Oh, right, the group noun / collective noun of microphones question!

You collectively came to no consensus whatsoever. As is typical for supervillains, so we’re on theme there. XD Of all the candidates for a group noun for microphones, most received at least one vote – my nomination, a silly of microphones, being an exception as it didn’t even get my vote because your ideas were better. And there’s a three way tie for best.

To wit, the top three, in alphabetical order, with the names of the people who suggested them:

• A Boom of Microphones (Pauline, band site)
• A Feedback of Microphones (Corvi & Jessie C, DW; Clemtaur, LJ; Susan Davis, FB)
• A Heard of Microphones (Josh K, Russ, Susan Davis, FB)

And only one vote behind, worth an honourable mention:

• An Impedance of Microphones (Scott, band site)

Personally, I think it should be a heard of headphones, myself, but that wasn’t tabled for question time this past go ’round. What do you think?

[poll id=27]

IF THE POLL IS SHOWING UP AS ALREADY VOTED AND YOU HAVEN’T VOTED, VOTE IN COMMENTS. The plugin seems to have broken on us mid-poll. 🙁

Yesterday’s post about a groupnoun (apparently “collective noun”) for microphones generated a lot of suggestions – 28! – for alternates to “silly,” so we’ve made a poll! Pick your preference.

Each suggestion is followed by the name(s) of the person or persons who suggested it, and where they made the suggestion – LJ means Livejournal, DW means Dreamdwidth, G+ is Google Plus, FB is Facebook.

Pretty much the only places sitting this out were Twitter and Tumblr.

The question of a groupnoun for a collective noun of microphones – which would be applicable here – is left as an exercise for the reader. I might suggest a “redundancy.” XD

[poll id=26]

We Are Waiting

Last week, I posted a couple of clips from a work-in-progress, including a mystery bass instrument.

The mystery bass instrument sounds like a double-bass (a.k.a. orchestral standup bass) but is not that at all. I processed it to sound like that, thanks to an accidental discovery, so I encouraged people to guess what it might’ve been originally. I even made it a contest.

We’ve had a lot of guesses! But nobody’s there yet. This is the final hint post, and I’ll give you two hints:

1. If you’ve listened to my recordings, you have heard this instrument before.
2. It is not bowed. Not even in this recording. It just sounds like it is.

Here’s where you can listen to the tracks. Winner still gets one free download of anything on my bandcamp site, including the current work-in-progress – the Free Court of Seattle soundtrack – once it’s released.

Actual answer goes up Monday, if nobody guesses by then. Reply at the band site with answers, please!

Nobody’s figured out what instrument I turned into a fake double-bass with processing tricks in the instrumental recording I posted last week. So here’s a hint – no, wait, two hints:

1. A couple of people have been close, in the sense of being in the right category of instrument. But in each case, they’ve wandered away again by adding on to their initial guess.

2. Directly relevant to clue 1: yes, it sounds bowed. That does not mean the original instrument actually was bowed, and, in fact, it wasn’t. That’s one reason why it’s so amazing. XD

And, of course, from the first post, I repeat:

0. It’s not synthetic, and it’s not a double-bass.

This is a contest, so here’s where you can listen to the tracks, and also the tiny rules list, which is tiny.

I wanted to have a second on-air sign for inside the studio, so I could see whether the signs were on or off an keep track more easily. The second was a duplication of the first, the one that I posted about already.

But I’ve had problems with minions (particularly Minion Paul) coming to the door and being afraid to enter or knock because there’s no sign out there. With a second controller already being in place, it’s really quite simple to make a third, hanging off the same controller, so I did. But being out of LEDs, I made a different kind this time.

Bento compartment box plus…

hee hee hee hee hee

I love my light-dotted I. It’s silly, but I love it so. 😀

Do you think there’re enough hipsters on Etsy to buy the ones I make out of cassette cases? The bento box ones probably aren’t retro enough, but the cassette case ones, maybe. What do you think?

[poll id=”25″]

Google+ has opened up communities. There aren’t any supervillain guilds. I kinda want to start one – but I don’t have a name yet.

I don’t want to reuse The Guild of Calamitous Intent – that’s an epic tag, but let’s have something new. (Plus, I want to keep my Guild membership.) And it can’t be generic.

But ‘Guild’? I like Guild. That’s a nice word. So I’ve been playing with that. Guild of Strategic Interventionists isn’t bad, but isn’t right yet. Infelicitous Action Guild is a little too Silver Age DC if you keep the “Guild” part – even morseo if you swap out “Guild” for “League.”

Society of Superpowered (not superhuman, thanks) Instigators isn’t terrible, but isn’t there. Fellowship of Felons sounds like a bunch of hobbits and says nothing about lulz, mad, or science. Supervillainy United has plusses, except for sounding a bit much like a football team; Fiends Unlimited is a little too 1990s Marvel; Confederated Criminality just sounds like the mob, with pretensions. (Still, it’s better than – lol – “Intergang.”)

You can see the difficulty here.

Infelicitous Action, though. It’s kind of hanging out in my head. Infelicitous Action…

…Alliance?

Internally contradictory, as all such organisations tend to be so let’s get that right out there. Implies subversion – always fun – and has the word “action” which expresses dynamism. Kind of keeps the spirit of the Guild. Leaves room for non-superpowered non-mad-scientist actors such as agents of SPECTRE.

Most of all, does not exclude lulz.

hmmmmmmm.

I have to think on this some more. But… hmm.

PS: This is what a link from The Old New Thing does to your stats:

No, those weren’t all zeroes before. It was quite bumpy.

…makes them utterly useless. Yay! HI NEW PEOPLE! 😀

Good morning! Thanks to Cascadian clouds, it’s darker now than it was during the eclipse yesterday. But that’s not important right now because! Leannan Sidhe have given their Kickstarter project a reboot – better video, new backer rewards, new levels, all kinds of things. Two days in and they’re at 59%, no lie, so check that shit out. Particularly if you pledged before. No, wait: particularly if you didn’t.

Also, THE PAMCAKES WIN THE PENNANT! THE PAMCAKES WIN THE PENNANT! Derp has some fandom, but apparently everybody just hates Herp.

Man, Herp. That fucker.

WHAT PLAYTHINGS DID YOU OFFER UP ON FRIDAY? A whole bunch, actually, thanks! Here, look at all this:

• GlennS offers poetry by Neil Gaiman and 2001: A LEGO iPhone Charger Odyssey, as directed by Stanley Ku-brick. Ow.
• Anna says Fuck yeah, corgis!
• Marikat offered cheerleading? I’m not sure.
• Over on LJ, tereshkova2001 reminded everyone that Streetfair was this weekend! And lo, there was fair food. Okay, really, pretty good food. Yum.
• Also, St. Rev likes Hellboy.
• 403 linked to And RSA Animate on human motivation, worth your time if you haven’t seen it.
• The cello mania has reached the point of ubiquity in geekdom, but that’s no reason not to watch Cello Wars, courtesy oh6.
• Jamie provides an epic kitteh jump, before
• 403 returns for a second-helping of disturbing recursion: the game of Life, emulated in the game of Life.

Thanks, everybody!

Nobody’s told me about writing a review for Cracksman Betty yet. I has a sad. No review love? I’ll extend the deadline ’till the end of the month, then. In the meantime, go throw some love on it on iTunes. MOAR STARS PLZ!

I don’t feel like much, so let’s settle an important question:

[poll id=23]

Also, leave comments with awesome things. Or links to awesome things. This has been one of those weeks when to be honestly I really don’t feel like I’m cut out for this, because, like fiction writing, trying to do music is mostly about successfully managing rejection. So I’m calling a KLYTUS I’M BORED and demanding playthings.

An obscure body in the SK system, perhaps. That sounds fun. Hot hail, anyone? XD

First, some eye candy: check out these Russian rocket factory photos by Lana Sator, before they make her take them down. She’s gone vadding into a test facility outside Moscow, and it’s cool.

December poll! While the voting was spread across many candidates, you guys clearly hate fax machines with a particular purity. The fax didn’t gain the majority outright – it tied for largest plurality – but unlike CRTs, no one spoke in its defence. Similarly 8-track cassettes, but those received fewer votes; even pagers had people supportive, hither and yon.

Mostly, I’m bored. I made yet another special cable today, sorted stuff, and engaged in Boring Business Crapimportant meetings with people about business matters. I’ve been backed off of rehearsal on doctor’s orders, after I Did Something to my shoulder a couple of weeks ago. I don’t even know how. I have been practicing some, using a weird strap arrangement, but it’s weird and I don’t like it.

That didn’t stop me from rocking the Tony Bennett Wednesday night after Session, but it has kept a crimp in things. I get to test NORMALITY tomorrow, as I ramp back up for the first show of the year, on the 27th, with Leannan Sidhe and Kräken-Röhl:

…and there was something else I wanted to talk about today instead of all this, but can’t yet. It’s not actually my thing; it’s entirely about somebody else, another musician some of you know. Hopefully, I can talk about it soon.

I’m going to see Tin-Tin tonight. I’ve heard good things. Have a good weekend!

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: Kräken-Röhl, CRIME and the Forces of Evil, and Leannan Sidhe, Live at B-Side Music, January 27th! Doors 6pm, shows start 7pm, more info on the show page and after that to come! 😀

NOW IT HAS BEEN FORGOT: Over on Twitter, Attoparsec‘s Matthew Dockery mentioned clearing out the old CRT computer monitors, and being glad of it. I replied that it’s funny how CRT monitors have no loyalists or preservationists, certainly not of any scale, unlike computers themselves, and vinyl LPs, and to a lesser extent CDs, the like.

It’s me, too; I have a couple of old Amiga CRTs I’ve held onto just in case, and even I want to get rid of them.

And that got us talking about old technologies without fandoms. Examples include CRT computer monitors, and those wretched devices, the FAX machine. So we’re wondering: what other dead tech lacks a fandom?

The polling software I have doesn’t allow fill-in-the-blank answers, but I’m going to start a poll anyway. Add other suggestions in comments!

[poll=22]