Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
What audio geek does not appreciate some nekkid pix?
I want to say that getting the top cover off was the hardest point, but getting it back on was much, much worse. More than once the fiddly bits that keep it locked in place went flying when I was trying to get them back in. Thankfully I found them each time.
Curiosity almost killed the cat.
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CAUTION: Geek stuff ahead.
Every year, like clockwork a new macOS appears at WWDC. And every year I swear I’m not going to install it until the final version is released to the public. At that point it’s generally assumed that all the big bugs have been worked out—although this isn’t the Apple of fifteen years ago and there are always seem to be glitches now.
Based on everything I’ve read online since last week, the latest iteration macOS, aka Golden Gate—even Developer Beta 1—is incredibly stable right out of the gate.
It purports to address all the complaints that have plagued Tahoe since it was released a year ago, kind of how Snow Leopard concentrated on fixing everything that was wrong with Leopard.
Naturally curious—but cautious since I’ve been burned too many times in the past—to play with a new OS, I created a new container on my Mac and loaded Golden Gate there. Yeah, this route is safest one possible short of installing it on an external drive and lets me play with it without putting any of my data at risk (I backup my entire drive every night to external storage, so even if something gets screwed up I can always wipe and restore everything from the night before). The downside is that this is basically a virgin installation and none of my apps are accessible (although even that seems to be working for the first time with Golden Gate), rendering the whole exercise kind of immaterial for personal real-world testing.
In a fit of madness last night, I threw caution to the wind. I made a full backup of my Tahoe installation, created a new USB Tahoe installer(in case I needed to wipe everything and reinstall that OS and then restore from my backup). And installed Golden Gate on my main drive.
After installing, the machine rebooted and…well, it worked.
I checked all my apps and everything functioned normally. (I know, I just jinxed it by writing that, didn’t I?)
16 hours in, and I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s far more responsive than Tahoe ever was, and for the most part all the graphic glitches and inconsistencies that Tahoe gave us are finally gone. Maybe the change of the head of software development at Apple is actually bringing about real change.
The only thing I worry about is that as the development cycle continues through the summer toward the release of the finished product in September or October is that in the past, each new beta—while squashing bugs in the previous release—often introduced new ones, rendering the whole installation unusable, or at least severely compromised from the previous version.
To that end, I’m going to keep my backup from yesterday intact, but I will also create another backup on a separate external drive of my new install and continue to back that up nightly so if—in case the unthinkable happens and some future beta fucks things up—I can still go back to Tahoe and restore any new material I created under Golden Gate since upgrading.
I’ve also learned to keep copies of the installers for each beta iteration so I can go restore to the most recent unfucked one instead of bailing completely and returning to the previous OS.
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The one thing (well, actually one of many, TBH) that’s always annoyed me about macOS is the inability to save a desktop theme. Windows does this flawlessly, but for some reason it was a feature implemented on the Mac.
So—as is often the case—I enlisted the Google machine. And wouldn’t you know, my quest was immediately answered:
(Click here to be taken to the website.)
Very cool. Super simple (doesn’t require messing with SIP or anything like that). Works as advertised and definitely worth $20 if you like customizing your Mac experience.
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Today marks the 25th anniversary of Apple launching Mac OS X, the operating system that serves as the foundation of modern-day macOS.
Apple released a public beta of Mac OS X in September 2000, and the operating system officially launched on March 24, 2001.
“Mac OS X is the future of the Mac, and we hope it will delight our customers with its unrivaled power and ease of use,” said Steve Jobs, in 2001. “The Public Beta has generated incredible feedback and support from Mac users and developers, which has helped us to make Mac OS X the most advanced operating system ever.”
Mac OS X was a next-generation, UNIX-based operating system for the Mac, succeeding the classic Mac OS operating system. It ushered in Apple’s iconic “Aqua” interface, the Dock, an improved Finder app with hierarchical navigation, and more.
“Mac OS X is the most important software from Apple since the original Macintosh operating system in 1984 that revolutionized the entire industry,” said Jobs.
In the U.S., Mac OS X was priced at $129. Apple stopped charging for macOS releases in 2013, when OS X Mavericks was released free of charge.
Mac OS X was renamed to OS X in 2012 and to macOS in 2016:
Mac OS X was a big part of Apple’s renaissance, which began when Jobs returned to the company in the late 1990s. Big hits in those first few years after his return included the iMac in 1998, the iBook in 1999, and Mac OS X and the iPod in 2001. In this sense, it is poetic that this milestone comes just a week ahead of Apple’s 50th anniversary.
[source]
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I’ll say this about Sony: back in the day they certainly knew how to do green…and blue…and red…and orange—something Apple could take a lesson or two from now.
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Very happy with my first foray into Japanese auctions! Upon arrival it powered up fine with an AA sidecar battery and/or power adapter, but wouldn’t recognize a perfectly good, fully charged internal gumstick battery—nor would it charge said gumstick. Even though the contacts on the external battery door looked okay, I knew there had to be corrosion inside, so after shining a flashlight in the battery compartment and confirming the internal contacts were caked with the infamous green corrosion, I gingerly removed the rear case. Armed with vinegar, an old toothbrush, q-tips, and isopropyl alcohol—and having watched numerous videos on how to do it—I set about removing the green gunk. Afterwards I put it all back together—and to my utter amazement, not only did it still work, but now it recognized the gumstick battery and even worked! And that color! Sony sure knew how to do orange!
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…this one is undoubtedly one of my favorites. Sony was definitely at the top of their design game in the 90s and 00s, not only with Minidisc, but also with portable CD players.
For me, with the N707, it’s the color, the design, the tactile feel of the unit. And the sound? Absolute chef’s kiss. I can listen to this thing all day and never get burnt out. And of course, it works flawlessly. (Portable MD recorders/players, by their very nature, are much more complicated beasts than portable CD players and more prone to developing problems over years—especially if they’ve been neglected.)
PSA: If you’re not going to use your portable electronics for an extended period and they have removable batteries, remove them.
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Apple propaganda notwithstanding, the reason tower PCs are big isn’t because they’re outdated. The reason tower PCs are so bulky is because they’re designed to be user serviceable. The case has lots of open space so your big, meaty hands can easily access all of the components, and everything is secured with friction-fit tabs and standard machine screws to minimise the need for specialised tools. A properly laid out tower PC is fully serviceable with a single Phillips-head screwdriver and no greater manual skill than your average Lego playset – heck, for some of the more modern case layouts you don’t even need the screwdriver, unless you’re performing major surgery like a full motherboard replacement.
Like, think about who benefits from convincing you that a fully modular computing device that can be serviced and repaired with your bare hands and minimal technical skill is unfashionable.
Back in the day, I used to build my own PCs. I’d run down to Fry’s Electronics, pick out a case, a motherboard, a CPU chip, memory, and whatever other components I needed. I’d drag it all home and assemble it myself. I’d load the O/S, power it up, and viola!
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Back in early aughts, after receiving an unexpected windfall from the sale of some original Frank Lloyd Wright blueprints my dad gave me in the mid 80s that I’d been lugging around for over a decade, I used the funds and got into Minidisc in a big way—shortly before the time it was going to nosedive into irrelevance and obsolescence. (Hence the title of this post.) Despite the lukewarm reception the format received in the United States and the fact that it had been on the market since ’92, I nonetheless adopted it wholeheartedly. I bought a portable player and a full-size deck to incorporate into my stereo system from The Sony Store that had popped up at The Metreon near Moscone Center in San Francisco. While CD-Rs/RWs were coming into their own by this time and it seemed everyone was still carrying around portable CD players (myself included), the iPod—and the ultimate death of MDs it hastened—were still a year away when I made my purchase. I didn’t care about the format’s relative obscurity even then; if nothing else, there was just a cool factor about MD and the players that I found irresistible.
Even after the iPod appeared, I stubbornly continued my love affair with the MD. I replaced my original portable MZ-E75 with the awesome MZ-S1 shortly after moving back to Phoenix in 2002, and a year later replaced my original MDS-630 deck with a MDS-480. Hell, I even put a Kenwood MD deck into my car. I amassed hundreds of those candy-colored shimmering plastic discs that I greedily filled up with not only the contents of my CD library at the time, but also music ripped from my burgeoning vinyl collection. At the time the discs were still plentiful, dirt cheap and recording was a breeze.
For years, I resisted jumping on the iPod bandwagon, believing the sound quality of MP3 files was subpar to ATRAC, which was used in encoding the MD format.
But then in March 2010, after listening to some music on Ben’s iPod—and admitting the sound quality really was damn good—I broke down and bought my own. Not too long afterward—simply weighing the convenience of carrying an iPod containing my entire music collection versus all those discs, I sold my MD gear and practically gave away the discs.
I no longer have that iPod. I think I sold it when we were in Denver and I realized that most of the music I wanted to carry around with me could easily be swapped in and out of my phone. Having a separate device to do the same thing the phone could do was just…redundant. In the subsequent years, all of my listening has either been via vinyl on the “big” stereo in the living room or via headphones on my phone or Mac.
As y’all know, over the past eighteen months I’ve gotten back into CDs in a big way and they are still my preferred method of music consumption. I hadn’t really thought much about Minidiscs until a few months ago when a MZ-S1 popped up in a post on Reddit and I was—as the kids say—consumed with the feels and it triggered something. Did I really want to get back into Minidisc, knowing what it would ultimately entail? Logically, it made no sense. Emotionally, the answer was a resounding, “We’re about to descend into a dystopian hellscape, so why the hell not?” Still, I resisted the urge, but kept checking in on theMZ-S1 listings on eBay, gazing longingly and telling myself, no, no, no…
Until a week ago when I said fuck it.
Of course, the whole Minidisc landscape has changed over the past twenty years and getting back into it wouldn’t be as simple as a trip to Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics (which doesn’t even exist any more). New players were no longer being made, and while new recordable media is still being manufactured by Sony, the variety and the “fun” factor of the disc designs has completely disappeared. If you want new, you basically have a choice of black on white or grey on white. Thankfully, there are still dozens and dozens of folks on eBay selling entire lots of used discs, and—since MDs can be rewritten “a million times” [according to Sony]—there are still plenty of options available to get all the media I’ll ever want or need. On the whole, the hardware—both portable and deck variety—seems to have held up to the ravages of time much better than other “vintage” electronics, and can be found for cheap on eBay.
Which brings me to the present. I just received a MDS-JE480 deck that was in excellent condition that I snagged for a very reasonable amount of money. As of right now I have no remote control or media, but both should be arriving in the next few days. I also broke down bought a MZ-S1 portable that started this whole thing that’s scheduled to arrive on Monday.
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They say history always repeats itself. Vinyls are making a comeback right now, which means in a few years cassettes and CDs will make a resurgence all over again, and when compact discs do enter the mainstream, you’re going to be glad you had this cute CD player from Semetor. Spotted on the floor at IFA 2024, the K8 is a playfully retro CD player that embraces the design aesthetic of European appliances in the 50s. Designed with an open top that allows the CD to sit on its platter like a vinyl on a gramophone, the K8 comes with a few translucent typewriter-inspired buttons that let you control music playback. But wait, it’s 2024, and just being a CD player obviously won’t cut it… which is why the K8 also has an FM radio, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless speaker, and even an ambient lamp built into its adorable design.
Designer: Semetor
The K8 isn’t a cutting-edge CD player… but it’s cute. It has the adorable demeanor of one of lofree‘s older products, with its retro aesthetic that’s brought about by its rounded form and use of pastel shades. What instantly grabs your eye first is the open-top CD player. While most players usually conceal the CD within a casing, this one does not. You see the CD spin as you play music, and the disc’s radial spectral finish looks absolutely gorgeous.
Playback is easy. For running a CD, just hit the CD button on the panel, and use the controls below to play/pause, or skip tracks. A BT/FM button lets you toggle the Bluetooth player or FM radio. Backlights in the button glow to let you know which mode you’re in, and a seven-segment LCD screen on the bottom allows you to see things like track number (for CDs) or radio station (for FM). A gold-plated ‘gear’ on the right side lets you switch on or off the K8.
If all that wasn’t enough, the K8 also packs a warm glow-light for ambient lighting. Hit the button on the top right and a halo around the CD player lights up. It isn’t enough to light a room, but it does bestow a warm wash of golden light in the immediate vicinity, perfect for late-night listening. Pair it with a nice soft jazz CD and you’re absolutely set!
[Source]
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…people who save boxes like this. It’s a piece of irreplacdable history for tech nerds like myself, but ironically I always got rid of my boxes as quickly as possible after buying anything and I can’t tell you how often I’ve regretted it over the years.
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While they aren’t my preferred method of listening to music, headphones have always played a big part in my musical enjoyment. I would not describe myself as a headphone geek in any sense of the word, but I do admit I have a great affinity for the buggers. Always have.
My love of headphones unsurprisingly began in the 70s, concurrent with my first tentative steps into HiFi with the Pioneer SE-205, a Christmas gift from my parents that had been on my holiday wish list. I don’t remember much about these cans except they were big, heavy, and tended to put me to sleep when using them. But they afforded me the luxury of listening to my music loud long after my folks had gone to bed. (My bedroom was directly beneath theirs.) I do have two musical memories that stand out with these Pioneers, however: Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and Chicago’s Chicago IX Greatest Hits. For some reason those two records are indelibly imprinted as being heard through these Pioneers—initially at least.
As my hi-fi journey continued, at one point not too many years later I encountered a pair of Stax electrostatic headphones at the local LaBelle’s showroom. I was smitten. But at $450 ($1950 in 2024 dollars) they were way out of reach of my meager income. Stax did, however, offer a much cheaper, electret design at $150 ($650 in 2024 dollars) that sounded nearly as good and was actually something I could afford. Their only drawback was their need to be connected to my amp via an adapter box that attached to the speaker outputs on the amp. But the sound…oh my…these stayed with me for more than a decade. The weak point in their design however was the junction of the headphone cord with the earspeakers where the strain relief failed and the wiring broke. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I had to disassemble them, trim off a bit of the cord past the break, and resolder the wires in place. I finally got tired of doing this and tossed them in the trunk of my car where they were eventually stolen. I purchased a “new” set a couple years ago after using many other brands and types since I originally owned them, and was frankly kind of disappointed. I still own them, but they’re on a shelf and not even attached to my amp any more.
During the 1990s and early 2000s my hi-fi headphone listening via my main stereo amplifier took a break as I was distracted by my increasing use of portable music players of one kind or another and their supplied headphones/earbuds.
After I’d completed my radiation treatments in 2003, I decided I wanted to treat myself to something nice in celebration and I picked up a pair of Sony V-500s from Fry’s Electronics. Damn, I loved those things. They weren’t the most comfortable things in the world, but they sounded good and I kept them until the pads disintegrated and I threw them out prior to our move to Denver (I didn’t know I could get replacement pads at the time, otherwise I’d probably still have them.)
With the acquisition of my first iPod and later iPhones of various iterations, all my headphone listening was on-the go, and I went through dozens of earbuds, (mostly Skullcandy), but my favorites were Apple’s “Professional” earbuds—at least until they got rid of the headphone jack…
My first foray into Bluetooth headphones was prompted by Ben’s purchase of a pair of Jaybird’s Freedom earbuds. I tried them on, listened, and was immediately blown away by how much better they sounded than even Apple’s Pro wired variety. I bought a pair. A year later, I upgraded them to Jaybird’s Bluebuds X.
The Bluebuds X stayed with me until the first generation AirPods came on the scene. I remember scoffing at how earbuds without a cord were ripe targets for ending up in the washing machine, but looking back now I realize how ridiculous that was. By this time the batteries were precariously close to being shot on the Bluebuds, and while the batteries might’ve been able to be replaced, the lure of the new and shiny outweighed any thought of doing that.
I was surprised at the freedom the AirPods afforded, and while there was nothing wrong with them, when the AirPods Pro were released, it was a no-brainer to upgrade. For everything iPhone and Mac related my AirPods Pro remain my go-to listening device.
Last fall, I did want a more user-friendly listening experience for my main stereo system than the Stax electrets. I just wanted to be able to plug something into the headphone jack on the amp and listen away.
Based on recommendations from Dank Pods, I picked up a pair of Grado SR-60X from Amazon without even listening to them first, knowing full well if I hated them I could return them no questions asked.
Well, I didn’t return them. Even though the SR-60X is considered the “entry level” of this line, these are seriously good-sounding cans. Grado is known for having a very distinctive sound, and that sound is very much to my liking. The SR-60X (and in fact, the entire Grado line) is also very customizable with different earpads, headbands, and even (if you’re handy with a soldering iron) cables. My biggest complaints over the past few months have been one, the cable, and two, the earpads. The cable is braided. It’s very heavy and not very pliant. It also tends to twist between the earspeakers and the Y-split. Untangling it is a pain. I’ve tried the three different varieties of OEM earpads that are available. The ones that initially came with the headset are fine for brief listening sessions, but they press too hard against my ears. While sounding better than the original pads, the over-the-ear design pads are ridiculously large and uncomfortable. The third variety that match the size of the original pads, but are of a donut design, sound great. What I found, however, is that the relatively rough foam they’re made out of became so uncomfortable that I couldn’t even stand to put them on any more. The open-back design also doesn’t exactly lend itself to loud listening when you’re in a room with someone else.
So this leads us to my latest set of headphones: the Sony MDR-7506. These have supposedly been made continuously since the 80s; they’re Sony’s professional workhorses. Again, I bought them from Amazon, thinking that if I didn’t like them I could return them. At the time I couldn’t remember the model number of my previous Sony headphones, so this was kind of a crap shoot to be honest.
At first I didn’t like them. In fact, I went ahead and initiated a return. But as I wore them more and more they really came to grow on me. They fit snugly on my head without crushing my ears. The soft, coiled cord is a joy compared to the has-a-mind-of-its-own cord on the Grados. Unlike the Grados, these are closed-back cans, and they do a very good job of isolating your listening experience from the outside world. The sound is different from the Grados, but I like it just as much—if not, perhaps more. Upon recommendation I went ahead and ordered the optional YAXI L-R color-coded ear pads, and I have to say they are beyond comfortable.* I can easily see myself wearing these for an entire workday without any fatigue whatsoever. And I like the punch of color too.
So that’s where I am at the moment. This post went on way longer than I originally envisioned, but if I’m passionate about something I do tend to ramble on.
*But they do—somehow—affect the sound (which has been documented) in a way I don’t like, so for now I’ve gone back to the OEM pads.
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I’ve been an Adobe customer since…jeez…I don’t even know. 2004? 2005?
Photoshop has been my go-to editing software, and Bridge (as rocky as that relationship has been over the years) has been my image organizing tool since before I was even a Mac user. But no more. I stumbled across this video the other day and it set my blood boiling:
I was unaware of this bit of assholery on Adobe’s part, and like many others, just randomly clicked the “Accept” button after being presented with that splash screen without actually reading the terms and conditions. (I mean, who does?) After discussing this situation with Ben (we shared an Adobe subscription) and weighing our options, we decided to join the revolt and tell Adobe to go fuck itself once and for all.
Unfortunately…we had switched from the Full Creative Cloud Suite to just the Photoshop Plan a little over a month ago (just out of my get-out-of-jail-free period), and they were going to charge me $99 to cancel. I didn’t have the funds to drop on that right away, but vowed that I would do it on the next paycheck.
Well, Ben located this today:
Guess what? It works! ????
I now use Pixelmator Pro (a one time purchase of $50 through the App Store, not $19.95/month as it was for Adobe Photoshop) for image editing/creation and XnView (free/donation) for image cataloging/organization. Pixelmator Pro has been a bit of a learning curve, but learning is always good, right? It doesn’t have all the features of Photoshop (notably AI generation which I was using for creating backgrounds of smaller images on bigger canvases as well as ridding pictures of meddlesome text), but it’s damn close. And as I wrote in that post from a few years ago, I’ve finally gotten XnView configured and customized totally to my liking and it doesn’t randomly crash for no reason like every version of Bridge since it was first introduced.
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Having recently gotten back into CDs in a major way, I stumbled across this series of videos on YouTube and was captivated.
While even back in the day I had a general understanding of how this stuff worked, to this day it amazes me how any of this actually manages to work (and I’ve been a technophile my entire life). Forget the technobabble. It’s voodoo and black magic, I say. Voodoo and black magic!
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Meet Mike, my latest YouTube obsession… for obvious reasons. (And he can be spotted sporting a rainbow Apple Watch face in nearly all of his videos!)
Actually, his videos remind me of the very unpleasant history of early PCs that launched me on my career trajectory those many years ago. Looking back, it truly was stone knives and bear skins in comparison to today. MFM, RLL, selecting IRQs, terminating resistors; the crap we had to deal with! But at least we were treated like gods—or at least like first responders—for understanding how it all worked and getting the shit working again when it stopped.
Now it seems we’re viewed as just janitors, cleaning up everyone else’s mess because they’re too intellectually lazy to even try and figure anything out on their own.
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