| Bill, the tech-writer at work, and I, were discussing the lackluster nature of presidential politics, and the fact that candidates have become increasingly bland and unappealing. Corpses would do better, I said. There should be a zombie ticket. Just revive the best presidents of the past and run THEM for office.
Bill agreed, and, he having the liberal-arts degree and all, and thus being more versed in world affairs, came up with the following slate of candidates and their appointees for key cabinet positions. Some of his choices are quite inspired. So, without further ado, I present...
2008 Presidential Nominees: The Zombie Ticket
President: Theodore Roosevelt
Vice President: Abraham Lincoln
Secretary of State: Benjamin Franklin
Secretary of the Treasury: J. P. Morgan
Secretary of Defense: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Attorney General: Oliver Wendell Holmes
Secretary of the Interior: John Muir
Secretary of Agriculture: George Washington Carver
Secretary of Commerce: Sinclair Weeks
Secretary of Labor: Eugene Debs
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Margaret Sanger
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Frank Lloyd Wright
Secretary of Transportation: Henry Morgenthau Jr.
Secretary of Energy: M. King Hubbert
Secretary of Education: Eleanor Roosevelt
Secretary of Veteran's Affairs: Maj Audie L. Murphy
Secretary of Homeland Security: Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
White House Chief of Staff: John Adams
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: Rachel Carson
Dir. of the Office of Mgmt. & Budget: Benjamin Graham
Director of the National Drug Control Policy: Hunter S. Thompson
United States Trade Representative: Samuel L. Clemens
Chairman, Federal Reserve System: William McChesney Martin, Jr.
Commisioner of the Social Security Administration: Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
Director of National Intelligence: John Foster Dulles
There you have it, folks, a complete slate of zombie candidates and appointees for 2008. | |
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| Before my recent purchase of a Dave Smith Instruments Prophet '08, my main axe was a cheesy Casio CTK-530. As a MIDI controller it's okay. The piano sounds, for the time, were quite nice. It does passable strings. Brass was horrid. The built-in rhythms were totally unusable, although the "fill-in" feature was good fun. I will, at some point, want to plug it back in, at least so I have a dedicated MIDI controller for all the soft synths on my Mac. However, next to the Prophet '08, this thing is a total clunker in looks. I'm ashamed to leave in in the room with my new gear! Surely there's SOMETHING one can do! Yes there is. CASE MOD! Here's a guy who modded his CTK-530That's a tad more extreme than I want to go, in terms of cutting off all the features of the instrument. If you're going to go that far, why not throw away the main circuit board and do a ground-up MIDI implementation (MIDI-Thru would be nice). One thing I've long disliked about the CTK-530 was the lack of pitch-bend or modulation wheels (The keyboard could handle bend and modulation through MIDI from an external source). Also it would be nice to have the vintage look, with wood side panels. I don't have the need for the totally-level surface to rest an LCD display on, so a slight slant (matching the Prophet '08), wouldn't be a bad idea. Another thing missing on the Casio is KNOBS. It's all presets and buttons, including a cheesy (and nearly unnecessary) keypad. So, here's a list of mods off the top of my head for the Casio CTK-530. 1) Case Mod: Emulate the look of the Prophet '08, or the classic Prophet 5 2) Preserve all the functionality of the keyboard. 3) Trade out the simplistic two-digit LED display for an LCD showing both patch number and name. 4) Add Pitch and Modulation wheels. 5) Ditch cheesy speakers. Split the stereo headphone out into mono right/left outs. 6) Add MIDI Thru Since I'm not cutting sheet metal, or shaping wood in my apartment, it looks like I'm going to have the scour the internets for ways to do a project like this. | |
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| In this awesome post at the Box of Meat blog community of JD Falk, we learn about Seth Godin's encounter with a snooty, upscale parking garage that treats its customers badly. Seth makes a very good point, and J.D. nicely relates it to spam complaints, but that's not what catches my eye. No, amid these well-reasoned arguments, the thing that really draws my attention is... SETH GODIN ACTION FIGURE!Now, you don't get an action figure unless you're a superhero, a politician, or a religious deity. I've seen no evidence that Godin posesses superpowers, and to the best of my knowledge he hasn't entered politics. That leaves godhood as the only reason Seth deserves an action figure. So, what makes Seth Godin a deity, and what sort of god is he? At the risk of offending the deeply devout, here goes: Douglas Adams, famously wrote, in his book "The Long, Dark, Tea-Time of the Soul", that there is a parallel dimension to ours, where all our daily problems manifest either as gods, or as gnats depending on how dire they are. Early man, with his fear and superstition, manifested many gods in this netherworld, gods of thunder, and earthquake, war and pestilence, love and pain. Modern man has reasoned away most of these problems, so while they still exist, we don't bother ourselves with them, so the ancient gods have little to do. Most of them have ended up as ad spokesmen, or retired to nursing homes where they get fresh linen every day. But there are modern issues which do rise to the level of godhood in this otherworld, so, into this gnat-infested wasteland, emerging from a pile of cast off mail servers overloaded by spam, emerges a new and powerful cosmic force, born of mankind's deep loathing for the annoyance marketer. His name is Seth Godin. Godin is god of PERMISSION. Godin is god of RELEVANCE. Godin is god of TIMELINESS. Godin is god of BUILDING TRUST Mostly, however, Godin is god of INTERNET MARKETING. I am so buying myself the action figure. Silliness aside, there is a valid point here. Seth Godin pitches his message at those who are driving the trends in marketing. That's a tiny section of a huge industry. Most marketers don't even FOLLOw the trends in marketing that well. Instead they're busy scurrying to get out of the way, and not end up getting hit. Becoming roadkill on the Information Superhighway isn't a good career move. Where Seth was ten years ago is where marketers NEED TO BE today, just to survive. Most aren't. They're taking major hits by not following the trend, even distantly. For the short term, this will continue to be the status quo. Godin will continue to issue his pronouncements in the form of easily read, pithy books on such blatantly obvious themes as "MAKE YOUR PRODUCT ROCK OUT LOUD SO WORD OF MOUTH WORKS FOR YOU" and "COMPLAINING CUSTOMERS ARE A SIGN YOU ARE SCREWING UP". The mainstream of marketing will refuse to listen, as they are scribes and pharisees whose hearts have turned inward and no longer seek divine guidance. However, public ire at the marketers who treat interactive media on the same par as the passive media of yore (which are all but gone forever), will eventually drive them from the temple. Some day, marketers will revere the name of Godin, his works will be collected, translated into all human languages (and Altarian), and none will dare violate this ancient holy writ. But alas, that day is a long time off, and most of us alive today will not be there to see it. | |
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| Yesterday, I got a catalog in the mail from ZZounds. Of course, I flipped straight to the keyboard section. There, I read the following: "If it weren't for Bob Moog, they other keyboards on this page might not exist." That's stretching it a little. The concept of tying a keyboard to a small synthesizer predates Moog by a number of years. Leon Theremin designed a keyboard version of his eponymous instrument. The Ondes Martenot, designed to output sine, triangle and square waves, and send them through a variety of resonators (mostly mechanical), and the Ondioline both had keyboards. There was also the Hammond Novachord, and most notably Raymond Scott's Clavivox. That said, the other prominent force in synthsizer design in the mid to late 1960's, Don Buchla shied away from keyboards. Buchla's designs centered around unique non-keyboard interfaces. If you look at the history of synthesizers as though it began only following the second world war, and discount Raymond Scott as being irrelevant, and don't consider the work of the Hammond Organ Company, and forget Leon Theremin, Maurice Martenot, Thaddeus Cahill, Elisha Grey, and others, and focus only on the RCA Synthesizer as being "first", yes, it looks as if Moog's idea to couple a keyboard to his synth was entirely novel and unique. However, please note that you've ignored a large portion of important musical history, and cast as irrelevant one of Moog's own prime influences. Attaching a keyboard to a synth was an obvious move. It was so obvious that there was a minor rebellion against the notion. There was a reluctance to make the obvious move. But sometimes the obvious move is the obvious RIGHT move. So Bob Moog did the obvious, not just once, in giving the Moog Modular a keyboard, but a second time by taking the most common signal path between the most common modules and integrating it with a keyboard. Sometimes innovation is more a matter of doing the same thing, rather than doing something different. "If it weren't for Bob Moog, they other keyboards on this page might not exist." Nah, if he hadn't done it, someone else would have. All the parts were in place for it to happen. We might not have that classic Moog sound, of oscillators which slightly overdrive the filter, giving a warm pleasing distortion, but the catalog hype and hyperbole would be touting some other genius as the guy everyone else tries to imitate. | |
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| Matrixsynth has the scoop. Back in January, when this debuted at Winter NAMM, I made note of it. You're probably wondering why you should care. Here's why. There are companies, and their products, which, due to their reputation in their field, wield a power far beyond their size. Moog Music, and the Minimoog are such. Moog Music was never a titan of industry, even after merging with MuSonics, and being bought out by Norlin. Still, the Minimoog was something special. In the early 1960's, with the encouragement of Herb Deutsch and others, Robert Moog started designing a series of electronic circuits, that when coupled together, formed a system for the electronic synthesis of musical tones: one of the first, commercially-available electronic synthesizers. The first Moog modulars were cantankerous beasts. The oscillators refused to stay in tune, and the funky "S-Trig" control logic, could be frustrating at times to use. Still, Bob Moog and the R. A. Moog Company managed to sell some 200 systems, and by 1968 had worked out most of the bugs in the oscillators. S-Trig was still funky, but it became part of the charm of the system. The only remaining issue with the Moog was that is was a cumbersome beast, suitable for the studio, but not easily taken on the road. Musicians needed an instrument they could take with them. Bob Moog rose to the challenge. He took the most common modules, the most common signal path, and the now legendary 24db, four-pole, Moog Transistor Low-Pass Ladder Filter, and condensed them down into the Minimoog; A half-keyboard coupled to an entire universe of sonic possibilities. The pre-production models were crude. Model A was little more than existing Moog modules crammed into a small case. Model B was more polished, and Model C was so close the the final Minimoog Model D which shipped, it was used in early sales literature. Unbeknownst to Moog, or indeed anyone who wasn't a performing and touring musician, keyboardists had been having a problem for many years. Amplification was killing them. Keyboards lacked punch. Musicians kept quiet about it, but it was obvious, if you listened to enough music. When the keyboardist started his solo, the rest of the band went quiet so you could hear him play. You couldn't drum too heavily underneath a keyboard solo, or play guitars over the top, or interlace horns in the middle. Those things would drown a keyboard right out. The Minimoog was different. This was a keyboard with punch. It could cut through guitars, and basses, and horns. It could cut through concrete. It could screech. It could howl. With a Minimoog, a keyboardist became a god. The Minimoog, although it represented only a tiny fragment of the potential of a full-blown modular synth, brought the performing musician unimaginable musical landscapes. It was a revolution. Alas, only about 12,000 Minimoog Model-Ds were ever made. That's not nearly enough to go around. And now, 37 years on, the early Minimoogs are becoming fragile pieces of aging electronics history. Musicians who love their Minimoogs are nonetheless afraid to take them on the road. They're simply too precious. And to top it off, after two buyouts, the original Moog Music went out of business. What is THIS, then? Well, in 2002, Bob Moog won back the rights to the name "Moog Music", and renamed his Ashenvale, NC company, which had up to that point been called "Big Briar". Big Briar was supposed to be Moog's retirement. Lovingly crafting the finest modern theremins in the world. But musicians were clamoring for replacements to their aging Minimoogs, and only one man could do it right. So, the Minimoog Voyager was born. An analog synth with digital control, straight from the hand of Bob Moog himself. Now the instrument has come full circle. Take the digital control off the Voyager, and what you have is the raw instrument, in all it's glory. No patches, no MIDI. All analog. It's not a synth for the weak of heart. The operating system is your hands and mind. Made with modern, stable components, this is a Minimoog that can go places the old Minimoogs could never go. "Where?" You ask? Frequency modulation, for example. You couldn't do it on the old analog gear. The oscillators weren't stable enough. Many people thought that analog gear would NEVER be stable enough, and that FM would always be a digital realm. Modular. Look at this. Those are control voltage outputs. A ton of them. No MIDI? No big deal. 1 volt/octave will control external devices like you cannot imagine. The original Minimoog didn't do this, but this remake does. Still... $2600... There's always the t-shirt. | |
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| Dear Customer,
When the RIR allocation for your IP space is listed as belonging to us;
and,
When your IP space, or any portion thereof appears on the Spamhaus Block List;
and
When Spamhaus says in the SBL listing that they have identified us as the responsible party for that IP space;
We are the responsible party.
Spamhaus notified us within moments of that listing occurring. We in turn notified you and requested you provide us with feedback. At that time we entered into a dialog with Spamhaus.
When, rather than providing us with feedback, you interrupt this dialog by going to them and requesting a de-listing yourself, you make yourself, and by extension, us, look foolish.
Please stop. It's embarrassing.
We are your provider. You pay us for a certain level of service. Let us provide that level of service by allowing you to not have to deal with Spamhaus. Perhaps those IPs addresses really deserve to be listed. Perhaps you haven't done your best at convincing us that the abuse has stopped (and believe me, if you're listed on the SBL abuse HAS occurred. What do you think all those complaints we've been forwarding to you were for?)
Besides, we still haven't heard back from you, and we did ask for a response.
Regards,
Your Network Provider., | |
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| I read Makezine. Not just the blog, I'm also subscribed to the print version. There are a lot of wonderful, awesome things on the blog, of course, and I check it every day. Imagine my amazement when I saw this. Yup, that's ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jonsinger. Go, Jon! | |
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| I've decided to include Peggy in my plans for world domination, which include video podcasts, as they're easier than hijacking a television station when making my demands. Okay, I have no plan for world domination, but video podcasts would be fun, and Peggy is a neat little project, and a terrorist weapon, at least in the city of Boston. | |
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|  Here's the power supply from the previous post on the subject, placed in position inside the custom 6U high rackmount cabinet, attached to the wiring harness, and wired to... Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? The wiring harness is overkill for this installation. It could easily distribute power to an additional 14 panels. | |
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