...From the betting-on-the-wrong-horse dept.

This isn't exactly an original sentiment,
but in this case it is very apt:
FUCK BIG CORPORATIONS WITH A POINTED STICK. I figured I'd done my due diligence a few months ago when I researched HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray and went with HD-DVD. Everything made sense- More mature format (versus Blu-Ray's spec changing every year or less), cheaper players, and Sony's miserable track record of format introduction (Betamax, DAT, MD). Well, looks like I (and a few hundred thousand others) lost. As it happens, I bought a Blu-Ray player as well awhile back because Sunshine came out in that format (see my comments on that film in an earlier post) and I quite rightly felt it would be quite an experience in HD. I also bought the Blade Runner Comic Book Guy Special Edition (again, see below) in HD-DVD. Sigh. Oh well, whatever. Both formats look great, and now at least the war is over, but the whole thing just grosses me out.

Yet more predictable vintageness

I realize it's been a long silence around here, but that's only because I have nothing suitable for semi-public consumption to report. I wish I had a mind-bendingly earth-shattering post with which to break the silence, but alas, it's just more vintage technofetishism (so stop reading now if that sort of thing sends you to sleep.)

I have an AMS RMX16 and DMX-1580S which I love dearly and use on most projects. However, being over 25 years old, they are starting to show their age (worn keypads, broken switch caps and switches, etc...) so it was time to spruce them up with
some spare parts from these guys.

So far, the tally is 1 new keypad and two new (repro'd) nudge caps on the DMX. Left to go: a switch replacement on the RMX and a repair of its rare and fabulous remote (not shown), which came with an actual barcode reader and barcode program cards to allow extra reverb algorithms to be downloaded into the RMX! (This is 1984
state of the art we're talking about here, kids..)

Incidentally, replacing the parts on the DMX took about 5 minutes, but getting the screws back into the chassis (because of the horribly awkward internal layout of the unit) was a lengthy nightmare. Be warned in the unlikely event that you ever decide to undertake working on one of these yourself!