Friday

02010-12-31 | Uncategorized | 7 comments

On Wednesday my Flickr accounted reverted to the free non-pro version with 200 images. There was barely any life left in it and so I put it out of its misery with a kill-shot. While I was at it I also deleted the Yahoo account I was forced to open to sign into my Flickr account. Does Yahoo really matter anymore? Would anybody care if it disappeared altogether? I don’t think I would even notice.

Came across this quote:

Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die | Magazine
The topsoil has been scraped away, forever, in 2010. In fact, it’s been dug up, thrown into the air, and allowed to rain down and coat everyone in a thin gray-brown mist called the Internet.

I may refer to the internet as gray-brown mist from now on.

Been spending a few hours in the studio every day and “Santa Fe”, formerly known as “The Santa Fe Sessions”, is coming together nicely. When I compare the sound to the old release, these new mixes sound so much nicer. Re-mixing NF for the year 2000 release was a big fail, because the source material just wasn’t recorded very well. We would crank the EQ and nothing would happen… there was nothing hidden, nothing else to be discovered or released. But TSFS was recorded very well, in fact the recording was done at 24/48kHz and so is quite a bit better than CD quality.

Friday Morning. Slept in. Almost 07:30 here, and apparently only 4.9º on the armpit scale. (Fahrenheit – only popular in the USA and Belize)

Looking west the mountains around Los Alamos are lit up in a most beautiful way, but there is no way I am walking outside in my pajamas to snap a photo, and by the time I am dressed for it, the light will be gone. You’ll have to take my word for it.

Is this the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, or was 2010 the beginning of the second decade… I always forget how that works. Is it 0-9 or 1-10?

Upon further reflection I have decided that the decade lasted from 2001 to 2010. It always starts with the first year, not with the year zero. One does not declare that this is the year zero, rather one announces that this is the first year of the new calendar. At least that’s probably what all the old Chinese emperors declared when they started their reign. Therefore a decade is year one through ten, or eleven through twenty, or 2001 through 2010.

And why can’t non-Christians use an absolute number for dating? Is it that writing the year 4,540,000,000 takes too long? Or, even better, 4.54e+9

I also like the ancient Chinese way of starting afresh with every new emperor. Maybe the UN should announce that we are making a fresh start, and tomorrow will be the start of year one. We will take Climate Change serious, we will make changes, we will ride more bicycle, we will be compassionate and so on. On second thought, maybe that list should start with being more compassionate… And if we fail during the first year, we could start over and do year one again, until we get it right. It would get mighty confusing though, because I bet we would be stuck in year one for a long time.

Brian Eno’s Keynote Speech from the Rolex Young Laureates Awards (Vimeo)
Look out for the banana!!!

The Salman Khan academy Eno mentioned in his speech can be found here.

From the Upaya newsletter:

Darkness is only driven out with light, not more darkness.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

From Fripp’s website:

When we act as we like, we may get what we want.
But not what we need.

In other words, eat your kale.

Hm, on Christmas I served a risotto with peas (and parmeggiano and white wine) on a bed of steamed kale… delightful.

Happy New Year to all of you!

PS:
The March Euro tour is now threatening to hit a total of nine countries. I am looking forward to performing in new locations and seeing, I hope, something beside the venues (to see more I must sleep less), but I am not looking forward to the necessary travel. We are very excited about the tour and hope it is just the start of a regular journey. Hopefully everything will get nailed down next week and I can let you know the schedule.

7 Comments

  1. James

    Happy New Year everyone! I like it here, where the air is clearer, above the grey-brown mist.

    Reply
  2. Vic

    I was checking my contact list on Flickr and noticed that your name was not listed. Checked here and found out why. I enjoyed the images you posted there but will continue to do so on your Photoblog.

    Happy New Year!

    Reply
  3. Steve(Brokerbiker)

    Re: This decade- What I have never been able to determine, is what was the consensus opinion for the name of this decade? Was it the Ought Decade? The Zero Decade? I heard R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, as an intro to the song Houston, say in 2008 that we all had 2 years left to salvage the decade- I am not sure we did. Any way, Happy New Year to all, and may you make 2011 your best year yet.

    Reply
  4. Adam Solomon

    “And why can’t non-Christians use an absolute number for dating? Is it that writing the year 4,540,000,000 takes too long? Or, even better, 4.54e+9”

    Pfft you know the answer to that :) Margin of errors scientists have are way too damn big. So we’d have to pick an arbitrary start date (say, 4.54e+9 years ago from today) and then we’ve got a calendar that’s no less arbitrary than the first one. Plus it’ll be a real mouthful to say “Happy 4.540000001e+9!” next new years.

    And strictly speaking why go by the creation of the Earth? As it is that was an event which likely took years (even thousands of years, depending on what you count as part of the process). Clearly we should go by years to the Big Bang. In that case, Happy (13.76 +/- 0.11)e+9* everybody!

    Can’t wait to hear the March EU tour schedule, we have a break in the last few weeks of March so maybe I’ll be able to fit it in with travel plans!

    *WMAP7+BAO+H0 estimate (Komatsu et al. 2010, arXiv:1001.4538)

    Reply
  5. Carol Anderson

    And you’d think a baby would be 1 year old when they were approximately 3 months old. Hard to think of those babies being 0 when they’re born.
    As for time, I think digital time is more accurate feeling. It doesn’t look like it’s coming back all over again like a circle.

    Reply
  6. Brenda

    Measure time? Hmm 26 years ago I was in labor with my oldest son and thankfully he was born 24 hours later on New Years Day. New perspective of measuring time began for me.
    Thanks Ottmar for introducing me to Flickr! I appreciate the still photo moments. Thanks for your offer for us to download your photos but I felt like they were not my photos to take, so glad I never downloaded them. It was great to view all your photos though!
    Happy New year “YALL” :-)

    Reply
  7. Gudrun

    Ottmar, 2006/2007 hatte ich oft die Gelegenheit, deine tollen Fotos auf flickr zu betrachten, Kommentare dazu zu schreiben. Bilder von deinen Konzerten und Reisen. Das hat großen Spaß gemacht! Aber alles zu seiner Zeit. Denn nun kommst du wieder nach Deutschland – und das ist 1000mal besser als die Fotos auf flickr. Ich freue mich wahnsinnig – meine Kinder und ich sind am 27.03. wieder in München dabei und sind sehr neugierig auf Luna Negra. Bis dahin eine gute Zeit und herzliche Grüße aus Fürth! Gudrun

    Reply

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