Today is the 10th day of the 10th month of year ’10. Canonical, today released Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), sidestepping its usual Thursday release. Go to ubuntu.com to give it a spin. As usual, you can download it for free and burn it on a CD. It has all the great features that we are used to, plus a couple of cool new ones. Remember that you can always use the ISO to try out all the features in the new release without installing it.

The new Ubiquity installer has been redesigned to be easier to use and it also installs drivers and download updates even as it is installing the OS.  Their new service, Ubuntu One offers 2 GB of free “personal cloud” space to users, and also provides sharing and syncing options . A beta for the Microsoft Windows client is set to begin soon.

The server edition of Ubuntu 10.10 is touted as “the default open-source choice for cloud computing.” You can also try Ubuntu 10.10 server on Amazon EC2 for an hour, free.

October 27-30, 2010

Contact: Thomas Moore
Director of Arts & Culture
410-455-3370
tmoore@umbc.edu

UMBC's Department of Music presents Livewire, a festival and symposium celebrating new music from the 21st century, from October 27th through 30th. In dozens of concerts, lecture-recitals and presentations, the musicians of Livewire will explore untrodden paths as they premiere, perform and discuss new works from around the world created during the first decade of the new millennium, a period of both political and economic upheaval.

Among performers are the Ruckus ensemble, the Damocles Trio, the Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo, the Synchronous Trio, UMBC faculty Matthew Belzer, Lisa Cella, Tom Goldstein, Gita Ladd, Maria Lambros, E. Michael Richards and Airi Yoshioka, and many other eminent ensembles and soloists.

Festival highlights include a series of evening concerts:
Oct 28 - International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Annual Concert
Oct 28 - Ruckus, the contemporary music ensemble in residence at UMBC
Oct 29 - The Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo (piano/percussion)
Oct 29 - Livewire Latenight, an improv session
Oct 30 - Synchronous Trio
Oct 30 - Damocles Trio
A video opera by composer Thomas DeLio and poet P. Inman, sam, will be discussed and presented during the festival.

Papers and discussions during the symposium reflect diverse topics, including "Dubstep and its children: the hardcore continuum in the first decade of the 21st Century," "Creating Masculinity in Native American Hip-Hop," and "The Calculated Groove of Postminimal Percussion."

Schedule:

Wednesday, October 27

12-1 pm — Student concert (Recital Hall)

Thursday, October 28

5 pm — Lecture (Fine Arts 508)
Kyong Mee Choi (Roosevelt University): Spatial Relationships in Electro-Acoustic Music and Painting

6 pm — International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Annual Concert (Fine Arts 508)
Electroacoustic Music by Women Composers
Waterland (1990/2010) - Veronika Krausas, Australia/USA
Ombrarchetto (2003) - Magdalena Dlugosz, Poland
Emergent (2009) - Carrie Leigh Page, USA
Mouthpiece (2005) - Judith Ring, Ireland
Pigeon Heart (2005) - Marie-Hélène Bernard, France
Reminiscence R2 (2010) - Ida Helene Heidel, Norway

8 pm — Concert by RUCKUS, the faculty contemporary ensemble at UMBC (Recital Hall)
Lisa Cella, flute; E. Michael Richards, clarinet; Airi Yoshioka, violin; Maria Lambros, viola; Gita Ladd, cello; Audrey Andrist, piano; Tom Goldstein, percussion; Stephen Caracciolo, conductor
102nd & Amsterdam - Douglas Boyce
The Mystery of r/r/r - Sofia Kamayianni
Hymne - Anneliese Weibel
Adagio Amore - William Kleinsasser
Probably Colors - Leonardo Polato
Post-concert question and answer session.

Friday, October 29

Installation (Fine Arts 508)
In rotation:
Caterina Calderoni: Nameless Flowers
Student works from Soundscapes 2010 at the Conservatorio "G. Nicolini," Piacenza, Italy

9-10:30 am — Lectures: From the Mind of the Composer (Fine Arts 011)
Liane Curtis (Brandeis University): Ruth Lomon at 80: A Celebration of Her Work
Mark Zanter (Marshall University): Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris, Conduction and the Culture of Composition
Mark A. Lackey (Peabody Conservatory): The Cross-Cultural Music of Evan Ziporyn

10:45 am-12:45 pm — Lectures: Diverse Musical Cultures (Fine Arts 011)
Liz Przybylski (Northwestern University): Creating Masculinity in Native American Hip-Hop
Kevin Blankenship (UCLA): Dubstep and its children: the hardcore continuum in the first decade of the 21st Century
Kyle Adams (Indiana University): Who Composed the Grey Album, or, What Did Danger Mouse Do?
S. Alexander Reed (The University of Florida): Resembling the Machine: Technology, Subculture, and Industrial Music in the 21st Century

2-4:30 pm — Lecture Recitals: Complexity in Music and Machines (Fine Arts Recital Hall)
Steven Kemper (University of Virginia): Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI): Music and Robotics
Will Redman (Towson University): The Way Music Looks
Manuel Laufer (New York University): Modernist Complexity in New Venzuelan Art Music: The Contribution of Diogenes Rivas

4–4:45 pm — Lecture Presentation (Fine Arts 212)
Thomas DeLio and P. Inman: Screening of the video opera sam with introductory remarks by the composer and poet

5:00 pm — Concert: Solo Currents (Fine Arts Recital Hall)
The Noise I Just Made (2010) - Matt Belzer - Matt Belzer, saxophone
Light in Each One (2008) - Stuart Saunders Smith (UMBC Professor of Music) - Lisa Cella, alto flute
Sonorous Body (2009) Liza Lim - E. Michael Richards, clarinet
L’Ultima Memoria (The Last Remembrance) (2009) Caterina Calderoni - Gita Ladd, cello
Solo et + (2009) Farangis Nurulla Khoja - Airi Yoshioka, violin (with electronics)

7:30-8:15 pm — Lecture Demonstration (Fine Arts 508)
Per Bloland (Oberlin Conservatory): The Electromagnetically-Prepared Piano and its Compositional Implications

8:30 pm — Concert by the Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo (Recital Hall)
Tom Goldstein, percussion (UMBC faculty) and Paul Hoffmann (Rutgers University)
O Star Spangled Stripes (2005) - Linda Dusman
Ariel* (2004) - Ronald Surak
transients / images (2006) - Thomas DeLio
BlueStrider (1994) - Jeffrey Harrington
Genderang Senja {Evening Drums} (1990) - Ben Pasaribu
You're Not a Composer (1999) - Tom Goldstein
From Waldmusik: Wissahickon, Pulpit Rock, French Creek* (2009) - Christopher Shultis
*world premieres
Post concert question and answer session with composers and performers.

10:30 pm — Livewire Latenight
Latenight Improv with Jesse Stewart, waterphone, and UMBC students

Saturday, October 30

9-10:30 am — Lectures: Perceptions and Realities (Fine Arts 215)
Jeremy Beck (JD, University of Louisville): Composers, Sampling and Copyright: Does "Thou Shalt Not Steal" Infringe on Creativity?
Eric Slegowski (American University): Form and Perception in the 21st Century
Jesse Stewart (Carleton University): Improvisation and the Academy

10:45 am-12:15 pm — Lecture Recitals: Improvisation and Postminimalism (Recital Hall)
Phil Fried (New York): Interactive Trends: Improvisation
Andrew Bliss (University of Tennessee) and Christopher Adler (San Diego): The Calculated Groove of Postminimal Percussion

1:30 pm - Interlude (Fine Arts 212)
Thomas DeLio and P. Inman — Screening of the video opera sam

2:00-4:00 pm — Lectures: Creating Connections (Fine Arts 215)
Steve Antosca (VERGE Ensemble, Washington, DC) crossingPoint: connecting music with technology, architecture, and the arts
Timothy Y. Hsu and Jerry A. Ulrich (Georgia Institute of Technology): Different Uses and Forms of Novel Technology in the Choral Concert
Christina L. Reitz (Western Carolina University): Higdon's Violin Concerto: Combining the Old and the New
Caterina Calderoni (Conservatorio "G. Nicolini" Piacenza, Italy): Mimesis and Simulation: Illusory Effects in Music and Film

4:30 pm - Interlude (Fine Arts 212)
Thomas DeLio and P. Inman — Screening of the video opera sam

5:00 pm — Concert by the Synchronous Trio (Recital Hall)
Christie Finn, soprano (UMBC alumna); Joshua Akira Nakazawa, cello; Jason Ballman, piano
The Last Poems of Wallace Stevens - Ned Rorem
9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker- Harrison Birtwistle
5 Pieces for Soprano, Cello, and Piano - Jason Ballmann
Four Songs to e. e. cummings - Morton Feldman

8:00 pm — Concert by the Damocles Trio (Recital Hall)
Adam Kent, piano, Airi Yoshioka, violin (UMBC faculty), Sibylle Johner, cello
Palimpsest: A Composition of Maps - Douglas Boyce
Diverging Flints - Linda Dusman
Vukovar Trio - Laura Kaminsky
Trio (World premiere) - Anthony Korf
Gathering - Eric Nathan
Miniatures for Piano Trio - David Witmer
Post-concert question and answer session with composers and performers.

Admission
For all concerts: $7 general admission, $3 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID. Tickets are available through MissionTix at www.missiontix.com or 410-752-8950. Tickets will also be available at the door (cash or check only). Symposium events are free admission.

All events will be held in UMBC's Fine Arts Building.

Public Information
UMBC Arts website: http://www.umbc.edu/arts
UMBC Department of Music: 410-455-2942

Directions
• From Baltimore and points north, proceed south on I-95 to exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Walker Avenue Garage (metered parking).
• From I-695, take Exit 12C (Wilkens Avenue) and continue one-half mile to the entrance of UMBC at the roundabout intersection of Wilkens Avenue and Hilltop Road. Turn left and follow signs to the Walker Avenue Garage (metered parking).
• From Washington and points south, proceed north on I-95 to Exit 47B. Take Route 166 toward Catonsville and then follow signs to the Walker Avenue Garage (metered parking).
• Online campus map: http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/campusmap/

Images for Media
High resolution images for media are available online:
http://www.umbc.edu/newsevents/arts/hi-res/

Note: You may view or download this release as a pdf file.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

After building a huge audience, Twitter turns to ads to cash in:

“In the last two weeks, the company has introduced several advertising plans, courted Madison Avenue at Advertising Week, the annual industry convention, and promoted Dick Costolo, who has led Twitter’s ad program, to chief executive — all signs that Twitter means business about business.
…
Advertisers pay for Promoted Tweets to appear at the top of search results. … Promoted Tweets will eventually show up in Twitter timelines, not just when people search, based on the interests of people that users follow. Twitter also sells Promoted Trends, so advertisers can show up in the list of topics most discussed on Twitter, for $100,000 a day.”

It seems like AdBlock already suppresses the Promoted Tweets, at least this one.

No, this is not an article from The Onion, but Google is working on a computer-controlled car. Two articles for tomorrow’s New York Times describe a research project at Google on developing an autonomous vehicle. Here is a picture of the prototype.

In the science science section, John Markoff has a story Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic.

“Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving. A self-driving car developed and outfitted by Google, with device on roof, cruising along recently on Highway 101 in Mountain View, Calif. The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.”

A companion article, also by Markoff, has some additional material, including this interesting note on the current approach.

“One main technique used by the Google team is known as SLAM, or simultaneous localization and mapping, which builds and updates a map of a vehicle’s surroundings while keeping the vehicle located within the map. To make a SLAM map, the car is first driven manually along a route while its sensors capture location, feature and obstacle data. Then a group of software engineers annotates the maps, making certain that road signs, crosswalks, street lights and unusual features are all embedded. The cars then drive autonomously over the mapped routes, recording changes as they occur and updating the map. The researchers said they were surprised to find how frequently the roads their robots drove on had changed.”

The project was the idea of Stanford computer science professor Sebastian Thrun who is also a Principal Engineer at Google, where he helped invent the Street View mapping service. Thrun has led the Stanford team that developed the Stanley robot car which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge that was focused on developing autonomous vehicle technology.

It’s not clear what is the business case for this Google research project. But Google has the cash and the intellectual capital that might actually develop something in this space that can make money.

In a Google blog post from earlier today, What we’re driving at, Thrun gives one motivation.

“Larry and Sergey founded Google because they wanted to help solve really big problems using technology. And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency. Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use.

So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.”

update: Techcrunch has an article speculating on the possible business applications, World-Changing Awesome Aside, How Will The Self-Driving Google Car Make Money?.

Students in the Shriver Center's Peaceworker Program's Summer Pro Seminar created these stories reflecting on their service and experiences abroad. The 2010 stories were submitted to the "My Piece of the Peace Corps" video contest on YouTube.