Knuckledragger

Shee-it. I went to Chicken Alley today and they had an Apple A1407 Thunderbolt display for $28, sold "as is" because they had no means to test it. I lugged it home and worked perfectly. The only part I can't quite figure out is which revision this one is. It has a physical latch that blocks off the webcam. Every other version of the Thunderbolt Display that I've owned has lacked this feature.

Longtime listeners will be familiar with my obsessions surrounding the music of Oliver Lieb. OL wears many hats, working as a producer, remixer, DJ and mastering engineer. In my jaded opinion, he's one of the people best at mastering techno on the planet. Oliver's productions are legendary for having every element positioned perfectly in the mix. OL has an on-again, off-again approach to social media. He'll post a bunch then take a few years off. He's been active recently, posting a bunch of historical photos and information. In his own words: TIL that OL is a big fan of vintage Quad and Parasound gear. It's like he's pandering to make me an even bigger fanboy. 🤣

I mentioned in the rest in peace thread that DJ Dan died unexpectedly at 57. I did some digging. I was wrong when I said I did a 4 our set downstairs at RISE. It was 5 hours (1AM-6AM). The entire thing is on Mixcloud and has been since 2012. Mixcloud has fallen down the path of enshittificaiton in the last decade. The entire tracklisting is on the page, but only I can see it now. I don't have a copy (of the list) locally anymore. After entirely too much futzing: 1 Freeland - Wish I Was Here 2 Carmen Cuesta-Loeb - While My Guitar Gently Weeps 3 Bazille Noir - Big Time 4 Bally Sagoo - Dil Cheez 5 Funki Porcini - Dubble 6 Mr Scruff - Honeydew 7 Massive Attack - Karmacoma (Bumper Ball Dub) 8 Kid loco - She Woolf Daydreaming 9 Urban Species - Blanket 10 Tricky - YOU DONT 11 Waldeck - Floater (Dubblestandart mix) 12 Flight Facilities - Crave You (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix) 13 Freestylers - Cracks (Flux Pavillion remix) 14 John lennon - Imagine (Nicoluminous Remix) 15 Sofa Surfers - SEE THE LIGHT 16 Chin chillaz - Konkret 17 Death In Vegas - Rematerialised 18 Massive Attack - Teardrop (Phutureprimitive Remix) 19 Saafi Brothers - TOGETHER IN SILENCE 20 Kruder & Dorfmeister - Shakatakadoodub 21 Alex Cortiz - Chambre 606 22 The Delta - As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling (Dub Edit) 23 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Mustt Mustt (Duck Pond Dub Mix) 24 Shen - Embrace 25 NENEH CHERRY - Move With Me 26 Tycho - From Home 27 Pitch Black - The Random Smiler (Live) 28 Small World - Shuttle 3-5-8 29 J Boogie's Dubtronic Science - Le Booty Cinematique 30 Alex Cortiz - SMOOTH 31 Gary Jules - Mad World (Phutureprimitive Mix) 32 Andain - You Once Told Me 33 Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground (The Perfecto Dub) 34 Minuit - Except You 35 Minot - Distant Lights 36 Dj Food - 3 Pound Skank 37 Hol Baumann - Benares (live edit) 38 Pretty Lights - Hot Like Sauce Rustified Remix 39 Pretty Lights - Country Roads (Pretty Lights Remix) 40 Pretty Lights - Gold Coast Hustle 41 THIEVERY CORPORATION - The State Of The Union 42 THIEVERY CORPORATION - Lebanese blonde (French Version) 43 Hooverphonic - Club Montepulciano (Bugs Downtown Remix) 44 Nacho Sotomayor - Song for a Lonely Men (Part 1) 45 RJD2 - Ghostwriter 46 Shen - Symbol Range 47 Heyoka - Diesel 48 Statik Sound System - Valentine 49 The Smiths - How Soon Is Now 50 Planet E - Klub Kola (Uptight On The Rocks Mix) 51 Heyoka - Two Sea Blues 52 Ennio Morricone - L' Estasi Dell' Oro (Bandini Remix) 53 Depeche Mode - It's No Good 54 DNA feat Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (12'') 55 Dj Food - Dark Lady 56 Beef Wellington - Tacet 57 BANCO DE GAIA - Qurna (Mister Christian on the Decks) 58 Leftfield - Inspection (Check One) 59 Heyoka - Shmazdipdoodlydurkayoda 60 Tosca - Mango di Bango 61 Bush - Letting The Cables Sleep (The N.O.W. Remix) 62 Baby Mammoth - Frank's Angels 63 Rabbit In The Moon - Dubassex 64 Jester - Free 65 Bullitnuts - Heavy Air 66 The cure - Burn 67 Neotropic - Here i am 68 Nightmares On Wax - You wish 69 Pretty Lights - Finally Moving 70 The Nomad - Check The Pitch It's a pretty good selection. TBH there are a few tracks in there I'd skip these days. IIRC it took me a solid week to program that set.

Goddamn. Just learned that DJ Dan died at 57. I did a 4 hour set downstairs at the legendary afterhours club Rise in Boston while he headlined in the main room upstairs in late 2012. A few months later, I helped run a show where he played in early 2013. This was the upstairs before DJ Dan started playing. The number of people in it tripled by the end of the night. I don't have many photos of the downstairs ...because I DJ'd for 4 hours, but this is one long exposure taken with me braced against a couch. The 2013 show was amazing. I saw a bunch of jaded drum n bass and dubstep fans realizing that house music was a lot of fun. I only spoke to him briefly, because I had a job (or more to the point, like 20 jobs) to do. He seemed like a very chill, down to earth guy, especially for someone as famous as he was. 57 is crazy young to pass.

Ross “The Boss” Friedman, Legendary Dictators and Manowar Guitarist, Dead at 72.

It's an interesting unit Not the sharpest thing in the world, but it focuses quickly. The out of focus areas are warm and fuzzy, so it has good bork-eh. Probably best used outdoors.

Martin L. Kennedy, the main man behind the Australian space rock project All India Radio has a very nice kitty.

Sam Kieth, Creator of The Maxx and Sandman, Has Died, Aged 63.

This is my personal apocalypse. I don't drink booze, I don't smoke or vape. Weed makes me paranoid and miserable (edibles make me trip balls in addition to being paranoid and miserable.) I sure as fuck don't mess with any powder or pill drugs. While I am a believer and advocate of the use of natural psychedelics for purposes of therapy and personal growth, I'd never do them recreationally. Tapatio is my one drug. Long term listeners may recall when I told the tale of driving to a Walmart Black Citadel Super Center in W.Mass to buy them out of Tapatio. I've done that two other time, but not photographed it. I did the math once and I went through ten 32oz bottles in 2 1/2 years, or about four per year. I've had dozens of other brands of hot sauces. Many are weak, some are insanely spicy (extracts are just dumb), and most taste rather bad. Tapatio isn't the hottest of the widely available brands, but it's the best balance of heat and flavor. Vulture capital is the ruiner of all things good. I fully expect Tapatio to turn into something on par with Frank's Red Hot in the next six months. I posted in the hot sauce subreddit and already people are panic buying. I'm seriously considering buying a box of four one-gallon jugs and a pump (usually sold to the restaurant market.) This is a nightmare.

There's a persistent internet rumor that Benjamin Netanyahu died on March 9th (Biggie Smalls is not happy to share the date.) The theory is that Bibi was killed or injured in an Iranian air strike. Supposedly he's missed some key cabinet meetings. Also, there's a (in my jaded opinion, extremely flimsy) theory that one of Bibi's kids was observing Shiva ...by not posting on social media for seven days. The Israeli government has released three videos of Bibi since then, and all have been "debunked" on the internet as AI generated, enhanced, manipulated, etc. In the first video, Bibi appears to have six fingers on one hand for a moment. In the second, he's in a coffee shop. In that one he actually counts to five in Hebrew on each of his hands and takes a sip of some mocha latte whatever. There are a lot of theories about the coffee video: The cafe in question is not currently open because of the attacks on Tel Aviv. The original footage was shot in 2024 (some say 2020) for a different propaganda effort. The third video is him and the huckster himself Ambassador Mike Huckabee. It's clearly a scripted bit, where ol' Huck meets Bibi in a hallway, they have a stilted and awkward conversation about Israel's assassination list, shake hands and talk about the number of fingers they have. There are a number of weird digital artifacts in the video, but it all seems pretty real to me. An AI generated video wouldn't seem stiff and forced in the same way (it'd be unreal in a completely different one.) I did go on a bit of a deep drive, which even lead me to Xitter for a bit. Wading through the legion of Nazi posts, I found some pretty funny remixes. (There may not embed correctly.) https://fxtwitter.com/abdulhyefahad/status/2034006657722982435 https://fxtwitter.com/drvijaysrinivas/status/2033988906576974124 https://fxtwitter.com/JaiNDoC_RL/status/2034032032813040007

Nvidia released some DLSS5 teaser images and are getting absolutely roasted. The Akakichi no Eleven meme, which I still don't fully understand. My personal favorite, Gen XLSS5.

Martin Stutzer is doing a live broadcast. Neptune the kitty is having a nap.

Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell dies aged 64. Wizzo was Motorhead's longest serving guitarist. While nothing tops the band's classic power trio era, the Campbell years were often very fruitful. Especially with Mikkey Dee on drums.

"The speakers ARE the room treatment."

Lens-DB.com closing down. https://lens-db.com/blog/website-closure/ I rebuilt lens-db.com from its ashes: introducing The Lens DB. https://thelensdb.com/

"I think I found a market for these old SCSI cables."

Leonard Nimoy died 11 years ago. Seen here with his '63 Buick Riviera. Bill Hicks died 32 years ago (technically yesterday). During his short but intense career, Bill languished in relative obscurity in the states but saw much greater success in the UK and Canada. This routine, taken from his Relentless special in the UK, is and will always be his greatest rant. The above is a cut down version because some evil-annoying-idiot-fucks keep copyright striking Bill's work. This rant wasn't really part of the Relentless material, but more an off-the-cuff riff that he improvised on stage and later turned into a routine. In 2004 or so I shared it with a friend who worked in marketing (web development, specifically) and she left the industry shortly thereafter. She's been a RN for 20 years at this point and couldn't be happier with her career change. I'm not saying ~3 minutes of Bill ranting was the impetus, but I strongly suspect it helped. Also shout out to Fila Brazillia for including this bit in its entirety at the end of "6ft Wasp" from their 1995 album Maim That Tune. The Brits were ahead of the curve on a great many things in the 90s and that included an appreciation for Bill Hicks and his very specific brand of excoriating comedy.

RIP Éliane Radigue, serious electronic music pioneer. She influenced the people who influenced the people I still listen to.

The Vineyard has sustained pretty extensive damage from the storm. Apparently over a quarter million Massholes are still without power. EDG getting it the worst. I suspect this is primarily because of Chappaquiddick being more or less 100% down. There's a flagpole by the Old Sculpin Gallery. Seen here way back in 2009: It blow'd over the night before last: Apparently, those are the power lines for all of Chappy. That means the entire island is in the dark. I suspect most of the homes there that are occupied all year have generators. Chappy is "hard mode" for Vineyard life. Every aspect of living here is more expensive and difficult. Circuit Avenue, the busiest place on island during the summer, is completely dark except for one shop. I dunno what dark entity the proprietor bribed. That's the Corbin-Norton house in the background. I still haven't actually exited my house. I'm tasked with digging a path to the driveway and a few other things. I'm really fortunate to be one of the few with power. This is the exact inverse of my experience where I lived on the mainland for 20+ years.

Actor Robert Carradine Dies At Age 71. Best known for Revenge of the Nerds. He took his own life. Apparently he struggled with severe bipolar disorder for decades.

Those orange circles with squares in them represent over 1000 homes without power. So far [knock on wood] we're okay. Two friends of mine (85 and 89 years old) don't have power. Apparently their propane (heat) stove works to some degree without power, but in a very reduced capacity. I have the (dumb AF) color changing light bulb in an antique lamp. For some reason, it's super sensitive to voltage drops. It starts flickering way before anything else. I've nicknamed it "the canary" and kept it on all day. It's been steady for a few hours now, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I have not left my house today (I can't) but I did take a number of photos from various windows. I'll post them later. It's crazy. Things look like northern Scandinavia around here.

For the New Englanders:

RIP Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, fatally shot on porch of his rural SoCal home.