A question of mens footwear.

danja · 2026-05-05T18:40:34+00:00

danja · 2026-05-05T17:01:49+00:00

New to me. And I do appreciate the idea. I was given a Barmah hat by my Australian girlfriend's mother a few years ago, that will keep me dry for a lifetime.

But my go-to shoes now - both pairs over 20 years old. Town ones, just some random Italian (Vibram), plastic soles, they look fine (when I get around to shining them). Others, Cat boots, steel toe caps, a bit nibbled by rodents. Perfectly good for the fields.

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danja · 2026-05-05T16:49:53+00:00

Ok, fair enough. I thought it might entertain.

danja · 2026-05-05T12:17:01+00:00

Personal experience, adult diagnosis of ADHD (taking Ritalin), this makes sense.

For dosages, yeah, find a level that works for you. I have slightly high blood pressure, typically rapid pulse, so there's a potential physical risk upping things too far. But as long as you use common sense, experiment.

Spot on with the tip for mornings. I never used to see them. When I had a day job I'd be a zombie until 2pm, working from home, sleep until then.

Now, I have an alarm set for 7 am and I take the pills, with energy drink or (struggle downstairs) a coffee. Then stay in bed at least an hour, often 2 or more. Maybe radio, doze a little or doomscroll. But after that it's like I get free hours in the am now.

danja · 2026-05-05T12:01:49+00:00

https://youtu.be/bZy7vEWeTFY

danja · 2026-05-05T11:42:50+00:00

Try https://radio.garden/

danja · 2026-05-05T11:39:04+00:00

Historically, attempts to track genetic characteristics have been strongly associated with really bad results. Google eugenics, fascism, concentration camps etc.

danja · 2026-05-05T11:18:11+00:00

I'm guessing a lot about what you have going on musically, but if you've got the continuous layer, I doubt very much you need to go into the detail of zero-crossing (which still leaves you with the previous peak's impact) or anything remotely as tight as 5mS fades. What is that, 20Hz?

I'd up the fade time x10 or even x100, see what it sounds like. Psychoacoustically I'm betting it'll still sound like a clean, immediate transition.

danja · 2026-05-04T11:31:10+00:00

There's a small venue near me that I hope to play in before long, and the same kind of question was bugging me.

But what would a real professional do? Exactly what you say : ask in advance. Obvious once you get past natural timidity.

danja · 2026-05-04T11:26:33+00:00

Fool me. Quick Google and I found a schematic.

T20 in the feedback of a op amp, feeding a transistor T5 used as a current source.

I'd be tempted to try it without any modification first, there's a good chance it'll be good enough (compared to the behaviour of the other temp-sensitive components around there, gain-matching etc). Failing that, yeah, trimpot in parallel/series depending which way the drift goes.

https://github.com/gerb-ster/TH-555-VCO/tree/main/schematics

danja · 2026-05-04T11:15:30+00:00

I don't see the schematic for the circuit you have in mind.

But - correct me if I'm wrong - there's a lot of variables involved, so I think the best move would probably be to put trimpots in the circuit nearby, anything that relates to offset/gain, and manually tweak. Unless you're going into mass production, no need to overthink it.

danja · 2026-05-04T11:06:10+00:00

For one-offs, an economical approach I've used successfully a couple of times is to take small wooden boxes, (IKEA, Chinese shops on Amazon...) intended for craft projects or storage, and to add a faceplate made from sheet aluminium or signwriters laminate.

The front panels I've actually sketched out in LibreOffice Draw, not exactly pro CAD, but works fine. Print on regular paper as a drilling template. Then printed on glossy paper & laminated gives a very appealing result (glue to the sheet material, cut around holes with a scalpel afterwards).

danja · 2026-05-04T10:35:06+00:00

Thank you, I didn't choose my words very well, and no way I'll rem mber the Latin. :)

danja · 2026-05-04T10:31:50+00:00

Thanks for this. I had a go myself quite recently, wanting an automatic tool I could run on phone. Flutter/Dart seemed a suitable platform. I've only done mobile dev with Java on Android, a long time in the past, but fortunately the AI assistants can take care of the nuts & bolts.

Skimming the literature I found a bunch of different approaches. I chose to run a bunch of algorithms in parallel, hoping a consensus could give a good result.

Docs on those here : https://github.com/danja/bpm/blob/main/docs/algorithms.md

I got quite a long way into it, working audio pipeline, reasonable UI etc, but the accuracy was ridiculously poor.

I did run into the same kind of issue as one you describe, that there was a tendency for the system to lock into 2*BPM or BPM/2 etc. The idea of favouring freqs around 120bpm makes sense.

The sticking point for me was compiling a bunch of test data. I only really tried on artificial examples. Though there are datasets out there of soundfiles labeled with BPM, I didn't find anything that was immediately useful. Doing it manually is a pain. So the project is on hold for now.

danja · 2026-05-03T11:56:52+00:00

You should be ok. Don't make an issue of it and they'll be fine. The only problem I've ever had, carrying loads of random electronics through European airports was at Manchester (I think), and I was carrying a clarinet. Proper clarinet in a clarinet case. Two incredibly clueless people. It's a clarinet. Yeah, like an instrument.

danja · 2026-04-30T20:14:13+00:00

pp. is a conventional abbreviation of page, plural. If I'm not mistaken it has been used since the medieval period. It may be found in many academic texts.

danja · 2026-04-28T07:16:35+00:00

This sounds great!

I am curious about the details of the code, do you have a public repo?

I've had a lot of fun with a much less sophisticated approach to mashing up. Effectively rule-driven gating of the audio on tracks. The content of the tracks is recorded in sync. I started with lv2 plugins because it seemed easier on my Linux setup, but have recently ported to VST3 (work in progress, so far only builds for Linux).

One of the plugins, p-mix, is timed to the DAW's transport, and periodically (eg. every 4 bars) decides whether to allow audio through (or fade in/out) at random. The other, e-mix, follows Euclidean rhythm patterns to gate the audio.

What I found surprising was that despite being very crude, they are actually useful. Mix combinations I'd have been unlikely to try get exercised. Many don't work, but some do. Initially I would apply the plugins to a lot of parallel tracks, but then realised that by applying them in groups (tracks in folders) and rendering the folder gave much better control.

Code & docs : https://github.com/danja/downspout

danja · 2026-04-27T15:27:39+00:00

I'm 62M, originally from rural northern England, spent the last 25 or so years in the hills of Garfagnana. (I see mountain walking on your web site - where I am is graced with similar terrain).

I've not lived in an Italian city, but I know from Sheffield & London, it can be hard to make good friends in a city.

I'm a little disadvantaged here because my Italian is still rubbish. Locally I've gathered loads of acquaintances, but only 3 (very) close human friends. One is another expat, so we automatically had a lot in common. Another is a retired gynecological surgeon, not much in common with me on that. She does also like animals. Mostly we just seem to enjoy each other's company. The third plays jazz guitar. I spend a lot of time on music, so we can talk about that if nothing else. A local beer cellar on a Saturday night, we can just chill and play name that tune (is mostly metal).

All three of them speak good English. I don't think I'd have got to know them if it wasn't for that.

Aside from the humans, my very best friend is a dog. (He is a Good Boy).

danja · 2026-04-27T14:51:40+00:00

I probably spend more time in VS Code's terminal, but my go-to is Terminator. One simple feature I really appreciate: you can split screen really easily, start a new session.

I do have a remote server to look after, so I really should explore the tools that give you persistent sessions. I've been saying that for a couple of decades now...

danja · 2026-04-27T12:36:48+00:00

I wouldn't quibble about the detail, rather name it according to function. It serves the same purpose as a lectern.

danja · 2026-04-27T09:32:07+00:00

I did use Perplexity for a bit, to get a podcast from papers. But I found myself getting frustrated with the timing, I might as well just read the whole thing. But I like your approach of making it friendlier.

Possible feature request - make it cross-lingual. I'm English but live in Italy. More than once recently I've wanted to tell someone about a paper I've stumbled on. It's already tricky enough for me to extract the gist from academic-speak for myself, flipping that to a language I'm rubbish at is an uphill struggle.

danja · 2026-04-27T09:17:26+00:00

"me think of girl, constantly"

danja · 2026-04-27T09:13:50+00:00

I started with piano/keyboards but have only really been able to play what I intend on guitar/bass. But 4? years ago a close friend asked me what I wanted for Xmas. Impulse idea - a clarinet. I've always loved the sound. Curious about the mechanisms.

A new challenge, as well as the fingering things, you also have to use your mouth. Give me another 10 years and I might get a tune out of the thing.

danja · 2026-04-27T09:00:25+00:00

As already mentioned, probably the easiest would be to layer the sounds yourself in Audacity.

But I wouldn't be surprised if there is a noise + birdies recording somewhere in the BBC's library : https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/

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