The Heiligenstadt Testiment

This is the most utterly devastating letter I've ever read. There are many tragedies in the history of art and science. In music Mozart comes to mind. In mathematics Galois and Abel. The tragedy arises in different ways. Some people die too early, depriving all people to come of the lost works of their genius. Mozart is the most crushing example of this kind of tragedy. But from what I know, he doesn't seem to have been particularly unhappy. Beethoven, in contrast, didn't die particularly early. But from the age of 20 until his death in 1827 at age 57, he was almost totally deaf. 37 years of silence to one of the greatest benefactors to mankind the world will ever know. When I feel disappointed in life, I need only think upon this letter to put my sorrow into perspective.

A Terrible Life Choice

I love the Simpsons.

Same Sex Marriage

Happily, the Congress of Massachusetts shot
down a potential amendment to the state
constitution declaring marriage to be between
a man and a woman. According to the NY Times,
the soonest such a petition could be brought
for a vote is 2012. My favorite line of the article:

Senator Gale D. Candaras, a Democrat, voted against the amendment Thursday, although she had supported it as a state representative in January. Ms. Candaras said her vote reflected constituent views in her larger, more progressive Senate district and her fear of a vicious referendum campaign.

Most moving, she said, were older constituents who had changed their views after meeting gay men and lesbians. One woman had “asked me to put it on the ballot for a vote, but since then a lovely couple moved in,” Ms. Candaras said. “She said, ‘They help me with my lawn, and if there can’t be marriage in Massachusetts, they’ll leave and they can’t help me with my lawn.”

Indeed, the biggest indicator of a change toward
pro-Gay rights was if the congressperson had got to
know gay people. Go figure...

Mac not sleeping fix

My Mac stopped going to sleep one day.
It would if you closed the lid, but never
while open, even if nothing but
the Finder showed up as a running program.
I did some experimenting with killing
background processes from the Activity Monitor,
and found that killing the XXX_ButtonManager
processes did the trick. I kill them every
time I restart, and the Mac sleeps like a baby.

Gunter Grass

has written a great essay for the New Yorker about his youth during WWII as
a young soldier.

iTunes, iPhoto hack

One of the irritating things about iPhoto and iTunes is that it's not immediately obvious how to see all the songs and pictures that are *not* in a playlist or album. A little hack I use that works very well if you don't use the 5 star rating system is to select all songs and set the stars to 0.
then select all your folders and star those songs. Make a new smart playlist that shows songs with a rating of 0.