"Morality is one of the ideological functions in this [class] struggle. The ruling class forces its ends upon society and habituates it into considering all those means which contradict its ends as immoral. That is the chief function of official morality. It pursues the idea of the âgreatest possible happinessâ not for the majority but for a small and ever diminishing minority. Such a regime could not have endured for even a week through force alone. It needs the cement of morality. The mixing of this cement constitutes the profession of the petty-bourgeois theoreticians, and moralists. They dabble in all colors of the rainbow but in the final instance remain apostles of slavery and submission."
I will not recapitulate what others have said in tribute to Barry Vercoe. You can read the Wikipedia article, or Richard Boulangerâs tribute (which is quoted in full here), or look at Barryâs old home page at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or read his New Zealand obituary.
Here I will offer my personal thanks to Barry for creating what, in my considered opinion, is one of the best musical instruments in history â Csound. I use it for almost all of my musical compositions.
There are now other systems, such as Max or Supercollider, that can do all, or almost all, of what Csound does. However, Csound came first, and is an ancestor of these systems. For at least some composers, such as myself, Csound is still easier to use, and perhaps more powerful. And just because it is older, Csound has the huge advantage of a very large base of running musical examples and pieces.
Here I will also offer my appreciation of Barryâs design choices and his implementation of Csound. My appreciation is based on my own experience, not only as an intensive user, but also as a sometime member of the Csound development team, when I contributed a number of features to Csound and came to understand Barryâs outstanding ability as a computer programmer.
There are some things I definitely do not like about the Csound code, mainly the cryptic names, and the use of preprocessor macros. Aside from that, here are a few of the good things in Barryâs code:
Of course the big home run was writing Csound in platform-neutral C, still the most performant programming language, and still available on more platforms than any other.
The extreme simplicity and efficiency of the inner loop for running Csound performances.
Invisible, automatic handling of multiple notes playing at the same time, for the same instrument.
The extremely flexible design for unit generators (opcodes), the building blocks of sound synthesis. Essentially, although written in C, Barryâs unit generators are classes -- data structures that derive from a virtual base class, and include methods for operating on their own data. The virtual base class idea makes it quite easy to extend Csound with new unit generators, and now even plugin unit generators.
The musical power and flexibility of Csoundâs score language, which permits the user to define any set of fields for an event; and these fields are not limited to integer values, but are real numbers. Furthermore, based on his experience as a composer, Barry made sure his score language could handle tied notes, polyphony, changes of tempo, and so on. This is far more powerful than MIDI.
The policy of complete backwards compatibility. The very first examples and compositions still run on today's Csound!
Based on Barry's foundation, the current implementation of Csound (far more capable than the original) remains highly efficient, flexible, and easy to extend.
Give to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Workers United (AICWU) Faculty Strike Fund!
We are exhilarated by the resounding response and support coming in less than 24 hour since the strike fundraiser launched. I hope you too will help us to win a fair contract. And, if necessaryâafter more than 20 months negotiatingâsupport us when on strike, because our working conditions are our students' learning conditions. Thank you!
âAfter an initial discussion and request for Masseyâs drivers license, Grayson spotted a pot of boiling water on the stove and ordered Massey to remove it to avoid starting a fire. In doing so, Massey asks the officers â who visibly distance themselves from her as she goes to handle the pot â why they moved away from her. âWhere you going?â she asks them. âAway from your hot steaming water,â Grayson answers, with a laugh, before Massey responds: âAway from the hot steaming water? Oh, Iâll rebuke you in the name of Jesus.â With his gun drawn, Grayson closed the distance between himself and Massey, who was beginning to kneel behind a counter with her hands up. Massey can be heard saying, âIâm sorry,â as Grayson continues to advance. âIâm sorry,â she says again as Grayson fires three shots, striking her with a bullet below the eye that exited from the back of her neck. As Massey lay dying on her kitchen floor, Grayson says heâll go get his medical kit to render aid. âThatâs a headshot. Sheâs done,â Grayson says before going to get the med kit. As the pair stand there with their guns still drawn, Grayson says: âIâm not taking a bullet out of her fucking head,â then points out that the water from the pot had reached his feet. âWhat else can we do?â Grayson asks his partner. âIâm not taking hot boiling water to the fucking face.â Graysonâs partner tends to Massey and at one point says, âsheâs still gaspingâ and wonders whatâs taking Grayson so long with the medical kit. When paramedics and other officers arrive, one can be heard asking, âwhereâs the gun?â Grayson replies that Massey had a pot of boiling water and threatened to rebuke him in the name of Jesus. Paramedics took her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Grayson has been arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond until his trial is set to begin. It is exceedingly rare for police officers to be charged with murder in the death of a citizen, and hasnât occurred in such a high-profile case since the killing of George Floyd in 2020.â
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Body-cam video shows Illinois police officer fatally shooting Black woman in face | Illinois | The Guardian
jaimie branch â FLY or DIE, Directed by Mark Pallman, International Anthem, 2017. Cinematography / Editorial: Mark Pallman. Color: Alex Frankland. Audio Mix: Ben Treimer
FLY or DIE
jaimie branch â trumpet
Tomeka Reid â cello
Jason Ajemian â bass
Chad Taylor â drums
Cameos by:
Matt Schneider â guitar
Ben Lamar Gay â cornet
Josh Berman â cornet
On this day, 16 May 1934, Minneapolis truck drivers in the Teamsters union went on strike, shutting down almost all commercial transport in the city. The dispute lasted over three months, ending with most of the workersâ demands being met and opening the way for more workersâ organisation in Minneapolis. With its months of fierce battles between striking workers on one side, and scabs, protected by police and private guards, on the other, it also became one of US labour historyâs most iconic events of the 20th Century.
This book has an exciting history of the strike: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/strike-jeremy-brecher https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=627336972772855&set=a.602588028581083&type=3
Self-Guided and Guided Soundwalks in Chicagoâs Pedway System For the fifth consecutive year, we are excited to partner with NON:op Open Oper
On Saturday, April 22 1:00 PM meet Eric Leonardson at the CTA Lake Street Red Line Station, in the subway, on the east side toward the direction of Macyâs.
The first person to discover a link between increased levels of CO2 and #globalwarming was a New Yorker named Eunice Newton Foote. Read her 1856 paper, and how she went unacknowledged for more than a century, here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/first-paper-to-link-co2-and-global-warming-by-eunice-foote-1856 #earthday #climatechange
