2026-09-28 06:23:00
The old adage "to be a better writer, read" has never seemed more apparent to me.
I used to read a lot when I was young — mainly science fiction and fantasy novels. As I grew older I pivoted to more highbrow fare.
I suppose that I wanted to be seen as the intellectual type, reading particular books just so I could say I'd done so.
There are some that I genuinely enjoyed and am glad to have read, there are others that were a grind that I remember absolutely nothing about, and then there are some I gave up on and actually resent starting in the first place.
I'm not sure if I burned out or just put myself off reading by not enjoying it.
I subscribe to far fewer feeds than I used to, and made changes to /reader such that unread items could quietly drop off without me feeling guilty about not reading them. No fanfare, no unread counts, no worries.
With all of this, I've noticed that my blogging has become like a stream in a drought — a slow trickle at best.
By not consuming words, I have but minimal fuel for creating with them.
I want // need to read more.
Most importantly, I want to read simply for the joy of reading, not because I think I should learn something or have a great epiphany.
I want to read story, not syllabus. Pleasure, not prescription. I just want to read, not curate a reading list.
2026-09-26 02:31:07
Kev and Sal have both recently restored the default behaviour of :visited links, i.e. making them purple rather than keeping them the same colour as unvisited links.
I'll admit to always hard-coding link colours as well, but I shouldn't. Link colours have been a convention, later a standard, since the early days of the web.
I've changed the site CSS so that links inside <article> tags (essentially posts) use :visited.
2026-09-21 16:28:24
On This Day reminds me that, on this day in 2021, I rebuilt the On This Day page for the new site. 😅
2026-09-19 01:06:39
For some reason, I started thinking about what I'd do if I had to use a minimal setup. What instruments would I choose? What could I do without? What constitutes a minimal setup, how many devices are talking here?
From the gear I currently own, I think it's no surprise that my first choice would absolutely have to be a TD-3. You can't have acid without an acid box!
Another essential is a drum machine, but which? It would be the LM Drum purely because of the flexibility of being able to load it with samples of everything else. While it's never going to sound the same as the RD-6, RD-8 or RD-9, it's the best bang for buck. Also, there's nothing to say it has to just be drum samples — I already use it for certain vocals. With the ability to program things chromatically you can also make basic melodies/basslines with the right samples.
If I had to stop at two, it would be those.
The option of a third device would probably see me choose the Kobol Expander. It's such a versatile thing that it seems like the most logical choice as I could get the most out of it.
I'm still saving for the Pro 800; if I had to make the decision once I own that it would likely trump the Kobol due to being a polysynth.
I already use small setups with only 3 or 4 devices connected at any one time, but I have the luxury of rotating them then in and out. It was interesting to think about the choices I'd have to make with such a restriction.
2026-09-17 00:51:56
On this day last year, I announced "Acid Sucka" 1 in which I recreated the beat from Sucker MCs by Run DMC. At the time, I stated:
'This could be the start of something...'
I've never followed up on that.
I've thought about it from time to time, wondering what other classic hip hop // electro beats I could give an acid twist to. So far, I've only come up with a few:
Maybe this is a future project. 🤔
released a few days later ↩