I just finished recreating a Tableau “viz” that is a series of online, interactive dashboards with weather information for eight places in Nova Scotia from the past 100 years (1917-2016):
Halifax
Liverpool
Yarmouth
Greenwood
Halifax Airport
Amherst
Antigonish
Sydney
They are on the Tableau Public site under my profile listing all my vizzes so far. Not many but the start of something good!
from reasonably good data sets that existed so I didn’t have to kill myself getting all the data from nearby weather stations and cobbling them all together! I had over 1600 files for those 8 places! Well, Halifax didn’t have a great data set but since so many Nova Scotians live in the area, including me, I didn’t want to leave them out.
There’s been a LOT of talk this NFL off-season about potential draft Robert Griffin the Third, or RG3 as he is more commonly referred to in a smaller mouthful. That’s great and all, but this guy hasn’t even hit the NFL yet… and there’s another very prominent RGĀ already in the NFL!
That would be Rob Gronkowski… not exactly less than a mouthful of a name for some.
The Seattle Seahawks have just defeated the St Louis Rams to win the comical NFC West this year, with a losing record of 7-9. Yet, by existing NFL rules, they will get to host a playoff game next week. Should this rule be changed?
My personal feeling is yes, it should. However, I have an appreciation for “business” to involve teams from all parts of the country to maintain a true “national” interest in the game, so I propose a compromise.
Division winners should get in as they currently do. However, Division winners without a winning record (so .500 won’t cut it) should not be allowed to host a playoff game.
You still keep the national interest this way because the team is still in. Their fans will just have to travel or watch it on TV.
I think that’s just sick that Seattle got in with a 7-9 record and gets to host a playoff game. I want to see a competitive playoff game, not a butt kicking. Furthermore, it’s an absolute insult to all the good teams in the NFC with better records than the Seahawks.
You know, I thought football was a man’s game. Alas, if it were, the Seahawks should man up and let someone else in the NFC get in, or offer to travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints. But maybe it’ll be appropriate that their fans will get to see the Saints kick their butts as a lasting momento to end the season.
But to be a man, I’ll congratulate the Seahawks on making the playoffs and stepping up when they needed to and win a do or die game. I will thoroughly enjoy their annihilation next week.
What do you think of this rule about automatic playoff hosting for division winners?
One measure of the popularity of a song over time, and not just on the charts at a given time, is the number of covers it has. Well, there’s no shortage for Bob Dylan’sĀ I Shall Be Released!
Bob Dylan
With every cover, there’s a little variation on it from the others and from the original. However, for this song, most only differed slightly in the notes sang and tempo. There’s no big rearrangement involved. My tabbed version is no different, with only a high D to emphasize a few important points in the lyrics. It is noted among the notes that come with the tabs.
These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5ā³ x 11ā³) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11ā³ x 17ā³) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11ā³ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
The chord sequence is fairly easy with G, Am, Bm and back down again with Am and G. Then a D7 separates the next phrase, and it cycles all over again throughout the entire song. You need to Capo 2 this to get it in the key of A that Bob originally wrote it in. I took the chords off The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook.
If you have trouble playing the Bm on guitar like I do, you might try the version in C, capoing as you need to get it in your voice range. That uses C, Dm, Em and G7. These are a lot easier than that Bm, in my opinion.
The ukulele challenge is also with that Bm, but I tabbed an alternate version in F because the Em (like in the guitar alternate version), is almost like that Bm on guitar, which was what I was trying to avoid. The version in F on the ukulele uses F, Gm, Am and C7, which I find all fairly easy chords to play.
As for trying to find a video close to my tabbed version, the one below from a concert in 1976 matched it best, though not exactly. This was some concert, featuring Bob and an all-star cast like Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr and many other famous musicians! It should serve as a good guide to figuring out the tabs.
The good thing about a “solid” song like this, though, is that the chords are pretty robust to any little variation you might want to put in the melody to “make it your own”. So you don’t have to follow the notes I have. Just sing it the way it feels to you for notes and it will work.
Rhythm is another story, though! Ā The trickiest part to this song is adjusting from phrase to phrase of when you start in. For some phrases, you strum the opening chord (like G) on the first word. For many phrases, you start in while still on the 7th chord that separates the phrases. Then for the rest, you actually strum that opening chord before you start singing, like with the opening line to the chorus. Figuring out the adjustments from line to line is the hardest part, by far, as far as I’m concerned, to learning this song.
But it just wouldn’t be Bob if it were otherwise! š
This is just a great song, especially the version performed at Columbia Records’ 30th Anniversary Tribute for Bob Dylan that seems to have been ripped off the Net, but here’s a close version in rehearsal.
It is also the version I tabbed. I never thought I’d say it but thank goodness for Chinese video sites that still holds videos like the one above as YouTube has grown up and wimped out to copyright threats.
These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Just a few notes to the tabs. In verses 4-6, there is a slight change in one of the lines from the same line for verses 1-3, so I have highlighted the note in red. It’s a little thing, but gives the song a little “ooomph” after 3 go arounds of the verse and chorus. Despite having 6 verses, a great song doesn’t get boring with repetition. You just find ways to lift it even more, like with that little note in red.
On the ukulele tab, I have added a little chord modification for that note. I have labeled the chord with an asterisk and denoted it as basically a C chord but with the finger on the bottom A string to be on the 5th fret instead of the 3rd fret. Written out in fret and string numbers, it is 0005 (fifth fret fourth string from top down) rather 0003 for a regular C chord. The labeling is in the tab sheet. I have not done this for the guitar tabs because there isn’t anything similar and the C chord on the guitar handles the slight disharmony (C chord, D note) just fine.
Digital Citizen 