Over in the Stereophile Forums, we've been having a conversation about the differences between music lovers and collectors—a conversation that has been considerably enlivened by the participation of my friend Jeff Wong, who is both.Jeff just sent me this link to a website dedicated to Agrippa—A Book of the Dead by William Gibson and Dennis Ashbraugh, a collector's item that was designed to erase itself as you read it. Talk about dilemmas! Is it all about owning it—or does the act of experiencing it become tantamount? Whew!
Glad we have sites like this to experience it vicariously.…
Funny thing about carting a $1600 amplifier down these New York City streets during the evening rush: People just don't give a crap; they'll run you over. No problem. In fact, I was almost shown to that great, big listening room in the sky by an SUV (with Jersey plates, of course) just outside Herald Square. And try getting a $1600 CD player through the PATH station turnstiles; there's no special "Hi-Fi Entrance" down there. You're left to your own devices. I employed the lift and twirl method, but only after realizing that the push and shove method wasn't going to work.
In…
I link to this review of David Crystal's How Language Works not so much because it is deeply informative—I'm pretty sure I want to read it, but the review doesn't make that compelling a case—but rather because of my admiration at the way John Humphrys manages to work one of my favorite grammar jokes into the review.That's the mark of a pro: He got to read a book that sounds fascinating and then get paid for telling a good 'un.
San Francisco's wonderful Jon Carroll points us towards Regret The Error, a compendium of error correcting slugs that have run in newspapers and journals.
The Inquirer goes medieval on DRM's butt. This rant is passionate and incandescent. Wish I'd said it, but linking to it is pretty satisfying, too.
This online dialog between Neal Stephenson and the readers of Slashdot isn't new, but I'd never read it before. There's good stuff on money, copyright, and his three deathmatch battles with William Gibson.
'Fess up—you've always wondered about that butter side down thing.My personal favorite factoid concerns the reason that time seems to speed up as we get older.
I'd try this myself, but I expect that Huckleberry's revenge would be severe.
I spent perhaps a total of ten hours in my apartment this weekend, and for about eight of those, I was asleep. So, unfortunately, I didn't have the time to make any real comparisons. I faced no problems, however, in disconnecting the Arcam Solo and bringing the A3.5 units into my little system. It was an easy-breezy piece of Key Lime pie. I didn't even feel bad about it; the Musical Fidelity pieces are so attractive, I couldn't wait to get them going. Though the setup required merely sticking the AC cords into the appropriate sockets, making the simple connection between the integrated…
Artnatomy is a really cool tool—for learning to draw faces, of course. I can't even draw a stick figure for Hangman, but stuff like this makes me dream about unleashing my (extremely) inner artist.
