HiWire

Yes, and I always wondered why they didn't name the whole act the Silvertones. I've waited for years to see the show come out again, but at least it's available on YouTube in low res for now. I've never owned a Chris Isaak (or Hum) album... looking forward to catching up, though.

Dancin' – Chris Isaak Totally forgot about the David Lynch connection: http://somethingelsereviews.com/2015/01/10/james-wilsey-chris-isaak-guitarist/ I miss watching the Chris Isaak Show late at night.

Hats – The Blue Nile

Amiga 4000 Restoration featuring Commodore Engineer Dave Haynie I never had an Amiga, but a friend showed me some awesome games on his machine back in the day. The Amiga and Atari ST versions of games were always better than the PC versions.

No Boot Camp on Apple silicon for now: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/heres-whats-happening-to-boot-camp-amid-the-apple-silicon-transition/ The Verge writes that Microsoft has not given out a Windows 10 ARM license (yet) and virtualization like Fusion or Parallels might take a while: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp We'll have wait to see if this means Apple will offer both CPU options, e.g., iMacs with ARM or Intel processors.

Soviet synth

Out of the Blue – Electric Light Orchestra Relentlessly cheery 🌞

Mariam Batsashvili – she's on the Liszt 😄

There's a rumor that the next iMac will be coming at the end of the year: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/kuo-24-inch-imac-new-design-4q20/ I remember being very excited after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and the new Bondi Blue Macs were introduced in 1998.

The first Intel iMacs (September 2006) were supported until Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (released 2009, updated until July 2011) and the ones released in 2007 were supported to OS X 10.7 Lion (released 2011, updated until 2012). So it might be safer to stick with Intel, as their "transition" ARM computers might have technical limitations that shorten their support life, if history is anything to go by (having Windows Boot Camp compatibility on Intel Macs is useful as well). I'd wait until the next iMac update. Some of the 8th-gen Coffee Lake processors in the current iMacs date back to late 2017... a poor value, in my opinion.

Homegrown – Neil Young 1974 says "hello" again

I wonder if Spatial Audio will work at all on 3rd-party products. I'm guessing the answer is "no" for now. I was thinking the same thing about x86... I think I'll get the last Intel Mac (7nm?) unless it's a total disaster. My home computer will be 9 years old soon. I'm also running Mojave and I don't want to install Catalina (if at all) for a while. It's still full of bugs. I just caught that everyone is going to be calling the latest macOS BS. Maybe they have a finely-developed sense of irony. The A12Z in the Developer Mac Mini doesn't sound that impressive. I was hoping to start with an A13 at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A13 I'm not a Swift programmer, but I thought a lot of Apple apps ran at a high level of abstraction, so there shouldn't be a lot of machine-code level optimization required for stuff that isn't running down to the metal (like games and graphic programs). I hope Rosetta 2 runs old apps smoothly and reliably like they showed in the demo.

Sign me up

Happy Birthday!

Powerful. Wikipedia: "'An Enemy of the People', produced by Berlin's Schaubühne theater, was performed in Beijing from September 6 to September 8, 2018, but the subsequent touring of the show was cancelled due to its themes. The audience in Beijing reportedly showed overwhelming support for the character Dr. Stockmann, and shouted criticism of the Chinese regime during interaction parts. Even in subsequent censored performances, audiences yelled "for personal freedom!" The regime's censorship officers would not agree on any more subsequent touring unless it was doctored in favor of the regime's thought on what a play should be." but also: "Ibsen took a somewhat skeptical view of his protagonist, suggesting that he may have gone too far in his zeal to tell the truth. Ibsen wrote to his publisher: 'I am still uncertain as to whether I should call [An Enemy of the People] a comedy or a straight drama. It may [have] many traits of comedy, but it also is based on a serious idea.'" On a lighter note, this is my favorite British drama (looks like there won't be a revival, though): http://britishperioddramas.com/news/blackadder-writer-confirms-if-that-rumoured-new-season-will-happen/

I think it's the reverent gloss on the show. The show means to satirize the upstairs/downstairs genre but actually revels in its conventions. I think it was very popular everywhere at the time it was on air (I completely missed the boat as a TV contrarian), but I took a quick look at some of the Downton parodies on YouTube and none of them are as clever as the show itself (i.e., it is self-parody). It's easy to make fun of the show because it wallows in minutiae and melodrama, but I admire the commitment of the actors. Most of the show is ridiculous, which is why everybody plays it with an absolutely straight face. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/style/better-check-the-beds-edwardians.html "Mary has such a punchable face"

OK, I'm pretty sure Downton Abbey is crack for hardcore Anglophiles. But I keep thinking that it would be even better with a guest appearance from Wallace and Gromit 🧀

Aja – Steely Dan

Rage In Eden – Ultravox I like this album cover a lot more than the other versions

Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition – people seem to take Warhammer literally, which is weird (I can see where it's necessary to flesh out the universe for the video games and books). It's meant to be silly fun. The rules are meaningless to me as I haven't played Warhammer since the first edition, but I do enjoy the videos and absurd Spice Marine memes. Regarding the commenters' complaints about the video (too clean) – I think Games Workshop is trying to bring in a younger group of new players (again), so having too much blood and gore in the intro would make it difficult to bring them in.

Harlequin is worth listening to in the background just for the soundtrack:

According to Wikipedia, John Foxx worked on the Bitmap Brothers' Speedball 2 and Gods soundtracks under his new pseudonym, Nation 12, in the early 90s:

This album is too short! Straight into Lament...

Quartet – Ultravox

I'm halfway into the third episode and suddenly it's Weekend at Bernie's – I suspect we are being trolled. The cast must have had fun shooting it (no smiles allowed). Gives fresh insight into the term "corpsing." I've somehow managed to dodge ten years' worth of spoilers by living in the matrix.