Hurricane Michael, while not directly causing a large number of fatalities, rearranged the landscape for tens of thousands of people and caused effects that will linger for many years. The category 4 hurricane, which at landfall was only 2mph below category 5 status sent in a storm surge that nearly wiped Mexico Beach off the map. The barely weakening storm wrecked the east side of Panama City and roared north through rural Florida entering Georgia as a category 3 hurricane. It appears that millions of trees, many of which were planted in pine forests to be harvested, were downed. People were being rescued from their homes for days after the passage of the massive storm.
In one place, that I first came to know and love in the 1990’s, the St. Joseph’s Peninsula, the geography was rearranged. Hurricane Michael cut through the peninsula in two places, isolating the T. H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Satellite imagery released by NOAA on October 11, the day after the impact of hurricane Michael showed the Gulf of Mexico flowing through the channels cut in the land.
I have loved “The Emerald Coast” for my entire life, even when folks called it “The Redneck Rivera”. The kitschy outdoor games, the beautiful bay, the unparalleled Gulf of Mexico with its sugar sand beaches have been an enduring part of my life.
If you can, please contribute to a verified charity that will endeavor to reduce the suffering of the folks along hurricane Michael’s path of destruction. The citizens of the Emerald Coast and those living inland who are digging out of the destruction will be grateful.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Monday, October 08, 2018
I've Got a Bad Feeling About Michael
I don't normally blog about this sort of thing, but there is a feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that this might be the worst hurricane to hit Panama City in my lifetime. I really hope this is not the case.
Prayers, crossed fingers and hopes - "please, no!"
Stay tuned...
Saturday, October 06, 2018
Who Knew About Auditory Illusions?
My friend O.Z. Hall passed this on the Birmingham Electronic Music group’s FaceBook page today. This is quite an intriguing experiment, one that you can do alone which will cause you no discomfort.
“While working on some deep learning related audio projects I came upon an interesting
http://blogs.zynaptiq.com/bernsee/evoked-melodies-in-auditory-illusion/
1. Quoted from his blog post: Stephan Bernsee’s Blog , August 31, 2018
“While working on some deep learning related audio projects I came upon an interesting
auditory illusion that shows how our brain associates memorized phrases with auditory stimuli. Below is a sound generated by randomly stimulating a neural net that was pretrained on approximately 1000 recordings of brass sounds (both single notes and entire musical phrases). The resulting “drone” is totally uniform and has no temporal development at all (in the sense that there would be individual notes present in that mixture). If you first listen to the audio file it just sounds chaotic and maybe a bit disharmonic, nothing to see here, move along. But wait! Try running the file in the background for several minutes in a loop and you will notice that it appears as if there are suddenly notes, even entire melodies emerging from the mix. ” 1
http://blogs.zynaptiq.com/bernsee/evoked-melodies-in-auditory-illusion/
1. Quoted from his blog post: Stephan Bernsee’s Blog , August 31, 2018
Friday, October 05, 2018
Tonight’s Modular Synthesis Update
Well, this won’t be a daily feature but tonight there was some success in areas that needed it.
The DLD was patched to handle two Mother32s who were sequenced by the GRP R24. Bingo! Each synth was running through a separate channel of delay simultaneously with its own custom delay time. This not only worked beautifully but sounded great.
Later, using some radical off the wall patching the tELHARMONIC began to sing in a voice never heard before. This patch will need documentation because most previous efforts to play this module ended in non excitement.
Lastly the TimeFactor was tested with each channel separately and it puts out beautiful delays as well. So it appears that four voices can be delayed separately.
The next goal will be to take existing stand alone VCOs and run them through one or the other of the delay paths. The first test along this line using the ER-101 was not impressive. I’m sure that somewhere my technique went off the rails. 😀
The DLD was patched to handle two Mother32s who were sequenced by the GRP R24. Bingo! Each synth was running through a separate channel of delay simultaneously with its own custom delay time. This not only worked beautifully but sounded great.
Later, using some radical off the wall patching the tELHARMONIC began to sing in a voice never heard before. This patch will need documentation because most previous efforts to play this module ended in non excitement.
Lastly the TimeFactor was tested with each channel separately and it puts out beautiful delays as well. So it appears that four voices can be delayed separately.
The next goal will be to take existing stand alone VCOs and run them through one or the other of the delay paths. The first test along this line using the ER-101 was not impressive. I’m sure that somewhere my technique went off the rails. 😀
Thursday, October 04, 2018
The Weather So Far in 2018
It’s been a very busy year. One of the consequences of that busyness is that I’ve neglected to track the weather as close as I prefer. Tonight I ran through the F6 from the Birmingham National Weather Service (NWS) station. The F6 is more widely known as the PRELIMINARY LOCAL CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA form. The data in these forms are in all CAPS for some reason. One day I’ll look into why that is the case. Anyway, as I was saying, my investigations into the first nine months F6 forms and my comparison to the current Climate Normals yielded some interesting “headlines” for this years weather.
First a small digression to provide a salient definition. “Climate Normals” are the current 30 year average of weather for each month of the year. The current Climate Normals are comprised of the averages from the years 1981-2010. Every ten years the NWS puts out a new dataset. In the year 2021 they will deliver the next range of years for Climate Normals: 1991-2020.
These Climate Normals are precisely what climate is: a thirty year average of thousands of weather measurements at the Birmingham NWS station. Every NWS station utilizes a set of data from which they derive their own Climata Normals. Using the Climate Normals and comparing them to our current year’s weather is the motivation behind this evening’s blog post.
The first “headline” this data produces is: “The Month of February is Missing from Calendar Year 2018”. Well, my calendar has February in it, and so does yours, so what does this headline mean? It’s actually quite simple. If you take the average highs and lows for this year’s February they are almost identical to the average highs and lows for the month of March found in the Climate Normals. This year’s weather just skipped the February temperatures and went from January to March temperatures. And since this year’s March was just barely warmer then the March of the Climate Normals, this year we got double the fun! Two month’s of March weather.
The second “headline” this year is that the May-September period was hotter than the Climate Normals. This extended warm spell started out wet (6.98” in May) but ended up dryer than normal. July only saw 1.81” of rain at the bottom of the rain gauge.
The third “headline” this year is that the weather in September was a clone of August. So, this year we got two month’s of August weather, and that was following a July that was noticeably hotter than the Climate Normal. As a matter of fact this year’s September was warmer than this year’s August!
The fourth “headline” this year is a continuation of the last one. “September is Hotter than the Normal July”. Now everyone around here knows that July is the hottest month of the year. August is the second hottest month, followed by June. This year’s September’s temperatures were as hot as or hotter than the Climate Normal July. What we are saying here is that you could be more miserably
hot this September than you could in the vast majority of the thirty year’s month of July (1981-2010). Wow, that is hot!
The year is not over yet! We just started the fourth quarter on October 1st so I’ll have to return to this topic in January for a look back at any future “headlines”. Until then, keep your eye on the sky.
First a small digression to provide a salient definition. “Climate Normals” are the current 30 year average of weather for each month of the year. The current Climate Normals are comprised of the averages from the years 1981-2010. Every ten years the NWS puts out a new dataset. In the year 2021 they will deliver the next range of years for Climate Normals: 1991-2020.
These Climate Normals are precisely what climate is: a thirty year average of thousands of weather measurements at the Birmingham NWS station. Every NWS station utilizes a set of data from which they derive their own Climata Normals. Using the Climate Normals and comparing them to our current year’s weather is the motivation behind this evening’s blog post.
The first “headline” this data produces is: “The Month of February is Missing from Calendar Year 2018”. Well, my calendar has February in it, and so does yours, so what does this headline mean? It’s actually quite simple. If you take the average highs and lows for this year’s February they are almost identical to the average highs and lows for the month of March found in the Climate Normals. This year’s weather just skipped the February temperatures and went from January to March temperatures. And since this year’s March was just barely warmer then the March of the Climate Normals, this year we got double the fun! Two month’s of March weather.
The second “headline” this year is that the May-September period was hotter than the Climate Normals. This extended warm spell started out wet (6.98” in May) but ended up dryer than normal. July only saw 1.81” of rain at the bottom of the rain gauge.
The third “headline” this year is that the weather in September was a clone of August. So, this year we got two month’s of August weather, and that was following a July that was noticeably hotter than the Climate Normal. As a matter of fact this year’s September was warmer than this year’s August!
The fourth “headline” this year is a continuation of the last one. “September is Hotter than the Normal July”. Now everyone around here knows that July is the hottest month of the year. August is the second hottest month, followed by June. This year’s September’s temperatures were as hot as or hotter than the Climate Normal July. What we are saying here is that you could be more miserably
hot this September than you could in the vast majority of the thirty year’s month of July (1981-2010). Wow, that is hot!
The year is not over yet! We just started the fourth quarter on October 1st so I’ll have to return to this topic in January for a look back at any future “headlines”. Until then, keep your eye on the sky.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Celestial Cruze
I’m not sure why this last piece of music has entranced me. It’s not the most beautiful, not the most danceable, not even the most ambient piece I’ve recorded. It resonates with me on an existential level and repudiates my conscious efforts to produce anything along the lines of Berlin School space music. There are no atmospheric cloud banks of sequencers pulsating at different tempos and timbres. The soft and sweeping violin pads are not to be found in this sound scape.
This piece is in a unique way a piece of me. The drones expanding and contracting interrupted after a length of time with struck notes sounding like a gigantic collection of piano strings connected to a steel I-beam. Sound, echo, and silence feature and fulminate in a sometimes turbid, other times timid embrace.
This piece is not recorded to any media other than video, and hence is both a live performance never to be repeated, and a recording that cannot be edited later to correct errors or oversights.
Living and breathing, sounding and resounding, starting and finishing. From the depths of deep dark notes to high pitched three to five octave leaps and sweeps, this piece moves slowly toward its denouement.
Celestial Cruze:
https://youtu.be/APwvIlXyf0g
Thursday, September 06, 2018
The Seven Sisters in a Veil of Snow
Friday, August 31, 2018
Arwen and her Pre Brush Communion
Arwen is by far and away the single most responsive cat we’ve had the pleasure of living with. We’ve had a cat (only one at a time) for the past 37 years. The first two were Siamese, Arwen is mostly Maine Coon. She does not have papers to detail her bloodline, she was a rescue cat. Her obvious and striking gratitude in being adopted was obvious from the first hour she connected with Debbie. The entire crowd in attendance (Debbie’s surprise birthday party) were amazed at how fast the two bonded.
Arwen has demonstrated to me, on hundreds of separate occasions that her command of the English language is far more sophisticated than expected. She picks up and responds to subtle conversations that Debbie and I have. Her daily expectation of her ritualistic grooming is delightful to see, and at times exasperating because typically my arrival from work coincides with her desire to receive the brush. She knows she cannot get brushed until we “meet and greet”. This ritual is played out every afternoon at some point in time between 4:30 and 5:30. She awaits my movement to sit upon the ottoman. Once seated she comes up to me and rubs against my legs for dozens of times. I’ll rub her as she passes by, or twirl her tail. She continues circling back in elaborate figure eights across the den floor and swipes both legs coming from the left. Then, in a mirror image of the previous maneuver she swipes from the right side. After some minutes of this slow motion activity she heads over toward the brush.
——- to be continued.
Arwen has demonstrated to me, on hundreds of separate occasions that her command of the English language is far more sophisticated than expected. She picks up and responds to subtle conversations that Debbie and I have. Her daily expectation of her ritualistic grooming is delightful to see, and at times exasperating because typically my arrival from work coincides with her desire to receive the brush. She knows she cannot get brushed until we “meet and greet”. This ritual is played out every afternoon at some point in time between 4:30 and 5:30. She awaits my movement to sit upon the ottoman. Once seated she comes up to me and rubs against my legs for dozens of times. I’ll rub her as she passes by, or twirl her tail. She continues circling back in elaborate figure eights across the den floor and swipes both legs coming from the left. Then, in a mirror image of the previous maneuver she swipes from the right side. After some minutes of this slow motion activity she heads over toward the brush.
——- to be continued.
How Much Hotter is Your Hometown Today Compared to the Year of Your Birth?
The New York Times offers up a glimpse of how many of those 90 degree days we typically saw each year and how many we may expect to see over the next twenty or more years.
All you need to do is input the name of your home town and your year of birth. Note, the data set does not go back further than 1960, so those born earlier than then can use 1960.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/climate/how-much-hotter-is-your-hometown.html?emc=edit_nn_20180831&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=8099462420180831&te=1
I'm going to "cheat" and give you the results from my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. In 1960 the temperature hit 90 degrees an average of 56 days a year. Then we went through the well known short period when the climate chilled a bit in the late 60's - the 1970's. I remember those times as snowy in the winter too! Today, in 2018 I can expect an average of 69 days above 90 and by the time I'm 80 years old that figure is expected to be approximately 84 days!
Why don't you pick your hometown and give it a whirl?
-------------------------------------
The climate modeling was performed by Climate Impact Lab.
See the bottom of the web page for details on the numerical models used for this graphic display.
All you need to do is input the name of your home town and your year of birth. Note, the data set does not go back further than 1960, so those born earlier than then can use 1960.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/climate/how-much-hotter-is-your-hometown.html?emc=edit_nn_20180831&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=8099462420180831&te=1
I'm going to "cheat" and give you the results from my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama. In 1960 the temperature hit 90 degrees an average of 56 days a year. Then we went through the well known short period when the climate chilled a bit in the late 60's - the 1970's. I remember those times as snowy in the winter too! Today, in 2018 I can expect an average of 69 days above 90 and by the time I'm 80 years old that figure is expected to be approximately 84 days!
Why don't you pick your hometown and give it a whirl?
-------------------------------------
The climate modeling was performed by Climate Impact Lab.
See the bottom of the web page for details on the numerical models used for this graphic display.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Cruising for breakfast
Arwen has food anxieties. No, she isn’t starving and her bowl of dried food is never empty. She just wants to insure that her human caretakers understand the importance of receiving canned food on time and served with a flourish. This morning she “got in my face”about it, albeit with the sweetest demeanor. Yes, she will receive her breakfast in about five minutes!
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
What’s Going On
Well, after a hiatus I’ve returned to my blog and hope to keep up some semblance of continuity. We’ll see if that pans out. In the meantime I’ll close today’s activities with a link to one of my recent Modular musical excursions.
Cumulous cloud Terrarium floating over Morpheus
Cumulous cloud Terrarium floating over Morpheus
Vacation Books - Arwen's Recommendations
Vacation means many different things to different folks. One of the things I associate with a vacation is trying to pick up a “vacation book” to carry along and read when ever time and space allow. This past week I had two books to read. Both of which fit the “vacation book” criteria: not work related, not too intellectually taxing (no philosophy books), and interesting. Arwen has exactly the same criteria! She is sharing our vacation books with you.
“Hope Never Dies” is a work of fiction (obviously), wherein Joe Biden and Barack Obama play the part of amateur detectives in unraveling the mysterious death of an Amtrak train conductor. This at times hilarious, and at times thought provoking novel is the work of author Andrew Shaffer, whose work “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” established the author as a purveyor of malarkey! Arwen agrees that the book is pretty crazy at times but an entertaining and fast read. She recommends this book but refuses to give any plot secrets away.
“The Stranger in the Woods” is the non fictional account of a man who walked into the woods of Maine and disappeared as a hermit for twenty seven years. Christopher Knight survived in the woods for almost three decades by ingenious survival techniques and by becoming an accomplished burglar. A lake community was terrified by the unknown and uncatchable thief who was highly selective in what he stole, and what he refused to steal. After being arrested his encounters in jail, court and with a community of people, and his difficulties in dealing with that transition are detailed in the book. The author also examines the life of hermits, and others who have walked away from mankind and dealt with solitude.
Arwen likes this book because the hermit did not kill animals to stay alive. She recommends this book highly!
“Hope Never Dies” is a work of fiction (obviously), wherein Joe Biden and Barack Obama play the part of amateur detectives in unraveling the mysterious death of an Amtrak train conductor. This at times hilarious, and at times thought provoking novel is the work of author Andrew Shaffer, whose work “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” established the author as a purveyor of malarkey! Arwen agrees that the book is pretty crazy at times but an entertaining and fast read. She recommends this book but refuses to give any plot secrets away.
“The Stranger in the Woods” is the non fictional account of a man who walked into the woods of Maine and disappeared as a hermit for twenty seven years. Christopher Knight survived in the woods for almost three decades by ingenious survival techniques and by becoming an accomplished burglar. A lake community was terrified by the unknown and uncatchable thief who was highly selective in what he stole, and what he refused to steal. After being arrested his encounters in jail, court and with a community of people, and his difficulties in dealing with that transition are detailed in the book. The author also examines the life of hermits, and others who have walked away from mankind and dealt with solitude.
Arwen likes this book because the hermit did not kill animals to stay alive. She recommends this book highly!
Monday, January 15, 2018
Snow again?
Well we had a beautiful snowfall in December here in Central Alabama and it appears we might get a small bit of snow tomorrow.
The above is a model depicting the forecast for noon on January 16, 2018. That is the 14:08 CST run of the WPC/NDFD model.
This is the official Birmingham, NWS timing map for tomorrow's freezing precipitation.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out!
The above is a model depicting the forecast for noon on January 16, 2018. That is the 14:08 CST run of the WPC/NDFD model.
This is the official Birmingham, NWS timing map for tomorrow's freezing precipitation.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out!
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Travelling To The Stars With Space Music - guided by Chuck Van Zyl
In a never ending attempt to "explore strange new worlds" the last year has found me exploring making music with a synthesizer. It's been quite the challenge with a learning curve as steep as Everest. As a long time lover of "Berlin School" space music my searches came across the music of Chuck Van Zyl. His extraordinary soaring timbres and clouds of rhythmic sequencing provide a fantastic modern exploration of that genre of space music. One of my favorite videos of his work is below.
I hope you enjoy!
The YouTube link is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoP5J_YpcwY
I hope you enjoy!
The YouTube link is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoP5J_YpcwY
Sunday, September 03, 2017
Hurricane Hunters follow a Pattern
#NOAA42 finishing 3rd and last pass through the eye of #HurricaneIrma collecting Doppler radar data for #HWRF. https://t.co/jwh0azKHML
Sent from my iOS phone.
Sent from my iOS phone.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
My Year in the Premier League - In a Manner of Speaking - FA Cup
Part of the Story:
The FA CUP
Association Football (what we Americans call soccer) is so firmly entrenched in England (Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and 7 dozen other countries) that it is part of the social fabric. For example, during the month of March in the United States basketball fans are treated to March Madness with a bracket of 68 seeded teams who play each other to determine a winner. This basketball frenzy sweeps the nation for several weeks and then it is over.
The oldest association football competition in the world, the FA Cup, is an annual knockout competition in men's domestic English football. The competition is open to any eligible club down to Level 10 in the English Football Pyramid. Each year the competition features over 600 teams with the first game in August and the FA Cup Final in the month of May. There is nothing closely resembling this competition in the US.
Early in the competition, when lower ranked teams play teams that are much higher in the pyramid the possibility of "giant killings" is greatly exciting to the football public. The fact that a poorly funded team that centers on a small village could play and beat (it has happened!) a top ranked Premier League team (a giant) is an unexpected delight to the competition.
A Football Term Defined:
Transfer Window - Tranfer Deadline Day
The transfer window is not some pane of glass on the back side of a transfer truck. No no no. The transfer window for the Premier League is twelve weeks of public speculation bordering on the side of insanity about which club is going to buy or sell which player. If you are a fan of a team then you can expect that the amount of discussion and speculation will rise and fall with the revolution of the earth. Yes, after midnight it calms down and then picks up again about 6 am. However, since the earth is round, and at every moment in time it is daylight somewhere, then the pace of the frantic speculation never really ceases.
There are two transfer windows in Premier League Football. A four week window in the middle of the winter (January) and the eight weeks comprising July and August. Today, the last day of August, is Transfer Deadline Day. In case you missed it, here is all of the activity during he Summer Transfer Window.
Most importantly what on earth happened to Liverpool during the summer transfer?
This article is part of a series where I discuss, define, experience and try to explain my passion for Premier League Soccer, primarily as it is expressed in my semi fanatical support for the best team in the world: LIVERPOOL FC .
Logo borrowed from: http://www.lfchistory.net/Images/lfc/LIVE_5396.gif
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
Robinson Springs United Methodist Church - Millbrook, AL
Robinson Springs United Methodist Church in Millbrook Alabama, one of the oldest churches in Elmore County was built in 1848. It is built in classic Greek Revival style which was very popular in the 1830s through the 1840s. The heart pine foundation is still solid and held in place by pegs. Amazingly there are several families worshiping at the church who are the eighth generation of their family to remain in this congregation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)