The Null Device

2001/11/27

An interesting history of freemasonry in America, from intrigues and bizarre offshoots in centuries past to its present-day decline:

What changes would appeal to Generation Xers? I ask. ... "We could have piercings for each degree," he says. "By the time you get to be a 33rd-degree Mason, you'd have so much metal you couldn't get into an airport." He smiles. "And of course the 33rd-degree piercing would have to be a very private piercing," he says. "Only 33rd-degree Masons would know where that piercing occurs."

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I've been working on and off (in my copious free time) on audio/music synthesis software under Linux (the ultimate goal being to turn an old P133 laptop into a useful live performance tool), and now I have a proof of concept to show for my effort: toy303, which simulates something vaguely like a Roland TB-303, using an interactive text-mode (Curses) interface. To use, download, untar and make, and run ./toy303. (And no, it won't run on Windows. Or indeed much other than Linux.)

(Why Curses, I you ask, and not a nicer-looking Qt/Gtk UI? Well, (a) the software this may end up in will be Curses-based for speed (it'll have to do lots of doovy things on a P133 laptop, and will need all the clock cycles it can get), and (b) pushing keys to do things without worrying about mouse focus is a lot quicker than dragging elements with a mouse. And (c), because it's a proof-of-concept toy, and I didn't have the time or reason to spend a lot of effort on a slick UI.)

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