Billshrink

I found out about Billshrink, an independent recommendation service, via an article about T-Mobile inviting current and potential customers to use Billshrink to compare cell phone plans. Billshrink currently does recommendations for cell phone plans, credit cards, and gas stations along your daily commute route (if you drive to work).

I just tried the Gas Advisor and it looks useful. However, the list of recommended gas stations were all stations along a route I actually don't use to drive to work, because of the traffic. Still, it's got potential.

Ray Charles Turnaround Lick for Guitar

I admit, I haven't worked very much on turnaround licks, but this one looks and sounds cool enough to learn. Thanks to Arlen Roth for this lesson.

Piano Lesson Excerpt: The Impact of Key Speed on Soft Playing

Vietnamese Street Guitar

Electric guitar jammin' on the street, Vietnamese style:



Quite fitting, considering the Vietnamese most likely invented the world's first whammy bar.

Controlling Analog Synths from Software

Most analog synthesizers and some effects processors, eg. the Moogerfooger pedals, can be controlled by voltage. Such devices have "control voltage" ("CV" for short) inputs. MOTU has released a software product called Volta which can send CV signals, allowing for more convenient integration with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as Pro Tools, Logic, Sonar, Cubase, etc. It requires an audio interface with DC-coupled outputs such as MOTU's own audio interface products. I'm not sure if Volta can also receive control voltage.

If you have Cycling 74's Max, you could try implementing something similar in Max. This discussion thread has more information.

HacDC

HacDC is a hacker space located in Washington, DC...