We’re watching the extended Desolation of Smaug tonight at the Lair.
Thorin to Bilbo, wild-eyed: Did you find the Arkenstone? Did you find it?!
Minion Anna, as Bilbo: Uh, Thorin… are you wearing your crazypants?
Minion Paul, as Thorin: I have more than one pair!
Solarbird, as Thorin: …and I’m wearing them all.
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Check this out: listening to dead satellites. Or at least semi-dead satellites. These are satellites with dead batteries but with transmitters which turn on whenever the solar panels are in the right direction anyway. Some of the noises they make are weird and interesting.
I particularly like Transit 5B-5, launched 1964, for military navigation purposes. But recordings of many different satellites can be found at the link. Echos of the cold war – fitting, don’t you think, for the days surrounding the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall?
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It’s a Roland SC-55 MIDI Sound Canvas from 1991! I can now make all the noises you heard in any videogame in the 1990s.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but honestly not much of one. I got it from Ben Deschamps via his internet yard sale, for, as he put it, “a six pack.” XD I also had to fix it after it arrived damaged in shipping – I’m pretty sure the post office punted it here from New York State, given how quickly it arrived and how the left side of the front panel was punched in.
But hey, now I can say I’ve repaired a potentiometer. Not replaced: repaired. I did that because it’s custom and weird and was in three pieces. (Also the metal frame was bent, some parts got disconnected and also bent, a bit of the motherboard broke off but I’m pretty sure that was just a little bit of grounding pin and it’s already grounded. And I fixed all that, so it’s all good.)
Anyway, it’s a Roland, and my A-30 MIDI keyboard is also a Roland, and turns out, they know each other! Such a small world. All those useless buttons suddenly do things!
There is also a thunder and rain setting. This is hilarious, mostly because there’s really only one thunder effect, so I can use it exactly once ever. I have no plans to do so, but don’t push me, I got thunder.
Honestly, though, while I expected mostly to be using it for things easy to get right (bells, chimes, simple pipes, synthy-effects, etc), this is 1990s pro gear. The strings and horns, while definitely cheesy, are much less so than what you find in, say, Garage Band today. With the right tweaking and careful, careful playing – it respects key velocity, aftertouch, all those cool tweaks on my keyboard – I might be able to use more parts of it than I expected, maybe even for the swing jazz version of Lisdoonvarna. That’d be awesome.
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Amongst the news that got somewhat overlooked during the petition-to-SFWA flap of the last two weeks:
Along the way, I fixed another guitar – I keep repairing instruments I don’t even know how to play XD – and a cool toy appeared! If you have a new enough browser, go play with it, it’s fun.
Finally, this is legitimately hilarious (h/t to Ben Deschamps):
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Didn’t get as much done in studio yesterday as I wanted (it was also Cleaning Day) but made some good progress nonetheless. Here, the last week and a half has included too much annoyance: have a toy. (Clicking will take you to another site.)
If you have a browser that supports it (Safari on the iPad does), this is a fun and silly webpage-based synth. It calls itself a theremin, but it’s not, and is very little like one. But it totally is a cool little faux FM analogue synth with which you can make crazy noises of awesome. Go play. :D
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Or rather, Ultra Mad Men. G’wan, clickie, you know you wanna.
Also, another day mostly out. This time not as cool; allergy re-testing, the kind where they put a grid of needles on your arm. YAY! By which I mean boo.
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Y’know, a quality rigid microphone case, with lots of padding and room for accessories – that’ll set you back a good $30-$40. And unless you buy one already matched with your gear, you’ll have to cut the foam to suit your application yourself.
On the other hand, a quality compact pistol case from a reputable maker? That’ll cost as little as $9.
Guess what I did?
Welcome to economies of scale. You’re welcome.
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Honestly, for Who fans, this whole weekend, it’s like it’s raining candy and bacon.
The latest treat is a short feature, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. At the start, it makes you think that it’s going to be kind of kind of pathetic and terrible, but don’t worry: it is, in fact, hilarious. Give it time.
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Yesterday was mostly doctor’s appointments and sleep deprivation. Good news: no second round of surgery and I should have all my vision back in my right eye! Bad news: …in about two weeks. Well, beats the hell out of going blind. Yay, the healing power of lasers!
Also, I don’t have to sleep exclusively on my right side anymore. Still can’t sleep on my back, which is fine, I never do that, except of course I woke up last night on my back for some reason. awesome. And I still have a lot of restrictions (driving, heavy lifting, jarring workout – tho’ I can do smooth-motion exercise again.).
I had some other thing to say but damned if I remember what. Oh well, happy Halloween. I may not understand your weird candy-hostage holiday (tho’ the Venture Brothers Halloween Special made it make a lot more sense), but I do like candy.
…particularly the attitudinal kind.
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Seriously? Dinosaur romance porn (“Dinorotica”?) is an actual thing?
I thought Anna was joking when she mentioned Ravaged by the Triceratops, but apparently not.
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Who has the job of coming up with random fake brand names for generic batteries and similar cheap miscellany? Who has this job? Because somebody has this job. I want to know who.
On a similar note, please enjoy Valium lightbulbs. The best part is how they’re marked 110v on one side of the box, and 130v on the top. But the valium lets us not worry about that sort of thing.
Now, even sedated, I have no idea how you even make lightbulbs out of diazepam, but clearly, Uncle Fester has been ahead of the rest of us.
Maybe it was his idea. Maybe he’s the one who…
…oh god. What I have I discovered?!
Forget the light bulbs. The light bulbs are unknowable. The light bulbs have never been known. You cannot have known about the light bulbs because no one has ever known about the light bulbs. We do not need them. We have the lights above above the Arby’s, the ones that rush by as we pretend to sleep, and that is all that we need to know, because…
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Oh my, it seems that SFWA has finally rid itself of, well, they don’t say, but we all know which white supremacist it would be, don’t we? I don’t see how they could’ve done anything else, after he used SFWA official channels to promote an overtly-racist screed against another member of the organisation.
The fact – again, just plain fact – that he’s a white Christian male supremacist who explicitly states that only white Christian men are capable of civilisation and must therefore rule everyone else? That’s just icing on this cake.
Oh, look, Scalzi seems to be in a musical mood all of a sudden. Huh, funny. I also a song coming to mind for some reason; there’s no studio version yet, but The Mighty IF posted some audience video from a Toronto house concert, that’s a start…
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Honestly, why would you want to?
It’s all Day Jobbe crap today, so little time to talk about anything. But I have experimental evidence now: medium-distance micing and overhead micing both can work in this room. Rawk. I also got some drum work in on the soundtrack album, and started working up some mandolin as well. This weekend: Angry Birds Handegg, more recording with Leannan Sidhe, plus other things I won’t talk about, because…
…of this short animated video. It comes from and includes a key point from a Derek Sivers TED talk. (Full talk here.) He talks about yet another bit of primate psychology that backfires and stops you from getting things done; being aware helps.
Also for your enjoyment: a Raspberry PI supercomputer in a Lego cabinet, and some distinctly weird Death Ghosts of Europe.
Finally, I learned something this week:
Looks like the vast lonesome shapes are seeping down from dark stars;
better set up more baffles
The last one is totally real. It’s called “rifle.” As in, get a, and use it on anybody wanting to set up a shotgun mic.
All for now; have fun this weekend. Ja ne!
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Remember all the things that got lost in the disastrous trip to Portland? Well, I’ve been replacing things, and the latest is the iPad that was part of the electronics set that went away with the flute and the rest of my backpack.
And of course it’s arriving the one day that I can guarantee that we can’t be here – at least, for half of the delivery window – because Anna has a followup medical appointment where she’ll need to be sedated lightly, which means she can’t drive. So ironic!
Which, of course, means you’re thinking, no, it’s not, you idiot. What is it with you and Alanis Morissette, don’t you know what classical irony actually means? Farfle farfle farfle farfle farfle.
Except this is a re-order. The original order form gave me an initial delivery date on this same day. And I knew I couldn’t be here because of said medical appointment. That caused me to need to route delivery to the Apple Store, following directions from phone support. Those directions turned out to be wrong, and for bonus points, the actual delivery date for that first order turned out to be a week earlier. And all that was apparently harmless until it turned into CLUSTERFUCK OF FAIL and the iPad got returned by the store, and that one’s still lost.
So Apple support sent a new one, as a re-order. And now this re-order’s new, actual delivery date is… back on the day when we’ll miss it.
It literally is just so ironic.
not that kind of irony
DAMN YOU, iPAD-HATING DEMONS, DAMN YOU TO HELL!
I’ve ordered it held for pickup by the shipping agency instead. Let’s find out whether this, too, can turn into tasty, tasty irony. The setup is there! But I hope not. Fun’s fun, but c’mon. I want my toy. GIMMIE!
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