Ferrari 458 Italia

Boasting a new 4.5-liter V8 engine, a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and a 202-mph top speed, Ferrari 458 Italia is ferociously fast, with Ferrari claiming that it sprints to 62 mph in less than 3.5 seconds. Ferrari has clearly worked to produce an engine with a tremendous range of abilities, from record-setting specific outputs to enough torque to surge away from low engine speeds. Ferrari learned much developing the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox for the California, and it has had to learn more to make the unit fit into the 458 Italia's engine bay, behind the curvaceous hatch.

The 458 Italia was designed by Pininfarina, it is heavily influenced by lessons learned in the on-site, half-scale F1 wind tunnel. Ferrari even moved one of its key F1 aero specialists across to the GT program to get it right. The little winglets owe more than a visual link to F1, because they provide downforce and feed air through the lay-down radiators ahead of the front wheels. It's designed with enormous tumblehome, so the air curves around the cabin and runs over the integrated rear tail, while underneath, a flat floor enhances the effects of the rear diffuser to create 140 kg of downforce at 124 mph. Inside, the 458 Italia takes the opportunity created by the more luxurious California to become the sportiest V8 in the family.

The 458 Italia is built alongside the California on the air-conditioned, "upstairs" new production facility at Maranello, leaving the traditional Ferrari production line for the V12-powered cars, such as the 599 Fiorano and the 612 Scaglietti.

McIntosh AP1 - iPhone/iPad App

McIntosh Labs has introduced the AP1 AUDIO PLAYER - the first digital product from the legendary audio experts. The AP1 offers iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners the ability to listen to and playback music from their digital mobile device within the classic McIntosh experience. Featuring the signature blue meters, the AP1 gives the user access to his or her audio library in a simple yet elegant interface inspired by the line of McIntosh audio equipment. Take the McIntosh experience with you wherever you may travel - or enjoy it in the comfort of your living room attached to a dock or cable. Wherever you may be, you’ll enjoy the soothing confidence of the analog blue meters and the glow of the Legend.

Click here to see iTunes preview.

Meridien Sooloos Media Core 200

Meridian keeps slimming down the original Sooloos system not only reducing the price but also its footprint. The Media Core 200 looks like a slightly puffed Mac Mini sat on its side, and requires only an iPad to complete the system, though it can also be connected to the company’s Control 10 or 15 touchscreens.

Media Core 200 contains a 500GB hard drive, storing around 1,000 CD albums in pristine lossless quality for graphical and touch-screen access via the award-winning Sooloos interface.

Click to learn more about Sooloos Media Core 200.

A way to link to a specific part of a youtube video

YouTube allows you to link to a starting point within a YouTube video. Now you can jump to time segmentcut. Click here to try it.

Multiple email addresses for one Gmail Account

I’m a huge fan of Google’s online applications: GMail, Google Reader, etc. One little known feature of GMail which I find myself using over and over again is the ability to add extra metadata to my gmail email address to let me know where the email came from.

Let’s say that I have a gmail address: sean@gmail.com

Now if I am signing up for a newsletter at XYZ Corp. I can register with the email address sean+xyz@gmail.com You can put in any extra alphanumeric information after the plus sign and it still gets delivered to sean@gmail.com. Furthermore you can apply a filter in Gmail to process the email a certain way based on the email address that you signed you for (sean+xyz@gmail.com).

One handy use of this feature is to track where emails are coming from so if you started to get spammed for instance you will know which address was passed onto a third party.

Source: Sean Deasy (http://www.seandeasy.com/)

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 - Tempest, Mvt. III (Allegreto) by Wilhelm Kempff

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 was composed in 1801/02 by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is usually referred to as "The Tempest" (or Der Sturm in German), but this title was not given by him, or indeed referred to as such during his lifetime; instead, it comes from a claim by his associate Anton Schindler that the sonata was inspired by the Shakespeare play. However, much of Schindler's information is distrusted by classical music scholars. Renowned British music scholar, Donald Francis Tovey, in his authoritative book A Companion to Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas, states that "With all the tragic power of its first movement the D minor Sonata is, like Prospero, almost as far beyond tragedy as it is beyond mere foul weather. It will do you no harm to think of Miranda at bars 31-38 of the slow movement... but people who want to identify Ariel and Caliban and the castaways, good and villainous, may as well confine their attention to the exploits of Scarlet Pimpernel when the Eroica or the C minor Symphony is being played" (pg. 121).

The piece consists of three movements and takes approximately twenty-five minutes to perform:
I. Largo - Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegreto
*Click above links to listen (via YouTube) / Click here to play all. 

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff (25 November 1895 – 23 May 1991) was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertory included Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well-known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, both of whose complete sonatas he also recorded. He is considered to have been one of the great pianists of the 20th century.
As a performer he stressed lyricism, charm, and spontaneity in music, particularly effective in intimate pieces or passages. He always strove for a singing, lyrical quality. He avoided extreme tempos and display for its own sake. He left recordings of most of his repertory, including the complete sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. He performed to an advanced age, often concertizing past his eightieth birthday. He appeared in 1979 with the Berlin Philharmonic, marking an association with them that spanned over sixty years.

The Goldberg Variations - J. S. Bach

The Goldberg Variations - J. S. Bach
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are a set of an aria and 30 variations for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. The Variations are named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may have been the first performer.
Pianist - Glen Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982) was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by a remarkable technical proficiency and a capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach’s music.

Gould rejected most of the standard Romantic piano literature and shunned the performance of several of its composers such as Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, and Frédéric Chopin. Although his recordings were dominated by Bach, Gould's oeuvre was diverse, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Sweelinck, and 20th-century composers such as Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Gould was well-known for various eccentricities, ranging from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard, to aspects of his lifestyle and personal behavior. He abandoned the concert platform at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects.

Gould was also known as a writer, composer, conductor, and broadcaster. He was a prolific contributor to musical journals, in which he discussed musical theory and outlined his musical philosophy. His career as a composer was less distinguished; his output was minimal and many projects were left unfinished. There is evidence that, if he had lived beyond the age of 50, he intended to abandon the piano, and devote the remainder of his career to conducting and other projects. As a broadcaster, Gould was prolific. His output ranged from television and radio broadcasts of studio performances to musique concrète radio documentaries about life in the Canadian wilderness.
Shortly before his death in 1982, Gould re-recorded (He recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955, which was his debut album.) was Bach's The Goldberg Variations in 1955)the Goldberg Variations digitally and in stereo in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. He largely abandoned the showmanship of the 1955 performance and replaced it with a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. For the 1981 version, Gould sought to unify the variations differently, through his choices of tempi: he played more of the repeats, and endeavoured to express proportional rhythmic relations between the variations. Arriving within a year of his death, the 1981 recording is popularly recognized as "autumnal", a symbolic testament to Gould's career.

In 2002, Sony issued a three-compact-disc collection titled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981. It includes the 1955 and 1981 Goldberg recordings (the latter remastered from analogue tapes), and a third disc with 1955 studio outtakes and a lengthy interview with Gould documentarian and music critic Tim Page.
*Click each part to play its group.
Part I
- Aria
- Variation 1
- Variation 2
- Variation 3: Canon on the Unison
- Variation 4
- Variation 5
- Variation 6: Canon on the Second
- Variation 7: Al tempo di Giga
Part II
- Variation 8
- Variation 9: Canon on the Third
- Variation 10: Fughetta
- Variation 11
- Variation 12: Canon on the Fourth
- Variation 13
- Variation 14
Part III
- Variation 15: Canon on the Fifth
- Variation 16: Ouverture
- Variation 17
- Variation 18: Canon on the Sixth
Part IV
- Variation 19
- Variation 20
- Variation 21: Canon on the Seventh
- Variation 22: Alla Breve
- Variation 23
- Variation 24: Canon on the Octave
Part V
- Variation 25
- Variation 26
- Variation 27: Canon on the Ninth
- Variation 28
Part VI
- Variation 29
- Variation 30: Quodlibet
- Aria da capo
- Epilogue
Click here to play all parts.