WTF-Beta

I can't tell you how disgusted I am with google search (and most of the other search tools). They all prioritize AI results of varying degrees.

Well, yesterday, I was pointed to the website udm14 (https://udm14.com/). It will take one's query and add udm=14 as a parameter to google search. This gets rid of AI and shows only web results.

I could add the parameter manually every time I search, but as I learned with adding -ai with every search, it's a pain. So I've saved a bookmark to udm14.com and added it to my toolbar. Now, when I want clean search results, I simply click the bookmark and enter my search.

So far I really like it, and udm14 doesn't track your searches.

Great! Just what we need another war over oil. I hope this really, really pisses off the Maga base. My understanding is that spending money on unnecessary wars is not something they favor.

How long before this escalates into a world war?

In the 16th Century, a longa was one of the note values. According to the book I'm reading*, a maxima was 8 whole notes, a longa was 4 whole notes, a brevis was 2 whole notes, semibrevis was a whole note, minima was a half note, semiminima was a quarter note, and fusa was an eighth note.

I don't know if this relates to your fermata, but it seems like it might.

*"Counterpoint, The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century" by Knud Jeppesen

@RealPlayer I didn't get the sense he was dissing Medieval music, but maybe that's because I've seen almost all his videos. He often goes way back to plainsong and chant. In some videos he composes new pieces based on them. He is an organ scholar graduated from Oxford.

Palestrina. I love his music. Missa Papae Marcelli is one of my favorites. So unbelievably beautiful.

I love his channel and tune in every week for his latest. His research and anecdotes, the scenery, the churches, the organs, the music! I just love it!

@Steve-Miller I do and I loved the look! The lead content wasn't such a good thing, though. Mylar tinsel is available but doesn't have the same look, imo.

I love your tree, Jodi, how pretty! Yours too Mik. I like those lights. I'm partial to the incandescents too. This year and last I went with the pre-strung leds on the artificial tree. I may go back to a real tree next year. I also love the large, old fashioned bulbs such as I remember from my earliest years.

I'll keep my tree and most of the decor up until Twelfth Night, which is Tuesday.

Wharf

Wow! I'm glad for you that the problem was pinpointed so quickly. I'll have to pull my action one of these days and have a look in back, because I don't recall seeing (or paying attention to) the back action.

Creeper

Watching Mary Berry's Cooking Made Simple, full season that just went up on Youtube a few days ago. Nibbling some lovely Stilton and cranberry/cinnamon Chevre with fruit and nut bread while sipping wine. Enjoying the peace of my surroundings.

@RealPlayer I'm not sure it's the same video (it might be!), but I've seen something similar.

@wtg I can't recall seeing any. But if it shows up early in the mornings, there's a good chance I miss it for being in bed!

@ShiroKuro I shouldn't generalize. Some, I think, would have something to say about the rubato. Although I must say, I'm struggling with the topic right now. I thought I understood it, but last semester's class had me seriously questioning if I really did. Some of Pachmann's right hand entrances are almost half a beat behind! (But I like what he does.) His left hand is generally kind of steady, but even it speeds up and slows down now and then.

It seems to me I took some questions in class for using rubato and some discussions ensued. The teacher wanted to emphasize that the left hand must always remain steady. (But I've since read that there were two types of rubato in use during Chopin's time, and in the newer style both hands could be free, within reason I'd imagine.)

The confusing thing, though, was the day he said he'd play the melody on one piano while I played the left hand. Well! His rubato was far more--a lot more--than what I'd originally played! But he said to take rubato at the beginnings and ends of measures, generally not mid-measure.

So now I'm feeling a little bit confused. It could be that my rubato was too improvised, so to say, rather than planned, and that could have made it unclear. I'm proceeding cautiously until it gets clearer.

Being one of his opus posthumous Nocturnes, it's also one I'm learning.

I absolutely love this recording by Pachmann from 1927. I suspect he'd take a bit of flak from today's musicologists for playing it this way. No matter, I think it's sublime. Thee rubato is really something. No subtle effects here!

According to Chopin Review, ...

Vladimir de Pachmann’s 1927 recording of Chopin’s Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1 testifies to a temperament in which different triads have different qualities, timbres differ depending on the different relationships between overtones, Chopin seems to be intentionally milking these differences, and the subtleties of his music seem to multiply a thousandfold.

Very interesting.

Cold has settled in so it doesn't look like we'll be losing the ice anytime soon. A young Pine I just passed on my way to the mailbox:

Someone on the overnight thread (that I frequent) posted this video last night as a point of possible interest to the members. Turns out, it's not Sir David Attenborough at all, it's AI posing as him. A fake! It pisses me off that this is allowed. Meanwhile, the "creators" (thieves, imo) rake in ad revenue for themselves and YT.

I hate the very first sentence, "Far smaller and closer to the Sun than it should be..."

Should be?

I know it's a just a turn of phrase (a mindless one), but there is subtle messaging behind such innocuous sounding words. Mercury is what it is. The third paragraph starts out much better, "Planetary scientists remain flummoxed by the very existence of the closest planet to our Sun." But that doesn't stop the shoulds and shouldn'ts from reappearing further down. And it get's worse. "Astronomers first realised something was wrong with Mercury ...." Wrong? How about saying it was anomalous to their expectations and current understanding?

There is a lot of bad science reporting and it's a peeve of mine.

The topic of the article is interesting, though.

@Steve-Miller Oh. I don't have that option because my bookmark shortcut takes me directly to my subscriptions page. I never go to the home page, but if I do it doesn't show anything except a message, "Your watch history is off" with an option to turn it on. Well, duh, of course it's off. Don't want them nosey's watching my every move!

I'm pretty strict with Youtube and do everything I can to see only what I want to see. My subscription page shows videos only from creators I'm subscribed to and includes any shorts they create. I very rarely click on a short.

Thanks for the link to that video, @wtg. I did have that option enabled, but while I was on that page I noticed at the bottom of the screen it said I'd opted to never save passwords for google and earthlink. I don't remember doing that, but I deleted both sites and it appears that might have been responsible because I use my Google account to log into Disqus.

Ok then, I'm on Brave for another trial run!

eta, it didn't last long. It continues to log me out of Disqus if I so much as refresh the page or open a new tab. Ugh.

eta, I might be on another trial run. If I turn off fingerprinting for that specific website, it seems to behave.