Controlling the Zoom Whiteboard on an Android Tablet

There does not seem to be much documentation for Zoom whiteboard. And, to make it more confusing, it is quite different on the desktop and mobile platforms (at least in the PC/Android world). Here, then, is a quick guide. This is all verified on an Android tablet, but I'm hoping it also works on Apple etc.

When you first open the whiteboard, you won't be able to do anything. If you tap on it, though, you should see a small pencil icon at the lower left. I guess that means "Edit" (as if you wanted to stare a white screen instead). Press that. Now you should be able to write on the screen.

If you switch away to some other application, then the whiteboard may lock again, and you'll have to click the edit button again.

You will also see a row of icons across the bottom. 

 At far left:

• An 'undo' button
• A 'redo' button

At far right: 

• A trash can: options for clearing the screen
• A kind of rounded square with a plus sign: For creating another whiteboard. You can have up to 12. This can be convenient if you want to do something else and come back to what you had before.
  
• Once you have more than one whiteboard, you will see to the left of the 'create' button a 'stack' of whiteboards with a number indicating how many you have. Press it and you will get a screen letting you select which whiteboard you want to use.
  
• Three dots that expose more options, including "Smart Recognition") whatever that is, and an option for saving the whiteboard.
  

Most useful are the buttons in the middle. (You may need to click the > symbol at the right to see all of them.) From left to right:

• A pencil: For drawing lines.
• An eraser: For erasing stuff.
• A series of colored dots or circles: For choosing the color of the pencil or highlighter.
  
• A T: This allows you to type text on the whiteboard. Let me know if you can figure it out. I can't.
• A squiggly line: For selecting the size of the pencil.
• Something like an exclamation point tilted over: I think it's meant to look like a highlighter, since that's what it does. It uses a lighter, transparent version of whatever color is set.
• A light stick: Works like a laser pointer.

One further note: If you intend to use this for serious teaching, you will want to get a high-precision stylus, such as this one. (It's just the one I happen to have.) Most laptop styli (let alone fingers) are too difficult to control with enough precision for writing.

Use Your Tablet as a Whiteboard in Zoom

I have been thinking for a while that it must somehow be possible to use a tablet as a whiteboard in Zoom. It would be really nice to be able to do something like this for office hours. The advantage, of course, is that the tablet is made to be written on with a stylus, whereas using the Zoom whiteboard with the mouse is, in my experience, hopeless. (A high precision stylus definitely helps here, though.)

Turns out it is quite simple to do this.The key is that it is possible to sign into Zoom, with the same account, more than once. 

So, to try this out:

1. Start a Zoom meeting from your main computer.
   
2. Launch Zoom on your tablet and 'join' that same meeting, using the same login you used when you started the meeting. Tell Zoom not to start your video or audio. (That will already be working from the other device. It's just weird to see yourself twice. Trust me.)
3. Now start screen sharing on your tablet and choose "Whiteboard". (On my tablet, I can also share my 'Screen' and thereby share any other app, though this is quite slow.) 

Note that, even if you have limited screen sharing to 'host only', this will work, since you are the host and are just signed in twice. And you absolutely should be limiting screen sharing, as a security measure.

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This later post discusses how to use the whiteboard.

Published: The Birth of Semantics

Written with Robert May and just published in Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy.

Abstract:

We attempt here to trace the evolution of Frege's thought about truth. What most frames the way we approach the problem is a recognition that hardly any of Frege's most familiar claims about truth appear in his earliest work. We argue that Frege's mature views about truth emerge from a fundamental re-thinking of the nature of logic instigated, in large part, with a sustained engagement with the work of George Boole and his followers, after the publication of Begriffsschrift and the appearance of critical reviews by members of the Boolean school.

Find it here.

Hope

I am cautiously hopeful that things really have shifted this time, for the better. The protests are, in reality, peaceful. They have not just stopped this time. Read about Drew Brees. Would he have been corrected the same way three years ago? Would he have apologized? Would there have been utter silence from the right wing and State News?

Try sitting still for 8 minutes and 42 seconds and then tell me your answer.

Another Night

Albums from another night of listening....

• 
  Duke Ellington, Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia, 1957)
  This is Duke's Shakespeare suite, and it is a really fantastic album. It's a relatively small version of the Ellington orchestra, and they are in great form here. Mono only, unfortunately, though, timbrally speaking, it is a great recording. I'm privileged to own a white label promo that is in terrific condition.
• 
  Gary Burton and Chick Corea, Crystal Silence (ECM, 1973)
  I am a big fan of Gary Burton. I am not a huge fan of Chick Corea, though there are albums of his that I love, and this is one of them. (Circle is another.) There is something amazing about the combination of piano and vibes here, all the more so because of how these two play off each other.
  I always think of this album as quiet and meditative, and there are times it is like that, but not always. Still, I needed this album on this day, when my uncle was dying of Covid. I'm glad it was there for me.
• 
  Oregon, Winter Light (Vanguard, 1974)
  I thought I'd posted about this album before, because I'd listened to it a while back. Anyway, I had to have another listen because I got an original pressing, whereas the other one was a later re-issue in Vanguard's "MidLine" series. This one sounds a lot better, probably (as usual) because of tape degradation. But what matters here is the music, and it is fantastic. If you were only ever to listen to one album by these guys, this might be the one.
• 
  Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Nana Vasconcelos, Codona 2 (ECM, 1981) and Codona 3 (ECM, 1983)
  I listened to these two albums while hacking on LyX, so I don't have as much to say about them as I might otherwise. But they're terrific albums. Walcott really shines here, when given the chance to be more of the focal point (as he is not always with Oregon).
  
  

New Paper: Does Pornography Presuppose Rape Myths?

Abstract:

Rae Langton and Caroline West have argued that pornography silences women by presupposing misogynistic attitudes, such as that women enjoy being raped. More precisely, they claim that a somewhat infamous pictorial, “Dirty Pool”, makes such presuppositions. I argue for four claims. (i) Langton and West's account of how pornography silences women is empirically dubious. (ii) There is no evidence that very much pornography makes the sorts of presuppositions they require. (iii) Even "Dirty Pool", for all its other problems, does not make the presuppositions that Langton and West claim it does. (iv) Langton and West misread “Dirty Pool” because they do not take proper account of the fact that pornography traffics in sexual fantasy.

Get it here.

Happy 80th, Herbie

The other day, I listened to Herbie Hancock's first solo album, Takin' Off, and later was googling for more info about it, and realized that he is going to be 80 years old today, 12 April 2020! Happy birthday, Herbie!! So, of course, tonight had to involve some Herbie.

Monday Evening Tunes

• 
  Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti, and Charlie Haden, Folk Songs (ECM, 1981)
  A very nice album, but not breathtaking in the way that Magico was. It has its moments, but it lacks the lyrical flow of that album. Still, these are three amazing musicians, and there are some wonderful moments.
  As I mentioned, I think, with Magico, this album sounds especially wonderful on the new speakers, because they do such a great job with Haden's bass. It is deep and powerful, and just big, the way it should be.
• 
  Herbie Hancock, Takin' Off (Blue Note, 1962)
  This was Herbie's first album as a leader, at the ripe age of 22. With Dexter Gordon and Freddie Hubbard, and a rhythm section of Butch Warren and Billy Higgins. It's a nice record, but for the most part it's also a pretty typical one for the label and the era. The slow ballad, "Alone and I", that closes the album is probably my favorite.
  Here's something kind of scary: This coming Sunday, 12 April 2020, is Herbie's 80th birthday.
  My copy is a 1970s "black b" pressing, and not an RVG master. So it's a touch dark, though it still sounds pretty good.
• 
  Duke Ellington, Jazz Party in Stereo (Columbia, 1959)
  What a fun record! The liner notes claim that Duke was just back from Florida, so they wanted to get a few tunes recorded, but then a whole bunch of people showed up to say hello, including Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Rushing, and it turned into a party. Including, at one point, two vibraphones, two xylophones, a glockenspiel, and nine tympanis, plus more conventional percussion. Great music and a great performance, including yet another long rip from Paul Gonsalves (though nothing approximating what is on Ellington at Newport).
  My copy is an original 6-eye pressing. It is far, far superior to the Classic re-issue, and probably cheaper.
  For audiophiles: This is a great recording, timbrally, and it has a ridiculously wide soundstage at times.
• 
  Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Naná Vasconcelos, Codona (ECM, 1978)
  I am guessing that this must have been one of the "Let's throw three amazing musicians together and see what happens" albums that ECM seemed to make from time to time. It's an interesting collection of folks: Walcott, from Oregon, on sitar, tablas, and dulcimer; Cherry, best known for his early work with Ornette Coleman, but by then well-established in his own right, who plays trumpet (as usual), a variety of flutes, and dousn'gouni; and Naná Vasconcelos, a Brazilian percussionist who, at that point, had recorded two albums for ECM with Egberto Gismonti. (He would later record one of my favorite albums, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, with Pat Metheny and the late Lyle Mays.)
  This is a very weird album, as you might expect. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's really magical. The highlight, to me, is "Mumakata", though the other song on side 2, "New Light", is also wonderful.
  PS: CO (Collin), DO (Don), NA (Naná). (Kind of like NiRoPe, if you're from southeastern New England.)

New Paper: How Not To Watch Feminist Pornography

Abstract:

This paper has three goals. The first is to defend Tristan Taromino and Erika Lust (or some of their films) from criticisms that Rebecca Whisnant and Hans Maes make of them. Toward that end, I will be arguing against the narrow conceptions that Whisnant and Maes have of what `feminist' pornography must be like. More generally, I hope to show by example why it is important to take pornographic films seriously as films if we're to understand their potential to shape, or mis-shape, socio-sexual norms.

Get it here.

Getting an ODriod VU-5A Display Working with the ODroid N2

I love the tiny little single-board computers from ODroid, but their VU-5A display comes with no instructions at all, and the wiki is not a lot more helpful. It wasn't even clear what connections to make when I got the display!

Here, anyway, is what I had to do to connect the VU-5A to my N2.

Teaching on Zoom

A message I sent to my colleagues, after my first day teaching remotely....

---

I hope those of you who taught today found that your classes went all right. I was very happy with mine, though I am lucky that we had a good vibe in class before now, and it is small enough (16 plus two TAs and a visitor) that it is not too hard to manage on Zoom.

ODroid Music Streamer (and FREE Roon Replacement)

I've been playing for a while now with an ODroid N2 and trying to build a music streamer from it. In some ways, that is not particularly difficult, but I'm trying to do it my own way, of course, which makes it more so. This page records the steps I've taken to get it working.¹

Birthday Music

1. 
   David Torn, Cloud About Mercury (ECM, 1986)
   If you're at all into progressive rock, and you don't know this album, you need to listen to it very soon. The rest of the band is Bill Bruford, Tony Levin---i.e., the rhythm section from the great King Crimson incaranation of the early 1980s---and Mark Isham on trumpet. Torn is a guitarist, and a very creative one.
   This is one of those genre-busting albums. It's somewhere between progressive rock and fusion, I guess.
   
2. 
   Jan Garbarek Group, It's OK to Listen to the Gray Voice (ECM, 1985)
   A stunningly beautiful album, with David Torn on guitar, Eberhard Weber on bass, and Michael DiPasqua on drums and percussion. The interplay between Torn and Garbarek, in particular, is worth the price of admission. And Weber plays bass like no one else.
   From here on out, it turned out to be mostly a night of Garbarek.
   
3. Ralph Towner, Solstice (ECM, 1975)
   Another of my favorite albums, and one of the great ECM records. Garbarek and Weber are here again, along with Jon Christensen on drums. Somewhat unusually for jazz, Towner plays classical and 12-string guitars, and occasionally piano. This is more straight ahead jazz than one gets with Oregon, and there are just lovely textures between the acoustic guitars, Garbarek's sax, and Weber's electric upright bass.
   The recording is extraordinary. It's hard to over-state what a wonderful audio engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug was, and how much influence he must have had on the 'ECM sound'. Here, he gives us a wonderful sense for the softness of Towner's classical guitar and, at the same time, the power of Garbarek's sax.
   
4. 
   Keith Jarrett, My Song (ECM, 1978)
   The second record from Jarrett's so-called 'European Quartet', with Garbarek, Christensen, and Palle Danielsson on bass. The only other studio album they made was Belonging, from 1975.
   This one is more lyrical than that one and less 'free' than Nude Ants (1979), which was recorded live at the Village Vanguard. A wonderful album.
5. 
   Keith Jarrett, Personal Mountains (ECM, 1989)
   Also from the European Quartet, recorded live in Tokyo in 1979. I would guess that this record maybe gives one more of a sense for what their concerts were really like. There's a lot of out-there improvisation, as on Nude Ants, but also more lyrical performances.

More Music

1. 
   Ralph Towner, Batik (ECM, 1978)
   The first song, "Waterwheel", is a classic. The rest is merely good.
   The copy I have is a Warner Brothers re-issue, and these generally are a lot better than the US originals, which were pressed and distributed by Polydor. But I thought this one was a bit dark, and it left me wondering what a German original might be like. That said, I'm not sure I love this album enough to pay what it would take to find out.
2. 
   Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona (Warner, 1993)
   As diverse as what he produces, and beautiful. One of my very favorite albums. The highlight here for me is "Unbreakable Chain", though there are a lot of competitors for that title.
   It's a nice recording, too. Though, as you might expect, it is a bit inconsistent in that respect, given how it would have been recorded.
   Unsurprisingly, the original US release, on CD, included a censored version of the cover.
3. 
   Daniel Lanois, Acadie
   His first solo album. I remember hearing it the first time and wondering how on earth this guy could make this album. It's basically folk, with a slightly Cajun edge. But it is wonderful, too, maybe even better than Wynona, because it is more coherent as an album.
   Unfortunately, the recording is just all right. There's quite a lot of sybillance on the vocals (which always reminds me of cheap, crappy speakers).
4. 
   kd lang, Ingénue
   I hadn't listened to this for a while. A great album, and her voice sounds amazing, even through the digital recording. There could be a lot more depth to the recording, but for the most part the instruments sound very natural.
5. 
   Steve Tibbetts, Safe Journey
   I've mentioned him in other recent posts. Many of his albums are meditative and quiet, and this one has such moments. Lovely, and a nice recording, as one expects from ECM.

Tonight's Selections

1. Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, and Jack DeJohnette, Standards vol. 1 (1983)
   

Music Music Music Music Music

(With apologies to Mingus...)

I used to listen to music all the time. I'm not sure why that stopped. I remember years ago when my then-wife's sister visited us and she asked me one morning, "Do you listen to music every morning?" My answer, "Yes", was honest, but failed to engage with what she was really trying to say. It didn't occur to me that other people didn't put on an album the minute they got out of bed.

New Other Stereo Stuff: Pass XP-20 and Schiit Yggdrasil

This post is really just a continuation of the last one. In that one, I raved about our new speakers, the Dynaudio Contour 60s and explained that it had been quite a while since I really made many changes to our stereo system.

New Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 60s

As anyone who knows me knows, I'm very into music. And, since most of the time I listen to music at home (not at a concert), I'm also very into stereo equipment. That actually goes back to when I was about fifteen and used my babysitting money to buy what then seemed, to me, like audio nirvana: A Technics receiver, and then later a Technics turntable and a pair of Altec Lansing Model 10 speakers.

Pornography and Accommodation: Published

Online anyway, here.

If you can't access that, then you can find the pre-publication version here.

Note on "RVG" Pressings of Blue Note Records

As Robert May mentions here, many later issues of Blue Notes, even from the 1970s, have "RVG" or "Van Gelder" stamped into the run-off vinyl. These are more collectible, and they typically sound a lot better than the ones that do not have these markings. My suspicion is that these records are pressed using stampers that derive from the original mastering session, when the record was first released.

A Blue Note Labelography, by Robert May

Reprinted from Primyl Vinyl Exchange Newsletter, vol. 2, no. 6, Nov - Dec, 1997

Reposted here, with permission, since it is no longer at its original location (see here)

Relatedly, see this Blue Note discography this guide to Blue Note labels (and also this one), and this one, and this history of the company.