HiWire

A refresher and test of a commercially recorded compact cassette tape - regular 120µs EQ (Type I) vs. 70µs High-Bias Equalization. This video is from 5 years ago - it turns out that manufacturers did not increase quality to supply the compact cassette revival. Theoretically, you could launch a boutique manufacturing company making high-end metal (Type IV) cassettes with Dolby S noise reduction (the patent has expired), playing on Nakamichi-like decks with 3-head setups, dual-capstan closed-loop transports, and auto azimuth correction, but the remaining manufacturers have come in at the bottom with Tanashin clone tape mechanisms and ferric tape reissues, because they know they are selling to a hipster fad, not audiophiles or professionals. Going to replace the belts on my cheapo mid-90s Panasonic RQ-V80 cassette player (which has no bias switches).

That's odd - I thought the Instax were for film, but I'm not sure why you need this instead of a phone camera.

I've got a Nikon D70. It's 22 years old now (2004). The soft plastic bits are getting sticky but everything else works ok, including the battery (I think it's much newer).

ASCII city map update The Beauty of Color Cycling in Video Games

I think people would buy them if they were cheap.

There's a ton of that Chinesium everywhere. Some of them might be good, but I can afford to wait it out. I don't have a video camera or good DSLR (or a business case for content creation), so a shotgun mic is just a curiosity at the moment.

The more I learn about microphones, the more I realize the depths of my ignorance - I didnt' know the Deity microphones were highly controversial with YouTubers, because I had never heard of them... https://www.silverlightphotoco.com/audio-reviews/deity-v-mic-d3-pro I think I did come across the RØDE VideoMic at some point years ago: https://medium.com/@ed_22350/i-tested-both-best-shotgun-microphones-for-video-heres-the-one-thing-everyone-gets-wrong-about-fd7fcd698448 This Audio-Technica ATV-SG1 looks decent:

Basia - the background instruments sound like something out of a Sega Genesis game... maybe Streets of Rage or Shinobi (I mean that in a good way):

Need a mortgage for that Mac Studio... on the other hand, you might cure cancer.

New Mac Mini and Studio announced today - escalating RAM and storage prices make me completely indifferent to the lineup (Apple is also forcing advertising into their Maps app). Mini: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/ Studio: https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/

PetaPixel's useful primer video on shotgun mics started me down the rabbit hole again: Apples and oranges, I don't have a fancy camera, so researching field recording stereo mics again brought me to binaural microphone rigs (like the Roland CS-10EM or DPA 4560) and the the Shure MV88+ and Rode iXY-L stereo microphones for iPhone: https://audioservices.studio/review/microphones-for-iphone For an all-in-1 - the Tascam Portacapture X6 looks reasonable for an all-rounder (this is its bigger brother, the X8):

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Rialto - Neon & Ghost Signs

Happy Birthday!

RIP, Vincent Belorgey, aka Kavinsky (Nightcall song from the Drive (2011) soundtrack) - may have passed away from a stroke at age 50:

Black Sails

Sometimes you just want to watch a man repair a kitchen knife - there are a lot of fake restoration and repair videos online, but this one is like relaxing ASMR - never abuse a fine knife like this:

Split Enz - Time and Tide

Demented fermented - James Hoffmann discusses coffee fermentation:

Wayback playback:

PetaPixel re-reviews the first consumer (under $1,000) digital SLR camera, the 6MP Canon EOS 300D from 2003:

Looks ok - I'l have to re-learn to navigate again. The pages definitely load faster, and their content (like videos), too.

Polar Opposites(?)

I took a dive into some of their sessions and it was like the Keynote, mostly AI slop.