I'm using Google Maps to look up opening times of churches in Venice, and I don't think I've ever seen so many misplaced reviews: from praising the view from a non-existent bell tower, to decrying the insolence of the shopkeeper, to complaining about the size and price of food portions. I know it's a confusing place that people visit for an eyeblink, but it still surprises me. I only started scanning through the reviews because these errors are often quoted in the overview!
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Can someone clue me in on what many of the PL types I follow are reacting to? I'm getting the Plato's Cave version of it. Thanks!
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It took me half an hour to understand why Audacity wouldn't let me record USB audio as it had in the past. Turned out to be my OS upgrade protecting me from... myself. At some point it will just lock me out of my laptop entirely, "I am my own worst enemy" made concrete.
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I set myself the task of using the Acoustic kit of 16 preset sounds on my recently-acquired Elektron Digitone II. I ended up with a cover of an early Cure song, "In Your House", as if from a chamber orchestra / choir afterparty. All sounds synthesized by either FM or Karplus-Strong.
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My doggerel-infested brain on the Linha Azul: the eponymous Belle e Sebastião song at São Sebastião, and the Clash doing "The Wrong Comboio" at the interchange for Sete Rios train station.
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RIP David Lodge. "Changing Places" probably had a significant effect on my decision to go to Berkeley for grad school. (It wasn't anything like that, alas.)
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Duck double-header on this arbitrary transition point: sous vide breast tonight, oven-crisped confit tomorrow. Not special meals; both are now in the regular rotation. But the more conventional meats were in shorter supply in the week between the holidays, at least the cuts I wanted to spend time cooking.
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The Finder slowed to a crawl on my laptop; relaunching it did not work. Probably just a reboot would have sufficed, but I abruptly took the machine from macOS 13.3 to 15.2. Embrace the future, I guess. A bold thing to do just before classes start, but nothing for that seems to have broken, at least.
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Written tutorial in progress on this little musical device, the Dirtywave M8. Archaic, I know (the writing, not the device) but it's all I know how to do. Remote collaboration with a good synth buddy. A few chapters drafted, much more work needed.
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~plragde/flane/TM8C/index.html
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As an adolescent I would stain epithelial cheek cells with iodine to look at them under a microscope. I did not imagine that fifty-plus years later, the same thing would happen to me with after-dinner LBV port, making brushing teeth before bed more fraught than expected.
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In other Italian news, Hildy ordered dried porcini online, which are better than the last ones we got in the US, which came to us by way of Oregon (origin unclear). We still cannot find canned Italian tomatoes of any sort in town, let alone San Marzanos. I have to conclude that the Portuguese are profoundly uninterested in the best foods from the rest of the EU.
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I hope the recent trend for designer panettone abates soon and doesn't drive prices up in future. One can pay more than 100€ for one sold by someone known for their handbags.
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The French supermarket Auchan in our old nabe has a house panettone also made in Italy at a better price (7€/750g). But, while it is better than the mass-market versions made with margarine and industrial yeast, it is not quite as good as the ECI offering.
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The panettone for the Christmas rush is made in October, packaged only in a plastic bag with a twist tie, and has a pull date of 2025-06-30. I've eaten good ones after Easter (better than the inferior colomba made for that holiday). The trick is to have the discipline to leave it alone that long.
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The house-branded panettone at ECI (fanciest supermarket in town, Spanish) is made by Bauli (established Italian bakery), has natural yeast and lots of real butter, and is reasonably priced (16€/kg). We bought three (two are put away in a closet for later winter cheer).
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Spent Christmas Day doing cooking, and in between, sound design. Now the hard part comes: writing about it. (Not the cooking, fortunately.)
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The Trader Joe's Organic Blue Corn Tortilla Chips we brought back from the US have gone rancid. There are no decent tortilla chips of any colour in this country. This is probably incentive for me to start making fresh tortillas. I have a good press, heirloom masa harina, a griddle, and a gas stove now. It's just a bit more work than opening a bag.
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FTPPC meeting today, about which I can't toot. I am allowed to say that the extra P in the committee name this year stands for "permanence", because lecturers became teaching-stream professors but the stiff-necked professoriat wouldn't permit them to get "tenure". Embarrassing, really.
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29 applications this week, Friday deadline. This is exponential growth.
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Occurred to me that I am now in a position to make cassoulet again, probably more easily than before. Hildy is not a big fan of legumes, but I sneak them in now and again, and she is getting used to it.
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