Friday music mix: It was 40 years ago today (or sometime this month)

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of two Beatles albums I own (the other is Abbey Road). The goal was to explore the limits of what was then possible in a new phenomenon, the concept album. It is widely, and reasonably, considered one of the greatest albums ever recorded. My thoughts (and ratings) about the songs on this album:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (4*): The album starts with a rousing tune introducing the fictional band portrayed in the album. The song establishes the mood of the album, then segues into...


2. With A Little Help From My Friends (4*): Ringo (as "Billy Shears") takes the lead, with the rest of the band backing him up, as befits the title. A fitting song about friendship.


3. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (5*): Despite the psychedelic nature of the song and the initials LSD, John Lennon always insisted that his son came up with the title. The song is about alternate realities--highly relevant in the time of G. W. Bush.


4. Getting Better (3*): Paul sings about self-improvement ("Man I was mean/But I'm changing my scene").


5. Fixing A Hole (3*): This song doesn't quite work for me.


6. She's Leaving Home (5*): One of the highlights of the album, a song about escaping the confines of one's parents, who are in denial about the situation. The string arrangement is just right for the song.


7. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite (4*): Apparently taken from a circus poster, and with an arrangement to match. Listen for the tape effects near the end.


8. Within You Without You (4*): George Harrison's attempt at writing Indian classical music. A reminder that we are all interconnected parts of the world, as much as some would like to forget the fact.


9. When I'm Sixty-Four (4*): Paul sings about getting old. The 1920's-style jazz arrangement is the perfect match.


10. Lovely Rita (3*): Love can come in the unlikeliest places--like the meter maid.


11. Good Morning, Good Morning (3*): I'm not really sure what this song is supposed to be about. At the end fox hunt sound effects lead into...


12. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (3*): The second time is just not as good as the opening number. The Beatles were right not to end with this one.


13. A Day In The Life (5*): A musing on some of the little oddities of life ("Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire"). Life goes on, somehow.

The CD reproduces the repeating phrase that was on the run-out groove at the end of Side 2 of the record. The tape snippets make for an interesting effect.

Maps: Trust, but verify

Later this month I will be in Utah for the GEM workshop. I'll be flying into the Salt Lake City International Airport and driving to the meeting site, which is about an hour east of the airport.

The hotel website has a link to Yahoo! Maps for driving directions. The problem is that the point Yahoo! Maps calls the Salt Lake City Airport is on the opposite side of the airport from where the passenger terminal and rental cars are located. If you follow Yahoo!'s directions and try to "Follow the signs for your terminal" at the end, you probably won't be able to. (I say "probably" because I have never actually left the Salt Lake City airport by land before.)

Just another weather U-turn

Yesterday our high was 59 degrees Fahrenheit. I had to run the heat last night.

Today I am thankful to work in a building with air conditioning. There is a severe thunderstorm watch in effect:

The NWS Storm Prediction Center has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for portions of
Connecticut
Massachusetts
western Maine
New Hampshire
eastern New York
Rhode Island
Vermont
coastal waters
Effective this Tuesday afternoon and evening from 1205 PM until 700 PM EDT.

Hail to 1.5 inches in diameter... thunderstorm wind gusts to 70 mph... and dangerous lightning are possible in these areas.

The Severe Thunderstorm Watch area is approximately along and 85 statute miles east and west of a line from 5 miles north of Newport Vermont to 35 miles southwest of Windsor Locks Connecticut. For a complete depiction of the watch see the associated watch outline update (wous64 kwns wou7).

UPDATE: Tornado reported in Lee at 1436 EDT (1836Z).

LATER UPDATE: Also funnel clouds were reported in Barrington and Somersworth. Many reports of hail, the largest being 1.75 inches (about golf ball size) in Dover.

Additions to the pile: Week of 4 June 2007

Several papers of interest this week, including two (!) from Reviews of Geophysics (I subscribe to the dead-tree version) and one poached from a reference list.

Ergun, R. E., L. Andersson, Y.-J. Su, D. L. Newman, M. V. Goldman, W. Lotko, C. C. Chaston, and C. W. Carlson (2005), Localized parallel electric fields associated with inertial Alfvén waves, Phys. Plasmas 12, 072901.

Frey, H. U. (2007), Localized aurora beyond the auroral oval, Rev. Geophys. 45, RG1003.

McComas, D. J., M. Velli, W. S. Lewis, L. W. Acton, M. Balat-Pichelin, V. Bothmer, R. B. Dirling, W. C. Feldman, G. Gloeckler, S. R. Habbal, D. M. Hassler, I. Mann, W. H. Matthaeus, R. L. McNutt, R. A. Mewaldt, N. Murphy, L. Ofman, E. C. Sittler, C. W. Smith, and T. H. Zurbuchen (2007), Understanding coronal heating and solar wind acceleration: Case for in-situ near sun measurements, Rev. Geophys. 45, RG1004.

Ofman, L., and A. F. Viñas (2007), Two-dimensional hybrid model of wave and beam heating of multi-ion solar wind plasma, JGR 112, A06104.

Dorelli, J. C., A. Bhattacharjee, and J. Raeder (2007), Correction to "Separator reconnection at Earth's dayside magnetopause under generic northward interplanetary magnetic field conditions," JGR 112, A06204. (The subject paper of the correction is JGR 112, A02202.)

Palmroth, M., N. Partamies, J. Polvi, T. I. Pulkkinen, D. J. McComas, R. J. Barnes, P. Stauning, C. W. Smith, H. J. Singer, and R. Vainio (2007), Solar wind-magnetosphere coupling efficiency for solar wind pressure impulses, GRL 34, L11101.

Automatic software updates: How and how not to do it

I have several software packages on my Mac which have auto-update features: Microsoft Office, Adobe CS2, and of course MacOSX.

There is a right way and a wrong way to handle auto-updates. The right way is to have some regular schedule (weekly for Apple, monthly for Microsoft). That way I can schedule the update for some time when it won't interrupt what I am doing (e.g., first thing Monday morning, for Apple), even if the update process needs an administrator password, as Apple's does.

The wrong way to do it is to go looking for updates when I start up the program, as Adobe does. The concept should be simple: If I start up a program, it's because I want to use that program, and I want to use it NOW, not 15 minutes later when the updates (which almost always require me to quit the program I'm trying to use) are complete. As Vince Flanders so eloquently put it: I don't care about your $#@!$#@ problems, I want you to solve my $#@!$#@ problems.

Friday music mix: Songs I love to hate

I just read the introduction of a paper that should not be set aside lightly--it should be thrown across the room with great force. Since my inner curmudgeon is out today, here are some songs that I consider among the worst I've ever heard. I don't have a plausible explanation for how they ever got any radio play, but I've heard them all on the radio at one time or another. I'm excluding Christmas songs here--I could do another such post with just Christmas music.

1. Toni Basil, "Hey Mickey": The most annoying 80s song ever, with ridiculous video to match. (Hint to the ladies: If you're old enough to legally buy alcohol in this country, and you want people to take you seriously, do not put on a cheerleader's uniform.) A repetitive song with nothing even vaguely resembling a hook. If you really must hear what this song sounds like, look for Weird Al Yankovic's parody "Hey Ricky," which is actually halfway decent.

2. Norman Greenbaum, "Spirit In The Sky": This guy must be in league with Satan, because few things will turn you off of Jesus faster than this song allegedly in praise of Jesus. Repetitive bad lyrics. Bad theology, too, in the line "I've never been a sinner."

3. Alice Cooper, "Eighteen": You're not 18 anymore, Alice, so stop taking up airtime singing about it already.

4. Elton John/Kiki Dee, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart": There are lots of Elton haters out there, and this song is a strong argument in favor of that position. There are a few good Elton John songs out there, but not the ones that get significant airplay.

5. Guns 'n' Roses, "Knocking On Heaven's Door": A brilliant idea--let's have a Bob Dylan tune covered by just about the only famous singer (Axl Rose) with a worse singing voice than Bob Dylan! There are other ways in which this song is a bad stylistic match.

6. Black Sabbath, "Iron Man": Bad physics and bad chemistry ("He was turned to steel/In a great magnetic field") to go along with the annoyingly repetitive musical phrase (with the lead guitar doubling the singer, no less).

7. Led Zeppelin, "Whole Lotta Love": OK, Led Zeppelin fans, explain this one. The song is much too long, with a long stretch of moaning, and another annoying singing voice--Robert Plant in falsetto range. This is one of my arguments that Led Zeppelin was highly overrated.

8. Rolling Stones, "Under My Thumb": Another overrated classic rock band. Proof that misogynistic lyrics did not start in the rap era.

9. Gang Green, "Voices Carry": The original version by 'Til Tuesday isn't so bad, but screaming the refrain, as is done in this version, completely contradicts the meaning of the song.

10. Huey Lewis and the News, "Hip To Be Square": Huey Lewis rates as the biggest disappointment among the prominent musical stars of my teen years. He had the talent. He could have been somebody. Instead he became a pop sellout with songs like this one.

Stupid newspaper tricks

Foster's Daily Democrat
333 Central Ave.
Dover, NH 03820

Dear Foster's:

Thank you for coming up with your brilliant marketing technique of giving free one week trial home delivery subscriptions to unsuspecting homeowners who may or may not be in town that week. This makes our jobs much easier.

--The burglars of the Seacoast region

This week several houses on my street, including mine, were "lucky" recipients of the aforementioned trial subscription from the local fishwrap, Foster's Daily Democrat [sic].

Now Dover is not Miami, so I can understand why it would take them a minute (as opposed to five seconds) to realize why this is a bad idea. But they do publish police blotter columns, and some fraction of the crimes reported therein are burglaries. What better way to let burglars know who is out of town than to let newspapers pile up at a house whose owner didn't know they would be piling up?

Oh, and another piece of free advice to Foster's: Don't give free advertising to the competition. Their papers are delivered in plastic bags which advertize home subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal. It just so happens that the Wall Street Journal's parent company owns the other daily newspaper in the Seacoast region, the Portsmouth Herald.