Cedar Falls Historical "Four-Legged," Grafted, Arched Tree Severely Damaged in Storm

The very special tree at the corner of 18th and Treemont in Cedar Falls may or may not make it after last night's storm.


http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2009/07/10/news/local/doc4a5717af5ad2c9138527852.img

NECC 2009 Conference, Washington DC

The only other "big" national conferences I've been to are WWDC 2005-2007 in San Francisco.

NECC is altogether different. Larger and more diverse than WWDC, I've found NECC pretty overwhelming. The exhibit hall alone has booths from hundreds of vendors, large and small, all courting people with tech purchasing power in educational institutions.

This is a far cry from the "Apple wants you to know X. You now know X. You may go now," approach of WWDC. Not that I didn't enjoy WWDC. I did. A week at WWDC is worth a month of any 3rd party training I've ever done, but it's all Apple all the time.

There are a lot of K-12 teachers here, and a lot of educational technology faculty from colleges and universities. I was just chatting with a computer science professor I know from home who was here to present about effective ways to teach math using spreadsheets. We share a certain cynicism about technology and how others in education approach it.

To us the new cool thing is much less interesting than what can be done with whatever is available. Machines, in and of themselves, are not particularly interesting. What we can do with them can be mind blowing, but BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, MORE and the latest buzz word ("cloud," "virtualization," "21st century classroom/learner/teacher,") won't get you there.

It's what you do with it.

By the way, Washington DC is way scarrier than San Francisco, where WWDC is always held. SF has plenty of poverty, homelessness and drugs visible on the streets but DC is fucked up. In addition to the offense to human dignity that is poverty and homelessness in our nation's capitol, the streets don't make sense. I can almost never see the sun and, believe it or not, drinks are even more expenisve than in downtown SF. I paid $15 for a shot of Patron tequila last night.

Unlimited Major Label Downloads for Virgin Internet Subscribers?

I suppose this might work. Part of my suspicion that it won't is that it sounds more like a label effort to fight piracy than a label finding the right way to sell electronic downloads. Based on the BBC headline, that's how they see it, too. What makes me think the artists won't see a penny from these downloads?

Anti-piracy music deal for Virgin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8100394.stm

New Cheap Trick Album: Issues With Amazon Exclusive Release

My good, old friend Dr. Tony Shore feels he got screwed by Amazon.

[T]he real problem is what you get if you make the mistake of ordering the [new Cheap Trick] CD from Amazon (like I did). What you get is a CD-R, not an actual replicated CD. The print in the jewel case that comes with it is so poorly printed and trimmed that I must say I have never, ever, in 23 years in the music industry and with more than 7,000 CD's in my collection seen such poorly manufactured jewel case print.

Most of you don't know Tony but he has to think something is pretty gross before he talks this way. He lives in a sort of permanently agitated state because he gets so excited about the music he loves, be it new or old. Talking about what sucks doesn't really interest him.

Read his whole post to get the rest of the story, but what it boils down to is that Amazon got a whole month of exclusive distribution for the new Cheap Trick album, The Latest and they appear to be fulfilling orders with CD-R's in cut-rate packaging. If you have been reading my blog in recent months you know how I feel about mainstream CD pricing, so I have to be 100% behind Tony on this. If a die-hard like Tony pays full price for physical media of a major release he or she should get a the full professional treatment.

It's one thing for independent artists or labels specializing in experimental music to sell CDRs, especially since they tend to be up front about it. And, strictly speaking, The Latest is an independent release. It is on Cheap Trick's own label, Cheap Trick Unlimited. But let's be serious; if you have tracks on Guitar Hero and Rock Band and you record with the likes of Steve Albini, you can afford to go with a decent print shop for your jewel case cards.

According to the band's Wikipedia article they also had an exclusive arrangement with Amazon for their live DVD, Music For Hangovers, although it seems unlikely that they shipped DVD+/-Rs.

Teeth: "Clock (DJ Dual Core's Organ Donor Remix)"

Clock (DJ Dual Core's Organ Donor Remix) by DJ Dual Core