Archives for September 2011
прописные истины
16 September 2011 | Politics | No Comments
все, что надо знать о российской политике.
синкопа
15 September 2011 | Music | No Comments
Accujazz, кстати, очень хорош, абсолютно доступен и на любой вкус и фильтр.
слушаю беспрерывно, ага.
о терминологии
14 September 2011 | Literature, Science | No Comments
о литературе, кто бы подумать:
You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.
John von Neumann suggesting to Claude Shannon a name for his new uncertainty function, as quoted in Scientific American Vol. 225 No. 3, (1971), p. 180
так и хочется добавить ссылку.
пусть трактор работает
13 September 2011 | Internet | No Comments
а вот замечательный сервис If This Then That, работающий, натурально, по принципу “если что-то вдруг произойдет, то сделайте, пожалуйста, мне хорошо”. например, сочините письмо, если завтра будет дождь. или, если президент опять напишет что-нибудь, то выложите новую карикатуру. или сообщите всем о моих любимых звуках / порнофильмах / картинках.
в общем, море возможностей. жаль только, что все они какие-то никчемные. а уж SMS мне интернет шлет по любому поводу и вовсе, минимум, лет десять.[1]
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[1] — скажем, когда любовница появляется онлайн. или когда ее муж уходит из дома.
пособие по безработице
13 September 2011 | Copyright, Music | No Comments
Европейский совет все же увеличил действие музыкального копирайта с 50 лет до 70:
On Monday, the EU Council voted to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.
The move follows a campaign by artists like Cliff Richard as well as lesser-known performers, who said they should continue to earn from their creations.
Клифф Ричард? а так же другие менее известные исполнители? в смысле, еще менее известные? hey, who the fuck are you? shouldn’t you just get a job like the rest of us?
хотя пофиг, конечно. никому их поделки и даром не требуются, я уверен. тем более, что (не устаю повторять) именно такое поголовное копирайт-надругательство и провоцирует сегодняшний, как никогда успешный расцвет свободной музыки.
да и обозначенные пенсионеры, конечно, не совсем разбираются (из-за возрастной слепоты, не иначе) в природе таких отчислений:
Critics argue that many musicians will see little benefit, with most income going to big stars and record labels.
The change applies to the copyright on studio recordings, which is often owned by record labels, rather than the right to the composition, which is owned by the songwriters.
вот так-то.
карта мира
12 September 2011 | Geography, Literature, Metaphysics, Personal | No Comments
правда о путешествиях:
This summer I walked from where I live now, to where I was born, to where I grew up, to where I was at school, to where I was at university. Stockwell – Charing Cross – Hampstead Garden Suburb – Finchley – Oxford. My own Trieste – Zurich – Paris, the itinerary of an internal exile. When I was a teenager I assumed that I’d travel – and far. Then my father emigrated, my mother died and my brothers moved abroad, while I remained here, in London. Now I realize I never wanted to travel at all, simply get away from – what psychotherapeutic geographers dub – my Family of Origin. How good of them to leave me in vacant possession of an entire metropolis, so that I could furnish it with my own memories, dreams and reflections.
так все и есть. хороший.
о списывании
12 September 2011 | Culturology | No Comments
найдите 10 отличий между и между (ну, разве что комментарии идиотов во втором случае повеселее — в частности, они до сих пор уверены, что продукция Apple дороже, чем у конкурентов[1]).
[1] — к слову, именно Тиму Куку Apple и обязана тем, насколько успешна оказалась эта минимальная линейка продуктов. и как раз поэтому уход Джобса совершенно не напугал инвесторов — как те же вышесказанные идиоты заранее прогнозировали.
советы бывалых
11 September 2011 | Culturology, Software | No Comments
знаете, бывают такие подсказки: customers who bought this item also bought, blah-blah? так вот, на днях увидел непревзойденное[1]:
Читавших эту книгу так же заинтересовало:
- Алигьери Данте, Божественная комедия (пер. Михаил Леонидович Лозинский, илл. Гюстав Доре)
- Вещицы из войлока
а вы говорите, в России надо пользоваться Яндексом…
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[1] — отдельная забава теперь угадать, что же я все-таки смотрел изначально.
стенка на стенку
10 September 2011 | Culturology, Sport | No Comments
между тем, говорят, как раз сейчас полным ходом идем чемпионат Европы по баскетболу. говорят там даже играют сборные Финляндии, Грузии и России. вот шутка, да?
так вот, про баскетбол — именно этот вид спорта я любил когда-то безумно, и сам постоянно играл. теперь же все иначе, мяч куда интересней на зеленом поле, да и потуги сборных вообще, в любом соревновании, никогда меня не интересовали в принципе (чего только стоят безумцы, подсчитающие коичество наград для отдельно взятых клочков географии).
поэтому мое отношение (а я все же смотрю игры, да) — оно весьма странное и неопределенное. хотя нет, вру — мало того, что очень конкретное, так еще и детально изученное в научной литературе:
Tennis buffs apparently found this match rather dull, for a Wimbledon final, but I was there to watch the spectators, not the players, and I found it fascinating. The match was between the world-famous, top-seed Australian player Lleyton Hewitt, and a virtually unknown Argentine called David Nalbandian, who had never even played at Wimbledon before. The result was a predictably easy victory for the Australian champion, who beat Nalbandian 6–1, 6–3, 6–2.
At the start of the match, all the English spectators were cheering for Nalbandian, clapping and whooping and shouting ‘Come on, David!’ every time he scored a point or even made a good shot (or whatever it’s called in tennis), while Hewitt only got a few token, polite claps. When I asked the English spectators around me why they were supporting the Argentine – particularly given that there was no great love between England and Argentina; indeed, we were at war not so long ago – they explained that nationality was irrelevant, that Nalbandian was the underdog, highly unlikely to win, and therefore obviously deserved their support. They seemed surprised that I should have to ask such a question, and several people even spelt out the rule for me – ‘You always support the underdog.’; ‘You have to support the underdog.’ Their tone suggested that I really should already know this, that it was a fundamental law of nature.
Fine, I thought, good, another ‘rule of Englishness’ in the bag. Feeling rather smug, I watched complacently for a bit, and was just beginning to get bored, and thinking about maybe sloping off in search of an ice-cream, when something strange happened. Hewitt did something particularly good (don’t ask me what, I don’t understand tennis) and the people around me started whooping and cheering and clapping him. ‘Eh?’ I said, ‘Hang on. I thought you were supporting Nalbandian, the underdog? Why are you now cheering for Hewitt?’ The explanations offered by the English spectators were a bit less clear-cut, but the gist was that Hewitt was, after all, playing exceptionally well, and that everyone had been cheering for Nalbandian, because he was the underdog, which meant that poor Hewitt, despite playing brilliantly, was getting little or no support and encouragement from the crowd, which seemed rather unfair, so they felt sorry for him, out there all alone with everyone cheering his opponent, so they were cheering for him to redress the balance a bit. In other words, Hewitt, the overdog (is that a word? never mind – you know what I mean), had somehow become the underdog, the one who deserved their support.
For a while, that is. I was now alert, shaken out of my complacency, and paying close attention to the behaviour of the spectators, so when the cheering for Hewitt dwindled, and the spectators began giving all their support to Nalbandian again, I was ready with my questions: ‘Now what? Why aren’t you cheering for Hewitt any more? Is he not playing so well?’ No, apparently he was playing even better. And that was the point. Hewitt was now clearly heading for an easy win. Nalbandian was struggling, was going to be ‘slaughtered’, had absolutely no chance – so obviously it was only fair to give him all the noisy vocal encouragement and praise, and only clap politely for the all-conquering overdog Hewitt.
пятничное настроение
9 September 2011 | Cinematograph | 2 Comments
или вот еще хороший фильм — “Insignificance”. о Сенаторе, Профессоре, Актрисе и Бейсболисте. о смерти, разумеется. и о поиске:
The Ballplayer: Well, what do you want?
The Actress: I don’t want to want.