An excellent CD Player that you can still find for cheap

The Aiwa XC-37M (and the earlier XC-35M) CD Changer is outstanding.  The Illinois Audio Society wrote that using its digital output it was the equal of the best CD player they had tested.   I will add that using its own normal analog outputs, it sounds very seriously good.  Not at all what you'd expect from an inexpensive changer.  You can still find these new, on eBay, for around $50.00.  The only downside I've heard anyone mention is that the status display and the play indicator LED blink during play.   If you listen in the dark, you might want to put tape over them.

The Way it Sounded

Album: "In the Court of the Crimson King"
Mix: 2009 new stereo mixdown by Robert Fripp and Steven Wilson 
Pressing: Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) Red Book standard audio CD  "40th Anniversary Edition"

This must be the way it sounded in 1969.  It's absolutely awesome.  I
do not use that word lightly.  This is on a whole different plane than
the "remastered" Emerson Lake and Palmer discs.  This is a labor of
love and it shows all over.  Every instrument has been brought out of
the murk and given its rightful place.  If there was a second flute
track, it's been moved-over in the stereo image so you can appreciate
it more.  This is a recording that has been loved.  Very Carefully.

Actually, it's better than it sounded in the control room, on 1969
control room monitors.  They never got to hear the subtlest details latent
on the tape.  And there's no tape noise.  No wow or flutter, no phase
problems.  It is better than being there in 1969.  And you can do it
at home for cheap.  This is better than time travel.



Fripp says:

The original Wessex recording was on 8-track. This necessitated several sub-mixes; such as drums, bass guitar, piano & acoustic guitar on one stereo pair and all the mellotrons on another. These stereo sub-mixes were then mixed down to the original stereo master; the final master took another generation, to allow for cross-fades; and production masters went another generation. The original stereo master was lost for decades, found by Simon Heyworth in a pile of KC tapes from the Virgin tape store, and until recently was the best master available.

This is huge: CoffeeScript becomes the default Javascript in Ruby on Rails 3.1

You will be hearing more about the CoffeeScript language now that the popular web-framework Ruby on Rails has adopted it as the default Javascript for their next release.   This is a huge event in the life of a little language that is just over a year old.  The V1.0 release was in December of 2010.

I adopted CoffeeScript as my language of choice somewhere in mid 2010.  It has the deep elegances of Ruby, including introspection.  It uses the indentation-based block structure that makes Python such a pleasure.  It's basically a mashup of my two favorite languages and it targets an almost ideal runtime: Javascript.  CoffeeScript is a self-hosting compiler that emits Javascript, so your code can run in a browser, or on NodeJS as a command-line server side language like Ruby or Python.  It's fast.  NodeJS is a port of Google's V8 Javascript engine into a POSIX framework.

CoffeeScript is one of those tools that is just beautiful in its simplicity.  It's pleasing to the eye, powerful, and easy to wield.


Some Details about the new features in Rails 3.1
Intro to CoffeeScript

ThinkOrSwim Trading Platform runs on Linux!

When I reactivated my trading account at TDAmeritrade, I found that they had bought ThinkOrSwim, which becomes their high-end trading platform.   They don't mention this, but if you click to download it and you are on a Unix-ish OS, the download you receive is a shell script which checks for a JVM and installs the code.   The shell script which launches the program is quite robust-looking. Unlike most heavily-multithreaded Java programs I've used, it doesn't feel sluggish.  I'm impressed.

This is extremely nice and it will probably woo me away from QuoteTracker, which is a Windows-native application.  QuoteTracker is a good tool, and is great for learning.  It has an ad-supported Free-as-in-beer mode.  TDAmeritrade had some agreement with them, and QuoteTracker is still (I tested it) ad-free if you are connected to TDAmeritrade, but the download link is broken and they seem to have stopped supporting it.

I don't have to boot Windows, even in a VM, just to have decent trading tools.  This is really outstanding.

The one issue I am finding with ThinkOrSwim is a lack of good documentation.  I've only found a poorly-written and unillustrated manual so far.  It's completely clear that it does everything QuoteTracker does and much more. No wonder TDAmeritrade wants to get you started with it via a hand-holding phone call.  I haven't received my call yet.

Parrotopia bird carrier fails the Quaker Parrot test

He's only a small parrot.   He's smaller than the birds they intend this carrier for--the perch diameter is for a larger bird.  He had mostly chewed his way out through the ordinary plastic mesh screen in five minutes.   He'd have been out in 10 minutes, probably flying around the moving car.   What were they thinking?  Even tiny parrots chew on things.   Here's a picture of Thelonius M. Bird, sitting in the doorway of a parakeet (budgie) cage.    He's bigger than a  budgie, but his species is considered medium-sized as parrots go.  He's tiny  next to a Maccaw.

My uncle Sonny, Arnold Q. Frost, passes

My guest book posting:

I'm very sorry to hear that I'm not going to be seeing my uncle Sonny
again in this life. I wish I could be there for Donna and the rest of
the family.

When I was a tot, Sonny was full of fun. He was the youngest and most
sporty and stylish of my uncles and that was a big influence on my
love of design as an adult. I remember one special car that he was
especially proud of around 1962. It was probably expensive. It was a
very sporty convertible with a white top (I seem to recall) with lots
of chrome on the dashboard and an elaborate radio.

I vividly recall his marriage, especially because Ruth was quite a
breath of fresh air in the family.

I think this leaves my mother as the only living sibling from that
vast family of 12. Hello to all my many cousins. Coming from a small
birth family as I did, I found you all rather overwhelming as a child,
but I'm overcoming that. Sonny would say "Just go right up to 'em!
You're family!"
--

My sister confirms that my mom is now an only child.   She didn't know her parents well, anyway, having been raised by her eldest sister after her parents died when she was very young.

Tell Him by Ben Heine

My New Piano

I've got a new digital piano.   I've been looking for a good one that I could afford, possibly broken because I can fix such things.  I've designed synthesizers and I'm pretty harsh critic of electronic instrument design.  I saw this one on eBay.  I got it for the minimum bid because it had power problems and would not stay on.  I think the seller was using an AC adapter that didn't provide enough power.  It stays on for me.  Doesn't need any fixing!  The sound technology has been called
the best digital piano of the early 21st century


It was made by General Music (GEM) in Italy.  It's a RealPiano Prp800.  It has a nice keyboard action.  The action is probably made by Fatar, the Italian firm that makes the actions for many European-made keyboards.   The action is like a good acoustic piano.  It's even graded, which means that the keys at the high end of the keyboard are a bit lighter, easier to press.

This instrument is based on the DRAKE modeling technology that GEM developed for their high-end ProMega pianos.   It has the Steinway and Fazoli piano voices from the ProMega2.  It's totally obsolete, and takes about 30 seconds to boot when you turn it on.  It's a pleasure to play.  Beyond the Steinway and Fazoli grand pianos, it has a very enjoyable Rhodes piano.  I tried the harpsichord but I haven't had time to listen closely.  It could be a real harpsichord, or it could be a "Plucking Piano".  There's a Wurlitzer (Wurlitzer Electronic Piano) but it was half-hearted effort.   I learned to play on a vacuum-tube Wurlitzer 112.   I own a Wurlitzer 120, somewhere in my sister's basement.  The string ensemble sounds are not totally realistic, but they are another area where the instrument is just surprising pleasant to play.


It's got some small speakers in it.  Having speakers in a keyboard usually means it's a non-professional unit, but in this instrument the speakers are good; you couldn't get better sound without making the instrument larger.  The stereo perspective is good, it sounds like I'm sitting at a grand piano.   There's not as much bass, of course, and it doesn't get nearly as loud.   Think of the area of the soundboard in a piano vs. the area of the speakers in an instrument of this size.  I would definitely need an amp if I was to play this in a band.


Not all digital pianos, even ones that are made to look like a real piano, have what it takes.  A primary design concern is cost and even with 2010 technology, the existing paradigms can't fully emulate a real piano without being as expensive as a real piano.  That's just talking about the sound.

The user interface of a real piano is much more complex that it appears on the surface and most affordable instruments ignore things like half-pedaling and sympathetic resonance.  You don't want your piano designed by an organist.

My new piano has a correct piano action (much heavier than common electronic keyboards).  I was surprised to find that it actually has a graded action. The touch toward the top of the keyboard (treble, right) is lighter.  I've never played an electronic instrument that emulates this.  It's an aspect of the piano which makes it more difficult to play with precise expression.  Most 88-Key piano-touch keyboards don't emulate this.

 Here's what my favorite digital piano forensics expert said about my new piano:

================
= GENERALMUSIC =
================

--------------------------
- GEM pRP-800 Steinway D -
--------------------------
FILE & SETUP:
- dpbsd_v1.7_gem_prp800_steinway_d.mp3
- GEM headphone out to Mac line-in, recorded with Reaper, converted with Max.
- Recorded by "M.Schreck".
PROS:
- Passes the pedal down sympathetic resonance test.
- I believe it passes the key down sympathetic resonance test, the response is very subtle.
- Passes the partial pedaling test, the effect is realistically slightly buzzy.
- No obvious layer switches, not much timbre change until 1/3 max velocity, then smooth change with increasing velocity.
CONS:
- Fails the pedal down silent replay test @ pedal up (note plays vel=1).
- Fails the quick pedal partial damping test - oddly, brief damping speeds up decay rate.
- Decay times are somewhat short, particularly in the higher registers (~0.8 to 0.2 Pianoteq, low to high).
- Attack sample lengths are (C1:C8): 5.5,4.2,4.6,4.0,2.6,2.0,?,? seconds.
- Loop sample lengths are (C1:C8): 0.9,0.8,?,?,?,?,?,? seconds.
- Obviously looped, both visually and audibly, could benefit from longer decay loops.
- Obviously stretched, group transitions fairly audible.
- Stretch distances: 5,2,1,2(x4),1,2,1,2,3,3,1(x3),2,3(x3),2,1,2,1,3,1,2(x3),3,2(x3),3,2,2,1,2,3,1,2,2,3 = 43 groups.
- No pedal up/down or key up sounds.
OTHER:
- Dynamic range 33dB (vel=1:127).
- MP3 levels: peak @ -4.9dB, noise floor @ -82dB.
- Date reviewed: 2010-06-29.

The world is all that is the case.

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweige
 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.