♫ You can't afford the ticket. ♬

Oh Sweet Lord how I loved this stuff. The formula was alchemy, just romantically good. It was one of the things that proved that the best technology and sincere consumer craftsmanship could earn sincere respect and affection. UD/XL II did not disappoint… Ever.

Two sinceres, sorry. God how I loved that stuff.

Some times, a word bears repeating.

Listen, the pointless damage to young lives from brutal inner-city culture is undeniably tragic, but sometimes we have to acknowledge that the same aggression bucks and scratches within our own hearts.

Ah yes, the cassette holy wars. For the record, I was a Maxell guy too, although I experimented with other stuff here and there. I even had a few ferrichrome tapes, and a deck with the right bias and EQ settings for them.

Used to do crude mixtapes by recording stuff on cassette and then editing tapes together. I still have an editing block somewhere.

Wait, you're surprised?

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1154133338166370305

Ferrichrome! Haven't heard the word in forty years.

A -> D was a fun transition to live through. Children laugh at us on the street now for our silly old machinery... But having to deal with all those problems made the glory of digital that much more obvious.

As they cart my desiccated, reeking carcass past the gates of Hell, this melody will herald my arrival at that place of righteous torment. It will be the 1969 mixdown, not the 1986.

Boulanger was one of the great composition teachers of the 20th. Toward the end of her career, she'd challenge her students by playing Peaches and asking them what was going on in the recording.

I think the correct answer, aside from all the rhythmic and harmonic deets, was that it was composed using a 16-track tape recorder, almost as literally as Bach used a quill. And it was very specifically an analog device, allowing certain arrangement and performance flourishes that would otherwise be impossible.

Listen, I think it's FZ's melodic masterwork, but even *he* couldn't play that main riff without speed-shifting the tape... It was only a couple of years ago, nearly five decades later, that someone explained exactly what was going on with my favorite song. The man was all about the prime numbers.

On the whole, digital tech is so indescribably more powerful that it would be pathetic to squeal about the lost wonders of analog. And FZ was an early adopter. A snapshot from those days records one of his few, deadly serious smiles.

But one of FZ's heroes, Stravinsky (of Los Angeles!!) happened incidentally to describe the charm of that moment… In the whole of musical history, it was shorter than a blink, but it was great to have been here for it.

I can't tell if this is "really cool" or just obvious.

The prescient Talking Heads knew the scooters were coming.

Take 'em to the river.

Looks interesting. I've mostly ditched chrome for the brave browser, but I haven't quite gotten to the point of thinking that Google Chrome is unsafe but I'm leaning that way.

https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

Glancing at the head line, my eyes saw "Link shack" and that made me think of the B-52s.

https://youtu.be/9SOryJvTAGs

Didn't see this coming.

https://www.thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-jessica-yaniv-accused-of-trying-to-share-child-porn-sexual-harassment-of-minors/

Here, hold muh taco . . .

Woman arrested after pouring alcohol into Taco Bell drive-thru employee's mouth

> mostly ditched chrome
> for the brave

You should have Tor, everyone should. It's portable, which is helpful.

Also, I've been using Dissenter (from the Gab people) for the last few weeks to get past the NYT & WaPo type annoyances.

I heard something bad about Brace but can't remember the details...

Ah, wiki says ad swapping — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)

I'm starting to think religious professionals don't study anything besides religion and graft.

Bishop sez buttsex during pregnancy turns the baby gay.

Well, maybe Catholic.

Yoo Guuyyyyyttthhh, that isn't EVEN a priest-molestation joke…

This is a tough room nowadays.