The MacAlba

I have bookshelves filled with books, manuals, and guides purchased over the past decade or more from O’Reilly Media. In many cases I have several editions of the same book. I currently have two more newly-published O’Reilly books winging their way to me from Amazon in the USA (it’s cheaper than purchasing them locally, even when you include the substantial freight costs - but that’s another story). So, I think I can call myself a fan and a repeat customer.

BUT… the thing that annoys me, having purchased a book which has supposedly been passed by a large number of pairs of eyes, is the number of typographical (and other) errors contained therein. Other books, by comparison, have fewer errors. What’s gone wrong here? (To be fair, I’m not talking about hundreds of errors, just enough to be noticeable and annoying).

Are steps being missed out such that a deadline can be met? Or have people just become more careless? I’m not going to stop purchasing from O’Reilly, but it can make learning something new even more challenging when sample code and illustrative examples are just plain wrong.

Once upon a time, long, long ago when I was knee high to a grasshopper, etc, I used to sing soprano in the church choir. The assembled group sat high above the congregation in the organ loft. I spent many an idle moment trying to work out just how the organist could possibly remain seated in one spot given that he had no solid grounding - both arms and legs would flail around, operating the multiple keyboards and organ stops. I wondered how much pressure was required to generate the volume of air that must be piped through the seemingly miles of organ pipes.

I had forgotten those days until I recently read a description by “but she’s a girl” of her recent attendance at a concert at Lichfield Cathedral. The remark that made me smile the most was the description of the work being “prefaced by a thunderous introduction”, by the use of the organ stop marked Armageddon with Knobs On. I could just imagine myself up there in that organ loft all those years ago.

… mentioning the surprisingly unexpected, mid-winter strawberries yesterday was all that was needed to tempt the God of Frost. The overnight temperature dropped to -7 degrees C (19 degF). The poor strawberries looked aghast this morning.

On leaving the house, on my way to take the dogs for a jog this morning, I stopped by the mini-max thermometer to see what the overnight temperature had been. The thermometer said it had dipped to -1 degrees C (30 degF). That would explain the slight white sheen to the otherwise browned-off grass down the slope. I had noticed on previous mornings that the frost-bitten strawberry leaves of just a few weeks ago had now begun to be replaced by fresh green leaves.

Then I saw the strawberries. Surely not! It’s mid-winter. The rain and slightly higher temperatures than is the norm at this time of year must have fooled the plants into believing that we’re further into the growing season than we should be. Oh well, there are still several weeks of winter left. Time enough to stun the strawberries back into their normal winter rest.

Some people say the most daft things.

BBC Radio 3 recently broadcast all the works of Beethoven and then made all nine symphonies available as MP3 downloads. The latter were performed by the BBC’s own Philharmonic.

In an article in The Independent, the Managing Director of the Naxos record label says something which I can only assume he later regretted. He said that by making these works freely available as downloadable MP3 files, “You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing.”

Given that the BBC owns the recording and performance rights of a non-copyrighted work, and that it can decide what it can do with its own property, then it is fine to download and it is OK to own those files for nothing. The BBC has its own term and conditions attached, and the MP3 file quality was limited (to minimise file size and download time). I hardly think that record labels have anything to fear.

I can only assume that the record labels mentioned in the article are short-sightedly worried about their own company’s short-term profits rather than the promotion of Classical Music to an as yet untapped potential audience in the longer term.

My Aunt sent this from London. I hadn’t seen it before, but it appears online a few hundred times. It appealed to my sense of humour.

Tony Blair is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. The patient replies:

“Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin race,
Aboon them a you take your place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.”

Blair is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. At his greeting the patient responds:

“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.”

Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the PM moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

“We sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle.”

Now seriously troubled, Blair turns to the accompanying doctor and asks “What kind of facility is this? A mental ward?”

“No”, replies the doctor. “This is the serious Burns unit.”