change to commenting on fnordinc
some of you may have noticed that you have received emails over the last couple days telling you about a comment reply. please let me know if you have any difficulties with this as i am still testing it out.
one of the drawbacks that i have always seen to this site was the inability to tell if someone had commented towards something you wrote. you leave a message in the comments section and are unaware if i have responded back with out checking manually. others leaving comments in reference to something else someone stated have been in the same boat..
then there is the whole issue with rereading comments in an attempt to figure out who someone was referencing.
well.. now that is fixed. comments now have links beneath them for replying to a specific comment. the only person that should be emailed is the person who wrote the original information, and the comments are nested for easy reading, like in a message board.
Example of how it looks:
as always, feedback is appreciated.
my hope is that this will work out and help further conversation amongst visitors
neither of these pictures have anything to do with this post
learning to read spanish
i dont know if this will work, but i decided that i needed to learn spanish. i dont have the time or patience to sit down with any kind of tool or learning system and complete the process. realizing this, i started thinking about “full immersion” systems where you are put into an environment where you do not have a choice, it is sink or swim.
i recently had a spanish to english dictionary mailed to me. i tried to get a book that has not been translated into english to read, but alas, not knowing spanish made locating a book of this sort very hard to find online.
the goal is going to be reading a book from beginning to end and attempting to learn the language in a written fashion before attempting speech (i suck with verbal work). i figure if i can get halfway through a book i will be at a point where common language artifacts are memorized and from there on it will be like when i was growing up, finding words in the dictionary that i am unfamiliar with as opposed to every word as it will be in the beginning.
my friend brian came through for me with a copy of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” that he bought on a trip through south america a few years ago. not what i was looking for exactly, but i am okay with altering my plans just to get started.
i figure i should be on to that book in the next 3-4 days as i need to finish what i am reading currently first.
anyone that reads this page ever tried this approach or known someone who has?
i figure as i am reading the books i can move about and hit up some spanish language blogs that i often translate using babelfish and that will help as well, but i dunno.. it kinda feels like i am undertaking a task that will be difficult to the point of giving up..
i guess you cant know till you try eh?
Whale image found at qwantz.com
Rock image found at franksemails.com
Books / Stories/ Articles | Comments (7)cold weather / thinking of warmer times
it is so cold right now.. i am tired of having numb fingers when i am out walking around.
reading a book at the bus stop is tough too because of the finger numbness issue.
as the days are finally getting longer again and the cold can only last so long, i write now in celebration of the upcoming summer time. dont worry though, when summer gets here i will remember what i hate about it and i will gladly bitch about summer as well.
i bring to you a piece of LAST summer. This is an mp3 of someone many of you may know. if you dont, you are missing out.
Olaf, playing his steel guitar outside the Chance of Rain Cafe, July 29th 2007. This guitar has snce been sold as it was too flashy for him
Music | Comments (7)Pirating CD’s and tapes? How common..
Falling directly in the wake of “how vinyl records are made” i ran across this information.
http://www.zeit.de
First published in 1946, Die Zeit is a German weekly publication devoted to politics, business, trade, literature, and culture. Following the link above, you will find (in Deutsch) an article from their March 2006 online catalog. Normally for something like this, i would just link to it and let people read it themselves, but being that the whole site is in German, i figured a translated version would be useful for ease of viewing. obvious wording changes will take place in order to make it near grammatically correct after translation via Altavista’s Babelfish system. also included is a conversion of measurments and money.
I am also adding in additional information for anyone who wants to know more about stuff, no offense to the original writer, i just think more information is better… consider this nothing more than a tribute to the work you already put forward! I am not the first to repost this content, but i think i am the first to repost with translations and additional details
“Completely Flabbergasted
Pirated copies from the Net? Boring. We have something much more exciting: Vinyl Copies, in just two days. originally by Anne Kunze - used without permission
For many people, analog disks are the better listening experience. A vinyl copy is worthwhile itself, however, only with rare pieces, mainly because it costs $85-$100 and takes about two days to create depending on the materials you use. Obviously, you would not want to do this for any old album, it should be for something you want to put time, effort, creativity, and love into.
Prior to the guide, here is the shopping list for makers:
- Putty sealant, the kind that gets tacky but can be peeled off with ease, never truely drying.
- Putty knife.
- Silicone Rubber (http://www.dickblick.com/zz335/62/)
- Plastic resin, (http://www.dickblick.com/zz335/24/)
- Color pigments to make your resin original looking. these can be mixed in using your putty knife when you reach that point
- 1 glass plate 16×20 inches. (for example, from a cheap picture frame)
- Strips of wood, strips must be large enough to encompass the above mentioned plate of glass. Make sure you have the right sizes so you can encompass or comfortably fit the glass and have room for the record.
Follow these steps to duplicate a vinyl record platter:
Put together four wooden strips using nails place your square on top of the glass plate. Set a vinyl record in the center to verify that it fits before continuing. once confirmed, remove record and seal the edges of the wood to the glass using your putty and putty knife if needed. you want this to be tight enough that nothing can leak or penetrate past the wooden frame.
Clean your record thoroughly and place it inside the frame so that the side of the record you would like to copy is face up. Center it in your frame. Create a cylinder “plug” in the center hole of the record using putty. This is important as you will see later when you need to bore a hole into your copy.
For the casting there are different kinds of silicone you can use. You need to make sure to choose a silicone that will not become brittle or one that will be too flimsy, examples Smooth on OOMOO 30 or OOMOO 25. The silicone generally will come in two containers you must mix to activate. Mixing should take no more than three minutes and then you can begin working again.
You want to make sure you have the frame reasonably level before you begin. Choosing an area that you can easily reach, begin pouring the silicone rubber into the frame. pour evenly , until the form is evenly a quarter to a third of an inch filled with silicone. Make sure that you have the record completely covered Be sure to check the variety of Silicone you have purchased for tack and cure times.
When solidified, the rubber will be about the consistency of a rubberband. perfect for a flexible mold. PLEASE ALLOW THIS TO FULLY DRY. If you attempt to remove it early you will find that you just wasted your silicone rubber and will need to do a lot more clean up on your original record after the fact.
remember that tack/pot times are different than cure times. one time is relatively short. Tack occurs when the silicone is thickening and will still leave fingerprints even though it is solidifying. tack/pot can take 35-75 minutes. Cure time is most importantr as you do NOT want to remove the Silicone before it has cured. curing can take 6-7 hours depending on the product you buy. removing it early will rip or leave behind matter on the record, thus causing you to need to start over.. if you are unsure if you have met tack and cure times, wait a while longer and check the bottles and box from the product.
When ready, use a knife to cut the dried silicone at the edges along the wood frame. peel the cast off of the frame and record. if you look at the casting, you can see each groove off the vinyl and even the writing of the original plate. notice that you have copied any dust and other garbage that might have been on the record as well, i hope that at this point you smile and remember that you cleaned the record thoroughly before beginning.
Lay your mold flat and mix up your plastic resin. it also comes generally in two parts that will need to mix to become activated. some resins you buy come with the activator, some do not. make sure to check this before ordering. ad any pigments you ant to the resin, and mix it well.
Your choice in resin is important. The resin linked above in the ingredients dries to a hardness of Shore 70D, this is just under the hardness you would expect in a hard hat and is pretty damn durable. Wikipedia has a nice simple scale showing the “Shore Durometer”
pour the plastic resin in slowly. be careful that you do not pour outside the circular mold. if you run outside the mold you will end up with an incredibly lopsided and edge heavy record that will play bizarrely. use a safety pin, a nail or something else to pop obvious air bubbles after pouring.. ensure that you do NOT push down into the resin as you do not want to harm the grooves on the other side. just tap the resin, release the air and move on.
the picture above does not show a filled mold, just a partly full for reference purposes.
as with the Silicone, your resin may dry and harden at different rates, so check the documentation that comes with it to avoid prematurely removing the record and screwing up your hard work during the last moments. again, if not sure, give it more time.,. its not like you are in a hurry or anything..
Loosen the platter carefully from the silicone form. Notice that the center of the newly created platter has a nice little cylinder you can now bore out with a drill to be able to properly use the new record with a standard record player. It should sound nearly good as the original if not exactly the same… From the mold, as many as desired platters can be poured.
Obviously, you would need to do the same to get side B of the record, but again, it all depends on how valuable the vinyl is and how important a back up copy is.
~~
Article was written originally by Anne Kunze
Anne is part of a group calling themselves elbe03, a “union of free and independent journalists”. They write and produce for numerous publications, unfortunately for me, they all seem to be German.. its a shame cause all the other work of hers i have read is pretty damn cool i wouldnt doubt that the others in her troupe (Kristina Allgöwer, Denis Dilba, Benjamin Prüfer) have similarly great styles.
Photographs by Stefan Boekels
though his photos are pretty awesome, his website has some terrible porn style music. visit at your own risk.
He seems to have been working with just about every German publication you can imagine as well as a multitude of other companies from cigarette manufacturers to travel magazines to cable promoters