Of electronics and moodswings

This cold is making me irritable, which is why a "scrap" PC monitor is now heading to the dump - it fell off the stand 5 times in a row having been in a doorway I wanted to go through, and got chucked to one side. This has made an emergency light come one, which baffles me. Maybe the two are unrelated.

I printed the manuals for the Commodore 64 "Prophet64" synthesizer/application programme. This is a ROM cartridge for the C64 that provides a sequencer, drum machine, bassline and mono synth - the latter two TB303 inspired - with paddle control (if you have pots/paddles) for filters (this works "live" - set a pattern playing, tweak paddles, adjust filters on the fly). The manuals add up to over 100 pages, and that's without the bassline. I also bought a MIDI sync/control interface - again, a new invention for the C64 from .nl - for a few Euro.

http://www.prophet64.com/

Once I've added a proper audio output lead to the monitor port I'll have a play with the system properly; I have some ideas around sampling/recording a section of composition. Locutus on #uk_goffs may have a floppy drive for my C64 for me, which will be good - originally deathboy was going to give me a drive he's had lying around, but then I found this software and bought us each a copy, upon which we realised he'd need a floppy drive to store sequences. Doh!

One thing, though, for a 26 year old computer, seeing software of this calibre released and on sale in 2006/7 is wonderful. And that it sounds so good, too. Pondering if a diode or something can be added to prevent anything going back down the audio line to the C64 when connected to a mixer, as apparently connecting things/powering them up/down in the wrong way can kill the C64's sound chip.

WHITBY! In ONE week! I am excited and looking forward to seeing people. Who will I see and do I have your number? Going to be there from 25th to 2nd May. Can't be arsed organising fancy cameras or anything, so it's going to be a HOLIDAY. I shall RELAX.

Selling stuff on eBay isn't really making much progress; I found out my rare and rather much liked Roland GR77b bass is attracting offers of about £220-300. Bugger that, I'm not selling for that (and neither did the one on eBay). Need to post the remaining things out to Germany and one for the UK needs packed.

Taking stuff to charity shop and dry cleaner now, then TEA. And coughing, probably.

(no subject)

One of my G5's fans sounds decidedly unwell.

I think it's the PSU front fan set.

A fan is probably very cheap, a PSU is VERY expensive, getting to said fans is a real pain in the arse.

Given my current run of luck with technology and stuff, I am just going to ignore it. At this rate the G5 won't have lasted four years without major repairs, which is better than my Dell was, but is worse than my old Macs have managed. I still need to theoretically replace the motherboard to get Firewire back!

Curious

I'm reading the Register, and I notice that lately, they've been regurgitating news from the Daily Mail. Which seems odd, since much of it is unrelated. There's a link from an article about "Forever Friends" creator Andrew Brownwhatsit's Georgian house being burned down (from the sounds of it, he'd been daft enough to have that spray-on loft insulation installed, and it was set alight by a rookie plumber) - what relevance this has to the IT industry baffles me - about a Paedophile. I have to use capitals, because Our Government demands it.

It is a Human Interest story, about a 33 year old woman who MARRIED A PAEDOPHILE.

The language is florid. Her "shaking knees" and "trembling fingers". It's not journalism, it's drama. But this is the Daily Mail; ideally we need a break between articles for some adverts, and the break should be near a cliffhanger.

Anyway, I digress.

I rewrote the article in my mind. I replaced "paedophile" with "Nazi", "indecent images" with "propaganda". It fit quite nicely.

When I were a lad, WWII was merely 30 years in the past. It's now 60 years ago. A bit of rapidly disappearing history. And after that, depending on your social/economic/political upbringing, you might have Commies, or "Fascists" (more like Thatchists). 'though the 80s seemed to be more disparate in terms of a specific group to focus on for mass hatred; Yuppies were for riducule, but scary? Not really.

So.

Which is worse?

[Poll #969003]

I can't help thinking that what Blair, Bush et al wanted us to be scared of was TERRORISTS. But we're all too sophisticated to be fooled, even the Daily Mail readers. Paedophiles are MUCH easier. They aren't as easy to spot due to their habits of being Just Like Normal Respectable People. They aren't even BROWN, ffs, and rarely wear teatowels on their heads, except when they are and do. Of course, we Brits are perfectly used to terrorists - it's not like Northern Ireland was a calm and peaceful place for the past 30 years. Though those aren't like the new terrorists. They're OUR terrorists.