Perfect pitch is very common, can be developed by training. My daughter said once she was the only one in their class who didn't have perfect pitch (she was on music program at university). Musicians don't agree whether perfect pitch is necessary, or even whether it's beneficial. What you do need is 'absolute relative pitch' - the ability to identify intervals. I don't have perfect pitch, but I can play any melody from the first listen right away, transposed into key of F major (or G minor for minor keys). I just know these keys very well. The secret of learning how to play by ear is: transpose everything into the same key, and play it there. Never try to master all keys - it's impossible (very few people, even among world-class musicians, can play in all keys equally well). (I'm speaking about piano. On other instruments, the situation can be different).
why was this down voted. as a career musician, I'd agree with this- but maybe not the transpose it into the same key part. Perhaps that is a piano related issue? (although f major is a horn player's key, so the key confused me) It is true that even world class professional musicians hate playing in certain keys because the key itself does not sit well under the fingers on a particular instrument. For example, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto sits great under the fingers of every pro level violinist, and that is because it sits great on the violin. That's why he wrote it in D!
This is a silly argument. You can't seriously be suggesting that the bacteria are choosing to modify their DNA in anticipation of future benefits. For sure, nothing is ever 100% absolutely known, but some things are so unlikely that we can safely assume they are not true, rather than putting a wordy disclaimer on every single "fact" that we state.
Getting back to the original point, people, including me, will say things like "this shopping cart wants to pull to the right" knowing full well that the shopping card has no desires at all. It is a useful metaphor that confuses nobody.
If mutations in a single generation are favorable more often than would happen by chance, this would be evidence of volitional choice. But we don't see this.
Following generic ideas as to how to improve your life is what makes people depressed in the first place. You MUST do this, you MUST do that, become rich, retire early, make the world a better place, do something for humanity, healthy diet, exercise, you name it... Sure this all makes you depressed - it's surprising there's still someone not depressed out there. And now what? More diet, more exercise? Come up with a list of things you enjoy. Be contrarian. Stop listening to anyone, and especially - to your "inner voice" - he is lying to you.
If not for this quota, you would have much greater number of "known physicists and mathematicians from USSR with Jewish names" LOL
In some places (Moscow University math dep-t) the target was about 2%, but I heard some technical schools didn't accept anyone (after Natan Scharansky affair. Long story...)
The target acceptance rate was rumored to be 2% - which roughly corresponded to the percentage of Jewish population in USSR.
I was one of those Jewish applicants in 1973 :)
Exam was conducted in a separate room. When in doubt, the criteria for identifying Jews among all applicants was funny (in retrospect): they tried to guess by the last name. But some names are more "typical" than others, so the criteria was not 100% accurate. They preferred to err on the side of caution, and some perfectly Russian people were put in the same exam room with the Jews. This is my recollection.
Those cases were probably quite common. From wikipedia article about Glenn Gould, the great Canadian pianist:
"The family's surname was changed to Gould informally around 1939 in order to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of prewar Toronto and the Gold surname's Jewish association"
Had same thing at age 44. Stage 2.5, was given 60% chance. Had chemo and radiation. There's something I can share with you if you write to tatumizer at gmail dot com. I really hope I can help.
I'm 60 now, still working as a programmer.
Forgot to mention most important tidbit I learned. Normally, you need to have your first colonoscopy at the age of 50. Mo matter if you have symptoms or not. But for certain ethnic groups, the probability is much higher. Your doctor may, or may not, tell you this (political correctness? Illiteracy? Not sure. In my case, family doctor was in denial even when he saw it), you need to do your own research. Find out where you belong, you may need it at age 30.
while in the "Zone", you lose the ability to reflect on the things you are writing - long trip often results in complete bullshit. Which you can discover only upon waking up. Then you get stunned and paralyzed. Sometimes it's a good idea to just throw away the whole thing and start from scratch. I found experimentally that it's good idea to set time limits for your "productivity periods", and keep them rather short.
Let's consider a different problem.
There are 100 non-negative numbers summing up to 10000.
Let's choose a random combination of numbers satisfying this condition. Intuitively, it's quite clear that typical case will be very different from equilibrium (where every number=100). I fail to see how the transfer of 1 dollar at a time is qualitatively different. So the result is quite intuitive - contrary to what the article suggests.
A random distribution of points in a circle is different from a set of points calculated by using a random angle and distance from the center, even though they're both "random". How you construct your randomness is significant.
I would love to use it, but no preset is good for just playing with MIDI keyboard. Notes sound ad infinitum. Any advice on how to calibrate it to sound like electric piano? Maybe add presets for playing? (Even if I manage to find a good combination of parameters - which is unlikely - I can't save it anyway).
