Graphical Interfaces for Subversion Version Control: TortoiseSvn versus RapidSvn

I’m experimenting with using version control software for programming projects.  What I’ve found is that TortoiseSvn has a way better user interface and documentation than RapidSvn, by many degrees of magnitude.  TortoiseSvn adds Create Repository, Import, Export, Checkout, Repository Browser, etc buttons helpfully to the right-click context menu in Windows so you easily access TortoiseSvn functions while browsing folders etc.  RapidSvn doesn’t even have “Browse” buttons in its import menus; you have to manually type in paths/urls, which seems super rudimentary/user-unfriendly!!!

I had a headache getting Subversion to work with TortoiseSvn and RapidSvn, I forget which Subversion binaries I downloaded first, but they were out of date or something seemingly even when linked from the Subversion page.  I went back and installed CollabNet Subversion binaries which seemed to do the trick.  So, right now if you’re looking for a good GUI/graphical user interface to Subversion, TortoiseSvn is much better than RapidSvn!!!

Here’s a good tutorial on how to import existing files into a new repository you create; it’s kind of non-intuitive, though once you get over the first few steps it’s much easier.

Magazine–Motorcade, Cut Out Shapes, Permafrost

Magazine–Motorcade.

Magazine, my current favorite band ever.  Mix the best parts of Joy Division, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Josef K, Birthday Party, PIL, Bauhaus, T Rex, Flying Lizards…Pink Floyd…etc.

Magazine–Cut Out Shapes

Magazine–Permafrost

Why the Change of Base Formula Works For Logarithms and Exponents

I find I remember math concepts so much more if I understand why and how things actually work.  That said, why does the change of base formula work?  Check out the proof in this Wikipedia article.

Here’s another description:

Say we have and you want to change the base to c, for example, say you only have a log base c button on your calculator, such as log base 10.  Well, means that .  If we want this in base c, that means we want where .  Now check this out…we know that …so we can just say, lets make where .  Then that would mean that since and .  Now, we know how to solve an exponent of an exponent:.

So, we want , where we know and and thus .  So, and , thus .  Then since , , and / .

Finally! We’ve converted to another base, the base of !

It may have been easier to label the starting logarithm as . Then . And . This may be easier to visualize: say and . That means that and . Then . Then by the power rule of logarithms, and since , that means , which means that .

Why does the power rule of logarithms work? Say and . Say g=3. So means which is (a)(a)(a)=b. Then , and say h=2. So means (b)(b). Well, since (a)(a)(a)=b, (b)(b)=(a)(a)(a)(a)(a)(a), see the associative property of multiplication for more info. So, that demonstrates an example of how . Since h=2 and , that’s 2*3=6, as shown by the result (a)(a)(a)(a)(a)(a).

Current Favorite Album: Kate Bush–Never For Ever

Kate Bush’s album Never for Ever is my current favorite album.  It has all the best parts of mid-late 70s jazz fusion, disco, postpunk, new wave, goth, the best of mid-70s Joni Mitchell, Hiroshima, Brian Eno, and other experimental stuff.  Awesome!!!  Highly recommended.  More later…check out the video for her song Babooshka.

Kate Bush–Babooshka

Here’s a song Kate Bush worked on with Prince, “Why Should I Love You?“

How to Play Choppy Postpunk Guitar

In response to this question on ilxor:

Choppy post punk guitar technique

That rhythmic thing used by Talking Heads, A Certain Ratio and all dem lot…

How do I achieve this? Is there a method? Is it just playing the chords with muted palm or is there more to it? And are there any particular chords or keys I should learn?

― the next grozart, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 16:00 (3 weeks ago)

Here’s the exact answer:

The “chicken scratch” sound

[Jimmy] Nolen [James Brown’s main guitarist] developed a style of picking known as “chicken scratch,” in which the guitar strings are pressed lightly against the fingerboard and then quickly released just enough to get a muted “scratching” sound that is produced by rapid rhythmic strumming of the opposite hand near the bridge. This new guitar style was affected not only by Nolen’s choice of two and three note chord voicings of augmented 7th and 9th chords, but also by his strumming straight 16th note patterns, as in James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Nolen’s choices of guitars and amplifiers also affected the sound for which he would be nicknamed. In his first recordings with James Brown, Nolen used a Gibson ES-175 and an ES-5 switchmaster, both hollow body jazz guitars equipped with single coil P-90s. He also relied on a Gibson Les Paul Recording model with single coil pickups, an Acoustic Black Widow, and a Fresher Straighter, which were also single coil instruments. The single coil pickups on these guitars produced a thin “chanky” sound; Nolen ran these guitars through a Fender Twin Reverb with the treble set at 8 out of 10. The result of these factors was a rhythm guitar sound that seemed to float somewhere between the low-end thump of the electric bass and the cutting tone of the snare and hi-hats, with a rhythmically melodic feel that fell deep in the pocket. A good example of such tone would be in James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and “I’ve Got The Feeling.” Nolen had been experimenting with the sound prior to his joining James Brown: it can be heard on an obscure 45 RPM single called “Swinging Peter Gunn Theme (Parts 1&2), released in 1960 on the Fidelity label, a subsidiary of Art Rupe‘s Specialty Records.

From Wikipedia

Yes, that’s right, Jimmy Nolen and James Brown invented the whole postpunk guitar sound, pretty much…basically take James Brown and dub reggae, throw the two together, throw in some open chords (just hit the strings with no notes fretted) and some harmonics, and BAM!, that’s postpunk for you…

Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (1985) versus Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love (1987)

I’m a HUGE Fleetwood Mac fan, it’s obvious here that their song Big Love (1987) was hugely influenced by Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill (1987).  Both awesome songs–this music could only have been made in the mid/late 80s.  A lot of mid/late 80s songs had those kinds of synths, and sad kind of dark romance/relationship lyrics–like the most famous Eurythmics albums.  Apparently Kate Bush was discovered by Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, there’ are a few videos on Youtube of them playing together.

Kate Bush–Running Up That Hill (1985)

Fleetwood Mac-Big Love (1987)

Kate Bush’s song Never for Ever is AWESOME, and it has a song Egypt that sounds in parts like the Mahavishnu, parts sound like Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, lots of nice experimentation and jazz fusion and prog rock.  Here new song Aerial is pretty awesome too!!!  I wish she could get together with Joni Mitchell to do an album together!

Kurtis Blow–Christmas Rappin’

Kurtis Blow–Christmas Rappin’, great song, sampled for tons of other songs like Next’s Too Close etc…

Here’s the full version on last.fm Kurtis Blow–Christmas Rappin’

The beginning is sampled for Hold It Now, Hit It by the Beastie Boys which is pretty funny…

Birth of New Wave/Postpunk–James Brown–Good Foot, plus Fatback–Backstrokin

James Brown–Good Foot

Where would the Talking Heads, new wave, no wave, and postpunk be without James Brown?  The scratchy, frenetic guitars, the syncopated drums, the loping, discofunk basslines, the screeching, the howling, the occasional horns…90% of Talking Heads, all James Brown!

Fatback–Backstrokin’

Now this is a great song.  Wonder why most radio stations play Commodores, Dazz Band, Earth Wind and Fire, etc, but leave out stuff like Fatback???

“Looking for that good stuff”

Franz Liszt: Totentanz–Classical Music Sample for Hip Hop Song “Second Coming” (Julez Santana/Just Blaze/Nike)

Here’s Franz Liszt’s amazing and dramatic prog-sounding classical composition Totentaz on last.fm, here it is sampled for a Just Blaze/Juelz Santana/Nike song “The Second Coming.”  Of course the original is way better, there are like 1,000,000 dramatic parts.

Franz Liszt–Totentanz

Just Blaze/Juelz Santana/Nike “The Second Coming”

The Most Overlooked 70s/80s New Wave Album Ever–Magazine: Secondhand Daylight

Magazine–Secondhand Daylight (mp3s on Amazon)

This is the best.  They combine the best of postpunk, pop, and yes, prog rock.  First track Feed the Enemy distinctly sounds like the best parts of Pink Floyd songs like Have a Cigar, the tempo, the bassline, the analog synths, with a distinct postpunk new wave angle.  Same with their song Thin Air.  Other standouts are Cut-out Cruelty, then insane Back to Nature (what kind of a futuristic song/rhythm is this???), and Permafrost.

Then unbelievably, the opening/main riff of Belive that I Understand sounds like My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, a whole host of late 1980s/early-mid 1990s shoegazer bands.  And this was made in 1979!  The remaster comes with a cover version of Captain Beefheart’s “I Love You Big Dummy”!

Top notch stuff, my favorite album at the moment.  Also see some almost-as-equally great Stranglers albums, including the great Raven and Black and White, which some of Secondhand Daylight tracks are simliar to.  Other reference points: Brian Eno, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Birthday Party, Siouxsie and the Banshees (the guitarist went on to play in Siouxsie and the Banshees), Blur, Gorillaz, Stereolab, and…Radiohead, which covered a Magazine song or two.

Check out some of their album Magic, Murder and the Weather, I especially like the song Great Man’s Secrets, which is a great disco/ska/dub/new wave electro dance song that bands like !!! and Hercules and Love Affair only wish they could write.

See this post,  Magazine–Motorcade, Cut Out Shapes, Permafrost for some of their live/promo videos.