Max: Brain Dump 1001
I am a geek. I like learning things that not everybody is interested in. I like challenges many would find annoying. Today I had geek day.
I started today wearing my music hat. I mentioned previously that the focus right now for my bass guitar practice was getting more familiar with scales and modes. To that end I have started writing out the scales and modes for each note of the western 12-note octave. I could easily look this up on a website or in a book. But it is more challenging and therefore more interesting to do it myself. The main challenge for me is that some notes can be "spelled" differently. D-sharp and E-flat are different ways of writing the same note. When writing out a scale or mode - or any music - one spelling will usually make more sense than the other. But it is not always apparent which makes more sense until one writes out the whole scale/mode/piece and looks at it as a whole. In the end, I am certain that going to this trouble will make it easier to internalize and have on hand when I need them. This project will take a few days to complete. Theoretically there is a scale for every combination of some or all of the notes in the octave. As a practical matter, there are a few dozen such combinations that come into play in most music. But it still will take a while.
After that, I turned to math. I can't imagine most people I know having any interest in sitting at a computer watching dry math videos they downloaded from the 'net. I can't even imagine them taking the trouble to download them. But I spent 2 hours today watching such videos. I like math because it is a puzzle. For instance, in one of the videos, the host was graphing two equations. For the life of me, the graph made no sense. It was maddening. I wanted to scream, "Explain yourself!" But after going back and watching it three or four times, it hit me. Suddenly random lines on a graph made complete sense to me and my brain was kind enough to release some endorphins. And with a subject such as mathematics, one can study for one's whole life and still have more to learn. So I can look forward to a lifetime of endorphins perking up my system.
I read. Admittedly reading has not been a challenge since since about the second grade. And I do know more people who read than who watch math videos or write out scales. But I don't know anybody whose tastes are quite a eclectic I know people who love fiction.. I know people who love sci fi. I know people who love comic books. I know people who read history or science or political books. Me, I will read almost anything. When a clerk in a bookstore asks me if they can find anything, I want to say, "Enough money to buy one of every book you have and enough time to read them." I am not bragging. If anything this is a cry for help. At least help buying books. There is nothing that I don't want to read about. This is especially true for non-fiction. I love a good story, but when I am looking through the non-fiction section, it takes all my will to not grab every book I see.
Then there are computers, the ultimate geek toy. I found out today that VMWare offers a free version of their Player virtual machine software. For those who don't know, a virtual machine a piece of software that fools another piece of software into thinking it is running on different hardware than it is. What is the value of this? I have long been a Windows user. I know my way around XP and while it keeps my computer running well enough, I want to learn something new. Specifically, I want to learn about Linux. The problem is I don't have ready access to a Linux machine and I am not confident enough to blank out Starbug so I can replace XP completely. With Player on my computer, I will be able to run Linux on top of Windows. I will have the chance to learn it backwards and forwards until I come to the conclusion that I am ready to leave Windows behind. For most of the day, I have been downloading Ubuntu, which is a popular new Debian based Linux distro. If the last part of the last sentence is gibberish too you, I apologize but it will take too long to explain. It has been downloading for about ten hours and still has twelve percent left to go. In the days of dialup, I would have to lock up my phone line for days to download a file this size. But now it takes mere hours and tomorrow I will be loading it up for some hardcore Linux geeking in addition to my music and math geeking.
Of course, I won't have quite as much geek time tomorrow as I normally do. Laura has this thing where she thinks I need to actually interact with people on occasion, so she is making me go to The Funny Bone with her and some friends. I am sure I will have a good time. As of late, anything that is not one of my geek activities is initially seen as a highly suspect eater of my finite time. But eventually I realize that one can have fun away from the computer. Perhaps is will not be the sublime fun that comes from my geek activities.
The one thing I will need to do for sure tomorrow is to work on my next Brain Dump earlier in the day. At this time tomorrow I will be away from Starbug and by the time I get home I will likely be too tired to write.
Until tomorrow remember, the geek shall inherit the Earth.
I started today wearing my music hat. I mentioned previously that the focus right now for my bass guitar practice was getting more familiar with scales and modes. To that end I have started writing out the scales and modes for each note of the western 12-note octave. I could easily look this up on a website or in a book. But it is more challenging and therefore more interesting to do it myself. The main challenge for me is that some notes can be "spelled" differently. D-sharp and E-flat are different ways of writing the same note. When writing out a scale or mode - or any music - one spelling will usually make more sense than the other. But it is not always apparent which makes more sense until one writes out the whole scale/mode/piece and looks at it as a whole. In the end, I am certain that going to this trouble will make it easier to internalize and have on hand when I need them. This project will take a few days to complete. Theoretically there is a scale for every combination of some or all of the notes in the octave. As a practical matter, there are a few dozen such combinations that come into play in most music. But it still will take a while.
After that, I turned to math. I can't imagine most people I know having any interest in sitting at a computer watching dry math videos they downloaded from the 'net. I can't even imagine them taking the trouble to download them. But I spent 2 hours today watching such videos. I like math because it is a puzzle. For instance, in one of the videos, the host was graphing two equations. For the life of me, the graph made no sense. It was maddening. I wanted to scream, "Explain yourself!" But after going back and watching it three or four times, it hit me. Suddenly random lines on a graph made complete sense to me and my brain was kind enough to release some endorphins. And with a subject such as mathematics, one can study for one's whole life and still have more to learn. So I can look forward to a lifetime of endorphins perking up my system.
I read. Admittedly reading has not been a challenge since since about the second grade. And I do know more people who read than who watch math videos or write out scales. But I don't know anybody whose tastes are quite a eclectic I know people who love fiction.. I know people who love sci fi. I know people who love comic books. I know people who read history or science or political books. Me, I will read almost anything. When a clerk in a bookstore asks me if they can find anything, I want to say, "Enough money to buy one of every book you have and enough time to read them." I am not bragging. If anything this is a cry for help. At least help buying books. There is nothing that I don't want to read about. This is especially true for non-fiction. I love a good story, but when I am looking through the non-fiction section, it takes all my will to not grab every book I see.
Then there are computers, the ultimate geek toy. I found out today that VMWare offers a free version of their Player virtual machine software. For those who don't know, a virtual machine a piece of software that fools another piece of software into thinking it is running on different hardware than it is. What is the value of this? I have long been a Windows user. I know my way around XP and while it keeps my computer running well enough, I want to learn something new. Specifically, I want to learn about Linux. The problem is I don't have ready access to a Linux machine and I am not confident enough to blank out Starbug so I can replace XP completely. With Player on my computer, I will be able to run Linux on top of Windows. I will have the chance to learn it backwards and forwards until I come to the conclusion that I am ready to leave Windows behind. For most of the day, I have been downloading Ubuntu, which is a popular new Debian based Linux distro. If the last part of the last sentence is gibberish too you, I apologize but it will take too long to explain. It has been downloading for about ten hours and still has twelve percent left to go. In the days of dialup, I would have to lock up my phone line for days to download a file this size. But now it takes mere hours and tomorrow I will be loading it up for some hardcore Linux geeking in addition to my music and math geeking.
Of course, I won't have quite as much geek time tomorrow as I normally do. Laura has this thing where she thinks I need to actually interact with people on occasion, so she is making me go to The Funny Bone with her and some friends. I am sure I will have a good time. As of late, anything that is not one of my geek activities is initially seen as a highly suspect eater of my finite time. But eventually I realize that one can have fun away from the computer. Perhaps is will not be the sublime fun that comes from my geek activities.
The one thing I will need to do for sure tomorrow is to work on my next Brain Dump earlier in the day. At this time tomorrow I will be away from Starbug and by the time I get home I will likely be too tired to write.
Until tomorrow remember, the geek shall inherit the Earth.
posted by Max Dobberstein at 10/20/2006 06:30:00 PM
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