Another entry for my hypothetical list of Things That Couldn’t Exist Without the Web: a site of photos of cats that look like Hitler. Who would have guessed? Appropriately enough, its URL is http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/. [Found via Lisa Randall’s blog. Thanks, Lisa!]
New at Paper Jade: Stationery
Paper Jade now carries several kinds of fine stationery made from Japanese paper. It’s nice stuff; I’m particularly fond of the Two-Tone packages.
Cool Flash/Flickr Thing
I’ve been waiting for something like this. It grabs random images from Flickr and fuses them together into a sort of endless, plotless movie. Lovely.
Yes, It’s Been Hot Lately
If you’ve been thinking that it’s been unusually hot recently, you’re right, according to the people who keep track of such things. It’s also been dry, unless you happen to live on or near the west coast. Now my utility bills are higher in the summer than in the winter, thanks to having to run the air conditioning basically all the time. The heat doesn’t bother me too much, but Tracie basically becomes immobile in temperatures above the mid 70s.
Audio Damage Plug-in Featured in Computer Music Magazine
I keep forgetting to mention this, but thanks to the lag in distribution time for UK magazines in the US it’s still relevant. The July issue of Computer Music magazine has a free Audio Damage plug-in on its DVD-ROM, and the magazine itself has a three-page article on how to use it. Buying the magazine is the only way to obtain this plug-in; we made an arrangement with CM to give them exclusive distribution rights for it.
CM is my current favorite music-tech magazine, and not just because of our relationship with them. The magazine content has an enthusiastic and unpretentious tone, the technique articles are full of genuinely useful advice, and I can’t help but be amused by the occasional Britishisms of language. The cover DVD contains software that’s actually useful (instead of just demo versions you can download from the web yourself) as well as a big pile of samples that’s different each month. It doesn’t have quite the critical and technical depth of Sound on Sound but it’s much more worthwhile than Keyboard (which I’ve given up on altogether) and usually more interesting than Electronic Musician.
Bad News, Good News for the Synthesizer-Building Community
The bad news is that Synthesis Technology will stop selling kits by the end of the year, and is discontinuing several modules altogether. The official announcement is here. (It’s worth noting that Paul’s having a 15% off sale soon.) While this is obviously a bummer for those of us who buy module kits from Paul, I’m glad that he’s staying in business in some manner. The related electronics industry sea-changes brought about by RoHS and the shift to SMT mean that small operations like Synth Tech have to either change or perish.
Garden Visitor
I found a toad in the front flower garden this morning. It’s the second one I’ve found in front of the house recently. I don’t know whether they’re coming from the creek behind the house, the lakes across the street, or somewhere else. I transported the first one to the creek, figuring that he(? she?) would be happier near some water. I left the second one alone, figuring that maybe he wanted to be there, or at least he could find his way to some place that he preferred. As Tracie said, he had a reason for being there. That led me to ask (rhetorically) whether toads have reasons for their actions. In any case, he was pretty cute.
Announcing Discord 2
Audio Damage is pleased to announce the release of Discord 2, the new and much improved version of our popular pitch shifter plug-in. Although this one took longer than we expected, it was worth it. I’m really pleased with how it came out, and initial reports from our customers are quite positive.
You can read all about it, hear audio demos, download the manual, and buy it at the Audio Damage site. It’s $49 or $10 if you own a previous version. I can honestly say that there is nothing like it for even three times the price, and nothing like it at all in the host-based plug-in market.
Hot and Dry
To say that it’s been hot and dry around here recently is something of an understatement. Yesterday the temperature peaked at just under 100 degress Farenheit and the humidity dropped to 5%. There is a nifty website here that provides weather data from sensors a couple of miles from our house. (It is more accurate than the NWS data because there is a small ridge between us and the nearest NWS station.) The following graph is from yesterday:
Judging from how the humidity graph flattens out, I suspect the sensor’s lower limit is 5% and the humidity actually fell below that.
Aizome is Somebody’s Favorite
It sure is gratifying to read reviews like this one.