The Song Remains the Same

Are you unsatisfied with current trends in music? Although good music has always been produced, does it seem to you that there's less and less good music coming out these days? Well, you're not alone. Joan Serrà and his colleagues at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Barcelona have studied music over the past few decades, and their conclusions show that music has become more homogenous over time. And louder too. You can read about their research at The Economist.

Granted, it's hard to find good music these days. And perhaps my age is showing too. The defining style of music for me was the New Wave of the late 1970's. The early 1970's featured a lot of good music, but nothing that really spoke to me the way the music of Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Blondie, and B-52's did. In the 1980's, I explored other musical genres, like jazz and classical. But other pressures increasingly hampered my ability to keep up with current events in music. But most of what I did hear in the 1990's and 2000's wasn't especially noteworthy, in my opinion. 

Fast forward to Christmas 2007, when I got my first ukulele, an inexpensive Beaver Creek. I fell in love again with music. Sure, I tried my hand at guitar when I was young. But I lost interest after a while, especially once I tried practicing the barred chords. But the ukulele was something else. Four strings, four fingers - what could make more sense? The neat thing about the uke is that it's easy to form the chords. And not just the basic chords. In many cases, more esoteric chords aren't that difficult either. Practice helps immensely, of course. However, the success rate at learning chords, and the ease of playing barred chords, makes it possible for anyone to master songs that use more than just your basic chords.

What's the point of today's missive? I suppose it's this: More musicians should learn ukulele. With it's ease of learning and playing, I would suggest that it's easier to explore different and original chord sequences on the uke. Have you ever wondered where the diminished chords have gone? They were very common in the early 20th Century. How come we don't see them very often today?

Think of the songs of George Harrison, and note that he was a big fan of the ukulele. I wonder how many of his songs were inspired from just noodling on the uke? If you have a uke handy, try out this iconic chord sequence, one strum per chord:

Familiar? Should be. It's from one of his most famous songs! And the rest of this song can be played just as easily. And not just the chords. The melody line of this song is easily played as well.

For some time now, I've been wondering what the next big trend in music will be. Will we ever again see some new movement as sweeping and refreshing as the late 1970's New Wave? Is there enough cohesiveness among music fans to give a New New Wave a chance in today's fragmented entertainment environment? Or will commercial interests continue to foist blandness upon us?

I call on all songwriters and musicians to turn back the tide. Let's bring back variety and interest to our songs. Have all the songs already been written? No, of course not. There's a whole slew of new chord sequences to explore. And the ukulele can help you to explore them.

Cheers! Hans

New Scrabble - A Re-examination

When the new Facebook Scrabble game was foisted on us, my first reaction was shock. It looked butt-ugly, had problems loading, and was plagued with bugs. I quickly resigned or forfeited all my active games, even though I was winning most of them. Since then, Electronic Arts (EA) has made some adjustments to the game. Once the game came back this week after a four day long server crash, I decided to play through a complete game to put it through its paces.

The first thing you see is a panel that tells you to invite your friends to the game. Unfortunately, there seems to be no clear way to get past that panel. I ended up clicking on the "Board Size" button. That brought up a new dialog, one that had a clear exit button, and I could then begin play.

Regarding the "Board Size" dialog, if you click on the buttons labelled "+" or "-", you might be surprised when nothing happens. The dialog simply tells you how to resize your browser content using the keyboard. (This is a function of the browser, not the game.) Worse, once you're done your game, you have to resize your browser content back to its original size. This was a later change to the program based on user feedback, but a hack solution at best.

Next, look at the text at the bottom of that panel. That's just one of several examples of text that overflows the intended area. Other examples are the "Create New Game" button and the 2-letter word list that ends at "RE" on my computer. Mind you, not everyone has these problems. But it does show that the designers have not taken all browser and operating system combinations into account.

Three words into the game, my opponent sent me a chat message asking me to move. I replied that I made my move about five minutes earlier. She clearly had problems with her game not refreshing when it should. During the game, she often had to manually refresh in order to continue. Another time, she had to restart the game before she could continue.

There were other nuisance bugs. But I'll spend the rest of this epistle discussing the user interface. When I first saw the new game, I was shocked by the busy graphics, distracting animations, and gaudy colors. Supposedly, EA made some adjustments to the graphics in the meantime. However, the only difference I could see was that the board had lost it's 3-dimensional look. Elsewhere, pretty much all the colors and graphics are the same. Overall, the effect is jarring and hard on my eyes.

Other aspects of the user interface are inconsistent. Compare the graphics on the left for your turn and your opponent's turn. When it's your turn, the "My Turn" box appears above the "Suggested Players". However, the "Their Turn" box renders below "Suggested Players". Further regarding the "Their Turn" box, note that the box lists the last word you played, not the last word your opponent played. Is that confusing, or what?

Overall, there are a lot of elements that are too prominent and too distracting, such as the "Suggested Players" box. Why should I care so much about starting new games while the current one is in progress? The old game allowed us to do that, however, in a much less intrusive manner. Likewise, the ratings box at the bottom is way too big and too distracting. In the old Scrabble game, the chat dialog was certainly too small. But in the new Scrabble game, the chat area is overkill. And too cartoonish. Clearly, the designers of this game wanted to squeeze a lot of content into the game. The scroll bar at the left shows that they had too little screen area for what they wanted.

Another post-release change based on user feedback was to make the count of your opponents letters during the end game more prominent. Unfortunately, this message obscures part of the board, and you have to explicitly close this dialog. Again, yet another poorly designed afterthought.

Clearly, the designers of the new EA Scrabble game failed to understand the needs of their loyal Scrabble players. Scrabble is a quiet, contemplative game. Flashy effects and distracting animations just do not serve the game well. After my game ended, I had little desire to continue playing. EA has promised a new version of the game with a choice of user interface, including the old "classic" look and feel, a gesture that I certainly appreciate. But will we get the real old game? Or just an old-looking skin on the new program? If it is to be the latter, then will we still have to endure all the bugs programming defects in the game?

There's one more difference between the original new game and the current new game. When the new game was first released, it wasn't called "Scrabble Beta". Sometime after the initial release, after all the complaints starting pouring in to the EA support forums and Facebook groups, they added the word "Beta". As if that makes our Scrabble playing experience any more enjoyable. It may well be beta quality, but obviously, EA didn't think so when they first released it. Which begs the question: Where was EA's quality control department while the game was under development?

Before the new game came out, I used to enjoy playing the old Facebook Scrabble game. However, I think I'll wait a few more months before trying out the new EA Scrabble game again. EA has simply taken all the enjoyment out of the game.

Cheers! Hans

Scrabble - How To Piss Off Your Loyal Players

How many months has it been since Electronic Arts (EA) released their new Scrabble game on Facebook? It's been almost two months now since EA put their new "improved" game into open beta, even though the testers from their closed beta test gave them all they needed to know at the time, that the new game was severely flawed. And did EA explain why they released a new game? No. Even now, EA is saying little in response to the continuing litany of complaints.

To be fair, EA has announced that, in a month, they will release a new version of the game that has the old look and feel as an option. But that gesture has largely been ignored, while more and more people clog the Scrabble Facebook pages with complaints. (See ScrabbleEA and Scrabble, as well as Bring Back The Old Scrabble.)

We can only speculate why EA foisted this new game on us, knowing full well the feedback from the beta testers. Some argue that they wanted to push out more ads to the players. However, they tried that before with the old game and backed down after getting an earful from its players. Others suggest that they wanted to encourage players to invite more of their friends to the game. But heck, it's already one of the most popular games on Facebook. Surely everyone on the planet knows about the game.

Here's my theory: I suspect EA had to make a change because they had to. Maybe there were some incompatible API changes that caught EA off guard, forcing them to rush out a poorly written replacement game. After all, the old game still had problems of its own. I often had to use a different browser just to play the game. But it just made no sense to make such a drastic change. If there were impeding API differences, why couldn't the old game be modified?


EA hasn't been forthcoming with explanations, while the revolt among Scrabble players grows. Who knows how many have left the game with no intention of returning? Many people complain about opponents who have just abandoned their games. EA is now in a difficult situation. What do they have to do now to regain the trust of its Scrabble players?

First, EA needs to understand that Scrabble players in general are fairly intelligent people. By its very nature, the game attracts people who like to play with words. You can't easily dismiss such a group.

Second, EA needs to be forthcoming, and honest in its communications with its Scrabble players. They need to acknowledge the problems in a way that's not condescending. Scrabble players are not happy. EA staff need to accept that, and plan appropriately.

Third, EA needs to explain honestly why they made the change. Public relations experts have learned long ago that people can easily sniff out BS, and that sincere honesty is really the only way to handle PR nightmares, such as this. If the reason was an API change, then tell us. If the reason was that someone within EA thought that the new game had a better user interface, then tell us. Or, if the reason that that EA thought they could make more profit, then that must be admitted as well. EA has already lost the trust of its players. It's up to EA to do the right thing to bring them back.

And of course, fourth, EA needs to fix the problems with the Scrabble game. Offering the "classic" look and feel is part of that. But the bootflow errors, loss of scores, incorrect scoring, slow loading, etc. all need to be corrected. I know many programmers like to call them "bugs", implying that somehow tiny six or eight-legged creatures are somehow responsible. But the more correct term is "defect". These are all example of defective programming that never should have gotten out of the programming shop.

Whatever EA says publicly now, it will be picked apart by a group of extremely upset people. As I wrote before, Scrabble is an emotional issue for most players. EA needs to understand how best to make a public apology. Probably the worst thing EA could say now is "just get over it, get a life!". For many Scrabble players, Scrabble is an important part of their life.

Cheers! Hans

Don't Know Your Religion? Take The Test

We all believe. For many people, their beliefs come with a name attached. Often, their beliefs match the beliefs of a particular religion. These people can easily find others who share their beliefs. But others have a harder time defining what they believe in, and so, have a harder time finding others who share their beliefs.

Which brings me to the Belief-O-Matic quiz, found on the beliefnet web site. If you belong to a church, this quiz will likely be nothing more than a curiosity. You know what you are already. But if you know more or less what you believe in, but don't know what to call your beliefs, the quiz may well tell you. And the rest of this epistle is for you.

To continue, let me tell you a bit about me. I've thought about the great questions of life, universe, and everything for a long time. There are some things I know for sure, such as the importance of treating others as I want to be treated. There are other things that I doubt, such as the existence of a supreme creator being. In some ways, I consider myself a spiritual person. Like Einstein, I find spiritual inspiration in the fundamental principles governing the universe. In particular, I find something mysterious and magical about Euler's Identity:

What label would you give to my beliefs? Atheist? Agnostic? Secular Humanist? Would those terms describe you? Before continuing on, do the Belief-O-Matic quiz, if you haven't already done so.

Now to get to the point of today's missive: If, like me, you identify yourself as a secular humanist, you might be a bit surprised to find a few other faiths on your Belief-O-Matic results, such as Liberal Quaker or Unitarian-Universalist. The latter is what I'll focus on here. As a secular humanist, you may well think that there's no church where your beliefs would be welcome, or no church where your particular spiritual needs may be met. If that sounds like you, you know there are others like you. But in what church (if any) can they be found? They may be in your local Unitarian congregation. Yes, there is a church that may well be for you!

Just to be fair, Unitarians aren't all secular humanists. Some Unitarians are atheists or agnostics. Some Unitarians are Christians or Jews. And some are Buddhists or Wiccan. Almost all are on a journey of religious exploration. We all have different beliefs, and we all accept and encourage each other in our individual spiritual growth. If you come to a Unitarian service, you won't be told what to believe, unlike other churches. You are accepted no matter who you are, no matter what you believe, and no matter who you love.

If you want to learn more, start with the Canadian Unitarian Council or the Unitarian Universalist Association web sites. If you live in the Kingston, Ontario area, check out the Kingston Unitarian Fellowship. Some people who learn about Unitarianism for the first time wonder: What's the catch? There's no catch. If you are intrigued but have doubts, make an appointment with the minister of your local Unitarian church, and ask the most difficult, challenging questions you can. Or just show up at Sunday service and see what it's all about.

By the way, here are my own top three Belief-O-Matic results:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (89%)
3. Liberal Quakers (81%)

Cheers! Hans

PS. If you want to check out the Kingston Unitarian Fellowship, note that the church takes a break over the summer. Services resume in September.