Knuckledragger

Oh boy 45 minutes on old with Sweetwater. Their hold music BLARINGLY, DEAFENINGLY LOUD. Also terribad and interrutped by unnaturally perky sounding people telling me shit IDGAF about in any lifetime. Finally got a tech, which lead to another 45 minutes of back and forth, installing a creepy-ass TeamViewer app, much fuckery with Traktor, system configs etc ...all of which lead to confirmation that yes, Julia, channels 1 & 2 on the MOTU are in fact dead. New unit being shipped for Friday. I hafta get the old one in the mail within <mumble> days. Probably no show this Friday, either.

French activists seized Putin's daughter's villa for refugees from Ukraine. Hon hon hon, get le stuffed!

RIP Brent Renaud, the first US journalist killed Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The good news: I found my DJ mixer. I had indeed put it in its original 2005 shipping box, which is what a Smart Knuckles does. The bad news: I think my shiny new MOTU M4 is borked. I cannot get sound out of channels 1-2 no matter what I do. The device is class compliant (does not require drivers) and it worked (or rather "worked") out of the box. I got Traktor to recognize it, though it showed up in the device list as "Audio Out." I assiged the two decks to outputs 1-2 and 3-4 respectively. The appropriate volume bars on the M4's display lit up when I play back a track on either deck. Channels 3-4 worked just fine. No amount of swapping cables and inputs on the DJ mixer could elicit any sound from 1-2. I then installed the M4's Mac drivers (certified to work with Monterey) and enabled the extension (everything is disabled by defualt in newer versions of MacOS.) That caused the M4 to show up in the device list under its own name, but it didn't fix the lack of sound output on the first two channels. I've powerecycled everything (including the DJ mixer) but nothing has worked. I might try the M4 on a different machine, but I STRONGLY suspect my M4 is faulty So, uh, no show next week I think.

I made a discovery today: I have no idea as to the location of my DJ mixer. I moved it off my desk some time in the 6+ month period I’ve been off the air and I haven’t the foggiest where I stashed it. It’s large, fragile and expensive so I know I put it some place safe. I have no idea where that is. I do have an even older backup unit, which I am probably going to press into service at least for test purposes. I don’t relish using it for anything beyond that.

China calls for verification of Russian claims of US bioweapons help to Ukraine. Significant inasmuch as China is indirectly bankrolling Putin's efforts. Russian central bank decides not to reopen stock market trading next week. Who needs stock trading? Putin offers battle-hardened fighters from the Middle East up to $3,000 a month to reinforce Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Good luck with that. EDIT: Nationalize AAPL?

Can confirm, I did spend fairly large part of the 1990s doing just that.

Don't touch Vlad's yacht!

Putin places head of the FSB's foreign intelligence branch under house arrest for failing to warn him that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion Clown. Putin is preparing a terrorist attack on Chernobyl Power Plant and will blame Ukraine - says Chief Directorate of Intelligence, Ukrainian Ministry of Defence YIPE.

Russian ex-minister says invasion of Ukraine is stalling because officials stole from military budget for 'mega-yachts in Cyprus'

Polandball community had a good take on this one:

Ukrainian children’s hospital completely wiped out by Russian bombing.

Itch.io has a huge bundle of games for $10. Proceeds go to help Ukraine.

Big Blue done with .ru No Big Mac for you.

Another long form video, this one by a US vet. Initially I wasn't sure I was sold on him when SkyNet AI that is YouTube's recommendation algorithm suggested this video to me. About halfway through I began to get his perspective and sense of humor.

This is a long form video from a guy with a fairly thick accent. I had to pay pretty close attention to follow along with what he was aying. I'm dyslexic and while the trope of the backwards R is a canard, auditory processing language is all to real. That said, I was able to glean a fair amount of interesting info from this vid. TL;DW: Russia is corrupt, full of hubris and vastly overestimated their own abilities as well as completely UNDERestimated Ukrainian resistance.

Exhibit A: Exhibit B:

Get tae fuck indeed. #ScottishPeopleTwitter

Internet backbone provider shuts off service in Russia(!)