LATEST ADDITIONS

A (very) short history. You mean it wasn't just a John Hartford song?

I've mentioned, <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/033106success/">here</a&gt; and <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/040306crimson/">there</a&gt;, the lovely and romantic collaboration between Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, <i>Ballad of the Broken Seas</i>. I should tell you that, when I first heard this album, my face went sour and my high hopes fell far and flat. It wasn't what I expected. It struck me as being a bit odd and aloof, foggy and cold; I wanted it to be easier, gentler.

Carl van Schaik says it's the culture. They learn from one another. I sure learn from the people who read stuff I write.

I guess that depends on the era.

The story of Carl Friedrich Gauss' schoolboy triumph over a manipulative teacher is well-known, but Brian Hayes discovered a more interesting tale&mdash;and a moral.

As far as color perception goes, it's in the brain. Maybe. Probably.

Charting that "A ha!" moment.

I saw this article about a counterfeit antique coin last week and didn't give it a second thought. <I>So what?</I> I muttered. <I>It just shows scammers were ever with us.</I>

I told no one about this, I swear, yet everyone seems to know. Word spreads like vermin. All eyes are up to the ceiling. As we walk down the halls of our Madison Avenue office, we hold a suspicious and trembling view of the dirty gray panels which hang, tentatively, above us. We are wary and watchful, cautiously anticipating the sudden fall.

"You've taken on a design challenge and come up with a solution that's been widely admired and won you accolades. But a year or so later, you realize you made a mistake. There's something horribly wrong with your design. And it's not just something cosmetic — a badly resolved corner, some misspaced type — but a fundamental flaw that will almost certainly lead to catastrophic failure. And that failure will result not just in embarassment, or professional ruin, but death, the death of thousands of people.