smack hands with the devil #FAWM

As it's the weekend, I thought I'd have a go at starting FAWM (February Album Writing Month). Here's a ten minute warm up before I head out get some rattle cans.

smack hands with the devil
shake the monkey out the sack
I look into her eyes
'n see just pity comin' back

This ain't no place for livin'
They busted down the jamb
Rifled all my money
Said I owed it to the man

smack hands with the devil
shake the monkey out the sack
I looked into her eyes
'n saw just pity comin' back

Gonna leave this town tomorrow
Last few dollars in my shoes
Tied to one last bourbon
An offer I can't refuse

smack hands with the devil
shake the monkey out the sack
I looked into her eyes
'n saw just pity comin' back

Once she said she'd wait for me
I had money from the cards
but when we'd drunk the last of it
she played her final words

smack hands with the devil
shake the monkey out the sack
as I look into her eyes
'n see just pity comin' back

I know, I know.

preamble to making my own guitar (Guitar Part 2)

It doesn't look much yet but I've started to assemble the bits n' pieces for my guitar project.

I'm using the blog here in a very traditional way as a project diary of my thinking. That way I can look back at my imbecilic ideas later and chuckle.

I'm already realising how little I really know about this. My original premise was just to have a simple bash as a February project, but I'm having some different thoughts now I've started.

I'm trying to avoid 'creeping elegance', but at the same time want to make something that is actually usable.

A few points have come to mind in the early stages:

• The body: I think I can have a go at that.
• The fretboard: Way too difficult for me. Frets, Inlays, spacing, tensioner. I will need to procure this.
• Electronics: Straightforward. Some potentiometers, a couple of capacitors and some switches
• Paint job: Probably much harder than it appears at first inspection

I've had a chance to look at a few web sites where other people make guitars. I've decided that although I could try to make a copy of something recognisable, it will probably be better to make something -er- unique.

Someone's website showed what I thought was a stunning paint job on their own guitar project. Then others had remarked that the 'sunburst finish' wasn't quite right for the model in question. I don't want that, I'd rather invent something of my own based loosely on tried and tested designs.

I've decided to go for a traditional 'Les Paul' derived shape; it's a pretty and curvaceous guitar that also allows the various controls to be built into the wooden bodywork. I've tracked down some drawings but won't get too precious about the overall dimensions, as long as the string distances are correct.

Body
With a solid body and a screwed on neck, it should give me the ability to make the basic guitar parts fairly strong, with some ability to adjust. That's my pragmatic take on tone and sustain. I know everyone goes on about 'legendary' and 'vintage' guitars that cost thousands of pounds made from rare timbers. I'm thinking that if I can make something for very modest amounts, it will still be better than my playing ability.

Fretboard
I'll source this piece ready assembled, but add my own tuners.

Bridge
The bridge is another area where I think I'll need to spend slightly more than the bare minimum. It's so that I can adjust the strings in case the body isn't laser perfect (it won't be). I see that there is a type of bridge with little wheels on it to assist this. I've decided that it will have to be a fixed bridge (no tremolo) because adding the musical equivalent of a crossbow into the design is too difficult.

Paint
I've decided to go for a block colour and to make it something striking. I'd rather have people ask 'What on earth is that?' than have it blend into the background. It's also a way to hide the relatively inexpensive timber used in the construction. It will come as little surprise to those that know me to know that I've selected an orange colour, with probably black controls.

Pickups
The obvious thing to do with a Les Paul shape is to put two humbucker pickups on. My electronics comes in here again and I think I'll go for something less conventional, although using the humbucker form factor. I'm looking for something that can mix a humbucker with maybe a rail pickup so that I can make the device work in multiple ways.

Controls (a bit technical sounding)
There are a few components where my technological background makes me think I shouldn't scrimp too much. I've already looked at a few sites that sell volume and tone controls and I was surprised to see that many are so tiny and flimsy looking.

Instead I'll get some traditional 'big' old school potentiometers for the volume and tone circuits. They seem to be an important part of the signal chain and I can't bear the thought of using components that look as if they belong in Christmas crackers. It will make the soldering easier too. I also need to learn the special jargon for this used in guitars, such as logarithmic pots are called 'audio taper'. I've already checked that with humbuckers I need 500k audio taper pots for volume and 500k linear pots for tone with probably 0.047μF electrolytic capacitors. I'll get controls that have embedded switchgear I think, to keep my options open without adding more controls to the body.

Wiring
I'll want the control layout to look 'normal' but have a few surprises in the circuits. If I go for a humbucker/rail combo, then I'll want a wiring that supports series and parallel for either or both sets of coils, plus maybe something out of phase. That's something I can start scribbling out designs for right now.

I'm aware some of this may read as gobbledygook to passing readers, but I'm sure I'll get over it. Oh, and I've somehow got to fit this in around everything else, so don't be too surprised if it overruns.


(Building a guitar? See also parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

a rose and a fleur de lys

Back early from a pretty hotel where a large group of us were involved in a conference. The moat around the hotel dates from Saxon times, although building is 700 years more recent from the 1200s.

It didn't really get famous for another 300 or so years in Henry VIII's time. He used it as a hunting lodge when he was married to Anne Boleyn. This was around the time that he'd had Thomas Cranmer annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which properly annoyed the Pope and started the break of the Catholic religion in England.

Anne was subsequently sent to the tower and beheaded and Henry sent Anne's daughter Lizzie back to the hunting lodge whilst he consorted with various other wives until eventually Lizzie became Queen Elizabeth I.

None of this gets a mention unless you ask, but a quick look around spots Anne Boleyn's insignia of a falcon. In its claw is a royal sceptre, added when she became Queen. There's also a Tudor rose and fleur de lys to remind of Anne's French origin.

Of course, we were not there sightseeing and in the usual way most of this stuff passes unnoticed whilst we use the wi-fi and scheme and plot for 2013.

do the clouds get in my way?

How about a visit to the Ronchini Gallery in Mayfair, exhibiting some of the uncanny work of Berndnaut Smilde? He makes indoor clouds using fog guns and has them photographed, often by Cassander Schattenkerk. I find them charming and a lot less scary than Dietrich Wegner's Playhouse cloud sculpture

Of course, around London, there's usually a good selection of real outdoor clouds, and they do seem to be a popular current theme.

I'm being approached by plenty of 'cloud offers' from the consumer technology community. I wrote a few days ago about the way that music has become more cloud-based.

A recent addition to the scramble is Microsoft's Office suite which has just announced Office 365 as a subscription model - with added clouds.

What I'm finding is that all the big suppliers are trying to get us on board with their pay-as-you-go offers. I already use the Adobe subscription to get their CS6 products as a bundle. I realised what I was already paying for upgrades to Photoshop, Acrobat et al. and that the subscription would be more economical.

It's a new way of thinking about the cost of ownership of the technology and requires something like Excel to do the sums. For software, instead of buying it, installing it and then eventually upgrading it, the subscriptions provide the supplier with a run-rate revenue model and can subtly rely on the users to remember what they've bought. For example, I can't remember all the things in the CS6 bundle and probably haven't installed all of them.

Accompanying all of these subscriptions to Music, Creativity and Office Things is the offer of space in the cloud. I notice that my Mac applications also offer to park new documents in the cloud as well.

I'm still not sure about this. I use the cloud extensively but am concerned about the trickling of things into a place where I may not be sure of the return access.

My example will remain with music. I could buy music and then not bother to download it, instead playing it on demand - Amazon offers this as part of their mp3 model. I already do that with my video subscriptions nowadays, and regard cumbersome video as more or less a rental library.

For video it's therefore OK if I'm on a network (duh!) but for music what about in the car? Yes, I have internet access from the car. Does it work everywhere? No. Do I want to rely on it for listening to my own music? I think not. For preprogrammed musical selections by others, I already have another car gadget called a radio.

What about listening on the tube? Okay, there's wi-fi now, well sort of. Am I with the right provider? No. So I could buy wifi subscriptions. This is all getting a bit complicated and more expensive.

Of course, what is happening is that everyone is working out how to make their dollar. Everyone in the chain want to get their piece.

So I'm wondering where the cloud concealed slice and dice is actually taking us?

I get it that rich society is moving beyond the anchored PC to mobile tablets and phones. I understand that the business model for these things is subscription based connectivity. I'm wary of how many subscriptions and how many links in the chain we need to make it all work.

And what happens if one o f th e links brea . ..

plugged in, not charging

The latest quirk of my brand new 2013 Windows 8 laptop is that the battery is reporting as 'plugged in, not charging'. It has been stuck on a capacity of 17% for the last week.

I don't believe the readout and think is some kind of driver conflict.

The system seems to come with both a Microsoft Windows 8 battery driver and also something that has been added by HP. I think they are conflicting with one another. A small but rather tedious problem.

I've been too lazy to fix it until now. This is what I just did to make it work again:

1) Use Control Panel / Device Drivers / Battery to uninstall the Microsoft ACPI Control Method Battery Driver.
2) With the computer plugged into the mains, remove the battery.
3) Use Control Panel/ Device Drivers /Battery/ Scan for new hardware/ to rescan for the ACPI driver, which it will re-install.
4) Plug in the battery again and 'Ta-Da' the battery is charging again.

I ran a google search about this. It seems to be a common and irritating problem.

series link

Back in the world of office blocks this week, albeit with a few unexpected reschedules. Sometimes the changes don't matter because there's other things competing for the time, so slight over-allocation can be useful.

It can depend where any resultant dead time occurs. Close to home it's not usually a problem.

Although recently I've been stuck in a distant hotel with meetings punched at times with gaps that just couldn't be usefully filled. It could explain some of my unplanned watching of DVD box sets on Netflix.

I'm in the clear again now for the next week or so, and I predict my serial viewing may diminish.

I'm gonna need a hacksaw (Guitar Part 1)

There's an article in the weekend papers by a motoring journalist along the lines of 'most cars are roughly the same' and it references a well-known make from which many variants are derived.

It then goes on to make a similar comment about most electric guitars, based upon a conversation with a well-known guitarist.

Now I don't know about either of the statements. It could be like saying all books are the same because they have pages and words in them.

Although, when I was fixing the electronic bit on my acoustic guitar some time ago, I was struck by the craftsman-like innards of the carpentry and thought that even if it had been inexpensively mass-produced, there was considerable sophistication to the construction.

Then I looked at a couple of electric guitars and noticed their relatively simple construction. I think one of them has a nickname as 'the plank' no doubt referencing the way it is put together.

So I've thought of a side-project for February. It's supposed to be FAWM "February is Album Writing Month". I'm not sure if I'll have a bash at that this time, I already have a surfeit of songs.

Instead, in a suitably ham-fisted way, I might have a crack at building a guitar. It's not that I need another one. I have more than my rather basic playing capability.

It just feels like one of those projects that needs to be done. I'm pretty sure I can handle the electronics. I know I can't build a fretboard, so I'll have to source that part. I'll also need to set myself a scarily meagre budget. And I won't be too worried if I have to pick up some of the parts along the way. Was it Carl Sagan that said if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to invent the universe?

First things first, what shape? I'm thinking expensive-looking Les Paul?

Then I have to decide whether to make it look like other guitars? - generic sunburst colours and so on?

Instead I'm looking at car paint colours. Would a metallic orange be too extreme?

In the words of Jack Bauer, "I'm gonna need a hacksaw."

wallpapering over the dips

They're all saying we may be about to go into a triple dip recession if things don't pick up in the next three months.

It's clever to make a major financial catastrophe sound like a new kind of ice cream.

I took a quick peek at the Office of National Statistics graphs and I reckon it's really a prolonged double slump, temporarily saved by the Olympics in the latter part of last year. A moot point nonetheless.

Mr Osborne seems to be attempting to cut our way to greatness, by continuing to prune everything as part of the great austerity programme to reduce the fiscal deficit.

The thing I wonder about is that each time we cut something else, we have less people working and less people paying taxes. I know it's a bit classicist to think like this (Say's Law and all) but sitting on dead goods, empty High Streets, increased low/non-earners and stagnant money surely can't be helping too much?

Our multi-millionaire second Lord of the Treasury Gideon George must have put his Bullingdon mind to this in some way, but I can't understand the preoccupation with reducing a deficit by quietly printing wallpaper quantities of money (because that's what quantitive easing is code for).

That's a passive and slightly sly way to make the numbers look better, but it doesn't kick-start anything. More government bonds/IOUs against an uncertain future. We just increase the quantity of apparent money and theoretically make ourselves more competitive overseas (notwithstanding the EU rhetoric).

The global financial analysts won't be fooled and will end up de-rating the UK from AAA, just like the Chinese have already done.

Instead of Cameron's children's godfather dithering over decisions about hot pasties and sitting in the wrong part of trains, we need someone to drive a leadership position on what is required. I suggest Osborne's yellow card was last July. The red one ought to be in Cameron's pocket.

The trick, Mr Osborne or your successor, is surely to make the money in the system do something useful?

How about making it circulate against new projects, jobs and goods to properly drive some growth?

EU bananas

I know that we live on an island here in the UK. Having lived in mainland Europe and also worked in quite a few countries there too, I can appreciate the advantages of a quick hop across the border to another country for all kinds of reasons.

Switzerland is an interesting different proposition. I have one of those Swiss vignettes on my car from using the motorways when I’m over there (oops it’s just run out actually). But at the end of the motorway to Switzerland everything turns into a 30 minute bottleneck to cross the border.

There could probably be a whole post about motorist behavior at such points.

Instead I’m interested in the emerging debate about what happens to the UK as a European entity. Cameron has finally made his much leaked speech about a Yes/No referendum by the end of 2017.

Can the European question really be netted into an X Factor like vote?

There’s plenty at play now beyond the regulations affecting overly bendy bananas (EU directive 2257/1994) and deliberately inflexible cucumbers (EU directive 1677/88). Not forgetting Class 1 peaches must be 56mm diameter (between July and October, of course).

All the above examples could be used to run a whole layer of debate about the EU’s usefulness or otherwise.

Although the bigger questions are about fostering competitiveness, governance with relevance and, of course, the lubrication of finance to make it all work.

That’s where it gets muddled in the debate. The UK puts in around the 3rd largest amount of funding to the EU’s total budget of around €137bn. Germany and France put in more. The UK is also the second largest net contributor to the EU (after Germany).

It illustrates that even if UK hasn’t decided to adopt the Euro currency, there's still an awful lot of UK Sterling in the Euro-mix.

That was the big debate before Christmas, all about the 2013 EU budget.

The challenge seems to be that the EU machine is now so big and complicated that it has comprehensively taken over the way that it wants to run things.

There’s some commonsense arguments that could be applied:

• Keep the EU competitive; there’s new economic challenges from different parts of the world.
• Be efficient; slim down like everyone else is having to.
• Be flexible; which I suppose is a networked form of ‘think global act local’ for an organisation of this scale.
• Support sensible diversity; Don’t expect Malta to act the same as Germany.
• Don’t over centralise; don’t try to suck all rule making for everything into Brussels
• Apply accountability; find a way to keep some governance at the relevant country levels.

None of those points overtly mention Common Agricultural Policy or the Structural and Cohesion Funds (which gives money from the richer countries to help develop the poorer ones). In a developed debate those points would emerge along with their circa 2/3 allocation of EU budget.

I suppose I'm musing that this is quite complicated stuff. Maybe the 'Vote' is supposed to be a way to give it some focus? Perhaps a way to divert attention from years of under-governance of the main body?

And the reactions to this slippery speech are equally as complicated. There's already politicians from all sides taking it as symbolising whatever their own political aims are.

Perhaps the collective noun for a group of politicians needs to be 'a confusion'?

Oh well, In / Out / Shake it all about?

Learning to use Windows 8

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'd had to get a replacement laptop for some specific light duties around rashbre central. It came with Windows 8 and I'm still working out the best ways to tame it.

I use a regular and (touch wood) reliable Thinkpad with Windows 7 for much of my work, although my playtime systems are pretty much Mac.

I should confess that for the HP Windows 8 system I'm almost resorting to reading the manual (well if there had been one, kinda thing).

For my own sanity, I added a start button back onto Windows 8, but the overall W8 software has a few weird quirks. These seem to be geared to its dual use via its WinRT incarnation as a phone/tablet operating system.

One is that it keeps flashing up a full screen mode to ask me if I want to use Internet Explorer as the browser. I've answered Yes, but the next time I boot it seems to ask the same question again. I've tried selecting one of the other browsers offered as well (Google Chrome). It accepted that but then gave me...Internet Explorer.

It also goes into a full screen mode when it's looking for a wi-fi network. Like, "Don't try anything else at the moment."

Some of the software once maximised won't go back to a rescaleable size. It's all or nothing.

Get too close to the right hand edge of the screen when moving some software around and the software maximises.

There was a situation where, whilst unattended, it downloaded update software and rebooted itself but then changed the sequence of the password entry characters. It took me a while to figure that one.

And on this four core processor laptop, sometimes a scanning system will kick in and take over the whole machine, stopping everything else from running. Surely it could run in 1/4 of the machine instead of using all of it?

Individually they are minor issues, together they are something of a nuisance on what was a 2013 sealed box system onto which I've only installed a handful of regular programs.

The problem is that each of these things just interrupt the flow. They get in the way rather than adding to the experience.

I have, today, found a really good recent, comprehensive and positive article about Windows 8 on Techradar and here's the link.

The review is only a few days old, although I thought Windows 8 had been around for some months now. It does describe the ways to interact, but also draws a conclusion that the system works better with a tablet (I think it means a PC tablet rather than Amitriptyline).

By comparison, I changed my desktop Mac recently to one of those thin ones. It just asked if I'd like migrate my old stuff to the new machine. I said yes and after it had copied everything across the new system just works. No hassle, no reboots.

Just sayin'.

cliffhanger (although everyone else has probably seen it already)

There was some kind of quiz show on the telly a few days ago and it had a series of questions about spies. Worryingly, I got them all right.

So on Monday evening, after finishing work somewhat late, I decided to flop in front of the box and spotted that I'd recorded two episodes of something called 'Spies of Warsaw'.

It's based on an Alan Furst novel, adapted as straight drama by the mainly comedy writing duo of Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais.

Mysteriously the two episodes were recorded in reverse order, although when I realised and started watching Episode 1, I wondered if it was already part way through a longer series. I quite like things that plonk you into the middle of events, but there were a few extra factors to calibrate here.

Set in 1937 Poland, there's David Tennant playing a French version of a James Bond character, but with an even wider selection of outfits. There's plenty of other nationalities in the melting pot of Warsaw although only the Germans speak in subtitles.

Tennant's character Jean-Francois is a kind of action hero military attache. Never a dull moment for him in coffee houses, swish parties, bedrooms and train corridors between Warsaw and Paris.

It's the period when Germany was testing prototype Panzer IV tanks near to the Polish border. Tennant is obtaining their plans to send back to Paris.

So far he been remarkably lucky, with nearly everything thrown at him being readily resolved. He's smuggled the Russians, helped the plan-stealing mole escape, got the girl and explained his war wounds to a Countess.

Although, at the end of the first half he's been dinked on the head and bundled into a car by some men in black hats.

It's a good cliffhanger moment, and I'm quietly looking forward to Part II on Tuesday evening.

when did hi-fi become A/V?

An unexpected diversion, what with de-snowing the cars and the drive. I was surprised how much time it took, a function of it being an unusual occurrence. Little things like finding the proper snow boots, not seen since last time at Jungfraujoch.

Having abandoned the day's original plans, it was an excuse to practice Being Idle.

I flipped on some music and let the system select the tracks for me, which was perfectly fine, within the limits I had given it.

My idleness led me to doodle a quick picture of what used to be called Hi-Fi (does anyone still say that?) and nowadays is probably called 'Audio Visual' or similar.

So here we are. Probably of no interest to anyone but me, but it somehow illustrates the demise of the Gramophone.

There used to be a simple path from a record shop to a record player and then to a listening experience. I still use that route for occasional purchases.

I still like the artwork of 12 inch LP albums, which could be quite special. Not so with most CDs, which bang a cover shot of the band on the front and big words in the top third that can be read from across the store.

Of course, that's dying out too, with digital downloads. If I'm honest, I used to surprise people quite a few years ago because I didn't keep those little brittle plastic boxes that most CDs came in. I'd always thrown away the outer packaging, just keeping the CD and the booklet.

OK, except for properly created artworks, of which there are still some around. I do still keep that type of CD intact.

So I guess I've been heading to digital for quite a few years.

Cue digital downloads, which signalled the potential demise of HMV and Blockbuster. Canals and railways.

Nowadays even the amplifiers are network attached. My last amplifier came with a little cardboard box in it containing a USB stick with the latest firmware upgrade to be applied before use. Of course I downloaded the more recent one online.

To be honest, I'm not sure how many people even bother nowadays with amplifiers and receivers, instead using little speaker units into which they can drop iPhones and similar.

My scribbly diagram illustrates some of the listening routes available now.

Buy from:

• (a) an independent band or store. Still get physical product, good artwork, usually a download as well and some personal engagement.
• (b) a record shop or store. Harder to find, yet places like Fopp and Rough Trade in London are still jam-packed with people.
• (c) online, from Amazon or iTunes, or via a broker like Last.fm which will point to the cheapest source. Amazon still gives a choice of CD or online product, but increasingly it's becoming online biased on price.
• (d) Supermarkets. Xfactorish. Nope.

Then there's all the cloud services. Everyone wants to suggest that you don't need the physical product at all.

Even with my throwing away of CD boxes, I find this one step too far. T'interweb is strewn with failed companies. It would be a tragedy to see all the licences to listen go up in a puff of Chapter 11. I download everything. And back it up.

What it means, though, is that nowadays, there's both the stuff you own and also a good range of relevant listening suggestions from the likes of last.fm or spotify.

And they do work quite well, suggesting and playing music of the type I like, rather than just blanding me out with 'Top of the Pops' pap.

So I'm with the direction. Even if it does take a bit longer to wire up than an old Dansette.