Getting better with the Gorton engraving machine

10 Lessons I’ve learned about engraving by hand:

1 – CLAMP CLAMP CLAMP
2 – Flexible material WILL FLEX WHEN CLAMPED!
3 – Start in the middle of the “A”
4 – 1:1 ratios show mistakes 1:1
5 – Don’t try to “go over” a skip
6 – One letter, one pass.
7 – WD 40 on cutting head
8 – stop are just guides, they stop nothing from moving unless there is a lock on the other side\
9 – The first two “setups” are typically throw aways
10 – don’t beat yourself up, the landing gear is down.

I’ve learned my letter set is a little worn down, thus making some skips and pits a little more noticeable (this is where lesson 4 comes into play)… A new set is a little out of my price range for now.
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looking back 10 years

finding pictures in the archive.

I made some good records with that gear. I kept only two pieces and gradually weeded out and upgraded the restHewlett-Packard

The back was the best part. I remember one of the guys who worked for me getting out of helping me build any of this. He cut the wire and started stripping it with his teeth. Then went on to tell me how many hundreds of EDACS he had done. I guess if you really want to get of wiring work do that, or be a real man and learn a craft.
Hewlett-Packard

Consolidating Hard drives

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Practicing what I preach. Moving (14) drives into long term storage. Pulled all the backups out of the safety deposite box, and moved their contents move forward onto a 3TB hard drive.

Once it’s all checked for redundancies I will back it up to another drive off site.

For anyone nocking my non-antistatic plastic bags, I assure you they performed perfectly and will the next time I spin them up. Silica and a way for them to breath is fine.

This is client sessions, designs, pictures, documents, notes etc etc dating back to about 2001. I have Client DVD archives at home I don’t plan to move forward as it is mostly damaged and virus ridden from before I went all OSX.

Now I need to find a Hard drive shipping container from a computer store… Anyone?

20130126-142941.jpg20121010 - Creative Data

High Quality Recording and Reproducing of Music and Speech – 1926

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From: http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/history/p20_4_1_3.html

High Quality Recording and Reproducing of Music and Speech
By J P Maxfield and H C Harrison (Bell Telephone Laboratories 1926). Introductory paragraphs by Roger Beardsley.

The age of electrical recording

In this time of incredible technical achievements in every field of scientific endeavour, it is perhaps hard to imagine the effect that Maxfield and Harrison’s work had on the recording industry. Nothing has matched it since. The change from LP to CD was marked by longer playing times and a reduction in already low ambient noise levels. Sound quality was much as before (or worse according to some). The change from 78 rpm discs to LP again brought playing time and noise benefits, but in terms of quality of reproduction, the change over to microgroove was often very marginal, and sometimes showed a loss.

However, the change from mechanical (acoustic) recording to electrical recording was very different. The new system compared to the old, really was a chalk and cheese affair. Not just a wider frequency range, and frequencies in correct and designed proportion, but for the first time, the whole ambience and feel of a performance and its surroundings was reproduced. The nearest analogy is that of hearing a performance of say an orchestra though a closed door and down a corridor, and then being brought into a box at the venue. Admittedly perhaps not at the front of the box, but the difference was astounding. Listen to the examples in “A brief history of recording” to hear what I mean.

Maxfield and Harrison came from a telephone engineering background – then the height of technology. Their work on equalisers and line transmission systems, together with additional work with high power audio amplifiers all came together by one of those happy chances. For the first time, recording (and reproduction) was subjected to a proper system of scientific research, as against the largely empirical developments of the mechanical recording system. The resulting Western Electric recording system was an elegant solution to the deficiencies of mechanical recording. And it worked, again and again.

PDF of original book

High Quality Recording and Reproducing of Music and Speech
By J P Maxfield and H C Harrison (Bell Telephone Laboratories 1926).

Modern Recording

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Shared From The Rukkus Room

This is a great illustration of where quality has gone. (and a good drawing of the actual gear helps). We the content creators, and broadcasters care about this long gone thing called fidelity and dynamic range, but we’re at the mercy of Apple right now. The compression is moot with even todays data transfer rates. If you’re releasing a record I must now suggest not making CDs and go right to HiFi uncompressed downloads, or Vinyl (or Both). CDs are just something I rip and shelf, I’d rather have LPs on my shelf and I have limited choices when it comes to portable music and it may as well be a 24bit 96k master. Not holding my breath for a 1bit portable player and 100gb/µs fiber to my door.

modern recording

PS: I don’t take credit for this guys work, I just haven’t figured out how to shut off the watermark on individual pics: my bad

Quotes

Technology & Engineering

  • “Recording is not what one hears, but what one must make others hear.” – George Martin
  • “No one hates audio as much as someone who loves audio.”
  • “A patent is license to litigate.”
  • “Half of engineering is fooling other engineers.”
  • If the work doesn’t require creativity, delegate it, automate it, or leave it.
  • “Tesla built motors in his head and ran them in his head for months to test bearing wear.”
  • “You’re not useless. You can always serve as a bad example.”
  • “You look like you know what every crayon tastes like.”
  • “He’s an oxygen thief.”
  • “If engineers were capable of faking empathy they’d make great politicians.”
  • “Boredom is an insult to your intelligence.”
  • “If elevators were never invented the penthouse would be the cheapest.”
  • “One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.” – Grace Hopper
  • “You don’t manage people, you manage things. You lead people.” – Grace Hopper
  • “A book is a machine to preserve text.”
  • “A scientist can spend a million dollars to discover a new idea, but an engineer can take that idea and turn it into something worth millions.”
  • “Corporate tears, music to my ears.”
  • A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
  • “I’m not in any rush – I know something’s going to go wrong, so i want it to go wrong nice and slow.” – AVE
  • “Woodworking is making boxes and calling them something else.”
  • “Why should i buy something for $100 when i can spend 6 weeks of my life making it for $500?”
  • “Crafting is actually two hobbies – doing it, and shopping for it.”
  • Found on a shop drawing: “Cut to length, beat to fit, file to suit, paint to hide” or “Hammer to shape, file to fit, paint to match.”
  • “Definition of a craftsman, regardless of field is: ’10 years, 10 fingers’…”
  • “So dumb he’s thinking in 7 bit words.”
  • “There are only two ways to do things. Right, and twice.”
  • “Plan three times, measure twice, make once.”
  • “Don’t let perfect get in the way of done.”
  • “You have to be smarter than the piece of metal in the vise.”
  • “The problem with making something foolproof is underestimating the fool.”
  • “There is thousand ways of making something wrong.”
  • “I’ve seen less done in more time.”
  • “The machine hates you and only wants to make scrap.”
  • “I have something more powerful than options at my disposal, I have a whole machine shop”

 

Knowledge & Learning

  • “The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.” ― Horace Walpole
  • “Seek evidence that disproves your most cherished beliefs and those of others. This is the essence of true science.”
  • “Interested people are interesting.”
  • “Two months in the lab will save you two hours in the library.”
  • “We never really grow up we just learn how to act in public.” ― Bryan White
  • “Don’t be afraid to start over. This time you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience.”
  • If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something.
  • “Larry king: ‘I never learned anything while i was talking’.”
  • The answer is always no until you ask.
  • “Every public action, which is not customary, either is wrong or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.” – Francis Cornford
  • “The problem with the english language is there too much english in it.”
  • “If you want facts read a book – if you want to learn, find a teacher.”
  • “Research not re-search, why do you need to search for something again?”
  • Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.
  • “Never stop learning. Even an idiot sometimes has a great idea. I know, i am often that idiot.”
  • “Teach a man to fish he’ll pay you once, sell a man a fish and he’ll pay you for a lifetime.”
  • ” what must be known eventually should be known immediately” – Henry Kissinger

 

Attitude & Self-Improvement

  • The best apology is changed behavior.
  • “It doesn’t have to be done right the first time. It just has to look like it was done right the first time.”
  • “A stupid question better than a stupid mistake.”
  • “There is nothing noble about being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” – Hemingway
  • “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”
  • “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”
  • “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”
  • “Religion is doing what you’re told, no matter what is right. Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you’re told.”
  • “You will never be great if you don’t have the patience to be average for a while.”
  • “The most successful people are those who are good at plan b.”
  • “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
  • “Anxiety is just ambition without action.”
  • “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
  • “We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
  • “you dont have to earn my trust, all you can do is loose it”
  • “Thinking is stressful. Doing is easy.”
  • “Harsh feedback hurts less than harsh outcomes.”
  • “I was wrong builds more respect than i told you so.”
  • “Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.” – Winston Churchill
  • “A man does not build his reputation on what he is “going” to do. Don’t judge yourself by your intentions but by your actions.”
  • “Discipline is doing what needs to be done even if you don’t want to do it.”
  • “Bite less; chew more.”
  • “Sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda good at something.”
  • “You become who you spend your time with.”
  • “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” ― W.P. Kinsella
  • “It’s better to take care of it now than have to think about it later.”

 

Interpersonal & Societal

 

  • “If there’s one universal truth throughout history its that the people shutting down the press are the good guys, always.”
  • “Friends are family chosen by you.”
  • “I’m not upset with you personally, this situation just sucks.”
  • “When you’re good at something you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something they’ll tell you.”
  • “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” – G. K. Chesterton
  • “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
  • A people hire A people, and B people hire C people.”
  • “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut
  • “I understand if this is where the road ends, but if you can do or recommend anything, i’d really appreciate it.”
  • “If God sends you a resume, check the refferences”
  • “I really appreciate your patience and willingness to try.”
  • ” How was the play?” ” You know, people pretending to be people”
  • “Secrets, secrets are no fun, secrets, secrets hurt someone.”
  • “If you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu.”
  • “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”
  • “I have a formula (for good management) – three words: Organize, deputize, and supervise. You can always find people who are smarter than you are to do a job – if you pick the right people and you give them full authority to run it – and let them run it without any interference. If they make too big of a mistake, you fire them.” – Wilkie Leighton
  • “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry Truman
  • “Too many people think arguments are about finding out who’s right, rather than what’s right.”
  • “Don’t try to understand women. Just try to understand one woman at a time.”
  • “Fatherhood is the grief of leaving one stage of life, while being overjoyed about entering the next.” – Christopher Sampson
  • “Make friends with change, it’s the only thing you can count on.” – Cullen Bohannon
  • “There he goes. One of god’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.” – Hunter S. Thompson
  • “There’s two types of parent: The ‘i’m in deep shit, i hope my parents don’t find out!’ and the ‘i’m in deep shit, better call them!'”
  • ” Look, working with you is like working alone, only harder”
  • “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” —Mark Twain

 

Life & Humor

 

  • “There are many parts of my youth that i’m not proud of. There were loose threads – untidy parts of me that i would like to remove. But when i pulled on one of those threads – it unraveled the tapestry of my life.” – Captain Jean Luc Pickard
  • “Here’s hoping a random universe works out in your favour.” – Young Sheldon Chem teacher
  • “The early bird gets the worm, but the late worm dodges death.”
  • “The longer i live on this planet, the more i understand why roosters start their day screaming.”
  • “A fish tank is the opposite of a submarine.”
  • “A man with one watch knows the time, a man with two is never sure.”
  • Normality is a paved road. It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow.
  • “Lemons are not a naturally occurring fruit. They were created in se asia by crossing a citron with a bitter orange around 4000 years ago. They were spread around the world after found to prevent scurvy. Life didn’t give us lemons.. We made them ourselves.”
  • “Make plans like an adult and believe in them like a child.”
  • “With the all spark gone, we cannot return life to our planet. And fate has yielded its reward: a new world to call… home. We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight… but watching over them in secret… waiting… protecting. I have witnessed their capacity for courage, and though we are worlds apart, like us, there’s more to them than meets the eye. I am, optimus prime and i send this message to any surviving autobots taking refuge among the stars: we are here… we are waiting.” – Optimus Prime
  • “They say people with autism take things literally. I disagree, those are kleptomaniacs.” – Ztexcius
  • “There’s those thinking more or less less is more but if less is more how you’re keeping score? Means for every point you make your level drops kinda like its starting from the top you can’t do that…” – Eddie Vader
  • “Great moments in human history usually have an opposition that is exactly proportional to their greatness.”
  • “And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” Confucius