Tag: Translator

When the term yeast is used, most people think of freshly baked bread.  Many people will also think of a cold, foamy headed beer.  Both are made possible by yeast, but there are many more applications.

Yeast has been used to raise bread and make beer and wine since prehistory, and the work is very ancient.  It comes to us in modern English via the Old English gyst, which in tern derived from the Indo-European word yes, meaning quite literally to bubble.  Thus the word is very much older than our understanding that yeasts are living things, dating from the 1850s due to the work of Louis Pasteur.

When we think of yeast, we normally are referring to a single species (out of around 1500, give or take), Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  This single species is responsible for raising bread, making wine and much of the beer that is drunk, as well as alcohol for beverage and industrial purposes.  Unless I qualify, when I use the term “yeast” this is the species to which I refer.

Those of you who read my pieces know that I often write about my favourite band, The Who.  (I used the UK spelling intentionally this time, rare for me these days).  This time we shall examine what many people say was their finest work.  I am not sure that I agree completely, but it was extremely good.

Who’s Next is actually a compilation of songs, most from Townshend, that became an album after the ill fated Lifehouse project, Townshend’s opus, never came to light.  He finally finished it, many years later, but the final product was far different than this record.  We shall discuss Who’s Next tonight, and will continue the discussion about Lifehouse next week, after I see your comments and questions.

First let us get to the facts.  Ready to go?

I was running out of time last week as the publication hour was neigh, so I was not able too include everything that I wanted to include.  In the meantime, I have gained some additional information that refutes one of the points that I made.  Remember, The Geek likes to be corrected when he is wrong.  We shall get to that after the fold.

This installment has to do with some experimental or otherwise not widely used loudspeaker designs, but also something much more personal to me.  It has to do with a good friend from almost 40 years, and his interaction with Paul Klipsch and others involved in the company.

First we shall make the correction, then talk about other loudspeaker designs, and then the more personal stuff.  Ready to go?

This is a bit of a departure in that I almost always write about things that have occurred in the past.  Tonight is is about something that is scheduled to happen in future.  I do not know about all of your tastes, but a cruise does not ring my bell as the ideal vacation for several reasons.

First, I like to make my own decisions.  That is why road trips are good.  You can go wherever you want, for good or ill, but the choice is yours.  The driver(s) control the destination.  On a cruise, that is not possible unless disaster strikes.

Second, with a self directed trip, one can choose his or her companions.  That is not possible on a cruise.  One never knows who will be in the next cabin.

Third, if one is driving, one can just stop and reconsider what is going on, and if one is not enjoying the trip, can turn around and just go home.  That is not possible on a sea cruise, unless one becomes violently ill (and that happens more often that the corporations that arrange them would like people to know).

With no more ado, here is my nightmare of a cruise from Hell.  The thing is just this:  I did not make it up from whole cloth.  It is being advertised on the Fox “News” Channel!  Here we go!

Those of you who read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

I rarely write about living people except with their express permission, and will have to make no exception for that rule this time.  As far as I know, they did not have any children, but I could be wrong, and if others who knew them know better, please correct me.

They were a nice couple, and the lived directly across the street from Ma.  Budge (I NEVER knew his real name) was sort of a shade tree mechanic.  Lyda was a gossip.

In electronics, a loudspeaker is what most people just call a speaker, the device that converts electrical signals to sound.  They can range from very simple to very complex designs, with variations in cost from just a few cents to thousands of dollars.

All practical loudspeakers are electromechanical devices, using an analogue electrical signal to make the loudspeaker components to move in such a manner as to in turn move air (usually, although other media can be used for purposes other than human perception) and thus make a sound.  For human hearing, air is almost always the medium used.

Loudspeakers are one of the few modern electronic devices that are analogue only.  In other words, a truly digital loudspeaker does not exist except in a few research laboratories and they are not very good.  It is interesting to me that the final stage of reproducing sound is firmly rooted in the 19th century insofar as basic technology in concerned.  This discussion is limited to electromechanical loudspeakers.  Purely mechanical ones are much older than electromechanical ones.

Donald Jay “Don” Rickles (I like it that he uses his own name, and I would here but would have to give up my low UID to do so) is unique.  I am actually not that fond of him, but he is an American icon.  Born 19260508, he is now 85 years old, and going strong!  That is quite an accomplishment just by itself!

His trademark is really being a jerk.  I am a jerk unintentionally from time to time, and when I am a jerk, the results are usually not very good.  He does it intentionally, and that seems to work for him.

I was going to write this piece about a completely different subject, but had what I call the Jay Leno TeeVee Show on for background noise, and Rickles was one of the guests.  I thought that he was dead, but I guess that I had him confused with Rodney Dangerfield.

Before we get started, let me be clear that any information contained here, although to be best of my knowledge accurate, in in no way intended to be a substitute for advice and care from licensed medical professionals.  OK, disclaimer stated.

Aspirin is one of the first synthetic drugs, and is still in wide use after over 100 years.  It was first marketed by Bayer in 1899, and sales are still strong despite competition from drugs like acetaminophen,  ibuprofen, and naproxin sodium.  Bayer has in the past week or two come out with a new advert about its new “quick acting” aspirin.

This material is “quick acting” because the particle size is much smaller than that of regular aspirin.  Since aspirin is only slowly soluble in water, the greater surface area for the same mass does speed up absorption.

This is a rare piece, juxtaposed betwixt my regular pieces.  OK, now I got your attention!  I am sorry for the subterfuge.  However, this is actually a more important piece that the title indicates.  Unless you fall into one of the ten categories, there is NO reason to vote for a Republican.

I usually do not use satire in my pieces, except for small snippets, but this idea sort of  screams hyperbole.  I hope that this makes people think.  If it does, I succeeded.  If not, I failed.  You tell me in the comments.

Last week we examined the original vinyl record of Live at Leeds.  Due to the technological limitations of vinyl, it was only about 45 minutes, give or take a couple, long.  The album was rereleased in 1995 on CD, and because that medium is capable of much more time, around two hours, many more tracks were added that had been recorded at the time.

Tonight we shall listen to those tracks and discuss whether or not we think that they are good.  I think that they are all no worse than very, very good and that many of them are outstanding.  Please listen and tell me what you think.  For those of you who have not signed up for an account, please do so so that you can comment in future.

Let us get started.

A couple of weeks ago I posted in this space a piece about things that are no longer available or are quite different now.  I intend to continue this tonight with another slew of products that are either gone, or that the adverts are gone, or are quite changed.

Let us take for example a simple item like coffee.  My family were always Folger’s drinkers, so I shall use that as the example.  When I was a kid, there was only kind of blend and only one roast.  However, it came in three degrees of fineness (“grinds”):  regular, fine, and drip in decreasing order of particle size.  Ma was stingy, so she always used drip grind on the theory, correct by the way, that it was more extractable.  The problem was that she used a percolator, so the very fine particles would make the coffee cloudy.

Today, there are over a dozen variations of blends, roasts, and flavors for just this one brand!  However, you NEVER see any mention of grind!  Things change a lot.