Tagged: l2ork

Penguins and Apples

While somewhat off-topic, I suspect Linux enthusiasts will get a kick out of this one…

A couple weeks ago one of the L2Ork students ended-up with a dead Macbook Pro, likely culprit being the batch of faulty Nvidia video chips (something I’ve had a great honor of experiencing myself last year while being over dozen hours of driving distance from the nearest Apple repair center). Initially, he did not seem to be overly upset since he did have a 3-year extended warranty. The following week, however, he came to me quite upset telling me how Apple would not cover his repair because his Macbook had a dent and that he had to cover the cost himself. So, he decided to send a lengthy email to the highest echelons of Apple and in his email he indicated that I suggested to him, rather than dealing with this mess to simply switch to Linux. After all, this is what we use in L2Ork, right?

The irony is that while I certainly have a soft spot for Linux, I also realize that Linux is not for everyone. Sure, it does allow relatively easy customization. This fact alone has made it the prime pick for us in L2Ork, but customization is time consuming and unless there is a proportional payoff for such an effort, it is also a total waste of time and resources. In L2Ork we maintain our own machines and students loan them out for this exact reason. I also believe, if one is to switch to any OS, there has to be a genuine and compelling reason to do so that comes from within. Hence, while I certainly may on occasion joke with my students about having them switch to Linux, in this case it was the very last thing I would want to suggest. If anything, I wanted to see student’s computer fixed.

Lo and behold, less than 24 hours later (he must have good connections with Apple, since it took me over a month to get my laptop fixed and mine had no dents to start with), he gets the following email from the Senior VP of Retail Ron Johnson (obviously citing only relevant parts):

It sounds like you are not near a store. Let me have Marty dive in and
resolve.

We don't want you to switch to Linux. You enjoy the Mac and it is a
essential part of your studies.

Ron

A couple days later my student got a brand new Macbook Pro. So, I guess the moral of the story is if your Apple hardware ever fails, rather than going through the regular support channels, you may want to simply notify Apple that you are considering switching to Linux and maybe you too may end up with a brand new laptop…

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Everyone goes through it, that stage when you’re first starting out with a project, getting your feet wet, figuring out what you’ve got to work with. Whether it’s mashing all of your expensive neon colored Sculpey together to make a pretty, neon, rainbow, clay snake or using all the Italian spices you can get your mitts on to make your first spaghetti sauce, it happens. It’s experimenting. Not only does it happen, it’s completely necessary.

It’s easy for already accomplished artists to forget that this is how everyone begins. Unless you’re some deaf virtuoso touting around the concertos you wrote whilst picking your nose at age five, in which case, you’re excluded from this, the first time you picked up a guitar, you didn’t start shredding like Steve Vai or paint the Persistence of Time on your first try (Dali). Maybe you could conceive more than stick figures or play a few power chords, but you had to start somewhere. People forget this. Unforgiving professors who are unable to fathom the varieties of individual learning curves each person has and why their students don’t understand basic things like the circle of fifths, they don’t remember that they once were probably in the same position. Or in a worse case, perhaps they were an exception, and it simply was second nature, these professionals lose track of the concept of teaching.

What makes L2Ork such a special thing is that everyone is learning. And everyone is in that beginning stage of understanding the new medium in which we are working. So like the kid who upon getting his hands on a sequencer for the first time made a hip-hop beat, we’ve spent the past few weeks playing with these wii-motes. Really. And it’s been incredibly fun, albeit absurd. We’ve glitched voice overs and presidential speeches, mapped soul-wrenching percussional smack-downs and the dings of little bells to wii-mote directional hits, bent the pitches of Chewbacca and Lightsaber samples played on top of dripping water loops vocoding our voices. Heck, I may even admit to being guilty of trying to make a hip-hop beat with these things.

On top of being a blast to play with, as I said before, this process of gaining familiarity with your instrument, an instrument that changed nearly every class period with updated patches and effects, was a necessary step. It showcased the wide potential of sounds we could create and the amount of fun we could have with our new instruments. It posed the question that every artist needs to ask in order to progress, where is this going? How are we going to get there?

A focus is emerging in L2Ork. Truth be told, I don’t  think many of us can answer these questions yet, but the fact that we’re asking them truly shows that a direction is starting to form. We may not be painting the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling any time soon, but we certainly aren’t finger-painting.

-Adam

Dig it: Radiohead/Hail to the Thief (I can’t help it, I always listen to this album in the autumn)

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Congrats

Entrusting the L2Ork Hemi Cohort to Our Benevolent OverlordAnd so the first phase of what is hopefully going to be a very long (in a good way :-) saga in the life of L2Ork draws to a close and it seems like a perfect opportunity to once again thank all involved for their hard work and dedication. Not only have we met most if not all of our projected summer milestones relying exclusively upon a cohort of undergraduate student researchers, but have also managed to squeeze-in a few extras and to top it all off have a good deal of fun doing so!

So, once again I thank all Students and Colleagues: Dr. Martin and Prof. Standley for your hard work and dedication, I wish you a very pleasant and restful summer and I hope to see at least some of you in the fall as part of what is to become the very first generation of L2Orkists. Until then, be safe, get plenty of rest (you have definitely deserved it), and perhaps most importantly be proud of what you’ve accomplished!

Now, back to packing… Vacation, here I come!

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This is a list of knowledge I have gained from L2Ork. I will probably end up adding more to it later.

1. DISIS is cool. No really, the AC is always blasting. (Well I knew that already, but I am constantly being reminded.)
2. When various parts of speakers, wires, and cable housings are burned, they smell like McDonalds.
3. Soldering is fun!
4. After a period of about two weeks, lesson #3 is void.
5. Linux penguin is sneaky.
6. When I have enough money I’m going to get some BMWs. That’s right, ALL five seasons.
7. Cory may not be as attractive as Shawn but he is “boyfriend” material whereas Shawn is not.
8. Mister Feeny may be grumpy but he holds in him countless life lessons.
9. There are many names with which one may refer to a wire stripper.
10. Anything can be accomplished if you can get enough people to help. (Easier if you can grow an ico-stash.)
11. L2Ork=L2Ove.

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