Oleg Zabluda's blog
Wednesday, August 02, 2017
New twist on drunk tank to open in San Jose
New twist on drunk tank to open in San Jose
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Santa Clara County’s newest solution to public drunkenness, a state-of-the-art “sobering station’’ where police will drop off severely intoxicated but otherwise mellow people to dry out
[...]
A team of nurses and “recovery coaches” will offer warm drinks, snacks, fresh laundry and referrals to detox programs, [...] “People are treated like human beings, not like in [...] the emergency room where they are treated like garbage,’’
"""
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/31/new-twist-on-drunk-tank-to-open-in-san-jose/
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/31/new-twist-on-drunk-tank-to-open-in-san-jose/
Labels: Oleg Zabluda
Symphonies are racist (NYT 2017), rock is racist, homophobic and misogynistic (NYT 1990)
Symphonies are racist (NYT 2017), rock is racist, homophobic and misogynistic (NYT 1990)
Trump Is Wrong if He Thinks Symphonies Are Superior (2017)
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“We write symphonies,” President Trump proclaimed on July 6 during a speech in Warsaw.
[...]
Alas, taken in context, Mr. Trump’s point was all too clear and dismaying. He was asserting that Western culture is fighting forces of “radical Islamic terrorism” bent on testing our resolve; he questioned whether the West has the “will to survive” the onslaught. During one riff, Mr. Trump extolled the richness, history and, indeed, the superiority of Western culture. “We write symphonies,” he proudly proclaimed, as if to prove his point.
Many commentators seized on the line as a clue to the president’s thinking, his “white-nationalist dog-whistling,” as Jonathan Capehart, a columnist at The Washington Post, bluntly put it.
[...]
Now, in truth, classical music bears some responsibility for propagating the idea that the art form is the greatest. That perception probably started with Beethoven. [...] That grandiosity transferred to the public consciousness and, eventually, to the president.
[...]
Mr. Trump “lightly bobbed his head along to the boisterous scherzo.” [to the tune of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony]. Did Beethoven’s Ninth, with its “Ode to Joy” choral finale, an affirmation that “all men are brothers,” have an impact on our president? I’d normally put my money on Beethoven. But Mr. Trump has in almost every way been a norm-shattering force.
"""
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/arts/music/trump-classical-music.html
POP VIEW; Rock vs. Disco: Who Really Won the War? (1990)
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The real reasons for rock fans' denunciations of disco were almost surely racial and social. Disco came [from] outsider cultures like gay, black and Latin. They represented disturbing big-city mores to a heartland that had only recently accepted (and co-opted) rock-and-roll. [...] Disco disk-burning was the revenge of the white majority against threatening armies at the portals. [...] Chief among those threats were homosexuals. [...] Disco music, along with an anti-rock cabaret style, was a gay sonic emblem. [...] Beyond homosexuals, another ground for prejudice against disco was simply misogyny:
"""
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/16/arts/pop-view-rock-vs-disco-who-really-won-the-war.html
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/arts/music/trump-classical-music.html
Labels: Oleg Zabluda
"Simply Irresistible" (1988) Robert Palmer, album "Heavy Nova"
"Simply Irresistible" (1988) Robert Palmer, album "Heavy Nova"
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How can it be permissible
She compromise my principle, yeah yeah
That kind of love is mythical
She's anything but typical
She's a craze you'd endorse, she's a powerful force
You're obliged to conform when there's no other course
She used to look good to me, but now I find her
Simply irresistible, Simply irresistible
"""
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrGw_cOgwa8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrGw_cOgwa8
Labels: Oleg Zabluda
Largest number of vectors with pairwise negative dot product
Largest number of vectors with pairwise negative dot product
"""
You can have m=n+1. Take the vertices of a regular simplex with centre at the origin.
You can't have m=n+2m=n+2. [Proof follows]
"""
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/31436/largest-number-of-vectors-with-pairwise-negative-dot-product
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/31436/largest-number-of-vectors-with-pairwise-negative-dot-product
Labels: Oleg Zabluda