Dave Brubeck Passes Away At 91

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Dave Brubeck passed away today. He was born on December 6, 1920. He would have been 92 years old, had he lived until tomorrow, his birthday. One of the greatest Jazz composers & piano players who ever lived. From 1951 - 1967 the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed some of the best Jazz ever played. The New York Times has posted his obituary. Dave Brubeck was my favorite jazz musician & composer of them all. My three favorite pieces by him are "Take Five" (listen), "Pick Up Sticks" (listen) and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" (listen). Brubeck was notable for experimenting with uncommon time signatures throughout his career, writing notable songs 6/4, 5/4, 7/4, 13/4 and 9/8 times. Here's the video The White House produced when he was a 2009 Kennedy Center Honoree. Brubeck was widely recognized due to his long career. From his Wikipedia entry:

On April 8, 2008, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presented Brubeck with a "Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy" for offering an American "vision of hope, opportunity and freedom" through his music. "As a little girl I grew up on the sounds of Dave Brubeck because my dad was your biggest fan," said Rice. The State Department said in a statement that "as a pianist, composer, cultural emissary and educator, Dave Brubeck's life's work exemplifies the best of America's cultural diplomacy." At the ceremony Brubeck played a brief recital for the audience at the State Department. "I want to thank all of you because this honor is something that I never expected. Now I am going to play a cold piano with cold hands," Brubeck stated. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008 that Brubeck would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. The induction ceremony occurred December 10, and he was inducted alongside eleven other legendary Californians. In September 2009, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Brubeck as a Kennedy Center Honoree for exhibiting excellence in performance arts. The Kennedy Center Honors Gala took place on Sunday, December 6 (Brubeck's 89th birthday) and was broadcast nationwide on CBS on December 29 at 9:00 pm EST. On September 20, 2009, at Monterey Jazz Festival, Brubeck was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree (D.Mus. honoris causa) from Berklee College of Music. On May 16, 2010, Brubeck was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree (honoris causa) from The George Washington University in Washington, DC. The ceremony took place on the National Mall. On July 5, 2010, Brubeck was awarded the Miles-Davis Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. In 2010, Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood produced a documentary Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way about Brubeck for Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to commemorate his 90th birthday in December 2010. Brubeck has become a supporter of the Jazz Foundation of America in their mission to save the homes and the lives of elderly jazz and blues musicians, including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina. Brubeck supported the Jazz Foundation by performing in their annual benefit concert "A Great Night in Harlem" in 2006. Awards - Connecticut Arts Award (1987) - National Medal of Arts, National Endowment for the Arts (1994) - DownBeat Hall of Fame (1994) - Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1996) - Doctorate honoris causa University of Fribourg, Switzerland (2004) - Laetare Medal (University of Notre Dame) (2006) - BBC Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) - Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy (2008) - Inducted into California Hall of Fame (2008) - Kennedy Centre Honour (2009) - George Washington University Honorary Degree (2010)[31] - Honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey (2011) And for those of you who've been living under a rock, Take Five:

On the Fiscal Cliff, Republicans Got Nothin’

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Daniel Gross, writing for The Daily Beast:

The reality should be seeping in to viewers of the Sunday shows that the Republicans don’t have a game plan. They don’t have a single, specific proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. And even if they had one, they don’t have a roadmap to get there. They keep expecting Obama to come back with something more to their liking, which they’d also reject. Many Republicans literally don’t understand what is happening. Sen. Charles Grassley tweeted over the weekend that he was frustrated that President Obama hadn’t embraced the recommendation of the Bowles-Simpson Commission. Apparently, he is one of the many people in Washington who doesn’t understand that Bowles-Simpson recommended letting the Bush tax rates on the wealthy expire, while also proposing to cap or eliminate deductions primarily enjoyed by the wealthy. Above all, the Republicans have yet to grasp that the field is tilted against them. Republicans have every reason to expect, based on their scouting of past Obama performances, that he will start moving toward them and then, essentially, bargain with himself. But now he doesn’t have to. Right now, the policy choice isn’t between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and a preferred Republican proposal. No, the choice is between an Obama proposal the Republicans abhor and the fiscal cliff, which Republicans would like even less and the Democrats could live with for a while. The Republicans are losing, and time is running out. But instead of putting the quarterback on the field and rolling out an aggressive two-minute drill, they seem to be preparing to punt. I really get the sense that our team is winning this fight. Perhaps the first four years of the Obama administration were him building up his list of 'been there done that' situations that he can now look back on to make the right political situations this next go-round. The next four years of the Obama administration might be like the last four of the Clinton one (in terms of the economy I hope, not the scandals).

Elevation Dock With Lightning Adapter

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Marco Arment, writes:

The primary appeal of the original Elevation Dock was the ease of removing your iPhone from it. Apple’s crappy little docks were so lightweight that you’d need to annoyingly hold them down while removing the phone, often requiring two hands. Elevation Lab made a great video on Kickstarter demonstrating how frustrating other docks were, and showing how easily the iPhone lifted out of their heavy base with their custom, low-friction connector. We all saw that video and knew that frustration, and that’s why they were able to far surpass their Kickstarter goal so easily. And with the iPhone 4S, it really did work that well, once we eventually got our Elevation Docks. But with the Lightning adapter, the Elevation Dock works like all of the other docks in that video. Marco summed up my exact experiences with our adapters. While I'm glad it looks good sitting on my desk, the grippiness of the Lightning cable into the iPhone 5's Lightning port is tight. This would be a good thing, normally, just not in this situation. Read his entire piece.

New iMacs Go On Sale

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This morning, as promised, Apple made available the new iMacs to order. My primary home machine is a 1st generation 27" iMac that I bought in November of 2009 when they were first released. It reached 3 years old this week, and boy does it feel it. The percentage of time that I beach ball increases on a monthly basis and compared to my new (as of 8 months ago) iMac I use at work, this machine feels like a dinosaur. I've been waiting for Apple to release this machine for a while now, but ever since they announced them in October I was unsure of one thing: storage options. The allure of the new Fusion Drive appeals to me, but after giving it some thought, I had decided that I would rather have the same configuration as the iMac I have on my desk in the office at work. That machine is configured with a 256GB SSD + 1TB HD combo. It's fantastic - lots of secondary storage for archiving videos, and other large sized files, while having the performance of the SSD as the primary drive. I was hoping that the new configuration options for the iMacs would allow for the following scenarios: HD, FD, SSD, SSD + HD, SSD + FD. Ideally I wanted a 512GB SSD + a 3 TB Fusion Drive. Sadly, the configuration options are HD or FD or SSD. No two drive options are available. Given this, I think the best option for myself is the 3TB Fusion Drive or either the 768GB SSD and then for me to pickup an external 3TB Thunderbolt drive. I plan to wait a few weeks for Anandtech to get their hands on one of these Fusion Drives to benchmark it to see how it performs.

Joe Biden Goes Shopping At DC's New Costco

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What's not to love about this guy?

Biden “engaged in an extended Costco shopping spree, to the delight of shoppers and employees at the store,” according to the pool report. The vice president flashed his Costco card as he walked through the doors to loud cheers. Employee Ivey Stewart handled a cart for Biden, who stopped frequently for hugs and photos.

Sacks For Sandy

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Two awesome people that I know, Leah Reich and Michele Catalano have organized a toy drive for children who were victims of Hurricane Sandy's wrath. It's simple really, you head to the Sacks for Sandy site and click on the link to the Amazon Wishlist for the gift drive. Purchase a gift and make sure you select Michelle as the shipping address (it's a pre-filled in option for you on the shipping page) and the gifts will be delivered to Michelle who will see that they're delivered to kids in an Sandy affected area. There are also ways on the site to donate money directly to the cause, donate your time if you live nearby, or other ways that you can help out. The good news is that initially they had set a goal of 500 gifts. Within 24 hours they've already had 400+ donations so they've upped the goal to 1000 gifts. Please spread the word and consider making a donation yourself.