The importance of being level

I'm a bit of a nerd, but I reckon I was born about 20 years too late. I love silver halide (film) in my cameras and I love the sound of vinyl records (played back through tubes) - right background out of the way.

I just moved our record player (and associated paraphernalia) back onto the 'FleXy Table' I build for it a while back from some random Ikea shelves - WOW. The flexy has heavy shelves, mounted on rubber washers, on a intentionally flexible set of legs, with the intention being that the player is:

a) Very Level
b) Isolation from Vibrations
c) Able to move slightly
d) Easier to get to (record player on shelves are really awkward)

Now, I dunno if the Ikea shelf wasn't level or didn't damp the player quite right, or of it's just a plain placebo that I like my carefully setup record player, but today it just sounds great.

Foo Fighers - In your Honour at 45 RPM ... Just sensational.

Warm Knees are Happy Knees

I have lots of bike clothes, different gloves, knicks and Jerseys etc. But for 6+ months of the year the thing I love most are my knee warmers. Leg warmers always feel really constrictive for all but the coldest of days, but knee warmers are just right, all the way from a few degrees into the mid teens. Warm knees don't get sore, injured and go faster.

Sugoi - Men's MidZero Knee Warmers

Book Review: Hackers & Painters - Paul Graham

Basically, if you work anywhere near software development you can't afford not to read this book.

In it Paul Graham covers a broad range of subjects, how software developers or as a small subset of 1960s born Americans seem to enjoy calling themselves 'Hackers' think. He helps to explain why there is such a big different between good and great developers and from there goes on to cover a range of topics from the creation of wealth to the importance of having smart people around you, if you want to come up with great ideas yourself. Basically pointing out the obvious. It's kinda like reading Seth Godin, you already know the answers but he helps you with the words to explain it to other people.

The writing is funny and concise, with the book broken into chapters which works well because it's the kind of subject that needs some thinking as well as reading.

Again, if you work anywhere near software development you can't afford not to read this book.

A fantastic and instructive piece of flash.

Flash from the New York Times

Click for any demographic, sex, colour, age, socioeconomic status etc and see where america supported.

What's old, is new again... Why do we take so long to learn our lessons ?

Via Kottkle

The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters. He takes it into his garage as fondly as an Arab leading a prize mare into his tent. He woos it with Simoniz, Prestone, Ethyl and rich lubricants -- and goes broke trading it in on something flashier an hour after he has made the last payment on the old one.

By last week, this peculiar state of mind had not only sucked thousands of American oil wells dry, stripped the rubber groves of Malaya, produced the world's most inhuman industry and its most recalcitrant labor union, but had filled U.S. streets with so many automobiles that it was almost impossible to drive one. In some big cities, vast traffic jams never really got untangled from dawn to midnight; the bray of horns, the stink of exhaust fumes, and the crunch of crumpling metal eddied up from them as insistently as the vaporous roar of Niagara.

That's from Time magazine in 1947. 

And this article, from Australian economist Ross Garnaut

"There is a chance - just a chance - that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation," his prepared speech said.

"The consequences of the choice are large enough for it to be worth a large effort to take that chance, in the short period that remains before our options diminish fatefully."

Prof Garnaut was pessimistic about Australia's ability to tackle climate change.

"An observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia could lead one to the view that this issue is too hard for rational policy-making in Australia," he said.

"The issues are too complex, the vested interests surrounding it too numerous and intense, the relevant timeframes too long. Climate change policy remains a diabolical problem."

Time Out - The Dave Brubeck Quartet

On Heavyweight Columbia Vinyl - LP

One of 'the' jazz albums and certainly the most famous by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, featuring 'Blue Rondo A La Turk','Take Five' and 'Pick Up Sticks'; it's an album of complex time signatures.

It starts franticly, saxophone and piano in 9/8 time with a complicated 2-2-2-3 grouping, it's almost hard to listen too, then suddenly it opens up and the swing starts it flows back and forth between the frantic and relaxed.

Take Five teaches us about 5/4 and then after turning over to side 2 for a few gentler numbers before increasing the tempo back into 'Everybody's Jumpin' and 'With Pick Up Stick' again in 6/4, another some what unusual Jazz time signature.

The recording itself is wonderful, the drums on the left, piano on the right, but you can hear the snare reflecting off parts of the piano or the wall on that side of the studio, the bass and sax sit closer to the middle. A recording from another time when music was about musicians, rather than pro-tools and creating, editing and moulding a perfect, but often soulless result.

Once you have Kind of Blue on LP, this record should be next on your list. Highly Recommended.

U23D - A night with U2

U2 was pretty much the soundtrack of my teens, I have every album on CD as well as most of them vinyl... But I've never seen them live, when I was younger and it was Zoo TV (sydney) and Pop Mart @ Waverly tickets were too expensive, now when I'm rich I don't have time to go down and stand in line to buy tickets, so the show sells out while the lame online ticketing system fails me... (TWICE !)

U23D was the closest I was going to come, anytime soon anyway.

From the opening song, the 3D effect was immersive, we were on stage with Bono, Larry, Adam and the Edge - we crowd surfed and we sang along. It wasn't quite Hamish Hamilton, but it was up there. The only dumb thing is the glasses are just not quite big enough ! Still very highly recommended, especially if you get the chance to see it at iMax in 3D - I may just have to go again.