From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #149 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Tuesday, June 12 2001 Volume 06 : Number 149 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: Alloy contest entries: [jonathan.chiddick@nokia.com] Re: Alloy: Alloy contest entries: ["Robin Thurlow" ] Re: Alloy: Digest delays + The Mirror Song ["Robin Thurlow" ... as well as arranging the 'Which song was written > with Thompson Twins in mind, but Thomas kept for himself' > Contest!!! I will have to think carefully about this. Should we post our > answers to you privately, or post them to Alloy? You're welcome. Please post your guesses to Alloy with a normal posting by next Sunday and then I'll make the results public on Monday morning when Sundays digest is delivered to my mailbox. Heads-up ALLOY LURKERS! This is an excellent time to come out of your shell and make your first posting. Just make a guess at the song and say hi. No pressure. Good luck! Apropos the question about the Thomas Dolby curios thing for the FES. What was the timescale for this? Is there any more news. My Aliens and Astronauts material isn't ready yet and I'll be going away for three weeks soon so if it's getting urgent let us know and I'll accelerate a tad. Oh yeah I nearly forgot. Robin asked the question about VHS and PAL... This is a bit mysterious as the two are not really directly related at all. PAL is a TV transmission standard - like NTSC is in the states and VHS is a videotape format. What did you mean by this Robin? BTW. virtually all new PAL system VHS video recorders sold in Europe now have the facility to play back NTSC (US standard) VHS tapes to be displayed on a PAL standard TV so theoretically we can buy US tapes and play them in the UK or other European countries. I have done this a few times already and the results are acceptable but not outstanding. It's still better to have a PAL tape as the conversion in these machines is done in a compromise way. 'Still, it's a lot better than nothing. A dual format machine for US/UK use used to cost thousands! Cheers all. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 02:35:01 -0400 From: "Robin Thurlow" Subject: Re: Alloy: Alloy contest entries: Jon Chiddick wrote: > Oh yeah I nearly forgot. Robin asked the question about VHS and PAL... This > is a bit mysterious as the two are not really directly related at all. PAL > is a TV transmission standard - like NTSC is in the states and VHS is a > videotape format. > What did you mean by this Robin? I'd only heard that "VHS" tapes were not at all the same as "PAL" tapes... this is an issue that's come up on eBay several times. I'd always thought it was two different tape formats (similar to the BETA and VHS difference) or that something in the way it's coded makes it impossible for US machines to play PAL tapes, and for UK and European machines to play the US ones. The details have always been a little unclear to me... I'd only been advised to watch out for it when going about bidding. This is why I was surprised when in a shop to see VHS tapes in the NTSC standard for sale in Britain since I thought it didn't work out with the standard machines most people usually have there. BTW Andy, I wish I'd have known you might want to call. We did have a phone there and you could easily have called me, and we could have spoken to each other! I'm sorry to have missed out on the chance :( I did get to see Jersey Zoo however, on a kid's tv show.. it was in a segment called "Whose Poo Is It?" and the viewing audience were supposed to guess which Brilliant Creature had produced a certain pile of poo held up on a tray to the camera (Brilliant Creatures is the name of the show.. and everyone should watch it - it's very good!) It turned out to have been done by a fruit bat which lives at Jersey Zoo, of all places. I thought of you, Andy :) xxx Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:18:56 +0800 From: "Andy Venables" Subject: Alloy: Digest delays + The Mirror Song I've just figured that what I need is a web address at smoe.org that I could check before posting, that would show the current postings since the last digest. That way I could avoid answering a question that someone else has already answered *grin* Bah. I shall revert to delaying replies a day or two to avoid such conflicts, although what usually happens is that I've lost interest by then so I never post :o) - --- Just listening to The Mirror Song (TD vocals) again. Does anyone know who sings the bit at the end, he's got a really good sound there... "All the seasons I have spoken All the reasons I have rhymed For the state of incandescence (the/this?) Just imagine what is real Simply there no words were spoken (there/then?) Just imagine what is real what is real what is real" (nice emphasis on "real" there) Why do songs have to fade out in what sounds like an interesting place?! Key changes, variations of the vocals, or interesting solos/jamming are often going on as a track hits the noise floor and it's really frustrating! (not something TD is usually guilty of - TD works usually having either a definite end or fading well) Would that lead to a good Alloy question - which track do you most wish carried on for longer? Not necessarily your **favourite** track perhaps, many are perfect just as they are, if you get what I mean. So anyway, who is the Mirror Song bloke, and does he feature on anything else I should look out for? Or is it so obvious I should hang my head in shame and walk the Alloy plank?! Toodle pip, +AndyJ+ - -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 10:06:29 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Thomas @ eWorld Europe conference Here's a news announcement of Thomas' keynote presentation at the eWorld conference in Munich... xxx ~R BEA eWorld Europe 2001 Conference in Munich Expected to Draw 2,000 Attendees BEA to Unveil New Products, Programs and Partners to Help Future-Proof E-Businesses MUNICH, Germany, BEA eWORLD Europe 2001, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS), one of the world's leading e-business infrastructure software companies, expects approximately 2,000 attendees at its fourth annual BEA eWorld Europe e-commerce conference, to be held June 11-13, 2001, in Munich. European business and IT executives, software developers, BEA customers and partners will come together at the conference to share best practices on how to future-proof their businesses and to learn how to reduce the time and cost of moving their core business operations online. BEA eWorld Europe will feature more than 60 educational sessions, including presentations from BMW, Deutsche Bank, Bertelsmann Media Systems, CSC and Sun Microsystems, plus more than 70 exhibitors, including Cambridge Technology Partners, Integris GmbH, Vignette and Unisys Corporation. Keynote presenters will share their insights into the factors critical to success in Europe's New Economy and their visions for the future from a variety of perspectives. Presenters include: - -- Bill Coleman, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, BEA Systems, Inc. - -- Alfred S. Chuang, Founder, President, and Chief Operations Officer, BEA Systems, Inc. - -- Daniel Hartert, CEO and President, Bertelsmann Media Systems - -- Thomas Dolby Robertson, Founder of Beatnik.com and Grammy-nominated musician - -- Dr. Hellmuth Broda, Chief Technologist Europe, Middle East and Africa, Sun Microsystems Computers; and member, Sun Vision Council "BEA eWorld Europe provides the opportunity for IT and business executives to share practical and proven business views to succeed in tough and unpredictable economic times," said Bill Coleman, founder, chairman and CEO of BEA Systems, Inc. "Future-proofed businesses can use their infrastructure software to make them more flexible and agile, so they can win and maintain their competitive advantage. BEA eWorld Europe is about helping organizations take advantage of BEA's products, vision and partner network to build an infrastructure that has the power to effectively and efficiently respond to change and create value for customers." At BEA eWorld Europe 2001, BEA will continue to demonstrate its success and its expansion of the BEA WebLogic(R) E-Business Platform through a series of customer, partner, product and program announcements. BEA's announcements include: -- BEA customers and partners. The company will demonstrate the expansion of its award-winning BEA WebLogic E-Business Platform(TM), and its success in key vertical markets, with new customers and partners. The customers and partners include: retailer and sporting goods manufacturer adidas; financial institutions Robeco and Arcordia Solutions, a subsidiary of JPMorgan; auto and motorsport manufacturer BMW; wireless provider Radiolinja and mobile gaming partner Gamefederation; transportation companies SNCF and TNT Express. - -- Partner Project, I-Vote System. In an effort to improve the efficiency of the democratic election process, German consulting company IVL (Data and Information Processing Leverkusen) and research group Internet-Voting created the new "I-Vote" system, built on BEA WebLogic Server(TM). I-Vote enables voters to cast ballots from their mobile telephones or via the Internet, making it easier than ever for voters to cast ballots. The new system will be used in a local election July 2001, in Esslingen, Germany. - -- BEA WebLogic customer survey. BEA surveyed nearly 250 of its Fortune 500 and Global 500 BEA WebLogic customers. Results showed that of those that have standardized on a Web application server across their business, four out of five have standardized on BEA WebLogic. And providing a view of businesses' adoption of Java in the enterprise, 87 percent of those surveyed indicated they are using Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) for new applications, and respondents forecast a 266 percent average increase in EJB deployment in the next 12 months. -- BEA Tuxedo(R) 8.0 and BEA WebLogic Enterprise(TM) 6.0. BEA announced the availability of the latest versions of BEA's flagship enterprise application server solutions, BEA Tuxedo 8.0 and BEA WebLogic Enterprise(TM) 6.0. In addition, IT Design and EuroControl have begun beta tests of BEA Tuxedo 8.0, the newest release of the leading software platform for C, C++ and COBOL programming. BEA WebLogic Enterprise 6.0 unites in a single offering the BEA WebLogic Server and the new version of BEA Tuxedo. - -- New BEA Wireless Star Solution. BEA announced the Wireless Star Solution, and 24 initial members. BEA Wireless Star Solution is designed to help members address existing and emerging markets with innovative wireless applications and services. It will provide independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators (SIs) and application service providers (ASPs) with expanded business opportunities, and will help joint customers quickly integrate and deploy mobile applications and services on BEA WebLogic. BEA eWorld Europe 2001 is supported by Platinum Sponsors Sun and CSC, Gold Sponsors Integris and Vignette, and Silver Sponsors Cambridge Technology Partners and Unisys, and six Bronze Sponsors. To register for eWorld Europe 2001 or for more information, visit http://www.bea-eworld.com. To read the full news announcements, visit http://www.bea.com. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:37:28 -0700 From: Jon Drukman Subject: Re: Alloy: Urban Tribal: Straight from the horses mouth - so-to-speak At 11:52 AM 6/10/2001 +0300, you wrote: >The question to Alloy members is: Which song did Thomas originally intend >the Thompson Twins to perform? > >Post your best educated guess to Alloy in the next 7 days be in the running >to win a fabulous prize! my guess is: airwaves. - -jsd- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 21:03:09 GMT From: hubcity@exit109.com Subject: Re: Alloy: Urban Tribal: Straight from the horses mouth - > At 11:52 AM 6/10/2001 +0300, you wrote: > >The question to Alloy members is: Which song did Thomas originally intend > >the Thompson Twins to perform? > > > >Post your best educated guess to Alloy in the next 7 days be in the running > >to win a fabulous prize! > > my guess is: airwaves. > > -jsd- > Hm. Actually, I was thinking of how the Thompson Twins would sound singing "Windpower", what with all the trading off of voices and such. - -HubCity (Coming out of lurk mode again, and cheaply promoting his new website, ALTROK.com. First round venture financing slots available! :o) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 22:06:25 +0100 From: "Blagg & Norling" Subject: Re: Alloy: Alloy contest entries: Jon, I'm going to have to have a wild stab in the dark at Cloudburst at Shingle St. The only reason being that to my ears at least, it sounds similar to another Thompson Twins track called the Rowe which Thomas performed on. Trevor.... P.S. great competition Jon..... - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 7:01 AM Subject: Alloy: Alloy contest entries: > > Morning all, > > > ... as well as arranging the 'Which song was written > > with Thompson Twins in mind, but Thomas kept for himself' > > Contest!!! I will have to think carefully about this. Should we post > our > > answers to you privately, or post them to Alloy? > > You're welcome. Please post your guesses to Alloy with a normal posting by > next Sunday and then I'll make the > results public on Monday morning when Sundays digest is delivered to my > mailbox. > > Heads-up ALLOY LURKERS! This is an excellent time to come out of your shell > and make your first posting. Just make a guess at the song and say hi. No > pressure. > > Good luck! > > Apropos the question about the Thomas Dolby curios thing for the FES. What > was the timescale for this? Is there any more news. My Aliens and Astronauts > material isn't ready yet and I'll be going away for three weeks soon so if > it's getting urgent let us know and I'll accelerate a tad. > > Oh yeah I nearly forgot. Robin asked the question about VHS and PAL... This > is a bit mysterious as the two are not really directly related at all. PAL > is a TV transmission standard - like NTSC is in the states and VHS is a > videotape format. > What did you mean by this Robin? > > BTW. virtually all new PAL system VHS video recorders sold in Europe now > have the facility to play back NTSC (US standard) VHS tapes to be displayed > on a PAL standard TV so theoretically we can buy US tapes and play them in > the UK or other European countries. I have done this a few times already and > the results are acceptable but not outstanding. It's still better to have a > PAL tape as the conversion in these machines is done in a compromise way. > 'Still, it's a lot better than nothing. A dual format machine for US/UK use > used to cost thousands! > > Cheers all. > Jon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:50:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian Clayton Subject: Re: Alloy: Urban Tribal: Straight from the horses mouth - so-to-speak On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 jonathan.chiddick@nokia.com wrote: > It was infact 'hand on bible, distil the urban tribal' > ... and the place was Harlseden in London, where there is a power plant. At last, the mystery is solved! > So thank you very much Thomas for intervening and sorting that out for us. > How lucky we are to have Thomas reading in the background. Indeed, thanks, Thomas! > Well, I happen to know that Puppet Theatre was not infact written with The > Thompson Twins in mind but another very notable song from Thomas' collection > was. During the writing process, however, this particular piece became so > much a Thomas-song that he could not give it up. I think it's fair to assume > that no one should actually know about this apart from Thomas himself so > let's have a little competition; what would your guess be? Er, if no one other than Thomas knows, then how do _you_ know? > Which song do you think that Thomas wrote with the Thompson Twins in mind > then? Best of luck all! Hmmmm...... BC - -- "No one can predict with certainty what the ultimate meaning will be of mastery of space." -- John F. Kennedy, May 25th, 1961 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 19:59:09 -0400 From: Merujo Subject: Alloy: Dolby/Thompson Twins Contest Okay, I'll bite (but I bet I'm way off base): my vote goes for Urges Cheers, Melissa, working on the details for my trip to Key West (whoo hoo!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 21:39:40 -0400 From: "Robin Thurlow" Subject: Re: Alloy: Digest delays + The Mirror Song Andy wrote: > > Just listening to The Mirror Song (TD vocals) again. > Does anyone know who sings the bit at the end, he's > got a really good sound there... > > "All the seasons I have spoken > All the reasons I have rhymed > For the state of incandescence (the/this?) > Just imagine what is real > Simply there no words were spoken (there/then?) > Just imagine what is real > what is real > what is real" (nice emphasis on "real" there) I believe Bruce Woolley was doing some backing vocals on this track, so it could very well be his voice we're hearing so clearly at the end. I only have one Bruce Woolley record (the one Thomas is on) but I play it all the time... I really like him a lot! > Would that lead to a good Alloy question - which > track do you most wish carried on for longer? > Not necessarily your **favourite** track perhaps, > many are perfect just as they are, if you get what I mean. > I agree I'd like to have heard more of "Mirror Song"; this song really moves, and I love the lyrics. Not sure about actual endings of other songs, since there's no telling where it would have gone from the leaving-off point we're familiar with, and I would be very curious about all of them to be honest... but there *is* a small part within "Wreck of the Fairchild" that I have always wished would go on and on (though just having the little bit of it is such a treat, maybe it's best not to overindulge :) On a different tack, I'd love to hear a furtherance of Thomas' version of Jungle Line. There are so many I'd love to hear his current interpretation of. xxxRobin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 21:51:32 -0400 From: "Robin Thurlow" Subject: Re: Alloy: TMDR Curio Cabinet & Interesting graphic Russ wrote: > > Robin, a while back you talked about the possibility of a TMDR > collection of stuff on the FES web page. Is this still happening? How > has the response been? In fact the response has been fantastic, with Jon Chiddick contributing so many wonderful images and background information that I think there's going to have to be a special 'Jon Chiddick' wing of the Curio :) But yes, it's definitely still on. This isn't something that's going to happen overnight by any means, as I have to learn some design things and let a few concepts work themselves out. However as a conservator, this will be the first collection I've ever curated (virtually!) so I want to do a really good job. I'm very excied about this. > Also as a item of interest that many recent members have not seen, I > recently posted the spinning thomas name graphic on my web site. It > is a graphic that spells dolby and when upside down spells thomas. I > remember when thomas told us about how someone came up to him in a > with it written on a cocktail napkin. > > The graphic is on my web site under "photographs" > http://www.pobox.com/~milliner/tmdr/ Thanks for this, Russ. The rotating graphic is one of the first things Dave and I ever saw on the old FES page, and Dave was so fascinated with the idea that he's designed a few of his own since then! Has anyone got the name of the artist who created the original Dolby rotating name? I remember (I think) he was a Japanese artist who also designed web-based mazes and games. xxx Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #149 ***************************