August 2008 Archives

Not the best end I could have wished for to a very hard week...  I came home on Friday night after a pint with Steve to find my house locked and me not having access.  Oh.  I now have a crime number (see above) and my house is devoid of my important bits and pieces (doodads?). 

Gone is my Mac, the 20D, lenses, FinePix, my old white 20GB iPod, my four-day-old 80GB black replacement iPod, Sarah's same in silver...

BUT, is my backup regime better now that it was in January when my Mac died?  No, complacency set in and last backup is probably 4-6 weeks ago.  Fuck.  So. I will have lost some pics.  But Rob's obsession with flickr means that most of my recent good output is up there in hi-res. 

But.  This isn't like a hard drive failure, this is a stranger (a fucker) browsing my Mac.  My stuff.  The stuff I thought was secret.  Private.

WiFi, routine, no-thought backup is also going be be a new thing.  Expensive.

[The Killers are doing Joy Division (Shadowplay) on the telly right now, live from Reading].  Odd.  Joy Disision as stadium rock.  Hmm.

I have no capability right now for making images 'how I want them' so here are some raw (not RAW) camera pics.

Utility room window sill with fingerptint powder.

And a shopping list from the floor in Sainsburys

This is a funky application, to quote the wire to the ear, "Here an interesting new application for Mac OS-X called TapeDeck. It's an audio recorder that looks like an old Radio Shack cassette deck. You can label your recordings cassettes with notes that look handwritten.


Your archived recordings are displayed in virtual cassette cases. All of this is pretty ridiculous except one feature could be very useful: Upload to YouTube.

Upload to YouTube sends your audio to YouTube and the video diplays your Cassette, the labeling your put on it and a little animation so you know it's playing"

To quote the marketing bit "TapeDeck is a powerful and fun new audio recorder for Mac OS X Leopard.
It's just like your old analog tape recorder, only better. A lot better."

I loved cassettes when the only (best?) way to record off the radio or an LP was to put a mic in front of the speaker and have to shout "shush" loudly when someone walked into the room quietly. 

And I loved them when having to explain what they were to mum and dad (and grandma) and what Dolby (B) was... and dbx (dbx) was.  Wow, dbx was expensive wasn't it.  And DNL (wow, wasnt DNL the poor relative; Philips, and shit!).

Bias and EQ.  What actually was that all about?  120 microseconds (and 170 microseconds?).  Chrome tape!

I remember living in a flat with a guy called Roland in the early 80s (1982?) with an Akai (maybe Aiwa) cassette deck and we used to have to use a screwdriver to 'tune' the sound.  In that sort of environment, what use is the microfine adjustment of bias and EQ?  However, we could get 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' to sound unbelievable.  The chicken currey was good too.  We would put the curry on, go doen to the pub for an hour or two, and come back to a curry.  In those days, pubs didn't have fridges (why not?).  Instead they had metal trays filled with cold water (half and inch deep).  Old cans went rusty.  In those days Swan lager from Australia was only available in imported cans.  Can't imagine that now.  Cans were gold, red and black I seem to remember.  It is what I drank.  

I bought this to sample.  50p ($1).  For a cassette I reckon that's pretty expensive.  But it is a double LP so I do get a lot (have a lot) for my money.  I hope it's shit, but in that beautiful, sampleable way. 

I'm sure they were not always thus.  You can tell from the location and orientation of the high-security fences that the fences were not planned when the units were built.  What you see now are units that are terrified.  Scared of attack.  Entrenched. 

Life and the world was not always like this.  We were once open and relaxed. 

Is this progress?  I like and want progress but this just depresses me.

I know why they're scared and protective, I would be too.  But it's us that have made this happen.  Our society. 

From the Guardian today:

As Washington accused Russia of "bullying and intimidation" in Georgia and demanded an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from the small Black Sea neighbour, Russia's deputy chief of staff turned on Warsaw and said it was vulnerable to a Russian rocket attack because of Thursday's pact with the US on the missile defence project.

"By deploying, Poland is exposing itself to a strike - 100%," warned Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn. He added that Russia's security doctrine allowed it to use nuclear weapons against an active ally of a nuclear power such as America.

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And yet, our Olympic golds are bigger news on the BBC (and The Guardian).  Sigh. 

JOOI, flickr is easy because I can upload many at a time.  Did you know that getting pictures to this blog takes ages?  Well it does. 

flickr.com/eatmorechips

This is the glass from Pripiat.  Chernobyl.  I have it here.  It's no longer there. 

Probbaly, yes.  Not sure though.  Don't care.

My dining room.  Bass lesson.  Rob.  These pictures were taken in May - I've been waiting for them...