's coming from! Beautiful, beautiful!
Wow, I love this outift so much! It's so fashionable and she's following the stardoll trend of maxi skirts, her style is a little bit vintage, a very nice shirt, matching with an amazing vest also, and the skirt I would have chosen one without sequins, but it works so well! And I also like that cat box bag, since box bags are actually trendy, maybe with lighter lips she would have look better! Very nice choice!


The Rivet Group is an Australian provider of specialised transport and logistics, equipment hire and maintenance, contract mining and aviation services.
Working collaboratively to deliver project profitability.
Rivet Mining Services is a provider of bulk haulage and ancillary onsite services to mining companies in Australia. The business currently operates across Australia's key resource regions in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland.
Rivet Energy is a distributor of liquid fuels, LPG and other petroleum products across Australia. The division provides services to global oil and gas companies.
Refuel International is one of the world's largest and renowned designer and manufacturer of specialist fuel transfer equipment for aviation and support services. A pioneer in Quality products and solutions for specialist fuel transfer applications, Refuel International is the preferred partner of major oil companies worldwide, into plane operators and military defence organisations.
SMS Mining Services offers an integrated service in equipment rental, maintenance and contract mining. Supported by flexible contract models, a modern and comprehensive fleet and an experienced team, SMS sets the standard in equipment reliability and mining services.


text:
Plan for the Establishment of a Joint Committee Overseeing the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy (AF0010)
Action Plan: Afghanistan Action Plan 2017-2019
Lead Institution: High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC)
Support Institution(s): Ministries and state agencies, Civil Society Organizations
Anti-Corruption Institutions, Public Participation
IRM Report: Pending IRM Review
Starred: Pending IRM Review
Early Results: Pending IRM Review
Verifiable: Pending IRM Review
Relevant to OGP Values: Not Relevant
Potential Impact: Pending IRM Review
Completion: Pending IRM Review
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: During the last decade, Afghanistan has continued to gain the title of the most administratively corrupt country, ranked between 1st and 8th position, amongst all countries in the World Corruption Perception Index produced annually by Transparency International. Corruption is as problematic as insecurity, terrorism and drug trafficking acting to preventing the strengthening of good governance in Afghanistan.
The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has taken initiatives for the purpose of effectively combating corruption and fulfilling its commitments through accession to the United Nations Convention against Corruption as well as enforcement of the Law on Overseeing the Implementation of Anti-Corruption Strategy.; What is the commitment?: The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has recently prepared and approved the new Anti-Corruption Strategy. In order to effectively oversee the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy in Afghanistan, it was decided in the Open Government Partnership meetings that a joint committee comprised of the public sector and CSOs should be established.
The committee is supposed to oversee the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy and provide necessary recommendations for the High Council on Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption. The committee will also track the progress of the implementation of the recommendations given to the High Council and develop a knowledge product for future enrichment of anti-corruption strategies in the country. The tracking of the progress by the committee, will in part, be based on the reports submitted by the implementing agencies on their actions and achievements on the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy.; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: The commitment provides the opportunity for HOOAC and CSOs to oversee the implementation of the strategy on a continuous basis which will compel governmental agencies to fulfill their responsibilities in combating corruption.
First, for the implementation of the commitment, HOOAC will prepare the draft plan on the establishment of a joint committee comprised of state agencies and civil society organizations which will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the anti-corruption strategy. The joint committee will develop an action plan for the oversight of the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy.
The joint committee will enable CSOs to directly engage in the process of overseeing the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy, provision of recommendations and production of knowledge product for further enrichment of anti-corruption efforts.
It is expected that the functions of the committee will facilitate the proper implementation of the strategy and ultimately improve service delivery and Afghanistan's standing in the World Corruption Perception Index.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: This commitment has relevancy with the OGP values because it will ensure participation of CSOs in the oversight process of the Anti-Corruption Strategy. As the joint committee produces a knowledge product and makes it available to the public, this commitment relates to transparency. In terms of its relevance to accountability, the joint committee provides oversight, tracks the progress and provides recommendations to the implementing agencies.; Additional information: The implementation of this commitment is funded by the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption. This commitment is relevant to the Anti-Corruption Strategy (2017-2020).
Afghanistan's Commitments
Mechanism of Public Partnership in Inspection Process AF0001 2017 Afghanistan Capacity Building
Law on Processing, Publishing and Enforcing Legislative Documents AF0002 2017 Afghanistan Legislation & Regulation
Courts to address Violence against Women AF0003 2017 Afghanistan Gender
Public-Police Partnership Councils AF0004 2017 Afghanistan Capacity Building
Registering Assets of Government Officials AF0005 2017 Afghanistan Asset Disclosure
Scheme for Establishing Health Service Accreditation Entity AF0006 2017 Afghanistan Capacity Building
Urban Improvement National Policy AF0007 2017 Afghanistan Infrastructure & Transport
Protection Policy for Women under Conflict and Emergency Situations AF0008 2017 Afghanistan Gender
Civil Society Monitoring Plan for Education and Higher Education AF0009 2017 Afghanistan Education
Plan for the Establishment of a Joint Committee Overseeing the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy AF0010 2017 Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Institutions
Strengthen the Information Mechanism in 60 governmental agencies AF0011 2017 Afghanistan Capacity Building
Implementing open contracting AF0012 2017 Afghanistan E-Government
Public participation in Road Network Projects AF0013 2017 Afghanistan Infrastructure & Transport
Mechanism of Public Partnership in Inspection Process
AF0001, 2017, Capacity Building
Law on Processing, Publishing and Enforcing Legislative Documents
AF0002, 2017, Legislation & Regulation
Courts to address Violence against Women
AF0003, 2017, Gender
Public-Police Partnership Councils
Registering Assets of Government Officials
AF0005, 2017, Asset Disclosure
Scheme for Establishing Health Service Accreditation Entity
Urban Improvement National Policy
AF0007, 2017, Infrastructure & Transport
Protection Policy for Women under Conflict and Emergency Situations
Civil Society Monitoring Plan for Education and Higher Education
AF0009, 2017, Education
Plan for the Establishment of a Joint Committee Overseeing the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy
AF0010, 2017, Anti-Corruption Institutions
Strengthen the Information Mechanism in 60 governmental agencies
Implementing open contracting
AF0012, 2017, E-Government
Public participation in Road Network Projects


A flash flood warning is in effect for Central New Jersey until 2:30 a.m. Thursday and a tornado watch is in effect until 1 a.m. Thursday. The tornado watch was previously in effect until 11 p.m. Wednesday, but the watch was extended.
Between an inch and an inch and a half of rain is possible. This is in addition to the heavy rain some areas received earlier. Because the ground is already saturated from previous rain, excessive runoff will occur quickly.
Use extra caution of you must drive tonight. Do not drive through flooded roadways. Six inches of fast-moving flood water can knock over an adult. It takes just 12 inches of rushing water to carry away a small car, while two feet of rushing water can carry away most vehicles. It is never safe to drive or walk into flood waters.
As of 10:45 p.m., about 100 PSE&G customers in Princeton Junction were without power. About 30 customers in Kingston were without power. A handful of outages were also reported in each of the following towns: Princeton, Montgomery, Lawrenceville, Pennington, Ewing, Trenton, and South Brunswick. To report an outage, downed power lines, or gas leaks call 1-800-436-PSEG (7734).


The initial stages of designing your wine cellar solution can seem a little daunting. We can usually imagine how we want our wine walls, cellars or pods to look, but with countless fixtures, lighting choices and finishes, it can become overwhelming.
What would your wine wall be finished with? Metal? Stone? Lacquer? Crystals? This blog will look at one of our most popular finishes, wood, and the many unique styles and possibilities you can create with this truly versatile material and the great designers out there using this material in their craft.
This year's trend in design is the use of natural materials in response to the anxiety of our global future, how we treat our planet and the over consumption of materials. The rising interest in quality hand crafted design is a manifestation of our collective concern around the impact of mass manufacture. High quality design that stands the test of time is essential to prevent over consumption and wasted materials.
This year's trend was evident at Milan design week where several designers presented innovative ways of manipulating wood to exaggerate its natural beauty and show its potential in furniture design.
One designer, Lisa Ertel, sandblasted Dune furniture to remove its softer outer layer, exposing the rings underneath, showing the materials age. I think that this process creates exquisite furniture that emphasizing the woods beauty, but it also creates the link between design and consumption. By exposing the rings of wood, you can literally see the years of time it has taken for this material to grown before being used for these elegant pieces of furniture.\r\n\r\nYou can see the full article on Dezeen here.
Another example, also showcased at Milan design week, comes from furniture brand Ercol. This year they presented new ranges from their Marino chair and sofa range which incorporates a steam bent frame.
These eye-catching frames are developed using a traditional technique called steam bending, a clean, efficient and eco-friendly process that is used to manipulate wood that would otherwise seem impossible. By boiling the wood, the cellular structure is weakened allowing designers to create curved shapes, before the material returns to its rigid form. The expert technique and craftsmanship that is used in this age-old technique creates truly bespoke furniture that is the true definition of luxury. It is one of the many techniques and processes that have been developed to manipulate wood to do amazing things.
The full article for Ercols' ranges that were exhibited at Milan design week can be seen on Dezeen following this link.
Artists Richard Deacon's 'Restless' sculpture was exhibited at the Tate in 2005 and is an example of how the steam bending technique can be used in sculptural art.
Nic's sculptures tests the limits of wood, and he often singes the material which creates a beautiful contrast as well as exposing the materials flexibility and durability. His website can be found here for images of his experimental work and dates for his workshops, should you wish to give this process a try!
At Cellar Maison, our luxury wine cellars, walls and pods are designed to suit your needs. Every detail is considered making your final design truly bespoke. Our managing director Andrew Speer has a background in the bespoke luxury furniture design field and after beginning his career as a master cabinet-maker, he has over 20 years experience working with joinery and is able to offer sound advice and suggestions to the finish that would work for you.
If you are looking for more inspiration, other projects can be seen in our full gallery including this dark and beautifully lit wine cellar in Surrey which uses Grey washed oak. This 1200 bottle capacity cellar draws you in first with its back-lit acrylic panel, then invites you to stay with its luxurious attention to detail and expert craftsmanship.
The designers at Cellar Maison can suggest many wood finishes from our extensive sample library to suit your space. We can also match your finish to existing joinery in your space, creating a truly bespoke and individual look within your home.
Whether you decide on a cellar, wine pod or wine wall from Cellar Maison, you are not only choosing a beautiful storage system to showcase your collection, you are choosing a company that pride themselves on quality, service and experience to give you the best possible design for your space.


Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an emission reduction process designed to prevent large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being released into the atmosphere. It is considered a key and necessary technology to actively reduce industry driven greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). CCS involves capturing CO2, compressing it for transportation and then injecting it deep into a rock formation at a selected site, where it is permanently stored.
The separation of CO2 from other gases produced at facilities such as coal and natural gas power plants, oil and gas refineries, steel mills and cement plants.
Once captured and separated, the CO2 is compressed to a "dense phase" or liquid-like state to make it easier to transport and store (liquid takes up much less space than a gas). The CO2 is usually transported to a suitable site for geological storage using pipelines, although some countries use ships and – for smaller amounts of CO2 – trucks and trains can also be used.
Permanent Storage. The captured CO2 is transported to a geological storage site and then injected deep underground where it is permanently stored.
Utilization to Storage via Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The captured CO2 is transported to an oil field and is used to stimulate more oil production, with the CO2 then being stored in the oil-depleted reservoir.
For more details on EOR & Storage, see Fullchain and/ this factsheet.
CCUS stands for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage. Essentially it is CCS that also enables the "utilization" of the CO2. However, CCS\CCUS are often used interchangeably.
Increasingly there are several emerging forms of CO2 utilization – for example as an additive to improve the integrity of products, such as cement. The volumes required for these by-products, however is small and hence negligible toward the goal to mitigate climate change. Alternatively, large volume CO2 utilization occurs when it is applied to EOR activity which has the added benefit of permanently storing the CO2 underground.
CO2 is captured to prevent large amounts of it from entering the atmosphere. CO2 is the greatest contributor to global warming, and large-scale CCS is the only technology that can help our planet meet the 2oC climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement. Several global organizations including the International Energy Agency, and the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognize that much of the world cannot meet their emission reduction targets without large-scale CCS. Research affirms that without CCS, the median increase in mitigation cost is 138%.
In and effort to see a permanent shift to lower or non-emitting types of generation, in 2015, Canada implemented the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Coal-fired Generation of Electricity Regulations, setting a stringent performance standard of 420 tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt hour (t/GWh) for new coal-fired electricity generation units and units that have reached the end of their useful life (nominally 50 years). SaskPower's Boundary Dam CCS Facility (BD3) designed operate as low as 120-140 t/GWh, surpasses the Canadian standard by three times. The greatest gains in CO2 emissions reductions, in an electrical system without the ability to add hydro or nuclear facilities, are realized with CCS.
How Does the Capture Process Work?
How CO2 is captured involves chemistry. Simply put, the flue gas goes into a big vessel called an absorber which is filled with layers of structured metal packing that is continuous to the sides of the unit (like a metal sponge). This increases the contact between liquid and gas. Next, a chemical solvent (called an amine) is showered into the vessel that targets the CO2 gas. The amine reacts with the CO2, absorbing the gas into the liquid before accumulating in the bottom of the vessel. The amine is then sent to a stripper, which is a chamber that heats the liquid to release CO2 back into a gas. The amine which is now free of CO2 is recycled back into the absorber to repeat the process and capture more CO2. The CO2 gas is compressed into a supercritical state and transported by pipeline to be permanently stored or used for EOR.
Why Large-Scale CCS for Energy and Industry?
It is well documented that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have been steadily increasing due to human activities and that the earth is on a trajectory of unprecedented climate disruption. While there are many ways in which GHGs can be reduced, such as adding renewables into the energy portfolio or increasing efficiency of power plants, these steps alone will not achieve the required reductions in CO2 emissions and deep reductions are needed now. CCS is a critical technology in helping solve the problem.
CCS is applicable beyond the energy sectors and can be applied to industrial sources of emissions, which have limited abatement options such as iron, steel, concrete, and agriculture. In recent years, analysts and governments have recognized that some of the world's most carbon-intensive industries may have no alternatives to CCS for deep emissions reduction. This is because; CO2 is generated not only from their use of fuel, but also, unavoidably, through their production processes as well.
Widespread use of CCS can be achieved without the need for rapid change in the energy and industry supply infrastructure. This will allow countries to meaningfully aid in decarbonizing electrical grids as well as transition to carbon-free energy systems in the future.
CCS offers the world flexibility and time to make the leap to cleaner systems. It means we can retrofit, rather than replace, vast parts of the global infrastructure and maintain industries that employ millions of people around the world.
CCS is therefore an essential part of the portfolio of technologies that is needed to achieve deep global emission reductions.


Published 04/22/2019 06:34:57 am at 04/22/2019 06:34:57 am in White Metal Archway.
white metal archway loire metal garden rose arch white grey wash finish w x h white metal wedding arch in celabrations decorative metal wedding arch white wxh efavormart.
garden arch arbor backyard white patio archway wedding decor trellis metal garden arch flower archway arbor climbing plant trellis wedding patio, wedding arches av party rental wedding arches , amazoncom adorox ft lightweight white metal arch wedding adorox ft lightweight white metal arch wedding garden bridal party decoration arbor , archway stock photos stock images and vectors page stockfresh flat line vector icon for lancet arch stock photo yershovoleksandr,, garden arches noharmclub garden arches stock photo garden arches and arcades with roses and other flowers archway garden arches, wedding and event metal steel white arch etsy , w x h white metal wedding arch efavormart ftxft white double layer polyester chiffon backdrop with rod pockets, , garden arbors trellises arbor wood wrought iron metal arch white full , large metal latex balloons star arch frame kit metal balloons star large metal latex balloons star arch frame kit.


I'm guessing it's pretty common at this stage to be tired of wearing maternity clothes. Over the weekend, there were two baby showers to celebrate Baby G and I ended up wearing non-maternity clothes to both.
The blue dress actually fits me better with the baby bump because the dress is so long. Due to the tiered bottom the dress is pretty heavy, but I've really loved wearing it the past few weeks.
The skirt and tank combo worked much like a high-low dress, coming over the baby bump and hanging a bit lower in the back.
Do you have helpful tips for making non-maternity clothes work in the third trimester?
I love your look at the salsa shower! You are glowing!
aha congratulations honey, you are each day more beautiful!
i agree with the non maternity clothes! and it's easier in the summer with maxi dresses and skirts - that is all I wear now!
You look awesome!! I think the belt is key in pregnancy.


Well maintained Victorian home on a tree-lined street not far from Edgewater Park, right between Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway and Clifton-Baltic neighborhoods. This home features hardwood floors, elegant woodwork, a tiled fireplace, pocket doors, a large kitchen, a bay window with bench seating, large bedrooms, and a large front porch. Updates include a newer furnace and A/C, newer roof and newer windows. Total square feet of 2333 include a third floor bedroom#5.


Earlier this month you were awarded Cos Frag Leadership Award, congratulations! What does that mean to you? It is a great honor to receive such an award. Yes, it is a milestone and recognition for hard work, but it also is a reflection of the quality of a FIT education, and the investment that professors made in me during my time there. I don't believe that people achieve solely on their own – the support and guidance of others are essential, as it a bit of luck.
Why FIT? I remember in 2005, I was an Assistant Manager at Kiehl's, and my boss was in FIT's Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management graduate program. I used to sneak over to his desk and flip through his textbooks. I was so envious. I'm one of those types that can never stay out of school for long, and for my career, I knew I needed additional business education. Instead of an MBA, however, I wanted something very targeted to the beauty industry. I wanted those BOOKS! FIT was the only university that offered such a targeted program, and I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from L'Oreal to attend. Today, I teach the first course of the program, Innovation in the Development of the Beauty Industry. I get the best of both worlds – I get to stay in school and teach what I love without having to study for tests (though now I do have to grade papers).
Year graduated? 2008. Every year that number makes me feel older.
Major? Master of Professional Studies, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management.
After FIT? Experiences that led you to who you are today? Today I am the Global General Manager of SkinCeuticals (owned by L'Oreal), a leading professional skincare brand used and sold by dermatologists and plastic surgeons. I was a secret chemistry geek in high school and now I get to wear it proudly.
Daily routine? Do you really want the answer to that question? It's quite boring.
Wake up, feed the cats, walk the dog, eat breakfast, and go to work. Breakfast is really important because I never know how busy the day will be. Sometimes I will get into the office around 7 if I have calls with Asia or Europe. When you work in skincare, no day is ever the same. I get to be a Jane of all trades in this position – from product development to branding strategy to finance, operations, and manufacturing. It's energizing and exhausting at the same time! I'm very lucky to have a strong team who is collaborative, creative, and very down to earth. I usually get home around 8, pour some wine, kiss my husband and animals, and turn off my brain so it has time to rest and recharge. I know - working out should be somewhere in that daily routine, but if I have to make a choice – the family and wine win out.
Where are you from? And how did this shape the person you are today? First of all, I'm a Jersey girl, so that should explain a lot. But more seriously, I think the big theme that has shaped me into the person I am today is having an insatiable curiosity for what makes people and the world tick. Some people know very early what they want to do in life. That was NOT me. I was so interested in different subjects that it was hard to choose. So my twenties were a process of elimination, and then ultimately finding a career that would combine as many interests into one. Along the way, I had an undergraduate degree in Economics, a Masters in Fashion History and Theory, and jobs in investment banking and fashion.
Beauty is the synergy of so many interests – history, business, popular culture, psychology, chemistry – it was a natural place to land. So to those readers who still don't know what they "want to do"? Don't worry – you'll find it. Just keep an open mind and don't be afraid to be uncomfortable or decide something is not for you.
If you could translate your style into a person, place or thing what would it be? Paris in the 1920s meets Winona Ryder - without the smoking or shoplifting.
Signature scent? How can I pick just one?? I keep collecting, though I've long been obsessed with Serge Lutens. I just bought La Fille de Berlin, even though I don't usually wear florals.
Go to summer beauty routine? SkinCeuticals Phloretin CF Gel + a high-level sunscreen + a new formulation on which we've been working. I also wear big hats and sunglasses. Those should be considered a routine as well. I was a sun worshipper as a teenager and I am paying for it now. Literally.
What three things you can't live without? My husband, my pets, and Broadway showtunes.
Future projects you are working on? I'm not sure if this counts, but my husband and I are trying to combine a self-drive Safari + Scuba Diving trip to South Africa, and that project is taking up a lot more time than anticipated. But I'm looking forward to monkey sancturaries and swimming with sharks.


Periodization for the pubertal athlete?
Speed training all year long?
Richard is an architect of Canadian Sport for Life and the Long-Term Athlete Development framework. As Senior Leader for the CS4L Leadership Team, he's provided development guidance to 56 National Sport Organizations in Canada. Internationally, he is the President of the International Sport for Life Society , serves on the faculty of the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Delaware, and has worked in numerous countries around the world. Richard was the Director of Sport for Vancouver's successful 2010 Bid Corporation, a former commission member of the International Luge Federation, and former executive of the Canadian Luge Association. Richard recently co-authored a book on Long-Term Athlete Development for Human Kinetics.
Istvan is an architect of the Long-Term Athlete Development framework and is a Planning and Periodization expert on which he's published over 75 articles and chapters. His series on Long-Term Athlete Development and periodization have both been published in Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Within Canada, Istvan has worked with 17 different National Teams as a high performance advisor and planning and periodization consultant. Istvan is a national and national Long-Term Athlete Development advisor. Internationally, he has lead program development in the United States, South Africa, England, Ireland, Sweden and the Bahrain.


text:
Materializing the ghost in the machine
Posted by Terry Grant | Jul 1, 2016 | From the Magazine, Research, Watch+Listen
Neuralprosthetic research strengthens virtual hand feedback loop
In the video accompaniment to a research paper, the smile that flashes across a man's face as he wiggles his virtual fingers for the first time captures the essence of the work being done by Bradley Greger's team – it has the potential to be life changing for those who have lost a limb.
But according to Greger, an associate professor of biomedical engineering in ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, having "super amazing" robotic limbs isn't enough. "The hard part is the interface, getting the prosthetics to talk to the nerves," he says. "It's not just telling the fingers to move, the brain has to know the fingers have moved as directed."
Video: This video serves as supplementary material for a paper published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. The participant is controlling a virtual prosthetic hand by thinking about moving the amputated hand and the nerve signals are recorded by microelectrodes. A computer algorithm decodes the signals and controls the virtual prosthetic hand. Sensations of touch on the amputated hand were also generated in patients by electrically stimulating sensory nerve fibers using an implanted microelectrode array.
Despite the excitement of being able to manipulate virtual fingers, or even fingers attached to a functioning prosthetic device, it is not the same as feeling like the device is part of your own body.
Research by Greger's team, published in the March issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering, is seeking to establish bidirectional communication between a user and a new prosthetic limb that is capable of controlling more than 20 different movements.
The paper was co-authored by Tyler Davis, Heather Ward, Douglas Hutchinson, David Warren, Kevin O'Neill III, Taylor Scheinblum, Gregory Clark, Richard Normann and Greger, all at the University of Utah. Greger, a neural engineer, joined the School of Biological Health Systems Engineering at ASU three years ago.
In the nervous system there is a "closed loop" of sensation, decision and action. This process is carried out by a variety of sensory and motor neurons, along with interneurons, which enable communication with the central nervous system.
"Imagine the kind of neural computation it takes to perform what most would consider the simple act of typing on your computer," says Greger. "We're moving the dial toward that level of control."
The published study involved implanting an array of 96 electrodes for 30 days into the median and ulnar nerves in the arms of two amputees. The electrodes were stimulated both individually and in groups with varying degrees of amplitude and frequency designed to determine how the participants could perceive the stimulation. Neural activity was recorded during intended movements of the subjects' phantom fingers and 13 specific movements were decoded as the subjects controlled the individual fingers of a virtual robotic hand.
The motor and sensory information provided by the implanted microelectrode arrays indicate that patients outfitted with a highly dexterous prosthetic limb controlled with a similar, bi-directional, peripheral nerve interface might begin to think of the prosthesis as an extension of themselves rather than a piece of hardware, explained Greger.
An array of implanted electrodes record neural activity during intended movement of phantom fingers. Image courtesy of Bradley Greger.
Collaboration is key
"We have come a long way in our understanding of the nervous system, but we've reached the point where collaboration across disciplines has become essential," says Greger. "The day of the lone professor making the Nobel Prize-winning discovery is gone. Now scientists, engineers and clinicians are working together as technology advances." The team assembled for the research reported on in the recent journal publication involved investigators with expertise in neuroscience, bioengineering and surgery.
Access to the wide collaboration available across the Fulton Schools was a key component in Greger's decision to join the biomedical engineering faculty. "At ASU, there is amazing research happening in the areas of robotics and computer and software engineering," he says.
Greger cites the achievements of Professor Marco Santello, director of SBHSE, particularly Santello's "amazing understanding of how the hand works." In future research, Greger hopes to use SoftHand, which Santello developed with the researchers at the University of Pisa and the Italian Institute of Technology, as the prosthetic hand controlled by neural signals.
"The environment here differs from the classical academic research environment," he says. "ASU has made structural changes to the university, such as implementing schools that span multiple classical departments, in order to promote interdisciplinary research in the academic community."
Also important to Greger is the opportunity to work with clinical collaborators at the Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix Children's Hospital and the Mayo Clinic here in the greater Phoenix area. He has several projects underway at BNI and PCH, and has begun working with Shelley Noland, M.D., a Mayo Clinic plastic surgeon who specializes in hand surgery, on continuing the published had prosthesis research.
"One of the most challenging hurdles in moving from research to getting prosthetics into the hands of those who need them is navigating the FDA approval process," says Greger.
The rigor exercised by the Mayo Clinic in its research initiatives is unparalleled, according to Greger, who describes Mayo as "massively patient-care focused" with rigorous, controlled research parameters. "At Mayo, nothing is haphazard," he says. "These rigorous standards help with navigating the FDA approval process and facilitate producing research results that can be readily duplicated."
Virtual Reality in the Neural Engineering Lab
For the next phase of the neuralprosthetic study, markers are applied to the patient's functioning hand in order to measure hand posture. These measurements are used to position the virtual hand. Photographer: Kevin O'Neill
"We're now at the stage in this process where we ask patients to mirror movements between hands," explains Greger. "We can't record what the amputated hand is doing, but we can record what a healthy hand is doing." So, for instance, asking the patient to wave both hands simultaneously, or to point at an object with both hands, will be integral to the latest tech employed in the feedback loop: an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
The advantage of the virtual reality headset is that the patient is able to interact directly with his or her virtual limb rather than by watching it on a screen.
Kevin O'Neill, who was a bioengineer undergraduate on the research team at Utah and now is a doctoral student at ASU, is developing the technology that not only allows the patient to see what his or her virtual limb is doing, but also "decodes" the neural messages that enable the motion to happen.
"At first, when patients are learning to manipulate their virtual hands, they will be asked to strictly mirror movements of a healthy hand," explained O'Neill. "Once we have learned what information the signals contain, we can build a neural decoding system and have patients drive the virtual representation of a missing limb independently of a healthy hand."
Denise Oswalt, a bioengineering doctoral student in the Neural Engineering Lab, demonstrates how patients will use the Oculus Rift headset to learn controlled movement of phantom fingers. Photographer: Kevin O'Neill.
For Greger, the most important next steps are getting the technology into human trials and then creating effective limbs that are available to patients at an affordable price.
"There are prosthetic limbs that are amazing, like the DEKA arm or the arm from Johns Hopkins' Advance Physics Lab. But the costs can be in the hundred thousand dollar range," he says. "We're working toward limbs that are accessible both financially and in terms of usability. We want to create limbs that patients will use as true extensions of themselves."
Terry Grant, theresa.grant@asu.edu
PreviousASU receives U.S. Department of Energy award for algae biofuel research
NextThinking big with small robots
Terry Grant
Terry Grant is the senior media relations officer for engineering in the Arizona State University Office of Media Relations and Strategic Communications. theresa.grant@asu.edu 480-727-4058
Research internship boosts engineering student's medical career hopes
Engineering students among top performers at NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge
Thinking big with small robots
Materials research progress earns Solanki more praise from peers


text:
#ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H
# include <config.h>
#endif

#include <vlc_common.h>
#include <vlc_opengl.h>
#include "libvlc.h"
#include <vlc_modules.h>

#undef vlc_gl_Create
/**
 * Creates an OpenGL context (and its underlying surface).
 *
 * @note In most cases, you should vlc_gl_MakeCurrent() afterward.
 *
 * @param wnd window to use as OpenGL surface
 * @param flags OpenGL context type
 * @param name module name (or NULL for auto)
 * @return a new context, or NULL on failure
 */
vlc_gl_t *vlc_gl_Create(struct vout_window_t *wnd, unsigned flags,
                        const char *name)
{
    vlc_object_t *parent = (vlc_object_t *)wnd;
    vlc_gl_t *gl;
    const char *type;

    switch (flags /*& VLC_OPENGL_API_MASK*/)
    {
        case VLC_OPENGL:
            type = "opengl";
            break;
        case VLC_OPENGL_ES:
            type = "opengl es";
            break;
        case VLC_OPENGL_ES2:
            type = "opengl es2";
            break;
        default:
            return NULL;
    }

    gl = vlc_custom_create(parent, sizeof (*gl), "gl");
    if (unlikely(gl == NULL))
        return NULL;

    gl->surface = wnd;
    gl->module = module_need(gl, type, name, true);
    if (gl->module == NULL)
    {
        vlc_object_release(gl);
        return NULL;
    }

    return gl;
}

void vlc_gl_Destroy(vlc_gl_t *gl)
{
    module_unneed(gl, gl->module);
    vlc_object_release(gl);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The sessions are separated topic-wise. Each conference day will start with an invited plenary lecture, followed by two sessions (before and after lunch). Each of the sessions will be initiated by the topical keynote presentation, followed by an invited talk and oral contributions. One coffee break for each session is expected, allowing not only to rest, but also to generate a discussion time and space. A poster session is scheduled for the morning on both days, a list of posters can be found here.
All sessions take place at the TU Dresden main campus, Zeunerbau, Room 260, George-Bähr-Straße 3, 01069 Dresden.
"Bioelectronic devices for the interfacing with DNA, proteins, and neurons."
""Lab on chip" - biomimetic channel networks"
"Label-free protein electronic detection with an electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistor-based immunosensor"
"A new concept for methanol detection in alcoholic beverages"
"Microtubular NEMS for on- and off-chip biosensing and -medical applications"
"Integration of reconfigurable lab on chips for ad lib selection of biomarkers"
"Signal enhancement in high ionic strength achieved with transistor-based biosensors"
"Junctionless nanowire transistors: promising devices for biosensor applications"
"Carbon quantum dots decorated microfabricated gold electrodes for sensitive glucose detection"
"Biosensing with graphene field-effect transistors"
"Electronics packaging for multi-functional and biomedical sensor systems"
"Handheld disease diagnosis; science fiction or reality?"
"Rational design of sensor for broadband dielectric spectroscopy of biomolecules"
"Heterogeneously integrated silicon nanowire array for biosensing applications"
"Composed micro and nano particles for flow catalysis and miniaturized SERS-sensing"
"Multiplexed detection of steroids with silicon nanowire field effect transistors"
"Innovative photoelectrochemical biosensor based on quantum dots"
"Chemiresistive biosensor base don carbón nanotubes for label-free detection of DNA sequences derived from avian influenza virus H5N1"
"Microorganism growth variability in droplets"
"Direct, label-free and rapid transistor-based immunodetection in whole serum"
"Optical and electrical nanobiosensing platform for detection of miRNA based on nanoplasmonics"
"Liquid metals for stretchable and soft electronics"
"Printed stretchable electronics for unobtrusive biosignal monitoring"
"Compliant on-skin compass for artificial magnetoception"
"Flexible biosensing platform based on MoS2"
"Diagnostics with paper-based sensors using nanomaterials as signalling tools"
"Three-dimensional tubular nanomembrane DNA biosensor"
"On-a-chip biosensing with optical nano-resonators"
"Ultrasmall nanoparticles and cells in droplet based microfluidics"
"Single-cell analysis with rolled-up tomography devices"
"Plasmonic nanoparticles in microstructured fibres as detection platforms"


text:
Q: xml alternative for javascript app used on IE? What would be the best alternative to xml for a javascript app. The app parse the data then uses Highcharts framework to show some charts.
I can't use xml because it has problems running locally on Internet Explorer (access denied error and other problems ....see my other question here).
Also this new thing that should replace xml in this situation should be exported from excel.
I was thinking about csv... but csv can be a little bit messy an not as easy to use as xml.
Thanks!

A: The best data format that you can use with JavaScript is JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) - it was designed for it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Graham "Sandy" Houston.
It had been a time since we had paid a wellbeing visit to see Sandy and this was rectified recently when Wayne Springall (Sandy's nephew), Fred Jackson and Ken Vessey from the Northern Sydney Committee called in to see him at a Bayview Nursing Home, he had recently moved into. Sadly Sandy's wife Margaret had passed away on the 18 July 2019 and he is coping well considering all things. He has strong family support with daughter Leanne, son Todd and other Family members.
With a big smile on his face he told us "he was born on the 24 November 1927, his birthday was on next Sunday and to bring on the 90's years to come".
Sandy has been a keen supporter of the Men of League Foundation for many years having Ordinary Member 737 and Gold Member 18 numbers and he was full of praise for the activities of the Foundation. He grew up and played in the Manly Warringah junior rugby league before being playing with the Manly Warringah District RLF Club from 1949-1952 as a Hooker for a total of 48 matches in reserve/third grade. Naturally, I asked him "as a Hooker, you must have been sent from the field a few times" and without any facial expression change he replied, " innocently only once, up the Domain". However, he had a big grin when he stated: " he never hit anyone for fear they might whack him back".
He proudly told us he worked at the then Dept of Motor Transport for 48 years,2 weeks and 2 days and enjoyed every day. In those days the Dept had a very strong rugby league team playing in the lunchtime Sydney Domain competition and he played with talented players like Ken McCaffery ( Australian representative, Qld, Eastern Suburbs, North Sydney ), Ray Gartner (Canterbury Bankstown), Les Brennan ( Souths Sydney), Bernie Cuneo ( North Sydney, Manly Warringah ) and Kevin Doyle (Eastern Suburbs).
Sandy is a former Director plus a Foundation and Life Member of both the Manly Warringah District RLF Club and the Manly Warringah League Club — a marvellous achievement in a life time. He is the greatest supporter of the Sea Eagles and he has high hopes for season 2020 . We presented him with a Men of League polo in recognition of his long-time contribution of our game and he was moved in his thanking us for the visit and our gift.
His parting words were "many thanks for coming to see me and it's so nice to know people have not forgotten me".
by Ken Vessey. Wellbeing Coordinator Northern Sydney Committee