« October 2006 | Main | December 2006 »
November 30, 2006
The NPR Holiday Crafts Contest
Think you can create holiday crafts better than Martha Stewart? Whether that's a yes or a no, you should take a crack at creating something festive for NPR's first-ever holiday crafts contest. Whether you want to make an ornament, a menorah or anything else that befits the season, take a picture of it, upload it to Flickr, and tag it nprholidaycontest. We'll then judge the best ones and give away some fun holiday swag to the winners. Visit the official contest description for more info. And yes, that's Mel Gibson festooned on a menorah. Anyone wanna take a crack at making a Michael Richards Kwanzaa candle set? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:23 PM
November 29, 2006
Chanukah vs. Hanukkah Death Match: The Great Spelling Shift
The NPR website recently launched a 2006 holiday guide that includes some of its greatest hits from previous holiday seasons, along with lots of new material. One of them is a great story from All Things Considered last December about the proper way to spell Hanukkah. Robert Siegel interviewed a rabbi about the various spellings, including Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanukkah, etc. and the source of the problem, which is due to the fact that there are certain Hebrew letters that simply don't exist in English.
One part of the piece that interested me was when Siegel referred to the popularity of different spellings according to Google. At the time he recorded the story last year, he noted that there were 2.8 million hits for the spelling Chanukah versus 650,000 hits for the spelling Hanukkah. Siegel therefore suggested that Chanukah was the most popular spelling, and that certainly jives with what I remember while growing up. (I was such a snob about it, too, always accentuating the "ch" sound when speaking to my gentile classmates.)
I was curious, though, how much variation there might be over the course of a year, so I decided to search Google again. As it turns out, a great shift has taken place. The number of hits for Chanukah had increased to 3,070,000, while the number of hits for Hanukkah had surged to a whopping 10,200,000 - more than three times the other spelling.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere suggests a similar trend. According to Technorati, there were 23,274 results for Chanukah and 41,667 results for Hanukkah - almost a two-to-one margin. Google's blog search produces similar results, with 21,336 hits for Chanukah versus 42,960 for Hanukkah.
For those of you visual learners, here's the horserace according to Blogpulse:
Once again, Hanukkah beats Chanukah, and rather soundly as of late. What's going on here? Could it be that this year's popularity of sites like YouTube and MySpace is somehow causing Hanukkah to spread virally across the Net and slap down its rival Chanukah into submission? That may have been the case for the election, but not here. According to YouTube, there are a paltry 64 videos for Chanukah and 85 videos Hanukkah. Contrast that with 26,736 videos for Christmas. Amazingly, there were actually 74 videos for Yom Kippur. Aren't we supposed to be fasting rather than shooting video that day?
As for MySpace, those millions of naughty teenieboppers clearly aren't in a Macabee frame of mind. How many results did I get for the two spellings? Zero. bupkus.
Maybe Wikipedia has something to do with it. If you look up Chanukah, it automatically redirects you to the spelling Hanukkah. There's a long discussion about the proper spelling, and the last word seems to be that while Chanukah conveys the original intention of the Hebrew pronunciation, Hanukkah has become de rigeur among lexicographers, because it's easier to pronounce by native English speakers. And since Wikipedia seems to double its audience every three days, perhaps that might account for the shift since last year.
Of course, Hanukkah/Chanukah is still more than two weeks away, so perhaps it's too early to pass judgment on the state of the Internet in this regard. Nonetheless, it would appear that a great spelling shift is afoot - a relief to all of those gentiles who squirm every time they try to pronounce the "ch" sound correctly.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:33 PM
November 25, 2006
Sitting for a Musical Portrait by Pete Townshend
This afternoon I helped compose a song with Pete Townshend of The Who.
Okay, not exactly. It was actually with Pete's computer.
I can see you're skeptical, so I better provide some context. To do that, we're gonna have to go all the way back to 1971, the year I was born. Because that was when Townshend began work on a musical project known as Lifehouse.
The Who had just found great success with their rock opera, Tommy, and Townshend was now working on a new musical project called Lifehouse. A science fiction story in which the world has suffered an ecological disaster, Lifehouse included a major plot line based around the idea that the world's music was controlled by a small group of powerful media conglomerates, which in turn pumped its mediocre muzak into the minds of humanity. (In some ways it's similar to Rush's 2112 album, which came out in the late 70s, without the Ayn Rand influence.)
Pete explains:
"The essence of the story-line was a kind a futuristic scene.... It's a fantasy set at a time when rock 'n' roll didn't exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. They lived TV programs, in a way. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who'd kept rock 'n' roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle."
As part of their revolutionary struggle, the heroes of the story utilized a technological weapon called The Method, which would combat the soulless music they were literally being force-fed.
"What Lifehouse was about, at its root, was to reaffirm that what's important is that music reflects its audience as absolutely and completely as possible," Townshend explains on his website. In the early 70s, he was exploring Sufi mysticism, which no doubt put him in touch with qawwali music, like that of the famed Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whom I got to interview in 1992. Qawwali concerts, which often extend to four hours or more, intend to use the trance-like power of lengthy musical performances to bring the performers and audience into a state of spiritual ecstasy. This, of course, is often a complete contrast to rock concerts, where performers and the audience show up, do their thing and leave. Townshend says:
Standing on stage and waving your arms about is wearing a bit thin, I think. There's going to have to be a way of listening to music which doesn't mean that you're going to have to face in a particular direction, there's going to have to be a way of listening to music that doesn't mean that you have to go out to a concert hall between eight and ten in the evening. I've seen moments in Who concerts where the vibrations were becoming so pure that I thought the world was just going to stop, the whole thing was just becoming so unified. But you could never reach that state because in the back of their minds everybody knew that the group was going to have to stop soon, or they'd got to get home or catch the last bus or something - it's a ridiculous situation.
For various reasons, Lifehouse didn't come together as planned, even though Townshend composed many songs for the rock opera. Instead, these songs were published as part of the album Who's Next, arguably one of the greatest rock albums of all time. But Lifehouse - and the musical weapon known as The Method - never fully vanished from Townshend's creative consciousness.
This brings us to last February, when Townshend was wrapping up work on his novel, The Boy Who Heard Music. The novel was released chapter-by-chapter on a blog, and he invited the public to comment on the story and help improve it. When the novel was complete, Townshend announced that some of the bloggers who participated in the story's development would be invited to participate in his next project - the rebirth of The Method as online software that would interpret the images and sounds submitted by a person and convert it into music.
As I explained on my blog:
A partnership between Townshend, programmer Dave Snowdon and composer Lawrence Ball, The Method will perform musical works generated by a computer based on interactions with a real person, referred to by Townshend as a "sitter." Initially the website will feature works generated by The Method through interactions with Lawrence Ball and others, but Townshend plans to invite bloggers to "sit" with The Method and generate music of their own. At least that's the way I understand it from his description on his blog. From what I've heard of Lawrence Ball's work, his music is reminsicent of Erik Satie and Arvo Part. Adding Pete Townshend to the mix, along with a community of 500 bloggers, will hopefully lead to some exciting, unusual results.
Yesterday, I received an email informing me that I was being invited to serve as one of the first beta-testers of The Method. I'd have a chance to "sit" and have three musical portraits painted for me. So this afternoon, I logged into and gave it a shot. The website asked me to upload a series of original audio clips, as well as a photo. This data would then be interpreted by the website to create an original electronic composition. I wasn't sure if it would take the content I gave it and sample it, or just be inspired by it. First, I supplied it with a photo of me from my honeymoon. I then gave it three audio clips:
- A loop of me saying "The moving walkway is ending; please look down."
- A sample of me doing babytalk to Kayleigh, and her response.
- A loop of a Tunisian malouf trio I recorded in Tunisia last year.
Once this was done, The Method went to work, composing an original work based on my inputs. The result is this song. It's just over five minutes long, and is very reminiscent of the work of Terry Riley, Michael Nyman and Phillip Glass, each of whom often utilize electronic-like repetition in their compositions. Personally, I like the piece a lot, though I can see how people might dismiss it as being too repetitive. (It also has some crackle noises at the beginning, which must have occurred when The Method saved the mp3 file.) I'll be very curious to see if my future experiments with The Method produce similar results. I'll have to go out of my way to submit a photo and audio samples that are very different from the ones I just used.
So what's next? For one thing, The Method is still in beta, so it's not totally ready for prime time yet. Eventually, more people will be invited to sit for musical portraits, and even be invited back repeatedly to work with Townshend and his collaborators to expand them into major works. They'll also take their show on the road, doing live performances of some of the compositions, with sitters like me invited to attend and potentially participate.
Meanwhile, any musical works produced by The Method will be co-owned by Townshend and the sitter. For all practical purposes, that means that if you sit for a musical portrait, you can do whatever you choose with the results, as can Townshend. We just can't veto the other's uses of it. That way, we can both use it, refine it, sample it, license it and perform it. Not like I would ever say no to Pete if he wanted to incorporate it into a concert or anything like that. :-)
So that's the result of my first experienced with networked musical composition. I can't wait to do it again. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:44 PM
November 21, 2006
Amanda's Big Plans
In case you haven't heard the news, Amanda Congdon recently announced her upcoming plans. She's going to be videoblogging for ABC News while developing a comedy show for HBO. All in all, a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Personally, I think it was her dancing across America that sealed the deal. I can just see the suits at HBO watching her groove her way across the screen and saying to themselves, "Give this woman Ali G's time slot." She's a triple threat. She can vlog. She can act. And as I got to observe for myself at the White House a couple of months ago, she can dance.
Rock on, Amanda. Rock on. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:35 PM
Youth Dialogue on Internet Governance
Titi Akinsanmi of the Global Teenager Project has just announced the creation of a three-week online forum for young people to learn about Internet governance and why it's important they become engaged in policy discussions. (Some of you may remember the interview I did with Titi in Geneva in February 2005.) The forum, which opens November 26, intends to build upon the work of the youth caucus from the World Summit on the Information Society, which took place in Geneva and Tunis in 2003 and 2005. They're also hoping to use the forum to identify young people to take a leadership role in the 2007 Internet Governance Forum in Rio. To participate in the discussion, you can subscribe to the forum by emailing YouthandIG-subscribe@groups.takingitglobal.org. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:48 AM
Bloggers: Give It Up For Fox
Last night I was watching our local Fox affiliate's 11pm news broadcast to see how they were covering the mess surrounding that OJ Simpson book, and at one point they plugged a feature on their website inviting the public to blog there. At first I was surprised, because I hadn't heard of a TV news website hosting blogs for the public. Blogs written by correspondents or contributors, perhaps, but not Jane Q. Citizen. It seemed too good to be true; there had to be a catch.
Ah, here it is, in their terms of use:
You agree that any content you post becomes the property of FIM [Fox Interactive Media]. You understand and agree that FIM and its parent and affiliated companies may use, publish, copy, sublicense, adapt, edit, distribute, publicly perform, display and delete the content you post as they see fit. This right will terminate at the time you remove such content from the Site. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a back-up or residual copy of the content posted by you to the Site may remain on the FIM servers after you have removed such content from the Site, and FIM retains the rights to those copies.If at any time you are not happy with the Forums or object to any material within the Forums, your sole remedy is to stop using them.
So that explains it. Feel free to blog for Fox - just be prepared to give away absolutely everything you write on the blog. I find it amazing people are falling for this when there are a gazillion free blogging tools out there, none of which strips away your rights to your own ideas. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:24 AM
November 18, 2006
Dave and Sumner Remembered, Side By Side
The Denver Post ran a featured obituary for my father-in-law Dave Cornwall yesterday. By sheer coincidence, they also ran an obit for my cousin Sumner Shapiro right next to it. What are the odds of that? I wonder if I have a picture of the two of them together at my wedding. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:48 PM
November 16, 2006
Rear Admiral Sumner Shapiro, 1926-2006
Just as we were beginning to come to terms with the death of Susanne's father last week, we've gotten the news that my cousin Sumner passed away two days ago. Sumner, affectionately called Shap, had a sudden resurgence of the bladder cancer that had been dormant for about a decade. When my parents were here in DC with my grandmother a couple of weeks ago, they went to visit him in Northern Virginia. I had no idea he'd been that sick.
The Washington Post wrote a featured obituary about him in this morning's edition:
Sumner Shapiro, 80, a Navy rear admiral who served as director of naval intelligence from 1978 to 1982 and expressed early warnings about Jonathan Pollard, a Navy intelligence analyst later revealed to have spied for Israel, died Nov. 14 at his home in McLean. He had cancer.Adm. Shapiro, a Russian specialist, was among the longest-serving directors of naval intelligence. His most enduring influence was rethinking how the Navy approached its Soviet counterparts....
If maritime strategy represented a highlight of his career, Adm. Shapiro often expressed regret about his early handling of Pollard, a Navy civilian who pleaded guilty in 1985 to espionage charges and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
When Pollard, as a new analyst, went to him with a scheme to gain "back-channel" intelligence information from South Africa, Adm. Shapiro dismissed Pollard as a "kook" and reduced his clearance. Later Pollard's clearance was reinstated.
Adm. Shapiro, who was Jewish, said he was bothered that many Jewish organizations supported Pollard during the diplomatic controversy that followed his imprisonment.
"We work so hard to establish ourselves and to get where we are, and to have somebody screw it up . . . and then to have Jewish organizations line up behind this guy and try to make him out a hero of the Jewish people, it bothers the hell out of me," Adm. Shapiro told The Washington Post in 1998.
"I wish the hell I'd fired him," he added.
The funeral will take place Friday in Annapolis at the Uriah P. Levy Jewish Chapel of the United States Naval Academy, which he had helped found. More information about the funeral, as well as memorial donations, can be found at Legacy.com - andy
Tags: death | navy | obituaries | sumnershapiro
Posted by acarvin at 4:03 PM
November 14, 2006
Fugue in Four Parts, by David Cornwall
Here is a podcast of Fugue in Four Parts, recorded at Dave's funeral yesterday. It was the first time the piece had ever been performed publicly. Dave composed it in late 2004, beginning a period that would prove to be the peak of his creative output. Though Dave had been experimenting heavily with 20th century classical music inspired by Witold Lutoslawski, Igor Stravinsky, Gyorgy Ligeti and Morton Feldman, he never turned his back on his love for Bach. Given Dave's background as a software engineer, he loved the mathematical precision of Bach's fugues. In the liner notes of two CDs he made for Susanne and me, Dave described the piece as
a full Baroque fugue in four parts, written according to the rules of counterpoint espoused by Bach. This piece begins and ends in C Major, but modulates into many major and minor keys during its episodic development.... Each of four voices state the main theme in a different part of the scale, until all are intertwining in the harmonic glory of fugue.
The recording is far from perfect, captured on a digital camera and performed by an organist who had almost no time to practice. But Dave would have still loved it. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 6:59 PM
November 13, 2006
My Father-in-Law's Funeral
Today we buried Dave Cornwall on a hillside facing the Rocky Mountains in Denver. We left the house this morning, resigned to the fact that none of us could get all the dog hair off our clothes. Pulling out of the driveway, we saw that Pike's Peak was enveloped in a skirt of clouds around its base, its snow covered summit shining in the morning sun. We'd never seen it so beautiful. Dave would have loved it.
The funeral service was held at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Denver, where Dave had been baptised, confirmed and married. Several dozen family, friends and colleagues from the Lamont School of Music attended, including his 13 1/2-year-old golden retriever, Beethoven, who was given full rein of the cathedral during the service. It was a beautiful tribute to Dave, with readings by two of his sisters-in-law and his nephew Mike. Susanne and her sister both gave their own eulogies. Fighting back the tears, Susanne said
I must have been about nine years old. My dad and I were walking through the nature preserve near our house, our dog Rosy tugging at the leash. My dad wearing a khaki colored winter coat, me wearing a khaki colored coat that I'd picked because it looked just like his. We'd been walking for a long time and at some point I realized that the paths no longer looked familiar; we were totally lost. I looked up at him and worriedly said, "Are we lost?"But he was smiling. "Why does it matter?" He shrugged. "We're here." At the time I took that to mean, here in the forest - because he loved nature so much. But I think now he meant that and more - we're together, we're on an adventure, we're where we've never been before. To my dad there was nothing better than getting lost in a forest.
He was such a great dad. He could be silly - so many of my friends this week have told me that is what they most remembered about him. But I could also go to him for advice, or even sit quietly with him, just enjoying his company. He was brave - the way he accelerated down mountain roads (to the terror of my mom and her sisters), but also the way he handled the enormous obstacles that life threw at him. But I think I will remember him most for his creativity - the beautiful music that he left us will forever be a reflection of his soul.
And now I miss him so much - I hear his music in my head, I see him in my baby daughter's face. And I imagine he is in heaven's equivalent of a national park. Binoculars in hand, walking over log bridges, followed by all the dogs he loved over the years - Mozart, Rosy and Goldie, Cubby, Tawny and Reddy. Never needing to stop for breath, never running up against a barrier he cannot climb, so happy, so excited to scout every last inch of a boundless forest. He's humming his latest composition, and his footsteps become percussion, the birds his string section, and as the wind carries off the melody, all of heaven is filled with his music....
The organist then performed one of Dave's compositions - a three-minute fugue. Even though the piece had been composed for piano and the organist fumbled a few times, it was an extraordinary moment, feeling the deep bass of the pipe organ resonating through your bones. Dave would have loved it. Susanne's Aunt Ginny recorded it on her video camera; I hope to make a copy of it and extract the audio so friends and family who couldn't attend could experience the performance as well. (UPDATE: I've uploaded the audio of the performance.)
At the end of the funeral, I joined the five other pall bearers as we led Dave's casket out of the church and towards the hearse. Beethoven joined the procession, pacing just behind me near Susanne and her mom. We then made the 30-minute drive to the cemetery, passing Dave's childhood home along the gorgeous Monaco Parkway.
An honor guard was waiting for us at the cemetery, where they and the church canon performed a brief interment ceremony. After performing taps on the bugle, the honor guard folded the flag draped over his coffin with precision and dignity, presenting it to Mary, who sat in the front row with Susanne. The funeral party then concluded the proceedings with a luncheon at a local hotel, reminiscing moments with Dave and agreeing unanimously that he would have thoroughly enjoyed everything that had been done for him on this most difficult of days. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:12 PM
Apologies to My Friends in Georgia
Yesterday I was forced to cancel my appearance at the Georgia Education Technology conference this week. While the rest of my family was grieving the loss of my father-in-law, I spent much of the weekend frantically trying to save the files on my laptop, which appears to have a dying hard drive. Because I'm in Denver I don't have access to my backup drives and other tools. After many hours of frustration it became quite clear that most of the presentations I'd put together for Atlanta were a total loss, each reporting an unrepairable disk error. I could now either skip the wake and funeral to rebuild all of my presentations from scratch or I could cancel. So I canceled.
Nonetheless, I feel terrible about pulling out of a conference at the last minute, particularly one where I was expected to present multiple sessions. So I'd like to apologize to both the conference organizers and the educators attending the conference. I was so looking forward to participation but there's simply no way I can do it. I hope you understand given this terrible convergence of circumstances. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:04 PM
November 11, 2006
Dave's Obituary
Dave's obituary ran in today's Rocky Mountain News:
CORNWALL, DAVID R. David Randolph Cornwall died November 7, 2006 at Sky Ridge Medical Center. David was born May 18, 1937 in Denver, Colorado. He attended Harvard College and University of Chicago. He joined United Airlines in 1957 as a computer engineer, and retired in 2000 from Covia-Galileo International. A professional trombone player in his youth, David attended classes after retirement at Denver's Lamont School of Music, and developed his natural musical talents. He became an accomplished composer of many beautiful pieces. His music will live on for years to come. Surviving Dave are his wife, Mary of Parker, CO; brother John Michael of Los Angeles, CA; daughter Catherine Swanson and husband Stephen of Brea, CA; daughter Susanne Carvin and husband Andy of Silver Spring, MD; and three grandchildren, Alicia and Alex Swanson, and Kayleigh Carvin. Viewing, Sunday 2-3:30 p.m. at Fairmount Mortuary. Service, Monday, 10:00 a.m., St. John's Cathedral, 1350 Washington St., Denver, followed by burial at Fairmount Cemetery. Memorials may be made to Young Musicians Opportunity of Colorado, 1281 S Akron Way, Denver, CO 80231.
Tags: davecornwall | obituaries
Posted by acarvin at 9:56 AM
November 9, 2006
Tuesday's Election and the YouTube Effect
A few days ago, Micah Sifry and Josh Levy of the Personal Democracy Forum invited me and other Internet types to offer some quick thoughts (200 words or less) on the role of technology in this year's election. They've just posted the first batch of responses, including comments from me, Danah Boyd, David Weinberger and Ethan Zuckerman. I decided to focus on the role of user-generated video.
YouTube, Blip.tv and other video-sharing sites have forever changed the way the public participates in the election process. With legions of camera-toting partisans following around candidates 24/7, there's no way a politician can get away with saying something foolish or nodding off during a hearing.Video-sharing sites may now be the ultimate platform for gotcha journalism, but we can do better than this. Just as political blogging is evolving beyond simply tearing down politicians, video sharing needs to evolve beyond exposing political gaffes. For example, Minnesota's e-democracy.org invited the public to upload videos in response to an online gubernatorial debate. Meanwhile, VoteGuide aggregated videos of speeches made by candidates in California's 11th congressional district to make the candidates' positions as transparent as possible, capturing and tagging everything the candidates said on the record.
User-generated political video is only in its infancy, but the macaca kerfuffle demonstrates it can have real impact. The question remains, though, whether it will evolve beyond gotcha journalism and allow citizens to have a stronger grassroots voice while keeping politicians honest. Early signs are positive, and we should expect to see nationwide initiatives similar to e-democracy.org and VoteGuide during the next election cycle.
Given the fact that the two closest races in the Senate - the ones that eventually turned the chamber over to the Democrats - featured losing candidates that got lambasted on YouTube, you have to wonder if the video sharing site tipped the balance of power. Sens. Conrad Burns and George Allen both lost their respective races by a relative handful of votes. Videos critical of them were seen by tens of thousands of YouTube users, who blogged about the videos until the mainstream media started playing the videos as well. Think that swayed a few votes? How could it not? -andy
Tags: citizenjournalism | conradburns | elections | georgeallen | politics | video | youtube
Posted by acarvin at 4:58 PM
November 8, 2006
Funeral Travel Plans
Susanne and her mom are working out the arrangements for Dave's funeral today. It's probably going to take place this Monday, not far from the house where Dave grew up in Denver. This should give plenty of time for family and friends to assemble in Colorado.
I wrapped up my work at NPR West this afternoon after a productive 12-hour day that began well before dawn. Tomorrow morning, I fly to Houston to participate in the Technology for All conference, pretty much as scheduled, though I'll have to leave an hour or so earlier on Friday to catch a flight to Denver. I'll stay there through the funeral, then hopefully continue to Atlanta to the Georgia Edtech Conference. Once that wraps up on Thursday, November 16 I'll return home, where I'm sure our cats will be relieved to see me. Still don't know when Kayleigh and Susanne will come home. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:01 PM
Inside the Control Room
Today I got to spend my second day at NPR West, arriving around 4:30am this morning to watch Farai Chideya and her colleagues record today's episode of NPR News & Notes. Incoming House Ways & Means chairman Charlie Rangell was today's special guest. I got to watch part of the show from the control room. As they were wrapping up, I also got to meet Renee Montaigne of Morning Edition. Her work day begins around 11pm, and when I met her just after dawn, she was still going strong. Suddenly I felt very guilty about being so cranky about getting up at 3:30am today. I'm such an amateur at this. :-) -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:57 PM
Early Morning at NPR West
 |
On Air sign outside of one of the studios at NPR West |
Once the show is in the can, I'll be presenting a brownbag to NPR West staff on Web 2.0 and networked journalism. I did a similar presentation for staff at NPR headquarters in DC a couple of weeks ago, so now I'm taking it on the road.
Looking forward to having my mind elsewhere today, even if it's just for a few hours. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:09 AM
November 7, 2006
Dave Looking His Best
This is a picture of Dave and Susanne's mom at our wedding three and a half years ago. Just the way I want to remember him.
Posted by acarvin at 9:29 PM
Supporting Young Musicians and Preserving a Musical Legacy
For those of you who have asked about sending flowers or making a donation to a charity, we'd like to ask you to consider making a donation in Dave's name to Young Musicians Opportunity of Colorado. The mission of YMOC is to create an environment in which all young individuals and their families have the opportunity and support to obtain music education, develop and polish their musical talents, and contribute acquired skills to the community.
As many of you know, Dave was passionate about music. As a young man in Denver, Dave was a professional trombone player who performed with the Central City Opera. After a long career as a software engineer, Dave retired five years ago and dedicated all his free time to re-embracing his love of music. He audited graduate courses at the Denver University Lamont School of Music, and began what would be an extraordinary period of music composition. He wrote dozens of classical pieces, from short fugues to complex concertos for orchestra. The string quartet he wrote for our wedding was later performed by the Lamont Orchestra. His last work, completed less than two months ago, was a lullaby for Kayleigh.
Following the funeral, I plan to work with his former professors an colleagues at the university to catalogue, record and publish as much of his work as possible. So far I've identified more than 70 different works that he recorded either electronically or with local musicians, along with countless scores. I hope to catalogue any notes he wrote about his work and publish them as part of a podcast that I will create in his honor. It's a legacy, I hope, that I will be able to pass on to my own grandkids some day.
In the meantime, I urge you to support YMOC by making a donation in Dave's name. You can help a new generation of young Colorado musicians develop the same passion for music education that Dave cherished his entire life. -andy
Tags: charity | davecornwall | education | music
Posted by acarvin at 8:33 PM
Planning a Funeral
So it looks like Dave's funeral will be early next week. Apparently there is a problem arranging a funeral over a holiday weekend. I can understand how this might be a problem on Christmas or something, but am somewhat baffled that Veteran's Day would interfere with the ability of organizing a burial in Colorado.
My parents are flying to Denver on Friday, though they probably won't be able to stay for the funeral if it has to be later than Monday, because of my mom's post-chemo doctor schedule. Susanne's aunts and cousins will probably begin arriving before the weekend; her sister should arrive with her family any moment now, if they haven't already.
Currently I am planning to fly to Denver Friday afternoon after wrapping up my duties at the Technology for All conference. I offered to go there today but Susanne wants some time alone with her mom, which I totally understand. Meanwhile, we've received condolences from friends and strangers alike, for which we are most grateful.
I still feel terrible I could not be there at the end, but am relieved that Susanne and Kayleigh made it in time. Dave was coherent enough to meet Kayleigh, hold her hand and smile for the very last time. I can only imagine how terrified he must have been in those last hours, but Susanne and Mary did everything they could to make him comfortable, telling him that soon he'll be able to get out of his wheelchair to run and play with his dogs Rosie, Goldie, Mozart, Cubby, who would be waiting for him in Heaven. Susanne said that in the end, he died peacefully.
I just wish I could have been there when he needed me most. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 7:51 PM
In Memorium, David Cornwall
David Cornwall, Susanne's father, passed away approximately 20 minutes ago. At the time of his passing he was with Susanne, my mother-in-law, his dog Beethoven, the ICU nursing staff and our daughter Kayleigh, whom he finally got to meet in the early hours of this morning. The doctors determined that the x-ray contrast liquid that had aspirated into his lungs was terminally toxic, so after performing last rights, they shut off his life-sustaining equipment; he passed several minutes later. I am just devastated I couldn't be with them.
I do not have any information about memorial arrangements, but I imagine they will be some time this weekend to allow the rest of the family to arrive in Denver.
Posted by acarvin at 12:46 PM
November 6, 2006
In LA, But For How Long?
I arrived in LA about six hours ago. Before I could even check into the hotel I got a call from Susanne informing me her father had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, after making enormous progress over the last month. They were getting ready to move him out of the ICU to a rehabilitation facility later this week, and they had him drink some concoction so they could x-ray his intestines and get a clear contrast. He aspirated the liquid, which is apparently toxic to the lungs, and he nearly died on the spot; he's not expected to survive the night.
Susanne and Kayleigh are en route, hoping to get there in time. I fear they won't. I was going to hitch a ride with Susanne's sister, who lives here in the LA area and is driving overnight to Denver. But Susanne has asked me to stay in LA then go to Houston for my conference.
There's nothing I can do but wait. This is going to be a horrible week.
Posted by acarvin at 9:01 PM
November 2, 2006
Tootsie Rolls and the Wisdom of Crowds
There's a large ice tub sitting in the NPR lobby that's been used as a dumping ground of leftover Halloween candy this week. At its peak yesterday, the tub overflowed with a fine array of sweets, including ample amounts of miniature Reeses cups, assorted Hersheys chocolates, individually wrapped Twizzlers, etc.
By the time I left work today, though, the tub had been stripped bare - except for the Tootsie Rolls. I don't believe it had to do with there being too many Tootsie Rolls in the tub, given the enormous amount of other candies initially present. Instead, it simply boils down to people favoring every other candy over Tootsie Rolls. They dugg their favorite candy quite literally by digging them out of the tub and eating them, leaving these sad Tootsie Rolls in a state of lonely, pathetic unduggness.
Sad, sad, Tootsie Rolls. But the people of NPR have spoken, and you can't argue with the wisdom of crowds, right? -andy
Tags: candy
Posted by acarvin at 8:29 PM
My November Road Show: LA, Houston and Atlanta
For the first time in a long while, I'm about to hit the road for an extended period. Next Monday, I'm off to NPR West in Los Angeles for a few days' worth of meetings before catching a flight to Houston. There, I'll keynote the annual Technology for All conference. If you're in Houston and feel like joining us on November 10, please do; it's not too late to register.
I then head home for a few days before getting on yet another plane to spend a few days in Atlanta at the annual Georgia Education Technology Conference (GaETC). I'll be one of their featured speakers, and I plan to present a whole slew of talks on blogging, podcasting, wikis, video blogging and a few other things that'll undoubtedly fall out of my sleeve.
Anyway, if you're going to either of these conferences, drop me a line; always eager to say hello in person.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:54 PM
Adopt a Four-Legged War Veteran
The Israeli animal rights group CHAI is organizing a massive airlift of dogs that were abandoned during the July Israel-Lebanon war. Hundreds of pets were separated from their families during the chaos that month, and many of them have not been reunited.
Early tomorrow morning, 40 of these pups will be arriving in the US for adoption.The puppies, all around 4 months old, will be boarded at shelters throughout the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland area, including the Montgomery County Humane Society, and the Arlington and Alexandria Animal Welfare Leagues, while they make appearances at adoption events.
"We reunited many puppies with their original families, and placed more with new families in Israel, but adoptions go slowly there," says Nina Natelson, CHAI's director. "We want to give them the best opportunity we can to find homes, so we are bringing them here."
If you'd like to see some of these puppies, please visit CHAI's adoption photo album. For more information, contact one of the aforementioned shelters to find out when you can meet the pups in person, or call CHAI at (703) 370-0333.
Meanwhile, I haven't heard of a similar initiative for animals that were abandoned in Lebanon, but if I do I promise I'll pass it along.
Hat tip to Ketzel Levine for passing along this announcement. -andy
UPDATE: Just a few minutes after I posted this, Ketzel chimed in again and alerted me to another organization that's airlifting abandoned pets from Lebanon. Thanks, Ketzel!
Tags: adoption | animalrights | dogs | israel | pets | war | washingtondc
Posted by acarvin at 1:48 PM
FCC Slaps Massport Over Wifi Policy
Yesterday the FCC ruled that MassPort, which governs Boston's Logan Airport, cannot prevent individual airlines from offering their own wifi services at the airport. When I first moved to Boston in 2004, I always had ample access to wifi there, particularly in several of the airline lounges. The Air France lounge, for example, offered free wifi, while others offered competitive pricing from different wifi providers. A year later, Massport ordered the airlines to shut down their wifi so the could roll out their own overpriced wifi service across the whole airport. Airlines complained bitterly that they had the right to offer wifi to their customers, but Massport played the security card, claiming that multiple wifi services would interfere with their other telecommuncations networks - something that was totally unsupported by reality.
Eventually, Continental Airlines got sick and tired of the rules and petitioned the FCC, which just ruled in their favor. FCC commissioner Michael Copps issued the following statement on the decision:
Today's declaratory ruling reaffirms the Commission's dedication to promoting the widespread deployment of unlicensed Wi-Fi devices. It clarifies that American consumers and businesses are free to install Wi-Fi antennas under our OTARD rules - meaning without seeking approval from their landlords - just as they are free to install antennas for video programming and other fixed wireless applications. Wi-Fi is one of the Commission's greatest wireless success stories. The genius of this unlicensed technology is that no central authority controls or manages how and where these networks spring up. Instead, any private or commercial operator who sees a need for a local Wi-Fi network may build and operate one. The price that Wi-Fi users pay for this freedom is that they, like all Part 15 users, must accept interference from other devices in the unlicensed bands. But the nation's half- decade of experience with this new technology has made it quite plain that this trade- off is more than worth it.When it comes to providing broadband over the unlicensed bands, the airwaves are truly the people's airwaves. So while I certainly support strong licensing regulation in some contexts, I think it is equally important that we leave other portions of the spectrum open to unlicensed uses. Today's decision ensures that the Wi-Fi bands remain free and open to travelers, who can make productive use of their time while waiting to catch their next flight in an airport. They will be able to choose from among multiple providers, including members-only airport lounges as well as coffee shops or businesses that may choose to attract customers by offering Wi-Fi service at lower prices than the airport authority offers. I do want to note that I approve of today's decision only because the record is clear - in fact, uncontested - that allowing multiple Wi-Fi operators in the airport will cause no interference to the safety- of- life communications that the airport authority conducts on its dedicated, separate, and licensed public safety channels. In the unlikely event that technical developments change this balance, I would of course support swift and forceful remedial action from this Commission.
So the next time I fly up to Boston - probably in February, I think - hopefully I'll be able to have some choice of wifi providers and won't have to bow down to Massport's overpriced, overslow service.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:17 AM
