Vazio...

Não é só o espaço que, sob o ponto de vista da vida, se encontra vazio, também o tempo está vazio. A vida é como uma pequena chama, ainda mal acesa, nestas imensidões vaziasH. G. Wells, Plano geral da História, 1920E ainda:Embora muito se tenha escrito descabidamente sobre o antagonismo entre religião e ciência, este não existe de facto. O que todas as religiões mundiais declaram, por inspiração e perspicácia, a história, à medida que aparece mais clara, e a ciência, à medida que o seu alcance se alarga, como um facto sensato e demonstrável, é que os homens formam uma irmandade universal, surgem de uma origem comum, as suas vidas individuais, raças e nações cruzam-se, misturam-se e continuam a fundir-se, finalmente, num destino humano comum neste pequeno planeta entre as estrelas. E o psicólogo pode agora manter-se ao lado do pregador e assegurar-nos que não existe razoável paz de coração, nem equilíbrio e segurança na alma, até que o homem, após ter perdido a vida, a tenha ensinado e disciplinado os seus interesses e vontade para além de ganâncias, rivalidades, medos, instintos e afeições tacanhos. A história da nossa raça e a experiência religiosa pessoal correm tão rigorosamente paralelas que a um observador moderno parecem quase a mesma coisa; ambas falam de um ser disperso, confuso, tacteando lentamente o caminho para a serenidade e salvação de um fim ordenado e coerente. É este, na forma mais simplista, o plano geral da história; quer se refute ou se tenha um objectivo religioso, as linhas do plano permanecem as mesmas.

Some fresh air on Specs shelf...

Finnally someone had the courage to say some truth about the so-called software specifications. The lack of specs have been for many time deemed as the cause of bad software.Now great Linus Torvalds is saying that Real standards grow up _despite_ specs, not thanks to them.Now when someone says the the fault is on missing specs, you may argue with some heavy-weight backup.Specs are much more complex than what's really needed. Also, as the product does not exist yet, specs often miss the target, and concern on "virtual stuff", loosing what is important, which is the concept and the implementation.Standards should grow natturally from a hand full of co-developers, as the software grows. Tippically the developer assumes a QA role, here and everywhere.Check the thread at article pointed by slashdot

(Portuguese) Justice sucks!

why accused people don't have to say the truth (only whitnesses have to swear)?why accused people may listen to injured ones, but not the opposite?why judges and advocates do not think?can´t they tell by someone's eyes when he's lying? can i see something they can´t? Is the whole world so stupid as it seems?SO if I kill someone but nobody sees and there are no evidences, even if everything points at me, i get away with it. nice! Worst than justice, only cops.

melhor album de Pink Floyd?

O melhor album dos Pink Floyd é para mim o Animals. Penso que foi exactamente com esse album que atingiram a maioridade como músicos inividualmente e como banda.

Uma série de excelentes trabalhos foram lançados, e fundamento a minha opinião da seguinte forma: Os 1os albums são uma descoberta do som psicadélico, são extremamente experimentais; Umagumma é uma tentativa de prosseguir com o estilo de Sid Barret; Meddle é um percursor de Wish you were here, ainda algo cru; Atom Heart Mother é uma experiência na música clássica, com um resultado bastante agradável mas pouco inovador; Dark Side of the Moon é o melhor álbum pop, mas peca precisamente por se poder incluir sem hesitar nessa qualidade; Wish you were here é a despedida definitiva de Sid Barret sob a forma de um memorial; com animals temos o auge da guitarra lancinante de David Gilmour, por vezes polifónica, o auge da expressividade de Waters na metáfora dos animais, o auge da musicalidade de Wright com a exploração de harmonias contínuas e sempre diferentes. The Wall é um excelente trabalho também mas penso que não reflecte os Pink Floyd, mas sim a crescente preponderância de Waters; foi também, e por essa razão, um período muito conflituoso dentro do grupo. Pela mesma razão The Final Cut foi excluido, e os trabalhos mais recetes, sem o Waters, estão na minha opinião descaracterizados.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Music is jazzier everyday

It's great to see my predictions were correct. Music in general is moving into jazz directions. It's absorbing it's enharmonic chords, syncopated rythm and nude instrumentations (some call it "acoustic".This was obviously the only way out of the vulgarity of "automatic" simple compositions of 2 or 3 chords, 1 static rythmic structure that pop has flooded us in the last 20/30 years. Just way and you'll see...

[music] about notes duration

Yes that's correct. What I meant was that there is no less than infinite variants in human playing that cannot be measured (or we'd take infinite time to do it).For instance, a quarter note is 1 beat, but how long does it last? if you press piano pedal it can spread several beats, and together with next notes it may form a chord. In guitar arpeggios this happens quite often, if not always...even in a melody, the duration of notes depends on the instrument and on the interpretation. If we want legato the note shall last the whole beat, or even a little longer into next note (specially for piano players).The strength applied, the direction strings are picked, the left hand and left arm movement, ... all these are affected by a trained instrumentist humour and techique, and surelly affect the way a music sounds. If you reduce this to a one-dimension machinery, it'll sound like... a machine.I don't consider that even music.

Some guitar playing machine

From Slashdot:[0]spackbace writes "Researchers at the [1]Georgia Institute of Technology have created a mechanical guitar playing robot, named the [2]Crazy J. The guitar player is composed of two mechanical systems that interact to play a range of 29 musical notes. A plucking mechanism with six independently controlled picks is mounted over the body of the guitar and a fingering mechanism with an array of 23 fingertips is mounted over the first four frets of the fingerboard."
Links: 0. http://www.brianculler.com/ 1. http://www.gatech.edu/ 2. http://www.me.gatech.edu/mechatronics_lab/Projects/Fall00/group3/contents.htm
and some guy said that music played by a machine always sounds better because it has no mistakes...
Here's what I posted:
"If you knew something about music, you should know that a whole note does not last the same as two half notes, but a bit less. The moment of the attack is what defines the name of the note. For instance, a whole note may be very short, if it has a dot under it (piano), or it may last a lot longer, if the pedal is pressed.
Anyway, music played by machines will always sound like machines, because (among other things) machines don't have: feed-back (the ability to listen to what they play and react to it).A guitarist is always surprised and emotionally afected by the sound of what he plays, and that changes his playing and that is what makes the music express something, and that is what ultimately makes us enjoy listening to music. Otherwise I wouldn't call it music (of course there is a lot of this non-expressive sheet around, just listen to radios and TVs, but I don't call it music...)"
It is possible to listen to some samples in the referred site. Judge for yourself...
Or you can listen to mobile rings of mozart or beethoven tunes. The point is not wether "it's nice" or "it sounds OK". Is your music concept so large that it includes all this aberrations?
Bach is quoted for the following sentence, according to some he would say to his students:
just play the right note at the right time
But this should be understood under the right context:As for "the right note" it is quite obvious;
for "the right time": very often when trying to play some instrument, we tend to slow the dificult parts and run on the easier ones. Everybody that ever tried to play some instrument knows this (it's just like typing, some words are very fast...). So it is a very good exercise to play with metronome.
Another big mistake, also in well known concertists, is over interpretation. Most musics don't need that huge time/volume distortions most classic players do. And what's more surprising, most of them is not intentional, they don't know why they do it, and there is no explanation for it. So they don'tmake music sound better.
Lucky for them, we have such a good music legacy, that it is able to survive to all that distortions and pseudo-interpretations, and also to music playing machines.