I finished OddTaxi. Noir with (mostly) cute animals works pretty well when the writing is strong. It likely is the best show of the year, though I can’t say for sure because I haven’t watched more than a few episodes of anything else. Considered as anime, it’s something out of the ordinary and worth sampling if you have an interest in animated storytelling. Considered as noir, I’m not so sure. My knowledge of the genre doesn’t extend far beyond “Watching the Detectives,” and I suspect that connoisseurs might find the ending unsatisfyingly upbeat. Iniksbane has mixed feelings. Nick Creamer discusses the first episode in detail here.
And that’s it for 2021. Nothing this fall looks interesting, so I’ll pop in a disc of Hozuki or Humanity Has Declined when I’m in the mood to watch something.
Does your Fazioli seem tame? Do you feel limited by your Imperial Bösendorfer? Try a 108-key grand piano from Stuart and Sons in New South Wales.
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If you want the extended range but don’t have an extra $300,0001 handy, Modartt’s New York Steinway D goes down an extra octave to a very low A, and up a fourth to a high F. The additional notes aren’t particularly musical — the low ones are mushy and metallic, the high ones have barely any perceptible pitch — but they might occasionally be useful for musical eccentrics, and a virtual grand piano is a lot cheaper than the real thing.
Yeah, this warning about language probably appears on every single National Archives Catalog page, not just these three. The website crew can’t possibly think the Constitution itself contains “potentially harmful content.” Right?
We recently had heavy rains, to which the local fungi energetically responded. The above popped up in the front yard. The puffball made another appearance, below. It’s about five inches in diameter.
Possibly of interest to those who make music with their computers or might want to do so: IK Multimedia is currently running a “group buy” of much of their software. If you purchase one of the eligible items, after you install and authorize it you can then download at least eleventhirteen twenty-four more software packages of equal or lesser price for free. I stretched my budget a bit to participate, but it will be a while before I know the new toys well enough to discuss. The “MODO” Bass, at least, I’m pretty sure I’ll use.
I got curious about the music software I most frequently use and noticed something odd. IK Multimedia is an Italian company. Applied Acoustic Systems is Canadian. Arturia is French, as is Modartt. Native Instruments and u-he are both German. My digital audio workstation is Logic, an Apple product, but Logic originally was developed by the German company C-Lab/Emagic, from whom I initially purchased it over twenty years ago. There are a lot of other music software developers, and it’s possible that there are some significant makers from the USA that I’ve overlooked. However, the synths and samplers I usually load in my DAW are all from foreign lands.
I recently visited a nearby “nature center.” It’s no substitute for the botanical garden in Wichita, but it’s not a waste of time, either. Its focus is on plants native to Kansas, and there are a number of trails there that I will explore on future visits.
I did find some color there, and a plum.
Lobelia siphiliticaCassia fasciculata, or Chamaecrista fasciculata. Or Cassia chamaecrista.
I recently checked to see if there are any new fractal generators since I lastplayed with them. Apparently not, at least for Macs not running the latest OS. Ultra Fractal is still the most capable. It’s pricey, but it does give you a month’s free trial. Xaos works well also, and it’s free.
Fractal Domains and Fraqtive have not been updated since I last used them over five years ago. It’s possible to make pretty, complicated pictures with them, but it’s a struggle, and to my eyes the results from the other two applications look better. Both are free now, so check them out if you’re curious.
Ultra FractalFractal DomainsFraqtive
For all of these, right-click and open in a new window to see every little detail.
I’m writing this because I think it’s time for everybody to figure out their hard limit in the creeping totalitarianism we are experiencing. I’ve thought about mine, I have figured out what it is, and it’s very calming to know it. I highly recommend thinking about where you stop accommodating the totalitarians. What is off limits? We are all different, and everybody will put their boundary in a different place. That’s OK as long as we all find the boundary.
When we know something is *not* so, there’s no need to censor it. There’s no need to censor phlogiston theory. There’s no need to censor “That wrestling match was totally legitimate.” There’s no need to censor “The moon is made of cheese.” The need for censorship exists when the message is provably true, or open to question with an outright refutation being impossible.
The thing is, Alex Jones claiming the vaccine will alter your DNA is no nuttier than much of what is in the mass media. In fact, a ridiculous claim is far less harmful than the plausible, but inaccurate claim. Few people will think the vaccine will turn you into Big Foot, but most people will believe we need to make kids wear masks. Far more people have been harmed by official lies than by goofballs on the internet.
Some modern renditions of Cinderella replace the “…and they lived happily ever after” for things like, “…and they lived and had their ups and downs, sometimes angry with each other, sometimes sad, and sometimes happy.” But this destroys the point of the tale, which is that Cinderella and her prince (in Grimm’s German literally, “the king’s son”) are an image of Christ and us, and that the “happily ever after” is Heaven. In an effort to make it more realistic they unwittingly make it less realistic since Heaven is, in fact, happiness ever after.
The history of the computer is the destruction and replacement of record making and keeping systems by newer ones that are not backward compatible. Computers destroy history. Future historians (if any survive, 2525) will label our current era as a dark age, because there will be no records of what happened.
Please Stand By [Illustration: Enemy hackers storming the walls]
…while we fight off an army of malicious hackers. Enemy agents are well aware that the key to disrupting the economy of our fair land is the control of Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Publishing Empire. They have been foiled, of course, but it may take a few days to restore normal service.
Update II: The magazine is back at last, and on a new server.
The oldest item in Richard’s box of Japanese magazines is a copy of MyAnime. Here are some scans illustrating the state of anime thirty-six years ago. These are large scans; right-click and open in a new window to see them at full resolution.
