Rites of Spring #16 - We remember Mount St. Helens from 1980 · Tuesday May 18, 2010 by colin newell
We remember Mount St. Helens – live audio!
Many of us over 40 years of age might remember that morning in May 18th 1980 when Mount St. Helens exploded.
The pressure had been building on the lava dome for months and it was well known that something might be happening soon. Very few would have expected such a violent explosion as this one.
For me, there was 2 distinct shock waves that rolled through Victoria. It sounded like heavy artillery.
Depending on the location in the Northwest, everyone had a different impression.
I had my 1973 era cassette tape running moments after the explosion of Mount St. Helens – so please check out this out-take of ham radio operators and a newscast from CFAX 1070. You are there!
Living in the Northwest and on the Pacific coast it is very important to be aware of the hazards of living in the ring of fire.
If you cannot see the audio thing below, click here for the mp3.
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Rites of Spring #16 - Gadgets - playing with the Clever Coffee Brewer · Sunday May 16, 2010 by colin newell
On a brilliant Spring day in Cobble Hill, British Columbia I drop into The Drumroaster Cafe (owned by Patricia, Geir and Carsen Oglend – arguably the coffee masters of Vancouver Island)
I am enjoying a Chemex pot of an exotic single origin coffee and one of Patricia Oglend’s marvelous baked creations when Geir suggests… “Want to roast some coffee?”
Do I?
Within minutes we are in the roaster room firing up a 60 pound Deidrich coffee roaster – It is a gas powered drum roaster that I have a passing familiarity with – but Geir plays it safe and assumes (correctly) that I need some hand holding – good thing because we are about to play with hundreds of dollars worth of coffee over the space of a half-hour or so.
During cooling cycles he pulls out this wonderful little coffee maker – it looks like a Melitta #4 coffee filter holder… with a twist. It has a spring loaded valve on the bottom that stays closed unless the coffee maker is sitting on top of a mug.
So. When one is brewing coffee by a.) dropping in a gold filter or #4 paper filter and b.) Putting some fresh ground coffee into the filter and c.) adding some water directly off the boil into the filter – and then counting down about 2 minutes…
and then placing the Clever Coffee Maker onto the mug – which opens the valve which allows the coffee to flow through into the mug.
Sure you could do this with a regular #4 filter holder (like the Melitta) but you have no brew control other than the grind of the coffee and your ability to finesse the right amount of hot water into the basket at precisely the right rate. This is called Brew dwell – and no, I did not just make that up.
The Clever Coffee Maker is clever for several reasons. It allows for a degree of French press type immersion and allows you to control the amount of time the ground coffee comes in contact with the water.
Clever? I would say brilliant!
And at $20 (Tax-Incl.) dollars for this delightful little coffee gadget, I would say…
Get smart and get the “Clever”. Want more info? Visit the Drumroaster online.
You can get your own Clever coffee brewer from The Drumroaster Cafe on the Island Highway on Vancouver Island at the Cowichan Bay turn-off – visit in person or contact them on their website online.
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Rites of Spring #15 - Gadgets - playing with the TASCAM US-100 interface · Saturday May 15, 2010 by colin newell
This is the first in a series of features focusing on the geek aspects of my life under the category of digital audio.
I have a home based studio powered by a 3.2 Ghz PC running Windows XP. One of my main audio interfaces in the M-Audio Delta 44 4 channel audio interface tied into a 12-in / 2-out Behringer analog mixing board. I use APEX floating plate microphones and Adobe audition software for multi-track audio recording and mastering.
An old friend of mine needed a portable USB interface device that would handle phono inputs from his turntable into his slightly older PC. After a bit a research and phone calls to the good folks at Long & McQuade, I had my hands on the very affordable TASCAM US-100 multi-mode USB audio interface.
The TASCAM’s US-100 bridges a wide variety of analog devices like cassette decks and turntables as well as guitars, basses, keyboards and non-phantom powered microphones into your PC or MAC. The microphone input handles any dynamic microphone (like the SHURE SM-58), or you can plug in your guitar or bass directly into the instrument-level input. Stereo line inputs can be switched to RIAA phono level for digitizing your LP’s from any turntable. A USB 2.0 connection guarantees hassle free playback on any Mac or Windows box, and solid aluminum construction looks like it could survive anything I could throw at it.
The online specs read: The US-100 records in stereo at CD-quality 48kHz/16-bit resolution and includes a free copy of Audacity software to get you started.
Oddly my sample did not come with any software but the fabulous AUDACITY software is readily downloaded along with a veritable forest of plug-ins.
I was up and running in minutes and playing my guitar directly into my PC (and then my MAC Powerbook for good measure) – I then patched one of my favorite semi-pro cassette decks from the 80’s – the JVC DD-5 into the RCA inputs on the TASCAM US-100 for some whisper quiet recording on the PC. Some of my song demos from the 80’s, however banal nowadays, sure sounded sweet through this set-up. And NO, no one is ever hearing those demos!
The TASCAM US-100 has a single balanced XLR and 1/4” unbalanced microphone input, as well as unbalanced stereo RCA line ins and outs. I have been using TASCAM products since the 1980’s (with the venerable TASCAM 144 and 244 cassette multi-track units.) As usual, TASCAM and Long & McQuade have never let me down. Their staff are awesome and no matter where you go in Canada, you are going to be singing the praises of Long & McQuade and Tascam products.
Rites of Spring #14 - Facebook suicide run. Good bye. · Friday May 14, 2010 by colin newell
Signed on to Facebook for about 10 days. More out of curiosity than anything else. Twitter has been working out quite well – and not surprisingly.
I mean, Twitter is a very simple thing. You post thoughts and hopefully link to some richer media somewhere.
It works… like you would expect.
But I digress.
I signed up for Facebook knowing full well how dodgy and sketchy Facebook is with peoples personal information. We have always known that Facebook is a data mining center for the folks who pay the execs at Facebook top dollar for every bit of minutia you put on your profile. It’s for sale. You’re for sale. And you can never really delete that information… ever. Never.
I knew that.
I also know that everything you put on Facebook (pictures, content, multimedia) belongs to Facebook forever. Your pictures? Theirs. Your life? Theirs. It is in the user agreement. You have no excuse if you are offended and do not understand this.
I get this.
What I was not ready for was the amount of spam mail that I got that seemed to fit in, puzzle like, and locked fit to every little detail of my personal profile.
What I discovered was: In my “interests” are on Facebook, I have; hiking, skiing, race car driving, helicopter piloting, ballet, etc etc…
And I was soon being buried on my e-mail with shills for hiking, skiing, race car driving and so on. You get the picture.
And I had my “privacy” settings locked down as hard as they could go.
So I should not be surprised that Facebook sells everything on you… and me.
But I was… a little.
But I left. After 10 days. And it’s OK.
Because tens of thousands of people are leaving Facebook daily. Some of these departures are affectionately referred to as suicide pacts – group departure from an online social network that is, oh so obviously… so… yesterday.
The online user base (and the folks at Facebook should pay attention to this) are pretty savvy.
And like old friends who turn out to be con artist scum balls… we eventually clue in.
I did.
And you can too.
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