Michael Perkins

The aim of life is to live,
and to live means to be aware,
joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
--Henry Miller







See Also:
Let Us Read and Let Us Dance
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened ...

PROJECT Trio is a unique chamber music ensemble featuring Greg Pattillo (flute, see Beatbox Bach), Eric Stephenson (Cello) and Peter Seymour (Bass). PROJECT Trio incorporates a variety of musical styles and techniques to create a unique and entertaining musical experience. In the video below, they perform the Bach Bourree in E minor. For more information about the group, including additional videos, go to http://www.whatisproject.org.



See Also:
Banjoist Bela Fleck Plays Bach
Trumpeter Paul Mayes Performs Bach
Beatbox Bach
Pocket Jazz: Summertime on the iBone
Embouchure
Blood, Sweat and Tears: God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

Bela Fleck is a brilliant musician who constantly pushes musical boundaries. In this video, he delivers a wonderful performance of Bach's Violin Partita No 3 (starting at 1:22) on the 5-string banjo.



See Also:
Trumpeter Paul Mayes Performs Bach
Beatbox Bach
Pocket Jazz: Summertime on the iBone
Embouchure
Blood, Sweat and Tears: God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

Virtuoso trumpeter Paul Mayes performs Bach Badinerie.



See Also:
Beatbox Bach
Pocket Jazz: Summertime on the iBone
Embouchure
Blood, Sweat and Tears: God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

Beatbox Flautist, Greg Pattillo, performs Bach Badinerie.



See Also:
Pocket Jazz: Summertime on the iBone
Embouchure
Blood, Sweat and Tears: God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
-- Voltaire








See Also:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened ...

A team of scientists led by Craig Venter have created a living synthetic bacterium. The following Channel 4 story gives a nice brief overview and contains an interview with Venter.



See Also:
Denialism
Beautiful Hubble Images

Google should be applauded for launching a Government Requests Tool for reporting the number of requests for private user information and the number of requests for removal of content that the company receives from governments around the world every six months. For instance, during the six months ending in December 2009, Google received the following requests for private user data:

Country	Requests
Brazil	3663
United States	3580
United Kingdom	1166
India	1061
France	846
Italy	550
Germany	458
Spain	324
Australia	155
Argentina	98
Poland	86
Belgium	67
Netherlands	67
Singapore	62
Portugal	45
Japan	44
South Korea	44
Switzerland	42
Canada	41
Israel	30

In a blog entry announcing the tool, David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer wrote:

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today's Internet -- one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.

So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship.

A denialist is someone who champions certain beliefs despite clear and overwhelming evidence that the beliefs are false. Holocaust deniers are paradigm examples of denialists. Despite the overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence that the holocaust did indeed occur, Holocaust deniers claim that the genocide of the Jews during World War II was a hoax perpetuated as part of a Jewish conspiracy. Other examples of denialists are those who deny that HIV causes AIDS, those who believe that the U.S. government was complicit in the 9/11 massacre, those who deny that tobacco use causes cancer, and those who deny that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States. Some commentators also claim that those who deny evolution, those who believe vaccines cause autism, and those who deny global climate change are denialists in this sense.

In his 2009 book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, science writer Michael Specter claims that denialism occurs "when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie." The denialist denies the facts because the facts are uncomfortable. One might argue, for instance, that the Holocaust deniers are anti-semites who are faced with the fact that anti-semites were responsible for one of the most horrific crimes in the history of mankind. Their denial of the Holocaust resolves the conflict between their anti-semitism and this uncomfortable truth.

In a recent New Scientist report on denialism, Michael Shermer argues that the denialist's discomfort is usually based on a conflict between the facts and an ideological or religious belief. This discomfort causes the denialist to filter the evidence so that these ideological or religious beliefs need not be discarded.

Denialism is typically driven by ideology or religious belief, where the commitment to the belief takes precedence over the evidence. Belief comes first, reasons for belief follow, and those reasons are winnowed to ensure that the belief survives intact.

In the video below, Michael Specter provides an interesting discussion of denialism and the harm that it causes.



Related:
Taxes at Lowest Levels in 59 Years
The Whole Problem with the World
Bertrand Russell
Blind to the Look of Disgust
The Taste of Fine Wine
The UK Statistics Authority
Facebook Linked to a Rise in Syphilis

This amazing video features Gershwin's Summertime played on an iPhone application called the iBone.



Related:
Embouchure
Blood, Sweat and Tears: God Bless the Child
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

(may take a moment to buffer)

Embouchure

I want a man who can blow a trumpet,
a chet-baker-square-jaw-jazz-man, a man
who understands embouchure, who knows
what to do with his lips and tongue, who
knows what to do—and what not to do—
with his teeth. I want a man who knows
how to breathe, a long slow exhale, past
himself and through you, into you. I want
a man who can make a brass horn sing,
scream a little, scream loud sometimes,
a melody, a harmony, a whispered prayer.
I want a horn man, a brass man, a trumpet
player, a man who knows how to blow,
how to make his lips buzz, how to double
tongue. I want a man who will make love
to music he makes up himself, who’ll make
me want to respond, react, breathe back,
sway my hips in bed. I want a man who
will make me feel like I’m an integral part
of an orchestra, or make me feel like an
intimate part of a jazz ensemble, or make
me feel like the mouth of a river, a tributary,
the current that carried Moses, that made
him a king, a hero, a savior, a man.

--Paula J. Lambert

I wanted to post Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child, but I was unhappy with the recording quality of the original Billie Holiday versions that I found. So I decided to post a more recent recording of the song. There are dozens of versions of this wonderful song. In addition to Billie Holiday, it has been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Sam Cooke, Anita Baker, Lou Rawls, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston and many, many other great vocalists and instrumentalists. I listened to several of them, but I kept coming back to the version recorded by Blood, Sweat and Tears in 1968.

I first heard Blood, Sweat and Tears when my eighth grade band teacher called me into her office and played part of their new album for me. I fell in love with it immediately, and 42 years later, this brilliant album still thrills me. God Bless the Child is one of the album's many high points. Enjoy.



God Bless the Child

Them that's got, shall get
them that's not, shall lose
so the Bible said, and it still is news
mama may have, and papa may have
God bless' the child,
that's got his own
that's got his own

Yes the strong seem to get more
while the weak ones fade
empty pockets don't
ever make the grade
As mama may have
and papa may have
God bless' the child
that's got his own
that's got his own.

And when you got money,
you got a lots of friends
crowdin' 'round your door
When the money's gone
and all you're spendin' ends
they won't be 'round any more
no, no, no more

And rich relations
may give you
a crust of bread and such
you can help yourself
but don't take too much
mama may have
and your papa may have
but God bless' the child
that's got his own
that's got his own
God bless' the child who can stand up and say

I've got my own
Ev'ry child's, got to have his own!

-- Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.

Related:
Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow
Chris Botti & Sting perform My Funny Valentine
Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician and logician whose work in the first half of the 20th century was seminal in the development of computer science. In his famous 1936 paper, "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem," he introduced the notion of what is now called a Turing machine. Turing machines are imaginary computing devices that provide a useful formalism for investigating the notion of computability.

A Turing machine is a very simple device that uses a tape for storing and manipulating symbols. The machine can read or write a symbol at the current location of the tape, and it can move the tape one position either left or right. The machine contains a single register for recording the current state of the machine. At any point in its execution, the state of the machine together with the symbol read at the current tape position determines the machine's actions.
Despite its simplicity, the concept of a Turing machine adequately captures the general idea of computability. According to the Church-Turing thesis, anything that is computable is computable by a Turing machine. This means, for instance, that even the operation of an extremely complex modern digital computer system could be realized using the simple operations of a Turing machine.

Though Turing machines are interesting primarily for their theoretical properties, Mike Davey has built a physical Turing machine. The video below shows Davey's machine in action. You can find more information about this beautiful device at Davey's website.



In the following video, Davey's machine uses a typical Turing machine strategy to solve a simple subtraction problem.



Related:
Bertrand Russell

Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis show that in 2009, Americans paid, on average, 9.17% of their personal income in Federal, state and local taxes. This is the lowest share of income paid in taxes since 1950. The 2009 percentage is 21.7% lower than the 2008 percentage, and it is 21.9% lower than the average of 11.75% for all years since 1950. The chart below shows the percentage of income paid in taxes for every year since 1950. Move your cursor over the line to see the exact number for any year.



This analysis is based on data from the National Income and Product Accounts Table 2.1, Personal Income and Its Disposition.

See Also:
The Growth in Federal Spending Since 1940
Denialism

Related:
Ikkyu: A single night of love ...
The Buddha: Do not believe ...
Chuang-tzu: The Master soars past sun and moon ...
The Mind's Worst Disease
Laugh at the Sky
Jane Hirschfield: The Adamantine Perfection of Desire

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
--Bertrand Russell











Related:
Bertrand Russell

Billie Holiday sings Fine and Mellow in this 1957 recording with an amazing all-star band that includes:

Ben Webster (tenor sax, 0:52)
Lester Young (tenor sax, 1:28)
Coleman Hawkins (tenor sax, 4:29)
Roy Eldridge (trumpet, 5:06)
Doc Cheatham (trumpet)
Vic Dickenson (trombone, 2:40)
Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax, 3:17)
Danny Barker (guitar)
Mal Waldron (piano)
Milt Hinton (bass)
Osie Johnson (drums)

Bertrand Russell was a giant among 20th century intellectuals. He is remembered primarily as a philosopher and mathematician.  He was one of the founders of analytic philosophy, and with Alfred North Whitehead, he co-authored Principia Mathematica, one of the 20th century's most important works on the foundations of logic and mathematics.

Lord Russell was also a pacifist and political activist.  He was inprisoned and later dismissed from Trinity College for his pacifist activities during World War I. Later in life, he was a tireless advocate of nuclear disarmament and a strong opponent of the Vietnam war.

Russell was an outspoken social critic who often found himself at odds with the establishment. In 1940, his appointment as Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York was annulled by the New York Supreme Court on the grounds that he was morally unfit for the post. In defense of this claim, the court cited, among other things, his liberal views on premarital sex.

A prolific writer on a wide range of topics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.

Above all, Russell was a tireless champion of reason in all areas of human affairs.

In the following brief excerpt from a 1959 BBC interview, Russell expresses two ideas he would like to pass down to future generations.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.

-- The Buddha

The following were posted in a thread on the Schizophrenia forum at eHealthForum:

Now, here is what happened. When I became schizophrenic, sometime after, I can't remember exactly when I began seeing faces in things, like trees and clouds and in the material that the walls are made of. But it isn't a hallucination at all, given the time to show someone I could show them what I was seeing. Before I was schizophrenic this never happened. Now though, when I look at the clouds, either the entire thing or part of it makes the shape of a face, weird faces, and they are really there, once again not a hallucination, you could tell if it was. If you look closely enough at things, like trees in the dark of night in the street lights, there are faces in them, the shape of the trees, parts of them anyway form faces. Unfortunately, if my old self was visited by who I am today and my today self tried to show my old self these faces then I would've thought that I was crazy, I wouldn't have been able to see them. Something happened. And they are really there, it's just like those optical illusions where if you look at the white part of the picture it makes a completely different image than the black part which most people pay attention to at first. If you look at the clouds or whatever with the right mind, paying attention to the right portion of the cloud and paying attention to the right shades, just like the black and white optical illusions, they make faces alot of the time. Now someone in their early stages of developement will only see the black part of the picture so to speak, only see certain shades and only certain portions. It's a quite strange happening. Funny how the mind works isn't it? Somebody who is that way won't see them at all even though they are there, I used to be one of them so I know what it is like, you just don't see them. Go ahead, try it.
--Woops

I also see faces everywhere, last night I was looking at the moon, and I've always seen a howling wolf when I've looked at it, but last night, I saw the face of a beautiful woman, I smiled at her and she smiled back, and I had a nearly overwhelming feeling of peace and happiness, and for some reason I knew I had to make a wish, it did flash through my mind to wish to win the lottery, but for some reason, deep down inside I knew that this would be the wrong thing to wish for, and if I wished for personal gain, I would get nothing, so I wish for something else instead. It worries me sometimes and makes me think that I'm going mad, which is why I came across this site, as I was looking for information. Sometimes I feel that there are people in the room when I am the only person there, this tends to annoy me, and I tell them to go away, I believe that they are spirit people, sometimes I know when the phone is about to ring and who is ringing, it freaks me out at times, and I worry if I am safe to be around, at times I get images in my mind's eye, more often than not they are not very nice, and bad impulses, though I have never and would never act on them, they feel alien to me, as in somebody is trying to tell me to do something, but I am stronger than that, which then makes me think that maybe I'm possessed by something. I've seen faces in things from a very early age, it was always put down to an over active imagination. I always have a high pitched ringing in my ears, though when I was a child it would only happen when I was just about to go to sleep, I have it constantly now, the doctor said it was Tinnitus and I have been treated for this, it did not cure the problem, some times it is louder and others faintly there, but always there, and is as if somebody has a radio on, but it is out of tune, so that all that can be heard is static, I have had my ears tested, and I have perfect hearing, I just don't know what to think any more... or where to go or what to do next.....?
--Royou

omg omg omg , finally i found someone who would believe me,  it was driving me insane,  i've seen them since i was a little kid, and they were everywhere, the funny thing, when i start seeing a specific face, then others can see it, if it disappears from my mind , it wouldn't exist there anymore, not even for others!  yea sounds crazy i know, but it is soooo real, real faces not just cartoonic, feels like real humans .. i think there is no way to fix this right? .. they're everywhere, now i dont let myself look anywhere with patterns for more than 1 second, trying to avoid it ... still happens .. no use i guess
--Another_Dreamer

Jonah Lehrer discusses how easily the sensory impressions of wine experts can be influenced by false beliefs about the wine. He describes two interesting studies:

In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.

The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was."

Lehrer draws the following conclusion:

"When we taste a wine, we aren't simply tasting the wine. This is because what we experience is not what we sense. Rather, experience is what happens when our senses are interpreted by our subjective brain, which brings to the moment its entire library of personal memories and idiosyncratic desires. As the philosopher Donald Davidson argued, it is ultimately impossible to distinguish between a subjective contribution to knowledge that comes from our selves (what he calls our "scheme") and an objective contribution that comes from the outside world ("the content"). Instead, in Davidson's influential epistemology, the "organizing system and something waiting to be organized" are hopelessly interdependent." (emphasis mine)

I'm not sure that this is exactly what Donald Davidson had in mind, but the point is still interesting.  For more on wine experts, click here for an interesting WSJ article by Leonard Mlodinow.

Chris Botti and Sting perform My Funny Valentine at the Wilshire Theatre, December 2005.