Tootfinder

Because I constantly hear myths about the good old compact cassette here's a longer post dispelling them:
1. They can sound as good as CDs
2. They don't wear out
3. You can't use a pencil to wind them
4. You can go to specific tracks automatically
5. You don't need to carry around extra batteries
I will elaborate below:
1. Sound Quality
Many higher-end decks can record cassettes on metal tape with various Dolby noise reduction settings; especially the combination of metal tape and Dolby S will make tapes that are pretty much indistinguishable from listening to a CD.
Even normal or chrome tape with Dolby B (around since the 1970s) will give great results; likely indistinguishable from a CD when played in a car or while out and about with a personal player.
Some extremely high-end tape decks produce better than CD results in some regards (for example some Nakamichi models go to 26KHz with frequency response, while CD are inherently limited to top out at 22KHz).
It's true that the dynamic range of CDs is much better than either vinyl records or tapes. However, unless you're super into classical music there's likely not much music for which this truly matters, as 99% is mastered to use much less dynamic range than provided by any audio media format. (If you're super into classical music you probably want SACD or other high-res lossless sources anyway, not CDs.)
2. Yes, it will wear out mechanically but you will wear out mechanically before it does. Please watch VWestlife's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dgJ4hRHBiw
3. European and American pencils are too thin to engage the cassette reel cogs. (You'd need to get a Japanese pencil. People mostly used BIC pens for this purpose which have the right thickness.)
4. Most (nice) decks and personal players from the early-to-mid nineties onwards have track skip features (e.g. Sony has AMS, Automatic Music Sensor), which allow precise winding to a specific track.
Some decks even did this in the early 80s!
5. My late-90s Walkman has seventy-eight (78) hours of playback on one (1) single AA battery.
Anyway, the main reason why I like them is they're fun to use and recording them is very deliberate instead of algorithms selecting music for me. :)

Like global search and replace but don’t like surprises?
Check out serpl – a handy little command-line app that gives you a visual preview of the changes you are about to make. You can even go in and remove the replacements you don’t want from the source previews. The regex support appears to be basic, however (I couldn’t get a negative lookbehind to work).

I packed for #POTA before heading out to do the weekly grocery shopping, even though it was only 40°F / 4.5°C with low clouds. I decided it was too cold to sit in the helinox chair without insulation, so I drove past US-3867 and went to US-2755 Umstead State Park instead, where I could sit at a picnic table. I took a floor mat out of my car to sit on. As it was, it was cold enough that I co…

Two screenshots of the lock screen on my iPhone 17 Pro whose difference confounds me. In one the contrast is good and I can read the numbers on the pad, but the time and battery status are hidden. In the other, the key pad is pretty much invisible but I can see the time and battery. I have no idea how to trigger the contrastier one; it just sometimes does this.
Is this phenomenon known? Explicable? It's as if the new UI is sometimes ashamed to show how unreadable it is and compensates before hiding again.
Somebody made this happen. Any idea why?

"In the past, whenever there was a financial crisis or a major political conflict, investors would pile into dollar assets, driving the dollar up – as happened during the 2008 financial crisis. That hasn’t happened under Trump; the dollar index has fallen 10% against other currencies in 2025. ...
"The dollar, as the world’s major currency for central bank reserves and in transactions in international trade and finance, has been in gradual decline for decades."

The debasement trade and the future of the dollar
The gold price against the US dollar is back above $5000 per oz after its recent short sharp contraction last week.  The unprecedented rise in the gold price, particularly since the beginning of th…

The Names They Call Themselves
#uspol

The Names They Call Themselves
*Fascist* and *Nazi* weren’t slurs that were applied to the Italians and Germans by their political or military opponents. That’s what they called themselves. The job won’t be done, this era of madness will not end, until we make *the names Trump’s regime calls themselves* universally acknowledged slurs.

Bandcamp I love you but damn you make it difficult. I added stuff to my cart, but went to another device to check out and... I can't find the cart on the mobile app. Where is it!?
Went to a computer and got to the cart and... it's empty. None of the stuff I added is there. Re-add it all and check out.
I've tried multiple times to check out, the all fail. I mean, maybe so many of you are making purchases the system is overloaded? Argh.

Trump Mobile execs showcase the T1 Phone's new design and specs, and say the phones go through "final assembly" in Miami and full assembly in the US is a "goal" (Dominic Preston/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/875190/tr

This is the Trump Phone
I spoke to Trump Mobile executives Don Hendrickson and Eric Thomas for an exclusive first look at what they say is the T1 Phone.

Different Corners VII ▶️
不同的角落 VII ▶️
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Fujifilm NEOPAN SS, expired 1993
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

The Metropolitan Opera is Dying Because It Wants to Die
The pinnacle of the Performing Arts in America is collapsing not from the weight of its chandelier, but from the brittleness of its imagination. The Metropolitan Opera has chosen extinction over evolution, and the evidence is no longer circumstantial.

The Metropolitan Opera is Dying Because It Wants to Die | David Boles, Blogs
The pinnacle of the Performing Arts in America is collapsing not from the weight of its chandelier, but from the brittleness of its imagination. The Metropolitan Opera has chosen extinction over ev…