Apple Harvest 2013

This year was a bountiful apple crop for both apple trees in our yard.  The Norland has produced a nice crop of sweet red apples almost every year.  It's apples are the shape of red delicious apples and the largest we had this year were the size of small red delicious apples.  Most of them were pretty small though.  They are great for eating and smoothies.  We bought our Norland at Westview Co-op about 9 years ago for about $40.

Norland apple tree

Our green apple tree, a Heyer 12 cultivar, finally had a nice crop of apples three years after being transplanted to make way for a blue spruce.  It was planted on Canada Day about 9 years ago too.  We bought it at Superstore for about $20. I think it's roots have finally recovered.  It had only a handful of apples last year.  Its fruit is quite sour, but it's great for cooking.

Heyer 12 apple tree

Heyer 12 apples

We made some apple crisp with the Heyer 12 apples tonight:

We didn't grow any snow peas this year, but the tallest Russian mammoth sunflower in the front is over 5 feet tall now.  Hopefully, the recent hot weather will mean we will have a harvest of sunflower seeds again this year.  The two sunflowers I planted in a pot in the back patio last year was a popular spot for a red wing blackbird this past spring - the two flowers were picked pretty clean.  The birds got most of our Saskatoon berries this year despite covering them with netting, so it's nice to have the Heyer 12 apples this year.

Russian Mammoth Sunflower

This geranium has been saved over the winter at Aden Bowman the last two winters and is blooming nicely.

Summer Music Festivals!

On our first day (July 28) in the Laurentians, my brother found a concert with the Gryphon Trio.  We went up to Mont Tremblant village and listened to the trio peform Mozart, Debussy and Ravel.  Afterwards, Alexandre Da Costa signed his latest CD for us.  James Parker and Alexandre Da Costa also took a photo with my two kids.  A nice concert from Festival Classiques des Hautes-Laurentides.

On August 8, we went to Stratford Summer Music to listen to 17 year old Jan Lisiecki.  He also gave us a photo op and signed our CDs for us!  He played a selection of Chopin Preludes and the Beethoven 3rd Piano Concerto with a string quintet (Annex String Quartet).  A very nice young man indeed.  He has grown musically and technically since I heard him in Saskatoon (fall 2011).

Summer Strings Experience 2013

This year, the Saskatoon Suzuki Strings Summer Strings Experience is being held at Cornerstone Church.  It is a very beautiful and well designed building.  More than I expected (past SSE's were held at the University of Saskatchewan Education Building).  Here's Noah's Ark on the second floor:

The ark is actually made of wood (you can't really tell from this photo).  Click here for some audio of the performances.

2013 Infographic

These are the things that have driven my worklife these last few years.  I prefer Open Source technologies and tools because they allow anyone to customise them and use them for free (freedom in creativity and free from cost).  I was told last week during the Earth Science 30 curriculum writing, "you have more knowledge than money?".  Sadly, with the commodities crash, that is truer than ever.  Some of the Open Source tools I use include

• LibreOffice (office suite)
• Audacity (audio editing tool)
• VLC Player (media player)
• Ubuntu Linux
• Inkscape (vector drawing program)
• Python (programming language)
• PHP (programming language)
• MySQL Database
• Xibo digital signage

I've also been drawn to Creative Commons as a way to use and share knowledge freely (as with one of my best ideas from last year - analysing sound with Audacity).  Think Python, the textbook I use in CS30 is a Creative Commons resource.

Quite a few of the tools listed above involve computer programming and this skill has allowed me to be more efficient in my work and has saved others time as well.  The entry and collection of activity points data is not as onerous now as student numbers are not needed and PHP scripts can glean whatever data one desires from a MySQL database. I also use free tools like the visual languages Scratch and SNAP and these languages have allowed me to offer an alternate stream of CS20.  I still use a commercial language, Delphi, for Windows programming because I like Pascal and was never a C++ programmer.

The economy and politics are important interests of mine.  The consequences of the inverted demographic pyramid in developed countries is a concern practically and theoretically.  I do not subscribe to 'right wing' or 'left wing' because they are not useful ideas and just lead to divisions.  I found Niall Ferguson's Reith Lectures from 2012 to be quite illuminating.  The injustice of my homeland, Taiwan, being treated as a pariah nation and the largely forgotten San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 which is the rule of law which governs Taiwan's status are causes which are close to my heart.

My mentor, Jerry Mitrovica, is respectful of ideas.  This comment from an online chat a few years back illustrates his wisdom:

12:48 Comment From duncan rutherford: When you and your colleagues hear about things like the iranian cleric who said that women dressing provocatively can cause earthquakes, do you find it funny, or is it frustrating?
12:54 Jerry Mitrovica: I do not think it is funny, nor do I feel frustrated. We live in a world informed by complex cultural issues, and the important thing is for scientists to push for their research results into the public domain. We have an important role in society - to provide information gained through rigorous scientific methods - that is part of the reason I agreed to do this online chat.

Finally, music is of paramount importance in my family. My two boys prefer the violin to piano, but their dad's favorite playlist is heavily slanted towards piano:

• Mozart Piano Concerto 25, KV 503 (espcially the last movement)
• Beethoven's last piano sonata, Opus 111
• Schumann's Fantasie, Opus 17
• Chopin's Barcorolle, Opus 60
• Brahms Intermezzo Opus 118, Nr 2
• Bruch Violin Concerto Nr 1

 These glories reenforce my belief in the divine, for how else could one explain Beethoven's last three piano sonatas? Some day, I hope to fully enjoy the hundreds of CDs I have and listen to some of my favorite artists live! We had just such an opportunity this past summer at Mont Tremblant and Stratford!  We got to listen to the Gryphon Trio and Jan Lisiecki during a couple of summer music festivals!.

Stratford Summer Music 2013

Festival Classique des Hautes-Laurentides

A look at free GIS software

In preparation for teaching Earth Science 30 next January, I started looking at GIS in education.  I started with a link from DLSE.  This activity used an ancient piece of software called Arc Voyager which doesn't let you save anything.  I then tried Arc GIS Explorer.  I was trying to find some data and found this page with free Saskatchewan data.  I signed up so I could download Saskatoon elevation data from GeoBase.  I was looking at some of the info that came with the zip file and read it was raster data.  So, I added this to Arc GIS Explorer and got this:

Not sure what use this is.  I am now going to try Falcon View which was a 200 Mbyte download.

Well, I installed Falcon View, but I had to browse to the install folder to see where the app was.  Ran the app and it didn't do anything. Well, not a good start for this open source product!  Since it makes a folder called Xplan, I went to the start menu and tried to run the shortcut from the start menu (Xplan folder).  I saw that the error on the splash screen was initialisation failed.  Hmmmm.

Earlier today, I took the PDF of Elbow basement topography and saved it as a JPG.  I then imported this JPG into LoggerPro for photo analysis.  Unfortunately, I couldn't zoom in on the photo.  I was trying to do a profile on the map and get the x data (distance along the profile).  Later on, I was going to add the elevation data manually.  No luck since I can't zoom in on the image!  I was thinking of using Adobe Illustrator (or maybe Inkscape), but I haven't tried that yet.

Géza Anda , MySQL and PHP

The past two years, I've remembered Géza Anda's passing on this blog.  I was so busy this year I forgot.  I've been listening to a lot of Ivan Moravec these days, but I pulled out some of my favorite Anda recordings again.  The Schumann Fantasie and Symphonic Etudes played by Anda are always interesting.  He can really rush things sometimes.  I think I should pull out the Mozart piano concerto set I was given last Christmas too.  I've been listening to Murray Perahia's set in my car.

Tonight, I figured out how to make receipts from a MySQL database.  It's nothing fancy.  I just used PHP to read the records from MySQL and then had it generate numbered receipts by using HTML tables to format them.  I also figured out how to use PHP to display an RSS feed on this page.  I really like open source.  My default office suite is LibreOffice.  Python, Inkscape and Audacity are among the other open source tools I use.  I used Audacity to analyse sound and I used it in my kid's grade 4 class to check who could play a violin note in tune.

Today, a student had trouble with a Powerpoint file generated from a Mac app (not Office Mac).  I had asked her to save it as PPTX, but that was not possible as she didn't have Office Mac.  I converted the slides to images and was about to insert an image library into Powerpoint 2010 when I remembered an online conversion service.  The Mac PPT wouldn't load into Powerpoint 2010 but it did load into LibreOffice 3.5 with glitches (funny how the open source product worked better huh?). I remembered a service I had used successfully before.  I did a Google search "z format conversion" and found Zamzar.  The offending PPT was uploaded to Zamzar and within a few minutes, I was sent an e-mail with a link to the converted file.  Voila, it worked!  The audio files were in M4A format.  I tried VLC Player to convert to MP3 without success.  Next I used Adobe Soundbooth to convert M4A to MP3 and it worked.  Finally, I use Audacity to edit her 3 converted MP3 audio clips together as the background music for the PPT.  I am more familiar with Audacity than SoundBooth (that's why I didn't edit and merge the clips from SoundBooth).

Piano Recital Day

Today was piano recital day for students of the Saskatoon Yamaha Music School.  In the afternoon, there were group lesson recitals and in the evening, there was a wide variety of music from private lesson students.  Their teacher played a Mozart fantasia to start off the evening recital.  It wasn't KV 475, but maybe it was KV 397.  I must admit I don't listen to very much solo Mozart.  Incidentally, we heard the Twinkle variations this morning on the radio (I think it was Janina Fialkowska's recording) on the way to the Forestry Farm Park.  The Ohio Buckeyes are starting to bloom there.

Ohio Buckeye, Forestry Farm Park

Ohio Buckeye Blossom

We have an Ohio Buckeye in our backyard and it blossomed for the first ime last year.  I admired the European Horse Chestnuts in Toronto when they bloomed in June.  They are a common street tree in southern Ontario.  I saw some beautiful specimens by the lake in Oakville last summer.  It's too cold to grow them in Saskatchewan, so I planted an Ohio Buckeye on 2008 August 30.

This year, I've been listening to several Ivan Moravec solo albums.  I got his Vox Chopin album from Passionato (now defunct it seems).  There is a Youtube that goes with this album.  Unfortunately, my CD had a pressing defect and I ordered another through Amazon.ca Marketplace.  I'm still immersed in this Chopin album after first hearing it in February.  Next I got the Vox double CD album of Chopin and Debussy.  I don't appreciate Debussy too much, but the Chopin is a favorite CD now.  Love the Polonaise Fantasie!  I've always liked Pollini's version, but this one has better, fuller sound.  I also got his double CD of Mozart concerti with Marriner.  Finally, a 4 CD piano recital box has recently arrived and I'm looking forward to a summer of Ivan Moravec's playing.

Salvaging a password protected laptop

I had the task of trying to resurrect an older Dell Inspiron laptop.  Unfortunately, somebody set a hardware password on the BIOS.  Unlike a desktop, this is not a simple matter of setting a jumper to erase the password.   I was stuck.

Then I thought, if I could install Windows Vista on the laptop hard drive with another machine (in this case a Dell desktop),  I could then pop the hard drive back into the laptop and see if it would boot with the reinstalled Windows Vista.  Unfortunately, I got the blue screen of death.  No luck.  I suppose if I could get my hands on a similar Dell Inspiron laptop, this could work.

However, I then thought of trying Ubuntu Linux.  I took out the laptop hard drive again and hooked it up to the Dell desktop.  I installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS using the Dell desktop. LTS stands for long term service release and this means that version (relaeased in April 2012) will be supported for five years (until April 2017).  Ubuntu Linux releases occur every 6 months in October and April.  Every 2nd year, there is an LTS release in April. Then I put the hard drive back into the laptop and booted from Ubuntu Linux.  It worked.  I had to let it get software updates.  Some of the usual annoyances occured:

• needed to get VLC Player so it could play DVDs
• needed to get the propietary driver for the wireless network card
• needed to update Flash from the Software Centre so it could play Youtube
• needed to install IcedTea with the Firefox plugin so Java applets could run.

The last point was a real pain.  I tried Open JDK and it still didn't work with Firefox.  I installed Chromium hoping it would work with that browser, but it didn't.  Finally, I installed Iced Tea JRT.  It worked.  When I double clicked on a downloaded jar file to run it, security issues prevented me from running the jar file.  So, I had to set the properties of the jar file to executable and then it worked.  This is why Linux isn`t more popular, but now the hooped laptop can be used to surf the net and LibreOffice can be used as the office suite.

Victoria Day 2013

A full day and some photos of the garden.  Only one Russian Mammoth sunflower sprouted from my first planting.  I'm trying again with a second planting, but it is kind of late this year.

The Saskatoon berries are in bloom.

The Ohio Buckeye is starting to leaf as well.

In previous years, the Norland apple would already be blossoming.  This apple tree split at the main trunk during a storm in 2010 when it was loaded with a crop of apples.  It is healing well as we taped it together and it looks like it self-grafted itself nicely.  The little spruce seedling from last year did not survive though.

We also had a nice trip to the Barry Barn.

Peking Duck was on the menu for lunch!

Drumheller in May

I had the opportunity to accompany students to Red Deer, Alberta for the Festival of Bands.  On the way back, we stopped off at the Royal Tyrell Museum.  The aspens are still in their fresh lime green hue.  One of my favorite times of the year!

I always get a kick out of that sign!  Here is an aspen:

Robert Frost describes this time of year so perfectly:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. 

Got Raspberry Pi Running

This post was done on a Raspberry Pi running a version of Debian Linux.  The credit card sized board has 512 M RAM, an SD Card slot, an ethernet port and two USB ports.  I used an LG cell phone charger with 4.8 V at 700 mA to power it.  I also tried Scratch and Pygame on it.  The board was $55, the plastic case for it is $20 (ordered from Amazon.ca).  It can be bought for the original $35 price from here.  It is connected to my LG TV via HDMI.  I was using the Wheezy Debian distro.

One of the annoyances you may come across right away is when you try to type the @ symbol with shift 2 (it gives you a ").  This is because Raspberry Pi Debian distro is set for UK keyboard by default.  You need to type shift apostrophe to get the @ symbol on a North American keyboard.

Spectrum of a sodium vapor street light

I took the Carolina $10 spectroscope outside to observe the spectrum of a sodium vapour street lamp (the orange coloured ones).  I read lines at 500 nm, 515, nm and 590 nm.  Here is the sodium spectrum

Looking at the two part spectrum the lines I observed are indicated with arrows.  I also observed some of the blue lines, but couldn't make out the position on the ruler.

Cheap spectroscopy

I bought a $10 Carolina spectroscope from Merlan.  I pointed it at a CFL bulb and took a photo of the spectrum:

Now compare it to the mercury spectrum:
The spectrum peaks are at 435.835 nm (blue), 546.074 nm (green),  a pair at 576.959 nm and 579.065 nm (yellow-orange).  There are two lines at 404.656 nm and 407.781 nm and a faint line at 491.604 nm.

Compare this to the labelled spectrum of a fluorescent light from this site:

You can actually see the purple line with the spectroscope (it doesn't show up on the photo).  When I read the wavelengths from the spectroscope, it matches the numbers shown in the reference photo.  This is pretty good for $10!

When I pointed the spectroscope at a halogen lamp, the spectrum was more like a rainbow (full spectrum lighting).  This simulates natural sunlight much better than a CFL.  This link explains this phenomena very well.

A complete library of atomic spectra is found here.  This is very old, but it shows how to take better pictures of spectrometer spectra (click here).

I've also used this to look at the spectrum of a sodium vapour street light.

Dorian Recordings

In the 1990s, BMG Music Service setup shop in Canada briefly and competed with Columbia House.  It was great as I now had access to the PolyGram catalog (DG, Decca, Philips) at a discount. They also happened to offer CDs from Dorian, a small American lablel.  Along the way, I was introduced to Custer LaRue's recording of American folk songs by Bob Kerr (CBC Stereo, Off the Record).

One of the songs on this CD was the theme to the Friendly Giant.  Bob Kerr also introduced me to Juilanne Baird's recording of John Downland's song, Come Again (sheet music here).  Sting has performed this song too. I had not listened to this Julianne Baird CD for maybe 10 years and I pulled it out yesterday to listen to it.  Glorious!  It is certainly a young person's song.

Also, I heard about "The Art of the Bawdy Song" with the Baltimore Consort.  Rather more boorish music (and lyrics) here.

I was drawn back to these Dorian Recordings because on April 18th, my recording of Ivan Moravec playing the Schumann and Brahms Piano concerti arrived.  I had tried unsuccessfully to get it new from Amazon.ca, but an Ontario seller on Amazon.ca Marketplace had a used one for sale.  I've been listening to a lot of Ivan Moravec's Chopin from his Vox recordings lately.

How lucky that I have these fabulous Dorian CDs in my collection!

Sir Colin Davis

This morning, I heard the news of Sir Colin Davis' passing from an e-mail from Presto Classical.  I admired Sir Colin Davis for his Mozart conducting.  As a high schooler, I enjoyed the Philips records he made with Stephen Kovacevich.  The first Davis recording I had was a Philips Festivo LP of Mozart's Prague and Jupiter symphonies.  It was one of the first recordings of the Jupiter in which I heard the repeats in the final movement.

This morning, it happened that their recording of Mozart's KV 467 was playing in my car.  I think that is my favorite recording of KV 467.  Kovacevich's ornamentations in the slow movement really caught my ear the first time I heard it.

He is a musician I will miss, but we are so lucky that his recordings live on.