Sometimes there’s just something that speaks to the core of a person, and today I want to expose my inner goth by saying that Peter Murphy and his songs, voice, and face are a part of the inner me.
This song started it all, leading me to the Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, Love and Rockets, Daniel Ash, David J – a whole new genre of music which continues to influence my tastes today.
Even today Peter has an astounding voice – mesmerizing. Just listen.
I’m overwhelming proud to announce that Alisa has officially graduated from her Master’s programme. She marched across the vaunted stage at the UBC Chan Centre on Thursday, Nov. 22 2007 to become
Soon she will become
Do we see a PhD in her future? Most certainly! The question remains, do I get a few more letters after my name or does she continue to plough though it all while she has momentum? Either way, she’s worked herself to the bone and we’re all incredibly proud of her accomplishment.
Yes!
The small town [of Wolfville N.S.] is set to become the first municipality in Canada to ban smoking in vehicles when a child is present.
Doh!
Stead said if people really want to light up while transporting children, there’s nothing to stop them from leaving town.
Marley’s coming up on her 18 month immunizations (well, she’s actually past-due for them now) and someone brought up the topic of the risk of autism with the 18 month immunizations. I checked out a few resources, and wanted to thrown them up here for anyone else interested.
The doctor was doing paid research for a group of parents of autistic children who were trying to mount a class action suit against the makers of the MMR vaccine. Later it was revealed Wakefield had taken out a patent on a new vaccine while publicly challenging the safety of the existing one.
As a person with a degree in Microbiology and Immunology, I’ve always been a proponent of vaccines. I’ve had to re-evaluate my stance now that I actually am a parent and have to make decisions for someone other than myself. My position though hasn’t changed – the risks introduced by vaccination are far less than those of not vaccinating against these diseases.
Many people believe that we’ve managed to get these diseases under control, and that vaccinating is no longer necessary and introducing the children to these vaccination risks is now riskier than the chances of actually contracting the disease. Bollocks I say! Today we live in a society that should be considered global – and this means our children will be coming into contact with cultures and societies that do not have these diseases under control.
Take for example Ireland’s response to the MMR-autism scare:
Ireland saw measles soar from 148 cases in 1999 to 1200 cases in 2000 when MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunization rates dropped to 76% in response to concerns of a link between MMR and autism. Several children died in this outbreak. When enough people stop immunizing, there is more disease and children may die.
Medical experts believe the magic number is 95%, by the way: 95% of a population must be resistant to a disease before it can be considered under control.
Vaccinations seem to be a fire-and-brimstone topic for parents and microbiologists. There’s a lot of money involved in the industry which naturally leads to people doubting the intentions of the players. One could argue though that this is where Canada’s health care system helps clarify things – making money is not the ultimate purpose of a publicly funded health system.
Medical experts all seem to be agreeing with one another here – vaccinations are the safest bet for our children right now.
Resources:
The RCMP apparently have figured out that there are better ways to spend their time than by chasing down individuals for alleged copyright infringement. Assuming for a second that making copies of music works is illegal (which it isn’t necessarily in Canada), then this decision makes sense. A lot of time and money can be poured into trying to sue someone for copyright infringement – resources better spent finding bigger fish to fry.
This post is also interesting in that it lets you see the Google Translate in action. It presents you with an interesting ability to hover over the translated text and see the original text. We all know translations are never perfect, and with this service you can even make suggestions for a better translation right there on the translated page. Very nice translation feature, Google.
Over the last 2 years I’ve been looking over resources to figure out if ultrasound exams are at all dangerous to a fetus (I’ll leave the figuring out of why I’m interested in this as an exercise to the reader). I’ve always read that there is no proven effects on fetal growth when exposed to ultrasound waves during standard prenatal screenings. Note that I said “no proven effects”? Basically there have been some studies that indicate there might be (for example it affects neuronal migration in rats), but no studies conclusively indicating that there is – so it is still unproven.
Well bless Wikipedia, I’ve finally found something that indicates that prenatal ultrasound exams have an effect on fetal brain development.
When ultrasonography was offered more widely (1976 to 1978), the risk of left-handedness was higher among those exposed to ultrasound compared with those unexposed (odds ratio = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.16 to 1.51). We conclude that ultrasound exposure in fetal life increases the risk of left-handedness in men, suggesting that prenatal ultrasound affects the fetal brain.
I don’t think this paper indicates that exposure has a positive or a negative effect (Alisa is left-handed after all and I could never call it a bad thing – not ever) but it does indicate that there is an affect of some sort.
I believe the benefits offered from standard ultrasound scans during pregnancy so far outweight the known risks. However for those of you considering having ultrasound scans performed for non-diagnostic reasons (including pretty much all types of 3-D ultrasound scans) I’d caution you to consider the real value and potential ramifications of unnecessary ultrasound exposure.
I cannot say enough praise about the Knowledge Network’s show called “Wild At Heart“. It is exposing all sorts of trips in BC that, frankly, I want to do. Not only do they present a TV show, they also provide recipes, trip planners, and entire episodes for free on their website.
If you’re curious about wilderness exploration within BC, check out this great showcase.
Now – next summer we can start easy with the Kettle Valley bike trip, but that Garibaldi trip looks fantastic. Maybe a Howe Sound Crest Trail trip first? Who’s in?
Just to prove that I am still a tech geek (a badge I wear proudly in the right company), I’ve had to comb through the Intraweb for some specific MP3 encoding parameters I want to try using instead of the stock stuff. I wanted to document the pipeline here so I don’t have to write it down for future reference.
VBR (V=4) encoding pipeline
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc mode=1 vbr=4 vbr-quality=4 ! xingmux ! id3v2mux
CBR (128 Kbps) encoding pipeline
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc vbr=0 bitrate=128 ! id3v2mux
Run gst-inspect lame to see the parameters being used here. For example:
mode=1 – sets the lame encoding to use joint stereo
vbr=4 – sets lame to use the “new” VBR encoding algorithm, rather than the old
vbr-quality=4 – sets the encoding bitrate to approximately 165 Kbps, as per the lame settings.
xingmux – pads the MP3 and is only used for VBR settings
id3v2mux – adds the ID3v2 tags to the MP3 (I haven’t figured out a way to add both V1 and V2 tags other than by subsequently using Easytag on the files to add the V1).
I know, I know. Call me an old codger – but don’t you agree? Whatever happened to those albums that you needed world-cancelling earphones on to properly enjoy? The ones that had suble nuances and sounds that only in total silence could you properly enjoy the album? Today’s music all just seems too … maxxed out.
I’m not making this up, really. The digital production of albums today allows producers to really tweak how an album sounds before being pressed on to CDs. They’re able to adjust any and all aspects of the songs – and they do. Some claim they are mastering the CDs louder so that the songs stick out on the radio when played. Trouble is – everyone is doing it. Think I’m making this up? Check out this example analysis of the most recent Depeche Mode album. And I agree with the author – that album does sound overwhelming loud, losing any ability to convey suble sounds and to use volume to help support song structure or tempo.
Makes me want to go buy a record player and switch to vinyl.
Whether or not you’re a Radiohead fan or not, you have to give them credit for pusingh boundaries.
They’ve just released their new album “In Rainbows” and you can surf over to their website and download a digital copy whenever you want. Yes they’ll be putting it on a CD and distributing it that way, but for now you can download it from their site. The cost? Well, their answer is “?”. What’s the mean? Well, it means you pay as much as you like.
That’s right, they’re asking you to specify the price when you try to check out of the store. Want to pay $0.00 because you want to try it before you buy it? Fair enough. Feel like going back and paying once you’ve listened to it a few times? Go for it.
Such a large name in the recording industry is trying something new – I think it bodes well. I’m not really a very strong Radiohead fan, but I like this album on a quite a few levels.
I don’t beleive the MP3s you download have any DRM on them at all (yea!) but they are also only 160kbps. Better than iTunes, but certainly not lossless. “That’s what CD’s are for.” said little Johnny of the band.
Indeed they are Johnny, but they’re not the only way to get lossless versions of the songs. I refer you again to Zunior.com.
An interesting step though into digital distribution by a large name in the industry.