In Defense of Clapton's Layla
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Recently, GuitarWorld magazine published a list of top 100 of the worst guitar solos, riffs and licks of all time. I am a big sucker for this sort of thing, so I swallowed the $7.95 price to purchase it, with a good expectation of what would be included. Just as literary scholars have a canon of great literature, the guitarist community has a canon of really awful guitar solos - including, for instance, Neil Young's infamous one-note Cinnamon Girl solo, anything by Van Halen, and anything played by Kurt Cobain. When I turned to the list, I suffered a cruel, horrible shock.
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There is a rough science to choosing performance-enhancing music.
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To set things right about a misquote on Slashdot, Zeev Suraksi has posted this long statement mentioning what he really said and a few more personal opinions.   I've just been misquoted on Slashdot, as if I said there are no security problems in PHP itself, and that I instead point my finger only at inexperienced developers. If you read the original article on Heise Security, you'll see that I have not said anything of the sort. [...] I believe this is the belief of most others on the security team, but I'm only speaking on behalf of myself and do not represent them.   He also covers five more points pertaining to the article and the situation:  Where the bugs/problems lie with problems in PHP Why there are security problems in web PHP applications Why the current security level can be partially blamed on the language itself An admission that yes, there are security problems in PHP And the track record the PHP developers have had in fixing these issues  There's much more than just these brief highlights here, so I encourage you to head on over and check out the full post for yourself.   There are some other opinions on the matter from a few others out there too:  cyberlot's blog Zend Developer Zone's post Tony Bibbs' blog
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Madonna&#39;s tour of Israel has gotten decidedly mixed reviews - with the harshest words from some religious Jews unhappy with her embrace of kabbalah.
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Eric Clapton's concert scheduled for Saturday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills was postponed because the three-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has a sore throat.
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Tycho:  You might want to see this, or you might not:  I know that Gabriel has sworn off all exposure to the game, which may also be your policy.  Even so, this is the first time they've shown the distaff side of the character creator, so maybe you'll rescind your earlier mandate.  A video with a similar theme popped up over at 1up as well, and it does things a little differently:  I don't like its look at the character creator as well, but the cut they have of the intro is far superior.  If you watched the other one, you're in for a penny, in for a pound:  you should check it out.    There's a lot of other content out today as well  at GameTrailers - but the whole thing is a minefield of spoilers so I'll understand if you hold back.  The intro itself (from the 1up cut) is perfectly executed.  Understand that I am almost the optimal audience for this sort of game, but even so.  I see a lot of game content, and you need to dig pretty deep to generate actual wonder.      I was excited to learn that they got Jack Wall in to do the soundtrack - he's worked with BioWare before, but he also did the soundtrack for Myst IV: Revelations - one of my all-time favorites.    (CW)TB
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MONTEREY, California  - Nearly 40 years after helping pioneer jazz fusion with Miles Davis, guitar maestro John McLaughlin still faces harsh critics who dismiss such technically demanding, electronically charged music as "steroidal" or even a "pestilence."
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Tycho:  Stop whatever you're doing right now and watch this video - offered in HD for Windows Media or Quicktime.  That's Level 5's White Knight Story, and I must stress for readers that Level 5 is in no way fucking around.  That's how you sell us a Goddamn Playstation 3.  We are almost impervious to many of the brands that define Sony's hardware:  for us, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo emit no will crushing pheromones.  Compare that to the White Knight clip, which is a fairly comprehensive tour of my private desires.
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Padraic Brady has posted a manifesto of sorts about the work that he's been doing on his PHPSpec library and trying to work it into the approval process for the Zend Framework.   I'll be attempting to pound the Zend Framework into submission so I can apply Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) using PHPSpec when I write a Controller. Why? Because I feel like it, and it gives me an excuse to promote one possible incarnation of PHPMock and the PHPSpec Zend Framework extension. See? Perfectly reasonable selfishness!   He hopes to move it past the typical test-driven development process that PHPUnit offers and "kick your ass into high-TDD gear" without having to have worked much with it before then (the key is simplicity).   He includes some code examples (how it should flow) and describes some of the challenges that he's coming across so far, specifically with the way that the Zend Framework works with the Controllers and what he wants to accomplish.
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The Caramoor International Music Festival on Sunday was probably more interesting for performers than for listeners.
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In an interview published recently  in Pitchfork, Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore mentioned  that the band needed to record a new song for a Starbucks  compilation. Within minutes of his remarks hitting the  Internet, chat rooms and the band&#39;s fan sites were awash in  cries of &quot;foul&quot; and &quot;sellouts.&quot;
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Lukas Smith has posted some ominous thoughts about the future of the LAMP stack in the online development world - specifically asking if the popularity of the grouping could be what might ultimately cause its downfall.   The issue is that there is simply not enough top qualified talent that knows LAMP well enough to hire. Or maybe its just too hard to find them? It seems all the good guys are already hired. As a result companies end up looking for other technology, not because they actually believe that these technologies are any better or worth the license fees that these usually require to be paid up...   He suggests two things that could be possible lead-ins to the "demise" of LAMP - the fact that LAMP just isn't taught along side other languages in school and that, since PHP is only just now getting into the offices of the "major players", there hasn't been enough time to prove to them that PHP has worth in their business.   Be sure to check out some of the great comments on this one.
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Rock star Eric Clapton had his license suspended after speeding down a French motorway at 134 mph. The 59-year-old Clapton was pulled over in his Porsche 911 Turbo for driving 50 mph above the speed limit near the town of Merceuil in Western France.
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Business & money: Â· Livingstone challenge to Brown PPP policy Â· Tube chief says public role is least risky option
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The British Department for Education and Skills (DfES) recently launched a "Music Manifesto" campaign, with the ostensible intention of educating the next generation of British musicians. Unfortunately, they also teamed up with the music industry (EMI, and various artists) to make this popular. EMI has apparently negotiated their end well, so that children in our schools will now be indoctrinated about the illegality of downloading music.The ignorance and audacity of this got to me a little, so I wrote an open letter to the DfES about it. Unfortunately, it's pedantic, as I suppose you have to be when writing to goverment representatives. But I hope you find it useful, and perhaps feel inspired to do something similar, if or when the same thing has happened in your area.
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In an effort to have a definitive resource to point to when people ask about PHP scaling, Sebastian Bergmann is asking for suggestions and information on the topic in his latest blog entry.    In "The J2EE guy still doesn't get PHP", Harry Fuecks suggests that PHP really needs [someone] to get together and write a detailed paper on how it works and why PHP scales so we can all live happily ever after.   I could not agree more.    Sebastian even notes that just recently, such a document would have come in very handy in a discussion. Unfortunately, he hasn't had the experience needed to make such a paper himself, so he's asking the community to help on the project and give suggestions/comments/offers of help in the comments of this blog posting.
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ERIC Clapton is to become a father for the fifth time, at the age of 59. Clapton&#39;s 28-year-old American wife Melia McEnery is due to give birth in January, only two months before the guitar legend celebrates his 60th birthday.