Here’s an interesting observation from Reddit: there are only about two weeks between when the moment pictured below takes place…
…and this one:
There’s a saying:
There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen.
Some people say the line is one of Lenin’s, but there’s been some debate about that.
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are 193 memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
My pick is number 2, as gravel is a key ingredient of concrete.
Many people use the terms cement and concrete interchangeably, but that’s wrong. Cement is just one ingredient of concrete; it’s the “glue” that holds the aggregates — that’s a fancy term for “little bitty bits of hard stuff” — together. Those aggregates are typically sand and gravel.
Half of all gravel is used for concrete, and since 2006, humanity has been producing enough concrete to create a cube that’s 1.2 miles by 1.2 miles by 1.2 miles every year. Providing the gravel for even a small fraction of the annual concrete production at with a zero cost of goods sold would be pretty lucrative!
My backup pick would be number 3, because most locked doors and gates, as well as many walls and fences, would no longer be an obstacle.
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are 151 memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy!
On Monday, I took time out of my day to drive a little out of my way to Valrico during rush hour to meet a stranger at a Steak ’n Shake to purchase a long-discontinued, hard-to-find keyboard: the Yamaha DJX.
I like to peruse the Tampa Bay Facebook Marketplace for deals, and I’ve always wanted a DJX, so when I saw this ad…
…I had to contact the seller right away. They’re rare, and they generally sell for at least $100 more than the seller was asking.
Fortunately, this seller lived within a reasonable driving distance, and was more than happy to let me test the keyboard first. We met at a public location — the Steak ’n Shake in Valrico — which had a convenient outlet at one of its booths.
After “paying the rent” by buying a chocolate shake, we set the DJX on the table:
Aside from a few minor blemishes and scratches and a lot of dust buildup, it looked pretty good. Remember, this is a machine that’s been out of production for a quarter-century.
I fired it up, and I started playing. I pressed every key and fiddled with every button and knob and the pitch-bend and ribbon controllers. The volume control was a little noisy, but that’s something that can be fixed relatively easily. I auditioned a good number of its “patches” (synth slang for “instrument sounds”) and beats, and it sounded great.
Satisfied, I gave the seller $150 in cash and they left. I stayed at the Steak ’n Shake a little longer, to finish my shake and play with the DJX a little longer. There were pop tunes playing on the restaurant’s sound system, and I found myself playing along. There were only a couple of other people there, and they were looking in my direction trying to figure out what was going on.
I’ve since peeled the beginner stickers off the keyboard and given the DJX an initial cleaning — and I’ve also had a blast playing it! I expect to use it to create background music for my videos on the Global Nerdy YouTube channel, and hopefully for some live performances.
The DJX belongs to the “groovebox” category of electronic instruments, and I’ll leave it to Wikipedia to explain what grooveboxes are:
…a self-contained electronic or digital musical instrument for the production of live, loop-based electronic music with a high degree of user control facilitating improvisation.
Grooveboxes are generally used for creating electronic dance music, which rely heavily on a drumbeat. They’re also aimed at DJs, producers, and people who generally arrange music rather than play it. Because of this, most grooveboxes follow the design of drum machines.
Here’s a tutorial video that shows the basics of making a tune on a groovebox:
The device that defined the groovebox category was the Roland MC-303 Groovebox, which was released in 1996, right in the middle of the decade where all forms of dance music exploded:
Modern grooveboxes look like this:
As I mentioned earlier, grooveboxes are designed for people who are more arrangers who make music in the studio rather than actual players who make music live.
The DJX series of keyboards is a rarity in that they come with an actual piano-style keyboard that you can play on top of the beat. I regret not getting the DJX when it first came out, and had recently started keeping an eye out for a reasonably-priced used unit.
I’m going to record some videos showing what mine sounds like, but in the meantime, you can check out these videos, which show the styles that come built into the DJX. It’s an EDM/hip-hop machine!
I’ve given it a preliminary cleaning — including removing the beginner stickers from the keyboard and removing the glue residue with the ever-reliable Goo Gone — and it looks so much better. I need to give it a deeper cleaning opening it up and vacuuming the dust bunnies from its internals) this weekend.
Aside from making music with the DJX, I’m also keeping an eye out for its even more rare little brother, the DJX 2…
As is tradition on this blog, let me send out a Mother’s Day greeting from the baaaaddest mother of them all: Shaft!
And now that I’ve invoked Shaft’s name…
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there — whether biological, stepmoms, adopted moms, or those who played the role of mom when no one else would. Thackeray was right: “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”