Author: matthew

Important tip for parents or prospective parents: Styrofoam is indigestible. As are pencil erasers. Both of which we discovered first-hand within the last few days. Ahh, the joys of a one-year-old who puts everything he finds in his mouth and swallows it. I guess there’s truth to the old saying, “this, too, shall pass.”

We all know the drill. We need a new bookcase. A new TV stand. A new wall widget. And our budget is practically nonexistent.

So we go to Wal-Mart. Or Costco. Or any of a number of other places which might have the furniture we’re looking for. All of these, which aren’t dedicated furniture stores, have one thing in common with most of their furniture:

It’s made out of tiny chunks of wood, glued together.

Some call it plywood. Others call it chipboard. Regardless, it’s the detritus of wood, left over after other operations, glued together. It’s very inexpensive to produce, and very heavy for its size.

And we are rabid consumers of the stuff. As I look around my front room, I can see several pieces of chipboard furniture. And as I look in my side yard, I see the pieces I recently removed which I’ll be dragging to the dumpster later.

Chipboard stuff doesn’t last. It doesn’t look good. It’s not even really “wood”, it’s a substance of glue and sawdust covered with a PVC laminate to look like wood. Yet, because it’s cheap, we’ll buy three $50 bookcases to last us 10 years rather than one $800 bookcase to last a lifetime.

I’m beginning to hate the stuff. Yet who can argue that the price is right?

So I ran across some interesting statistics on pharmaceutical usage.

Yeah, I’m a nerd.

No, seriously, in 2001 Express-Scripts, a major pharmaceutical vendor, did a study to determine patterns of pharmaceutical usage across the US. Here’s part of the executive summary:

We found substantial variation in the number of prescriptions per member per year across the states for adults even after adjusting for differences in age and gender. The greatest use was among those living in Kentucky and West Virginia, with an average of 11.9 and 11.3 prescriptions per person per year in 2000, respectively. In contrast, New York state, had the lowest utilization at 7.65, followed closely by Colorado, Massachusetts, and California. Geographic patterns fluctuated across the therapy classes studied. Notable findings included:

• a higher age-gender adjusted rate of antidepressant use in Utah, Maine, Oregon, and Washington
• higher cardiovascular use in the South, including West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana
• greater rate of antidiabetic medication use in West Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Utah, and Ohio
• a lower rate of asthma medication use in the South (Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina)
• a lower rate of use of antihyperlipidemics in New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Alabama, Montana, and California
• a lower rate of estrogen use among women in Northeastern states such as New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.

If you’re like me, you had to look up “antihyperlipidemics”. It’s drugs which reduce the fatty content of blood — in other words, blood-thinners. I guess they stave off heart attacks.

Many of us have lived in the states mentioned. The main reason I was interested was because this is the study which documents that Utah uses an order of magnitude more antidepressants per capita, particularly among women, than any other state.

So if you were to randomly speculate as to why usage varies so widely in different areas, why would that be?

You know, I think the Wasatch Mountains are beautiful. I enjoy Utah, though a part of me dislikes the dryness of the weather and the cloistered nature of much of the population. Today, I found another reason to enjoy the local scenery.

I learned what Wasatch really means in the language of the Ute Indians.

I like the place more now; every time hear the phrase “In the shadows of the Wasatch mountains” or “along the Wasatch range”, I have reason to grin!

In response to questions about what I use for my digital recording studio, here’s the lowdown on my new setup. Some of the parts are not in place yet, so I make do and save up…

Hardware:

• Dell Inspiron 9300 notebook, with:
  • 60GB 7200 RPM hard drive
  • 1GB RAM
  • 256MByte Nvidia 6800 Go video
  • 17″ WUXGA (1920×1200) screen

  Total system cost: $2417. I used an $800 off coupon from Dell, though, so I saved a lot. Unfortunately, because I had a budget in mind for the unit, I couldn’t spring for the DVD burner (an extra $125.00). I have an external DVD burner, though.

• M-Audio Firewire Audiophile external sound card: $349.95 retail (picked mine up for $135.00 from eBay)
• Two OSM-800 condenser microphones: $120.00 each (picked up on sale for much less)
• Two boom stands: about $20.00 each
• 20′ mic cables: about $30.00 each
• A Phonics 4-channel mixer: $100.00
• Various mice, keyboards, headphones, and miscellania

Software:

• Cakewalk Sonar 2, 3, and 4 Producer Edition: $959 retail, but if you’re a previous Cakewalk owner it’s majorly discounted. Older versions are also dirt-cheap on eBay.
• There are a few plug-ins which are critical to the way I work in-studio:
  • Antares Auto-Tune: $349.00
  • LiveSynth Pro: $64.95
  • Clone Ensemble: $40.00
  • Various free VST plugins.
• Cool Edit 2000. $45.00 back in the day. This is called “Adobe Audition” now, and costs about $300. The reason I stick with the really ancient version is because it does the one thing it does that nothing else does well: noise reduction. I’ll generally also use this as my UI when tweaking notes using Auto-Tune. Actively looking for a replacement; I suspect I could figure out a way to do this within Sonar. Just gotta hit the manual.
• Many softsynths and sound libraries, both free and otherwise. I’ve dropped $20.00 here and $40.00 there a lot over the years to build a library of things I think sound pretty good.

Stuff I want to get to improve my sound:

• Real flat-response monitor speakers. Headphones and playing stuff on various equipment around my house just doesn’t give me really even testing of my mixes.
• A stereo condenser mic
• When I get that stereo condenser mic, I’ll need another audio interface, since 2 condensers + stereo condenser = 4 channels, and I can only record 2 at a time right now. You can play fun games with mixing, though, and do magic in 2 channels.
• Adobe Audition. It does lots more than just noise reduction now 🙂
• Building a noise-resistant enclosure for recording voice and instruments
• Sonar 4 Producer Edition. I’m still on 3 now.
• Cakewalk Project 5
• The new version of Drumkit from Hell. It’s on several DVDs now, and is an amazingly impressive, realistic-sounding drum library that’s still cheaper than paying a live drummer for one day in the studio (about $200)

There’s a bunch of other stuff, including a VST server cluster, many more microphones, a drumkit, a midi drumkit, etc. that I’d like to get “one day”, but I may be dead before that happens. Much of that would be predicated upon moving to a bigger place; our existing townhome is nice, and we like it, but there’s not enough space to build a full-fledged recording studio. However, I should be able to figure out a nook I can soundproof for vocals and guitars.

Realize I’ve accumulated this stuff over a decade and a half of recording and playing. I don’t think I’d drop several thousand dollars in one place for a recording setup myself! If I were rebuilding a studio from scratch today, needing a MIDI controller too, here’s what I’d do to try to do it all:

• $600.00 for an M-Audio Ozonic. This keyboard includes digital/analog audio interfaces, keyboard, MIDI I/O, and a whole slew of control surfaces. I just didn’t have the budget for it this go-round, but I could see with a laptop having a killer mobile studio with just this mobile audio interface and a few microphones.
• $1600 for a really nice laptop. (at $2200 so far)
• A copy of Cakewalk Sonar Producer Edition 4 from eBay for $420.00. (Now we’re at $2620).
• I’d still stick with two mics, and I like my OSM-800’s. I’d wait for a good sale (like I did) so I can get two for the price of one. With cables and boom stands, call it $250. (Now we’re at $2870.) Stereo condensers are ridiculously expensive, and response pattern is really important for these, so cheap Chinese knock-offs don’t work so well…
• Drumkit from Hell Superior, a drum sample library: $270.00. Now we’re at $3140.
• Slicy Drummer 2 with DR-008: I love both of these products, and the new version combines the two into one. It’s just a plug-in, but WHAT a plug-in! $70.00 (putting us at $3210)
• Antares Auto-Tune. $350 (Now at $3560)
• Izotope Ozone: $250 (Now we’re at $3810)
• Izotope Trash (a distortion plug-in): $200 (now $4010)
• Adobe Audition: $300 (now $4310)
• Cakewalk Project 5: $350 (now $4660)
• Buy a few loop libraries, miscellaneous cables, and a spare set of strings with the rest of the money between $4660 and $5,000.

I think that would do it. For under $5,000, you can have a really reasonable home studio recording environment that’s completely portable (two small bags) and high-quality. You can easily use it to produce nearly-pro-quality recordings of live performances at your kids’ schools (you’d need a lot more microphones and a much larger DAC with many channels to do full pro-quality), and be able to multitrack well at home. Because you’re using a small integrated midi and audio i/o controller, you don’t have much offboard gear to worry about. You will probably want to use a dedicated audio hard drive, though, that’s a external to the unit. The internal one will have to time-share with the swap file and other Windows applications, and you won’t be able to stream so many simultaneous tracks.

This is where I hope to go one day, but I’m not there yet!

A joke today about road rage:

A driver did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman behind him went ballistic, pounding on her horn and screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to drive through the intersection with him.

Still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer.

The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, “I’m awfully sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk.”

“Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car”

The site was down from roughly 17:30 to 23:50 tonight due to problems on the virtual server. I’ve made arrangements with Paul Murphy to move to a more reliable server. On the plus side, looks like I can save some money, and he can save some administration time he doesn’t have! Good stuff all around. I’ll keep you appraised of when the move will happen; if I handle my records right, it will seem to be totally transparent.

Striking another blow for fascism, on March 3, 2005 the US Congress introduced a bill seeking to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts over congress.

Yes, that’s right. Our elected representatives are attempting to tie the hands of the judiciary so it can’t stop Congress from raiding the cookie jar.

Specific provisions of this bill, which is still in committee, (but you can bet your last dollar will appear either by itself or added as a rider to a much more popular bill within the next year):

• Section 101(a): The Supreme Court would be forbidden from reviewing any case involving a lawsuit against any governmental body or employee, whether or not that person or institution was acting in an official capacity.
• 102(a): The same restriction will apply to district courts.
• 201: In reviewing the constitutionality of legislation, the court is specifically forbidden from considering international law in their judgment. They cannot also consider any non-US laws other than English Law prior to the Constitution. The chief concern to me with this provision is that it means that human rights agreements, peace treaties, and other agreements to keep peace with our neighbors can’t be considered in any judgment. Hello, war with Mexico. Again. Last time it was over territory; this time, it will almost certainly be over immigration.
• 301: Any previous judgment which would be disallowed under these changes would be invalidated. What does this mean in practice? Every single ruling ever made by the High Court which involved a practice of government is now up-for-grabs. Don’t like Roe V. Wade? Now you can go back and challenge it. And the best part? The High Court’s not alowed to hear your challenge, so it passes unopposed! Hooray for Fascism! (OK, I overstated this: previous invalidated judgments would be remanded back to State Courts. So now, hooray for inconsistent application of the law! Welcome back, state-approved segregation, coat-hanger abortions, and separationist dogma!)
• Now, the icing on the cake: Section 302. In summary, it states that if a judge opposes this law and declares it unconstitutional, or agrees to rule on something prohibited by this law, she’s guilty of treasonous action (violation of constitutional oath) and can be forcibly removed from office or incarcerated!

This is one of those bills which I hope will die in committee, yet like the DMCA and PATRIOT act, I’m certain someone will find a way to pass it. At the very least, it serves one useful purpose: it tells me who the enemies of democracy and freedom in our House of Representatives are, as listed in the introduction:

Mr. Aderholt (for himself, Mr. McCotter, Mr. Pence, Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, Mr. Bachus, Mr. Ryun of Kansas, Ms. Foxx, Mr. Barrett of South Carolina, Mr. Wamp, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina, Mr. Rogers of Alabama, Mr. Pitts, Mr. Everett, Mr. Cannon, Mr. Souder, Mr. Cantor, Mr. Price of Georgia, Mr. McIntyre, Mr. Weldon of Florida, Mr. Jones of North Carolina, Mr. Bishop of Utah, Mr. Herger, Mr. Goode, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Lewis of Kentucky) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

I think it is no accident which states are represented by those introducing this bill: Viginia, Kansas, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Utah, Kentucky. What I think I may be seeing here is the new axis of the Confederacy, attempting to find another way to secede from the Union and carry on the bigoted, Anglo-centric practices which were squashed in 1865.

Who knows? I could be wrong, and I probably am. But seeing the name of my elected representative affixed to this ridiculous attempted usurpation of the separation of powers makes me angry. And when I get angry, I get stupid and go out and do stuff like set up promotional web sites and carry on grass-roots campaigns…

OK, no, actually, I’ve never done that kind of stuff. But seeing this latest attack on the Constitution makes me wanna. Badly.

Text of the bill here. However, this particular link may expire in time.

Recently, attorneys have been debating the appropriateness of forcibly medicating Wandar Barzee, one of the two kidnappers of Elizabeth Smart. Yeah, the girl’s been home for two years, and they still can’t figure out a way to try her abductors.

Here’s the question: Wanda Barzee, it has been determined, could be found competent to stand trial if she took her antipsychotic medication. She, however, insists she’s not crazy and refuses medication because she believes it’s a plan of Satan.

Should she be forced to take the medication and stand trial for her part in Smart’s abduction and captivity? Keep in mind, the sentence for kidnapping is generally much less than life in prison.

Or should the government not force her to take the medication, and effectively imprison the 59-year-old woman for the rest of her life in a mental asylum because she’s unfit for trial?

Background links to help you understand the whole sordid mess:

• Rick Ross big list of Elizabeth Smart Links
• Prosecutors argue for forced medication

Yes, indeed, expert researchers over at snopes.com have determined that the urban legend about a woman finding a human finger in her bowl of Wendy’s chili is, in fact, completely true.

I trust Snopes more than I trust major media outlets. Those folks know their stuff, and as retired semi-professional hobbyists, they are more interested in truth than fiction. It’s their stock in trade, after all. The site’s gotten a bit pop-up heavy the last few years, though…

Anyway, the finger was fully-cooked, with a manicured fingernail (probably female), and appeared to have been torn, not cut, from someone’s body. They apparently checked all the hands of employees at the Wendy’s, and are currently moving backwards down the… ahem… “food chain” to figure out what supplier introduced the digit into the chili mixture.

I’ve made chili for Wendy’s before. Yes, I worked there. I’ve written about the experience, but not on my blog (yet, though I may have to recap it as a follow-up comment). The basic method is:

1. Fish out last night’s over-cooked hamburger meat from the refrigerator and chop it up. This is the stuff that sat on the grill too long the day before. It’s a crappy burger, but great chili meat.
2. Dump a massive bucket of ‘base’ with the meat into another large vat. Back when I did it, we had to add certain fresh vegetables to the base in order to make the chili more palatable. The base already contains the beans.
3. Heat for an hour before the store opens, and leave heated the rest of the day. Throw out the leftovers at the end of the day and start all over again.

So the most logical place for that finger to have been introduced was prior to the sealing of the vat of ‘base’. Unless, perhaps, some passer-by or employee threw the digit into the chili pot for some reason. I’m guessing the makers of the base just concatenate ingredients from suppliers and cook it, so the chain should be fairly short and lead back squarely to the packagers who work for Davco Foods.

It makes me wonder what other, less-bony body parts Wendy’s has served over the years?

Ick. I had about nine valid reasons for never eating Wendy’s Chili before. Now there’s an extra digit in my list of reasons to avoid it!

EDIT by matthew: Alas, it turns out the story is not true, it is FALSE. Snopes updated their story, and it turns out the lady planted the finger, which was given to her husband by an acquaintance to settle a debt. Ugh.