Knuckledragger

Silksong crashes Steam, Nintendo eShop on release day — highly anticipated indie video game took six years to arrive and is already one of the most played games ever on Steam. My (sainted, octogenarian) mother asked me about Silksong today. Its launch was so big that the type of news she listens to covered it.

I went back to 2010 this week. I didn't buy and bitcoin or, ahem, play any classic 8 bit Nintendo games. I did blow the metaphorical and some of the actual dust off my PowerShot S95. (More on that in a minute.) It took me a couple tries to get it going. It took me even longer to figure out how to use the damn thing. The S series of PowerShots (S95 to S110 or so) have dual physical wheels, which is the best. I had to work to remember exposure compensation. I also had to set the time, date and things like picture style. All of this took some futzing. Unfortunately, about 10 years ago during one cold and miserable winter, I got depressed and left the S95 on its back for six months (while running the wood stove). The meant it got some killer sensor grime, which I cannot clean. In broad daylight the dirt is invisible, but indoors the dirt specs are a curse. This is a shame as the S95 has an F/2 lens and works quite well in low light. With that said, I took a stroll through downtown Edgartown and snapped a few street shots. The best second hand store on MV was on this street for decades. Now it's a boutique that sells uber-expensive skin care products. Downtown Edgartown is still bustling with "shoulder season" people. The kids are back in school, so now it's blue haired retirees and buses full of people with name tags. It's a PITA to navigate around them, but TBH I cannot blame them. The weather is perfect here this time of year. The four trees in front of this house are of historical significance. That thing on the other side purports to be a Volkswagen. Looking down toward South Water St. That farthest point is Chappaquiddick. Built in 1703(!), this is one of the oldest buildings on the Vineyard. I quite like it, but the modern signs in front of it are ugly AF. This is the only shot I posted that I don't totally like. For some reason I shot it wide open (F/2) and there's significant smearing in the upper corners. As I mentioned, I'm just getting re-acquainted with the S95 after a decade. Also what's happened in the interceding 10 years is that my vision has deteriorated sufficiently that I can NOT read the controls of the camera without my glasses on. This makes all aspects of photography more complicated. EDG harbor with Chappy in the background. There's not one but two catamarans in this shot. One is the famous Mad Max and the other is even more strange looking, somehow. My mother was friends with a Swiss woman who owned a farm on Chappy. (That is a huge deal. Chappaquiddick isn't that big, and the island itself is eroding. Land on it is very precious.) She was born in 1924 and refused to accept the idea that Mad Max was a real boat. A kid dropped their heart glasses and some kind soul put them on top of a mailbox in case they came back looking for them. This sweet dog was waiting patiently for his mistress. He turned to look at me just for a second before she returned. The S95 is fast enough that I caught him the moment his head turned.

I mean, it's a nice starter system.

In the parlance of our times ZoomerSpeak, bro's speaker-to-everything-else ratio tho.

Does Quad still make a DAC or some Quad-like equivalent? They love to make CDPs and preamps with digital inputs. To this day the most "musical" DAC I've ever owned is my Quad 99 CDP-2 (which is now so old it'd be a senior in high school.) Looking at their website, they have an "Artera Play+" model which appears to be a CDP with six digital inputs and USB. That sounds like the Quad I know and love, batshit insane but with a real beauty mixed in with their quirkiness.

I genuinely cannot tell the political stance of this parody. Is it mocking Cracker Barrel and their logo redesign kerfuffle? Is it making fun of Bernie? Is it lampooning the former from the perspective of the latter? In any case, it's well executed.

That reminds me,

I started posting this in the ambient/IDM thread and quickly realized I was talking about cats, not ambient music. I have mentioned Martin Strutzer to my (sainted, octogenarian) mother a number of times over the years, specially how he does live ambient "jams" while his incredibly well behaved cat sits patiently beside him. She asked me to play a video of him performing, and I found this one on the YouTubes: The cat does its job to a T. I continue to be amazed how cooperative it is. Compare to my attempts to DJ with the "help" of Ozzie the cat some 15 years ago: I never DJ'd around Heidi the cat, but I am positive I know what she'd have done if I did. It would NOT be "sit there patiently and wait to be petted."

This is going to be fairly long walk (and a puerile one at that), without much point. Okay, maybe two points. Also, I'm not suggesting anyone actually watch any of these videos, other than to maybe skip around a bit. Remember Rebecca Black and her big vinral song "Friday" from 2011? Do not press play. You entire day will go better if you don't. The internet hated it, but gave it tens of millions of views (175M as of this writing.) Poor Rebecca was 14 at the time and not ready for the vitriol of the entire internet. She handled the whole situation far better than most, I think. Eight years later, BuzzFeed (bless their hearts) did a video on her as part of their "I became a meme" series: I actually did watch this when it came out. I don't remember much, except that Rebecca seemed pretty well adjusted. This is the Boiler Room. At one point the "premiere underground" broadcaster of electronic music. There was a time when they were THE hit thing and nearly every famous DJ wanted and in many cases did play on there. Their rise paralleled Rebecca Black chronologically. Even in they heyday, I had my suspicions. I have always viewed the world's most famous DJs with at best a significant reservations (Richie Hawtin) and at worst, unimaginable and unending scorn (David Guetta). Well, now how the mighty have fallen: This is the only video in this entire post I actually encourage anyone to watch. It's a pretty good synopsis of what made the Boiler Room good (if it ever was) and what a wretched corporatized state it exists in now. TIL (or, strictly speaking, YIL) Rebecca Black did a Boiler Room set last year. The whole thing missed me when it happened. I skipped around and it's weirdly fast vocal driven EDM and dear GOD am I not on the same page a club music this ...last 15 years. What I took away from this video is that Rebecca Black is now a fully grown woman in her late 20s and she has huge ...tracts of land. Of course [NSFW] there is a subreddit dedicated to her girl Fridays, which was the top result when I searched redderp for stuff on her Boiler Room set.

Oh boy. New OL post. Yes, I am going to repost all of them here.

This one is for the fathead.

That's wild, as it uses a white Apple logo some 15 years before it became the company standard.

Via Flickr, two fun bits of history: Edit: Anyone know what is that rectangular thing to the left of the Lisa? Behind the "bar of soap" mouse. I think it might be a software box.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here: $473 in audio plugins for less than $3 with the discount code FUCKUADANDGUITARCENTER because guitar center pissed off Sam Pura.

RIP Maurice Tempelsman. I don't know too much about him except that he was Jackie Kennedy Onassis' last partner and made it within five days of his 96th birthday(!)

These were posted in the audiophile subreddit and there was much cluck-clucking over room acoustics.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson croaked. Suddenly I'm in the mood to say good things about Hulk Hogan, if you take my meaning.

Here, or speaker porn? The ostentatious aesthetic of the amps wins out, I think.

I have questions.

Apple accidentally leaked its own top secret hardware in software code, revealing new products across seven categories. Every Apple Secret That Leaked Wednesday. Second generation Apple Vision Pro, which will continue to be less stupid looking than Zucc Glasses.

This is peak Gen Z humor, I assure you.

Final batch. This isn't all of them, but it's beyond my ability to xref which ones I've posted before at this point. If you really require more roverhub, check this tag. Gratuitous bork: Probably my favorite photo of the day. I did a bunch of interior shots, a number of which were marred by the damn lens hood being askew, and others flawed with lighting issues. This one actually nails it. No one mentions "bokeh" when talking about Canon EF 14-40mm F/4 superwide zoom, but the fact of the matter is that it handles OOF highlights very well.

Tim Apple is no Jobs. Joke from 25 years ago: