Episode 585
Angela Dugan describes shat she is doing to improve communication and dynamics within her team.
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers's debut novel - tells the story of marginalized, working class people in the US south, struggling to survive during the Great Depression.
The novel focuses on five characters:
Mick, a teenage tomboy growing into a young woman, who dreams of escaping to a better life;
Jake, an alcoholic socialist, frustrated by his inability to convince others of the rightness of his opinions
Biff, the saloon owner, who observes everyone, but is close to no one - not even his wife
Dr. Copeland, an idealistic black physician, striving to make life better for his people; but failing to connect with his own family.
John Singer, a deaf mute, whose best friend Spiros Antonapoulos (also a deaf mute) is institutionalized.
The lives of these characters intersect, but they fail to communicate effectively or truly connect with one another. The main characters suffer from common problems, but few try to know one another.
Singer is the glue that holds them together. Everyone feels they can confide with Singer because, despite his inability to hear, they believe he is the only one who understands them and their ideas. He is the only one who makes an effort to understand or to pay attention or to reach out. Ironically, the deaf man is the best listener.
Each considers Singer a friend; but Singer himself counts only Antonapoulos among his friends.
This is a story of loneliness and isolation; of poverty and segregation and institutional racism; of alcoholism and fanaticism.
I loved Mick; I loved Singer; I loved the idea of the other characters, written brilliantly by McCullers.
There are few happy moments in the narrative, and it ends with a domino effect of tragedy as each character loses the one person giving them hope.
But it is not without hope. And the beautiful writing of McCullers gives the novel a depth that kept me engaged throughout.
Episode 584
Phil Japikse on .NET Core Support Cycle
Most people are unaware when support expires for each version of .NET Core. Phil Japikse explains the rules and how you can protect yourself.
Virginia Woolf divides To the Lighthouse into three distinct parts.
In part 1, the Ramsay family vacations at their summer home on the Isle of Skye. Young James hopes to visit a nearby lighthouse and his father seems to take delight in telling him that the weather will be too rough to make the trip, which disappoints the boy and contradicts his mother's promise.
In part 3, the family returns to their neglected vacation home 10 years later and plan again to visit the lighthouse - this time successfully to the delight of the adult James.
Parts 1 and 3 cover only 1 day each, while the much shorter part 2 covers the 10 years between, in which World War I occurs, children grow up, and several members of the family die.
Very little happens in the two longer chapters: A family conversation; a dinner party; a trip across the bay.
Even the dialogue is sparse: a few words are exchanged, followed by the inner monologue of everyone in the room. Often, they seem to know the thoughts of each other, although they don't always respond to them.
Woolf writes with an economy of words - both in her dialogue and in her narration; but she somehow provides the reader a glimpse inside her characters.
Mr. Ramsay is cold and stern, yet craves love and validation from his wife.
Mrs. Ramsay tries to balance the emotional needs of her husband and her children.
Spinster Liby, who takes 10 years to complete a painting, plagued by self-doubt and the insults of a misogynistic neighbor
Points of view switch rapidly, which can make the novel difficult to follow.
The novel is filled with symbolism and references to Woolf's own life (her family used to vacation by the sea when she was a girl). Liby emerges from the background of part 1 to be a key figure in part 3. Upon completion of her painting, Liby is a clear stand-in for the author, who struggled to be taken seriously in the early 20th century patriarchy.
Lighthouse as a metaphor. Always there; always available; but the family defers the joy of visiting it until it is too late for some of them.
I deferred the joy of reading this novel long enough.
Yesterday's keynote at Microsoft Ignite was hosted by CEO Satya Nadella, but featured demos and presentations by many others from Microsoft and its partners.
Highlights of the 112-minute keynote were
- Running Azure services on-premises
- Azure Synapse: a tool for tracking and reporting on telemetry data
- Microsoft Edge browser updates
- Advances in Quantum Computing
- Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents - 2 new tools for "Citizen Developers"
- Major update to the Edge browser
- Project Cortex, a service that makes it easy to find related information from within an application
- Bing integration with searching internal searching
Personally, I plan to explore Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Visual Studio Online first.
You can view a recording of the keynote here.
Below are my notes while watching the keynote:
Azure Stack Edge
Hardware with built-in Azure services
GPUs
Rugged series
Portable
For harsh environments
Azure Stack Hub
Azure Stack VI
VMs in Azure
Azure Arc
Extend azure services to my datacenter
Access to Azure security
Policies
Geo-replication
Between:
on-premise data
Azure datacenter
AWS
Azure Synapse
Telemetry
App metrics
Analytics
Fast query of telemetry data
Integration with PowerBI
Autonomous System
Simulation environments
Self-driving vehicles
Azure Quantum
Open platform
3 partners
Toolkit
Quantum algorithms can be run on classic hardware
Cyber Security
Last year cyber crime cost $1 trillion
Microsoft endpoint manager
Deploy policy to all data and locations
Tools
Visual Studio online
In-browser IDE
Existing tools
Intellicode
LiveShare
GitHub
Power Platform
"Citizen Developers"
Power Automate
Connectors for business applications
API connectors
Record UI steps
Power Virtual Agents
Language understanding
Uses Bot Framework
Customer Insights
Data platform
Pre-built connectors
Aggregated data stored in Azure
Can run analytics with Synapse (see above)
Productivity Cloud
Built with M365
Human attention
Microsoft Teams
Project Cortex
Converts data inside your organization into knowledge
e.g.,
look up acronym meaning in email
Find experts inside organization on a given topic
Ask contract: when is first payment due?
Voice Enhancement feature
Remove background noise to hear voice more easily
Whiteboards
Detect whiteboard
Make people transparent as they walk in front of white board
Fluid
Connections between applications across devices
Microsoft Edge browser update
Chromium browser
Faster
Runs on multiple operating system
Drag and drop pages, images, and metadata on right of browser
Share
Export to Excel
Bing
Search internal sites, along with the web
Internal information shown at top of search page (semantic understanding of question and information)
Power BI results output integrated
Minecraft Earth
VR
Multiplayer
Episode 583
Edward Thomson on GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions is a new feature at github.com allowing users to run custom code on GitHub. Edward Thomson describes this feature and how to use it.
11/3
Today I am grateful to watch my son's first game as a head coach yesterday at Kalamazoo College.
11/2
Today I am grateful to have no work travel for the past month.
11/1
Today I am grateful for the first snowfall of the winter.
10/31
Today I am grateful to see John Hiatt in concert last night.
10/30
Today I am grateful to attend the Grand Opening of the Chicago Microsoft Technology Center yesterday.
10/29
Today I am grateful to volunteer yesterday for the Hero Box event with my co-workers
10/28
Today I am grateful for all the Trick-or-Treaters who came to my door yesterday.
10/27
Today I am grateful for my new eyeglasses.
10/26
Today I am grateful to get my bike repaired.
10/25
Today I am grateful to see Incognito in concert last night with Thad.
10/24
Today I am grateful for a visit to the Elks National Veterans Memorial in Chicago.
10/23
Today I am grateful for my first visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art yesterday.
10/22
Today I am grateful to see Madonna in concert for the first time.
10/21
Today I am grateful to randomly and unexpectedly meet a former NFL player yesterday.
10/20
Today I am grateful to see Kansas in concert last night and my first visit to the Genesee Theatre.
10/19
Today I am grateful to attend an excellent Willie Nile concert last night.
10/18
Today I am grateful for a nice kitchen in my home.
10/17
Today I am grateful to be able to watch movies at home.
10/16
Today I am grateful for $1 tacos at Flaco's Tacos on Tuesdays.
10/15
Today I am grateful for the hospitality and generosity of Jay and Christina.
10/14
Today I am grateful for 6 years working at Microsoft and all the amazing people I've learned from.
10/13
Today I am grateful to attend my first Vegas Golden Knights game last night.
10/12
Today I am grateful to go to the Henderson, NV Harvest
10/11
Today I am grateful to present at the Las Vegas .NET User Group for the first time.
10/10
Today I am grateful for:
-Everyone who agreed to an interview this week at VSLive.
-Dinner last night with J., Walt, and Jim
10/9
Today I am grateful for lunch yesterday with Tim and Nick.
10/8
Today I am grateful for the memories of good times.
10/7
Today I am grateful to see the US Women's National Soccer Team play Korea yesterday at Soldier Field.
I love that John Hiatt seems to love performing.
Hiatt is not known for recording hit songs. Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night and many other artists have reached the charts with covers of his songs.
But Wednesday night at the City Winery, he was on stage performing his own songs to a full house with a smile on his face.
He didn't have a backing band; He didn't need one. Hiatt accompanied himself on guitar and (sometimes) keyboards and sounded as he sang. His voice still sounds good and still maintains that midwestern twang; and, if he struggles to hit high notes, he does so with passion.
The Indianapolis-born troubadour performed for about 100 minutes and seemed to gain strength and energy as the night went on.
With dozens of albums and hundreds of songs in his catalog, he had plenty to choose from and we heard some of his best, including "Thing Called Love", "Crossing Muddy Waters", "Have a Little Faith in Me" and "Lift Up Every Stone".
He returned to the stage to sing "Memphis in the Meantime" as an encore to a standing ovation.
His joy in playing came across to the audience. And hopefully our joy in listening came across to him.
GCast 65:
Artificial Intelligence, Whale Sharks, and WildBook
With help from Microsoft's AI for Earth, Wild Me has created WildBook to use artificial intelligence to track the location and migration of animals.
Episode 582
Blazor is a framework for building full-stack web apps in the browser using C#. Jeremy Likness describes how it works and how to use it.
I wasn't familiar with Incognito, the acid jazz band formed in the early 80's in the UK; but my friend Thad was a big fan. He called to suggest we see them at Park West Thursday evening, so I listened to a couple of their albums and I was sold.
Their live performance did not disappoint. Incognito founder Jean-Paul "Bluey" Maunick has assembled a talented group of musicians from all over the world (UK, Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago, China, Italy, US) and they played and sang a set of tight arrangements that delighted a nearly full concert hall.
Bluey brought a long 4 singers. All were excellent, but the featured singer was Maysa Leak (aka "Maysa"), who has carved out a solo career for herself and impressed with both her range and her emotion.
Highlights of the night included a cover of Ronnie Laws's "Always There" (Thad's favourite song), "Deep Waters", which featured a medley of love songs, and a long jam on their penultimate song that featured an excellent solo by every member of the 9-piece band.
Incognito did not come back for an encore, but it felt like enough. Everyone felt the energy, and everyone left satisfied.
Madonna never does anything halfway.
Monday night was her third of seven shows at the Chicago Theatre and she did not disappoint.
The show opened with a silhouetted typist loudly pounding out a James Baldwin passage on an old typewriter. A dancer jerked as each word appeared above the stage until he was shot dead. The quote was about art and artists and truth.
Then, the curtains drew, and Madonna appeared, dressed as a pirate, surrounded by dancers and a large American flag and a set consisting of multiple moving staircases.
The evening's show featured multiple costume and set changes and switched between tightly choreographed numbers and Madonna chatting casually with the audience. It lasted over two hours.
While Madonna did sing a few songs from the 1980s, when she regularly topped the charts ("Express Yourself", "Vogue", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like A Prayer"), most of the evening was devoted to her newer works. Madonna now makes her home in Lisbon and she brought guests to the stage, including a group of Portuguese singers performing energetic harmonies; and a guitar player performing an excellent solo, which launched into the lead singer's medley.
Dressed as the enigmatic one-eyed Madame X, she preached her political philosophy of independence, freedom, and tolerance throughout the show, mixing this with a bit of potty talk.
She closed with all the singers backing her up for "I Rise" as they marched into the audience and out the back of the theatre.
The show reminded me of a Broadway production more than a concert.
Sometimes, I will hear a song and it will take me back to the time I first heard it - to the friends I was with and where we were and what we were doing and what I was feeling. A familiar song can bring happy memories and sad memories flooding back.
When I listen to the progressive rock band Kansas's "Leftoverture" and "Point of Know Return” albums, I'm transported to my high school days. I bought these 2 albums within months of each other and they were among the first of couple dozen albums of the thousands I eventually ended up buying.
Saturday night at the Genesee Theatre in Waukegan, IL, I felt I was surrounded by kindred spirits. The heads covered in gray hair (or lacking hair) suggested a crowd that also lived their youth in the 1970s. And the fact that so many gave a standing ovation after every song suggested that the memories invoked by the song were as important as the current performance of the song.
After 5 decades, only 2 founding members of Kansas remain - guitarist Rich Williams and drummer Phil Erhart. But the current members still respect the old songs and performed them very well. Original lead vocalist Steve Walsh is gone, but Chicago native and former truck driver Ronnie Platt sounded a heck of a lot like him; and David Ragsdale played an excellent electric violin, reminiscent of original violinist Robby Steinhardt, who gave Kansas its distinctive sound during their late 70s peak.
At Genesee, they played over half of "Leftoverture", including "Miracles Out of Nowhere" (my personal favourite) and "Carry on Wayward Son" (the evening's encore).
But the main draw of the performance was their "Point of Know Return", which the band played in its entirety. Hearing the tracks in order was like sitting in my parents’ basement with the stereo turned up loud while I pored over the lyrics, liner notes, and cover art. I was transported.
As were all the old folks around me.
Episode 581
Laurent Bugnion on the Ignite Tour
The Microsoft Ignite conference takes place in November in Orlando, FL; but not everyone can attend.
So, Laurent Bugnion and his team are organizing the Ignite Tour, bringing much of the content to 30 cities around the world in the months following the conference.
Laurent discusses what people can expect at these events.
"I love quality" announced Willie Nile from the stage to the audience at SPACE in Evanston Friday night. And quality is what he delivered. From his 90-minute set to his excellent band (I was impressed by his new lead guitarist Jimmy Bones) to his charming demeanor to the warmup band (Georgia singer/songwriter Brad Ray, accompanied by his father).
If you don't know Willie Nile, you are not alone. He has carved out a successful career, recording a dozen studio albums that satisfied his fan base; but he has never cracked the top 40.
His music is old school rock and roll with cerebral lyrics. Think of Lou Reed crossed with Bruce Springsteen, crossed with the Clash.
With decades of material on which to draw, Nile had many quality choices. And he delighted the crowd with rockers like "House of a Thousand Guitars" and "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go", along with thoughtful slow songs like "The Innocent Ones", which he dedicated to the Kurds fighting for their lives in the middle east. For "The Streets of New York", he set aside is guitar and sat at the piano.
The band closed with a rousing rendition of "One Guitar" in which they were joined by Brad Ray and his dad).
Willie Nile stands about 5-foot-nothing and has sported a Cosmo Kramer haircut since years before there was a Cosmo Kramer. But Friday night in Evanston, he cranked out house rocking music a hundred feet tall.
And everything he did was filled with quality.
GCast 64:
Learn how to use Audacity to reduce the background noise in an audio file.
Episode 580
Jason Bock describes the most important new features in .NET Core 3
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre includes the character of Bertha - Rochester's mad wife, whom he keeps locked in the attic.
In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys tells Bertha's story and her descent into madness.
Her name was Antoinette and she was the Creole daughter of a slave owning family in 19th century Jamaica. The family fell into financial and social ruin when the British Empire outlawed slavery. The local freed slaves hated them enough that they eventually burned down their home and killed Antoinette's brother. Her mother married a wealthy Englishman, who killed himself, driving her mother to madness. Antoinette was raised by nuns at a convent and eventually an Englishman married her for her inheritance. But the unnamed Englishman (presumably Mr. Rochester) was unloving and believed rumors that he heard about Antoinette and her family. He became distant and unfaithful and even began calling her "Bertha" instead of her real name over Antoinette's objections.
The book humanizes Bertha / Antoinette, who is no longer the monstrous lunatic of Bronte's novel. Her troubled mind is in part due to heredity and in part to her traumatic upbringing and unhappy marriage. Her marriage to Rochester resulted in the loss of her freedom, which is analogous to the slavery inflicted by her own ancestors. The novel explores conflicts between races and genders and classes and forces the reader to think about the choices we make in life. Although Antoinette looks white, she is part black and not fully accepted by either race. Her marriage to Rochester is, in part, an effort to escape her situation.
Sargasso is probably the most interesting examples of fan fiction I've read. The narration suddenly shifts from Antoinette to Rochester without explanation, which was a bit jarring and confusing. But a quick re-read of the opening pages of Section 2 clarified my perspective.
It isn't necessary to read Jane Eyre before this novel, but it helps one appreciate where the character is going. If you have not yet read Bronte's classic novel, I recommend reading a synopsis before diving into this one. The book does stand on its own; but is better as a prequel and explanation of Bronte's novel.
Episode 579
Laurent Ellerbach on Diversity and Inclusion Workshop
Laurent Ellerbach has developed a workshop to help people think about and talk about Diversity and Inclusion. In this workshop, attendees articulate their ideas visually using Lego bricks.
10/6
Today I am grateful for phone calls yesterday from my sister Debbie and my cousin Kevin.
10/5
Today I am grateful to write some code the past couple weeks for the first time in too long.
10/4
Today I am grateful for a free annual flu shot.
10/3
Today I am grateful for a visit this week from John and Becky.
10/2
Today I am grateful for dinner last night with John and Becky.
10/1
Today I am grateful for a long-overdue haircut last night.
9/30
Today I am grateful to see the Billy Cobham Crosswinds Project featuring Randy Brecker last night at the City Winery.
9/29
Today I am grateful to cook a nice meal for someone yesterday for the first time in a long time.
9/28
Today I am grateful to see Bruce Cockburn in concert last night.
9/27
Today I am grateful for a grocery store 1 block from my home.
9/26
Today I am grateful to see Ad Astra in Lincoln Square last night. And for a 10-mile bike ride home after the movie.
9/25
Today I am grateful for the flexibility to work where I want on many days.
9/24
Today I am grateful for a birthday dinner with Tim and Natale last night at Au Cheval.
9/23
Today I am grateful for my son's new job as head basketball coach at Kalamazoo College.
9/22
Today I am grateful to attend the MSU-Northwestern football game in Evanston yesterday.
9/21
Today I am grateful for a few days in Redmond and Bellevue.
9/20
Today I am grateful:
-to attend a Train the Trainer course for a Diversity and Inclusion workshop yesterday
-for lunch yesterday with my boss's boss's boss (After months of phone conversations, we finally met in person)
9/19
Today I am grateful for my first visit to an Afghan restaurant.
9/18
Today I am grateful for dinner with John last night.
9/17
Today I am grateful for a night in my own bed.
9/16
Today I am grateful for an excellent weekend in London.
9/15
Today I am grateful for:
-a tour of Westminster Abbey
-Lunch with Peter
-my first visit to the British Museum
-seeing "Matilda" live in London's West End
9/14
Today I am grateful for:
-Coffee with Galiya and Gary
-Dinner with James and Gosia
-Seeing Rachel before she left London
9/13
Today I am grateful to work with customers who are excited about what we are working on together.
9/12
Today I am grateful to work with smart people.
9/11
Today I am grateful for dinner with this team at an English Pub last night.
Sep 11, 2019, 7:29 AM
9/10
Today I am grateful for my first visit to Peterborough, England.
9/9
Today I am grateful for a week in Rome.
9/8
Today I am grateful to visit the Coliseum, the Forum, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps and other attractions in Rome yesterday with Hattan, Anders, and Robert.
9/7
Today I am grateful for a successful OpenHack in Rome this week.
9/6
Today I am grateful my camera was still there when I went back to look for it.
9/5
Today I am grateful for a hot shower following a restless night.
9/4
Today I am grateful for dinner with Hattan last night.
9/3
Today I am grateful for my first visit to Rome in over 30 years.
9/2
Today I am grateful for my first visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Clyde Griffiths is an ambitious young man.
At the age of 21, he finds himself working for a rich uncle who owns a shirt company. He is the boss of a department filled with young ladies and, despite company rules expressly forbidding such things, begins an affair with one of them - the beautiful Roberta Alden. He is also welcomed into the social circles of the local aristocracy, where he is liked for his good looks and charm. Soon, he meets rich, beautiful Sondra and decides he loves her instead of Roberta. Unfortunately, he continues to sleep with Roberta; and, when she becomes pregnant, he is left with a dilemma: marry the girl he no longer loves or abandon her for Sondra, risking exposure for his philandering. It is at this point that Clyde contemplates murder.
Clyde sounds like a terrible person. Who would treat people like this and place his own ambitions above the very lives of others? But An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser does not begin with Clyde's entry into high society. It begins with his childhood in Kansas City, where Clyde was the eldest son of street evangelists. Poor and embarrassed, he finds work as a hotel busboy, which puts some money in his pocket. He begins spending his evenings squandering his salary on booze and prostitutes. After being exploited by the selfish gold digger Hortense Briggs, who manipulates him into buying her expensive gifts, he develops a mistrust of women. At one point, Clyde is a passenger in a stolen car that is involved in a fatal hit-and-run. Fearing arrest, Clyde flees Kansas City and changes his name. By doing so, he learns that he can avoid responsibility and punishment by running away.
Each stage of Clydes's life reinforces in him his desire for material wealth and social standing. He becomes more self-centered with each passing year - not evil, but with little empathy toward others.
The book ends with a murder trial, a thorough analysis of one of the book's central tragedies.
There are side stories: the office of the ambitious district attorney that has no qualms about manufacturing evidence; the mother who refuses to acknowledge the possibility that her son might be guilty; the virginal Roberta's agonizing choice to give herself to Clyde or risk losing him; and Sondra, whose parents disapprove of her relationship with a boy they see as lower in social ranking.
But mostly, this is Clyde's story. And the reader cannot help but sympathize with him, even though his problems are almost entirely self-inflicted. Clyde is a product of his experiences. He has been conditioned by society to want what others have, and he doesn't have the courage to question this.
Dreiser removes much ambiguity by telling the reader explicitly what is in the mind of each character as they are speaking. With Clyde, the ambiguity remains because Clyde himself does not understand his own emotions.
There are three deaths in the novel. And, although each is tragic, the real tragedy of the story is the slow descent of Clyde's conscience. He never sees himself as evil, but he falls for the material comforts, and the pretty girls, and he comes to believe that he is entitled to these things and that his desires take precedence over the needs of anyone else.
An American Tragedy is not perfect. It's longer than it needs to be, and it moves slowly at times. But it is a good crime story; a good legal drama; and a very good psychological analysis of a misguided mind growing up under the influence of American values.
_2.jpg "CobhamBrecker (2)")
Maybe it was the rain. Or the fact that it was a Sunday. Or because they performed 2 shows on the same day.
But the City Winery was barely half full for the legendary drummer Billy Cobham and his Crosswinds Project, which featured his longtime collaborator trumpeter Randy Brecker.
_4.jpg "CobhamBrecker (3)")
Cobham and Brecker have a long history together. They co-founded the jazz-rock fusion band Dreams in the late 1960s before launching successful careers as solo artists and collaborating with many of the jazz greats. Brecker found great success pairing with his brother Michael as The Brecker Brothers, while Cobham co-founded the Mahavishnu Orchestra with guitarist John McLaughlin.
Sunday they were together again, along with 4 other musicians (guitar, bass, keyboard, and bassoon) at the City Winery. I caught the second of two shows and the band was tight and energetic.
Named for his classic 1974 album, the Crosswinds Project played the full Spanish Moss Suite from that LP, leading in with a beautifully rendered solo keyboard version of "Savannah the Serene".
_4.jpg "CobhamBrecker (1)")
It was Cobham's band and he led the way, but each of his band took turns with outstanding solo and ensemble performances. I was particularly impressed with keyboardist Osam Elelwy, who brought both energy and emotion to the evening's performance.
At 75 years young, Billy Cobham is celebrating his legacy and still sharing continuing to pour himself into his music. It will be tough to match the influence he has had on musicians in the past, but he is still inspiring audiences.
Episode 578
Raj Krishnan on Azure Data Explorer
Raj Krishnan describes Azure Data Explorer - a highly-scalable, very fast in-memory data store formerly known as Kusto.
Bruce Cockburn delights us all at the Old Town School of Folk Music
September 29, 2019 8:31 Comments [0]
Bruce Cockburn sat outside Maurer Hall at Lincoln Square's Old Town School of Folk Music, smiling, chatting, and signing autographs. His sold-out concert had ended almost an hour before, but he patiently waited for each photo request and each expression of gratitude - gratitude for the evening's music and for four decades of recordings. He did not show his 74 years at all. Until he stood up and one noticed a curve in his back that kept him bent over a bit too much and forced him to use a cane beyond a few steps.
Any age-related frailties were conspicuously absent during his nearly 3-hour performance. He sat while playing and singing, but he left his seat between songs to change instruments (he brought four guitars plus a charango - a small South American stringed instrument). But the thing that mostly defies Cockburn's years is his voice, which remains the rich baritone that made him semi-famous half a lifetime ago.
Cockburn seemed to get stronger as the show progressed. During the first half of his show, he softened up the audience - lulling them into a feeling of comfort; but, after intermission, one could feel the energy increase. From the anger of protest songs like "Call it Democracy" and environmental anthems like "If a Tree Falls" to the uplifting and upbeat "wondering Where the Lions Are" (my favourite Cockburn song), the septuagenarian singer-songwriter kept the energy high.
He was accompanied on stage by a young man that I assume was his son (Bruce introduced him as someone with the same last name), who alternated between guitar and accordion. This helped fill in some of the songs, but one gets the feeling that the elder Cockburn could have carried the show himself.
It was a rare treat to see a legendary performer like Bruce Cockburn, who is still going strong.
Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust takes place in 1930s Hollywood; but it has little to do with the film industry. This even though the book opens with a parade of movie extras marching past and ends with fans rioting outside a movie premiere.
Most of the story takes place around the edges of movie life. Tod Hackett works as a set painter for a movie studio and Faye Greener is a sometimes extra, waiting for her chance to be a star.
Tod is infatuated with Faye, but Faye cares only for herself and uses Tod, along with every man who comes into his life. Some of the men she teases, some she sleeps with, and some she exploits. She particularly takes advantage of Homer Simpson (Yes. Homer Simpson), a shy, repressed Midwesterner who comes to California hoping the mild weather will heal his failing health. After the death of her father, Faye moves into Homer's house and invites her lover and his friend to move into his garage, where they host illegal cock fights. She is verbally abusive to all her suitors, but she is cruelest to Homer.
The Day of the Locust shines a light on the shallowness of Hollywood culture. As Hackett tells it, people "have come to California to die". The pleasant weather isn't enough to occupy them, and they don't have enough money or imagination to fight the inevitable boredom that overwhelms their lives. So, everyone devolves into a shallow version of themselves.
No one seemed to be working toward anything meaningful. Tod is complex ("a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes); but everyone he encounters is a simple stereotype from the ill-tempered dwarf to the silent cowboy to the mother pushing her spoiled son to be a child star. It's no wonder that so many of them fall for Faye's empty charms.
This book is satirical and depressing and filled with sexual frustration, which leads to heartbreak, which often leads to violence.
And I liked it.
Aziraphale is an angel and Crowley is a demon and both have been living on Earth for thousands of years and they have grown to like it. They even like each other. Sort of. So, they are distressed to learn that the antichrist has been born, signaling the impending end of the world.
Anathema Device is the descendent of Agnes Nutter - a 17th century soothsayer whose predictions have all come to pass. Agnes has predicted the coming Armageddon.
Newton Pulsifer and Sergeant Shadwell are incompetent witch hunters, who only know that something strange is going on, so they chase it across England, trying to avoid bad people and any monetary expenditures.
The Chattering Order of St. Beryl are a group of bumbling Satanists charged with swapping the newborn antichrist, so he is raised by a powerful political family. They accidentally place him with the wrong family, so he grows up in a small Oxfordshire village raised by middle class parents.
Years later, the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse are racing toward the 11-year-old antichrist, planning to finalize his rise to power. Horseman Pestilence retired after the discovery of penicillin, so he has been replaced by Pollution.
And then it gets weird.
These are some of the elements of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - two of my favourite authors.
It's hard to tell which parts are Gaiman and which are Pratchett. Gaiman is better at inventing worlds and making them seem believable. Pratchett is better at laugh-out-loud humour. And there is plenty of both in this story.
Good Omens is a tale about the worth of humanity and about the relative power of nature versus nurture. But mostly it is about silliness and funny jokes. If you love Gaiman and you love Pratchett (and who doesn't?), you will enjoy this book.
When my boys were young, I would regularly read to them and their classmates. One of our favourite authors was Roald Dahl, so I spent many Fridays reading chapters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda.
Saturday night, I had the chance to experience Matilda - the Musical live at London' Cambridge Theatre.
It was a delightful interpretation of a delightful book.
Matilda is the story of a young girl who loves books, but is despised, discouraged, and verbally abused by her ignorant and amoral parents. When she goes to school, she finds the other children absurdly ignorant, the older kids callous and teasing and - worst of all - the headmistress Miss Trunchbull is cruel and domineering.
Matilda is bright and mischievous and unafraid. But her life is made miserable by the adults who surround her. The one great exception is her kindly teacher Miss Honey, who cares about Matilda, but is too timid to stand up to Miss Trunchbull.
The Cambridge Theatre production made use of the entire theatre. Actors frequently entered and exited the stage up the center aisle (right next to my seat, as it turned out); and the action sometimes extended up into the balcony. In a break from tradition, the intermission ended without warning with Matilda's father stepping onstage to read a statement on the dangers of excessive reading. People hurried back to their seat when they discovered the play had resumed.
The title character was played perfectly by Tilly-Raye Bayer, a tiny girl with the cherubic face and a precocious attitude.
I saw many children in the audience enjoying the show, but many adults like me also had a great time. It took me back to a simpler time that I shared with my boys.
My second experience in London's famous West End theatre district was a delight.
Jack and Babette have an idyllic, if unconventional life. Jack is a professor at a small midwestern college, whose Hitler Studies program has proved enormously popular. The major is so popular that a colleague is building a similar curriculum around Elvis Presley in addition to a course about car crashes in movies. Babette has a successful career reading tabloid stories to blind people.
They live in a nice house near campus with four children from their numerous previous marriages. They are a little too obsessed with death, but what of that?
Things start to disrupt when Jack is exposed to toxic fumes that descend on their town - an incident that brings him closer to the death he fears.
Babette learns of a pill that claims to cure death anxiety, but the only source of this pill will only trade it for sex. She concedes and Jack takes the affair in stride when he first learns of it; but later plots violent revenge.
White Noise by Don DeLillo is a surreal book. From absurd pop-culture college majors to the unexplained "toxic cloud" to unlikely medicines to the children who seem more mature than their parents to the ex-wives with even quirkier personalities than Jack and Babette's family.
DeLillo makes it work, thanks to his gift of humor. His dialogue is often inane, but funny. And he throws the reader off by including unrelated details in many scenes, such as describing the shoes a character wears or relaying what is heard on the TV in the background.
White Noise is an enjoyable satire and a good read.
Until this week, I was unfamiliar with Zora Neale Hurston or her 1937 novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God".
But I read it and I'm glad I did.
This is the story of Janie Crawford - a black woman growing up in Florida in the early 20th century. Janie is the product of a white man raping her mother and her mother is the result of the rape of Janie's grandmother by her plantation master.
It is a full generation following the emancipation of slaves in America, but the poor, uneducated blacks of the region are still far from equal. This book reminds us that they had stories to tell and people to love and lives to lead.
As a young girl, Janie hoped for love. As a teenager, Janie's grandmother arranged her marriage to an older man, hoping to avoid the tragedies of the last two generations. This marriage fails and her second husband dies, and she marries a charming gambler, who is much younger than her. Their life seems good until a flood and a rabid dog attack disrupts it.
But these plot devices are just Hurston's ways of allowing us to see inside Janie and her neighbors. She struggles to love her husbands, even though they sometimes behave irrationally and occasionally violently. She struggles with other blacks, even though some of them have ideas that are strange to her. And she struggles to survive in a world designed by white men.
Her first two husbands treat her as a piece of property. Only her third husband gives her the love she desires. He is far from perfect, but he accepts Janie as a person.
We cannot escape the racial overtones in this novel because most of the characters are black and are living in a white-controlled society. But the book is more about gender roles and the relationship between men and women than about race. Janie searches for love but ends up being controlled by the men in her life. The black men of this story are controlled by the white men; and they take out their frustration by controlling their black women.
Hurston strives to make the dialogue authentic, including poor grammar and phonetic (mis)pronunciations, which can make this book a challenge to read. But this adds to the color of the story. And I happened to choose the audiobook, read by Ruby Dee, who did a masterful job.
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a story of strength and endurance by a woman seeking love and affirmation and survival. Janie is human but heroic. She asserts and defends herself while surviving in a world she does not control. Ultimately, she succeeds in living her life by her own rules.
Glenn Tilbrook celebrated his birthday with us in Chicago.
Tilford - along with Chris Difford - are the driving force behind the band Squeeze. Squeeze began as a New Wave band in the late 1970s, but progressed to become one of the most creative bands of the early 1980s - producing some very inventive melodies, rhythms, and arrangements. Difford and Tilbrook were the founders, songwriters, and leaders of the band and they are the only two original members to remain with the group today.
Saturday night at the Chicago Theatre, they were joined by a very good backing ensemble, especially a drummer, filled with kinetic energy and a masterful keyboard player.
From the moment they walked on stage, they were focused on the music. The band played four songs before they paused to greet the audience.
Mixed in with some lesser-known album cuts, the band played many of their hits, including "Annie Get Your Gun", "Cool for Cats" (a rare Difford vocal), "Goodbye Girl", and "Up the Junction". Highlights of the evening included an acoustic version of "Tempted" and a rousing version of "Black Coffee in Bed" to close the night.
The seats at the Chicago Theatre were a little too close to allow any pogo dancing; but the audience got on their feet when they recognized a song.
During their heyday, Squeeze was moderately popular on American radio stations, while they enjoyed much greater success in their native UK and on my college dorm room stereo.
At the end of the show, Difford wished his friend a Happy Birthday, showed a video from back home, and led the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday".
We all celebrated.
Episode 577
Lorena Mesa on the Python Software Foundation
Lorena Mesa is a GitHub data engineer and a Director of the Python Software Foundation.
She describes the mission of the Foundation and how they assist Python developers and the Python community.
Links:
http://lorenamesa.com/
https://twitter.com/loooorenanicole
https://www.python.org/psf-landing/
https://www.python.org/psf/
https://github.com/psf/
https://pycon.org/
9/1
Today I am grateful to attend the Squeeze concert last night with John.
8/31
Today I am grateful for a visit yesterday to the September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan.
8/30
Today I am grateful for:
-My first visit to Birdland Jazz Club
-Seeing "The Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway
8/29
Today, I am grateful for my first visit to Purchase, NY.
8/28
Today I am grateful for my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday.
8/27
Today I am grateful that I've had a few weeks without work travel.
8/26
Today I am grateful to attend Mass at Assumption Church for the first time.
8/25
Today I am grateful for a bike ride along the lakefront in Milwaukee yesterday.
8/24
Today I am grateful to see Max Weinberg’s Jukebox in concert last night.
8/23
Today I am grateful for dinner with John last night.
8/22
Today I am grateful for a tour of the Glessner House Museum yesterday.
8/21
Today I am grateful for a hot bath last night.
8/20
Today I am grateful for a weekend in Flagstaff with Dan.
8/19
Today I am grateful for a visit to Walnut Canyon National Monument, Grand Falls, and Winslow yesterday.
8/18
Today, I am grateful for a drive through the deserts, canyons, mountains, and plateaus of central Arizona.
8/17
Today I am grateful to attend an extra-innings Giants-Diamondbacks baseball game last night at Chase Field.
8/16
Today I am grateful for:
-the Dell technician who fixed my motherboard yesterday;
-a chance to speak at the Chicago .NET User Group last night
8/15
Today I am grateful for my longest bike ride of the year (so far)
8/14
Today I am grateful that so many electronics can be fixed by turning them off and on.
8/13
Today I am grateful that downtown Chicago becomes more bike-friendly every year.
8/12
Today I am grateful to visit the United States Pizza Museum yesterday.
8/11
Today I am grateful to see Sam Shepard's "True West" last night on my first visit to the Steppenwolf Theatre.
8/10
Today I am grateful for my new dresser.
8/9
Today I am grateful for a few days in southwest Michigan.
8/8
Today I am grateful for a walk around Saugatuck yesterday.
8/7
Today I am grateful to watch the sun set over Lake Michigan last night.
8/6
Today I am grateful for dinner last night with Emilija and Larissa.
8/5
Today I am grateful to see Santana and the Doobie Brothers in concert last night.
William Faulkner's Light in August opens as Lena Grove arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi after traveling hundreds of miles to Jefferson, Mississippi in search of Lucas Birch - the father of her unborn child. Lucas left Alabama, promising to send for Lena as soon as he was settled, but she never heard from him.
Lena learns that Lucas has been living in Jefferson for months under an assumed name. He has been bootlegging with a drifter named Joe Christmas.
Christmas was raised in an orphanage, then adopted by an abusive stepfather, whom he murdered. He has been on the run ever since. At the beginning of the novel, he is having a relationship with Joanna Burden - a local descendent of abolitionists, who is shunned by the whites in town because of her tolerance and kindness toward the blacks.
Each major character we meet is a misfit: an unwed mother or a defrocked preacher or a criminal or an abolitionist or an orphan. Many of them are self-destructive and all of them are interesting. When Faulkner introduces each character, he takes the time to review their backstory - explaining how they came to their troubles.
Soon, there is a murder and a manhunt and a town seeking justice for someone they never liked.
Race plays a huge role in this novel. One character looks white but is filled with self-loathing because he believes he is part black. The local white folks are quick to believe the guilt of an alleged murderer when they learn he may be part negro.
One thing the racism of the characters succeeds in doing is masking the extreme misogyny of many of the characters.
Sometimes the frequent time hops make this a difficult story to follow; but, stay with it. It is filled with tragedy and human drama and raw emotion.
GCast 63:
Sentiment Analysis JavaScript DemoIn this video, I walk you through a JavaSript application that calls the Sentiment Analysis Cognitive Service.
Episode 576
Dan Rey describes the different versions of Microsoft Surface and how you can use them to be more productive.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith follows the lives of old friends Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. They met when serving together in a tank in World War II, where they got lost, missed the end of the war, and sentenced a war criminal to death; they remained friends; married much younger women; had children; worked menial jobs in north London; and spend their free time in a filthy pub drinking beer and eating greasy food.
But they are very different. Archie is English and simple and easygoing; Samal is a fiery and opinionated Bangladeshi immigrant, who wants his family to maintain the traditions of his homeland.
Samal is so troubled by the English influence on his family that he sends his son Magid back to Bangladesh so he can learn his ancestral ways.
The plot becomes more complex as Smith introduces more characters and tells their backstories and their lives become more and more intertwined. In addition to Archie and Samad, she gives us:
Clara: Archie's young Jamaican wife, who is trying to escape the influence of her Jehovah's Witness mother.
Alsana: Samad's wife. She never forgives Samad for sending away their son.
Millat and Magid: Twin sons of Samad and Alsana. They grow up with very different personalities. After Magid is sent to Bangladesh, Millat turns to a life of pot-smoking and womanizing for a few years, before embracing Islam. Magid rejects religion and embraces intellectualism.
Irie: Archie and Clara's daughter. She is intelligent but lacks self-esteem and has a hopeless crush on Millat.
The Chalfens, an intellectual, liberal, well-meaning, dysfunctional family, who try (sometimes successfully) to mentor the Jones and Iqbal children.
There are other characters, and each has their backstory and their quirks, but the narrative revolves largely around the characters listed above. The book often jumps around in time to reveal the backstories of each character. But it does so succinctly and successfully. In the end, all the characters end up in the same room with different goals and an unexpected result.
Smith explores several conflicts including the struggle between immigrant assimilation and tradition to the role of race in society; the difficulty of parents and children to understand and relate to one another; and the meaning of religion in individual lives. She does so with a good story and with a witty prose, as in the following:
"Oh he loves her; just as the English loved India and Africa and Ireland; it is the love that is the problem, people treat their lovers badly."
I enjoyed the characters and I enjoyed the story.
White Teeth is one of the best novels I've read this year.
A jukebox (for those too young to remember) was a machine filled with black vinyl discs - each containing a different song. They could be found in a lot of bars and diners and patrons could insert one or more coins and select the songs they wanted to hear.
Max Weinberg's Jukebox works on the same principle. A screen next to the stage continuously scrolled a list of almost 200 songs and Max periodically went into the audience to ask what people wanted to hear. And then he and his band played those requests.
Weinberg (for those too young to remember) rose to fame as the drummer of Bruce Springsteen's legendary E Street Band; and later led Conan O'Brien's house band for both the Late Show and the Tonight Show.
Max Weinberg opened his City Winery show Friday evening with Cream's "White Room" and Tom Petty's "American Girl" before soliciting requests from the audience. Anything on the scrolling list was fair game and the list was packed with classic rock favourites from The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, Springsteen (of course), and a host of others. Max played the drums and was accompanied by 2 guitarists and a bass player - each of which took turns singing lead.
In 2+ hours, I counted 26 songs performed by the band, including "Lola", "Drift Away", and "Me and Julio" - each delivered with tight playing, high-quality musicianship and great enthusiasm.
It was like listening to a really good bar cover band with one famous guy in it.
They closed the night with a trio of high-energy Springsteen songs: "Pink Cadillac", "Dancing in the Dark", and "Glory Days". For the final song, Max invited audience members to join the band onstage.
A great concert (for those too young to remember) happens when both the audience and the performers enjoy themselves. This was one of those evenings.
Recently, I was working on a VM that someone else provided me and I needed to download an executable from the Internet onto this VM. I discovered that the only installed browser on the VM was Internet Explorer 11 and that the browser was configured to prevent anyone from downloading files from the Internet.
I don't know if this is the default setting for IE 11, but here is how to change the setting to allow users to download files.
Open Internet Explorer.
From the menu, select Tools | Internet Options
The "Internet Options" dialog displays. Select the "Security" tab, as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
Click the [Custom Level] button. The "Security Settings" dialog displays. Scroll down to the "Downloads/File download" section, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Select the "Enable" radio button and click the [OK] button. If prompted for confirmation, click [Yes].
Click the [OK] button to close the "Internet Options" dialog.
Now you can download files linked within the browser.
GCast 62:
Sentiment Analysis Cognitive ServiceThis video explains the Sentiment Analysis service, which is part of the Text Analytics Cognitive Service.
A data warehouse ("DW") is an ideal tool for collecting and associated disparate data.
A data warehouse has been a part of Microsoft SQL Server for decades, so it's not surprising that it is also included in Microsoft Azure.
To create a SQL Data Warehouse in Azure, navigate to the Azure Portal, sign in, and click the [Create a resource] button (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1
From the menu, select Databases | SQL Data Warehouse, as shown in Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The "SQL Data Warehouse" dialog displays, allowing you to enter information about your new data warehouse, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 3
At the "Subscription" field, select the subscription in which you wish to create this data warehouse. Most of you will have only one subscription.
At the "Resource group" field, select an existing resource group or click the "Create new" link to create a new resource group in which to add this data warehouse. A resource group is an organizational unit to keep together related Azure resources.
At the "Data warehouse name" field, enter a unique name for your warehouse.
The "Server" field lists all SQL servers in the selected subscription. Every data warehouse is stored in one SQL Server. Select the SQL Server for this DW or click the "Create new" link to create a new SQL Server.
Clicking "Create new" displays the "New server" blade, as shown in Fig. 4. In this blade, you can enter the server name, location, and admin login credentials for a new server.
Fig. 4
Click the [Review + create] button to display the "Review + create" tab of the "SQL Data Warehouse" dialog, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5
Click the [Create] button to create a new SQL Data Warehouse. This process may take a few minutes (longer if you also chose to create a new server).
After the Data Warehouse creation is complete, you can navigate to its management page. The "Overview" blade is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6
In this article, you learned how to create a new Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Poor Moses Herzog.
His wife convinced him to buy a house in Chicago; then tried to have him committed; then, left him for his best friend. On top of that, he is denied contact with either of his children.
Moses sets out for Chicago with his later father's antique pistol, 2 bullets, and murder on his mind. But nothing goes right, and his plans fall apart, and he is in an automobile accident and the police discover his loaded pistols.
The action does of Saul Bellow's Herzog does not happen until the novel is at least half over. But the author keeps us engaged through Moses's angst, as his life falls apart. Moses deals with his depression by writing letters - most of which are never sent and many of which are addressed to famous people such as Friedrich Nietzsche and (then-President) Dwight Eisenhower.
Herzog is unstable; but he is not crazy as his shrewish wife asserts. And his letter-writing decreases as he comes to terms with the cards he is dealt.
Bellow's writing is poignant and sad, but sometimes humorous, with lines such as
"Lead me into Penn Station"
and
"Will never understand what women want. What do they want? They eat green salad and drink human blood."
This book will appeal to anyone who has experienced the helplessness of a mid-life crisis; or the pain of betrayal; or the paralysis of uncertainty.
Death is very different in the universe of Philip K. Dick's Ubik. Rather than simply ending life or transitioning to an afterlife, the recently dead remain cognizant. If properly preserved, technology exists that allows the living to communicate with the dead - sometimes for years. The consciousness slowly decays over time, after which the deceased finally cease to exist or are reborn anew.
Psychics are common enough in this universe to keep Glen Runciter busy. His company specializes in protecting people from psychic intrusion.
A group of powerful anti-psychics, led by Runciter, travel to the moon to meet with a potential client, where they are attacked and seemingly hurled back in time to the year 1939. But not everything is like the 1939 of their own past and they wonder exactly where they are.
Runciter is a good man and so is his employee Joe Chip. Chip is the perfect hero. He is loyal to his employer and dedicated to finding the truth; but he is financially irresponsible and always lacking funds (a problem when every appliance, device, and door requires a cash fee before it will operate).
Ubik is an imaginative tale of action and drama and speculative science fiction. Dick does an excellent job of taking far-fetched ideas and making them seem plausible. In under 250 pages he builds an entire world; then, destroys that world and creates another.
The story is both dark and humorous.
This novel influenced science fiction for many years after its 1969 publication. Douglas Adams must have read about the annoying talking doors when he wrote them into his Hitchhiker series. At times, we see nested realities, in a way that echoed in the 2010 film "Inception".
The narrative keeps changing our expectations. He keeps us guessing about reality versus illusion and life versus death and past versus present. And that's just the way Philip K. Dick wants it.
In the last article, I walked through the syntax of calling the Bing Spell Check service.
In this article, I will walk through a simple JavaScript application that calls this service.
If you want to follow along this sample is part of my Cognitive Services demos, which you can find on GitHub at https://github.com/DavidGiard/CognitiveSvcsDemos
This project is found in the "SpellCheckDemo" folder.
Here is the main web page:
Listing 1:
</span>Spell Check Demo<span style="color: rgb(0, 119, 0);">
rel="stylesheet" href="css/site.css">
Spell Check Demo
id="TextToCheck">Life ig buuutiful all the tyme
id="SpellCheckButton">Check Spelling!
id="NewTextDiv"> As you can see, the page consists of a text area with some misspelled text; a button; and 2 empty divs.
The page looks like this when rendered in a browser:
Fig. 1
When the user clicks the button, we want to call the Spell Check service, sending it the text in the text area.
We want to display the values in the web service response in the OutputDiv div; and we want to display some of the raw information in the response in the NewTextDiv div.
Below is the screen after clicking the [Check Spelling] button
Fig. 2
We need a reference to the outputDiv, so we can easily write to it.
Listing 2:
var outputDiv = document.getElementById("OutputDiv");
Next, we bind code to the button's click event, as shown in Listing 3.
Listing 3:
var spellCheckButton = document.getElementById("SpellCheckButton"); spellCheckButton.onclick = function () { // Replace this with your Spell Check API key from Aure var subscriptionKey = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"; outputDiv.innerHTML = "Thinking..."; var textToCheck = document.getElementById("TextToCheck").textContent; var webSvcUrl = "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck/?text=" + textToCheck; webSvcUrl = webSvcUrl + "&mode=proof&mkt=en-US"; var httpReq = new XMLHttpRequest(); httpReq.open("GET", webSvcUrl, true); httpReq.setRequestHeader("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", subscriptionKey) httpReq.setRequestHeader("contentType", "application/json") httpReq.onload = onSpellCheckSuccess; httpReq.onerror = onSpellCheckError; httpReq.send(null); };
This code gets the text from the text area and makes an asynchronous HTTP GET request to the Spell Check API, passing the API key in the header. When the API sends a response, this will call the onSpellCheckSuccess or onSpellCheckError function, depending on the success of the call.
Listing 4 shows the onSpellCheckSuccess function:
Listing 4:
function onSpellCheckSuccess(evt) { var req = evt.srcElement; var resp = req.response; var data = JSON.parse(resp); var flaggedTokens = data.flaggedTokens; if (data.flaggedTokens.length > 0) { var newText = document.getElementById("TextToCheck").textContent; ; var outputHtml = ""; flaggedTokens.forEach(flaggedToken => { var token = flaggedToken.token; var tokenType = flaggedToken.type; var offset = flaggedToken.offset; var suggestions = flaggedToken.suggestions; outputHtml += "" outputHtml += ""; newText = replaceTokenWithSuggestion(newText, token, offset, suggestions[0].suggestion) } else { outputHtml += "Token: "
+ token + ""; outputHtml += "Type: " + tokenType + "
"; outputHtml += "Offset: " + offset + "
"; outputHtml += "Suggestions"; outputHtml += ""
; if (suggestions.length > 0) { suggestions.forEach(suggestion => { outputHtml += "" + suggestion.suggestion; outputHtml += " (" + (suggestion.score * 100).toFixed(2) + "%)" }); outputHtml += ""; outputHtml += ""; } }); newText = "
- No suggestions for this token
New Text:
" + newText; var newTextDiv = document.getElementById("NewTextDiv"); newTextDiv.innerHTML = newText; outputHtml = "Details
" + outputHtml; outputDiv.innerHTML = outputHtml; } else { outputDiv.innerHTML = "No errors found."; } };
As you can see, we parse out the JSON object from the response and retrieve each flaggedToken from that object. For each flaggedToken, we output information, such as the original text (or token), the tokenType, and suggested replacements, along with the score of each replacement.
If an error occurs when calling the API service, the onSpellCheckError function is called, as shown in Listing 5.
Listing 5:
function onSpellCheckError(evt) { outputDiv.innerHTML = "An error has occurred!!!"; };
Finally, we replace each token with the first suggestion, using the code in Listing 6.
Listing 6*:
function replaceTokenWithSuggestion(originalString, oldToken, offset, newWord) { var textBeforeToken = originalString.substring(0, offset); var textAfterToken = ""; if (originalString.length > textBeforeToken.length + oldToken.length) { textAfterToken = originalString.substring(offset + oldToken.length, originalString.length); } var newString = textBeforeToken + newWord + textAfterToken; return newString; }
Here is the full JavaScript:
Listing 7:
window.onload = function () { var outputDiv = document.getElementById("OutputDiv"); // var subscriptionKey = getKey(); var spellCheckButton = document.getElementById("SpellCheckButton"); spellCheckButton.onclick = function () { var subscriptionKey = getKey(); var textToCheck = document.getElementById("TextToCheck").textContent; var webSvcUrl = "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck/?text=" + textToCheck; webSvcUrl = webSvcUrl + "&mode=proof&mkt=en-US"; outputDiv.innerHTML = "Thinking..."; var httpReq = new XMLHttpRequest(); httpReq.open("GET", webSvcUrl, true); httpReq.setRequestHeader("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", subscriptionKey) httpReq.setRequestHeader("contentType", "application/json") httpReq.onload = onSpellCheckSuccess; httpReq.onerror = onSpellCheckError; httpReq.send(null); }; function onSpellCheckSuccess(evt) { var req = evt.srcElement; var resp = req.response; var data = JSON.parse(resp); var flaggedTokens = data.flaggedTokens; if (data.flaggedTokens.length > 0) { var newText = document.getElementById("TextToCheck").textContent; ; var outputHtml = ""; flaggedTokens.forEach(flaggedToken => { var token = flaggedToken.token; var tokenType = flaggedToken.type; var offset = flaggedToken.offset; var suggestions = flaggedToken.suggestions; outputHtml += "" outputHtml += ""; newText = replaceTokenWithSuggestion(newText, token, offset, suggestions[0].suggestion) } else { outputHtml += "Token: "
+ token + ""; outputHtml += "Type: " + tokenType + "
"; outputHtml += "Offset: " + offset + "
"; outputHtml += "Suggestions"; outputHtml += ""
; if (suggestions.length > 0) { suggestions.forEach(suggestion => { outputHtml += "" + suggestion.suggestion; outputHtml += " (" + (suggestion.score * 100).toFixed(2) + "%)" }); outputHtml += ""; outputHtml += ""; } }); newText = "
- No suggestions for this token
New Text:
" + newText; var newTextDiv = document.getElementById("NewTextDiv"); newTextDiv.innerHTML = newText; outputHtml = "Details
" + outputHtml; outputDiv.innerHTML = outputHtml; } else { outputDiv.innerHTML = "No errors found."; } }; function onSpellCheckError(evt) { outputDiv.innerHTML = "An error has occurred!!!"; }; function replaceTokenWithSuggestion(originalString, oldToken, offset, newWord) { var textBeforeToken = originalString.substring(0, offset); var textAfterToken = ""; if (originalString.length > textBeforeToken.length + oldToken.length) { textAfterToken = originalString.substring(offset + oldToken.length, originalString.length); } var newString = textBeforeToken + newWord + textAfterToken; return newString; } };
Hopefully, this sample gives you an idea how to get started building your first app that uses the Bing Spell Check API.
* This code currently has a bug in it: It only works if each suggestion is the same length as the token it replaces. I plan to fix this bug, but I'm publishing now because:
- It is not a fatal bug and
- It is not relevant to the call to the API, which is the primary point I'm showing in this article.
In the last article, I showed how to create a Bing Spell Check service in Azure. Once you have created this service, you can now pass text to a web service to perform spell checking.
Given a text sample, the service checks the spelling of each token in the sample. A token is a word or two word that should be a single word, such as "arti cle", which is a misspelling of the word "article".
It returns an array of unrecognized tokens, along with suggested replacements for these misspelled tokens.
URL and querystring arguments
The URL for the web service is
https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck
You can add some optional querystring parameters to this URL:
mode
Set this to "proof" if you want to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors
Set it to "spell" if you only want to check for spelling errors.
If you omit the "mode" querystring argument, it defaults to "proof".
mkt
Set this to the Market Code of the country/language/culture you want to test. This is in the format [Language Code]-[Country Code], such as "en-US" for United States English. A full list of Market Codes can be fond here.
The "Proof" mode supports only en-US, es-ES, and pt-BR Market Codes.
If you omit the mkt argument, the service will guess the market based on the text. Therefore, it is a good idea to include this value, even though it is optional.
Below is an example of a URL with some querystring values set.
https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck?mode=proof&mkt=en-us
POST vs GET
You have the option to submit either an HTTP POST or an HTTP GET request to the URL. We will discuss the differences below.
If you use the GET verb, you pass the text to check in the querystring, as in the following example:
https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck?mode=proof&mkt=en-us&text=Life+ig+buuutifull+all+the+tyme
With the GET method, the text is limited to 1,500 characters
If you use the POST verb, the text is passed in the body of the request, as in the following example:
text=Life+ig+buuutifull+all+the+tyme
With the POST method, you can send text up to 10,000 characters long.
Results
If successful, the web service will return an HTTP 200 ("OK") response, along with the following data in JSON format in the body of the response:
_type: "SpellCheck"
An array of "flaggedTokens", representing spelling errors found
Each flaggedToken consists of the following information:
- offset: The position of the offending token within the text
- token: The token text
- type: The reason this token is in this list (usually "UnknownToken")
- suggestion: An array of suggested replacements for the offending token. Each suggestion consists of the following:
- score: a value (0-1) indicating the likelihood that this suggestion is the appropriate replacement
Below is an example of a response:
{
"_type": "SpellCheck",
"flaggedTokens": [{
"offset": 5,
"token": "ig",
"type": "UnknownToken",
"suggestions": [{
"suggestion": "is",
"score": 0.8922398888897022
}]
}, {
"offset": 8,
"token": "buuutifull",
"type": "UnknownToken",
"suggestions": [{
"suggestion": "beautiful",
"score": 0.8922398888897022
}]
}, {
"offset": 27,
"token": "tyme",
"type": "UnknownToken",
"suggestions": [{
"suggestion": "time",
"score": 0.8922398888897022
}]
}]
}
In this article, I showed how to call the Bing Spell Check service with either a GET or POST HTTP request.
The Bing Spell Check API allows you to call a simple web service to perform spell checking on your text.
Before you get started, you must log into a Microsoft Azure account and create a new Bing Spell Check Service. Here are the steps to do this:
In the Azure Portal, click the [Create a resource] button (Fig. 1); then, search for and select "Bing Spell Check", as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
The "Bing Spell Check" (currently on version 7) page displays, which describes the service and provides links to documentation and information about the service, as shown in Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Click the [Create] button to open the "Create" blade, as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4
At the "Name" field, enter a unique name for your service.
At the "Subscription" dropdown, select the subscription in which to create the service. Most of you will have only one subscription.
At the "Pricing Tier" dropdown, select the free or paid tier, as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5
The number of calls are severely limited for the free tier, so this is most useful for testing and learning the service. You may only create one free Spell Check service per subscription.
At the "Resource Group" field, select a resource group to associate with this service or click the "Create new" link to associate it with a newly-created resource group. A resource group provides a way to group together related service, making it easier to manage them together.
Click the [Create] button to begin creating the service. This process takes only a few seconds.
Open the service and select the "Keys" blade, as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6
Either one of the keys listed on this page must be passed in the header of your web service call.
Save a copy of one of these keys. You will need it when I show you how to call the Bing Spell Check Service in tomorrow’s article.
Episode 575
Kevin Gates on Cloud Architecture
Cloud Solution Architect Kevin Gates walks us through the architecture of a sample application migrated from on-premise to Azure.
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather follows the life of Bishop Jean Marie Latour, appointed to lead the new diocese of New Mexico, when the region is annexed by the United States, following the Mexican-American War.
Latour travels to New Mexico from his home in Ohio with his friend and colleague Joseph Vaillant. They encounter many challenges: the rough environment; the lack of roads; a clash of cultures; widespread poverty; murderers who prey on travelers; rogue priests; and those who refuse to recognize the transition of authority to the new archbishop.
In addition to the story of Latour, we hear other tales of the place and time where this novel takes place. One memorable story was of a drunken, ill-tempered priest, who killed a young Indian servant when the boy spilled some food on him. The priest was captured and killed by the locals a few days later.
The story is loosely best on the lives of Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf, who served as Catholic Bishops in the southwest US during the mid-19th century.
Cather is at her best when describing the New Mexico sky and landscape. She tells a straightforward story without much fanfare and she does a good job of contrasting the personalities of the two missionaries: the stoic Latour and the outgoing Vaillant. Each man loves God and believes in their mission but tackles it in his own way.
Like most biographies, Death Comes for the Archbishop covers the main character’s life to the end. So, while the title comes from the last chapter, it is a bit misleading. The book is far more about the Archbishop's life than about his death. As Latour himself put it: "I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived."
I don't really know how to take Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.
The novel is written in the first person and the narrator has the same name as the author. So, am I to believe that Mr. Miller was a sex addict and all his friends were sex addicts and misogynists?
The story follows Miller and his friends - mostly bohemian American expatriates - as they navigate the squalid neighborhoods of Paris searching for sexual partners, artistic fulfillment, and survival. Miller tries to embrace the pleasures of life, sleeping with a variety of prostitutes and other women; but it is a challenge. He doesn't know where his next meal is coming from; but he is still focused on finding his next lay. His wife recently left for New York and he wonders why she has not communicated with him in the months since her departure. He expects her return, but it seems unlikely she will.
Still, it's difficult to feel sorry for Miller and his friends, as their descriptions are littered with misogyny. Virtually, every woman in the novel is referred to as a "c*nt" and most exist only as sexual outlets for Miller and his friends. In one scene, Miller steals his money back from a prostitute when she leaves the room after they have sex.
Many will dismiss this novel because of its strong sexual content. The writing is salacious and often shocking. Many men spend their youths focused on sex; and a few, like Miller, extend this obsession into middle age and this is his and their story.
Although very sexual, I cannot call this writing erotic. At no point did I find myself aroused by the exploits of Miller and his friends.
The novel has an important place in the history of literature. Its explicit sexuality pushed a lot of boundaries when it was first published in 1934. And it was banned as pornographic in the United States for 3 decades, until a 1961 obscenity trial that escalated to the Supreme Court. It is also significant culturally. One can hear Miller's strong influence on the beat writers of the 1950s and 1960s - from his stream-of-consciousness prose to his rejection of society's norms to his casual and frank discussion of alcohol and drug abuse.
And this book is important for the prose that Miller brings to his writing. Here is how he describes his adopted city:
"Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked."
Tropic of Cancer is worth reading for its influence on literature and for its celebration of the joys of living.
GCast 60:
Text Recognition Cognitive Service with Binary ImagesThe Text Recognition Service supports sending a binary image and reading any text in that image. This video shows you how.