Project Kohaku A-B-C

I made another thing! A magnetic (electric) Irish bouzouki pickup, the kind used on electric guitars, but with some extra features. I retconned a project name for it (Kohaku A-B-C) because it has three primary modes – “single coil,” “humbucker,” and “electric/acoustic mix,” which to be honest is kind of two modes depending upon the single coil vs. humbucker setting, but Kohaku A-B-C-D is too long and didn’t sound enough like a JDF anti-Godzilla plan.

Sounds!

Originally I was just going to do a basic wire-up with a level knob, but then I found out that humbucker pickups gave you separate access to both coils, and so can be used as a single-coil pickup as well as in humbucker mode. So that meant adding a switch. Which means it’s probably worth doing a tone knob while I’m at it. And while I was thinking about that I realised there was no reason I couldn’t also build in a tap to the extant acoustic pickup, which means I should also add a little mixer to control relative levels of the two pickups.

So I did! That was a good idea.

( Details omg )

good morning, it's 5 april 2017

Sorry this is late, I was really busy yesterday.

/Their Guy/ is no longer on the NSC. That's right, "Bannon Loses National Security Council Role in Trump Shakeup." We are winning the six-month war. "Ex-Writer: Breitbart Broke the Law" won't change much but doesn't hurt anything either. XD

"At Trump's EPA, going to work can be an act of defiance," and it's no doubt because of top-level-forced political press releases like deeply Stalinesque "High Accolades Across the Country on Trump’s Energy Independence Executive Order," which touts how great it is that they're working against the environment. Also because shitting hijinks like "Trump’s budget would slash funding for EPA’s top science panel." Rightist governments are consistently doing their best to remove knowledge and discovery in this modern era. But maybe "EPA head Pruitt under investigation for allegedly misleading Senate" will cheer a few people up.

Trump spends more words attacking Obama than Syria in White House statement about Syrian gas attack in "Trump statement on Syria slams Obama by name and then gives no explanation of current policy." But did Syria just distract the administration from starting a war with North Korea? "White House: 'The clock has now run out' on North Korean nuclear program" segues into "Rex Tillerson's incredibly odd and confusing statement on North Korea." But don't think this isn't serious business, because it is; "Evidence From Victims Points to Nerve Gas in Syria Attack."

Return of Trumpcare: "Revived GOP health care talks could hurt those with pre-existing conditions." That was already true, but apparently this version makes it even worse.

"I'll back Texas independence, EU's Juncker warns Trump" isn't serious but is pretty funny for an EU politician.

Finally, just to get this out, potpourri: "What to Know About Bill O’Reilly and the Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Him" He's losing advertisers pretty quickly, but not quickly enough. "Trump's White House Touts A Rape-Promoting Media Troll Propped Up By The "Alt-Right"" is pretty vile - Mike "good sex feels like rape" Cernovich is pretty grotesque even by the Trump administration's very rapey standards. He was also a gamergate shitheel and has now jumped on the overtly white supremacist bandwagon. "NYPD officers accessed Black Lives Matter activists' texts, documents show." Unsurprising, but talks about their infiltration techniques. "Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With the Same Risk" is also not surprising but is documented here. And finally, "The Confederacy was a con job on whites. And still is."

Good luck out there.

( It's April 5, 2017; this is the news )

i think this is finally it for livejournal

Livejournal’s new Russian Federation-compliant Terms of Service has a lot of bad things in it – seriously, real bad, like, half my journal bad – but this is probably the tripwire for me:

[The user must] Mark Content estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0-18) as “adult material” by using Service functions.

Any mention of anything LGBT-related (with some exceptions for condemnation) is 19+ in the Russian Federation, by law. It’s part of the legal structure they use to beat down on queers.

They also have a big “no” on “political solicitation materials” and that’s also pretty fatal for me – seriously, have you read my LJ – but this, yeah, I will not mark my journal “adult content” because I’m queer. Fuck that, and fuck them.

So the only question really is whether I hit accept on the ToS and just ignore it. Or whether I delete my journal (which goes back to when it was running in Brad’s dorm room at UW) and then open a new blank one with the same name just to keep the user account solarbird, or some dumbass thing like that.

As of this morning, despite crossposting being disabled since Monday pending acceptance of new terms, I have the 364th most popular LJ, at least in the Latin character set side of the world. It’s pretty obvious now that we’re done here.

(More bits of analysis here and here – both are Dreamwidth links.)

eta: Important translation of applicable Russian censorship laws here, on Tumblr. This is 400% about speech repression.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby