Ansuz

North Coast May update

It's been a while since I posted an update on where things are going with the synthesizer business, so here are some notes.

Mastodon WTF timeline

In the last few days I've been fortunate to witness an interesting chapter in the Internet's history, and I'm trying to compile a timeline of what has happened while the memories are still reasonably fresh. This is incomplete and a work in progress; I'll be updating it, and not necessarily in chronological order, as I dig up other things worth including. Some of my TODO markers may remain. But here goes.

The Well-Rounded Total

I've posted some notes on the computer-science aspects of reporting rounded numbers in financial statements and hoping for the totals to add up correctly. You've doubtless seen footnotes on things that say "Totals may not add due to rounding." Can that be avoided? Here's a detailed examination of the question.

Regningen

As a side effect of some other accounting I was doing, I've managed to put a number on how much my venture in Denmark cost me.

Panels and testing

It's been about a month since my last update on North Coast and my life in general, so here are some notes on how things have been going.

Some thoughts on the Cost Disease

The lovely and talented Scott Alexander has a posting on Cost Disease: the costs of some things, notably education and medical care especially in the USA, have increased in the last few generations to a really unfathomable extent. He gives detailed statistics, but it's typically about a factor of 10 after accounting for general inflation. Why has this happened? He gives some hypotheses, and in a followup posting shares some ideas contributed by readers, but it's not at all clear what's going on. And it seems like knowing might be valuable, because the fact of this phenomenon's occurrence (whatever the cause) is causing a great deal of misery for a whole lot of people, bearing on many other important issues.

I don't know either, but it made me think of some things.

Dongguan Wizbang

Here's another update on what's up with my new life and new business. In general, there's progress being made, but I'm still facing a lot of annoying delays.

Modular synthesis intro, part 3: How to get started

I will assume that you've already read part 1, which describes what a modular synthesizer is; and part 2, which says that you shouldn't buy one. Your spouse isn't allowed to kill me because I did warn you, and your cat has already formed an opinion on your intelligence anyway. In this final installment I'm going to offer some suggestions on how to get started with modular synthesis. Very much depends on your own reasons, which are ultimately known only to you, for why you've decided to do this. I can only offer some insights that may be helpful for what I think are typical newcomers.

Modular synthesis intro, part 2: Don't do it!

When I started the market research for my business, I put together a profile of who'd be buying my products. I imagined my customers as the kind of people I've met in the modular synthesis hobbyist community. These are people with a fair bit of disposable income (typically because of having California "tech" jobs and no family except cats), who already have medium to large modular systems worth $5000 or more. They are already familiar with the concepts, have been doing modular synthesis for a few years already, and are looking for something extra to add to their existing installations.

Modular synthesis intro, part 1: What is it?

My mother asked me to explain what I'm up to in one sentence, for inclusion in the annual Christmas Letter, and I said that I'm making electronic musical instruments. That's a pretty good summary as far as it goes. But people often want more detail on what modular synthesizers are all about, and this is the first of three postings I'm writing so that I can have a place to which I can direct the curious. In this episode I'll summarize what modular synthesis is. Next time, I'll explain why you shouldn't get involved in modular synthesis, and what to do instead. And in part 3, I'll give some advice on how to get started with modular synthesis, for those who foolishly ignored part 2.

I may update these postings a bit in the future, if they prove to have any lasting value. And as a reminder, my company is North Coast Synthesis Ltd., and I'll some day soon be selling synthesizer modules from my Web storefront, which is not open yet. You can register your address on that page if you want me to send you an email when it opens.