Orphion Review ? 148Apps ? iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch App ...

Orphion is an impressive and fully customizable musical instrument designed for the iPad that lets anyone compose beautiful melodies.

Music apps make it possible for anyone to become a musician by interacting with the iPad screen. Orphion is a newly popular app that does just this by turning the iPad into a unique musical instrument that?s capable of playing expressive sounds that are described as ?between string instrument and percussion.?

A quick tutorial guides users when Orphion is opened for the first time. It?s essential to disable Multitasking Gestures to get the best musical experience. To articulate sounds, users simply touch the displayed circles known as pads with their fingertips for a soft sound, tap for a plucked sound or push down for a slap sound. To divide music or group it into notes, users can utilize phrasing by sliding from pad to pad for legato or using different fingers for different pads for non-legato. The app also includes modulation for vibrato and detune by simply sliding the pad from the center.

The fun doesn?t stop there. Orphion comes packed with many other great features like individual voices, different pad layouts, MIDI support, recording and sharing, Audiobus support as well as various instrumental settings to fine tune the instrument. The app is very customizable which makes it possible for anyone to create a masterpiece with a little practice.

I?ve played with many other musical instrument apps, and Orphion really shines when it comes to functionality and ease of use. Its well-designed interface combined with impressive musical features makes it ideal for anyone looking to express themselves through unique sound.

Although Orphion is quite exceptional, it doesn?t come without a wish list of features to help make it even better. Additional pad layouts or a way to create them, the ability to change the gestures to suit individual needs and perhaps more adjustment settings to fine tune the musical instrument would be great starting points.

Orphion has actually been around for a little over a year now and it has seen many changes based on user reviews so it?s more than likely going to continue to improve with time. It?s evident that the developer has set out to create an extraordinary musical app, and it will be exciting to see what future updates bring. For now, start up a jam session with some friends and create impressive melodies to share with the world.

Posted in: iPad Apps and Games, iPad Music, Reviews

Tagged with: bastus trump, Gestures, iPad music, musical intrument, Orphion, pads, percussion, string instrment

Review disclosure: note that the product reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note that if the developer provides the product or not, this does not impact the review or score.

Source: http://www.148apps.com/reviews/orphion-review/

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Alabama hostage standoff ends with child safe, gunman dead

(Reuters) - A gunman holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker in rural Alabama was killed on Monday and the child was plucked to safety without injury, a local law enforcement official said.

"It's all over," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name because he had not been authorized to discuss the operation that led to the successful rescue of the child.

"The boy is OK," he said.

The rescue of boy came on the seventh day of a standoff in a rural corner of southeast Alabama involving a suspect identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, a retired trucker and Vietnam veteran.

Dykes seized the boy last Tuesday after boarding a school bus near his home and killing its driver with four shots from a 9 mm handgun, local sheriff's department officials said.

The law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately available.

The drama in Midland City, Alabama, came amid heightened concerns about gun violence and school safety across the United States after the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-town-gathers-bury-bus-driver-slain-hostage-011349756.html

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South Korea, U.S. begin drills amid North Korea nuclear threat

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korean and U.S. troops began naval drills Monday in a show of force partly directed at North Korea amid signs that Pyongyang will soon carry out a threat to conduct its third atomic test.

The region is also seeing a boost in diplomatic activity focused on North Korea's announcement last month that it will conduct a nuclear test to protest U.N. Security Council sanctions toughened after a December satellite launch that the U.S. and others say was a disguised test of banned missile technology.

Pyongyang's two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, both occurred after it was slapped with increased sanctions for similar rocket launches. As it issued its most recent punishment, the Security Council ordered North Korea to refrain from a nuclear test or face "significant action."

North Korea's state media said Sunday that at a high-level Workers' Party meeting, leader Kim Jong Un issued "important" guidelines meant to bolster the army and protect national sovereignty. North Korea didn't elaborate, but Kim's guidelines likely refer to a nuclear test and suggest that Pyongyang appears to have completed formal procedural steps and is preparing to conduct a nuclear test soon, according to South Korean analyst Hong Hyun-ik.

"We assess that North Korea has almost finished preparations for conducting a nuclear test anytime and all that's left is North Korea making a political decision" to do so, Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters Monday.

The spokesman said he couldn't disclose further details because they would involve confidential intelligence affairs. Recent satellite photos showed North Korea may have been sealing the tunnel into a mountainside where a nuclear device could be exploded.

On Monday, South Korean and U.S. militaries kicked off three-day exercises off the Korean Peninsula's east coast that involve live-fire exercises, naval maneuvers and submarine detection drills.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the maneuvers are part of regular joint military training that the allies had scheduled before the latest nuclear tensions began. But the training, which involves a nuclear-powered American submarine, could still send a warning against possible North Korean provocation, a South Korean military official said, requesting anonymity because of department rules.

North Korean state media on Saturday described the drills as a joint exercise for a pre-emptive attack on the country. North Korea has said similar things when South Korea and the U.S. conducted other drills; the allies have repeatedly said they have no intention of attacking the North.

North Korea says U.S. hostility and the threat of American troops in South Korea are important reasons behind its nuclear drive. The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

North Korea also has denounced sanctions over its rocket launches, saying it has the sovereign right to launch rockets to send satellites into orbit under a space development program.

North Korea's two previous nuclear tests are believed to have been explosions of plutonium devices, but experts say the North may use highly enriched uranium for its upcoming test. That is a worry to Washington and others because North Korea has plenty of uranium ore, and because uranium enrichment facilities are easier to hide than plutonium facilities are.

Diplomats are meeting to find ways to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear test plans. New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-hwan held a telephone conversation Sunday night and agreed to sternly deal with any possible nuclear provocation by North Korea, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The chief nuclear envoys of South Korea and China met in Beijing on Monday and agreed that they would closely coordinate on ways to stop North Korea from conducting a nuclear test, according to Seoul's Foreign Ministry. China is North Korea's main ally and aid benefactor.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skorea-us-begin-drills-amid-nkorea-nuclear-threat-032012192.html

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Debate Topic: Sources have no place in a Philosophical Debate ...

Sup.

Firstly, I assume I'm not supposed to be showing that sources are logically necessary for a philosophical debate. At most, I might argue that for some philosophical debates, sources are logically necessary for a successful debate - which I am stipulatively defining as one which resolves the issue with the truth. It isn't utterly essential that sources be used in the same way that it essential that I must exist in some form to be taking part in this debate. Rather, I take it that my burden is to show that sources/empirical evidence are relevant, insightful, useful or in some way serve some important purpose (beyond definitions or counterexamples) that justifies their 'place' in a philosophical debate.

Con Case

Firstly, the division Pro draws between "philosophical" and "empirical" evidence is misguided. Empirical evidence has a bearing on a wide range of philosophical topics - arguably all of them, in fact. The reason? A priori, or mental justifications for positions such as "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" and "borrowing something without permission is morally wrong" are reliable or not depending upon how our brains work. Thus, neuroscience has an important role to play in philosophical inquiry.

Also, theistic philosophy, normative ethics, political philosophy and many other branches all have clear intersections with empirical evidence. Whether god exists or not obviously has some relation with how the physical universe is. So does the best may to maximise utility, or protect property rights.

Even logic is not entirely immune to empirical evidence - advances in quantum physics, for example, have called into doubt the truth of the law of excluded middle: http://plato.stanford.edu... - by the way, explaining why that is would take all too much time and be pointless - you don't need to know why that is the case, only that it is the case. This isn't necessary to prove my point, but it is relevant and carries weight - and I would say, that shows that sources can have a role in a philosophical debate such as this one.

Thus, sourcing evidence regarding neuroscience, quantum physics, economics, evolutionary biology has entirely legitimate purposes in a wide range of philosophical issues.

Counterarguments.

"Any honest debater is justified in being concerned about plagiarism. From a philosophical standpoint, I see this as a moot point. I contend that sources which serve to alleviate any concern of plagiarism are outside of the scope of what I am discussing. A debater should be able to express concerns raised by other philosophers in the debater's own words and if they feel that they should reference the philosopher so they are not improperly credited with an original thought, then so be it. This is more of a moral acknowledgement of inspiration rather than a source that serves to prove the debater's point."

I consider this a concession of the entire debate - if there is a moral obligation to credit a philosopher with her/his original argument, then that is a reason to allow sources in a philosophical debate. It is clearly within the scope of the debate, because it is not a definition or a counterexample, which are the only exeptions allowed under the resolution.

Pro says: "since empiricism is inherently illogical, empirical evidence shouldnotbe used in philosophical debates"

This doesn't follow at all. If empricism (i.e. the claim that all or the vast majority of knowedge is derived directly from the senses) is false, this does not mean empirical evidence should be disregarded entirely. Rather, one can maintain that evidence from the sense is viewed, or understood, in the context of a set of mental abilities that interpret and draw conclusions from that evidence. One can maintain that knowledge is derived from both the mental and the empirical, with the former coming prior to the latter.

Quotes from Pro:

1. "this notion (that the Earth is the center of the Universe) is absurd and thus empirical evidence leads us to accept an incorrect proposition"

2. "His logic that because he has yet to become sick that he willneverbecome sick is invalid--it is illogical."

3. "if there is empirical evidence that shows people getting sick from eating rotten rye bread, then this empirical evidence provides a counterexample that refutes Bob's claim."

Pro is trying to have his cake and eat it - on the one hand he argues that empirical evidence should not be used in defense of positive claims because of those two examples, and on the other he agrees that claims can be refuted with empirical evidence - but he never tells us why it can be used the former case but not the latter.

Put another way, if Bob's original reasoning process is fundamentally flawed in the second case, then it is also fundamentally flawed in the third case. Bob's mistake was NOT using empirical methods - his mistake was not consulting ENOUGH empirical evidence. Had he been aware of the evidence from medical biology, he would have realised that his original conclusion, made provisionally likely by his limited set of observations, was superceded by a larger set of more reliable observations.

Empirical evidence without any mental structure is NOT required to defend the Con case. The reason physicists generally don't take epicycles to show that the earth is the centre of the universe despite them being compatible is because of a prior worldview in which it seems out of place for the earth to be so central to the universe. This does not show that empirical evidence is useless, it shows that empirical evidence takes place in a context.

"The critiquer citing Williams should present Williams' argument in their own words to convince the other debater that the critiquer is correct. It's perfectly fine to cite Williams as the source of the argument presented, but the critquer should not merely state Williams refutes the Cogito ergo sum argument as evidence--this is insufficient for a debate."

Again, this seems like another concession of the debate. Isn't citing Williams as the source of an argument the same as showing that sources have a place in philosophical debates besides giving definitions or counterexamples? I might want to condense Williams argument into a smaller form to fit the character limits, but also wish to cite his argument so that people can read the argument in extended form if they so wish - is that not a legitimate reason?

I have shown that sources have a range of legitimate uses in philosophical debates, that Pro's arguments contradict themselves and that the resolution fails under Pro's own concessions.

Vote for meee.

Source: http://www.debate.org/debates/Sources-have-no-place-in-a-Philosophical-Debate-other-than-to-define-terms-and-give-counterexamples./1/

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Friendship Quotes ? Life Quotes ? Cute Quotes ? Encouraging ...

February 2, 2013

Inspiration Station is a collection of inspirational quotes and proverbs for business and life. Friendship quotes. Cute love quotes. Leadership quotes. Motivational quotes. Life quotes. Cute quotes. Famous quotes. Inspirational proverbs. Encouraging quotes. Positive quotes. Peace quotes?.

Written by Admin Posted in Building Relationships

Source: http://www.jcinunitedway.org/367-friendship-quotes-life-quotes-cute-quotes-encouraging-quotes-leadership-quotes

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Clydesdale star of Super Bowl ad is newborn foal

AAA??Feb. 1, 2013?12:18 PM ET
Clydesdale star of Super Bowl ad is newborn foal
AP

A young Clydesdale foal walks around the feet of her mother at Warm Springs Ranch Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, in Boonville, Mo. The foal, born Jan, 16, 2013 at the ranch, is the star of a Budweiser commercial set to air during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

A young Clydesdale foal walks around the feet of her mother at Warm Springs Ranch Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, in Boonville, Mo. The foal, born Jan, 16, 2013 at the ranch, is the star of a Budweiser commercial set to air during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Darla, a 7-year-old Clydesdale, top, watches over her young, as yet unnamed foal, at Warm Springs Ranch Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, in Boonville, Mo. The foal, born Jan, 16, 2013 at the ranch, is the star of a Budweiser commercial set to air during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Darla, a 7-year-old Clydesdale, top, watches over her young, as yet unnamed foal, at Warm Springs Ranch Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, in Boonville, Mo. The foal, born Jan, 16, 2013 at the ranch, is the star of a Budweiser commercial set to air during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

BOONVILLE, Mo. (AP) ? For decades, Anheuser-Busch has used its famous Clydesdales in Super Bowl ads for Budweiser. The latest star is barely two weeks old.

A foal born Jan. 16 at Anheuser-Busch's Warm Springs Ranch near the mid-Missouri town of Boonville is featured in an ad that will appear in Sunday's game between the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers and AFC champion Baltimore Ravens.

The 60-second ad chronicles the bond a Clydesdale foal shares with his trainer. The foal was just a week old when the ad was filmed.

It marks the 23rd Super Bowl ad featuring the Clydesdales.

Budweiser recently launched its first-ever Twitter account, using the occasion to tweet the first photo of the newborn.

Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/WD8oEz

Associated PressNews Topics: Business, Arts and entertainment, General news, Television programs, Entertainment, NFL Super Bowl, NFL football, Events, Football, Sports, Professional football

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-01-Clydesdale%20Super%20Bowl%20Star/id-391bd4a4501747bebee92f571e217a60

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PocketDesktop (16GB)

Though our technological world may be getting more mobile and more personal, there's still a lot out there that is neither. Whether it's a shared PC at work or school, or a stranger's desktop, there are plenty of instances where you might want a portable, secure, personal computing environment. Enter the PocketDesktop, a USB flash drive small enough to put in your pocket, but filled to the brim with tools to let you safely and securely work on public and shared systems. It's one part bootable OS-on-a-stick, one-part USB software toolkit. And while it may not appeal to everyone, it's an easy solution for those who may need it.

Design
The PocketDesktop is an unassuming flash drive?our review unit was 16GB?measuring 2.6 by 0.25 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and measuring 0.3 ounce. It's small enough to add to a keychain without adding any appreciable bulk. Unlike most flash drives, however, you won't be buying the PocketDesktop for the storage capacity, but for what's already on the drive.

The drive is pretty plain as far as hardware goes, with a USB 2.0 connection, an aluminum body with a blue PocketDesktop logo, and a black plastic cap. There's a tether point on the back end for a lanyard or key ring, but nowhere to store the cap while the drive is in use. In all honesty, the PocketDesktop looks a whole lot like the generic 1GB to 2GB drives given away at corporate events. However, the hardware doesn't need to be particularly amazing, since the main functionality is software-based.

Our 16GB review unit sells for $59.95 (plus $7.95 shipping and handling), working out to roughly $4.24 per GB. This is pretty steep for a 16GB flash drive, even with the included software. For comparison, the Kingston DataTraveler Workspace (32GB) is a similar product?offering a bootable version of Windows 8?which sells for $2.80 per GB. And for more specific uses there are more affordable alternatives, like the Victorinox Swiss Army Slim Flight, which offers private zero-footprint Web browsing. And plenty of drives offer password protection and secure partitions for keeping private data private, including both the Victorinox Slim Flight and the Editors' Choice SanDisk Extreme 3.0 (64GB).

Features and Performance
The main feature of the PocketDesktop is a bootable secure desktop environment. The Pocket Desktop OS is a tweaked Linux distro, but because the OS is read-only and operates in a closed environment, it does offer a measure of security that the average bootable copy of Ubuntu or Puppy Linux won't offer. It also offers security for the owner of the PC?once you're booted into the Private OS, you won't be able to access the host PC's local storage, and will be operating entirely outside of the installed operating system. It's also usable on nearly any PC, regardless of operating system?any Windows, Mac, or Linux PC that allows booting from a flash drive should be supported.

Also found on the bootable drive are a few dozen applications and utilities. Included on all models are Firefox, Avast, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Open Office (Writer, Math, Base, Draw, Impress), Adobe Reader, Skype, Dropbox, Transmission (Bit Torrent Client), Rhythmbox music player, Totem video player, KeePass password manager, along with a generic calculator and a file recovery manager.

The 8GB and 16GB models?including our review unit?get two scoops of goodies, adding GIMP (Image Editor), Bluefish (HTML Editor), Efax, GNU Cash, Home Bank, Planner, Scribus (Print and Page Layout), Epiphany Web browser, Ekiga (Net Meeting and VoIP), Xchat (IRC Chat Client), GMud (MUD and MU* Client), Vinagre (Remote Desktop Viewer), Amazonmp3 (Downloader), Brasero (CD/DVD Burner), Dasher (Predictive Text Entry), Filezilla (FTP Client), Gdesklets (Desktop Widgets), Gnome Scan (Scanner Utility), Grip (CD Player and Ripper), Orca (Accessibility Screen Reader), and Tomboy (Note Taking).

Now, it is definitely worth pointing out that all of these programs?all of them?are available for free, in USB executable form, through sites like PortableApps.com and PortableFreeware.com. And if you don't need the PocketDesktop's read-only version of Linux, there are plenty of DIY alternatives available as well. For some of our readers, putting Linux and freeware on a bootable flash drive is an afternoon diversion?but those readers aren't the intended market for this product. PocketDesktop is aimed at folks who want those tools, but are willing to pay $20 to $60 to get it in a ready-to-use form factor.

Using the drive is fairly straightforward, if a bit underwhelming. Plug the drive into a USB port and fire up the system, pressing F2 or F6, (or whichever key your system uses for the boot menu) and select the device labeled "Private OS." Booting from the drive, it will open up a desktop environment?that looks like a kludgy refugee from the late 90s. If you were hoping for the slick graphics of modern Windows or Mac operating systems, you will be disappointed.

Once you're booted into the desktop, you're good to go. The remaining storage space on the drive is mounted as the system drive while the hard drive of the host PC will be inaccessible (it won't even show up). Using the included tools and programs, you can now do all of your Web browsing, document editing, and other sundry activities safe from any viruses or malware that might be on the host PC. When you disconnect the drive, you won't have to worry about leaving any digital breadcrumbs behind or forgetting to log out of sensitive web services like your banking or insurance accounts.

I did run into two odd quirks while testing, however. The first was network access; while I was able to access my network in PC Labs, I couldn't connect to my home network during off-site testing. Also, once the PocketDesktop is booted up, the audio control reverts to its default setting, namely maximum volume. Given that I usually mute my speakers to reduce distractions, the unexpected volume change was something of an unwelcome surprise.

If you're the sort who looks at the PocketDesktop and scoffs that you can do the same for free, it really isn't meant for you. It's meant for your in-laws, your boss, your kids, anyone who may want those same tools in a convenient prepackaged device. Unfortunately, the end result is underwhelming, and the very folks that would need it will likely opt to use the more familiar?and potentially insecure?operating system already on the host PC. Ultimately, while the idea is a good one, the final product is a little too opaque and unpolished.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the PocketDesktop with several other flash drives side by side.

More flash drives reviews:
??? PocketDesktop (16GB)
??? LaCie XtremKey USB 3.0 (32GB)
??? Victorinox Swiss Army 16GB Jetsetter Flash Drive
??? Kingston DataTraveler Workspace (32GB)
??? LaCie PetiteKey (16GB)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/l9bft8s3Hl4/0,2817,2414975,00.asp

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