Sansui apparently made an all-analogue physical-slider graphic equaliser… with memory function. Yes, you could save multiple settings.
How did this work?
Pulleys.
It is hilariously slow. Jump ahead to 1m 13s, that’s right before this guy hits recall.
I’ve only got a single day pass for ECCC this year, I thought I had other things going on and I didn’t – well, I kind of do, but not exciting fun show things, the most fun I’m having is building a special pickup for the octave mandolin so I can loan it to some else for a show. Maybe I’ll maybe talk more about that later.
BUT! I’m going tomorrow. I’ll be 1990s Shadowcat, if all goes well, as I have no reason to believe it shouldn’t. I had a Shadowcat costume back in the way, but I haven’t worn it in years for Reasons, and also I’m making it better, so that’s fun.
So, yeah – ECCC Saturday! I hear rumours of a PDX Broadsides ninja show. See you there!
This comic cover was going around yesterday on Twitter. It would’ve been better than Batman v Superman. Tell me I’m wrong.
And yes, since the zouk was invented three years before this comic was published, I am headcanoning that this instrument (which nobody else seems to be able to identify online) is in fact an Irish bouzouki with a weird strap attachment point and not an odd cutout in the upper body. It probably has eight strings based on what we can see of the peg configuration, and that’s a reasonably Irish resonating chamber, and it’s a narrow, Greek neck. And sure, the body’s a little small, but it’s the right shape, I’ve actually seen an oddball zouk in that proportion, and it was very early in the history of the instrument.
Therefore, silver-age Superman’s Kryptonite was officially the Irish bouzouki.
obWakeUpSheeple: WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!
ps – this also happened, perhaps it was a prequel:
Big shout-out to Montco Radio and Amazing Obscura for the airplay today! Maybe it’s a little oldschool of us, but hearing your band named and played on the radio is still 100% totally awesome. \n/
And talking of, the Save KPLU campaign is about halfway through by both calendar and fundraising, and they’re a bit ahead of plan, which is excellent. They have another matching gift campaign going right now – half a million in matching funds, through April 15th.
Indie radio still matters – particularly journalism-heavy stations like KPLU. So if you haven’t jumped in yet to help save KPLU, go on over and do that now. Get that matching grant nailed down!
So Seattle once again has the world’s longest floating bridge. Yes, it’s a bridge, yes, it’s for vehicles (and next summer also peds and bikes and possibly rail later) and it’s made of concrete and it floats.
We had the longest one already, but it was old and creaky and was thinking about sinking and DON’T THINK IT CAN’T HAPPEN WE LOST ANOTHER BRIDGE THAT WAY. It was hilarious. (We are not very good at highways, and between that an Galloping Gertie, I’m not convinced we’re real good at bridges, either. For that, go to Portland.)
Anwyay, before turning the first chunk of it over to vehicle traffic, they invited everybody to go hoof around on it. So of course we did, and that was fun. Several pictures here; lots more (and bigger) on Flickr.
It’s April 1st, April Fool’s Day, and honestly, for supervillains who are in it for the lulz, this is literally the worst day. It’s like Halloween in the Buffyverse – doing anything today is just so… tacky.
So I’m 100% not.
Here’s a really cool Legend of Korra book two fan-made opening title sequence done in anime style.
Here are two fictional perfect cinnamon rolls (Supergirl and Flash) sharing ice cream.
When I was in Newfoundland, teens there were headbanging to super-high-energy trad. Please enjoy a crowd nearly starting a goddamn riot to a classical orchestra. It is wonderful:
Here is a rather short (but the right length) story you should take time out to read, A Guide for Young Ladies Entering the Service of the Fairies, by Rosamund Hodge. I need to remember this for next year’s Hugo nominations.
You heard Studio Ghibli’s Toonz animation software went open source, right?
Occasionally I will rise to the defense of Brutalist architecture, talking about how it can be beautiful, and pointing to thinks like Habitat ’68 in Montreal and Freeway Park in Seattle, along with other examples. Here are some examples from the former USSR – not all are in the greatest of condition, but the Druzhba health spa in Yalta is magnificent and I will fight you over it. I also rather like the examples in Minsk and Yalta.
So. There you go. Seven wonderful things. Zero April Fool’s Day “jokes.” Enjoy.
ps: Also, hey, a reminder that I post my fannish tracks as free downloads. Enjoy those too.
Hey, this is the last-chance reminder for all you Hugo nominators to go out and get your nominations in and help prevent the monstrosity that was last year from happening again. The deadline is tomorrow!
Yes, the Sad Puppies are behaving this year, and have put up a large reading list that does not constitute a ballot because there are far too many entries. But the Rabids do have a slate, and they will be slate-voting it. It’s a smaller group, one desperately hopes, but they’re organised.
(For the record: Bone Walker is eligible as a Related Work, should you feel so inclined. It’s probably the only time I’ll be able to say that I have an eligible work in pro categories, so there it is! 😀 )
I’ve got my nominations in. I hope you’ll get yours in too.
I guess I lied, there is one more stage monitor speaker post, sort of.
I’m still kind of curious about who “Lakeside Engineering, Seattle, Wash.” might have been. Here’s a scan of the logo, off the better old patch panel, now removed. (The worse one had been partly painted over. I’ve saved both, I might add. No good reason, really, but it’s not like they’re big.)
I’ve cleaned up the scan and made the black background solid black again, but I haven’t really altered anything in the logo itself. I even left the scratches, and missed spots in the original silkscreen.
If you know anybody who might know who Lakeside Engineering was, pass this along. I’m mostly just curious, and kind of feel a little like sending someone down memory lane. And if they want to see some of their gear put back into order, just point them at the compilation post.
I’ve re-badged the speakers, by the way:
Because hey – why not?
This was the first year in a very long time that I was not running nwcMUSIC or some other all-consuming event at Norwescon. As I was explaining a lot this year, I’m the sort of person who is very good at building somebody a neat toy, but I’m not the person to maintain the neat toy. I get bored and frustrated doing the same thing repeatedly, and those are two very bad adjectives to describe a supervillain. Do Not Let the Supervillain Get Bored. So: handed off!
And I have to say, Norwescon as purely an attending professional and congoer is a completely different experience. Goddamn, there is a lot to do at Norwescon, and knowing that on paper and trying to get to it are completely different things. I missed some great events – I didn’t get a chance to play Artemis, I didn’t get to Death*Star’s party-wing show, I didn’t get to Kadesh Flow’s Grand 3 show – so much missed! But there was just too much to hope to make it all.
Even being at a lot of the same events felt completely different a lot of the time; the gap between “doing something” and “doing something while making sure everything else happens” is pretty dramatic. As, I note, is the difference between “room in (quiet) staff wing” and “room in full-time party wing 5b,” which is where I ended up this year.
Wing 5b’s not so bad, though. First, I’m a late-nighter and partier regardless, so waiting ’till after parties wound up (2am or so) for sleep wasn’t such a big deal, I do that anyway. And second, I could just go all “Could you not?”/”I could not” and wander by party rooms playing my Cajun accordion as loudly as possible at any time of day. This was hilarious. For me, anyway. 😀
#no I didn’t do it after 2am #thought about it
I took a lot of notes at panels, particularly panels I was on, and I wish I’d taken more. They put me on non-music panels too – Nicole Dieker’s “The Tumblr Effect” panel turned into a lot of language geekery, for which I am always ready, particularly when discussing hashtag language and typography as linguistic expression. And being on a costuming panel after being out of cosplay for so long before edging back into it the last few years – I was just thrilled to be included and geek out about making props. Everything everybody brought just looked amazing.
Shubzilla totally crushed several panels I saw her on, not just when talking music, but also about cultural issues in fandom. I also have a bunch of new-to-me nerdcore artists to check out, like upstate New York artist Sammus. (And fans should definitely check out The NPC Collective.)
Thanks to Jonny Nero Action Hero – who will be taking over nwcMUSIC concerts next year, which is 198% awesome – I know that chiptunes fans who want to drink from the firehose should definitely get on ChipMusic.org. And he didn’t have to tell me about This Week in Chiptune, but if you want a weekly podcast consisting almost entirely of new chiptunes tracks, you now have your orders.
I’m not in the Carol Corps, tho’ I did consider myself an Angel auxilliary, which is pretty much the Supermarionation same thing. But I most certainly did enjoy the Carol-Corps-and-comics-fandom panel, just because it made me realise something about why my comics fandom in grad school was so very much not a boy’s club. Don’t get me wrong, there were lots of guys, but also lots of women. Based on that panel discussion, I think a lot of the credit for that goes to the local big comic store being the absolute opposite of so many this-feels-like-a-dark-alley comic book shops. Comic Connection just felt like a nice bookstore that carried comics and graphic novels and games, and I don’t think I realised how good we had it.
that’s no moon
i think you’re right
that’s a space station
just how else
could a short-range fighter
get so far?
One of the nuts I was never able to crack in nwcMUSIC was “open filking,” which is to say, people just getting together and playing in turns (and together) at night. But this year, moved to the main floor, Open Filk felt the strongest it has in a long time. Discoverability had always been its biggest problem, and I knew that, but I’m still very surprised at how much difference going one floor down made. Lots of new people, lots of energy, going until well after 2am on Thursday and Friday, and after 3am Saturday night? At Norwescon? Madness! And yet.
Despite commentary above, the party scene didn’t seem as big this year. I know a couple of the regular crews were missing. My favourite was there, of course – Merchants of Deva, whose access pass is in the photo next to my badge – and that’s the biggest deal for me. They were, as always, tearing the place down with decor. (Imperial Starfleet Next Generation functional LCARS-interface control panels? SURE WHY NOT HAVE SOME. jfc those guys. I spent like a hour just playing with their setpieces.) And Party in a Box also made a good appearance, as did the Cult of Scott Bakula, and there were several publisher parties. But even so, it felt like someone or someones were missing, and I wasn’t the only one saying it.
But in the end, I got to see a bunch of people I don’t see often, some not nearly as much as I wanted to (Hi Joy! Bye Joy! That should’ve been longer!), failed to see some (Grace! I’m sorry! I kept looking for you!), had some good conversations at parties and on stairwells and in hotel rooms and hallways (or listened in on some – for Anna, this was 100% Hang Out And Chat With Tanya Huff Con), watched Saturday morning kind of go voop as half the con – seriously, it felt like half the con – took off for the Democratic caucuses, filtering back in during the afternoon, and… all in all had a remarkably de-stressed Norwescon.
I don’t know what I’m doing next year, but I can say that I’m really glad I took this year off.
I sorely lack pictures! Post links if you took some!
#not after 2am #look I’m just saying that I have occasionally caused norwescon to make new rules #the best one being “staff may not wear costumes on duty” #that was a good costume #what there was of it #fake tumblr hashtags #straps
Loading up for Norwescon – see you there in a few hours! First item on the agenda: “The Tumblr Effect” – 4-5pm, Cascade 9. HI TUMBLR!
The rest of my schedule is here.
Raptor 312 – launch!
eta: If you’re new here and into fan music, enjoy some of our free downloads, including two new 2016 tracks: The Blue Morpho and Thirteen.
THE NEW SINGLE
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