Hi,
I have made quite a few "Ocarinas", but not designed for musicians, but rather curio collectors. I started to look into making well tuned ones, but for the place and time i was in, it did not seem worthwhile. I am getting ready to get going with clay again, and I might give tuned ocarinas a try again. Would love to see your site if you have one. Here is a picture of some of the ones I made: http://zafka.com/w5.html
This next page shows some stages in making them, nothing to do with the actual sound making. http://zafka.com/fish_photos.html
This interesting! We entered my Mom into this study. Next month she will be 98.
I think her habit of exercising contributed a lot, but the good (lucky) genetics are there too. She used to get carded well into her 30s.
Hmmm, Now I need to find out where my copy is hiding. I really need to reorganize the books again. I savored this for a while, but have not gone through the entire book yet. Sort of like War & Peace - books that everyone must read before they die, and I am saving them for insurance.
Hi,
I sort of wandered into my career. I started in telecom due to a co-op, and then jumped to a cool job making computers for blind people that was both closer to my home, but also offered the opportunity to see many parts of the business. I ended up working on electronics and software in the medical device field. If one has the aptitude for it, I think jobs that are closer to the hardware will have a much longer shelf life. Get a copy of "Horowitz and hill", if you find that book entertaining, you should be fine.
When I was a kid, I scavenged a hunk of cable "Ma Bell" had left behind. I spliced together a quarter mile pair of wires to connect the neighbors house to mine and hooked up a battery and microphone on one side, and a speaker on the other. No luck. Then we connected the "speaker side" to the input of my friends stereo, and it was possible to be heard. I was about 10 at that time ( ~1970) and was not very aware of voltage drop. The taps and recording system I put in our basement worked much better!
I know I am biased both by my education and my chosen path. My first computer class was pascal based,my second course was intel based assembler. These were both in community college. When I started my degree in Computer Engineering, the microprocessor course was essentially an assembly course using the Motorola 6800 chip. I was lucky that the main CS courses were taught using C, course work was compiled on Vax mainframes running some unix variant. I used Borland C/C++ 3.0 to do my homework, then would have to figure out what changed when I used the Vax compiler to turn in my work. I really think it is worthwhile to get an understanding of the low level workings of computing. Every now and then I see a nice article comparing different access times for disk, ROM, DRAM, cache which is also important to know for critical code. Embedded for Telecom, Medical,etc.
I was turned on to Chock full o' Nuts years ago, and have never turned back. I will drink any coffee in a pinch, but for great mild coffee I stick to Chock full o' nuts in my french press.
What jumps out at me is the use of the "constant currency" term. I do not think I have seen that before - Admittedly, I do not study a lot of financials.
Is this something that we are going to see a lot of now, due to devaluation of the dollar?
I wonder if what seems like much higher margins in coffee allow for more articles like this. While I want what they are saying to be true, I wish I did not have to pay $15.00 for a 26 ounce can of coffee.
Thanks for your data points. They are quite encouraging. I was blessed with the ability to remember way more information that most of my peers. Now that I have lost some of that ability, I still retain quite a bit, with slower retrieval times usually. Over all, I really have no room to complain. ( although I still do). The skill I value the most though is finding those connections you speak of. I currently don't have a feel for how that has changed, but I think I am still good to go in that department.
You can pick up Silicon Carbide grit pretty cheap online ( impure moissanite ).
I have several tumblers, but have yet to finish the process of making polished gems- but it is still on my bucket list :). I have made lots of "sea glass: though. I have taken quite a bit to the local beach ( about 40 miles north of Palm Beach Fl. ) I toss it into the surf, figuring it will make some beachcombers happy. My logic is that once it has been in the ocean a few days, it will actually be sea glass. I would not make that claim for any of the glass that comes straight out of the tumbler though. Next time you visit a craft show and see folks with "Sea glass" Jewelry, note if they have separate displays for "real" sea glass, and man made.
Nice offer! I would also be very interested in how many people have taken you up on your generous offer. I myself would edit your offer to include the caveat: "emails within a week" to prevent all future orders for the book being funneled through you :).
I really love the title of this essay. The essay itself and the comments are also delightful.
I am going to start using this at my job (where I write embedded code for medical devices). This fact gets so much more apparent when code gets put in production devices, and you see the affect of tolerance stack-ups of hundreds of parts.
I also think this is why i feel very optimistic about finding new and exciting things in the world. So many people accept the reality of things that someone has explained, while there are actually many variations yet to be revealed.