Year: 2009

to scan film, or not

I’ve recently taken up film photography again. But processing is expensive.

To have 24 exposures processed and scanned at 6MP at Downtown Camera costs $12 + tax. That’s a pretty good price for black and white.

I can process at home (yay stinky toxic chemicals!) for a bit less. I’d need to buy a scanner, and the cheapest film scanners come in at around $300.

What to do, what to do?

Unstable airline passenger ignites self; none hurt

I try very hard not to write about the news; it affects me so little, yet frequently annoys me.

All that media noise about that guy on that plane. So much passenger delay will ensue.

Of course he was unstable. Killing yourself and others for a cause is not rational.

Of course he’d claim connections to Al Qaeda. He’s unstable, wants to sound badass.

Of course Al Qaeda would claim him as one of their own. What, would you turn down the free publicity?

So, the subject of this entry is how I think it should have been reported. Move on, people; there’s real news to be reported.

i want my svg

Look, SVG has been the cool graphics format since 2001. And while WordPress now supports a bunch more embed formats, you’d think it’d work. Nope.

Even to upload an SVG file, I have to bypass WordPress’s built in whitelist using PJW Mime Config, and manually add support for image/svg+xml. Otherwise, it’s refused as an insecure file. (All my files are quite well adjusted, I’ll have you know.)

Say if I want to embed this SVG image. I’d probably want to do something like:

<embed type="image/svg+xml" width="100" title="ford_script_fnord-plain" src="http://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ford_script_fnord-plain.svg" />

But this doesn’t end up being what the final code says:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="100" height="100" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ford_script_fnord-plain.svg" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100" height="100" src="http://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ford_script_fnord-plain.svg"></embed></object>

If I’d wanted Flash, I’d have asked for it. Do What I Mean, Little Computer!

Update (after the comment below): Okay, last try:

<object type="image/svg+xml" width="220" height="72" title="ford_script_fnord-plain" data="http://scruss.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ford_script_fnord-plain.svg" />

Yay, that sorta works – but it doesn’t scale the image. You know what the S in SVG stands for? That’s right – Scalable. Doesn’t seem to allow scaling. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

i wonder if these are as bad as i remember?

Ladies and germs, I give you … pickled onion Monster Munch. Let me get back to you on how they taste.


… deep fried barf is the best I can come up with. Crispy, yet vile. By the end of the bag, my tastebuds gave in, leaving me to lever the compressed corn pulp from my molars. It feels like I’ve ScotchGarded the inside of my mouth. Just as I remember them, then.

just in case it gets deleted again …

sorry, reeling from an edit fight:

Billy Faier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Billy Faier is an American banjo player. Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 21 1930[1], his family moved to Woodstock, NY in 1945[2], and now resides in Marathon, Texas. He, along with Pete Seeger, was one of the early proponents of the banjo during the mid-20th century American folk music revival.

Active in the Washington Square Park folk scene in Greenwich Village from the late 1940s, he recorded two albums for Riverside Records, The Art of the Five-String Banjo (1957) and Travelin’ Man (1958)[3]. In 1973, he recorded Banjo for John Fahey‘s Takoma label.

[edit] Selected Discography

In 2009, Faier decided to make much of his out of print and unreleased material available on his website.

  • The Art of the Five-String Banjo (1957 – with Frank Hamilton)
  • Travelin’ Man (1958)
  • The Beast of Billy Faier (1964 – with John Sebastian)
  • Banjo (1973)
  • Banjos, Birdsong And Mother Earth (1987 – with John Sebastian and Gilles Malkine)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

source:


'''Billy Faier''' is an American banjo player. Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 21 1930<ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20071111171835/http://www.billyfaier.com/
|accessdate=2009-12-19
|title=Billy Faier - The Five String Banjo
|date=2006-08-07
|description=Billy Faier. Born in Brooklyn, New York on Dec. 21, l930.  Moved to Woodstock, New York in l945 with family. Started playing banjo, guitar, and singing folk songs at seventeen, in 1947. Recorded for Riverside Records, Elektra Records, Tradition Records, and many other labels over the years.
|GENERATOR=Microsoft FrontPage 6.0
|keywords=billy faier, billie faier, banjo billy, five string banjo, the beast of billy faier, banjo, bille faier banjo, billy faier musician, Folk Music, Guitar; Woodstock, New York folk music, Newport Folk Festival, Berkeley Folk Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, billy fair, famous billy the banjo player, billie fair, www.billyfaier.com, banjo billy faier
|rating=General
|robots=All
}}</ref>, his family moved to Woodstock, NY in 1945<ref>{{cite web|url=http://billyfaier.com/
|accessdate=2009-12-19
|title=Billy Faier - The Five String Banjo
|date=2009-12-10
|description=Billy Faier. Born in Brooklyn, New York on Dec. 21, l930.  Moved to Woodstock, New York in l945 with family. Started playing banjo, guitar, and singing folk songs at seventeen, in 1947. Recorded for Riverside Records, Elektra Records, Tradition Records, and many other labels over the years.
|GENERATOR=Microsoft FrontPage 4.0
|keywords=billy faier, billie faier, banjo billy, five string banjo, the beast of billy faier, banjo, billy faier banjo, billy faier musician, Folk Music, Guitar; Woodstock, New York folk music, Newport Folk Festival, Berkeley Folk Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, billy fair, famous billy the banjo player, billie fair, www.billyfaier.com, banjo billy faier
|rating=General
|robots=All
}}</ref>, and now resides in Marathon, Texas. He, along with [[Pete Seeger]], was one of the early proponents of the banjo during the mid-20th century [[American folk music revival]].

Active in the [[Washington Square Park]] folk scene in [[Greenwich Village]] from the late 1940s, he recorded two albums for [[Riverside Records]], ''The Art of the Five-String Banjo'' (1957) and ''Travelin' Man'' (1958)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wirz.de/music/faierfrm.htm
|title=Billy Faier Discography
|accessdate=2009-12-19
|date=2004-01-31
|ROBOTS=NOINDEX
}}</ref>. In 1973, he recorded ''Banjo'' for [[John Fahey (musician)|John Fahey]]'s [[Takoma Records|Takoma]] label.

== Selected Discography ==

In 2009, Faier decided to make much of his out of print and unreleased material available on his [http://billyfaier.com/ website].

* ''The Art of the Five-String Banjo'' (1957 - with [[Frank Hamilton (musician)|Frank Hamilton]])
* ''Travelin' Man'' (1958)
* ''The Beast of Billy Faier'' (1964 - with [[John Sebastian]])
* ''Banjo'' (1973)
* ''Banjos, Birdsong And Mother Earth'' (1987 - with John Sebastian and [[Gilles Malkine]])

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://billyfaier.com/ Billy Faier's website]
* [http://www.wirz.de/music/faierfrm.htm Billy Faier discography] (with some errors and omissions).
* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=102378 Billy Faier] at the Internet Broadway Database.
* [http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/f/Faier,Billy.html Billy Faier Collection] at The Southern Folklife Collection, [[University of North Carolina]] libraries.
* [http://archives.nodepression.com/author/billy-faier/ Articles by Billy Faier] in [[No Depression (magazine)]].
* [http://thebanjoman.com/know-featured-archive.htm Feature on Billy Faier on The Banjo Man]

<!--- Categories --->
{{DEFAULTSORT:Faier, Billy}}
[[Category:American folk musicians]]
[[Category:American folk singers]]
[[Category:American singer-songwriters]]
[[Category:American banjoists]]
[[Category:People from New York City]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Riverside Records artists]]

the subtle image editor in WordPress 2.9

While I still like 1&1, they have a fairly modest hard-coded PHP memory limit. This means that some WordPress plugins will exhaust memory, and fail.
I’d been wanting to set up Scissors for Catherine‘s blog so she could more easily edit images without having to learn GIMP. But it wouldn’t work, running out of memory at every turn, and trying to set PHP’s memory limit locally cause WordPress to fail completely.
So I was pleased to see that WordPress 2.9 had an editor built in. The upgrade went smoothly (I don’t miss the days of rm -i *.php and making sure you didn’t vape your config file), but I couldn’t seem to find the editor. (It’s early, I’m old.)

It’s called up by that quiet little button under the image details:

Works just fine. It probably zaps all the image metadata (Scissors did), but we’ll see how it goes.

International panel of experts conclude sound from wind turbines has no harmful effect on human health

Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects: An Expert Panel Review [PDF]

Executive summary:

People have been harnessing the power of the wind for more than 5,000 years. Initially used widely for farm irrigation and millworks, today’s modern wind turbines produce electricity in more than 70 countries. As of the end of 2008, there were approximately 120,800 megawatts of wind energy capacity installed around the world.

Wind energy enjoys considerable public support, but it also has its detractors, who have publicized their concerns that the sounds emitted from wind turbines cause adverse health consequences.

In response to those concerns, the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations (AWEA and CanWEA) established a scientific advisory panel in early 2009 to conduct a review of current literature available on the issue of perceived health effects of wind turbines. This multidisciplinary panel is comprised of medical doctors, audiologists, and acoustical professionals from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. The objective of the panel was to provide an authoritative reference document for legislators, regulators, and anyone who wants to make sense of the conflicting information about wind turbine sound.

The panel undertook extensive review, analysis, and discussion of the large body of peer-reviewed literature on sound and health effects in general, and on sound produced by wind turbines. Each panel member contributed a unique expertise in audiology, acoustics, otolaryngology, occupational/ environmental medicine, or public health. With a diversity of perspectives represented, the panel assessed the plausible biological effects of exposure to wind turbine sound.

Following review, analysis, and discussion of current knowledge, the panel reached consensus on the following conclusions:

  • There is no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects.
  • The ground-borne vibrations from wind turbines are too weak to be detected by, or to affect, humans.
  • The sounds emitted by wind turbines are not unique. There is no reason to believe, based on the levels and frequencies of the sounds and the panel’s experience with sound exposures in occupational settings, that the sounds from wind turbines could plausibly have direct adverse health consequences.

International panel of experts conclude sound from wind turbines has no harmful effect on human health – CanWEA news release

Wind gets clean bill of health – thestar.com

best of 2009 (top 10 for hexadactyls)

Again, to my own rules; what I discovered this year, and not necessarily ten:

  • Spoils — Alasdair Roberts. Alasdair’s transformed from a good (if somewhat doleful) Scottish folkie to a full-on demented psych-folker with this record. The Wyrd Meme EP is nifty too.
  • Banjo — Billy Faier. I know this album was recorded in the 1970s, but it’s as far away from tedious lick-based picking that most people link to the banjo. The fact that Billy’s giving it away free now doesn’t hurt, either. It’s kinda prog banjo, if you must.
  • Old Dog — Chris Coole. Chris has been recording for more than a decade, but this is his first solo album. Fabulous songwriting (Old Dog, and The Bottle Got the Best of Me is sounds like something that Porter and Dolly should’ve sung), brilliant playing, and all this from a man who can smack himself inadvertantly on the nose with his own coffee grinder.
  • Signal Morning — Circulatory System. Only five years late. Worth every minute.
  • Clifton Hicks — Clifton Hicks. Zero production; just a guy singing along with his banjo. But both so well.
  • Hypersomnia — entertainment for the braindead. Julia Kotowski makes achingly beautiful lo-fi noises.
  • Sing the Greys — Frightened Rabbit. Visiting Scotland, and having a crappy job over the summer, made this my singalong-driving album of the year. The Midnight Organ Fight has a high nift-factor too.
  • Yours Truly, The Commuter — Jason Lytle. Probably better than anything he did with Grandaddy. His free christmas album of piano music is pretty spiffy too.
  • Lord Cut-Glass — Lord Cut-Glass. I didn’t get into the Delgados when they were around (silly me; there was some fine fine music in Scotland while I still lived there), but Alun Woodward belted out a classic this year. Bought on a whim (a small Scottish coin, or unicycle) at Monorail in Glasgow, it’s a favourite when stuck in traffic on the 401.
  • Waxing Gibbous — Malcolm Middleton. Who knew that miserabilism was so much fun? Actually, it was Devil and the Angel from his first album that got me back into his work.
  • Love It Love It — Nana Grizol. And I do love it; noisy punk from the friends of Elephant Six. Technically the new album Ruth comes out next year, but it’s out already if you’re not hung up on physical media.
  • These Four Walls — We Were Promised Jetpacks. Scottish – yeah!

Quite a bit of Scottish content in there, I know.

Some late arrivals and miscellaneous:

  • I was probably supposed to like Goodnight Oslo by Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 more than I do, but there was so much music this year it kind of got buried.
  • My sister  (Wendy Arrowsmith) has a new album out, Seeds of Fools.
  • Dunno what Friendly Rich was thinking releasing Pictures at an Exhibition so late in the year. It’s a twisted jazz take on Mussorgsky, and nothing to be modest about.