Ranking Every Beatles Song, Very Definitely Scientifically

Sometimes you set your mind on a task, knowing that maybe, just maybe, if you do it right, it’ll make a difference, change a mind, or open someone to a new perspective.

…of course, this isn’t going to be one of those times.  I’m pretty sure everyone reading this already has a pretty good idea how they feel about the Beatles and has listened to a few songs, if not all of them already.  Being the stubborn sort that I am, I’ll be going ahead with the reviews, rankings, and such “data analytics” as can be managed here anyway, just to see what there is to see.

Making Wine from IKEA Tutorial

Who knew making alcohol from this family-friendly establishment could be so affordably and easy?

Random Band Name Generator Program

          A few months back, I compiled and posted a few lists of words of various sorts, over 10,000 of them all in all.  Shortly afterwards, I started putting them to use in various Mad-Libz style generators.  Now, I'm far from an expert coder (I've only taken two courses), so it's little more than some simple Java random functions in a choice framework, but eventually I'll get around to porting a Javascript or HTML version so you good people of the internet can take advantage of it as well - if anyone shows any interest, that is :)

          The result was a remarkably fun and even possibly almost useful band name generator that can spit out a couple thousand ideas per second; a bit faster than you can review them, at any rate.

(much more after the break)

List of English words - Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, adverbs - 10,892 total

I've recently gotten into computer programming and was looking to create a wild "Mad Libs" type of word generator.  Maybe you're looking to do something similar, maybe you're training word generators, or maybe you have some other higher calling necessitating some large unformatted lists of words - I ain't going to judge.

However, I didn't find it as easy as hoped to get some convenient lists of words sorted by type, so after assembling a few collections of my own, I figured I might as well share them and save you the trouble!

What Kind of Guitar Pick to Use?

If you're a beginning guitarist, or if you just always gave more thought to which riff you were going to learn next than to what you were going to play it with, you might not know much about picking your plectrum.  

No problem, it's far from complicated, I'm just here to offer some tips that might help you along the way.

Micro-Guitaronomics

          When you combine two niche hobbies, the odds of anyone else understanding exponentially decrease.

Spectacular Sememes

          Feeling enervated by the dearth of opulent prose in your prosaic routine, ensnared by the treadmill of drab vernacular?

          Me too.  Thus begins our quest to find the most swank words in the English language, entirely without foresight, substantiated background sources, a five year plan, any observation of any other lists that may exist, or caffeine (commitment to one of these stipulations is dubious).

Constitutional Amendments Study Guide List

A little study guide I put together for a Civil Rights and Liberties course I'm taking.  I didn't find any online already that I was happy with, so I put together a concise, printable version myself - hopefully this might help a few fellow students a bit :)

Balalaika Sheet Music archive

Balalaika Sheet Music

Once in a while, you find a resource so useful it'd be a disservice to humanity to not share it.  This 497-page-long archive of balalaika ensemble sheet music might not have a large audience, but it's a huge resource for those who are interested.

Vox Pathfinder 10 Instruction Manual

In case you lost yours and don't know how the thing works.  Of course, it's simple enough that that shouldn't be a problem, but it's one of the more entertaining instruction manuals for guitar gear so why not?

Used Guitar Resale Value Regression Analysis

The used guitar market isn't particularly difficult to understand, but is rife with opaqueness and rumors, and a little light on actual data and studies.  While this isn't a comprehensive or conclusive analysis, it's a step towards a database that can help us draw real conclusions in the future.

Not excited yet?  I'll try my best :p

Comparison of DIY Guitar Kits by Price

          In the market for DIY guitar kits, or just checking out what's out there?  At first it can be pretty intimidating to compare the options, so I made an (excessively) simple chart to compare some of the options out there.

          Of course, quality varies quite a bit by maker, and there's a wide range of prices by each maker and distributor, but I took a rough average for a fairly simple (but not bottom-end) guitar kit by each distributor so you get the general idea of where to shop around for your budget.

          It is interesting to see such a strict divide between makers; a plethora of "low tier" kits $200 and under (most peak at about $200 for a semi-hollow or ES-335 style guitar) and the "high end" kits where body and neck each cost near $200, hardware and electronics excluded.  Whatever your budget or needs, this should help give a rough overview of the market, hope it helps!

Building a "Wintercroft" paper mask

With Halloween just around the corner, what better way to prepare than building a doomsday costume?  Wintercroft.com designs and sells excellent low-poly mask templates so you can build any of dozens of different designs with nothing more than some card and tape.

Free Lightsaber Mouse Icons

On a Star Wars kick playing Jedi Outcast, I was briefly inspired by the lightsaber cursor on the menu.  While not half as cool as that professionally done cursor, these minimalistic lightsaber cursors I drew add a little personality while being minimally obtrusive, and uber easy to install/uninstall.  Enjoy :)

https://app.box.com/s/3zsc59uhmrvq2nv551fo2ydifjihc914

Bias FX Demo Review and First Impressions

A look at the excellent user interface of Bias FX

Last night after watching a series of increasingly enthusiastic favorable reviews of Bias FX software by Positive Grid, I decided to see what I could experience myself.  Unfortunately, the $200 for the (mostly) full software just isn't in my budget for gear now, but thankfully they do make a demo version available for free on their website here.

How did my experience stack up to the fawning reviews available?  Read on to find out...

Websynths - Bach Prelude in C Major

My little demo of the excellent Websynths, which allows you to play infinitely variable synthesizer sounds directly from your web browser!  I sorta learned a bit of Bach's "Prelude in C Major" for the fun of it, be sure to check it out!

Cheap Viola Review and Mods

Fair warning before we get started: I have experience doing all sorts of handiwork and modifications, and pretty extensive work on electric guitars, but violins and violas are quite different animals and I'm certainly not an experienced technician.  That being said, a few mods were pretty simple and safe to do to tweak this extremely cheap viola from Amazon into something slightly nicer and more playable.

Always Let the Paint Cure

A little P.S.A. for everyone - make sure the things you paint and especially clear coat have ample time to cure before using and traveling with them.  This is the result on the Les Plywood after it had four days to cure and I needed to travel with it in a zippered gig bag.  Am I disappointed?  A little, but it was far from perfect to begin with.  Just try to give it ample time to cure as you are able!

Instrument Wall Layout

Here's a pic of (one of) my "walls of instruments" currently, for your design inspiration.  It has quite the variety of instruments for a relatively small space, and guitar wall hangers are a wonderful invention.

Building a tiny guitar, because, you know, it's a tiny guitar.

When you want to test your luthiery skills but can't afford another guitar, weird things happen.  As in, matchbox sized guitars for no real reason.  Anyway, it sure is adorable in it's own funky way, more after the break!