You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch, piano solo, arr. David Dinh

So, there's the music sheets site that I'm subscribed to called MuseScore.  I got an email from them on Dec. 8 with holiday music suggestions and this arrangement of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" by David Dinh caught my attention.  I've been obsessing over it to get it presentable by Christmas, and while it's a bit on the sloppy side, I'm pretty happy to get this far after two weeks!

Little Red Riding Hood by Rachmaninoff

I've been working on this piece since the Kapustin Toccatina.  While I could improve upon this take, I'm thinking of moving on to other pieces.  I might try for a better recording later, in which case I'll replace the one here.  This piece has a lot of fast jumping chords that just take a lot of repetition to get the muscle memory right.

Rachmaninoff originally didn't give this piece a title as evocative as "Little Red Riding Hood", but decided to reveal his inspiration later after others wanted to arrange it for instruments other than piano.  Listening to it, I feel like Little Red Riding Hood just gets caught and eaten by the Wolf.

Leon learning to ride a bike

At work, if I find myself explaining a topic multiple times, I decide to write it down on wiki so that I can give a quick summary and then just link to the wiki for more details.  Lately, I've been finding myself relating the same story multiple times, so I figure I'd go with the same strategy outside of work.

This is going to be about how Leon learned to ride a pedal bike, without training wheels, at age three and a half.  I think I didn't know how to ride a bike without training wheels until I was eight or something.

Current best practice regarding teaching kids how to ride a bike goes something like this:

1. The hardest part of riding a bike is the balancing and steering, which actually has nothing to do with pedaling and can be done safely and early with a balance bike, which is pretty much a bike without pedals or brakes and depends solely on a person's feet.
   
   We got Leon a balance bike (a Strider) at age 2.  He mostly walked around with it rather than actually balancing or coasting until he was 3 or so.  The best way to learn coasting is to find a gentle downhill incline.
   
   
2. Kids that use balance bikes are used to being able to move their feet forward and backward and thus have a hard time dealing with coaster brakes (i.e. a brake that engages by pedaling backwards).  So, a balance bike kid should switch to a bike without coaster brakes.
   
   Because the CPSC requires bikes below a certain size have coaster brakes, it can be tricky to find a small bike with hand brakes and no coaster brake.  The Woom 2 comes with a coaster brake due to the CPSC requirement, but the company sells a freewheel kit for cheap because they believe the CPSC requirement to be outdated.  We bought a used Woom 2 that still had the coaster brake and Leon did indeed have a lot of trouble not accidentally engaging the brake.  So we bought the freewheel kit and it worked out a lot better.
   
   
3. It can be very helpful to remove the pedals from the bike at first to treat it as a balance bike with hand brakes.  Most balance bikes don't have hand brakes, so this means that the kid is learning one thing at a time, in this case, using the hand brake.
   
   We definitely did this for Leon and had him get used to balancing on the new bike going down hills and learning to use the hand brake.
   
   
4. There is no training wheels step, because learning how to balance and steer was dealt with in step 1.  I think it took roughly a month or two for Leon to learn to use the pedal bike.
   

 Some other miscellaneous tips:

1. Personally, I recommend biking gloves in addition to a helmet both because kids usually find them cool and I want to minimize the chance of an injury putting a kid off of wanting to learn how to ride.  You are way more likely to fall on onto your hands than head, though of course the head is more important to protect.
   
   
2. A lot of kids bikes are very heavy and thus may be less fun to use.  Woom makes some pretty quality kids bikes.  They aren't cheap, but they're also reasonably easy to buy used and sell for around the same cost.
   

Since I really enjoy cycling, I really wanted to maximize the chance of Leon enjoying it and having family cycling trips.  I'm happy to say that he does enjoy his time on the bike and that he learned way earlier than I did.

Here's a video for the first time Leon managed to pedal on the bike for more than a few seconds!

March 23, 2022: Three piano recordings

There's not really any reason why anyone would be following my blog, but hey!  I figure I might as well post some recordings I've made playing various pieces on the piano.

This first one is called "Let the living beware!" by Yu-Peng Cheng, arranged by ChaconneScott and Jasper Hu.  It's from a video game that I play called Genshin Impact and is the theme music Hu Tao, a young girl that is also the director for a funeral parlor and tries to drum up sales by offering buy a coffin, get one free.  Very Halloween themed.

 

From the same game and composer is "Ruu's Song", this time arranged by CC Music.  Ruu is a child of priest in ghost form on an isolated island who was the only friend of the local god, a thunderbird.  This was his song to the god.

The last one is an old favorite of mine that I played in high school.  "Diabolic Suggestion" by Sergei Prokofiev.  It's a very fun and evocative piece that uses both the lowest note and the highest note in the piano.  And possibly every note between, but I haven't checked.

New Digital Piano: Kawai Novus NV5

I recently bought a new digital piano: a Kawai Novus NV5.  Since I've found other people's thoughts online very useful, I figured I'd write about it in the hope that it may help others.

First, a bit of background.

 I started taking piano lessons at age six and played actively up through high school, with the most time on a Yamaha C1 baby grand.  In college, I stopped taking lessons, bought a Yamaha P-140, and would play once in a while; but not to the point of studying any new pieces.  After college, I played almost none at all and the piano sat in its case for long periods of time.  That had been the situation for more than fifteen years.

Some months ago, I was watching an anime about piano called Forest of Piano.  Its intro contains Chopin's Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1, which is a piece I've performed before.  It was just repeatedly reminding me that, hey, I can do that!  (Well, sort of.  My execution was never as clean.)  Why was I just watching some fictional character enjoying piano instead of playing myself?  It really started getting to me.

So, I set up my old Yamaha P-140 again and picked a piece that was reasonably challenging and sounded cool to me; more on the piece later.  While practicing, I found that some of the keys would once in a while fail to reset, the speakers would sometimes crackle, the cheap stand I had was a bit shaky, and the pedal would move around if I wasn't careful.  I promised myself that if learned the piece pretty well and thought I'd enjoy playing more that I'd look into getting a new piano.  Still digital, due to needing to practice quietly often.

Months later, here we are.

I originally thought that I'd get either a Kawai CA-79 or CA-99 due to people's praises about their great action, mimicking that of a grand piano's.  Of course, one should always actually try out a piano before committing, so I went to Prosser's Piano & Organ to check them out.  I decided I liked Kawai's sound signature more than Yamaha's and the action was pretty nice, though still notably fake.  However, I found that the speakers of the models on the floor were disappointingly buzzy for certain notes and that the key texture was distracting.  While I'd probably get used to the texture, I was pretty sure the sound would just keep on bothering me.  I didn't know if it issue was just the specific pianos at the store, but I didn't want to risk buying a new one and discovering that it had the same issue.  The vibrations from the sound board of the CA-99 were fun, though.

Since I was at the store anyway, I figured I'd try some of the other pianos out.  One of them was the Novus NV5.  I had read that the NV5 had the same speaker and sound board set up as the CA-99 and that the main difference was just that the NV5 has real upright action, so I wasn't expecting it to overcome my dislike of the buzzing.  But I ended up being really surprised!

It sounded very convincingly to me like a real piano.  I'm sure there are many people who would be able to immediately tell the difference, and I think it benefited from being upright shaped due to uprights sounding somewhat boxy in general, but the distinction from a real piano was pretty subtle to me.  It certainly did not have the buzzy quality that the CA-79 and CA-99 in the store had.  I don't know if the comparison would be generally true across other NV5's and CA-x9s.

And of course, the action felt like a real piano, notably the bounce back on repeated notes for the piece I had worked on.  Playing the NV5 was just so much fun and brought a smile to my face.  I ended up playing various things and performing various tests for a few hours across two different days before discussing with my wife and buying it.  Because the NV5S was coming out, I was able to buy the one on the floor and avoid any risk of a different one having buzzing speaker issues.

Some of my notes and comparisons:

• My Yamaha P-140 is of course somewhere between 15 and 20 years old and was much cheaper than the NV5, but besides some of of the more obvious advantages, some unexpected differences for me were:
• The timbre difference between soft and loud was more pronounced for me in the NV5.  I really enjoyed playing softly on the NV5, whereas on the P-140 it felt a lot more like just turning the volume down.
• The NV5 has sympathetic resonance and the P-140 does not and it was a pretty noticeable difference.
• The action of the NV5, at what I thought was the same volume, seemed a little heavier than the P-140, CA-79, CA-99
• I had read that the action made the piano play more loudly with headphones on, and while that is true, it was a pretty small difference and I can't imagine it bothering my family any more so than my P-140.  So far, that has held true.
  
• There was also a Novus NV10 at the store.  While having a real grand piano action was great, the sound was definitely clearly artificial to me and didn't elicit the same marvelous illusion of playing on a real piano for me.  It was better than the CA-79 and CA-99 at the store, though.  I also did not like how it looked as much, so the net effect was just that I did not enjoy it as much as the NV5, which was a pleasant surprise for my wallet.
• A common consideration that comes up in regards to the NV5 is that due to it having a real upright piano action, it includes a notable disadvantage of an upright: the key needs to reset at least some before being played again, or else it will not sound.  This limits how fast a note can repeat and may limit other techniques that depend on the key not being fully reset (less fast repeated pianissimo maybe?  I can't say that I've ever intentionally depended on this other than for very fast repetition).  On this point:
• I would indeed sometimes hit dead notes on the pieces I played, but this was due to poor technique on my part and not because the piece ran into the limitations of an upright action.
• Compared to a K300 Aures in the store, very fast repeated notes would actually "blur" unnaturally on the NV5 in a way that I don't think a real piano would ever do while still sounding mostly distinct on the K300.  But this was at a speed beyond any piece I've ever had to play.  It would probably make playing something like the Scarlatti Sonata in D minor  K. 141 harder, though, if it's even possible.
  
• The key does not have to completely reset on either the NV5 nor K300 to sound, but it actually did have to reset further on the NV5 than the K300 to sound.  So, the K300 is actually somewhat better than the NV5 in this regard.
• I decided that, while this limitation was unfortunate, I'd be okay avoiding pieces that can't be played on an upright.  At some point you just need a real grand piano to play certain pieces; I've seen avant garde stuff where the pianist reaches into the piano to pluck the strings.  On the positive side, I tend to like playing on random pianos and this would allow me to practice avoiding technique that cause dead notes on real uprights.
  
• I did not spend a lot of time on the K300 Aures, but the action felt the same to me, other than what I've noted above.
• The NV5 does not support note-off velocity, but I've never played that subtly in my life and don't anticipate doing so in the future.
• After the piano was delivered, there was sometimes rattling near the touch screen that was not present at the store, which was very disappointing.  Eventually, I figured out that pressing in on the cabinet above the touch pad stopped it.

 I've been playing and enjoying the piano somewhere between 1-2 hours a day for the past few weeks.  Here's a video of me playing Nikolai Kapustin's Etude No. 3: Toccatina, Op. 40 on the piano, which was the piece I decided I had to learn before considering buying something new.  This was just a quick recording I made since my parents asked me to send them one, so the execution is not the cleanest and you can hear my kid in the background at times, but it does show that the piano does not have issue with repeated notes at that tempo.

Behind the Name

adjective: ruminative

expressing or involving deep thought.

noun: rat

The Rat is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac.

On the topic of Net Neutrality

Today is the Day of Action on Net Neutrality.

I am most definitely for net neutrality.  The frustrating thing is, everyone claims to be for an open and neutral internet--people just disagree on what it means.  AT&T is joining the net neutrality protest, which is basically like protesting against yourself.  So, I feel that comments to the FCC or congress demanding net neutrality be maintained will result in the response of, "No problem!  That's what we're already doing!" while the FCC eliminates the rules that protect the parts most people actually care about.  I feel that a greater degree of specificity is necessary to be effective, and for opponents to not just dismiss a comment as uninformed or not actually against what they are doing.

So, what do I consider net neutrality?  Why is it important?  Why are ISPs and the current head of FCC against it and do they have legitimate points?  And what exactly is the FCC planning to do that sites are protesting against?

For me, net neutrality is about treating all uses of internet, regardless of source, the same.  It doesn't mean a user can't prioritize different types of traffic.  You probably want your real time video conferencing traffic to be prioritized over a huge download that is going to take a few hours.  Net neutrality does not stop this.  But it means an ISP can't block or slow down, say, Netflix, but allow full access to Hulu.

This is important to me because the internet allows for disruptive innovation.  The rise of online video streaming and voice communication is a premier example.  Without net neutrality rules, there's nothing stopping Comcast from blocking or slowing down Netflix, which competes directly against their cable business.  Comcast has already refused to upgrade their connection with Netflix's ISP, Level 7, forcing Netflix to pay for connectivity with Comcast's network directly.  AT&T blocked Apple's video conferencing software, FaceTime, until enough people complained to the FCC, since it's an obvious threat to its own voice plans.

Without net neutrality rules, ISPs can pick losers and winners in the internet.

What is the bad thing about to happen that is causing people to shout that net neutrality is about to die?  The FCC, under chairman Ajit Pai, plans on reclassifying ISPs away from being common carriers such that Title II of the Communications Act no longer applies to them.  Without this classification, it doesn't seem like the FCC has any authority to prevent blocking or throttling of sites, or to maintain net neutrality at all.

Why does Ajit Pai want to do this?

1. The argument that current regulations around net neutrality are old and expensive to adhere to, based on a law made in 1934.
   
   That regulations are unnecessarily complex and antiquated is an argument I am sympathetic to, having experienced bureaucratic rules and inefficiency and crazy tales from people who used to work for the government.  I don't know if this is the case for Title II, but it wouldn't surprise me if many parts of it are overly burdensome.  If it is the case, the solution is to fix the rules, not eliminate them.
   
   The FCC actually tried for some time to have a looser regulatory hand, with an approach that seemed to be that anything goes until enough people complain, until Verizon sued that they didn't have the authority to enforce their open internet rules.  The courts decided that this was indeed true unless FCC reclassified ISPs to be regulated by Title II, which courts agreed that the FCC did have the authority to do.
   
   So, I feel like ISPs more or less brought it upon themselves to have stricter rules apply to them, having left the FCC with no other recourse to enforce open internet principles.
2. There's an argument to be made that an open internet violates the First Amendment.
   
   As far as I can tell, Ajit Pai appears to be against not allowing ISPs to block sites on the basis that the ISPs shouldn't be forced to transmit information they themselves are against.
   
   This argument is not at all persuasive to me because I don't visit websites expecting that the ISP has established an opinion of any of it at all, so it's hard to argue that a user is attributing any content to the ISP, or describing any of it as the ISP's speech.
   
   It's also not persuasive because I'm explicitly paying ISPs to provide me the content I request, and if they don't want to do that, they should not be in that line of business.  This is more or less how I feel about pharmacists that refuse to fulfill prescriptions due to religious reasons when there's not another pharmacist who can right there.
3. That open internet rules prevents several innovative business practices, such as fast lanes, zero rating, or free access to specific sites.
   
   One thing ISPs wanted to experiment with is enabling "fast lanes" for certain sites.  That is, instead of slowing down sites they don't like below that of your normal speed, they'll speed up specific sites they do like possibly beyond the speed you are nominally paying for.  This doesn't seem too bad on initial look for customers--who wouldn't mind getting speeds faster than what one is paying for, even if limited to only a few sites?  But it aligns incentives for the ISP the wrong way.  In order to extract more money from sites for buying access to fast lanes, there's much less incentive to upgrade the now slow lanes.  It might not be picking both winners and losers, but it certainly feels like picking winners.
   
   Zero-rating is not considering some traffic to count against a bandwidth limit.  It's actually not explicitly prohibited as far as I can tell, and some companies already do this.  For example, T-Mobile has a program called "Binge On" that allows you to stream some things without counting against your limits.  The interesting thing about T-Mobile's program is that theoretically any video provider can opt into this program without paying them money--they just need to adhere to specific rules like not providing video above 480p resolution.
   
   This particular form of zero rating (if it were actually implemented the way T-Mobile described, which it is not) does not violate my definition of net neutrality since it doesn't matter where the traffic is from, it just matters how it behaves.
   
   However, it does have some threat to disruptive innovation--T-Mobile could refuse to raise data caps in the future and refuse to zero-rate a new technology, say holographic projection, that jeopardizes its voice services.  Ultimately, though, T-Mobile's stance is that Title II does not actually prohibit this, and I'm less against it.  I would be against zero-rating that forces a site to pay for it, or is otherwise not generally open--again, it aligns the incentive structure for the ISP the wrong way.
   
   The last business practice that Title II seems to prevent is actually one I do think regulations should not prohibit, and that's free internet access to certain sites.  If Facebook wants to allow free access to only some sites, such as their own, without the customer paying for anything, I think that should be allowed.  The relationship between Facebook and a customer would be pretty clear if the customer were not actually paying for internet access.
4. Ajit Pai says reclassifying ISPs to be common carriers was an unnecessarily heavy-handed move considering that there were no problems that needed to be fixed.
   
   I consider this statement demonstrably untrue.  There's quite a history of net neutrality violations, and it's unclear to me if Ajit Pai believes these things should be allowed, or if he feels that the FCC would be able to stop them without reclassification.  The clearest cut examples include:
   
   
   1. The AT&T blocking VOIP (e.g. Skype and FaceTime), since it competed with its own voice services.
   2. Comcast blocking peer-to-peer file sharing protocols. A lot of this was illegal file-sharing, but it also blocked legal file-sharing, such as downloads of Linux distributions.
   3. MetroPCS blocked all video streaming sites except YouTube.
   4. AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon blocked access to Google Wallet, since they were developing a competitor called Isis
   Now, all of these were undone by the FCC, but with the recent court ruling that the FCC doesn't have the authority to do this unless the ISPs are classified to be common carriers, I don't know what other choice there is.
5. Net neutrality rules have a chilling effect on investing in improving the network.
   
   I feel like this a common Republican talking point--if you allow companies to extract more money more easily, companies will surely grow faster in order to do this and competition will keep things cheap for the customer.
   
   This can be true in some situations.  Just as it's possible to extract more tax revenue by reducing taxes in certain situations.  But does it apply to the current situation?
   
   At least one study (from an admittedly biased source) indicates that investment has not been chilled.  I'm not aware of any counterpoint studies that state otherwise--just the companies themselves.  And even if it did dampen broadband investment, a careful look should be taken to see what sort of chilling effect the lack of net neutrality rules have on the next Netflix.

Now, I'm generally in favor of less bureaucracy when possible.  The great thing about the free market, when it's actually competitive, is that it leads to efficient results.  I like simple systems where the natural tendency is towards good things.  But the ISP market is far from free due to needing either radio wave spectrum or physical lines, both of which are natural monopolies, and most ISPs are either video or voice providers and have a conflict of interest in enabling websites that compete with their own services.  Roads and utilities are more examples of natural monopolies that most people agree should be heavily regulated.

Thus, I am strongly in favor of retaining the classification of ISPs as common carriers to maintain net neutrality.  It might not be necessary if there were regulations that allowed customers to meaningfully choose between dozens of ISPs, but since that's not the case, common carrier classification it is.

If you support maintaining common carrier classification for ISPs or at least some of the definitions of net neutrality I outlined above, please write a comment to the FCC.  I've certainly done so.  Former FCC commissioner Gigi Sohn outlines what makes an effective comment and how to file it.