The Musings of Chris Samuel

Donna and I were driving up the west coast of Scotland on the 16th September listening to BBC Radio 4 when we heard that Rick Wright of Pink Floyd had died the day before of cancer. That was quite a shock to me as (silly as it might sound) I never thought I’d hear about one of the Floyd shuffling of this moral coil, well not yet at least..

Now back in Australia I’ve just had the opportunity to watch the TV programme “Classic Albums: The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon” I recorded before going to the UK for that trip and it was bittersweet to see Rick talking about The Great Gig in the Sky with its theme of dying knowing that he was now gone.

His beautiful music alongside the great vocals by Clare Torry make a very fitting and timeless epitaph for someone famously unwilling to talk about himself.

Congrats to Brian May on getting his PhD published!

Indeed, when I looked at the Springer Astronomy homepage, I was greeted by the incongruous sight of Brian May next to a snippet about the thesis – directly above the blurbs for the newly-published Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers and Dictionary of Minor Planet Names & Addendum.

Oh, and no, it’s not this Brian May, he got his PhD some time ago..

“Perl, in a Nutshell” sung by Pudge, thanks for the pointer Alec!

Last night Donna and I managed to get her first YouTube video online called “From Autism to Artism“, based around her photos from childhood, her paintings and the song “Beautiful Behavioural Mutations” from her Mutation album (and no, I can’t keep up with her creativity!).

A very interesting development courtesy of the BBC:

EMI said every song in its catalogue will be available in the “premium” format. It said the tracks without locks will cost more and be of higher quality than those it offers now.

These DRM free tracks will cost 99 pence on iTunes, but apparently that’s only for single tracks, you will be able to buy an entire album DRM free for the same cost as one with DRM. Steve Jobs said:

The right thing to do is to tear down walls that precluded interoperability by going DRM-free and that starts here today.

…that the GDB debugger has its own song ?

(Via)

Shine on you crazy diamond..

ABC report, BBC report, BBC obituary, Google News on Syd’s death.

From those silly people at DeadTroll.com – The Sysadmin Song!

Must have musical accessory meets household sanitation. the iCarta..