Month: July 2006

Categories
Narrated

Musical Evolution

The first piece of musical software I remember sparking my interest was [Rebirth 1.0](http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/). I didn’t have a MIDI keyboard, and I barely had a lick of musical inspiration, but setting up drum loops and turning the knobs on the virtual synth just made me feel…I don’t know, I guess the proper word is *empowered*.

To the best of my memory, my discovery of Rebirth was also right around the time I found myself listening to electronic music. Rebirth came out in early 1997, and the span from 1996 to 1997 was when the US had that big HOLY SHIT **ELECTRONICA** moment. And even if it amounted to little more than press hype, it started me down the musical tinkering slope.

June of 2000: I discover [Igor Engraver](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2000/06/for_the_musicia.php) – a then-free piece of music notation software. I tinker, I toy, I play. Nothing comes of it, but that creative spirit blooms again briefly.

Early 2002: I find my way into Beatmania. I never recover.

Christmas 2003: I receive both a copy of [Traktor DJ Studio](http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=traktor3_us) and an [Oxygen8](http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Oxygen8-main.html) keyboard. I put together a few mashups, and end up putting a few musical blips together to be used in some games.

In the time since, I’ve taken up photography, and as an immediate-feedback outlet, it’s hard to top. But that desire to screw around and craft music has never really disappeared.

Which leads us to today. Today is the day where I acquired [Ableton Live 5.2](http://www.ableton.com/index/live).
I list the software I’ve gone through because of the massive rate of growth the industry has seen. In 10 years, we’ve come from a simple synth and drum machine to something through which [beatboxers can reach new heights](http://www.ableton.com/_common/downloads/pages2/artist_kid_beyond/kid-beyond.mov), [loops can be made out of common household goods](http://www.ableton.com/_common/downloads/pages2/artists/shawn_pelton/down_and_dirty_loops.mov), and [music can be made while traveling](http://www.ableton.com/_common/downloads/pages2/artist_telefon_tel_aviv/telefon_tel_aviv.mov). (Seriously, folks, **watch these movies.**)

I don’t know if anything worthwhile will come out of me having Live. It may just be another plaything, another toy I end up growing tired of. But once again, I feel that grand empowerment that comes from having a magical tool that almost begs to be bent to my will – and bend it I shall.

Categories
Debated

Consequences

To every action, there are consequences.

Few actions will illustrate this as well as Zinedine Zidane’s vicious headbutt in the 110th minute of the World Cup final. One moment of stupidity and anger overshadows every contribution, every minute played. Even the miraculous goal he scored in the 7th is quickly forgotten.

And worse, his removal – and lack of expertise during penalties – may have been enough to push Italy over the top. I don’t enjoy condemning teams solely on the actions of one player, but I am overjoyed to see Italy win.

[The Guardian](http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/minbymin/0,,1788448,00.html):

> It’s hard to do justice to just how horrible that headbutt was – you instinctively recoil like you’re the victim; it’s brutal, you feel the teeth grinding as he rams into Materazzi. You feel your eyelids instinctively magnetising with every replay; it’s as unwatchable as that bit in Scream when Drew Barrymore has her little skinny tummy sliced and diced. That really, erm, put the ‘no!’ in ‘denouement’. Or maybe it was denouemental. I don’t know; I’m tired. But it makes for the most spectacular drama.

—-

One thing I’ve learned living in Astoria is that no matter who wins, the car horns begin honking soon after.

For once, I’m looking forward to it.

Categories
Debated Explained

Reader Mail: Apple Phones One In?

Occasionally, comments require a full post responce; [today, Cyd wrote](https://vjarmy.com/archives/2006/07/links_for_20060706.php#c26283):

> Hi Dan,
> You’re my source for all that’s important techno-wise – congrats on the promotion!! But, I stumbled across [this](http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/06/mac-os-x-update-adds-regular-check-ins-with-apple-servers/) & need guidance – I feel betrayed – could you advise – is it time to worry about how Apple seems to be morphing over to the MS darkside? Thanks!

For those of you too busy to read about Yet Another Apple Outcry&tradem;, here’s the summary: version 10.4.7 of OS X was recently released. Amongst the fixes and new features, there was a new behavior that some people were upset about: a process called dashboardadvisoryd was “phoning home” to one of Apple’s servers multiple times a day.

Quickly, everyone, flip out! AIYEEEEEE!

Now that that’s out of our system: this is not worth ruining your undergarments over. The derived purpose of dashboardadvisoryd is to check to see if your widgets are up to date.

As you can read in the comments across the multiple blog posts that have been spawned about this ([Red Sweater Blog](http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too) being a fairly reasonable one), the derived purpose of this is to cross-check version numbers of your widgets against Apple’s internal database. Presumably, this is done to *harden* the system, not act as Big Brother. But given the [recent fireworks](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060705-7188.html) about Window’s WGA, it’s not surprising that anyone treats the slightest notion of phoning home as a violation of international law.

Phoning home can be a positive thing. Being able to email crash reports immediately to the developers is a boon for bug fixing. Phoning home is, in my experience, the most effective block against casual piracy, and as much as some may disagree, software developers need to eat. And being able to get update notifications – or in some cases, apply updates without even prompting the user – is win-win for end users (more stable software) as well as developers (less versions to provide support to). If it weren’t for automatic application of updates, I’d be spending more time updating Quicksilver than actually using it.

Speaking of automatic updates: having just received an absurd number of new Macs at work, I’d like to remind everyone that Software Update defaults to **on**. It checks once a week, and that has to transmit information about *every application you have installed*. Again: [dashboardadvisoryd transmits *nothing*](http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/153/apple-phones-home-too#comment-8638) identifying what’s on your machine during the routine checks. And Apple doesn’t ask you if you want to turn that on during setup.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not a fan of identifying information about my machine flying across the Internet to some corporation without my consent. Apple should notify users and give an easy option to turn it off, just like they did in the aftermath of the iTunes Ministore outcry.

But failing that for the time being, The Cult Of Mac Blog [has an easy remedy](http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/index.blog?entry_id=1515043). From Terminal, punch this in:

sudo mv /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist.disabled

Then, reboot. “Problem” solved.

Finally, if you’re worried about phoning home from all of your apps – and a little security paranoia isn’t a bad thing – [Little Snitch](http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html) is indispensable for your Mac.