So, some event blew away my X11 config for the Nividia 6515 Gforce graphics card on this system two nights ago and I am still operating at 800X640 because the X-server still cannot find the drivers and modules. I kinda like the huge print because of my generally poor eyesight, but it would be nice to have the high-res screens back. The fact that it is difficult to sort this out, even by someone who has UNIX user and admin experience says that Linux has a long way to go to compete with Microsoft for driver integration and that such issues shouldn't be so difficult to fix. I know that the card works because I was able to set the high-res mode on Vista with no problem. Clearly the problem is with Ubuntu drivers.
Despite my display problems, I was able to find a neat, if expensive, MIDI device that uses what is called the "Harmonic Table" for its key layout from C-Thru-Music. This is a departure from the standard piano layout in which the keys are grouped quite differently. The chromatic well-tempered scale is still there, there are several ways to play the diatonic scale of any key. The characterics of this layout is that major, and minor, triads group around three adjacent keys on a hexagonal grid, so it is possible to play them with one finger. Verticle rows run the Circle of Fifths. I think that the horizontal row is th Chromatic Scale, the diagonal going right facing the player is the Augmented Scale and the one going Left is the Diminished Scale. The Major Triad three key cluster is shifted to the left of its Parallel Minor vis, A-Major and A-Minor. The demo video I saw on YouTube showed that it is possible to play two top parts and bass with one hand. The hands must move much less then they do at a piano keyboard.
I know that this isn't due to a failure of the graphics
hardware, because I could set the rated resolution in Windows
Vista. It is when I come to Linux that there is a problem.
This OS (Ubuntu 8.10) is only able to see 800x640 and below,
not the 1440x900 the display is capable of. The file
And the response was a waste of time, as is memorializing it, although I know that is a strong urge. I will have my head in the sand tomorrow, not out of disrespect for those killed, but because of the wollowing in it done by many people.
America is a laughing stock for the cowboy antics of George W. Bush and the ill will it repeatedly creates in the Moslem world. Some idiot Evangelical Minister in Gainsville Fl. wanted to burn 100 Korans because he was upset with the idea of locating a Mosque near Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center Towers in NY City that were destroyed by Islamic extremists nine years ago. It got so bad that the Obama Administration had to say that such an act, especially since by coinsidence, Eid, the celebration that ends the month of fasting in the Moslem Calendar, the end of Ramadan, is also tomorrow, and if burning the Koran is incitement in any case, that tomorrow makes it doubly so, and such provocation is a grave risk to Americans in the Moslem world. That Preacher was attracting attention to himself by a selfish grandstand partly because his church was in fiancial trouble, and partly beause he is representative of Christian Extremists here.
The three religions at conflict in the Middle East and now Worldwide suffer from the same fatal flaw. They fight one another because they believe the myth that their believers are chosen of God. The "sin" of Abarham, is that it has become this heriditary myth that out of Abraham's richeousness comes being Select and special amomg all mankind. The Book of Genesis doesn't really tell us what Abraham did to earn this faver, or how it is transmitted to his progeny. The civilizations that are based on this misconstrual of man's place in the Universe, one which scientific discoveries have debunked over and over again, use it to war with non-believers but even with more feriosity between themselves even though they acknowledge common roots.
Generally I tolerate people's beliefs about religion unless they are too insistant, but lately I realize that apart from having spiritual common ground with everybody on the planet and eventually wanting passion to live and peace of mind, religion, and especially these Abrahamic types, Judeism, Christianity, and Islam, are dangerous power trips, that the same reasons to beleive the myth of being select are the ones that turn mere concern for our place in the Universe and to find the Path, ugly. So neither the fool preacher in Florida or the rioting moslems who are reacting to the idea are different from one another.
The death knell for the Abrahamic Myth and why many people will come to doubt their organized beliefs will come as soon as alien life is found elsewhere than earth, or better that there is intelligent life out there. People will know that they are not alone or all that unique, and maybe God doesn't put them in such an exhalted place afterall.
I think that the Hindus and Bhuduists have a better belief with respect to spiritual matters, which people of Good Will in the Abrahamic religions eventually arrive at. It is that one has to earn enlightenment and spirituality through growth. That the very meanng of life is spiritual growth. Now traditions of spiritual development permeate all the world's religions even those that are most destracted by power and dominance. There are cloistered monks, teachers, and mystics, in all these traditions. But religion is a tool of state power which can be manipulated for worldly wealth and control, as in modern Iran, but no less in modern Isreal or in parts of this country. The lesson should be that God may not exist at all, and even if he does, he does not care at all about us. That the universe we live in could destroy us; many extinct species and whole groups of animals held dominion over this planet as we do now, and when we go extinct, not if, this world will continue for a long time after. That our spirituality is a vital part of us, that it is the reason for us to live, and it does not matter except to ourselves. Religion is not there to allow us to win arguments, or to hold power over another. It is there to help us to live correctly.