(Long story short: this blog is moving to http://iansinke.tumblr.com/. For more information, read onward.)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past two years of writing for the web, it is this: a blog can not be static and remain popular. It does not matter how much good content you have on your blog if you do not have new content as well. The appeal of a blog, you see, is paradoxical: readers must know what to expect from your blog, and yet get something new and unexpected each and every time they visit.

For the last nearly two years, I’ve been using faithfully overlooking WordPress’s faults. Recently, though, I discovered Tumblr. The premise of Tumblr is simple: people don’t have time to write long blog posts. Tumblr allows you to write posts that are simply links or quotes or photos. I hope that using Tumblr will allow me to blog more frequently and to share with you, dear reader, my thoughts as well as my interests. I hope you’ll join me.

For no particular reason except that I was listening to the radio late last night and I realized how much I liked this piece of music, this week’s recommendation is the Romance from the Gadfly Suite by Dmitri Shostakovitch. (No links today; I’m feeling lazy.) A wonderful piece of music; I heard the Perlman recording. (I would give his first name, except you already know it and I have no clue how to spell it. I mean, seriously: Itzach? Itzock? Itsach? Itsock?)

In mildly related news, I took my Grade 2 Theory exam today. I’m almost sure I got every answer right, but I’m still awaiting with decided trepidation the release of my marks. If I get anything worse than 90, my teacher will not be pleased. (Last time I got an 89; it was the worst grade any student of hers had ever got on a theory exam. She’s somewhat of a perfectionist, as you can well imagine.)

When I started reading blogs, I only read one blog, then two. I made a folder in my bookmarks menu, and whenever I wanted to read something, I would go to the blog and see if there was anything new. This works just fine when you only have two blogs to read. When you have 35 blogs, though, it doesn’t work at all. That’s why RSS is so important. (If you don’t know what RSS is, get a life. No, check that. If you don’t know what RSS is, read the Wikipedia definition. And then come back here and keep reading.)

For a while, I used Google reader and a customized iGoogle (it was called Google Personalized Home Page (Labs) back then), then I switched to Netvibes, then to Newsgator (because of the cross-platform integration/sync thing.) Now, though, I’m back to Google Reader. I switched back because a) the new Reader interface looked good and b) Newsgator Online was way too slow. All things considered, I’m very happy with Google Reader.

Lately, I’ve been using ma.gnol.ia to share links; now that I’m using Google Reader for reading, I’ll be using its built-in sharing feature to share links. So if you want to know what I’ve been reading, head over to this page to find out.

Every geek needs a calculator, and not just any calculator will do. A geek’s calculator must be able to handle very large numbers, fractions, trigonometry, and very large trigonometric fractions, among other things. The Staples BD-6703, which my mom picked up for me at Staples Business Depot for $9.99, fits all of the qualifications. Plus, it’s cooler than my brother’s calculator, so I can bug him about it.

Pros:

• It has a great two-line display; the top line for input, the bottom line for output. You can scroll though your input or output or the whole list of equations you’ve done to get the current answer. The display is clear and sharp, and the top line can display all sorts of characters besides numbers.
• You can input letters on the display. Well, not the entire alphabet; just A, B, C, D, E, F, X, Y, and M. It’s surprising, though, how many words you can form with those letters: DADDY. FAXED. BAD. There are also commas and colons and semicolons; if there were only a space key, you could write a novel on this thing (albeit a boring novel.)
• Functions galore! This thing handles not only your basic trig functions, but also factorials, statistical functions, random number generation, coordinate conversion, standard deviations, quadratic deviations, regression equations.  Many of the functions cover things I haven’t even learned about yet. (Does anybody know what nPr and nCr stand for?)
• It handles fractions. You can input fractions anywhere in an equation, even mixing them with decimals, and your answer will still come out right. Better yet, you can convert decimals to fractions and vice versa, making this the ideal tool for cheating on your Grade 4 math homework. It even handles mixed numbers!
• It also comes with a handy hard plastic case that doubles as a stand for holding the thing up on your desk. I prefer to hold my calculator in my two paws like a cell phone, though.
• The price! You can’t beat ten bucks.

Cons:

• Aesthetic details. The whole calculator, but especially the glossy back of the case, is a fingerprint magnet.
• It sometimes takes a while (even as much as two seconds) to get an answer. And it takes about a second to turn on. Be patient.
• The manual is cryptic. You need a doctorate in Chinese-translated-English to read the thing. And it has lots of dumb warnings. Did you know you’re not supposed to burn calculators?

In conclusion, the BD-6703 is an excellent calculator. I can’t reccommend this device more.

… and then it came right back up.

But still, it was kind of scary. I mean, we’ve all seen this image before, but never in the context of google.com. The last time Google went down was in 2005.

My friend Kenneth started a blog today – his is called The True North, and he’s blogging about politics and Canada. It should be an interesting read; Kenneth has no shortage of insight on the current political situation, especially in Canada.

Oh, and he stole my theme, not the other way around. Mean of him, wasn’t it?

Recently, while studying for my upcoming Grade 2 music theory examination, I started looking for free, open-source flashcards software programs to use for studying musical terms. (Contrary to popular belief, there’s plenty of good free software out there.) I looked at command-line applications, Linux GUI applications, Windows GUI applications–nothing. So I decided to write my own. I started writing a backend, first in C#, then in Python, then in C# again. I started working on Windows UI mockups. Then, in the midst of it all, I discovered Anki.

Strange name, I know, but it’s great software. Anki epitomizes everything good free software is – it’s fast, reliable, easy to use, cross-platform; it even has a really good-looking UI. Although designed for language vocabulary practice (with a focus on Japanese, a language I will probably never learn), it works just fine for anything.

Anki doesn’t limit you to having cards with just fronts and backs. You can have complicated cards with one front and numerous backs; for instance, a verb and its conjugations. Neither does it limit you to plain text: you can input formatted text, pictures, audio; even mathematical equations, with practice. One thing I would like would be the ability to input musical notation, preferably using Lilypond notation. It’s easy to input flashcards quickly into Anki; I was able to type 120 cards, front and back, in about half an hour, on a laptop keyboard.

The software’s practice interface is equally good. You can customize the formatting used to display the cards on the screen, but the default looks good enough that such action is unnecessary. You can grade how difficult the card was on a scale of one to five; the software will schedule the next appearance of the card based on your selection. This method, the Leitner Flash Card System, ensures that you get the most practice on the cards you find most difficult.

I remember hearing once that the computer platform with the most software written for it was the Commodore 64; but these days, that’s somewhat hard to believe, considering how much software has been written for Windows. Yes, there is much in the way of useless free software out there these days, but there are gems to be found, and Anki is one of them. I highly recommend this software.

Rachmaninov had big hands, apparently. As evidenced in this video of a comedy duo performing his Prelude in C# minor.

I got the sheet music for this piece once and tried playing it. You don’t really need to have huge hands to play it, but big hands probably helps. Anyway, there are things far more difficult in it than the distance between the notes: the key signature, for instance. Were it only a matter of having big hands, I would be able to play this piece. They probably picked this one, however, because it’s so well known.

Okay, so UI design isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Still, though, some parts of it are pretty consistent across applications, even across operating systems. Take, for example, the image below – a bunch of forward-back (or next-previous) buttons from different real applications.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? The forward button goes on the left. The back button goes on the right. They have nice icons pointing in the right direction. Now, look at the buttons in Excel 2003’s Print Preview window.

What? The Next button is on the left. The Previous button is on the right. Seriously, what were they thinking?

This week’s music:

Prelude in B Minor, Op.28, No.6, by Frederic Chopin.

I’m learning this piece right now for my Grade 8 exam, so I am, of course, biased. I do think it’s beautiful, though. I haven’t heard this particular recording yet (except for the preview on iTunes), but I really like the way this guy plays, so I think it’s a good choice.