The Andrew Turnbull Web Journal

December 2006-February 2007




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I am a student attending West Virginia University who can have a lot of things on his mind.

Sometimes these things inspire me to type them down and publish them here. Enjoy.












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2-27-2007: eCramps about eCampus

Terrible back navigation

I'm sick of WebCT.

Two of my classes this semester use the system extensively as a means of posting quizzes, lecture notes, or assignment submissions for the taking. And unfortunately (but needless) to say, it is the most headache-inducing thing imaginable to use. (Cross that out; there's always MySpace as well).

In terms of organization, it's very difficult to find anything: WVU buries the log-on link in a non-prominent location at the non-obvious WVU "eCampus Info" URL, and once you're actually inside the system, you'll find content links arranged and strewn all over the place. Each and every link is hard-coded with JavaScript (thus preventing anyone from loading more than one page at once, in tabs or otherwise). Page titles never include any information pertaining to what the pages are (just the word "WebCT"), making any browser navigation that remains just short of impossible (as the image at right attests). To top it off, it's sluggish, and it often takes two or more clicks for links and navigational aids to so much as work.

Yet in spite of all WebCT (or "Vista," or "eCampus," or the other pseudonyms professors use for it to confuse people) has against it, is there really anything that's better? Well, there's always paper...

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

2-22-2007: To Pittsburgh and Back

Today was a busy day for me. All morning and afternoon were occupied by the annual field trip to the Carnegie museums in Pittsburgh, and all of that was out of the way before my evening classes!

The trip up to Pittsburgh is always a bit startling in terms of scenery change: While driving around what seems like the middle of nowhere, you enter a long tunnel. When you come out at the other end, you're literally in the middle of a downtown metropolis where three rivers meet.

But never mind; this was my third trip there. The first time around I spent all my time browsing through the Museum of Art without having a chance to venture over to the Natural History section, while last year I practically spent my whole time walking around the Museum of Natural History. Third time's the charm: This time around I managed to spend equal amounts of time looking around both sections, and got a nice taste of everything in the process! The additional relief of not needing to take notes on a specific work or exhibit for any class only added to the pleasure.

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

2-20-2007: SGA Shenanigans 2007

Ugh...although you'd never know about it by visiting the website, it's Student Government Association election time again at WVU. This time around, at least, there are two platforms running: The "Complete Choice" ticket and the "Trusted" ticket. And as usual, the campaigns are hyped and over-financed to an absurd degree. The cookie-cutter candidate posters are up everywhere, as are the T-shirts and even websites.

For all the fuss, however, the essential goals of each "side" are more or less identical: Improving downtown parking and adding recycling facilities (again). Those goals actually sound pretty darn good (for once), but I kind of wish that someone would adopt a platform that turned the tables upside-down: Condemning frat houses and building coed, single-room dorms on the spot; converting the PRT into an elevated bike path; doing away with the "MIX system" altogether; switching the classroom and library computers over to Windows NT 4. I may not be able to vote for anything like that, but I can dream and ponder.

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

2-18-2007: Calculus 1: A Calculated Disaster

Now that I'm easing towards graduation in my sixth semester as an art major, the other fields of study I've done over the years are rapidly fading into memory. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had succeeded as a major in engineering, as I was when I first started college. A variety of conspiring factors caused me to abandon my engineering pretensions and follow my dreams in art instead, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that one of the biggest were the complications of one of the required freshman-level classes.

I took (or rather, tried to take) Calculus 1 my first semester here. I was fresh out of high school with no prior understanding of calculus-related concepts. All of the instructors for the course in question were either difficult-to-understand foreign professors ("find the derivative of aykuss") or nameless, inexperienced "staff." Both textbook exercises and completely-redundant "worksheet exercises" were assigned every day; some were graded, others weren't. The professor jumped from lecturing on one concept to another on an extremely hurried basis, usually without adequately reinforcing the concept that had come before.

The class met for four days a week instead of the typical three, and tests were inexplicably conducted on evenings outside of the class schedule. Perhaps my expectations were a bit ambitious, but when I entered college I looked forward to having permission of using notes and calculators on tests as a matter of course, buying a new TI-83+ the summer before in anticipation...only to find that both were prohibited not only by the professor, but by the entire university math department as a whole! Not that a calculator would have done any good for the concepts of limits, derivatives, and other difficult-to-comprehend-and-calculate whatnot that was completely foreign to me from my pre-college years of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry experience. I was dropped in over my head, unprepared.

That said, I tried to remain optimistic and completed my first test fully anticipating an A, only to receive a C for the effort. I talked to my professor and took advantage of a number of study lectures outside (once again) of the class schedule, but little person-to-person help was available, and they didn't do much of any good in helping comprehend mathematical concepts that had been taught inadequately to begin with! Things went only further downhill from there, and the unholy combination of weekly quizzes, weekly graded homework assignments, and dreaded tests produced a grade average that eventually led me to drop the course.

Even then I might have been able to stick in, study hard, and pull through the class in the best of circumstances. Not to be, however: In addition to the most difficult and badly-managed class I had the misfortune of taking, I had to balance a host of other challenging classes the same time (such as chemistry), the general stresses of a first-time college-freshman year at a big campus miles from home, and suffer living with a criminal roommate from hell. It's a wonder that I could get anything done!

Bureaucracy reared its head thereafter to my own detriment. Calculus 1 was required for all majors in engineering (for what good, I don't know), and there was no way around it. My engineering advisor instructed me explicitly not to take an introductory math or pre-calc course in preparation for Calculus ("You'd just waste your time doing that"), or to take Calculus at another college (with easier-to-understand professors, more gradual coverage of concepts, and more sane tests, no doubt) and transfer the credit ("Only WVU Calculus can prepare you"): The only option I had was taking Calculus 1 at WVU again, which I did the next semester...with an even worse and less communicative foreign professor, and failed equally well.

At that point, with my interest in the engineering profession itself deteriorating and my morale at an all-time low, I seriously considered leaving WVU altogether. After a bit more critical thought, discussion, and reading through the academic catalog cover-to-cover, however, I stayed put, made a headway for the art department, and (for the most part) never looked back again.

I have utmost respect for anyone at WVU who can sail through Calculus 1. That class is so badly taught, arranged, and managed that I'm amazed that any person can get through it alive!

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

2-17-2007: Curse of the Block

I seem to have been struck by a case of writer's block. I'm still here; I'm just waiting for the right inspiration to arrive. Any suggestions?

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

2-9-2007: OSS Blues

The MorLUG mailing list usually isn't a very exciting thing to be on, but a few days ago this forwarded message surfaced on it:

This Wednesday (2/7) at 6:30 in room 113 MRB. We will give a short talk on what the ACM does. Afterwards, Dr. Menzies will speak on the topic of open source software. Pizza and drinks will be served after his speech.

I had never heard of the ACM before (and given that I'm an art and not computer science major, I probably never will again), but on a whim I decided to give the event the benefit of the doubt and showed up at the scheduled time and place. Good thinking: The lecture itself was in-depth and covered a variety of subjects and intriguing points.

The ironic part of the lecture, though, was the fact that the accompanying presentation on open-source was displayed from the classroom computer in an Internet Explorer window on Windows XP. The last time I was in this classroom a couple years earlier, I could have sworn that computer had Netscape 6 or 7 on it: Don't tell me that they removed it without upgrading. I complemented on the lecture nevertheless, and Dr. Menzies noted that for good measure he had coded the presentation to be displayable on any browser, created it on a Mac with an operating system tracing back to BSD, and avoided GIFs with patentable algorithms. Heh.

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2-5-2007: Songs I would be satisfied never to hear again

Is it any wonder I never listen to radio any more?

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

1-29-2007: Vista Has Fallen

[Windows Vista Incapable] Oh brother. Microsoft Windows Vista (former codename "Longhorn") is due to be released to the world in a matter of hours. Why?

Yes, it's different from Windows XP. Yes, it's been under 5+ years of development. Yet, what does it offer that anyone needs? The core of Windows has been nearly perfect since at least Windows 2000 in terms of stability and capabilities, so there isn't much of any place to go.

So what is new in Vista, considering that most of the features that were supposed to surface in it (such as WinFS) have either been quietly dropped over the course of development or back-ported to Windows XP?

Of course, this doesn't even include the problems that carry over from Windows 98 or Windows XP and likely won't be fixed in either your lifetime or mine: "Product activation," for instance. The dubious practice of Internet Explorer integration is still present and accounted for, needless to say, in spite of some makeshift attempts at shoving it under the carpet. Why else would unrelated tasks such as managing files and browsing the web be conducted through identical application windows?

Each new version of Windows that has been churned out over the last decade has been one step forward (if at that) and two steps backward. Microsoft lost all sight of sane design philosophy years ago: The point of no return was crossed with the manipulation of Internet Explorer into a file manager and help system on Windows 98. (FYI, this is what things were like before then.)

Yet, make no doubt about it: No matter how bad it is, Windows Vista will catch on, even if no one buys a copy in a store: Practically all computer manufacturers have already started pre-installing it on their wares, and don't expect to find an option to select a different version on the customization form: It's Vista or nothing, whether you want it or not. Even an unstable, compromised turd like Windows ME (or "Malignant Edition," as its users sometimes called it) would have caught on through preinstallations alone if it had been current for more than a year of time.

Excuse me while I grab my copy of Windows 95 OSR2 and run into a cave...

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

1-26-2007: Square 1 × 20

[Square One TV ad]

Might as well say so: Exactly twenty years ago on this date, Square One TV went on the air. There's a good chance that if you're in your late teens or twenties now, at least part of your exposure to mathematics years before came through this show.

Square One was my favorite television show in the whole world when I was six and seven, and it's difficult to overstate the importance it had then and now: It was a varied, entertaining program with top-notch acting and an SNL-like pace worth looking forward to every day. It was how I learned about concepts of probability, negative numbers, and the Fibonacci sequence. Furthermore, it was perhaps the singlehand most significant incentive I had to enjoy math in elementary school and beyond, at least until calculus laid to rest any notion that I could be a mathematical genius.

The most memorable highlights were the many comedy sketches and music videos as well as "Mathnet," the week-long Dragnet spoof that took up the last half of the program. Who can forget a missing baseball probe complicated when the house it lands on disappears? Or an investigation where George Frankly narrowly escapes from a crushed car? Or a robbery case culminating in a scene with a gorilla climbing up the Hollywood sign? The circumstances of plot may have been a little far-fetched at times, but that was all a part of their charm and the solutions were always grounded in rational math.

I once wrote a letter to my local PBS station when they dropped the show from their schedule for a time, and was crushed when Square One ended production after the 1992-93 television season. Seems the higher-ups at the Children's Television Workshop wanted to push Ghostwriter instead...

No need to be negative on an anniversary day, though: My compliments to all who helped make the show possible, and helped cultivate fond memories for myself and so many other people years later!

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1-21-2007: Math Games with a Local Twist

Remember Square One TV, the mathematics show from the late '80s and early '90s? It will have been exactly twenty years since the program went on the air come the 26th of this month. Here's a bit of surprising minutiae in a few "Math Court" sketches I just noticed yesterday, however:

[Math Court] [Math Court] [Math Court]

No doubt about it: That's the West Virginia state flag to the left of the judge's podium!

Why's it there, considering that this was a national show produced in New York? That's anyone's guess, but I like this even better than the "Beckley Hotel" reference in episode 122A of The Electric Company!

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1-13-2007: Forum Follies

A question to anyone who might know the answer: Where is a good place to discuss computer technology online?

I used to visit the SillyDog701 forums, but left after the administrator developed an ego problem and started ranting junk about "open-source extremists" every day. The only other similarly-purposed forum I've visited on more than rare occasions, meanwhile, is Uncreative Labs, which isn't good for much of anything.

Is there any computing forum out there that's well-moderated, relatively busy, and not overrun with Mac, Windows XP, or Internet Explorer discussions?

[ Read others' comments and add your own ]

1-11-2007: Browser Wars: Changing the circumstances?

[Question mark]

Under what different circumstances could Netscape have won the "browser wars" in the popular consciousness?

First of all, a preparatory question: At what point did Netscape "lose" the wars to begin with? If this statement is to be taken at face value (and the fact remains that Netscape-descended browsers such as Mozilla Firefox do remain in use), I figure the moment would have been either:

Regardless of the moment, the fact remains that a large number of onetime-Netscape users began to primarily use Microsoft Internet Explorer instead, and still others were weaned on IE from the outset. Under what circumstances could this have been avoided?

Obviously, Netscape would have won the "browser wars" by default if Microsoft had maintained the presence on the Internet that it had through 1995; which is to say, none at all. The likelihood of this happening as the web took off is exceedingly unrealistic, however.

I also feel that it would have been likely for Netscape to win if Microsoft hadn't refused to comply with orders to allow Internet Explorer 3 to be removed from Windows 95 like every other accessory and component, and hadn't threatened to revoke computer manufacturers' licenses if they did so much as omit the IE icon or pre-install Netscape Navigator on their systems.

On Netscape's end, they would have been better off if they had maintained the Navigator source code better so that it hadn't required a complete re-write starting in 1998 taking years to complete. The resulting five-year gap between Netscape 4 and Netscape 7 (version 5 was skipped, and version 6 was a glorified beta) did at least as much harm as any other contributing factor.

As a more minor point, I feel that Netscape Navigator would also have remained more popular in likelihood if more attention to usability and simplicity had been paid as the software developed. In comparison to earlier versions, the interfaces of Netscape 4-7 always tended to look as if they had been designed by a committee, and thanks to component, software, and plugin bundling the package size mushroomed to nearly 30MB by version 7.1.

Finally, Netscape could have rebounded if it had been acquired by a company other than AOL, who over the course of four and a half years:

Netscape eventually gave way to Firefox (a continuation as much as any), and fortunately some of the more self-inflicted mistakes that dragged Netscape down (such as a lack of simplicity and lack of effective marketing) have been avoided since then.

That said, the "browser wars" were rife with lost opportunities, and the unfortunate consequence now is that Internet Explorer made itself unremovably resident on nearly all Windows 98+ systems and the progress of web technology was set back five to ten years.

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1-9-2007: Status Update

Back at WVU again. Classes started yesterday, and this time around my semester looks like this:

In the three and a half years I've been here, not once have classes been canceled by snow or inclement weather. We had an appreciable sprinkling of snow today, but it tended to melt as soon as it hit the ground. The winter as a whole has been abominable. You should not be able to wear short sleeves outdoors in December!

As of now, my senior project topic will be an overview of techniques, examples, and controversies surrounding the "restoration" of artwork. While I am satisfied with the topic...and it is one that would allow me to put both my art and science tendencies to use...I'm a bit disappointed by the circumstances. I would have liked to have been able to turn this into a physical project (rather than one identical in pattern to every other one I've done through college) or even do a project completely unrelated to my discipline, but my departmental advisors made it very clear that that was out of the question. The curses of being an art historian...

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1-5-2007: The Video Show, Pt. 4: The All-Purpose American Card

Believe me, the biggest problem facing U.S. automakers isn't quality issues, profits or the lack thereof, poor executive decisions, or business models. It's obnoxious, badly-produced, and xenophobic commercials commissioned by their local dealer franchisees. This example from 1992 falls solidly into the realm of the self-parodic:

[Wake up America] [The stupid car salesman] [United Chevy Dealers]

(An arrogant car salesman with a redneck drawl begins speaking, as vaguely-patriotic marching-band music plays in the background:)

"Wake up out there, America! Now these foreigners are callin' us lazy. Americans? Lazy? After what we've built? We're the ones with free enterprise and free market prices and fairness! Please come to your United Chevy Dealer and try our fairness. It's there! Vote with your pocketbook, and if you decide not to buy a Chevy, please buy American. For all of us. Thank you."

I don't know about you, but this commercial only makes me want to buy a "foreign" car, drive it to one of the dealerships in question, and shout "Hey! Look at me!" through the office door. It's there...

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1-3-2007: The Video Show, Pt. 3: Eats 'n' Treats

One fun part of looking through old videotapes is finding references to and commercials for food products that have long since been discontinued and forgotten.

[Nabisco Giggles cookies] [Pro-Grain cereal] [Fruit Wrinkles]

Peanut butter-filled Nabisco Giggles cookies. Kellogg's Pro-Grain cereal, a sweetened concoction evidently marketed towards amateur sports "pros." Fruit Wrinkles...

[Pudding Roll-Ups] [Fruity Marshmallow Krispies] [Chef Boyardee Tic-Tac-Toes]

Pudding Roll-Ups, which from what I understand amounted to eating a flattened Tootsie Roll. Fruity Marshmallow Krispies, which sounds like a disaster from the very description. Chef Boyardee Tic-Tac-Toe's: "When you get three Xs or Os on your spoon, you win!"

[Nabisco Zings] [Sunkist Two-T-Fruits] [SURGE!!!]

Ooh, Nabisco Zings: Ordinary crackers shaped like the letter "Z!" Sunkist Two-T-Fruits, allegedly "the first fruit snack made with two kinds of fruit." And finally Surge, one of many mediocre beverages the Coca-Cola Company has dreamed up, promoted, and then quietly dropped over the years. Actually with marketing like this, it's no wonder the drink was a flop: It sounds like a psychoactive drug I'd be afraid of putting in my body.

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12-31-2006: The Video Show, Pt. 2: Public Television

For the last post this year (and the second installment in our "Video Show" series), let's set the time machine to 1988 and take a look at what appeared between the programs on WSWP-TV, the Grandview/Beckley PBS station, one night. Here are pictures and commentary to accompany what you hear here.

[Infinite Voyage end credits] [Digital Equipment Corporation logo] [Digital Equipment Corporation logo]

After a reflection on "the achievements of the ancient Americans," the credits of The Infinite Voyage roll as usual. Nothing wrong with that series, but I can't help but wish that whoever recorded things off PBS in 1988 had elected to tape an episode of 3-2-1 Contact instead.

I miss Digital Equipment Corporation. Ten years after they provided funding for this program, they were folded into Compaq and reduced to irrelevance.

[PBS logo] [Technical fumble] [Louis Rukeyser] [Louis Rukeyser's 1988 Election Guide]

After the PBS logo appears, there's a split-second technical fumble. When all comes 'round, we come face to face with the historical context of the time: Louis Rukeyser pitches his 1988 Election Guide for the next Monday evening, inviting viewers to "vote to join us." Spiels for a host of local sponsors follows:

[Eye Physicians & Surgeons] [Lewis Chevrolet] [Lewis Chevrolet] [Lillys' Crown Jewelers]

Eye Physicians & Surgeons, Lewis Chevrolet (accompanied, paradoxically enough, by footage of a well-ado lady being escorted out of a Mercedes), Lillys' Crown Jewelers (now defunct), John W. Eye Company Furnitureland ("West Virginia's complete shopping center for Zenith home electronic products"), law offices, and the firm of "Key Centurion Bancshares" that would not exist as such several mergers into the future.

[John W. Eye Company] [John W. Eye Company] [Sanders, Austin, Swope, and Flanigan] [Key Centurion Bancshares]

My biggest question is, who was the underrated employee responsible for announcing all of these program promotions, funding credits, and miscellaneous bits on the air? If she persuaded my three-year-old self not to turn the TV set off after Sesame Street was over for the day, I ought to give her some credit for doing so.

[WSWP-TV menu] [SCETV logo] [Live] [Firing Line Debate title]

Finally we're on the hour, and a very stern voice brings us down with a bump. If the late Louis Rukeyser hadn't suceeded in making the historical context of the time clear enough, "a special two-hour live Firing Line Debate" on the topic of who is politically "better able to deal with Soviets" takes the cake.

[Mike Kinsley] [Mike Kinsley wielding his weapon] [Mike Kinsley]

Fortunately, the stern atmosphere is loosened as soon as the evening's moderator, Michael Kinsley, comes on. Wielding an oversized mallet as his weapon of choice, he introduces the debate with a few choice words: "Tonight is a special night for me. Like many Americans, I have long dreamed of having the occasion to utter the words, 'Dr. Kissinger, your time is up.'"

[The evening's debaters] [The evening's debaters] [Mike Kinsley]

The debaters ("including three former Presidential candidates, and at least two people who in their own minds would regard the Presidency as a step down") take their seats to generous applause, followed by a succinct directive of Mr. Kinsley to the audience: "Please hold your applause until there's someone you really like."

The tape cuts off soon afterward. It's hard to top a moment like that.

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12-28-2006: The Video Show, Pt. 1: Coloring Quasimodo

Lately I've gone through some old videotapes lying around, primarily to see just what was on them. One of the recordings turned out to be of the 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame as it aired on WOAY-TV, the nearest ABC affiliate, in 1989.

[WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper]

[WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper] [WOAY Movie bumper]

WOAY is a station not known for being tops in terms of presentation...indeed, in the mid '90s I lost count trying to count the technical glitches (sound cutting out; footage being repeated) in one of their local newscasts! Needless to say, they fared no better in 1989: There are cheap and nasty graphics and miscellaneous fumbles galore before the film even begins. After the strains of that evening's local newscast fade away, we come face to face with this: A rapid succession of stock footage consisting of cameras, flashing lights, and cheap optical effects seemingly displaced from twenty years earlier, accompanied by bland timpani and a announcer: "Good evening, and welcome to the WOAY Saturday late movie. We hope you'll enjoy tonight's feature film presentation." This bumps up rather uncomfortably against a computer-generated spiel for the "Color Classic Network," whatever that may be.

[Fake color] [The Hunchback of Notre Dame] [The Hunchback again] [Chace fake stereo]

But never mind, it's on to the show! Tonight's feature, as it turns out, is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But no, they don't leave well-enough alone: Tonight's feature is the "gray teeth and red eyes" colorized version of the film, personally crayoned in by Ted Turner himself. Fake color and fake stereo to boot: What's not to love? The "Color Classic Network" hath spoken.

[State Farm sponsor] [Air Force PSA] [Handgun safety PSA] [Toughman promo]

"The Hunchback of Notre Dame [pronounced so that it rhymes with "tame"] is brought to you by State Farm Insurance." 'Tis true, considering that at least one obnoxious State Farm commercial appeared in every single break. Other sightings, all suspiciously devoid of any national presentation: Public service announcements from the Air Force, "your local dental society," and MacGyver lecturing on handgun safety; plugs for wrestling, syndicated shows, and local news and weather forecasts. A series of strange commercials follows as well, not the least of which is a bit where a Ford truck drives over a series of crushed cars while balancing a Chevrolet on its box. Who dreams up these things, anyway?

[WOAY Geraldo promo] [WOAY sports promo] [WOAY Star Trek promo]

[WOAY news promo] [WOAY's glorious weather graphics] [Ford truck commercial]

Fortunately, all things come to an end. Tune into part 2, when I jump from station to station and take a look at the noncommercial.

[The end]

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12-23-2006: Dead Wax

Truth be told, I've virtually given up on playing vinyl records in the last couple years.

There are so many potential complications relating to hardware alone: You can end up with a turntable that chews records up as it goes along if you're not careful. Also, there are so many variables to worry about: Is the tracking weight right? Is the cartridge properly aligned? Is the needle worn? Is the record clean? How should you clean a record? And so on.

Used records are hard for me to find locally: There are no stores around for the purpose. About the only places I see them for sale are in thrift shops and the never-ending library record sale, where I come across specific titles only by chance and have to sift through a lot of chaff in the process. Buying used records online, meanwhile, is a crapshoot. It's much easier to find CDs for sale.

In spite of the fun involved, the sad truth is that it would cost more to invest in a decent turntable and cartridge, regular stylus replacements, and a vacuum-operated record cleaning machine than it would cost to replace the few dozen LPs in my collection outright with compact discs.

Vinyl records can sound good and are rewarding in the best of circumstances, but CDs win for providing fewer collateral headaches.

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12-18-2006: The Return of the Giant Hogweed

I'm hesitant to embed video files, but this was too good to pass up. A band of high school-age kids play a Genesis song from 1971...and smoke out a note-perfect performance!

It's great to see the appeal of such music transcend across generations. There is hope for the future after all. :-D

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12-14-2006: Ahmet Ertegun (1923-2006)

Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records and head of operations for all of its first 48 years of existence, died today after a coma induced by a head injury a month and a half ago.

Along with Jac Holzman, Herb Alpert, Jerry Moss, and others, Ertegun was one of a rare (and in the corporate cultures of today, sadly forgotten) breed of founding music executives who really cared about the artists and music they nurtured, and the last to stay on in his line of work. In any respect, it's difficult to overstate his importance behind the scenes: This was a man who went from being the son of a Turkish Ambassador to being the father of a billion-dollar company. This was a man whose label pioneered honest royalty policies, recorded records in stereo before stereo records existed, signed Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and the Rolling Stones, and persuaded Neil Young to get together with Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

Atlantic Records logo

While Atlantic Records recorded great music in a multitude of genres, its status was particularly important to a progressive rock fan like myself: Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, and Emerson Lake & Palmer were all among the bands signed to or distributed by the label. It's no use trying to count the number of times the word "Atlantic" pops up when looking down the spines of my CD collection. Especially in the 1970s and earlier, the Atlantic logo was a symbol of quality.

May he rest in peace.

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12-12-2006: Random Inquiry

Question:

If you are using Internet Explorer 7 right now, why are you doing so?

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12-8-2006: Conundrum

Is it a problem to be interested in too many things?

I have a small dilemma at hand right now: With my final semester of college approaching, I'll need to settle on and propose a topic for a senior project...soon. However, my choice of topic and project are far from certain.

When I settled on my current major about three years ago, I weighed my choices and predilections accordingly. I was interested in both history and visual art, so I eventually went into art history. One side-effect of this is that as a matter of course my project will have to be related to art in some way.

One potential project I did make an effort at planning out was "The History of Noncommercial and Public Television Broadcasting in West Virginia." I nearly went with it...although the logistics of the project sucked out the enthusiasm I had about it, its status as an "art project" was a stretch, and the exact nature of the project kept shifting around as it bounced between my professor and I: From a general historical overview, to an "analysis of how stations rendered themselves unique through local programs and on-screen graphics," to a history of locally-oriented documentaries as an artform (which doesn't interest me much, if at all).

Trouble is, most of the project topics on my mind tend to be three parts history to one part art. I'd like to do something pertaining to computer technology like I did on my Netscape/Mozilla "Visual Browser History" pages (actually, I'd like to have a way to reuse that research), but good luck passing it off (to IE-using faculty, no less) as an exercise in art.

I may end up doing a project derived from a more orthodox topic. In the last year alone, I've completed a number of research papers for my various art classes on an assortment of topics: the Wells Cathedral, Massys' Money-Changer and His Wife, and the history of Native American bags and pouches around the Great Lakes, f'rinstance. Some of these I found more interesting than others, and I'm unsure how enthusiastic I'd be about doing all of that over again.

So, what to do? I still don't know.

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12-4-2006: Forgotten Music: The Raw, But Not Rare

I seem to have a habit from time to time of finding music by forgotten bands of the early '90s. Many of these (Sonia Dada or Tribe - Abort, for example) turn out to be nice surprises that leave my head scratching as to why they fell between the cracks to begin with. Others remind me precisely why they ended up being sold for 50 cents to begin with, but fortunately my luck has been good enough to result in these being the exception to the rule.

Raw Youth - Hot Diggity cover

Today's featured specimen is a CD titled Hot Diggity by a group called Raw Youth, released on Giant/Warner Bros. Records in 1991. There appears to be practically no information on either the band or the album available online. It would seem to have been relegated to the cutout bin quite quickly...even Amazon.com's picture has a holepunch straight through the cover. Even more interestingly, the glut of "marketplace" entries on that page appear to indicate that the few people who bought this CD to begin with have been trying futilely to sell it off ever since.

Musically, Hot Diggity consists of early '90s guitar and synth rock (for lack of a better word) with harmonized female vocals by Myoshin Thurman and Angela Gallombardo. Some songs are better than others: "Regretless" (with its varied melody) and "Beautiful Thing" (with its dramatic choir-like intro and horns) are probably the highlights. The vocals are likely the most distinctive characteristic of the record as a whole...at one point in "Lucky Me," Thurman segues into the melody of "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" seemingly without lifting a finger. The last song, "Tame Yourself," was written explicitly as a PETA anthem per the liner notes. I'm no PETA supporter myself, and the lyrics (particularly the "oink cluck moo" refrain) come across as being awkward and heavy-handed to say the least.

But never mind: Hot Diggity is an enjoyable record. In any case, it's always worth checking through cheap records and CDs for potential gems in the chaff, whether at a garage sale, library sale, or the record store bargain bin. You never know what you'll find.

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12-2-2006: The Faint of Ear, Beware

If the din I heard from the bathroom today was any indication, some people should never attempt to sing in the shower.

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