Chip McDonald

We've lost some efficacy being vaccinated. Depending on the study, instead of 96%+, it could still be as good as 80%, or as low as 50%. Transmission reduced to maybe 50%. But the thing that is not getting across is that delta is 2x as contagious as alpha; which was 2x as contagious as the original strain. As crazy/hyperbolic as it sounds, there are studies that show it can take as little as 5-15 *seconds* exposure to get a viral load that can infect. One study traced a case back to a woman passing someone in a retail establishment - seen on the store's cameras - who merely walked past the infected person she got it from. And there are numerous studies that also positively show you can get it outdoors. The airborne viral load is potent enough to infect effectively almost instantaneously. While a vaccinated person may still have a 50% less chance of transmitting the virus, *it's still only 50%*, not 100. And even if one discounts the possible long term organ damage of a "silent" infection, *everyone going around in public is just allowing the virus to replicate and mutate*. We're just prolonging it. While everyone is getting to spin the wheel with that 30% chance of organ damage with what they think is "just a cold". Thankfully someone in LA is bold enough to do the right thing. It's this way everywhere. In Augusta they just don't care, they think it's over. Probably in a lot of the (non affluent) areas outside of Nashville as well.

I just watched a video of Fauci this morning basically saying "if local governments feel the need to invoke mask mandates they can". No information about how delta is 4x as contagious, that it only takes 15 *seconds* to get infected, and that over half of the new hospitalizations are 18-49 years old. The U.S. government is taking a herd immunity strategy now, as is the UK. That they're letting kids go back to school is sociopathic. Delta has already started to take off in the States. We can see what happened in the UK, the data is there - except they're more vaccinated, and had MASK MANDATES (they've now gotten rid of). With an uneducated population that is fearless, unaware of the reduced vax efficacy against delta, not wearing masks - it should go exponential in a few weeks. Once school is back we'll have a full blown herd immunity experiment going; the hospitals will start filling up again. Except, it will be happening in slow motion in the rural communities where education is bad to non-existent, and medical facilities scant or also non-existent. For these areas that will be slow to respond - or won't at all - it could be worse than last year. *They know this can happen and are effectively encouraging it*. They *knew* in rural areas vaccines were not going to be accepted readily, they *know* the medical conditions are bad, they *know* people are not as well educated about science: they made *zero* effort to both educate and warn these areas. So they're now going to have the excuse that "we're trying to censor misinformation online", as opposed to trying to negate the ignorance by DOING THEIR JOBS. Unreal. *There could be a tipping point*: delta, combined with no vaccinations, anti-mask sentiment and dumb could turn out truly epically bad. To a degree that even those in rural communities realize they're losing friends and family. If that is the case, I hope they realize who it was that duped them.

Yes. Otherwise it is not a lock down. Ahhh... Blast it, THOSE ILLEGAL MEXICANS!!!!!? It's all their fault! It's amazing, using their magical Michocanic, Jaliscan powers for evil! All this time I thought it was people going around without masks in public areas, breathing each other's air, not being responsible and staying away from people when sick. It's the Mexicans, huh? Wow. ................. Do you have the right to drive as fast as you want? To shoot guns in crowded places? To play with fire in a public building? Your pretense of a lack of fear is exactly why there are laws.

"Lessons learned for the next pandemic" "Get Ready for a Post Covid World" Lots of sinisterly dystopian topics on the event board there, and obviously unaware. We're still in a pandemic, and we're not in a post-covid world. There was a time, pre-80s, when there were various businesses that were ancillary to a main retail business who worked out of a "travelling" model. Snap-On Tools sort of still does this. Now that Radio Shack is gone, if "somebody" could arrange a slick-branding travelling version that had agreements with music stores to show up once a week to sell what amounts to "Radio Shack Basic Menu Plus", maybe that could be viable for say the top-4,5 tier big cities in each state? Maybe one of the small jobbers could expand what they do from a "drop by the music store and take an order" to pulling up in a large van with a sales counter attached, hang out at locations for a schedule few hours? I would suggest "those WalMart kiosks", but that's so... horrible.

Humanity is pretty much clueless on how to fix it. Humanity knows exactly how to fix it. Jacinda Adern knows. Australia did, but is now fighting their sub-median population. If we'd locked down for 30 days when the vaccines came out, we'd be over it in the States. We'd be living life like they do in NZ and Australia. And Delta would not be spreading. It's really a measure of the intellect of the leaders of nations. Years from now Australia and New Zealand will be able to take advantage of their economic power in not having to deal with it. It looks like France may be getting the point; ultimately there will be other nations that realize the sooner they lock down for real, until they let it run it's course in their respective country, the sooner they're beyond it. Again I'm going to say: eventually we'll hear about billionaires, stars arranging to migrate to New Zealand - where their lives and families can live in near normalcy. "Re-open to help the economy" is the most short sighted, dumb-herd "strategy" of human history. We know what has to be done and are unwilling to do it, because of dumb people politics.

What Fauci, Walensky and the CDC are not telling people - but is fact: At this point if you're vaccinated, you still have a 50% chance of not being impacted by Delta. Which goes either way: the vaccines are less effective against it than the original strain, but on the other hand 50% is better than ZERO. But the most important thing they are CRIMINAL in not educating the public on: You have a another 50% less likelihood of SPREADING the virus if you're vaccinated!!!!!. Studies from Scotland and Israel show you only need 5-15 SECONDS exposure to become infected. Alternately, you can infect someone else that quickly - which is why MASKS SHOULD BE MANDATORY EVERYWHERE. Stopping the SPREAD seems to be something the CDC and the U.S. government cares nothing about, as opposed to Australia and New Zealand. That there are obviously STILL people that don't understand the metrics of vaccination lies solely on the shoulders of the people whose job is to protect the health of the citizens of the U.S., Fauci et al.

40% of hospitalizations are now 18-49. Half the cases (or more) are probably delta. 30,000+ new cases a day now. And new information about what covid does to you, whether you end up in the hospital or not. It's a crime the CDC/Fauci/et al are doing nothing to educate people to how it damages you invisibly; our government, and the UK, must have decided to go for an "Unwitting Herd Immunity" strategy. Kids dying in covid wards, and they're going to send them back to school? Psychopathic. Conventions are the worst! How many people standing at booths, talking to everybody? Walking behind how many people, breathing their exhalation? Passing by how many people yelling in conversation? ... and who isn't actually yelling at a NAMM show? Delta needs 5-15 seconds exposure. 4x contagious than the original strain. Consider everybody knows about "convention flu", whether it's NAMM, or whatever convention - there are technical reasons for that, papers have been written on it. With delta dominating you're really taking your chances.

Hilarious! Yeah, that's great. I'd love to have that, pretty much an extrapolation of what I wrote. BUT.... My angle is to make it more affordable. If Midas can (I know they're China now) make a $200 lunchbox, I'd think a company like Steinberg or Focusrite (or Mackie?) could incorporate the form factor with a scaled down box; effectively what I'm describing isn't much more elaborate than an entry level 4x4 $200 interface, with the addition of the lunchbox form factor/cards. If that could be done for another $100 - $125, it would open the 500 series market to a new demographic, and I think really take off. I'd love to have that Cranborne unit, though, that's pretty ideal/convenient.

A very good utilization for the technology. Doctors don't want to get involved in diagnosing anything anymore. With the right natural language set it should uncover many cases of things that would otherwise be missed. It's going to be bad news for radiologists, though. They'll still need to be around for vetting results, but again it will catch things most will overlook. And now that they're using it to tear into molecular biology we should see some revolutionary drugs within a year or so; which will create a problem in drugs curing things specialists make a lot of money on now. Without a doubt a cure for all cancers will be possible in a few years, but the industry will try to bury it. And once it finds an even easier editing process than CRISPR will be on the brink of effectively changing the human race, full-Gattacca style.

Strange, I thought I made a post here about (pointlessly, I'm broke) looking at Midas lunchboxes on Sweetwater for $207, then I got a sales call from Sweetwater the next day, and a friend sent me a txt with a picture of a 550 he acquired a few days ago - which has created a problem for him having another lunchbox with empty spaces to be filled. But looking, apparently the post is gone....? /*MatrixFails If $200-ish racks had happened at the same time as $200 modules, it would have boomed like Eurorack seems to be. A company competing with Universal Audio - such as Steinberg - should come out with a USB-C powered interface that comes in maybe a 3U 500 box, with the preamp as a module (leaving 2 spaces), with the 8 channels of I/O configurable through the lunchbox modules (leaving a pair of aux I/O on the back). Or make it 4x4, 2 channels through the lunchbox and an aux pair. You could then annex the preamp module with an API/Neve/? later, still have a space for a comp and eq, software configurable I/O allowing easy reamping.

Things you expect to always be there, you can take for granted until... they're not. For non-musicians, non-video, non-gamers, they only need a machine that will run a browser so they can get email. They'll run their word processor online, or the bespoke online software their work demands. At home, they just want a browser. A $300 WalMart machine fulfils that just fine now. If MS screws this up as bad as I think they could, a year after introducing/forcing W11, IT departments are going to move towards Apple or Linux. They're going to lose a lot of government systems trying to win the browser war by shelving IE. Same for forcing security updates off to W11 in 2025. Placing reliance on a MS account to run a machine - same. Apple is going to start killing them with their SOIC approach. 3 years from now, *if* you can buy a Windows PC that can hang with a new gen SOIC Mac the question will be "why"? Gamers will still be in it, UNLESS Steam or a game consortium comes out with their own OS - then it will be a quick GAME OVER for MS. IMO MS' *only* way out is to do what they won't do: give people a debloated, fast OS. Otherwise their only path is towards their own SOIC with Intel (who must do this as well), and they're on the backfoot with Apple. So, Windows 11 will have a Hidden Agenda to not only lock the user into their ecosystem, but also to set you up for *having* to move to a new MicroIntelSoft system on a chip.

They're having to react to Apple M1, and subscription shenanigans. They will have to have an answer for the M1 approach to systems, and they'll need the memory management/architecture in place to do it pronto. Without their own integrated system chip they're kind of screwed, and I'm sure they know it. So... 1) Get people locked into the MS platform now, "innoculate" them to Apple M1. How do you do that? Figure out how to make them spend $$$$$ so they won't want to spend $$ on an Apple machine. 2) Create an income stream where the spreadsheet shows a decline - legacy installs. How do you do that? Subscriptions. "Subscribe for the Premium Windows Experience". Don't have TPM 2? Well, for a small fee you can get the legacy edition W11. Want to run a server? Subscribe to Windows 11 360 Server. Look at how they've forced 360 products into things. Look at how you've got to maintain a MS account to logon to your own machine. Apple does Apple better than MS does. Apple has forced their hand. They *should* be reacting by zagging away, giving you a *less* Mac-like experience: a leaner OS, refining what's already there and allowing you to go under the hood to modify it to your liking. Take out the chaff and bloat. Instead they appear headed in a more corporate Marketing Degree direction.

Interesting, so this is why SSS is no longer listed/at the top "forums"....? I read everything I could when I started playing around '83-84. MIX was always... sparse with practical info, but I'd read through it anyway, hoping to glean some morsel of knowledge. Really think the Stephen St. Croix/Marshall part was the most informative - I'm not sure how many boxes a band had out on the road and what board they were using was the best utilization of the magazine, but I'm just a peasant. I'd try to grab old copies when I could (or any audio periodical) to try to "catch up" to 1984. The internet has condense the experience of bookstores into an immobile, but ultra-efficient activity.

The landscaping noise thing is totally out of hand. How did we manage before 1982 or so, without leaf blowers? MATRIX IRONY: Right now, a cool day - only 82 outside, my a/c is not running, no leaf blowers, no band next door, no ambulances, police or firetrucks... I can hear the CPU fan on my PC my noise floor right now doesn't even show up on my ancient Radio Shack analog meter, must be <50 db? I can hear water moving the the water heater behind me, no wind today, birds or cicadas. A slight dribble from the ice maker in the fridge.... I'm going to literally walk around my house. Quiet. A bird in the distance, a prop plane now.... Cawing bird. Ah, the A/C came back on. Still below 50 db. A brief respite, I have 2 hours to work out the guitar part to this theme...

The shed they're in is tympanic, they'd have to have their walls not vibrate. And it's literally 30 feet out my backdoor, they'd have to both build out the walls like a studio as well as decouple the bottom.

Yeah. I've got to pick the right time when they're outside and I'm not exhausted from lessons/life, lest that bias the outcome. Well..... "things ain't like they used to be". I thought for sure someone by now, other than me, would have complained and they would have had to stop by now. Except.... People are more tolerant of loud music now. I live about a 1/4 mile up a hill from a Really Nice Development on the Savannah River; that is adjacent to a minor league base ball stadium. Where every weekend a loud fireworks show goes off at the end of the game; which I would have thought would annoy the Pretty Wealthy People in the Really Nice Development next door, but... they like the stadium. ...and they like bands to play there. I've heard Hootie and the Blowfish loud enough inside my bedroom that I could make out the lyrics; in must be ridiculous to the neighborhood down the road next door to the stadium. But they like it so much that.... just last week they passed a new noise ordinance. That allows them to do whatever until 7 a.m. on weekends. When we moved here we knew we'd hear noise from the HS football stadium 1/8th of a mile away, kind of across the street from us. We'll barely hear yelling and marching band bass drums outside, but not inside the house. What we didn't count on was the ridiculous Civil War idiots that routinely insist on firing off actual muskets at the cemetery across the street, on quasi-random days. Or that the Creighton "Living History Park" a few blocks over would ALSO occasionally fire off an actual Civil War cannon. The annual top-fuel drag boat race on the river was only once a year, but I amazingly couldn't hear it as much at my house as I could Hootie and the Blowfish. And the hip hop subsonic "environmental soundz" are pretty routine. ...but they extended the noise ordinance. Ironically I live in an apparently sonic-amplitude disaffected part of town. They've been over 70 inside my house, that wouldn't be a problem - IF the police cared around here, but I prefer it not get to that point. Before covid I used to walk along the river in the aforementioned Really Nice Development every day. Most of the time landscapers have their 90db leaf blowers running non-stop there. I don't get it: you're going to pay million+ $ for a house and you're going to be bombarded with "RBRRBRRRRBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRR" all day long, most days? I suppose that's why they don't mind Hootie blasting through their walls at 11:30 p.m.. Yeah.

One fear is that it's a pretty good chance in my town the guitar or bass player would know who I am - or maybe were even students of mine - which makes playing the role of Party Pooper worse. "Hey Chip! You live next door to Drummer Dood? Hey, see, I'm doing a band! I'm doing something like you said I should! Hey, check us out playing this Hendrix song,,and.... wait... what? You want us to turn down......? What?" Ahrgh.

I feel like I shouldn't have to change *my* habits inside my own house.....? One day there will be an engineered meta-material surface that uses phonons to bend soundwaves around areas at certain frequencies, that will revolutionize noise pollution, but.... unless they could understand the concept of trying to rig up an active inverse-bass trap I suppose I'm out of luck for now.

Let me think about it.... hmm. Yeah, that might not be a good idea. Yeah, I wonder if I'm in purgatory, or some Matrix sit-com morality play. But I never subjected the neighborhood to this volume, and tried to make crude (but educational) attempts at bass traps in my parent's garage, baffled off the windows; at the curb the kick was probably around 60db or lower. If that loud. We would have the cops called on us not for volume, but because we were playing Satan's music (according to the pastor across the street). And we'd stop at 9, and we tried to play "soft"; The cops would come and then hang out, said we were fine - so I don't feel too bad about abusing my Suburban Privilege. But.... the countless bands my students have played in have no doubt caused mayhem in many a suburban area, so I halfway feel like I'm doing penance for my volume transgressions?

My wife suggested putting a 4x12 cab out the back door, but... uhg. That is easily doable, but they don't live there so... ... Hmm. Uhg. Yeah. The problem though, is I'm on this side of the house until 9 p.m.... so I would have to tell them to stay quiet until then, ... uhg. I'm in the south east where effectively nobody has a basement (it's all crawlspaces and slabs). Gah, they're playing Hey Joe right now, I can tell inside the house. Frakking loud crash cymbal, one of those Paiste plate steel things I bet, as loud as the snare and kick in my house. Guy is killing the crash. Ahghrh.

They're not at that level yet, unfortunately for them and for me.

Hilarious, I'm in the Matrix. My next door neighbor has a nephew, whose band she's decided to let practice in a storage shed in her backyard. The storage shed is 30' behind the room in my house where I'm sitting (and have my recording setup). Do you see where this is going? These guys are in their early 20's, and about 3 times a week, around 6 p.m. they start. On weekends sometimes all day. Which I commend, particularly these days. They're actually trying to do something. THE PROBLEM.... Everything below 120hz I can hear where I am sitting right now If I'm at 82 db from my monitors I don't hear them, but the moment I stop - I get to hear a another rendition of Voodoo Chile (slight return). I would guess they've all been playing their instruments for around 5 years or so, so - yeah. *I really don't want to hear them inside my house*. Or outside for that matter. When I was in my Garage Phase at my parent's house, we got the police called on us - from the church pastor across the street that had to stand at his front door to hear us. The police would come out, and most of the time literally hang out and listen for an hour or so. Not exactly an equivalence, but I can empathize. The thing is, they're playing at "metal club" stage volume in a little 10x10' shed. I measured 78+db C weighted inside my house one time. It's a complete disruption of my creative process, of course. Not to mention, .... I JUST DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT. I have a cinder block outbuilding that I tried to use as a studio at one point, only had my electronic drum kit in there and felt guilty that you *might* be able to hear the pad tapping at their fence (farther away). At one point I had a 4x12 in there, used it as an isolation booth hooked to one of my plexis (inside my house, 100' mic cable/speaker cable), but that was only around 74db immediately outside the building. But I still felt like that was a disruption *if my neighbor went outside*, because she'd hear it. So again, not really an equivalence. I told the neighbor last year "look, they need to turn down, maybe if they can get an electronic drum kit".... things I found bizarre to be saying to someone. But here I am a year later, they're still loud enough. MATRIX MOMENT #2: The one time I was aggravated enough to go outside, maybe get their attention over the fence or jump the fence and knock on their storage shed door.... ANOTHER neighbor walked into their backyard. "Oh, good" I thought. "They're going to tell them to stop, I won't have to deal with this". No. A woman and her friend from next door to them "hey guys, ya'll sound great", "thanks! We thought you were going to shut us down!" I hear them say. Wonderful. They sound better than they did a year ago, they've discovered swing and play mostly classic rock - they play Whipping Post? .... kind of. I'm so conflicted with this. I'm where I'm at giving guitar lessons online, telling students "you need to find other people to play with", teaching how to hear/play swung grooves, shuffles, appreciate the art of lead guitar/classic rock... and these guys are doing it (for all I know the guitar player may have been/is a student of mine)(actually quite likely in my town). What do I do? I'm not calling the cops on them. I've told their aunt to tell them to turn down. What a bizarre turn. MATRIX MOMENT #3 For added fun... a block away behind my house, there is some guy that likes to put his amp out on his back porch (pointed my way) and play his repertoire of broken/disjointed bits and pieces... guessing he's been playing a few years. So I get to hear that outside sometimes as well. "Back in my day we'd have the police called on us" for the hint of a kick drum tap at <72db across the street, outside. At this point I'm thinking "maybe I should set a cab up outside and start micing myself in free air, it would sound better than in here". Why not, did I mention in the OTHER direction a block away maybe every other day I get to hear the Latest in Post Miami Hip Hop Beats emanating from 100hz down, sometimes resonating at 40-50hz loud enough that things vibrate inside my house? Ahrghhg... But I really can't deal with hearing my guitar beating against the tuning of the bass guitar coming from next door through the walls, or a drum beat in my DAW clashing with ... uhghghghg..... I've got to be "that guy", don't I? ??? / I hate the 21st century

I know you can't download it on a Kindle, but I'm telling you.... "Craig Anderton's 101 Guitar Pedal Projects Experimenter Kit" 9v clip, pre-cut wires, pre-mounted resistors, caps, 4550, FET and some pots with spring-loaded posts like the old Radio Shack kits, designed so it (pots pre-placed) can be slide-in mounted in an (optional) Hammond 1590 medium square pre-drilled enclosure (with plug-play 9v adapter)... <$10 of parts, sell for $50, maybe a tie-in with Sweetwater/Surack, or sell direct through Amazon....

They state "promulgated early last year by Donald Trump and his supporters, before being dismissed" *I'm* not an Orange Jesus supporter by any stretch, and I defy anyone to find someone referencing the lab leak position before me online. That until now, it has been dismissed as "conspiracy theory" is a the *result* of bias. I've been blathering about how both the right and the left are corrupt for decades here, and in other places online. Castigating this position as being "something Trumpers think" is an Establishment tactic to disarm talking about the subject. I tactic that has worked great until now, thanks to Jon Stewart. *The Guardian is no different than U.S. news papers*. They have left and right affiliations, and take positions based on party positions. They WILL NOT "report" a position that bucks the Establishment. As evidence of that, look up "Glen Greenwald The Intercept". "'It was a collaboration with colleagues in China to look at evidence and design studies for further investigation.' "Colleagues" is a good description, since the lab was doing research paid for by the NIH through "investigation" lead Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance NPO since at least 2003. * they absolutely did not look at evidence. They were given a 2 hour walking tour of the lab. That's not looking at evidence. That's looking at hoods and flasks, talking about pipettes. * they don't need to "design studies for further investigation". You do a lab assessment. Something I know about obliquely, since literally today my wife - who runs labs dealing with things much more dangerous than coronavirus - is having to do this week. Labs create data. Labs have chains of custody showing who had control of what, when. They retrieved nothing. They looked at nothing. Furthermore, *there is video of CCP officials taking computers and boxes out of the lab back in January 2020* when all of this started. What new *evidence* points away from the lab leak theory? He was collecting bats from all over China, to isolate and grow zoonotic coronaviruses. Stating there was one in a cave 1,000 miles away - but Patient Zero and the outbreak happened in the same neighborhood as *the lab where you're isolating and growing your zoonotic SARS like ACE2 bind coronavirus samples from 1,000 miles away* - doesn't point away from the lab. "The research team isolated and cultured a live virus that binds to the human SARS receptor ACE2 and can therefore be transmitted directly from bats to people" That was written in October of 2013. A zoonotic SARS like virus from bats that binds to ACE2 that can be transmitted to humans? "Isolated and cultured* - that is literally gain of function research. EcoHealth Alliance (NIH NPO) Article from October 2013