Megabytes

You know those scrubby pines in the high desert? They have lots of needles, yet aren’t as dense as you might expect. Well, this is my sketch of one lone pine near my campsite when I was attending Oregon Star Party.

For 6 years, a team of 30 musician-analysts have been listening to thousands of songs and cataloguing them by their musical genes. They have identified more than 400 of these attributes like melody, harmony, instrumentation, vocals and so much more.

Now they have taken that treasure trove of musical information and put it at your fingertips. Just enter the name of an artist or the name of a song and Pandora Internet Radio will create a radio station full of music that has the same genome as your artist or song.

It’s a fascinating exercise. I entered “The Pretenders” and Pandora create a radio station that plays music with subtle use of vocal counterpoint, subtle use of voacl harmony, mixed acoustic and electris instrumentation, major key tonality, and prominent percussion. Yeah, that does describe this rock group with a female lead.

So, I sit back and listen. Wait! Who is this? I’ve never heard of this artist. But Pandora is suggesting this song and artist because of the similar musical genes. What a cool way to get turned on to some new tunes!

Check it out!

Last week, in Ashland, Oregon, a reunion of the founders of the Women in Transition program at Southern Oregon College (now called Southern Oregon University) was held. These women created a program in the mid-1970s that empowered many women with a displaced homemakers group, a battered women shelter, assertiveness training, and a supportive place to just hang out. This weekend, events were held to commemorate 30 years of the program’s advocacy for women. Today, SOU has no Women in Transition program; but its descendants are the Women’s Resource Center and the Women Studies program - both very active and important parts of the University.

One of the speakers at today’s community gathering was Dr. Deltra Ferguson [pictured above], director of the Women’s Resource Center. She spoke of a new 3-year women’s history project which the Resource Center will coordinate. The first phase, reaching out to women of the “Second Wave of Feminism”, gathering the stories and images of the period, begins now. Dr. Sandra Coyner, director of the Honors Program at SOU, will coordinate with Dr. Ferguson.
If you have a story to share from Southern Oregon’s Feminism movement, a period roughly spanning 1965-1985, contact Deltra with your piece of herstory.

A large hand-lettered sign posted to an overpass, in full view of passing motorists below:

Leave Iraq
Rebuild America

The Oregon Star Party had great observing weather and conditions in the Ochocos. I took advantage of these great conditions to draw a few objects. Borrowing Ron Dawes’ ultrablock filter, and his 13″ reflector, I spent some time on The Veil Nebula in Cygnus.

The Veil, also called Cirrus Nebula, is quite large with many pieces spread out over about a 3 degree area.

I recreated the drawing from Star Atlas to note which pieces of the Veil I have drawn. A few days ago, I uploaded 6960, the section with 52 Cygni. Now, here is 6992, shown in the map above on the left.