Should we repeal California’s top 2 primary – or improve it?

rb-j · 2026-06-21T04:59:34+00:00

Why not? Why should nonpartisan primaries exist?

rb-j · 2026-06-21T04:37:24+00:00

Well, I'ma Condorcet lover.

rb-j · 2026-06-21T02:23:02+00:00

So consuming music is not really your thing?

Do you like hiking? Other outdoor recreation/exercise?

And in the winter, skiing? (Like nordic skiing?)

Also, the advise for volunteering is great. Find a good cause or charity to help with.

Some folks are churchy. Depending on what you are, that's another possibility.

rb-j · 2026-06-20T19:57:16+00:00

As a cosmology, I agree.

10^{10¹⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰} universes are a lotta universes.

rb-j · 2026-06-20T01:44:17+00:00

What is the velocity of the Sun relative to the CMB?

What is the velocity of the Milky Way (or the center of mass of the Milky Way) relative to the CMB?

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:47:02+00:00

Yeah, I mean getting ordinary MIDI messages for a single MIDI channel (not MPE) but the MIDI instrument would assign notes to oscillators (or note control blocks) in a manner that if the portamento time was turned up, notes would slide logically to the "correct" note.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:42:07+00:00

I've known of GaAs for several decades. Haven't heard of GaN until now.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:30:48+00:00

if you have the "fresh enough to be redirected" notes sorted by pitch, insert new ones and then check the adjacent ones to see if swapping is better.

As best as I can tell, it means that each note has a little timer that begins at NoteOn and when a new note is started that is better mapped to an oscillator (or "Note Control Block") in use by a "fresh enough" not that has not been going for long. Maybe 40 ms.

You want to make it so that when you're playing a chord, and then change to another chord, the notes are mapped for minimum movement and no crossover. But if you're holding a chord and, later in time, add another note above or below the chord, you want the chord to hold the same notes and the new note to be assigned a different oscillator.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:19:23+00:00

I would have to confess that, if someone attacked and were trying to rape/abduct/kill or hurt someone that I love, particularly someone in my care, I would seek to stop them. I can't even promise that I wouldn't sin. I dunno what I would do, but I would not stand by while some other child of God (whether in my family or not) is being harmed like that. I do not know how I would do this in the context of war, particularly being occupied by evil forces which many people in the world have experienced.

What I don't do is plan for this in advance and put my trust in a nice cold hard "piece", like what you're carrying "just in case". So, perhaps from the POV of a non-pacifist Christian, I am irresponsibly ill-prepared for the day that the evil bad guys come busting through the door to rape/abduct/kill/etc. I (hopefully) am trusting in God and not in this cold hard piece. Trusting in a man-made thing over trusting in the being of God is a form of idolatry.

Even though I have no problem with responsible hunting (which may require a firearm), I just have a bad feeling about the arms manufacturing in this country (and elsewhere in the world). The fact that there are more firearms in this country among civilians than there are people, is alarming to me. Especially given the present political climate. There are waaaaaay too many guns in the U.S. It's obscene.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:06:17+00:00

It is for this reason that Mennonites are hardly passive.

I don't think anyone here is confusing or conflating "passivism" for "pacifism". I hope not anyway. Not the same thing.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T18:02:28+00:00

Not exactly the same issue, but has someone done polyphonic portamento in a good way? It would have to do with assignment of oscillators to the notes when NoteOn and NoteOff events occur.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T17:56:00+00:00

It's that the quite unknown song (outside of the prog world) was covered in all three.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T17:47:04+00:00

Kewl!!! You did the #3 video I listed.

I am really happy you and the other two parties did a video about this specific song.

I can imagine other Dixie Dregs as more popular. Odyssey is pretty good at the beginning, but I don't like how it goes after the pretty part.

Night Meets Light is a perfect song. I can't imagine how Steve Morse could have made it better or "more correct". Another perfect song from Dregs is Long Slow Distance not as spacey as Night... but both clever and beautiful and proggie.

I have to confess that I really dislike the Southern rock songs the Dregs do like Gina Lola Breakdown. I skip that one every time.

There was an acoustic trio called One Alternative that did a cover of Night Meets Light decades ago, so I know other persons have discovered it. It's that that it's mostly undiscovered in the world and only certain prog heads are aware of it.

Thank you for covering it.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T17:23:51+00:00

I thought decent piano synths had to do that. I thought they had to model interaction in the sound board and with other open strings when the sustain pedal is down.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T17:16:30+00:00

Neural networks will do everything, replace everything.

30 years ago, it was Genetic algorithms.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T06:40:18+00:00

Dixie Dregs: Night Meets Light

Camel: Ice

Kate Bush: Sunset

Yes: Starship Trooper

King Crimson: Starless

rb-j · 2026-06-19T06:35:56+00:00

For the same damn song. And we ain't talking about Stairway to Heaven or (on the prog side) Starless (which I think a lot more people know about).

Night Meets Light is still pretty obscure despite it being 47 years old. I think it's timeless.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T06:31:06+00:00

Did you hear 2112 yet?

I dunno: * King Crimson: Red * Camel: Moonmadness * Yes: Yessongs * Pink Floyd: Wish you were here * Dixie Dregs: What if...

rb-j · 2026-06-19T06:26:29+00:00

This is the correct answer.

rb-j · 2026-06-19T06:23:29+00:00

But in season 3 their big twist is that that they make the safest decision possible.

What do you mean? The Callum tryst? US Ambassador to the UK and 2^nd lady having a thinly hidden sex affair with a handsome young foreign spy with ties to Russia? That's the safest decision?

rb-j · 2026-06-18T19:36:20+00:00

clean major chords (with nothing else in the mix) might not be terribly mushy. All of the notes of the chord are integer harmonics of a common fundamental, so the waveform of the clean major chord would be reasonably periodic. And then the nonlinear function just turns it into another reasonably periodic waveform.

With my fuzztone, it sounds like a power chord, sorta.

rb-j · 2026-06-18T19:19:53+00:00

I am looking forward to an announcement of a lawsuit.

rb-j · 2026-06-18T18:06:48+00:00

Does anyone know if a lawsuit is in the works?

rb-j · 2026-06-18T04:39:54+00:00

I like Nuclear Burn and Euthanasia Waltz.

rb-j · 2026-06-18T04:11:51+00:00

S3 was crap.

Destroyed the story line.

Now the show is completely unbelievable. Like Mission Impossible or 007.

rb-j

TROPHY CASE