The myth of Apple was bad news for RIM

I noticed that FutureShop online still has lots of BlackBerry Playbooks available.  The reviews on the site are overwhelmingly positive.  Given that you can get 3 Playbooks for a single iPad, which do you think is a better value?  When the upgraded version of QNX comes out in February 2012 with Android support, the Playbook will be the cheapest, quality tablet out there.  Playbooks are built in Taiwan by Quanta and the build quality is superior to the cheap knock off Android tablets that proliferate the internet.  There was an article recently about how dominant Apple is in the tablet market and how that's not about to change unless the price point issue is addressed.  That's why Amazon Kindle is making it.  Amazon is taking a loss on the hardware so that they can make more further up the food chain with software and content (like gaming consoles).  I really hope RIM can turn it around.  Mike Lazaridis helped found the Perimeter Institute.  What did Steve Jobs ever do other than enrich himself and Apple?

Interestingly, it appears that you can change the Playbook battery yourself (unlike the Apple iPad!).  Here's a teardown guide.  I guess well-heeled Apple iPad buyers wouldn't care to worry about such details and would simply buy and iPad 3 instead (and fall for more of Apple's masterful marketing pitch to buy more expensive Apple toys).

We got an LG Shine Plus at London Drugs today.  Going with prepaid service on Telus.  I won't be using that phone though!

Banded clouds on Saturday, December 17th

2011 November 17 (Saturday)

2011 November 17 (Saturday)

As I was driving east on 105th St in Sutherland Saturday morning @ 11 AM, I noticed some striking banded clouds in the sky.  The clouds appeared again on Sunday morning.  I uploaded some photos to share for school and also the two pictured above onto the Weather Network.  Another viewer uploaded two other photos of banded clouds yesterday:

2011 November 18 (Sunday)

2011 November 18 (Sunday)

An explanation for these parallel bands of clouds is given here.

Brahms Symphonies set on DVD with Bernstein

I got this 2 DVD set in the mail from Musical Heritage Society this past Wednesday (for about $20 postage included).  I was pleasantly surprised to see that each symphony is prefaced with an introduction by Leonard Bernstein.  It is an education to hear a composer speak about another composer's work.  I viewed the 1st Symphony on Thursday and this evening I'm looking at the 4th Symphony.  The way Bernstein describes Brahms disciplined classicism and how it related to his life was interesting indeed.  He mentioned how this controlled rage (at the end of the symphony) could be interpreted in terms of his all too short relationship with Robert Schumann, his childlessness (like Beethoven) and the snubbing by his hometown, Hamburg.  He went on to describe the passacaglia section on the piano.  A great addition to my collection indeed.  I will return!

I also note who the first cello is here - Robert Scheiwein (as it was in the Pollini/Abbado recording of the 2nd Piano Concerto).  For the Zimerman/Bernstein recording of the 2nd piano concerto it was the bearded cellist who sits beside him (Wolfgang Herzer).  Scheiwein just passed away this past July. The concert master is the one who I see the most often (I think Rainer Küchl).  Sometimes, it's a another person (there are 2 other concert masters during that era).  The associate concert master is Werner Hink. The Vienna Philharmonic doesn't have a permanent conductor.  That's why in the word of von Karajan when asked what the difference is between the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, said "the Berlin Philharmonic just does what you ask, the Vienna Philharmonic asks why?".

My favorite solo piano work

There is nothing like the last bars of Schumann's Fantasy in C, Opus 17.  I discovered this 30 minute solo from Murray Perahia's CBS recording in the 1980s.  It opens with such passion and ends with a serene question.  Wow.  I really liked a CJRT conversation between Paul Robinson and Bruce Surtees about this piano work.  That was on a Sunday afternoon in Toronto during the late 1980s.   They really had some insights that I enjoyed listening to (the question Schumann poses at the very end for one).  I've just listened to Géza Anda's recording form the 1960s and the last few minutes are as beautiful as anything I will ever hear.  I've not listened to Schumann as much as I usually do the last few months.  So, I think it's about time I start listening to more Schumann piano music (like the Symphonic Etudes played by Anda which I'm currently enjoying on a lunch hour).

I left my heart in San Francisco

Point Reyes

Point Bonita

Great Beach, Point Reyes

Scanned the picture of the Marin Headlands just by the Golden Gate Bridge.  The photo was dated 1993 March 27.  That was the last time I was in San Francisco.  I was there to do some training at Stanford with IRIS to learn how to use their seismometers which would be used for the Trans-Hudson Orogen Transect of Lithoprobe.  San Francisco is the place I would choose to live if I had a choice.  They have a great orchestra too!  Added 3 more photos on December 8th, the San Francisco Symphony's 100th birthday. Will my dream come true?

Looking towards Point Bonita