(need 256 colors minimum)
Dan Veselitza index
Interests
- People
- What ever became of: (seeking specific people)
- Division Avenue High School (Levittown, NY): Class of 1979 & other Reunions, notes
- Music
- (Music - additional comments and files page)
- Baroque Harpsichord Music (listening)
- Great harpsichordists:
- Rafael Puyana
- Genoveva Galvez
- Judith Norell
- Great composers from the harpsichord era:
- Domenico Scarlatti
- His sonatas for harpsichord
- Some of my current favorites
(changed to piano just because that sounds a lot better on most computers).- Some of my current favorites
(changed to PIPE ORGAN -- I'd like to hear more of Scarlatti's sonatas played on pipe organs. These are the same sonatas as above, only the instrument selection is changed. Some go very well with pipe organ some do not, or need some tweaking to sound right (slow down, arranging.)- a free library of ALL of Scarlatti's sonatas and source for the above (only 1.5MB compressed) is found at: www.sankey.ws/harpsichord.html
- George Frederick Handel
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Antonio Soler
- Francois Couperin
- William Byrd
- Hornpipe (MB39) byrd49 Amazing tune (also changed to piano; also sourced from Sankey) 2:49 of rambling introduction leads into an even finer 2:11 of rambling hymn with choruses
- Anonymous
- Organ music
- Long Island Traditional Music Association [ www.litma.org/ ] [ www.facebook.com/groups/litma/ ]
- Folk Music Society of Huntington [ www.fmshny.org ]
- excess TV
- 2009:
- (the new) Doctor Who, (the new) Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka, Jericho, Smallville,
- The Big Bang Theory, Saturday Night Live, MADtv, The Simpsons,
- House MD, The Mentalist, Monk, Psych,
- Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, 30 Rock, Moonlight,
- Recent Past: Stargate SG-1, Boston Public, Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict, Enterprise, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roseanne, Nowhere Man, The Wonder Years, Dead Like Me, Forever Knight,
- Ancient & Reruns: The Avengers,
- Recurring Events that I have found fun or interesting. (All springtime events; in date order):
- The Fest for Beatles Fans 2017 - New York Metro (since 1974)
Friday - Sunday, March 3-5, 2017
Hyatt Regency Jersey City, 2 Exchange Pl, Jersey City NJ
(and other date(s) in other cities)
No actual Beatles show up -- but they do get some para-Beatles like original members of Wings (Lawrence Juber, Denny Laine) and the Quarrymen, sibling(s) (Cynthia Harrison), biographers, top sound-alike bands, ... (Different line-up each year.)
This is the place to see the Battle of the Beatle Bands -- or watch "The Rutles" or "This is Spinal Tap" with friends and strangers.
Some might say the Beatles' brand of inspired nonsense was already played out in 1974 when the The Fest for Beatles Fans (then known as Beatlefest) started, but Beatles mania lives on, for ages 5 to 105. Suspend disbelief and have a good time.
Official site: [ https://www.thefest.com/2017-fests/new-york-metro-march-3-4-5-2017/ ]
Facebook Event: [ https://www.facebook.com/events/1310808085617772/ ]
Facebook Organizer: [ https://www.facebook.com/thefest ]
Wikipedia: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fest_for_Beatles_Fans ]- I-CON 32, "The Northeast's largest non-profit convention of science fiction, fact, and fantasy" (since 1982)
Friday - Sunday, March 17-19, 2017
Suffolk County Community College, Grant Campus, Brentwood NY (NEW LOCATION)
(The last I-CON was 2012, with some LI-CON since.)
Official site: [ www.iconsf.org ]
Facebook Event: [ https://www.facebook.com/events/238549626545203/ ]
Facebook Organizer: [ https://www.facebook.com/iconscifi ]
Wikipedia: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-CON ]- Lunacon 2017 (since 1957)
Friday - Sunday, April 7-9, 2017
Westchester Marriott, 670 White Plains Rd, Tarrytown NY (NEW LOCATION)
A friendly easy-going convention.
$60 at the door; less for early registration.
Official site: [ http://2017.lunacon.org/ ]
Facebook Event: [ https://www.facebook.com/events/1670486763276933/ ]
Facebook Group: [ https://www.facebook.com/groups/43988584036/ ]
Facebook Organizer: [ https://www.facebook.com/Lunacon-486383341396970/ ]
Wikipedia: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunacon ]
Comments and essays
- Computer operating system blues:
- Friends don't let friends use Microsoft Internet Explorer. Switch to something else today. Mozilla Firefox Google Chrome (Forget Opera. Opera 12.16 was sophisticated and underappreciated. Opera 15+ suicided in 2013 by throwing away everything that made Opera interesting and replacing it with almost-Chrome.)
- Windows blues:
- Windows series
- Windows 3.1
- Windows for Workgroups 3.11
- + Added a generic 256-color display driver that worked far better the ones released by most graphics card manufacturers.
- Windows 95 (got it right)
- -Terrible Windows Explorer folder browsing. (No "Back" button.) (Can be fixed by Desktop Update, part of Internet Explororer 5.5, if you downloaded it in time.)
- - Terrible Recycle Bin. (Deleted folders one file at a time.) (Can be fixed by Desktop Update.)
- Windows 98 (got it righter)
- + Rolled in Desktop Update (improved Windows Explorer folder browsing; improved Recycle Bin).
- Windows Me (messed it up, mostly)
- Tries very hard hard to pretend that it is not Windows-on-DOS, impairing usefulness.
- Windows NT series
- Windows NT 4.0 (hardship)
- - No Plug-and-Play. (Or very limited, for a few hardware categories only.)
- - Terrible Windows Explorer folder browsing. (No "Back" button.) (Can be fixed by Desktop Update, part of Internet Explororer 5.5, if you downloaded it in time.)
- - Terrible Recycle Bin. (Deleted folders one file at a time.) (Can be fixed by Desktop Update.)
- Windows 2000 (got it right)
- + Added Plug-and-Play.
- + Rolled in Desktop Update (improved Windows Explorer folder browsing; improved Recycle Bin).
- - MS is starting to orphan Windows 2000.
- - MS did not allow Automatic Updates or the manually downloaded patch to upate the time zones for 2K, claiming that the patch wasn't tested on 2K. The only real problem with the patch was, MS didn't allow it. They prescibed manual TZEdit. It amounts to subtle sabotage. You can update ALL time zones by exporting the correct registry branch ( HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones ) from an XP computer, and then importing it on a 2K computer.
- WIndows XP (messed it up, mostly)
- + Added Windows Terminal Server style remote desktop.
- - Changed the sort order for files -- mixed benefit. It makes sequential file names like {A1, A2, ..., A9, A10, A11}, ... sort in sequence, but that violates strict ASCII or Unicode sort order. Can be very confusing.
- - Added worthless new skinned look. Windows 2000 look was better. Many steps to get back to Windows 2000 look, but can't get it completely.
- - Changed the Search function into junk. Searching hidden files lets it search inside Zipfiles, which i might not always want. No way to get back to Windows 2000 style.
- - Added "Activation" hassles.
- Vista
- Never even tried it.
- Windows 7
- looks ineteresting
- ReactOS
- - So far, alpha versions only.
- - Does not support most "real hardware".
- There should be a lot more interest in a Windows NT clone like this one. Every integrator of embedded Windows systems should want it.
- Linux (GNU + Linux + a desktop) blues:
- - The Trash folder has been improving, but is not quite as good as the Windows Recycle Bin. The "Date of Deletion" and "Original Location" properties cannot always be viewed and, so far, cannot be made into columns at all.
- - Somehow they ignore MIDI as a media type. Setting up to play MIDI is painful. You have to find a MIDI player software. But the drivers don't find the hardware synthesizer on the sound card, so you have to find a software synthesizer -- and possibly a "mixer" as well. And then the combination does not play properly.
- Plutonium-238: Use, Origin and Properties
- Area Code Splits and Overlays vs 8-digit Phone Numbers.
- U.S. affirmative action problem: How can immigrants and visitors to America be considered "disadvantaged minority"? The idea of affirmative action supposedly is, equalizing things for the disadvantaged minority person. If someone grew up outside America's biased culture, then how can anyone suspect that America's biased culture has disadvantaged that person? If someone has the means to come to America, and chooses to do so, just to enjoy the advantages conveyed simply by living in America, then how can someone say that that person is disadvantaged? Perhaps the children of immigrants can be considered minorities. They are born in America not of their own choice and live their whole lives in America, so there is a chance that America could have held them back sufficiently that they deserve a break. But, to reward someone for simply moving to America or visiting America or operating in America hardly seems to make sense. If the affirmative action rules are so written to allow industry and universities to claim they are fulfilling their affirmative action quotas by giving preferences to advantaged immigrants and visitors to America, instead of disadvantaged Americans, then it seems the affirmative action rules are benefitting completely the wrong group of people.
- If you think New York City is dirty or blighted or scary or dangerous, or has bad parking, consider a few other American cities...
- What happened to pistachio nuts? They don't taste nearly as good as I remember 30 years ago.
- Banks and ATMs are still giving out old-style $10, $20 and $50 bills mixed in with the new-style bills.
I thought the plan was to pull all of the old, easily-counterfeitable old-style paper money from circulation as quickly as possible. Now they plan to leave the old garbage in circulation until it wears out! Hurry up, counterfeiters, only 5 years left!- What are we doing in America? We started cutting over to the metric system and then backed off. We made a one dollar coin and then let it die by failing to withdraw the paper $1 bill. We still mint pennies for some unknown reason. Can't we follow intelligent examples set by intelligent people in other countries?
Places visited
(for at least a day; mostly work-related)
Anchorage, AK; north slope, AK
Richland, WA; Pasco, WA; Kenewick, WA; Seattle, WA; Tacoma, WA
Portland, OR; Salem, OR; Eugene, OR; Grande, OR
Anaheim, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Diego, CA
Reno, NV; Hawthorne, NV
Salt Lake City, UT; Ogden, UT; Tooele, UT
Albuquerque NM; Santa Fe NM; Los Alamos NM; Taos NM
Tulsa, OK; McAlester, OK
Houston, TX
Cadillac, MI; Detroit, MI
Chicago, IL; Savanna, IL; Galena, IL
Maquoketa, IA
Richmond IN; Indianapolis IN; Bloomington IN; Bedford IN
Minneapolis MN
Letterkenny PA; Pittsburgh PA
Cleveland, OH; Wapakoneta, OH; Miamisburg OH
Charlotte, NC
Tilbury, Chatham, (Ontario), Canada
Paris, France
Monza, Italy; Milano, Italy
Delhi, Mumbai / Bombay, Bangalore, India
Seoul, Camp Humphrey / Anjong Ri, Yonchang, Daejeon, Korea
Shinjuku (Tokyo), Japan
Sydney, Australia
Munich, Aschau, Muehldorf, Nuremburg, Hamburg, Luebeck, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Germany
"The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen / national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection." (preamble of a U.S. passport issued 1994)
Images for tiling as wallpaper or other background. Click these images to see them tiled:
If you have answers or useful comments, you may write to me: dv5678@gmail.com
posted 1999.03.01 last edited 2017.03.15