Mile Zero
no matter where you go, there you are
Mile Zero is the personal website of Thomas Wilburn. All statements and opinions here are my own, and do not represent the views or policies of my employers at Congressional Quarterly, Ars Technica, or other publications.
I've resisted getting a new computer for as long as possible. There are three machines in this apartment just for me, after all. But one of them is a laptop dating back to 1999--it's amazing that it still works. Another is Belle's old laptop, an Inspiron 1100 that works fine for plugged-in music production but isn't much of a portable. Then there's the tower, which I built myself from cheap components. It's a stable rig for e-mail and web browsing, but it's starting to show its age for anything else, and with all the low-end parts, upgrading would be a cascading pile of work and expense: fixing any given bottleneck would just reveal three or four more. It's not very energy-efficient, either, and it's got no direct Vista upgrade path.
Thanks to a windfall from the Bank's termination benefits, I've got some money to set aside, to use for my college loans, to put toward my taxes... and a bit left over for a computer upgrade, with the eventual goal of reducing my usage to two machines or less. If nothing else, it'll free up some space in the apartment.
I knew I wanted a reasonably-sized laptop, for writing on the go. I wanted a keyboard that would be comfortable and long-lived. I wanted the laptop as a whole to be business-class in terms of durability. I wanted full accident protection coverage. And finally, I wanted it to run Half-Life: Episode 2 better than the desktop I've got now (it's the only modern game I see myself running on a PC in the foreseeable future).
Although the Panasonic Toughbook was tempting just for the sheer, macho indestructibility of it, it's also blindingly expensive. The Dell D630 is supposed to also be a good machine with great battery life, but I worry about using a Dell for audio (they're not really known for grounding their power supplies) and I don't always like the way that they design the keyboard or the cooling system. Besides, I've had a yen for a Thinkpad for years. Hence:
Lenovo T61
14.1" screen (1440x900 resolution)
nVidia Quadro NVS140M graphics with 128MB VRAM
2.2GHz Core Duo (Santa Rosa)
2GB RAM
160GB hard drive with 1GB Intel Turbo Memory
8x DVD burner (swappable with an mediabay battery)
7-cell battery
Built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and camera
Not to mention what they say is the best laptop keyboard money can buy, a complete magnesium roll cage, spill-proof drainage system, and three years of coverage against practically anything that could happen to it. And I'm not going to lie, I thought this was really cool:
Just in case I get a motorcycle, it's good to know that I could park on top of my laptop in an emergency.
It's not a particularly stylish laptop, although I happen to like the basic black look. Getting a decent video card means it can't be super thin, and the battery life could be better. But it's a solid machine with a great pedigree and a reputation for bulletproof construction. It should last me a long time, and that's really what I value most.
Unfortunately, a lot of other people seem to be thinking the same thing right now, and it looks like it won't ship until mid-September. So if anyone's got any better suggestions, now's the time to speak up.
21:03 x Thomas x /random/tech x link x 1 comment
Book review: Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman
There's a fine line between satire of genre fiction and the fiction itself. Soon I Will Be Invincible wobbles back and forth on that line more than a few times. As a superhero book, it's pretty weak. As a satire, it's much stronger. I just wish it spent more time there.
Invincible is divided into two plotlines, told in alternating chapters. Odd-numbered chapters are narrated by Doctor Impossible, a super-intelligent inventor and villain, who begins the novel locked up in a foolproof jail cell. The other chapters follow a rookie hero who calls herself "Fatale" after leaving a Brazilian super-soldier program, and finds herself joining the world-renowned Champions (the equivalent, I think, to the Justice League). Impossible's chapters are usually everything that you could hope from a supervillain: wry observations about evil plans, weary complaints about the difficulty of disposing toxic waste, and contempt for the goody-two-shoes superheros.
Fatale's half of the story, on the other hand, is really less than captivating. She spends much of her time uncovering mysteries that the reader sees coming from a mile away, or opening up the sordid past for the Champions (which is much less sordid or interesting than it could have been). Grossman may have been trying to create flawed heroes through Fatale's detective work, but it comes across as standard comic-book soap operatics. When this bleeds over into Impossible's story as the book goes on, it begins to wear thin.
At the start of Invincible, Doctor Invincible poses the question of why so many of the most intelligent supers go bad--why does he do the things he does, even though he's clearly aware of the cliches that surround him? The book eventually concludes that it's just high-school politics writ large. This isn't necessarily a bad place to take the genre, since it's recognizable in both the psyches and stereotypes of comic fans and writers, but it's not terribly original either, and it's been done better. In the end, I stayed with the book not for the message, but for the moments of sly genre deconstruction: Batman as autistic, the lists of failed plans for world conquest, or underground super fighting rings. Invincible does these moments very well, even if its broader themes are clumsy. There have, I think, been really very few non-comic works that really examined the ideology of comics well, and I was disappointed to find that Soon I Will Be Invincible does not change that. This book is a fun, fast read, but I wouldn't hold high expectations for it.
15:24 x Thomas x /fiction/reviews/grossman x link x 0 comments
Well, here we are in Chicago.
We've here through Friday. Suggestions welcomed.
18:12 x Thomas x /culture/america/usa x link x 1 comment
A Million Words, lyrics by B. Herzberg, arrangement and production by me.
One of my clients at work made an unorthodox request a few weeks back--could I help him arrange some songs that he's been writing on the Metro? He puts the lyrics into his Blackberry and then sings them into his computer later. The audio file above is the result of a quick jam session, in which we figured out the vague idea of the song, and then I brought it home to do a rough demo.
It's hard to say if I have actually improved it. Althought they needed instrumentation, the original songs seemed to me to have a kind of folk flavor, which I have basically flattened into a generic rock/punk. I also didn't add any space to the song, or any bridge section. Because the lyricist is only starting his musical education, he basically considers these songs as one long block--he will learn. I probably should have taken the time to demonstrate, but I got lazy and just recorded it the way he sang it.
Like my Cat Stevens cover, I did this recording using just the Variax bass and a few plugins, plus the default Cubase drum machine. I've found that the eight- and twelve-string bass models do a better-than-passable punk guitar imitation when run through the Guitar Suite JCM-900 plugin, and their pitch shifting is much more accurate when played with a pick. It's hard to distinguish between the G and C power chords, though. If you have trouble hearing it, I don't blame you, but this is actually a three-chord progression.
The versatility of the Variax makes it easy to put together a whole song very quickly--this took only about half an hour--which is extremely valuable to me. A lot of the credit probably goes to a change in recording philosophy, though. It helps if you adapt your production style to the tools: I use a lot of slightly modified presets for these kinds of projects, so I can track and move on. At work I do the same kind of thing on the X-Pand! synth (another basic jack-of-all-trades instrument), which makes it a lot easier to put something together in a hurry for a late task manager. I guess the resulting clips don't sound quite as distinctive as a hand-crafted masterpiece, but I'm more productive. Even if I had a lot of custom sounds, I think I would want my studio set up to facilitate this kind of workflow: fast tracking prioritized over tweaking and obsession over detail.
20:36 x Thomas x /music/recording/mp3 x link x 0 comments
Does everyone feel sorry for the major labels yet? I know I do. Must be a hard life, finding time to count their money after a full day of exploiting guileless musicians and overcharging for CDs. Somehow, they manage, bless their little souls.
But noted music advice-donor Moses Avalon wants you to know that he is concerned. It's the evil tech-companies, he shrieks! They're trying to get rid of DRM--and if they do, your music will be worthless!
If the Tech world loses this campaign, they will simply have to pay a bit more for their loss leader item. Since they tend to bundle music with other products this expense will not be felt in any significant way by the consumer. It will just shave the tech industry's gross a tiny bit to about $87 billion.But if art loses this war, that is to say, if record companies/artists lose their ability to control who gets to license their work and at what price, the music business, as we know it, ends. Music itself will suffer as an art form and the Tech-Masters will absorb the labels, bundle their catalogs, and in a few years you'll buy a lap-top and it will come pre-loaded with an entire Juke Box of Classic Rock, Rap, Jazz, whatever.
This may sound great if you're a consumer, but if you're a music company you will make only a small licensing fee and your artists and songwriters will see a paltry fraction of this sum. The trickle down effect for studio owners, producers, lawyers, managers, etc, will naturally be devastation.
...
Major Labels are the 'banks' of our industry. They loan money to 1000's of artists, who then spend it in 1000's of studios and with 1000's of producers, who hire 1000's of engineers, who buy gear and invest in new artists, who sign with labels, and so on.
Even if you're an independent or emerging artist, you are in the wake of this economy. Big artists draw people into music outlets/venues and thus expose them to new music. Also, the big spending by Majors pushes down the off-peak rates on studio time, materials, and CD replication. It also creates the upside potential to justify investment in emerging artists.
The fantasy that 'if Majors die a Phoenix will rise from the ashes' is very unlikely. The higher probability is that in order for there to be a viable music industry at all Majors need to stay in business.
...
So called experts and analysts who applaud EMI's 'wisdom' and curse the RIAA's defense of copyrights are just sucking up to the Tech-Masters who give them a media platform. Then disgruntled music executives grant interviews and ignorantly agree just to relieve their angst. This bandwagon effect is helping Tech-Masters load the gun they have pointed to our heads.
Think people! Have you ever heard a technology spokesperson agree with labels or argue in favor of copy protection? NEVER! They argue for DRM-free music to make a more 'consumer friendly experience.' They are arguing that the consumers' rights are senior to the artists'. Let me repeat that: they are arguing that the way consumers buy music is MORE IMPORTANT than the rights of the people who create it.
All sarcasm aside, it takes a lot of chutzpah to write a sentence directly equating "art" and "record companies." To some degree, I respect that. It's completely idiotic, but respectably so.
The most telling part of the essay, however, is Avalon's belief that the major labels are banks that pay out lots of money to keep the art alive. Avalon is most well-known for a book about not getting screwed by the music business, so I'm a little astounded by his misconception of the word "bank." But it's easy for him to make that mistake, because he's a producer: he actually does profit from the industry spending. Actual musicians, however, do not. Don't just take my word for it. Two fine essays on the ways that recording contracts exist to exploit artists are Courtney Love Does the Math and Steve Albini's The Problem with Music.
If the music industry wants to be taken seriously as a business, it needs to realize that it is not automatically entitled to customers. It's only the vast vertical ownership and integration of the industry that let them get away with it for as long as they have. That vertical integration--the fact that labels are owned by enormous media companies controlling every part of the signal chain from work-for-hire contracts to final distribution--is part of what makes Avalon's plea so comical. The same thing happens in next-gen video, of course. It says a lot about how the debate is being framed when we're supposed to be worried about media piracy, and not about the fact that the same three or four companies own the entire media production process from top to bottom.
10:24 x Thomas x /music/business x link x 1 comment
Found a solution to the server move that nuked Mile Zero a few months back. Turns out that the tar command preserves filestamps, which makes sense, seeing as how it dates back to the days of tape backup. An archiver that actually archives file information! Who knew?
Of course, I wouldn't need to know this if the server admin had used a .tar to transfer the files to the new server in the first place. I really hope there was a good reason that they used the regular copy command, since almost every page I've read includes a note along the following lines:
Tar is a great way to copy directories recursively.
Because that might as well just continue:
Especially on Thomas's server, so he doesn't spend three weeks fixing the dates on something like 400 files.
22:54 x Thomas x /meta/blosxom x link x 0 comments
If you have ever wanted to see the evil, exploitative face of the overclass, look no further than this article on Costco:
"They could probably get more money for a lot of items they sell," said Ed Weller, a retailing analyst at ThinkEquity.
...
IF shareholders mind Mr. Sinegal's philosophy, it is not obvious: Costco's stock price has risen more than 10 percent in the last 12 months, while Wal-Mart's has slipped 5 percent. Costco shares sell for almost 23 times expected earnings; at Wal-Mart the multiple is about 19. Mr. Dreher said Costco's share price was so high because so many people love the company. "It's a cult stock," he said.
Emme Kozloff, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, faulted Mr. Sinegal as being too generous to employees, noting that when analysts complained that Costco's workers were paying just 4 percent toward their health costs, he raised that percentage only to 8 percent, when the retail average is 25 percent.
"He has been too benevolent," she said. "He's right that a happy employee is a productive long-term employee, but he could force employees to pick up a little more of the burden."
Mr. Sinegal says he pays attention to analysts' advice because it enforces a healthy discipline, but he has largely shunned Wall Street pressure to be less generous to his workers.
"When Jim talks to us about setting wages and benefits, he doesn't want us to be better than everyone else, he wants us to be demonstrably better," said John Matthews, Costco's senior vice president for human resources."
This is a company that makes money hand over fist. They have a steady-growth stock. They give consumers a good value. The CEO makes only about $500K per year (which is, believe it or not, frugal). In other words, everyone's happy. And the response from the analysts is to ask why he can't squeeze his workers harder.
In the 1800's, these guys would have been asking if it's not possible to beat the slaves just a bit more.
14:39 x Thomas x /politics/issues/economy/corporate x link x 1 comment
Harry's kind of a jerk.
Actually, that's a bit harsh. He's not a jerk any more than the next teenager, although that's not saying much. But Harry Potter's not particularly interesting, either. He's a poor hero, either in ideological or literary terms. There are lots of reasons that I think a person could dislike J.K. Rowling's books--they're formulaic, trite, cloaked in nostalgia, and not terribly original. If you've got to read youth fantasy, you can do much better...
...which is your cue to note that I am (like everyone else who dares to dislike Rowling's work) humorless, elitist, and needlessly contrarian. If I'm not cloaked in child-like wonder at the series, the conventional wisdom goes, there must be something wrong with me. And at this point, fine. If you can't understand why someone else finds the books tedious, I'm not going to argue with you. Come back later, and we'll talk about something less distasteful for both of us.
Anyway, as I was saying, I think there are lots of reasons that someone could dislike the Harry Potter books, but for me it's always come down to Harry himself. Because he's kind of an unpleasant little sod, isn't he? It's easy to miss, because he's portrayed so sympathetically (although I would never call Rowling a cunning wordsmith, her prose is far from wooden). But I always find, reading the books (and I have read them all, some of them twice), that it's hard to rectify the oddities of Harry's actual character with the character that Rowling thinks she's writing.
Let's recap. When we first meet Mr. Potter, we're told that he is famous because Voldemort's attempt to killed him backfired. Over the next few books, Harry takes place in a number of conveniently year-long escapades, mostly because the recovering Voldemort insists on tying up this loose end, and not because of any action on Harry's part. Eventually, Rowling strengthens this plot from simple revenge by adding a few macguffins: a prophecy that links the two, as well as some magical handwaving like psychic links. But what increasingly becomes clear is that Harry himself did not actually defeat the Dark Lord--I believe one book credits his parents' love (a mushy, underwhelming plot device if ever there was one) with deflecting the death curse.
But he's got other virtues, right? Not really, other than a garden-variety bravery that comes standard on every young fantasy hero. Harry's a poor student, and if he doesn't cheat than he's at least willing to come very close. His selective ethics are discomforting. He has a poor temper, and regularly fights with the people around him over very stupid things. His magical skills don't seem to be noticeably stronger or more refined than the other students. Hermione regularly outstrips him in every category, except for Being An Insufferable Stereotype of a Teacher's Pet. Harry is, in other words, a flawed (and frankly, unattractive) character.
Now, I personally welcome the average hero. I'd love to read a book about someone in a fantastical universe who is not either The Hero of Legend, an Unlikely Savior, or A Being of Vision. But Rowling is not writing those books. Instead, she's writing stories of a young man with a destiny, and her other characters insist on responding to Harry as if he's someone great. People are impressed with Harry, even though by his actions and attitudes he is really quite unimpressive. In general, he overcomes obstacles through either the help of others, or a magical deus ex machina which owes nothing to his own skills or abilities. It's almost sad, really, that in a world filled with wizards and monsters, someone like Harry Potter can even flag down a taxi.
I would like to believe, honestly, that this is the joke. I'd like to think that the Harry Potter books are really a satire about some poor kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, stuck trying to live up to the sadistic prophecies that always anchor sub-standard fantasy novels. His fate as an orphan is just one of the cruel, ultimately shallow literary devices that a fourth wall-breaking protagonist could bitterly lament. But I see no evidence that the author is not playing it straight, and the discontinuity between Harry and the events around him is glaring. Why is he a hero? Only because the book says he is.
At the core of a great deal of (bad) fantasy is this concept of "the chosen one," and Harry Potter slots right into it. If anyone is going to sling around accusations of elitism, it should probably start there. Yet since most readers of Rowling's series are probably blissfully unaware of either the overworn tropes of genre fiction, or the progress that's been made in overcoming them, this context is lost. It's more depressing than anything else. These are not bad books, when all is said and done. They're technically well-written, smoothly plotted, and deftly marketed. But let's face it: they're pulp, and not even the best pulp out there. Considering that Harry's fans are unlikely to ever read another fantasy novel--that they'll never graduate from Hogwarts School of Magic to Unseen University or the college of New Crobuzon--they deserve a better class of protagonist.
11:40 x Thomas x /fiction/litcrit x link x 1 comment
She's got scars all over, this girl. Not emotional or metaphorical, either. They ring her body like the orbits of tiny moons, dot her arms and legs with slick spots like impact craters. Her skin is a whole solar system of past abuse, although she can't even remember skinning her knee.
If only she could remember where they came from. As far back as anyone can remember, she's had them, although there weren't always so many. In elementary school, they had barely surfaced. But by high school, the scars had spread and thickened. And they began to itch. God, did they itch: some days it seemed like all she did was scratch. Even today, most times it's all she can do to get through the workday, then go home and run her fingernails up and down the scars, hoping for relief.
One day she just can't take it anymore. Can't stand the looks, the itching, the self-loathing. The girl skips work, puts on her best suit, does her makeup, and then walks down to the closest highway overpass. She stands on the edge, wavers.
Down below, on the highway, someone looks up from their grey, two-door sedan, and sees the girl. Shocked, they freeze up, foot instinctively going to the brakes. It's the wrong move, because the driver behind them isn't paying attention either, and plows right in. The next car is a tractor-trailer, which jacknifes across the lanes, horns blowing the entire time. Traffic slams to a halt, but not before four more cars have joined the pileup, sliding it gently into one of the bridge supports. The impact knocks the girl backwards, off the rail and onto the asphalt of the bridge. She shakes her head, blinks against the smoke from below, and staggers home.
The next day, the flesh of her right hand and arm is unmarked all the way to the elbow.
She tries another bridge later in the week, superstitious, although this time she waits until late at night. No accidents. No newly unscarred skin, either. She can't stop touching her arm, although it doesn't itch anymore. She's hypnotized by the sight of herself without imperfections. Her fingers move more easily now. She types more quickly at work. Her coworkers don't notice the physical change under her long-sleeve shirt, but they whisper about how she smiles.
The girl finds other solutions. One day she trips a coworker down a stairwell by accident, and her scars retreat to above the elbow. She pulls the fire alarm, emptying the building for a couple hours, and the new skin reaches her neck. After each act of chaos, the affected scars feel cool to the touch before they fade away overnight. She feels guilty about the remedy, but can't stop. It feels too good to wake up with a little more of herself uncovered. The girl had become used to her markings, as if they were integral to her identity. That has changed: she sees herself now as someone pure, maybe even beautiful, being revealed from underneath her retreating disfigurement. She hums "Swan Lake" to herself on the Metro in the mornings.
And deep down, she loves the daring, mischievous (dangerous?) girl who plays the pranks, sabotages the work of others, causes such a terrible commotion. It is a thrilling thing to suddenly be a femme fatale, one with a skin full of excuses for her bad behavior.
When the scars have retreated past her face (opened a door as that bike messenger was going by--she sent him a card at the hospital but is suprised to find that she's not really sorry), the girl can't hide the change in her appearance anymore. She tells her friends and coworkers that it's laser surgery. Amazing, what they can do nowadays, she says. A boy from Customer Service asks her out one day. She lets him take her to the movies. He's almost amused by her scars and their story. After the third date, she stops answering his calls. When they pass in the hall, she remains stone-faced to his pleading glances. She responds to his e-mail by threatening to report him to HR. And at home, she relishes the now-smooth surfaces of her shoulders in the mirror.
The smaller the markings become, the more they itch. At least, that's the way it seems. Maybe it's just her mind being focused on them. She wonders if she's becoming obsessed.
The smaller the markings become, the harder it is to remove them. The same trick won't work twice, she finds (no card for that cyclist), although a slightly more harmful version sometimes does. She wonders where it is leading her, and how far she is willing to go.
She no longer wonders at why her scars vanish, or why her cure is someone else's disease. She comes close, one day, to that level of introspection. It's at the movies, of all places.
The girl has always heard about yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. She feels like it's expected of her, now that she's become a walking catastrophe. It would be a shame to let it go untested. So on opening day for the summer blockbuster, she buys herself a ticket to the prime-time showing, plus a big box of popcorn, nachos, and the largest soda they'll sell her. Then she plops down in the middle of the theatre and kicks her boots up on the seat in front of her.
Her mistake is just one of timing. She's not really paying attention to the flick at all, just waiting to see when everyone is most likely to be distracted. So the girl doesn't realize that the onscreen hero has a gun pulled on his nemesis--it's a very tense moment--right when she sits up, takes a deep breath, and screams:
"FIRE!"
There's a pause, a silence, and then a laugh from the people in the theatre. "Yeah, shoot the bastard!" someone yells. The girl is taken aback. She's lost her nerve for a moment. The action hero puts down his gun, an explosion goes off, and the light reflected from the projector's beam shows the girl the faces of the people all around her. Some are bored, some are laughing, some are enraptured. Has she really believed that she can cure herself by putting those same people in harm's way? Was she really willing to do that? Look at them, enjoying their packaged violence. Ghouls.
Her left-hand fingers itch under the scars.
She takes the top off her soda. Dumps it in the lap of the audience member to the right. Stands up, tipping the nachos over to the left. Walks out. Doesn't think about the ethics of her peculiar skin any more.
And so, in the end, the girl finds herself in the basement of her apartment building, staring at the water heater, a monkey wrench in one hand, a cigarette in the other. She's thinking that if she hits it in just the right place, she could dump cold water into the showers of everyone in the building. Of course, she could also set the place on fire. Maybe even blow the tank, send natural gas flooding through the basement to be ignited by a single spark, kill everyone in the building including herself. It would probably hurt quite a bit.
On the other hand (ha!), there's still just the tips of the fingers on her left hand still unclean, the scars masking and distorting her fingerprints. On cue, she scratches the fingers together in absent-minded irritation.
She hefts the wrench. Looks at the piping. Thinks about the possibilities. In the part of her mind that still feels like she has a choice, she wonders if she'll swing.
12:00 x Thomas x /fiction/short x link x 1 comment
Variax 700 Bass: Final Thoughts
This is a hard instrument to describe. "Conservative" may be the most accurate word--not in the political sense, but in the way that it really takes no chances with either its styling or the modeling technology. I tend to think that's a disappointment, but the Variax does make it a phenomenal recording instrument. After five months with it, I'm not sure I'd take it live, but it's a real asset to the home studio, especially at the current, reduced price.
Physically, the Variax is kind of a Super Stingray. The body style, neck width, and the sheer heft of the thing are all very similar to the revered Music Man basses. It's a heavy, chunky bass with a solid feel. Clearly, the Stingray has been a broad success, and Line 6 probably made a wise choice to ape its look and feel. But the imitation is also a little stifling. For one thing, what I tend to notice first is the wide string spacing. Ever since replacing the bridge on the All-Star with an adjustable Gotoh model, I've stuck with a very narrow distance from string to string, which feels faster to me. The Variax's wide neck and bridge put a lot more space between each string, and aren't adjustable. That's understandable, since I'm sure creating a fully-adjustable piezo bridge is very difficult, and it's great for slap-happy Stingray fans, but it's frustrating that a modeling bass (with several small-scale or narrow-necked instruments on tap) locks players into a single bridge configuration.
Of course I'm going to complain about the fret access on the Variax as well. But it's not so much that the frets are limited--21 still seems a little cramped after learning on 24, but it's honestly only 3 fewer semitones, and that's why I own a Whammy. I'm more frustrated by how hard the body style makes it to reach those last few notes. Like many Fender-style instruments, the Variax has a lower cutaway but it's not contoured into the body to accommodate the fretted hand. It's painful trying to reach up past the 19th fret or so. Players who tend to stick to the bottom octave of each string aren't going to find this objectionable--but again, why make a modeling bass so stingy and unforgiving, especially since several of the models (particularly the Thumb and the Alembic) prominently featured the high frets?
Let's talk about the models, while we're on the topic. With more experience using each of them, I've definitely found some favorites. The usual suspects (Fenders, Stingrays, and Rickenbackers) are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from their inspirations in the mix. The Hofner Beatle Bass and Gibson EB-2D models offer a very cool glimpse into instruments where their flaws have become strengths--the Hofner's lack of sustain and the Gibson's woofy, indistinct bassiness are both modeled well. The acoustics are wonderful, especially since real acoustic basses (either acoustic-electric or upright) can be so finicky. With that said, the flatwound models are still not terribly convincing, and the eight-string bass is still awful, with pitch-shifting artifacts all over the place. I'm not sure why the twelve is better-behaved, but it's much more convincing, as long as you don't let notes sustain too long. There's one caveat on that, however: I've noticed that sometimes the EQ for the 12-string goes out of whack, and notes become unbearably tinny. It's not something I can reproduce reliably, but it does seem to happen more often when playing chords. I'd hate to imagine it going haywire live.
Even setting aside the useless flatwound settings, there are still several models on here that just seem to have been included for trivia purposes and not for any distinct sonic character. It seems silly, for example, to imitate a Steinberger on a bass that's so physically its opposite. I also can't imagine that anyone actually needed four jazz basses just for the fretless and active preamp options, especially since the Variax effectively adds active EQ to all its passive models. I'd have easily traded several of these models for the ability to create custom presets like on some of the guitar Variaxes--considering that I'll never use the eight-string bass, it's kind of a pain that I always have to hit an additional selector knob to skip it and go to the 12-string. The fusion with the PodXT Live (which also powers the bass, eliminating the intrusive power adapter) no doubt addresses these picked nits, but it's another $400.
All of these little frustrations make the "user interface" for the Variax a slightly mixed experience, one that doesn't make for a lot of customization in either software or hardware. And the sounds themselves, while excellent in quality, are also fairly conservative. There's nothing really off-the-wall here. The bass even feels a little stiff and unresponsive--although it has no problems with dynamics and it never feels "computerized," what it doesn't do is respond to playing on different parts of the string. I suspect this has to do with the piezo inputs, which only see the string at its very end, compared to the wider central viewpoint of a traditional pickup. It's disconcerting, after learning to manipulate tone manually on a passive bass, to move from plucking at the bridge up to the neck and not hear much of a difference.
Yet that same control is part of what makes the Variax a great recording tool. You can be pretty sure that you can get any classic tone you want out of it, without too many variables to mess it up (the noiseless piezo is very nice in an unshielded electrical environment, I must admit). And although the generic feel of the instrument is inferior to your favorite, customized bass, that's not the point. Once you get used to it, the Variax provides basically the same thing for instruments as the Pod did for amps: it's a good sound in a very small space, accessed in a way that isn't going to thrill anyone, but also isn't likely to send them screaming for the hills either. You need some small amount of engineering skill to get the best out of the Variax. You shouldn't expect it to replace a primary axe, especially for live use. You absolutely should not learn to play on a Variax. But I'm rather fond of it as a utilitarian tool for doing fast, effective recording. If you go in with that as a goal, I think you won't be disappointed.
12:10 x Thomas x /music/tools/bass x link x 0 comments
For my own future reference:
QR codes are a way to turn text information (including vCards) into a two-dimensional pattern. Anything with a camera and the right software (read: cell phones, PDAs, computers) can decode that information back into text, URL, or metadata form. If it's got a decent screen, it could even encode it for another device. The codes are common in Japan, but several manufacturers (including Microsoft and Nokia) have made moves towards more widespread usage.
I'm interested in this because it blurs the line between print and digital in a very cheap and easy-to-create way, and I see my career headed in that direction. Clearly, print's not going anywhere, but a lot of people right now are looking at scenarios to integrate it with online information in a smart way. Cell phones are becoming smarter, and as they do they're a natural vector for information, but it's almost always a pain to get information into them, whether you're using T9 or a soft keyboard. And why type when you can have it read the URL for you?
So a magazine might be able to link articles from print to online in very little space, so that anyone with a smartphone can explore related materials. Music publications could link to sound samples. And I can put a QR-encoded vCard onto my business card, and then someone can add me to their phone or Outlook contacts just by taking a picture of it.
And these are just what first comes to mind. I need to think about this for a while.
11:19 x Thomas x /journalism/new_media x link x 0 comments
Here is the problem with DC: we are going to spend some time socially with some friends this month. One of those friends is apparently very conservative. Now, I'm not in favor of segregating myself from opposing political viewpoints entirely. I don't have any particularly right-wing acquaintances myself, but that's probably more luck than anything else (and the fact that I try not to talk politics at work, of course). And in most places around the country, political viewpoints are just that: viewpoints. They can be ignored, because except for elections (assuming that your friends vote) they have no real power.
But this time, and this is what separates our fair city from others, we are meeting with someone who actually works for a major conservative institution.
In this case, Belle calls me up to ask if I'm free for that evening, mentioning slyly at the end of the call that I would need to "be polite." It's a shame that she feels the need to ask me not to start screaming uncontrollably about the fascists. Not that I would do that. I prefer muttering and spasming randomly. I can be civil. But Belle knows me, and so she reminds me to be good anyway.
This is only a problem if you actually believe what you say you believe. By which I mean, if you honestly think that policy has concrete impacts on real people, especially policies like torture, failure to respond to natural disaster, pollution, corruption, warfare, and other fun hobbies of the Worst. President. Ever... then yes, in that case, it can be a little hard to smile and chat politely with someone who is not just an enthusiast for those policies, but a paid footsoldier. In a less contentious environment, I'd probably be churlish for saying something like this, but it's not like the last few years have been filled with compromise or cooperation. In fact, they've been downright unhealthy for those on the wrong side of our lawmakers.
DC, in other words, is a bad place to have the courage of your convictions. Because half the people you know socially probably work from 9-5 to twist the system into shapes that you find absolutely reprehensible.
There are two ways to get off the horns of this dilemma. The first is to avoid the situation whenever possible, which is rarely. The other is to learn to segment the personal from the political, and subsequently to act as if the political implications of a person's job are just a funny quirk that no-one discusses. I find this distasteful, personally. I think it leads to a tendency that you see far too often around here: people unplug from the stress of the city by treating politics as just a game. They act like they're not responsible for their day jobs. It makes for a pleasant after-hours environment, but it downplays the real-world consequences of think-tank and government work.
As a result of this culture, every now and then journalists and op-ed writers complain about how activists and enthusiasts on blogs are "too partisan" and "adversarial." They have become accustomed to people who treat policy as an abstract instead of concrete. And don't get me wrong: I strongly feel that journalists should be able to cover the political debate fairly. I tried to do so myself, on the few occasions when I was paid to write about politics. That's a journalist's job. But that doesn't mean that a journalist should lack political opinions. Far from it. I think they enhance the ability to present good, objective, factual coverage. Critically-held opinions are a way of grounding coverage--of saying yes, sure, but what does that mean for real people?
In order to ignore the criticisms of the Iraq invasion in 2003 (and they did: rational anti-war viewpoints were simply not presented*), journalists had to treat that policy as entirely abstract. But war is not abstract. People die from it--worse, people are maimed and scarred, phsyically and psychologically. It's obvious, once that's taken into account, that more investigation was needed. Instead, the culture of politics-as-parlor-game prevailed, and seemingly nobody asked serious questions until it was too late. To do otherwise would have been impolite. It would have meant facing the possibility that the people those journalists interviewed and had dinner and parties with off-hours were, in fact, capable of doing monstrous things.
Well, we know how that turned out.
But don't worry. There'll be no screaming, even if there ought to be. Especially if I get it out of my system here, instead.
* You may be wondering what I consider a rational anti-war viewpoint. The problem with most of the viewpoints presented before the invasion was that they asked the wrong questions. They said something like "isn't Saddam a bad man who should go away?" or "how could a third-world country run by a corrupt kleptocrat possibly defeat us?" These were poor questions, and they were specifically poor because, as above, they presume that the policies are not about people, but simply about "spreading democracy" and whether or not we should do so.
Before we get into another war (and don't think that there aren't several presidential candidates just itching to try), perhaps we should lay out a few preferable principles:
19:37 x Thomas x /dc/annoyances x link x 1 comment
With my contract in limbo, it makes me feel better to sell a few games. Just in case. The capsule reviews are free:
18:09 x Thomas x /gaming/software x link x 0 comments
As ethnic foods go, Ethiopian is maybe an acquired taste. The usual meal consists of lots of vegetable sides, surrounding a pile of spicy beef or lamb cubes, which you scoop up from a communal plate using a sour flatbread. I first had it about three years ago, when a photographer from the Washington Asia Press and I ditched the mayor's toydrive to get some dinner, and loved it immediately. Last night we introduced it to Belle's mom and brother via one of the better Ethiopian joints in DC, Dukem on U Street.
Oddly enough, this can be a tough sell. Some people just aren't really interested in wrapping their paws in spongy bread and scooping up handfuls of something that looks like creamed corn, something else that looks like pureed spinach, and the centerpiece of rare beef cooked with crispy, fresh tomatos. Some people have no sense of adventure. Although I'd like to say that Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, is clearly not one of them, since he was sitting down at a table with his family as we left. That's not really relevant to the post, I just thought it was kind of cool.
The food is one reason that I could never live away from a city. I'm still finding new flavors, either in restaurants or for my own cooking. A few days ago on a whim I stopped in at the Food Star on Columbia Pike, and found myself standing in front of a fridge shelf that was filled with six or seven kinds of chorizo, sorted by country and heat. And a few shelves over, handmade tortillas! I have been trying to find those ever since Alton Brown told me that every major city should have its own tortilla factory.
In A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain spends some time on the theme of cultural tourism--both how a meal is situated in its specific circumstances, like a pig-slaughter in Portugal or roasted lamb in Morocco, and also how visiting other countries reveals some of the oddities in the American diet, such as how our middle-class prosperity has shaped our cuisine (or more specifically, left it a little shapeless). And I always go through a little bit of the same revelation when I step into one of the immigrant grocery stores.
It's not to say that DC is a serious foodie city, because I don't think it really is, and I'd never know anyway. I can't afford to eat at places like Taberna del Alabardero, much less Kinkead's or Citronelle--or at least, I like to think that I can't. It's probably easier on my wallet that way, and you can still be spoiled for choice here, like in most big cities. And there's a pretty good mix of cultural backgrounds to enjoy. I have yet to find a place that serves authentic Chinese food--though I prefer the bastardized American Chinese food to the real thing anyway--but since moving to the area I've been exposed to a variety of different cuisines, from Ethiopian tibs to Korean barbecue, and still have a list of several to try.
I think this is why I can't understand people who are genuinely anti-immigrant--not just angry about the loss of jobs, but actually upset by those dirty foreigners. I want to take the complainers to the place in Fairfax where I had pho for the first time, or to the Lebanese Taverna. Taste this! I want to say. How can you be upset by someone who makes this food? Why wouldn't we want more of those people here? We are enriched by their presence. We should have an explicit cuisine visa, as far as I'm concerned. Your food is delicious? Welcome to America.
13:54 x Thomas x /dc/local_flavor x link x 1 comment
From the Television Without Pity Top Chef recaps, and filed under "so disgusting, it might just be delicious," I give you the Meatcake.
If it weren't for the fact that I would have to eat it all myself, I would try this tomorrow.
10:56 x Thomas x /random/cooking x link x 1 comment
What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than with a Michael Moore movie?
Sicko (I will not bow to anyone's ridiculous capitalization schemes) has less Moore, pardon the pun, than previous documentaries, but probably provokes more thought. It is, as the director himself states in the film and several pundits have noticed, as much a movie about who we as Americans want to be as it is about health care. Do we want to be a nation that forces people to choose which finger they can afford to have reattached? Should we be a country that quibbles over health care for 9/11 volunteers, now suffering from pulmonary problems due to the hazardous dust?
It's easy to see this movie from my perspective and say no, we shouldn't be that kind of country. And I think it's remarkably persuasive at making that point, both in showing the advantages of other health care systems and by noting the other areas where America has implemented "socialized" government (education, transit, libraries, etc.)
It's persuasive to me, but I'm practically a socialist already. I don't know how it plays to the kind of people that think the government should be devoted only to invading countries and funding churches. I have a feeling that a lot of people will not be able to see beyond the idea of corporations and economies as the root level of the American system. Many people tend to forget that those corporations and economies are in fact composed of people just like us--or they choose to believe that the people are less important than the economic machines they constitute.
As for Sicko, if there's one weak point, it's probably Moore's trip to Cuba. He's not a subtle man, but you can see admirable restraint in the rest of the film: in fact, he often frames himself as the ridiculous American, unable to believe that the English, French, and Canadian systems provide such caring service. Moore's awkward bulk becomes a kind of sight gag, as well as a symbol of American prejudices on the issue. Sadly, he abandons that light touch for his jabs at Guantanamo, and the last third of the film suffers a little for it--not enough to falter completely, but enough that you wish he'd just get on with it.
12:26 x Thomas x /movies/reviews/documentary x link x 1 comment
The Bank's HR system has a bug in it, where they can't start my short-term contract until my long-term contract wraps up, and they seem to be having a delay with that. So it's just me and Wallace hanging out right now. Say hello, Wallace.
Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?
The whole thing is a fluffy, loosely-sourced collection of flattery that largely comes from Republican policymakers and hacks, all of whom seem to be worried sick about the tremendous pressure that Bush faces. He seems to be holding up so well! they marvel. Although the article carefully places all the dots, it does not see fit to connect them: maybe he seems oblivious to his poor perception and his disastrous war not because of his faith or his stubbornness, but because he's truly unconcerned with any of it.
13:35 x Thomas x /random/linky x link x 1 comment
