2025-08-22 21:00:00
I generally find the numbers printed on pasta boxes for cooking time far too high: I'll set the timer for a minute below their low-end "al dente" time, and when I taste one it's already getting too mushy. I decided to run a small experiment to get a better sense of how cooked I like pasta.
I decided to use Market Basket Rigatoni. [1] It's a ridged cylinder, and I measured the ridges at 1.74mm:
And the valleys at 1.32mm:
The box recommends 13-15 minutes:
This is a house brand pasta from a chain centered in a part of the country with a relatively high Italian-American population, so you might think they'd avoid the issue where Americans often cook pasta absurdly long:
I boiled some water, put in the pasta, and starting at 9min I removed a piece every 15s until I got to 14:30:
Here's the minute-by-minute, cut open so you can see the center of the noodles:
My family and I tried a range of noodles, trying to bisect our way to the ideal cooking time. I was happiest at 10m15s, but ok between 9m15s and 11m30s. Julia thought 9m45s was barely underdone, while 11m45s was barely overdone. Anna liked 10m30s. Lily didn't like any of them, consistently calling them "too crunchy" up through 10m45s and then "too mushy" for 11m0s and up. Everyone agreed that by 12m45s it was mushy.
Instead of 13-15min, a guideline of 10-12min would make a lot more sense in our house. And, allegedly, the glycemic index is much lower.
My mother and her siblings grew up in Rome, and I wrote asking about what they'd noticed here. My uncle replied "my bias is that Americans are wimps for soft pasta" and the others agreed.
I tried using a cheap microscope I had to investigate, whether there were interesting structural differences, but even with an iodide stain I couldn't make out much. Here's 3min:
And 7min:
And 13min:
On the other hand, the kids and I did have fun with the microscope.
[1] We called these "hospital noodles" growing up, because when my
mother had been in a hospital for a long time as a kid (recovering
from being hit by an impatient driver while crossing the street) they
had served Rigatoni as their primary pasta shape.
2025-08-17 21:00:00
I play by ear, and when I write tunes I normally save them by making a recording. This isn't ideal for sharing, though, especially with people who are more comfortable learning tunes from dots. I last had a go at this ten years ago, and decided to give it another try.
I was first curious whether AI advancements meant I didn't need to learn how to do this at all: could I just give my recording to a program and have it figure it out? I tried several things without success (each in Claude Opus 4.1, Gemini Pro 2.5, and GPT-5):
basic-pitch (open source pitch to midi converter), uploading the midi,
and asking for sheet music.
basic-pitch, then midi2ly to convert
to LilyPond score format, uploading that, and asking it to clean it up
I ran these all on the tune I used last time since I had "ground truth" there. The one that came closest was the last in Claude, which got the melody mostly right but the rhythm way off:
It ought to look something like this:
The Duck Pond
Seems like automation isn't there yet, at least not the tools I tried. I decided to go ahead manually.
I started with a tune I wrote on vacation this summer, after Nora had a close call in a duck pond. I was still pretty shaken up, playing was helpful emotionally, and this tune came out. It only has four notes (she's four) and with the combination of range and specific notes I think it would land correctly for (Scottish) bagpipes. I started on paper:
Then I typed it into MuseScore:
Initially (as you can see on paper) I had the rhythm wrong, but it was hard for me to tell. The issue is that hearing a fiddle tune played robotically by the computer always sounds some amount of wrong, and the tricky thing is telling whether the issue is the quantization vs having written the wrong thing. A friend (hi Charlie!) and I played some tunes at a party and I got him to take a look, and after he said the issue was definitely in the writing I came back, gave this another chance, and am decently happy now.
Here's some playing it slowly, on mandolin (electric but not plugged
in) and piano, to give a sense of how I'm imagining it:
(mandolin, mp3)
(piano, mp3)
Truncated Piano
I had another go, on a tune I wrote about a year ago. I'd just gotten my new 73-key piano for gigs, and was excited to play it a lot. Again I started on paper:
This one has several mistakes, including that I wrote out twice as fast as it actually goes, and it doesn't actually use triplets. But overall it was much easier to get down than the previous one. Getting it into MuseScore went smoothly, partly because this one is simpler and partly because I'm starting to get the hang of the tool. Here are the dots:
Here's what it sounds like:
(mp3)
Polka No Bears
This was starting to get fun, so I did another. This is a tune I wrote last summer on vacation with my family in the Poconos. We saw a lot of bears, and even more evidence of bears, mostly of interactions with insufficiently secure trash containers. Again starting on paper:
I realized after writing it down that it felt too repetitive, and in fact I had often been playing it AAB without thinking about it. So this afternoon I added a third part to go in between the two parts I wrote before. This has had much less time to gel, and I'm not sure whether I'll still be happy with it in a few days.
And an audio version:
(mp3)
Highland Rd
In late Summer 2019 a marchy Englishy tune was bouncing around my head. I didn't end up doing anything with it other than whistling it into my phone, but now that I can write things up it seemed like a good time to get it out. Named after a Somerville street that is an unusually nice place for a walk.
No paper this time: I tried starting right in with the computer since this one seemed like it would be easy enough.
And an audio version:
(mp3)
I'm excited to share these; while a more prudent approach would be to hang onto ideas and save them up for Kickstarter commissions and gifts, most likely if I tried that they'd never get out.
Other tunes I'd like to transcribe at some point: Nora's Waltz, Julia's Waltz, Turkey Strumstick.
2025-08-15 21:00:00
BIDA has now finished its second year alternating between mask-optional and mask-required dances. What effect does this have on attendance?
I tried to look at this in January 2024, but with only eleven dances it was hard to say. Now that we have four times as many, we can get a better sense:
This is only regular dances, no special events. So no family dances, double dances, or Elixir's last dance (which had a session of couples dancing).
Overall, the mask-required dances averaged 166 people (median 160) while the mask-optional dances averaged 190 (median 184).
This is consistent with the survey results: 23% of respondents reported attending every time, rising to 35% in a hypothetical where the dance stopped ever requiring masks. Similarly, 67% reported attending at least monthly, falling to 58% in a hypothetical where the dance started always required masks.
Total attendance is not the only thing that matters, though, and one important benefit of holding both categories of dance is that people who are only willing to come to mask required or mask optional dances can do that.
2025-08-14 21:00:00
Cross-posted from the BIDA Blog
As we go into winter, we're thinking about infection reduction. Our primary approaches are requiring high-filtration masks at half our dances (which we'll run another survey on in early Fall) and bringing in large amounts of outside air, but we're interested in exploring a variety of options. Two promising candidates are far UVC and glycol vapors, and we'll trial both at our September 7th dance.
This is primarily a logistical test: we won't be able to tell whether these are working for pathogen control (that's what the studies linked below are for). Instead, we're trying to get a sense for how well these fit our particular space, and how practical they would be for regular use.
Far UVC
Ultraviolet light is a spectrum, shorter wavelengths just beyond visual range. The effect of light on viruses, bacteria, and the human body depends very strongly on wavelength, and some kinds of UV are dangerous for humans. The specific range of UV light we'll use, however, is the much safer "far UVC" (~222nm). The risk here is low: with such a short wavelength this light is absorbed by the outer layers of the skin and eyes, without penetrating deeper the way longer wavelengths do. See Gorlitz et al. (2023) which reviews the risks and benefits of far UVC for pathogen control and concludes that "current evidence supports using far-UVC systems within existing guidelines."
We'll be setting up one Aerolamp, which is built around a Ushio Care222 Filtered Far UVC Module (test report). This is a filtered krypton-chloride lamp, which produces 100mW of UV, of which >99% is far UVC. It will be on stage, aimed horizontally outwards to clean the air above people's heads. If we decide to go further with this method we plan to use four lamps one in each corner of the hall, putting out a total of 400mW (still well within safe exposure limits). When we run our Spark in the Dark dances each of our blacklight fixtures puts out more than ten times this much UVA (~10W each).
One downside of this kind of lamp when used in small well-sealed rooms is that they produce low levels of ozone. In our case, however, the room is large enough that the effect would be negligible. Additionally, since we're bringing in >10k CFM of external air with our two 42" barrel fans, even this negligible amount will quickly be exhausted.
Glycol Vapors
In the 1940s researchers learned that glycol vapors are surprisingly effective at inactivating airborne pathogens. For example, Harris and Stokes (1943) ran an early controlled experiment and found a large reduction in respiratory infections in a children's skilled nursing facility. Unfortunately this early work was essentially forgotten as public health shifted focus, and it wasn't until COVID that people began to take glycol vapors seriously for pathogen control: Gomez et al. (2022), Styles et al. (2023), Ratliff et al. (2023), Sultan et al. (2024), and Desai et al. (2025) all found high levels of pathogen inactivation with glycol vapors.
In the meantime fog machines have become widespread in entertainment, putting out much higher vapor concentrations than required for pathogen inactivation, and the risks have become better-studied. In 2003, the EPA looked into the research and concluded "that there is a reasonable certainty no harm will result to the general population or any subgroup from the use of triethylene glycol."
We'll be setting up a small fog machine, ultrasonic humidifier, or aromatherapy nebulizer by the inward-pointing barrel fan, and we'll use triethylene glycol for fluid. We'll have it on a low setting and aim to put out a little under 60mL over the course of the event and keep the air at around 1mg/m3. While this is a very low level, well below where it would produce visible fog or where most people could smell it, it's high enough for pathogen inactivation.
2025-08-12 21:00:00
In 2014 I wrote up a reference contra dance sound system, with gear recommendations and rough costs. I've been thinking a bit more about gear lately as BIDA has replaced some equipment, and I wanted to write a quick update.
Many aspects have not changed: mics, stands, and cables are essentially the same gear they were ten years ago. The two places where my recommendations would change, though, are the mixer and speakers.
Last time I recommended an analog 10-xlr Mackie. This was a bit of an unusual choice then, since analog mixers were clearly on the way out. But at the time my argument was that the world hadn't yet sorted out what made a good digital mixer, and a simple analog board was a better fit for one that would be used by a range of people of varying skill levels. I'll be more retrogrouch and say that this still wouldn't be a crazy choice today: something like this 11-xlr Mackie ($570) does everything a regular dance needs, is still easier for a range of people to work on, and is simple and reliable.
But I'll bite the bullet and say that for most dances the 16-xlr Behringer XR18 ($510) is a better choice. It's very widely used so people can transfer their skills between dances, you can mix from anywhere in the hall (including behind the musicians as you ask what they want in their monitors, hearing what they're hearing), and you have many more (perhaps too many for people with insufficient restraint) options to modify the sound (compression, more flexible EQ). You also get many more outputs, for special events where it's worth running more monitors. This is what BIDA got in early 2020 (bad timing) after comparing several options.
Note that you do need a tablet or computer to control the mixer. You can either have sound people bring their own, or buy one as part of the sound system. You should probably also use your own router, since the built-in WiFi is notoriously flaky.
On speakers, last time I recommended two full-range powered speakers (QSC K10s) for mains and three small powered hotspots (srm150s) for monitors. I think this was really the wrong call at the time, and I should have recommended four full-range speakers. While the hotspots are cheaper, and their tighter focus lets you keep stage volumes down, they're really unsatisfying for bands with low-pitched instruments.
Speakers have also changed: there are a lot of good options for full-range powered speakers that are cheaper than the K10 (now K10.2, $900). My favorite is the RCF HD10a ($400): clearer sound than the K10, slightly lower maximum volume (but not a problem for contra), much cheaper, and also lighter. I'd get at least four, two for mains and two for monitors, though getting a third as an extra monitor would be nice for the musicians.
Here's how I see costs changing, in constant July 2025 dollars:
| 2014 system | 2025 system | |
|---|---|---|
| Mixer | $680 | $510 |
| Mains | $2,040 | $800 |
| Monitors | $1,020 | $800 |
| Mics | $544 | $436 |
| Mains Stands | $299 | $240 |
| Monitor Stands | $53 | n/a |
| Mic Stands | $180 | $198 |
| Mic Cables | $90 | $85 |
| Speaker Cables | $75 | $76 |
| Misc | $72 | $30 |
| Total | $5,052 | $3,175 |
Overall it's still a significant investment, at over $3k, but it's 37% cheaper (in real terms) than eleven years ago. This is primarily driven by the switch to the HD10A speakers: if we went with QSC K10.2s it would be back up to $5k.
2025-08-10 21:00:00
A major part of my sound is a pedalboard. The key parts are:
Four drum pedals, so I can play drums with my feet.
A few guitar pedals, to play with the sound of my electric mandolin.
A raspberry pi, which lets me combine aspects of my various electronic instruments to make new sounds.
I've been using some collection of equipment for years, and then about a year ago I made it into a more robust and permanent setup by attaching everything to a board. This was a big improvement, but did have downsides:
I used adhesive velcro to attach things to the board, but over time it started to fall off.
A piece of the board is hinged, and I'd used 1/4" MDF (hardboard) for the extra section. This was nowhere near sturdy enough, and had almost completely fallen off.
The board is a bit hard to pick up, because you can't easily get fingers under it. Angling/rounding the underside would help.
I fly to many of my gigs, but my full collection of equipment is 41.3lb, which combines with my suitcase to be over 50lb (so some things go in my backpack, and I've been thinking about lighter suitcases).
Relatedly, it would be great if I could use some of my 50lb limit for clothes, toothpaste, etc. Or just carry a lighter bag.
Here's the current setup:
I took the whole thing apart, weighed everything, and identified a few options for saving weight:
My four Yamaha KU100 drum pedals are 2.7lb each, of which 1lb is a big metal plate. This adds strength and stability, but since I'm already attaching to a wooden base that's not needed here. So I can save 3.8lb by removing these.
I include DI boxes in my setup, so I'm not asking each dance to provide me with five DI channels. I use Radial PRO D2 DIs: solidly built, but overkill here. The pair is 3.3lb (755g each); switching to four Whirlwind IMP2s (1.8lb; 208g each) saves 1.5lb.
One of my pedals is a BOSS OC-5, which lets me drop the mandolin down an octave, but I really don't use this enough to justify bringing it with me. Losing this saves 0.9lb.
Part of the padding I use in my suitcase is an old yoga mat, which turns out to be quite heavy for how much padding it provides. Switching to foam sheets saves 1.5lb.
The base can be cut a bit smaller around the pedals. I'm guessing this saves about 1lb.
The power setup is overbuilt, especially a heavy duty 0.8lb 4-way octopus splitter. Reworking this should save another pound or so.
I used four strategies for attaching things to the board:
In cases where something used a removable bottom plate with standard screws, I removed the bottom plate and used longer screws to attach through the wooden base. I used the bottom plate as a template, and started holes using a nail set as a punch:
I drilled holes through from the front, and then countersunk from the back.
In cases where screws weren't obvious sizes, keeping me from finding longer ones, I drilled new holes through the bottom plates to attach them to the wooden base.
To support inserting the screws I drilled holes through from the other side, large enough to fit the heads.
For three things I wanted to stack on top of other things (two pedals and a DI) I used higher-quality adhesive velcro (3M Dual Lock). I think there's a good chance this will fail and I'll need to sort out something else.
For small things I drilled holes through the base and used zip ties.
I also (as with last time) used a zillion zip ties to keep the cables from being a mess. Possibly I should have used cable sleeves for some of this.
It's also hard to see, but I used a router (thanks Rick!) to round the bottom corners. It's much easier to pick up now.
Here's what it looks like:
And attached to the keyboard:
It now weighs 32.0lb, and 44.2lb in the case (9.3lb in weight savings). While I haven't used this at a gig yet, I think this fixes all my issues!
