Doesn't sound very private to me. I kinda like to think that when I kill a single-use tab it stays dead.

The preferred phrase, which has been used by at least two of our Prime Ministers, is 'arse end of the world.' It wasn't a specific reference to the internet, but it's nice to see our national epithet is so flexible.

Dropbox can only store files locally if you have local storage.

True. For an adult worker the minimum wage is $15.96 ($US16.45) per hour. At casual rates (no sick leave or paid holidays) that works out to just over $19 ($US19.60) p/h.

Teenagers get a bit less. My 15yo daughter gets $10.50 p/h in her weekend job.

When we bought the DVD set I watched Jurassic Bark once and swore never again. No show has ever reduced me to a blubbering mess that quickly (although the opening scene of Pixar's 'UP' is a pretty close second.)

In fact, a small, brown unloved mongrel who looked just like Seymour owes his life to my family seeing that episode.

And if I remember rightly, that change didn't go down too well in Australia.

Tracking the baton movement could be fairly difficult though. Even squeezing out a beat while concentrating on singing might be more difficult than it appears. I mean, just following the conductor rather than the musicians around you can be a challenge even for experienced musicians. I've done a fair bit of conducting, and I know how hard it can be to get a band to realise you actually want them to go a bit faster! Getting someone to do that and communicate it in two dimensions in real time while actually singing properly... that would be a special singer indeed!

Actually, that could be a rather interesting exercise. Getting members of the choir to track the conductor's movement on someone else's hand (who then have to concentrate on the hand signals rather than what other people are singing) could be a good way to reinforce the importance of paying attention to the dude/dudette with the stick!

I've been sitting at my desk for the last couple of minutes studying my own conducting style. I've always tried to maintain a very clear beat (a lot of my conducting over the years has involved beginner bands, so communicating where the beat is is far more important than it might be in more professional outfits.)

Anyway, I've noticed that my style is very three dimensional. My upbeat, for example, starts near my sternum, goes out from my body and follows a roughly circular path back to near my forehead. The other beats seem to do similar things. Now that I'm looking at it, that back-and-forward axis is quite pronounced, and may explain why my tuba players (who sit on my immediate right) never complain that they can't read my conducting.

Which goes to your original point---depending on the conductor, a side mounted camera might actually work, so long as it can still read two directions.

The problem I have now is that I'm going to be very, VERY conscious of my style come Thursday night!

The reason (I'm spitballing here) that I think the beat come at the point of highest acceleration is that that is the point when the conductor applies the most force to his or her arm. It's been years since I studied physics (or physiology) but I imagine that would be very close to the point of highest acceleration.

All that said, I've had conductors that seem to anticipate their own beat. For them, the beat actually comes just after they hit the bottom. In fact, it probably come at the moment of highest acceleration of the little 'bounce' that follows the beat (which is probably the curve upwards you mention).

You're certainly right about the other cues. They're probably not so important though, so long as the song goes more or less as it does in rehearsal. A blind person will have some idea of what is about to happen (although I'll grant that it's not ideal.) Guessing the exact moment when the first note is meant to be sung to within a very small fraction of a second isn't something I'd enjoy.

Dunno about kittenman, but we still call them that in Australia. I do speak (and prefer) the 1/(power of two) system though. If my daughter's education is anything to go by, it seems the systems are used interchangeably in schools.

No more delayed than your own singing will be. If you can't squeeze in time to the conductor, I doubt you can sing in time.

I suspect that the 'beat' is probably at the point of quickest acceleration, rather than the end point of the motion.

There are also other cues that come in handy---for example, if the conductor's also singing the same rhythm as you, you automatically follow that instead.

Motion tracking may or may not be a good idea, but if you're to try it, don't do it from the side. The side-to-side movement is just as important to a musician as the up and down, especially at the start of a piece. (For example, if a conductor wants to bring the group in on a fourth beat anacrusis by beating beats two and three, the important movement will only be sideways, or away-from/towards the sensor.)

This is a big problem for me---I play to the conductor's side in a band I'm in and it's very easy to confuse florid sideways movement with up- and downbeats.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever sung in a choir in which the conductor uses a baton. It's standard in bands, but it doesn't seem to be so much in choral work, at least in my circles.

Now that I think about it more, the few times I've conducted choirs I don't think I've used a stick, even when one was available. It seems wrong putting an instrument in my hand when the musicians don't have one.

The University of Melbourne has crunched the numbers, and you're right, the world probably isn't about to end:

http://www.scc.ms.unimelb.edu.au/whatisstatistics/coins.html