An experimental analysis of the song “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar, digitized from a 45 RPM vinyl single. This experiment was entered into to find if sampling the vinyl disc at a higher rate (by slowing down the input to a digitizer at the same sample rate) and then resampling would…
Category: ramblings
Star Wars Blu-rays
So, you may have heard the Star Wars Blu-rays are coming out in a couple of weeks. After the last of the prequels came out, I was annoyed at Lucas’ clumsy storytelling, and… well, with those and the Special Editions, it felt like a cheapening of some great movies that I loved from my childhood….
NPR’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Survey
NPR just did an exhaustive survey of their readership to form a list of their readers’ top 100 science fiction and fantasy books of all time: More than 5,000 of you nominated. More than 60,000 of you voted. And now the results are in. The winners of NPR’s Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey are…
A History of the World in 6 Glasses
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage My rating: 4 of 5 stars Entertaining overview of a fun premise. A bit euro-centric (the history of the beverages is mostly discussed as they enter the history of Europe and, in Coke’s case, the USA, regardless of when they first came on the…
Volkswagen OBD/DTC Codes
If your VW is having trouble and you need to find out what those cryptic DTC codes mean, here’s the place to look, for posterity. Related: looks like I have a big car repair bill coming. 🙁
Sony MDR-7506 Headphone Pads
The Sony MDR-7506 headphones seem to be a default staple of the TV production world since the mid-90s, and so when I got a pair for myself, those were the ones to get. They sound great, have reasonably neutral frequency response, and seem to last forever, no matter how much you beat them up. (Mine…
Final Cut Pro X: Is it really Pro?
I’m almost loathe to write anything up about Final Cut Pro X at this point. There’s been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and joking) about it, plus a couple of over overly rosy reviews, but I figure one more voice from a more centrist position can’t hurt. However, note that I’ve only played…