Detritus 671

 

 


▶ Looking forward to this… The Peripheral

 

 

▶ no need for a morning alarm here, the dawn chorus would be deafening

 

 

▶ pew pew! fantastic sounds

 

 

▶ Procastination: good and bad
Also linked in that article, a great read

 

 

▶ hungry?

 

 

▶ How to travel

 

 

▶ Vegans beware! Artist arms plant with a robo-machete

 

 

▶ NPR Podcast worth checking: Meet the Composer

 

 

▶ I solved this problem long ago (reliable sync for entire studio) via Innerclock but maybe this is of interest: Kickstarter for Midronome sync thingy
Also a Kickstarter for a weird MPE Controller thingy
(I still get spam due to a Kickstarter data leak!?)

 

 

▶ Great news: Future Retro is back with new management!
In a time when many smaller manufacturers are closing shop due to supply chain issues this is some positive news. I have one of their circular ORB sequencers & love it!

 

 

▶ I’ve always been a bit cynical about AVs (not EVs, which one day I would like to own for shopping) but AV = autonomous vehicles… You don’t have to drive much to appreciate how random life is, and how the difference between an accident and normal travel is incredibly complex and incredibly subtle. Misjudge your own actions even slightly and there will be trouble. But fail to consider the random behaviour of other equally fallible human beings and the results could be traumatic and/or fatal.
But wow, I never realised that it is actually vapourware!
This article by Cory Doctorow will be on speed dial ready for every time a Tesla owner mentions their self-driving car.
What amazes me is how AV ability is even allowed. When you think back to what is required for a human to gain a driving license, with such strict regulations & careful laws. For example in NZ each driver sits a test to get a learner’s license, with strict rules of use until enough experience is gained & a full license test is completed. And there are serious penalties for bad behaviour. So how has AV ability been allowed in public, without considerable & public debate? Also in NZ it is illegal to modify your car such that it makes it unsafe to drive. But you can buy a Tesla and switch on supposedly beta software with AV capabailities!? How is this even legally possible?

 

 

▶ Bandcamp Daily does minimalism!

 

 

▶ Things I won’t be listening to: Fake Joe Rogan interviewing fake Steve Jobs via ai
What a waste of time…. Tech bros with all the tech but no point?

 

 

▶ Great interview with Irmin Schmidt
“Mixing was playing, listening to get the balance right. So it was you, every musician, who decided the loudness, his place in the mix, while he was playing. And that is a very, very good education of listening to each other.”

 

 

▶ Cunk on Earth is very funny!
On BBC iPlayer and on youtube for now….
EP 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5

 

 


▶ Got a Nagra with a discoloured lid?

 

 

 

 

tim Detritus No Comments

RIP Uncle Ken

My Uncle Ken died early this week. He had some ongoing health issues (he had Polio as a child, but Polio also returns later in life to play havoc) and during recent short stays in hospital I swapped txts with my Aunt, and in one txt she mentioned he had been checked out of hospital so he could have his birthday at home. So I had a big bunch of lillies delivered to their home, as I’d planned to have them sent to the hospital. Two days later he died.

Throughout his career he ran a business with a mechanical workshop, and was also into motorbikes, photography & travel – using any holiday time to travel the South island of NZ in their campervan, taking exceptional photos. I remember when they bought a BMW motorbike with a sidecar, and how amazingly high tech it was that after you got onboard it would recalibrate & adjust the suspension to your weight.

But OMG that Ducati!
The photo is from sometime in the 1980s. He ordered that Ducati but insisted on it being shipped in parts, and he assembled it himself. From the stories, every biker in Ashburton came to visit to check how his progress was. And he told me a funny story that the first time he kicked it over & started it, one of his neighbours came over & told him all the leaves had fallen off their tree!

While it’s eternally sad for my Aunt, it’s also sad that so many skills died with Ken. He did incredible things with metal lathes – manufacturing parts and cutting threads that were too complex for me to even understand. Only a few weeks ago when talking to a local mechanic working on my 4WD, when I mentioned Ken & his health concerns, they commented how so many mechanical skills are simply disappearing, as a generation ages out.

Two last anecdotes.
When I was very young, only 9 or 10 years old, I used to go & stay with Ken & Sue during the school holidays. My Grandmother Irene was also living in their big house in Ashburton, and my Gran took me to see the first films I ever experienced. Despite it being a lifetime ago, I vividly remember the feeling, of seeing The Wizard of Oz, and then Willy Wonka and others on that massive screen, with incredibly surreal colour. Those experiences at a young age fed directly into my imagination and without a doubt inspired my career working on films.

I also have another even earlier memory, of watching Dr Who on our B&W TV at home on the farm. (We didn’t get our first colour TV until 1974, in time for the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch broadcast in colour)
This memory made me realise that the very first electronic sounds I ever heard were made by the Radiophonic Workshop for Dr Who. Delia Derbyshire and her incredible theme music, and those utterly terrifying ring modulated Dalek voices! The die was cast…

 

 

tim life 2 Comments

Positively

A few weeks ago I went on a little road trip down South, partly to see the parents & partly to pick up my 4WD which had some essential work done… While staying with my Dad we also did a trip down to Wanaka to pick up his new car:

Its a 1927 Chev Roadster in mint condition, and my Dad is only the fourth owner since new. We transported it home on a trailer, and had a strange coincidence. We stopped for lunch at a cafe in Tarras, which is a fairly remote location. We hadn’t been there long and a man came wandering in talking on his phone, and he sat not far from us. Turns out he was talking to the previous owner of the Chev & asked if he’d sold it. I made eye contact & pointed at my Dad, so he came & joined us for lunch… Turned out he knew the entire history of the Chev, as had sourced it for the previous owner! What a small world…

The Chev has such a cute exhaust note, of the ‘putt putt’ variety. So next time I am down South I’ll take all my mics and record it, maybe to re-appear in future as an EV sound set!

We carried on our way home, but a few days later I started feeling strange & sure enough:

Dagnammit!
After being so careful for 2+ years avoiding it, the first time I go anywhere I catch covid! I hadn’t been to a bar or cafe in 2 years, but as we were travelling we had no other choice. And mask mandates have been dropped in NZ, and almost overnight it went from 80% masked to less than 10%.

So I isolated at my Dads for 7 days. Thankfully he didn’t catch it – he has had it before & also recently had his second booster, so it was great verification immunity works as he was definitely exposed to it… And after ten days I headed home to Plimmerton.

My only remaining symptoms are a bit of a cough, a bit of brain fog and I have to avoid much exertion as I sure don’t want long covid…

I think the NZ Health system really missed an opportunity when removing mask mandates, to drive home the fact that masks are very useful ongoing. It’s an admirable aspect of Japanese society that they care about their fellow citizens enough to wear a mask any time they feel unwell, regardless of whether its covid, a cold, flu or anything at all. Such a small thing to ask, and yet it seems entirely beyond the empathy of many. You can lead a horse to water etc etc
Such is life.

 

 

tim Detritus No Comments