Thaxted

   contents

I occasionally hear pieces of classical music that I think would make great dance tunes. I haven't succeeded in adapting any of them, most often due to phrasing issues. Contra tunes need 2/2 or 4/4 timing and 16 beat phrases. Trying to make a 24 beat, for example, phrase fit just doesn't work - it ruins the melody. And there is also tempo - it must sound right at 110-120 bpm. Waltz needs 3/4 timing, an even number of bars, and needs to work around 125 bpm.

Yesterday, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a video about someone rescuing a dog and her puppies. It was set to one of my favorite melodies. From Gustav Holst's The Planets, Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. This entire piece is wonderful, but what usually comes to mind is a melody from the middle.

One of many performances on YouTube - Jupiter .

I found that Holst had repurposed this melody to fit Cecil Spring Rice’s poem "I Vow to Thee, My Country", and entitled it Thaxted, a town in England where he lived for several years. This is what was used in the video.

Thaxted has been used for many songs/hymns. Perplexity AI lists eight.

I found ABC sheet music for Thaxted - not in great shape. I transposed to E minor, fixed the timing to 3/4, and added chords. ABA, 8 bar phrases. I played it at my usual waltz tempo, 125 bpm - perfect. It's a hymn, but should be good as a waltz. Perplexity AI says to emphasize the boom-chuck-chuck rhythm - sounds good.

MIDI recording

Something useful from Facebook. Wow! And a beautiful new waltz (I hope).

The ABC -

X: 1
T: Thaxted
R: waltz
C: Gustav Holst
M: 3/4
Q: 1/4=125
K: Em
B,D||"Em" E2 EG F>D|"G"GA G2 F2|"Em"EF E2 D2|"Bm"B,4 B,D||"Em"E2 EG F>D|"G"GA B2 B2|BA G2 A2|"Em"G4 ||
dB||"Am"A2 A2 GB|"D"A2 D2 dB|"Am"A2 A2 Bd|"Em"e4 ef||"C"g2 f2 e2|"G"d2 g2 B2|"Am"AG A2 B2|"D"d4 ||
B,D||"Em"E2 EG F>D|"G"GA G2 F2|"Em"EF E2 D2|"Bm"B,4 B,D||"Em"E2 EG F>D|"G"GA B2 B2|BA G2 A2|"Em"G6||

Blog Post 101

  contents

This is blog post 101, almost 10 years after post 1. I started with a post about smart phones, suggesting that many of the "features" were less than useful. Some these features failed in the marketplace - curved screens, squeeze control. Most of my complaints were ignored.

Glossy screens - nine years after my complaint, Samsung introduced a non glare screen, only on their top of the line, huge phone. I haven't checked it out. Thankfully, matte screen covers are much improved with a fine texture that doesn't ruin the screen resolution.

OLED screens have largely replaced backlit LCD screens, but this hasn't produced optimal always on displays (AODs). With Samsung, the AOD app widgets have limited brightness that make them very hard to read in some situations. Apple thinks that AODs belong only on their Pro models - I don't know what they can display. Motorola thinks there is no reason to have an AOD. Google has an AOD with next alarm but not time zone.

None of the main screen clocks have time zone. Software designers - THE DISPLAYED TIME IS NOT COMPLETE UNLESS IT INCLUDES THE TIME ZONE THAT IT IS REPORTING IN.

Screen bezels have been minimized. I cannot use any current phone effectively without a phone cover. The cover supplies a raised "bezel" than prevents me from constantly touching the bottom of the screen and the resulting unwanted action. It also makes the phone significantly bigger - not good.

Samsung has a "game booster" that puts an icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Accidentally touch it and you get a menu. Maybe useful for action games - I don't know. But worse than useless for word games. The game booster app cannot be removed. But you can kill its function - see Samsung Galaxy S25 in my blog.

Phones keep getting bigger. You might think that a next generation small phone would be smaller or the same as the current generation. NO. Small phones keep getting bigger.

I still have never used a voice assistant or any AI feature on a phone.

Fingerprint readers have moved to the front of the phone, under the display. These have improved a lot since the Samsung S22, but still not nearly as good as the fingerprint readers on the back as on the Pixel 4A.

Google has decided that it's okay to display Android navigation buttons on top of application information. This maximizes the app size while still giving access to the navigation buttons. They think that the buttons and the underlying app don't interfere with each other. WRONG. Shrink the app - the navigation buttons don't take that much space.

Screen brightness has gotten so severe on my Samsung phone that I have to turn the brightness down to absolute bottom. Which leaves no room for optimization - just "PLEASE DON'T BURN OUT MY EYES" mode.

I don't care about the headphone jack any more. I use first generation Apple Airpods. They fit me perfectly and connect quickly.

Android split screen and insets - still useless and annoying.

Emojis are out of control. I occasionally use thumbs up, heart, smile, frown. That's all. When selecting one, I am presented with hundreds of them to choose from. Wouldn't it be easier to use a word enclosed in brackets - for example, [smile] would cause the reader to picture a smile emoji.

Minimum volume is still too loud at times. And volume steps are often too large. There has been absolutely no improvement in this in ten years. Resources MUST be directed toward new icons and emojis [satire].

And gestures have become pests. I accidentally touch the screen and something changes. I don't know what I did and I don't know what happened, other than I've lost what I was looking at.

And - WHY TO YOU KEEP CHANGING THINGS THAT WORK? How does that help the user? How about changing things that don't work?

Investing - International

contents

The US is in bad shape fiscally. 39,000,000,000,000 dollars in debt, an estimated 100,000,000,000,000 in unfunded liabilities. For a population of 350 million, that's $111,000 and $285,000 per person. And only one third of the population pays any federal income taxes, so 333,000 and 855,000 per taxpayer. And if the debt magically dropped to zero, our government has no mechanism to avoid returning to the same situation in short order.

It is often argued that US corporations do a lot of business internationally, so there is no need to invest in foreign businesses. But that does not address the problem of a weak US Dollar (USD).

So I decided I should be investing 20% (to start) of my assets in foreign businesses. I found that many foreign corporations allow US investment through American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). An ADR certificate represents shares of a foreign corporation and trades on a US exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq, etc.) or over the counter. Most ADRs on US exchanges are sponsored by the corporation, but others are unsponsored. ADRs remove much of the complexity of owning foreign stocks directly. Dividends from ADRs are generally qualified, after a holding period, so you pay the capital gains income tax rate. It is easy and effective to invest in foreign corporations.

ADRs are traded in USD. But the price tracks the home country price via arbitrage (institutional buys and sells). You get dividends in USD at the current exchange rate. So ADRs and their dividends reflect the value in the home country currency, making them useful as a USD hedge.

For US taxpayers, in taxable accounts, many ADRs report withheld foreign taxes on dividends. You pay capital gains taxes on trades and dividend taxes as with US stocks, but you get the foreign tax credit. In a Roth IRA the foreign tax credit cannot be used, but there are no taxes on the dividends (or capital gains). In a traditional IRA, the foreign tax credit cannot be used, and you pay income tax rate on the dividends (and capital gains) on withdrawal. I prefer using a Roth for my international assets, but many investors prefer a taxable account.

There are ETFs that include ADRs that are similar to US ETFs. SCHY is an international version of SCHD. VYMI and VIGI, international versions of VYM and VIG. All with just slightly higher fees.

Since I want stable, profitable foreign corporations, I use mostly SCHY. It has been suggested that dividend growth ETFs are likely more stable than high dividend ETFs because they exclude corporations that pay high dividends to attract investors. But dividend growth ETFs don't pay high dividends, so I consider a lot of those corporations to be growth oriented. SCHY is a good compromise because it filters on quality and dividends.

Investing - Financial Mistakes to Avoid

   contents

Co-sign a Loan? 

Do not co-sign a loan. If a lender requires a co-signer, that means that the lender thinks that the borrower cannot repay the loan. If they don't repay, the co-signer is fully responsible to repay. And the loan likely comes with a very high interest rate. Find another way to help. 

Share an Asset with an Heir? 

If you want to transfer assets on your death, do not transfer them before your death. Do not add your heirs as co-owners of your house or brokerage accounts. If you do, they may share your cost basis as well as the assets. Under current tax law, if they inherit, their cost basis in these assets generally steps up to the value of the assets at your death. This can be a huge difference in capital gains tax if/when they sell the assets.

Transfer on Death

To easily transfer assets to heirs on your death, look into "transfer on death" for house (not available in all states) and brokerages (available from most reputable brokerages and banks). Transfer on death is a direct transfer to your beneficiaries at your death, bypassing probate, wills, and trusts. It is easy to set up and easy to change. Since this covers only specific properties and assets, is does not eliminate the need for a will or trust.

Direct Transfer of 401K to TIRA

When moving assets from a 401K or 403B to a TIRA, be certain to follow the rules to avoid making this a taxable event. The easy and safe way to do this is to authorize your brokerage to request a direct trustee to trustee transfer from your employer plan to a rollover IRA (a rollover IRA is just a traditional IRA that originated as a 401k or 403b conversion).

Borrow Money from a 401K or 403B?

Borrowing money from your 401K or 403B is risky. If you don't repay the loan on schedule, the balance becomes a (taxable) distribution. And if you leave your job (including layoff) the balance must be paid off by the next tax filing (sometimes sooner), generally April 15, or the balance becomes a distribution. If this happens, you will owe income tax on it and, if you are under age 59 1/2, a 10% penalty. Read the rules specific to your loan plan carefully.

Whole Life Insurance?

Life insurance is important if you have dependents. But be careful of what you get. It is generally agreed that "whole life" insurance is a poor value due to high fees and low return on investment. "Term" insurance is preferred, in general.

Annuity?

Annuities have their place in a retirement plan, but you must be very careful in choosing a policy. Many have a high load (sales commission) and ongoing fees and you lose control over your money and access to it. If purchased inside an traditional IRA and the annuity payments have started, distributions are taxed as ordinary income and count as the RMD for the annuity portion of the TIRA. If purchased in a taxable account, only the earnings part of the distribution is taxed (as ordinary income).

Annuity or Adviser Run Income Portfolio?

My suggestion, in preference to an annuity or an adviser run income portfolio, is an indexed dividend stock ETF, such as SCHD or VYM. These distribute mostly qualified dividends from established corporations that have a roughly 30% to 60% payout ratio. A portion of the corporate profits are given to stockholders as a qualified dividends and the rest goes to growth of the business or stock repurchase. This increases the dividends over time, likely surpassing inflation. And in a taxable account, qualified distributions get the capital gains tax rate, likely lower than the income tax rate. The fee for SCHD or VYM is .06%/year, much lower than an annuity or adviser.

Investing - Strategy and Tactics

   contents

Strategy

 
Understand investing and why it is important. Not learning about and handling investments is a good way to end up poor. Businesses no longer have simple pension plans. The US government and Social Security are not solvent. People outlive employment by decades.

Understand taxation, especially in retirement. It is a critical element of investing.

Think of returns in inflation adjusted percents (average 2.5%, total 85%, over the last 25 years). The "wonder" of compound interest does not apply to investments that don't keep up with inflation. CDs, bonds, money market, will not grow much faster than inflation. DODIX (excellent bond fund) over 25 years, up 70%, inflation adjusted, up 12%. S&P500 over 25 years, up 696%, inflation adjusted up 430%. If you need a million dollars to retire today, plan on 1.85 million in 25 years. That's assuming a stable inflation rate.

You should initiate any investment. Letting others push your investment is ripe for them making a profit, not you. Listen to advice, evaluate it with outside sources, decide whether to use it.

Note the difference between investing and gambling - owning a share of a business (common stock) versus derivatives, futures, options, crypto coin, market timing, day trading.

Remember - investing is to earn money over decades in return for ups and downs over months.

You will make mistakes. Learn from them. Do not repeat them.

It is often suggested that you hold on to debt in favor of investing because the investing growth is more than debt interest. But - growth rates on investments are maybes. The debt interest is guaranteed and failing to keep up with the payments makes a mess.

Tactics

Bonds suppress the volatility of stock prices in your portfolio, but long term they will suppress the growth.

Dividend paying businesses, with roughly a 50% payout ratio (that's half of profits go to investors, half to growth or stock buy backs), suppress stock price volatility and add confidence to the efficacy of the businesses.

Do not use traditional mutual fund in taxable accounts. Well established indexed ETFs are far more tax efficient and are much less likely to need to be sold due to under-performance.

I prefer well established ETFs to mutual funds in tax advantaged accounts, although there is no tax advantage. ETFs have lower fees and are easier and quicker to buy, sell, and trade. But if you find a mutual fund that you like, no problem. Look for low fees, a good manager replacement strategy, a low price earnings ratio, and a stock picking strategy that you like.

After retirement, if you need money from a taxable account, turn off any automatic reinvestment. Every buy or sell is a potential taxable event. Take the money from distributions and reinvest what you don't use.

While your income is low, especially while you are young, contribute to Roth IRAs/401ks/... in preference to traditional IRAs/401ks/... A traditional IRA contribution makes a nice tax break, but you will likely end up with a much higher tax bill when it's time to use the money.

Move traditional IRA assets to Roth IRA at the beginning of the year, not the end. If you wait until the end of the year, you have missed out on a year of tax free growth. Of course you might catch a nice dip for conversion sometime during the year, but that's market timing. 

More 

Check back in occasionally if you like this, I will probably think of more to add. Suggestions are welcome. 

Linux, EasyABC, ABCM2PS

  contents

You can read this post as a technical post about some Linux software and/or a satirical post about how ridiculous Linux can be.

Two critical pieces of my music editing and printing procedures on Linux are Abcm2ps and EasyABC. These should run on any Linux desktop, but each Linux desktop has it's own approach to installation. I use Lubuntu which is closely based on Ubuntu, just a different GUI interface.

Abcm2ps is a command line utility for converting ABC sheet music to PostScript for printing. But versions after 8.14.6 are broken for scaling and positioning.

For Ubuntu - find abcm2ps_8.14.6-0.1_amd64.deb on the internet and download it. The trick to finding it is to enter the exact file name, not keywords. Then sudo dpkg -i abcm2ps_8.14.6-0.1_amd64.deb to install. You can sudo apt install, but the next time you need it you will not have the .deb.

This is pretty easy, but when the system updater runs, it will replace it with a newer version. Here is the solution.

  sudo apt-mark hold abcm2ps

and to verify

  apt-mark showhold

.

EasyABC is a very nice cross-platform ABC music editor. Unfortunately, it runs into Linux's major flaw - installation dependencies. Old code that uses code that is no longer supported or readily available. Finding a functional way to install EasyABC on Lubuntu took many hours.

This is how I set up EasyABC using a virtual environment (venv). See https://groups.io/g/abcusers/topic/set_up_and_run_easyabc_on/110250537 for how to do this with PyEnv. This was very helpful even though it is not my way of doing things. Sounds more complicated that using a venv. Perplexity.ai helped a lot also. And MUCH trial and error.

The big issue here is that EasyABC doesn't keep up with Python (a code interpreter/compiler which is changed at a ridiculous rate). It does not work with Python 3.12. And when you install wxPython, it attaches to the current version of Python, 3.12. So you can install Python 3.11 which is okay for EasyABC but you can't install wxPython for Python 3.11 because the installer sees Python 3.12 and assumes that's where you want wxPython. You could try removing 3.12, installing wxPython on 3.11, and reinstalling 3.12, but 3.12 is the system Python, so I think that the system would crash if you remove 3.12 - not sure, didn't try it. And of course you could modify EasyABC to work with Python 3.12 - over 9000 lines of code - good luck. The "easy" solution is to make a virtual environment (venv), where Python 3.11 is current, and install wxPython there. Then put a wrapper around the Python execution of easy_abc.py that puts it in the venv. This is all new to me, but it became important when my computer crashed and I needed to get EasyABC going on a new system.

Get jwdj EasyABC 1.3.8.7 .

  https://github.com/jwdj/EasyABC
  unzip to ~/home/user/easyabc

install python 11 from deadsnakes (a repository with old Python versions)
  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install python3.11
  python3.11 --version 

make a virtual environment
  python3.11 -m venv easyabc-venv
activate the venv (after it has been made, just activate and deactivate as needed)
  source easyabc-venv/bin/activate (terminal prompt indicator is displayed)
deactivate when finished
  deactivate

INSIDE the venv with "(easyabc)" displayed

fluidsynth - it is not clear to me if this is needed

  tar -xvzf Downloads/fluidsynth-2.5.3.tar.gz (unpack the file into a folder fluidsynth-2.5.3)
  cd fluidsynth-2.5.3
  mkdir build
  cd build
  sudo apt install cmake libgtk2.0-dev libpulse-dev
  cmake ..
  make libfluidsynth
  cp src/libfluidsynth.so* ~/easyabc

This is from https://groups.io/g/abcusers/topic/set_up_and_run_easyabc_on/110250537

  sudo apt install -y --reinstall \
  make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev \
  libbz2-dev libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev \
  libncursesw5-dev xz-utils tk-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev python3-openssl \
  git libgtk-3-dev

pip install --upgrade pip (I think this can be systemwide, not under the venv)
pip install -U pyparsing
pip install -U pygame
pip install -U wxPython
python -c "import wx; print(wx.version())"

sudo apt install abcmidi
sudo apt install abcm2ps (or v8.14.6 noted at the top of this post)

I'm not clear if these are needed, but they won't hurt anything (I don't think)
  sudo apt install fluidsynth
  sudo apt install fluid-soundfont-gm

Script to run EasyABC from the command line - easyabc.sh.

  #!/bin/bash
  source easyabc-venv/bin/activate
  python ~/easyabc/easy_abc.py
  deactivate

  and make it executable with - chmod +x easyabc.sh

When you run easyabc.sh in a terminal, you get a bunch of warnings and maybe an error. These don't appear to be a problem.

My desktop app starter file (don't forget to make it executable). Same as the ~/.local/share/applications file extension app association file.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=EasyABC
Exec=~/easyabc.sh %f
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=~/easyabc/img/logo.ico

I have done three installs and they all worked! Three years from now, when I have to do another install, we will see.

Samsung Galaxy S25

  contents

Samsung's Galaxy S* phone series has a very annoying naming issue. The S25 series includes - S25, S25+, S25 Ultra, S25 Edge, and S25 FE. If I want a case for an S25 Edge, I search Amazon with "S25 Edge", and similarly for the others, until I get to the S25. For the S25, I need "S25 NOT + Ultra Edge FE", but Amazon search doesn't support that. Why not call the S25 the "S25 Compact". Then I could do useful searches for it.

I was waiting on the Samsung Galaxy S26, due in a month, to get a new phone. But all indications are - slightly bigger, no anti-reflective glass. The S25 Ultra has a new anti-reflective glass that I was hoping would be used on the S26 - apparently not. The S25 is slightly smaller than the S26 and I didn't see any disadvantage. Switching phones is a major pain. Copy the old phone (easy), but then update settings (do not disturb schedule, suppress picture in picture in Maps, Maps sound levels, brightness settings), log into calendar app, TV web page, Amazon, Google, Facebook, recreate my home page in Nova (launcher), turn on my alarms, set up the always on display, turn off all gestures, set up the fingerprint reader, set up app permissions and other app settings. Hours of work. Then transfer the SIM - done!

The fingerprint reader seems to be noticeably improved - faster, more reliable. And the side buttons are a bit easier to push.

Huge phones have taken over the market. The base Galaxy S* series is the smallest mainstream Android phone. Why do they make their small phone larger? Its primary feature is that it is small.

After two and a half years, my S23 was as good as new. And that's without ever using a screen cover. The only reason for upgrading was to get app widgets on the always on display (AOD). The S23 had this feature at one point, and then it was dropped. That would normally cause me to drop Samsung. But, to my knowledge, no other phones ever had the feature. The S25 does let you put app widgets on the AOD. But they are dimmed relative to the clock, so not as useful as they should be. Anyway, I have time zone and next alarm on my AOD again, if not quite bright enough to see in some conditions. And the AOD clock no longer roams the screen since the new screens, apparently, do not have a burn in problem.

The S25 screen is blinding. I keep turning the brightness down, but the slide bar is in the lower 5% of its range so it is not easy to control. Single step buttons on each side of slide controls would be very useful on touch screens. Why do phone manufacturers keep pushing brighter screens? Why do reviewers keep praising them for it?

Samsung Game Booster is supposed to help you with action games - preventing interference from other apps. I don't know or care what else it might do. But any app that declares itself to be a game is captured - chess, word games. A pop up menu is controlled by an added button in the lower left corner of the screen, right about where my thumb is holding the phone. So the menu is constantly popping up over the game. And of course there is nothing on the menu that improves the game.

But you can't delete the app, you can't turn it off, and you can't filter what games it controls. I finally found a good way to kill it - this is mostly from a YouTube video. Update Samsung Game Booster (it was already installed but didn't show up on my settings app list). Then in Setting - Apps - Game Booster, Change system settings - not allowed and Appear on top - off. So the annoying pop up button still shows up on the navigation bar, but it doesn't have permission to put a menu on top of the game. And it is not allowed to give itself permission. Problem solved. But the whole situation is an example of software design stupidity. Why don't you just let me delete the app? Or tell it to ignore specific types of games.

Maybe in a year or two anti-reflective screens will make it to the mainstream. I suspect that by the time that happens, all phones will be huge.