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Sound engineer humor

One of my favorite sites is gearslutz.com, where people, mostly sound engineer types, talk about … gear.  Most of the time, the conversations are about experiences with specific pieces of recording equipment or techniques.  Some can be offbeat and really amusing, like this one — He Is…the Most Interesting Gear Slut!

Basically, assembling all the collected wisdom, knowledge and opinion about gear, talent and luck, and packaging it as hyperbole.  Here are some samples:

  • He mixed the entire Hotel California record in one day on headphones in a room AT Hotel California and then left without checking out
  • Word clocks sync to him
  • He records a whole band perfectly with one mic, in one take, on one track, on tape — and mixes it to surround sound … telepathically
  • He pronounces Moog correctly
  • He’s so forward thinking that the last time he played guitar was tomorrow
  • He can tune a piano and tuna fish
  • He’s won Grammy’s for songs he almost worked on
  • He once wrote a concerto for dog whistle
  • He thought he’d made a mistake once, but he was mistaken
  • He can hear, pan, eq and add effects to the sound of one hand clapping
  • At a lecture, he once uttered, “just do it” and walked off the stage.  Nike tried to sue him for using the catch phrase, but ended up being sued themselves by him as he had already developed that exact shoe style for a song intro that required someone running into a house.  The album was “Nike Runner” and the title song was “Just Do It”.  He did however let Nike keep making the shoe pump that he had invented for the compression effect on that intro. It eliminated sock issues by compressing foot sweat.

… well, *I* think they are really funny. 😎

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Gender exhibitionism strikes again

How does one rise above an ocean of talent?  Well, sex sells, we all know that.  On the international stage, gender exhibitionism and gender confusion clearly help bring attention to yourself.  Of course, gender bending is not new among entertainers — Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Boy George, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Annie Lennox, are all or have been gender opportunists, that exploit gender and gender ambiguity as suits them at the time, invariably to shock.

All that to say, the latest in the parade of gender opportunists is the 2014 winner of the Eurovision music content, Conchita Wurst, an intriguing transgender entertainer from Austria.  Here is his/her performance of Rise Like a Phoenix:

The video is well conceived, and the song is an exceptional platform for Conchita. It could easily be the theme song for a James Bond film.

Conchita’s real name is Tom Neuwirth.  I have to say, for me the beard is disconcerting in this context. As it is meant to be, no doubt. However, that is a minor distraction, as the performance, the presentation and the song are exceptional.

Here is a photo of ungendrified Tom:

Along the same gender ambiguity meme, here is a great video by French artist Stromae, and his/her performance of Tous Les Mêmes (All The Same):

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The house always wins, but how much?

“I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol, and wild women.  The other half I wasted.” – WC Fields

Here is a visualization prepared by data scientist Seth Kadish.  The chart presents the house odds in gambling in Las Vegas casinos, the percent of wagered money won by the house against the total revenues for the week.  For example, if $100 is wagered on blackjack, the house will take 11%, or $11.  The data comes from reports published by the Nevada Gaming Control Board .

gamblingYou should already know that the house always wins, or more precisely, the odds favor the house.  If it doesn’t, they unilaterally convict you of card counting and ban you from ever playing in the casino again.

The chart is hard to read here, so if you want to see the detail, go to Seth’s site.  The pithy summary is:

  • sports parlay cards are the worst odds for the player, with the house taking nearly 40% of the amount of money wagered (upper left quadrant)
  • 3-card poker is the worst card game, at about 33%
  • roulette is about 18%
  • craps is about 14%
  • blackjack is about 11%
  • your best odds is the $100 slot, at about 4%

This is not to condemn gambling, but it *is* a money pit.  Thanks for playing.

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Just an Illusion

I’m not sure how this works, but it is fascinating.  Just stare deeply into the cross.  I wonder if everyone sees the same distortion?

faces

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Herman the Merman revealed

The Horniman Merman (aka “Herman”) is a fake mummified creature believed to have originated in Japan, and now resides in London’s Horniman Museum. Its actual provenance is unknown, but likely made its way west via sailors doing business in Asia 200 years ago.  In 2011, Herman was decompounded using a CT scan to reveal just what he was made of (here is a nice video going through the unveiling).  Turns out Herman is made of fish (likely carp), papier mache, wood, wire and clay.

hornimanMerman_cropWith a face only a mudder could love, he’s not much to look at, but you have to admire the detail and artistry that went into creating this little guy.

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A mind on drugs visualized

Bryan Lewis Saunders is an interesting guy.  A visual artist, on March 30th 1995, he undertook to create at least one self-portrait everyday for the rest of his life. At present, he has more than 8,000. According to Saunders, “like fingerprints, snowflakes and DNA they are all different, no two are the same.”  Read some of the interviews to get inside his head.

One of the more intriguing aspects of this effort is an additional phase: “After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self.  So I devised another experiment where everyday I took a different drug and drew myself under the influence.  Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage.  I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time.”

I would expect that the self-portrait he creates while under the influence is reflective of his state of mind.  In which case, it is clear that many drugs do not take you to happy places.  Others look fun.  Here are trips on a few of the more well-known drugs:

blSaunders_composite

 

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Sun Traces Huge Figure-8 Patterns in Sky

Here is an intriguing time-lapsed photo of the sun’s position in the sky over Wroclaw, Poland, taken three-times a day throughout one year:

sunFig8_sm

Maciej Zapiór, a solar physicist at the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma, Majorca, and colleague Lukasz Fajfrowski built a pinhole camera and set it to make 1-minute-long exposures onto a single piece of photographic paper at 10:30, 12:00 and 13:30 each day from 1 March 2013 to 1 March 2014.  The resulting image shows how the position of the sun in the sky changes throughout the year.  In the summer it is higher, in the winter lower.  Its position also shifts horizontally, tracing a figure-of-eight path called an analemma.

see original article on New Scientist

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I Want One of these

The Turbo Encabulator

[youtube rLDgQg6bq7o#t=81 480 297]

Here is the transcription.  Brilliant:

For a number of years now work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument is the turbo encabulator.

Now basically, the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive-directance.

The original machine had a baseplate of prefamulated Amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzel vanes so-fitted to the ambifacient lunar wane shaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented.

The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator; every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible trem’e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the up-end of the grammes.

The Turbo Encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and is being successfully used in the operation of nofer trunnions. Moreover, whenever a farescent skor motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm to reduce soinasodial repleneration

And here is release 2.0:

[youtube 2fjcJp_Nwvk 480 297]

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Stand By Me

With more than 54 million views, this video has probably been seen by just about everybody but me.  In a nutshell, it starts with a lone street performer in Santa Monica, CA and travels around the world adding voices and texture.  Great idea.  Great song.  Great performances.

[youtube Us-TVg40ExM#t=41 480 297]