A little over a month ago or so I finally broke down and got a copy of the soundtrack for Naqoyqatsi, the third film in the Qatsi Trilogy. The selling point of the soundtrack was that the music was supposed to be a collaboration between Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist who I’ve heard plays the cello as though it was an electric guitar. Well, I was mostly impressed by the music.

The thing about Philip Glass is that as a composer he’s mostly known for his style as epitomized in works like Glassworks. This style includes extensive use of repeated arpeggios, repeated semi-syncopated rhythms, and other repated tidbits. In truth, Glass is not only an incredibly prolific composer, but his music is also much more diversified than anyone really gives him credit for. He imported African and Middle Eastern rhythms, harmonies, and other musical elements in Powaqqatsi, eastern music elements in Kundun, and so on. Contrary to popular belief, Glass’s music can be quite lyrical.

I suppose I could go on and on about the virtues about Philip Glass. Well, in any case, after getting the Naqoyqatsi soundtrack, I wanted to get more Philip Glass music I hadn’t heard before. So I went on Amazon and looked for the cheapest Philip Glass CD I could get. What do I get but a CD on the American Classics label. The title of the CD is simply stated: Philip Glass: Violin Concerto. In addition to the Violin Concerto, the CD also has Company, and the Prelude and Dance from Akhnaten. I had heard the first two movements of Company played before by the Kronos Quartet. Rather than a string quartet, this recording of Company utilizes a whole string orchestra. Needless to say this recording is much different in a way that’s both refreshing and jolting. It’s refreshing in that I got to hear a new interpretation of a piece of music I had heard before. It’s jolting in that I’m used to the music being performed in a certain way, and this recording doen’t give me what I’m already used to.

It’s nice, in the end, to get challenged on what I think is the right way to play a piece of music, and as it happens, I like this CD, too.

From time to time, a scam has to change its name to protect itself. In the case of Vector Marketing / Cutco Knives, they changed their website, but not their name. I had noticed new flyers around the campus that looked kind of similar to the workforstudents.com flyers, so I started to tear one down until I realized it was advertising a site called earnparttime.com. Checking out their website, I came to realize, its the same damn scam. Before long, many of those flyers will go where they belong: in the garbage.

Well, it’s a new school year on Monday and this one will probably be my most challenging year. Along with being a media head, I’ll have classes to attend. Thankfully I’ll be back in the University Singers, and we’ll be performing again at Spivey Hall in November. For me, I’ve found that I can accomplish more in a Semester when I’m in the chorus. It’s an activity from which I derive a great deal of energy.

This semester, I’ll also finally be taking my first actual class on planning. Even though I’ve alredy read up a little on the subject, I’m still wondering how well I’ll do in the class. In addtion to the textbook, there’s going to be a bunch of reading from outside sources to go through.

My other two classes will be Management classes. One will be a class called “Operations Management.” From looking at the textbook, it looks like it’ll be based around math. The other class will be a class called “Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management.” I haven’t gotten a chance to look at a syllabus for either of those two classes yet, so I have very little idea of what I’m getting into for either class.

Somehow, I was able to design my schedule so that I don’t have a single class that begins before 1:00. Part of this happened because I chose a couple of evening classes, both of which meet one day a week from 4:30 to 7:00. Okay, well, the planning class wasn’t really a choice because i do have to graduate eventually. In any case, as per my usual custom, I’ve posted my schedule on my student web page.

After some bit of programming, I’ve gotten my books section pretty much together. The list of books I have is categorized, and anyone can comment on any of the books listed. I’m gradually adding my own comments, but it will tak a while to fill it all.

Of course you can purchase the book by clicking on the dollar sign. A portion of that purchase will go toward the “help Joe get even more books” fund.

For those who don’t know about RSS, I could try to take a moment to explain what it is by explaining the problem that it solves. Have you ever noticed how much information there is on the web? If you ever find yourself constantly browsing through a particular string of websites, some of which update regularly, some of which update irregularly, and just get tired of all that browsing, you may find it useful to know that some of those websites syndicate the information they publish using RSS technology. You could download a desktop application (I’m using Awasu, though there are others out there) and it would tell you which sites have been updated and give you a list of headlines.

A new post on Awasu’s blog points out an implication of RSS technology in a blog post titled “Power to the People.” The importance of RSS is that it gives the end user greater ability to filter through information. With all the noise out there in the information world, the ability to filter out that noise is becoming increasingly important to all of us. For those of us who actually pay attention to the news, it’s also becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between news and commentary. What I prefer to keep in mind here is to pay attention to articles and stories that are relevant, informative, and factual. As for commentary, it’s more important to me that opinions are backed up by facts that can be independently verified, and that details that undercut an argument are not left out.

In a recent column, Bill O’Reilly makes some rather arrogant statements about himself (suprise, suprise) and his employer. He claims Fox takes on a “populist-traditional, pro-American editorial posture,” then claims that Fox is not a conservative network. So, which is it? populist-traditional and pro-American, or not conservative? Why be pro-American? Why not be a credible journalistic organization with an obligation to the truth, even if the truth doesn’t necessarily advance American interests?

Well, in any case, I digress. This post is really suppsed to have something to do with RSS and its importance.

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is that while the Internet has helped bring about more free-flowing information and lots and lots of noise to accompany the information, RSS is here to bring some order to that chaos. Not to mention, this is order that is controlled at the level of the end user. This is a power that can undercut any self-proclaimed populist like O’Reilly. He should feel threatened not by Al Franken, but by the order gradually brought to the chaos and noise of the Internet. With more order, I’d be willing to bet that information becomes more coherent; the situation leads us to more easily discriminate between noise and credible information.

Today is Fair and Balanced day. In honor of that, I’m going to link back to a blog where I refer to Rupert Murdoch’s contempt for our right to vote.

Thanks to Greg for pointing out Fair and Balanced Day.

It’s not perfect, but the site is coming along. I’m really happy with how quickly I’ve been able to build this main template.

Of course, the next challenge will be to redo the comments template, which is a really sucky template, especially if you use Internet Exploder, like most of us out there. I’m not sure about you, but when I click on the Comments link, the window I get has no text in it until I scroll around. Then, the text magically appears. Whatever the problem is, the comments template deserves to be a little more easy for my video card to render.

There’s still much more to be done to the main page in any case, but I’ve got no big complaints outside the tedium associated with fixing one little thing at a time. Feel free to make suggestions on color schemes, etc. I was previously content with my links on the sidebar being the light bright blue that it is, but when I think about it, it doesn’t seem to be all that good for the eyes.

I’m sure you’re really thrilled to hear about all this. Of course by now, I could just use some really good scotch. Meanwhile, new news to come soon.

As you can see, I’m now in the midst of making the full switchover to Movable Type. Right now, this website is really really ugly. Hopefully that will give me an extra incentive to get a rush on completing my template.

Perhaps someday, my entire website will be MT driven. That all depends on whether I can actually figure out all the features this system offers and how to take advantage of those features.

I’m sure you’re really intrigued by all this, but this is only one of the ways I’m spending my break between Semesters.

In the current reading section, I’m finishing up American Psycho, which I can assure you is an entirely disturbing book. I think I’m just going to have to put off following American Psycho with Leviathan and try to concentrate on reading something a little more optimistic.

In the world of Rampway Online, things seem to be coming together. We’re going to spend the first week covering Panther Welcome Week in pictures, then our first official issue for the year will come out September 3. Am I excited? Hell, yeah.

As you can see, I’m moving to a new Blogging system. This one, Movable Type, is pretty neat. Greg uses it, and he seems pretty happy with it. Once I get my design template up and working, rather than the default template, I’ll move this on over to the root and this whole thing will be back up and running.

Well, I’m apparently not the only one who thinks Friendster is pretty nifty.

In other news, I made a feeble attempt at trying to install Movable Type on my domain today. Somehow I can’t get ANY perl scripts to work on this darn thing. It just doesn’t want to cooperate. Is there any thing that offers the same thing as Movable Type, but is written in php? Anything out there?