LATEST ADDITIONS

As an admirer of Walter Bagehot, The Economist's wonderfully quotable editor (1859-1877), I knew the magazine had a sense of humor. I just didn't realize it had such a talent for slapstick.

"There's no substitute for good songwriting," he begins.

Here's where we separate the musically inclined geeks from the musically inclined geeks with decent computer sound systems. Jeff Wong sent along the URL to Deutsch's Musical Illusions, so I checked out the examples on my laptop. I got nuttin'. Typical male-type guy that I am, then I read the technical note:
" In listening to these illusions, it is best to use equipment with a flat frequency response so as to avoid spectral distortion. For example, enhanced high frequency transients tend to degrade the effects. And features that alter the signal in any way, such as spatialization features, should be turned off. Also make sure that the playback amplitude is not too high. With many sound systems, this amplitude needs to be set at a different level depending on whether you are listening through headphones or loudspeakers, and you might want to determine the appropriate settings before you begin. When you are listening to the stereo illusions through loudspeakers, it is best to be positioned equidistant between the speakers, with one to your left and the other to your right."

Air and Space has a fascinating article about the mechanical naughty bits of the Wright Brothers aircraft. You can all but smell the hot oil.