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Da5id Weatherwax

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  1. Da5id Weatherwax
    And... FOUND the culprit! One of my DI boxes is suitably silent when battery powered but makes the whole system buzz like a beehive when phantom powered. Googling stock levels at local music shops.... That thing's getting tagged and dumped in the "dodgy kit, maybe repairable or usable in an emergency" box RIGHT THE F NOW.
  2. Da5id Weatherwax
    Elucidating the peeve. Mains power is 50-60 Hz alternating current (depending on where you live, different countries use different frequencies but its always in that range). The primary harmonic of that frequency in audio gear is a low G. Obviously you don't want that intruding into the audio you record, send to a stream or feed the house speakers with when playing live. HiFi audio gear and stage/studio sound gear has a LOT of electronics devoted to isolating the hum from mains power from any audio signal path. However if you're connecting multiple pieces of kit together, and they don't have a common ground or somewhere a hot and ground connection are flipped then you get the hum. Sometimes you can kill it by locating the problem piece of gear where its happening and isolating the input and output grounds from each other. That's what the "ground lift" switch on a lot of stage and studio gear is for. (consumer gear isn't allowed to have that switch, using it unwisely can result in the cases of your kit or even the strings on your electric guitar being "hot" if you don't know what you're doing and your equipment develops a particular class of fault) Mains power is, well, powerful. Powerful enough to induce the same frequency in nearby audio lines where the shielding isn't good enough or there's a bad connection somewhere. The source of the hum can be something you don't even believe is connected to where the hum appears. Tracking down that source and mitigating it is often an endeavour that requires a deerstalker hat and a big meerschaum calabash pipe. Hearing that constant low G makes audio engineers go hyper-alert in the same way as waking up in the middle of the night and hearing the whine of a mosquito. "something is about to bite me and I don't want that"
  3. Da5id Weatherwax
    Follow-on peeve (from previous peeve and antipeeve): Tracking down a low-level ground hum that mysteriously appeared in the pedalboard simply from swapping mixers without altering the patch or signal paths at all. I am on its trail and close.. and when I find it I shall forego the usual feline pleasure of playing with my prey - it has to die. NOW. ETA: It was probably always there, just not audible or visible on the meter with the old mixer. The new one has much higher quality and more sensitive preamps, also more detailed and informative metering. Doesn't mean it don't annoy me or fully deserve terminating with extreme prejudice though.
  4. Da5id Weatherwax
    Oh aye - they get that way from eating the special heather you only find on hillsides where there's a colony of wild haggis.
  5. Da5id Weatherwax
    It's all a relatively recent invention anyway. There were originally regional variations in the plaid, largely down to which breed of sheep was local (and therefore the underlying wool colour) and which natural dyes could be sourced locally. Clans adopting their own colours and patterns came MUCH later.
  6. Da5id Weatherwax
    The "tradition" is that anyone who can't trace to another gets to wear "Royal Stewart" as part of "one of the other families" of these islands. Only the royals get to wear it as of clan right, but anyone else can don it as formal dress without risking offending a clan they are not genuinely associated with.
  7. Da5id Weatherwax
    As a scotsman who can trace lineage into either Buchanan or MacMillan, trust me that this IS a consideration. The most formal Buchanan tartan is the "hideous christmas one" that's bright red and green - WILL NOT WEAR! I:ll stick with MacMillan Ancient Hunting.
  8. Da5id Weatherwax
    I've always thought, from your posts here and on your blog, that you were something of a philosopher. I'm glad to have that confirmed No, the inanimate object cannot be stupid. The words contained within it are more than inanimate objects, though. They are symbols of meaning. They have something to say. If they say something to the reader that the author did not intend, were they read stupidly or written stupidly? Usually, I suspect, a bit of both. It is also possible that they were read accurately and as the author intended, so neither written nor read stupidly but what those words had to say was, itself, stupid. I shudder to think how many of my ramblings on here might readily fall into that category.
  9. Da5id Weatherwax
    As somebody who is also pushed into visceral and emotional responses, which do occasionally - I must admit - surpass the limits of rationality, when somebody "messes with my stuff" I can feel where you're coming from here. I even fully understand the instinctive knowledge that it must have been some act of petty revenge for something. However, in this case it wasn't my stuff that was messed with, it was yours. That puts me in the position of an "outside observer" and I am aware that in such situations I always have to remind myself "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" -or, paraphrasing the quote slightly to adapt it to this situation, "never ascribe to pettiness that which can be explained by thoughtlessness." Should that be the case here, then in your position I would still be highly pi***d off but at least could avoid much of the emotional whipsaw. I'm not saying that is the case here. You're there and know her. I'm not and don't. You may find considering that possibility allows you to recover a little equanimity though.
  10. Da5id Weatherwax
    Hey, watch it! I've BEEN that "Stupid git" for more than one lady. What can I say? The combination of a Y chromosome, youthful enthusiasm and a serious case of adoration, liberally spiced with lust, will do that to a guy. Now that I'm older I find it as amusing as you ladies do, but I'll still treasure every memory and admit to still loving every one of them.
  11. Da5id Weatherwax
    A "simple" poem is rarely "stupid". A "stupid" poem is rarely either "simple" OR a "poem" I don't believe that Mary Oliver wrote any that violated the laws of the universe in such a way.
  12. Da5id Weatherwax
    YES.
  13. Da5id Weatherwax
    It can be both. Poetry can either whisper silently to your heart or it can stand up and roar. And sometimes, it's the same verse does both.
  14. Da5id Weatherwax
    Indeed - and thank you for helping me find the original.
  15. Da5id Weatherwax
    And THIS would be why I buy my home parcels rather than renting them then take WAY-TOO-EFFIN-LONG meshing my own house/workshop/social space and doing my own darn landscaping. I may not be as good as some out there, so maybe my builds aint exactly perfect when they are finished.. but "perfect" is the mortal enemy of "good enough", particularly when the style I want aint been built in the configuration I want by anyone else If I didnt suck at rigging (I'm working on it, honest) I'd make all my own darn clothes too!
  16. Da5id Weatherwax
    Two ANTI-PEEVES Remember this one? GOT ONE! And this one.... Hard part is done. Now just the easy-but-time-consuming process of optimising and LODing it. Today, life is good.
  17. Da5id Weatherwax
    IKR. First time that one bit me on the hinie I said some very colorful things.
  18. Da5id Weatherwax
    In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
  19. Da5id Weatherwax
    I agree. That's why when instructing my security team I emphasised that it was always a "judgement call" - and that I'd back their judgement in any dispute. (even if I disagreed with it, they were on my crew so I'd support their right to make the call they did, even if I ended up apologising to somebody they'd kicked out or "discussing the matter" with them privately - I got to kick my crews backsides. Nobody else did, they all came around to kick mine and left my people to me.) Security could make that call themselves if they believed it justified, if anyone else complained to them about a particular avs presence they were required to exercise that judgement and make the call on the spot. They weren't omniscient, sometimes they got it wrong. But they were always honest mistakes. Somebody speaking "kidspeak" in local chat would be "regardo boot" even if their av sported an undeniably adult physique. Somebody judged "kid-like" in appearance by the security on duty would be asked to change. If later challenged I would explain to the aggrieved resident that it has to be the security guy on the spot who makes the call and they will usually do so in a way that causes least inconvenience to most people present. That it pretty much HAS to be that way and be that subjective. That it wasn't a ban or any kind of prohibition on returning, just that on that particular occasion that particular appearance and/or behaviour was presenting a problem and so it had to not be present any more.
  20. Da5id Weatherwax
    If you own and run a space on the grid, you make the rules for that space. Whether that's locking it down to only folks you have invited there or whatever arbitrary rules you choose. We all do that in our RL spaces, we "discriminate" on various criteria and we get to enforce that. We also get to take the consequences of what other people think of us for making those choices. It's the same in SL. In SL I'm EITHER a human, an anthro feline or I'm a borg (with a holofield emitter so as the borg I can look like whatever I want, but I do "honour the RP" and revert to the borg av if I become aware of circumstances that would disrupt the holofield). If a scifi spot allows furries as "alien species" I'll wear the cat there, if not I'll conform to their rules. As a performer I'm usually the cat, but if I'm booked on a sim that prefers to have no furries I'll wear the human. Similarly, if I want to go dancing at certain venues I have to be human. I expect folks to respect MY preferences in MY space, and if they don't I'll kick 'em out. By the same token, it's on me to respect THEIR preferences in THEIR spaces or expect the same treatment. "Child" or "child-like" avatars are a particular hot potato in some places. To give you an example, a club where I was the security mgr. This was a furry club and adult-themed. Not that the "naughty stuff" was its primary focus, it's just that it was explicitly NOT disallowed. You didn't have to but you could dance naked there if you wanted and if your dance was suggestive as F nobody would object. If you wanted to hook up with another patron and get it on right there on the dancefloor we wouldnt boot you for that (just about never happened). We didn't disallow any avs apart from "those that appeared underage" Human, welcome. Demon, likewise. Furries or scalies of any species, fine. Megas, tinies, no problem. The only thing was you couldnt look like a kid or a juvenile of any other species. This was not because we disliked child-like avatars or believed they shouldnt be on the grid, it was because it was too much of a risk in that space, with that theme. This was not an appropriate venue for such avatars to be present. If you were wearing that kind of avatar allowing you in there not only put you potentially in the presence of inappropriate content it also risked getting our entire place shut down. Even there we weren't stupidly strict about it. The rules I set for my security team were simple. "If it looks underage to you ask 'em to change or leave. If you get complaints from a patron about it looking that way to them, ask 'em to change or leave unless you look at the av in question and decide it's so obviously a bogus complaint that it has to be a troll request. Either way, if you DO ask somebody to change or leave, and they don't, boot 'em. If they then gripe to management, I've got your back."
  21. Da5id Weatherwax
    if a leather jacket isn't a little "distressed" how did it ever make it to the status of "heirloom"?
  22. Da5id Weatherwax
    I'm not so good at reggae but gotta admit I'm tempted ETA: IF by some strange chance it does happen then watch this space for a casting call, we're going to want a whole bunch of you wearing the worst-fitting clothes you've ever bought to film the dance video. Come and shake your poke-through
  23. Da5id Weatherwax
    Just go play "Stray" for a couple of hours. you'll pick it up just fine
  24. Da5id Weatherwax
    When I lived in Saint Paul I had a short but steep slope from the side of my garage down to the alley. Previous owner had sown it with native prairie plants and ground cover to stabilise it. There were three different milkweed species in there. I was diligent about the minimal maintenance it needed, trimming back the upper parts of the plants to prevent them extending over the alley and every fall planting marker stakes so the guy plowing the alley in winter could see where the edge of the slope was. Guy two houses up the alley hated it, decided it was an "eyesore" and reported it to the city every year. Every year I explained to the city inspector the need for slope stabilisation and that this stand of milkweed was a counting site for the monarch monitoring project being run by the U and by Fish&Wildlife. His response was always the same "OK, we aint touching that." Then one year the ***** came by in the middle of the night and sprayed it. We sent soil samples to the U and they found that the guy had used an agricultural herbicide that required a permit for its use and was totally forbidden from use within the city. Oops. We sent that result and our security cam footage in to the state and he got a monstrous fine, had to pay for environmental cleanup AND the restoration of the bed with equivalent native plants. Unfortunately for him, that took time and soil erosion from the unstable slope also caused subsidence of my garage slab. So I sued him for that too and got a new garage out if it.
  25. Da5id Weatherwax
    Kitten story from 30y ago - it was a peeve of cosmic proportions at the time so it's legit, right? Kitten separates itself from furpile around mom in the middle of the night and discovers a quilt. Crawls under the quilt, sensibly inserting itself between the two large sources of warmth that it found there. Then kitten gets bored and looks around for something to play with. At that age kittens are not so good at retracting their claws. They are also sharp as little needles. I am reliably informed (I didn't consciously witness this bit, you understand) that on that particular night I achieved levitation, rising up about six inches, scooting about 3 feet to the side and then lowering myself to the floor, taking the quilt with me as I went. Only then "waking up" with a truly sulphurous display of multilingual vocabulary and surveying the scene... The kitten in the middle of the bed, still with its paw upraised looking like "where did it go?" And, just beyond the furry miscreant, my dearly beloved just about wetting herself laughing.
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