December 26, 2008
category:General
It's Been Awhile
It was 600 years’ ago since we last sent a navy ship far from our coastline. The last time we did was in the Ming Dynasty when Zheng He led a large armada in the early 15th century to the Eastern African region for goodwill port calls.
This was then.
And this is now.
Posted at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2008
category:General
The Money Master
This is a long video but should help us gain some understanding of the current finanical crisis:
Posted at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2008
category:General
A Proud Nation
Beijing Olympic 2008
Posted at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2008
category:General
Friday Night / Saturday Morning
Friday used to be a busy night but business has apparently taken a nose dive this year. I would be doing no more than 2 hours’ real work on an 8-hr shift. Tonight no special guests after the night club and I’m now updating this blog which has been neglected for some time.
Moving house in about 2 weeks’ time. Already dumped over 20 bags of used clothing and still have probably 10 more bags to go. Smaller house, cheaper rent, all good.
Posted at 03:45 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2008
category:General
What Hi-fi
I used to be one of those people who would spend hundred of dollars for a few feet of speaker cable, hundreds for a moving coil phono cartridge which couldn’t output a strong enough signal to directly feed into a pre-amp, hundreds for a pair of vintage valves which was nothing more than a high-resistance light bulb, several hundreds for a pre-pre amp which served no useful purposes other than stepping up the output of a MC cartridge, a couple of thousands for a pre-amp, a couple of thousands for a pair of speakers and several thousands for a power amp. After roughly USD6,000 and yet still could not get a single sound byte out of it because to complete the setup, it needed at least another thousand for a belt-drive turntable (excluding the arm, by the way).
Feeling excited (deservedly so after emptying over USD7,000 from my pocket) for the set-up, I’d invite my ‘friends’ home to showcase my toy but only to find out that my set of equipment could hardly be classified as ‘audiophile’ - USD7,000 was barely enough to buy an ‘audiophile’ power amp. Not for a single piece of equipment? No, not for a McIntosh.
Embarrassed, dejected, I went on in pursuit of the true and sweetest sound for the next 15 years until one day I had to flee the country (stupid me again) and dumped everything I owned behind.
I have been playing through a pair of USD50 desktop speakers for the last few years now although I still have a set of so-called ‘hi-fi’ which I bought in a 2nd hand shop. At first, I was still trying to find a way to play music from my computer and stream it to my hi-fi because I thought the sound would be better and more realistic and for the simple fact that it’s not easy for an old woman like me to get up every 40 minutes to switch a CD. The simplest way to stream music from a computer to a hi-fi is to buy a Slimcenter which I couldn’t afford. I did, however, manage to find a software alternative to do the streaming after some hard googling. Having played with the streaming for a few days, I discovered that I actually didn’t enjoy the sound of my hi-fi. I went straight back using my USD50 desktop speakers.
It’s not that my hearing is nearly gone. I can still hear if the notes are being played by the left hand or the right hand in Für Elise or A Certain Romance when a CD is played from my hi-fi. The problem, I believe, is the medium.
The delivery of Music has changed so much from my ‘audiophile’ days when people were still arguing if a belt-drive turntable was reproducing more realistic sound than a CD player. Those days when I would be willing to play a 30% premium for a Chesky CD were long gone. What we have nowadays are m4p, m4a, mp3 and wma (a few flac maybe but I’m not sure). Very few of us would mind when playing ‘Candle in the Wind’ in an iPod, Elton John would actually appear standing on top of the piano instead of sitting in front of it. The extra USD20,000 an ‘audiophile’ spent is to get: Sound Stage (simply translated - Elton John should be sitting in front of the piano, not on top or 5 feet away from it.) and accurate Sound Imaging (simply translated – John Bonham should be playing in the middle of the stage behind Jimmy Page and stayed there for an entire song instead of shifting his position sometimes 5 feet to his left and sometimes 3 feet to his right in the space of 5 minutes or the 1st and 2nd violin doesn’t switch place in the middle of a concerto).
It is physically impossible to talk of these qualities in a flattened audio image. What was not immediate apparent to me, however, was the fact that the deficiencies of these popular audio formats tend to be hidden from a set of low-fi equipment. It’s crappy but sounds pleasant enough. A set of ‘hi-fi’, on the other hand, will lay bare the inadequacy of a lossy audio format and at times, to the point of becoming irritating. In this low-fi age, we should be happy as long as John Bonham doesn’t appear to be drumming with a pair of chopsticks.
Here is my current setup and I’m fairly pleased with it.
These are no longer useful. Email me if you are interested to buy.
Posted at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2008
category:General
Behind the Warm Handshakes
A series of letters from Eric Sommer. Please read them if you want to find out more about what lies behind those warm handshakes.
Posted at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2008
category:General
Divine Performing Arts
People do not often cry when they attend a show. Divine Performing Arts has staged a marvelous performance combining ballet and classical chinese dance - a showcase of humanity’s true cultural heritage.
Posted at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2008
category:General
Oh No They Did It Again
Stitching video and sound together is not something terribly difficult to do. This is a good example:
Whether it’s due to a lack of professionalism or sheer incompetence, they screwed it up again by choosing the wrong sound. And this is the official reply from the Pentagon:
“We’re saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there. It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we’re not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we’re not saying it absolutely didn’t.”
The movie production department in Pentagon seems to have made little progress since Colin Powell’s presentation in the UN some five years’ ago. A lack of budget?
Perhaps, neither the warship nor the 5 speed boats are more threatening than a Fake Empire.
Stay out super late tonight picking apples, making pies
put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
Tiptoe through our shiny city with our diamond slippers on
Do our gay ballet on ice
bluebirds on our shoulders
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
Turn the light out say goodnight
no thinking for a little while
lets not try to figure out everything it wants
It’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
Posted at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
category:General
Album Art
I love album art - it used to be a significant element in an artist’s album release. It gives the artist an identity and is often used to convey ideas as to what may be found inside the album cover. But as the size of LP shrinks to CD and from CD reduced to thumbnails that come with the online download, album art has perhaps slowly but surely been losing its importance. The size reduction is also affecting album art as a art form as what apparently looks good in a LP size image may turn out to be terrible when it is zoomed out to 50×50 pixels or a 160×160 thumbnails. Here are some album art images for your enjoyment:
My all-time Top 5:
1. A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step
2. The Doors - The Best
3. Derek & The Dominos - Layla & Assorted Love Songs
4. David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
5. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
My top 5 which I am not supposed to like but I do:
1. Kylie Minogue - 2 Hearts
2. The Black Crows - Amorica
3. The Car - Candy-O
4. Paula Cole - Courage
5. Madonna - True Blue
Top 5 Most Significant in my life:
1. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
2. James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon
3. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
4. Carole King - Tapestry
5. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
Apart from Amazon, Album Exchange is a good place to look for album covers.
Posted at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2007
category:General
Hallelujah
Chang’e 1 and the moon mission.
Posted at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)