Paul Bausch @pb@mastodon.cloud

I don't always write code directly in the GitHub code editor but when I do I like to have spellcheck enabled--especially for documentation. This little Tampermonkey line will enable spellcheck:

let c = document.getElementById('code-editor').setAttribute('spellcheck', 'true');

Latest addition: Haunt Fuzz by Old Blood Noise. It's like a crisper Big Muff with some additional chaos. The Gate is a clip that squashes the signal in a "oh no, the amp is too loud and it's breaking" sort of way that I like in small doses. Running this into a Catalinbread DLS in Super Bass mode is [metal chef's kiss]. I was inspired to record one minute of doom noise to demo: https://d1x6es5xzge33k.cloudfront.net/onfocus/2022/05/haunt-demo.mp3

Getting serious 2018 vibes from that website so I went through and made sure I'm getting people's alternate sources--either RSS from their website or subscribed to their newsletter. I need to be completely off but I'd still like to hear from people I follow there. And luckily we have Today in Tabs to keep up with The Discourse™ without actually keeping up with it.

Thanks for the comissery (?) here the other day—covid is proceeding predictably in our house so far and I’ll take it.

My daughter has covid from an outbreak in her classroom. I’m just furious and disappointed with the failure at every level: school, county, state, and federal who all decided we were done trying to mitigate risk as a group.

This is the CDC warning that shows up when you look at transmission levels and it reads off to me for some reason. Nothing to see or do here! As you were!

There’s a local covid surge happening where I am. Notifications from school coming in and several friends are positive. Just a reminder that the CDC is only watching hospitalizations now so it’s worth looking at their ‘Community Transmission’ for your area despite their warnings about not using it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Last night I went to my first show since the pandemic started—a Pink Floyd cover band which was very fun.

This is the current state of my pedalboard. I found a used Cry Baby mini at a good price and I can’t believe I’ve never owned a wah pedal before—so much fun.

This is my first electric guitar that I got when I was 13. It's been in a case for at least 25 years more memorabilia than a playable instrument. So last week I took it all apart, sanded the body, oiled the fretboard, and swapped in a black pickguard. (A little Gilmour tribute.) Jammed with it last night and really enjoyed playing it again.

Virus proponents handed complete victory—vow to continue whining.

Seriously though, basing community mask policy on hospital capacity guarantees an outbreak because of the weeks lag time between initial onset and hospitalization. Why tie action to a lagging indicator?

My windows work computer is basically a dedicated antimalware scanner that occasionally spares a few CPU cycles for actual work.

Broke out an accordion for Nothing Else Matters at jam night last night. Life is ours, we live it our way.

On the real pedal front, this catalinbread DLS is my favorite distortion sound right now--a dark, growly Marshall sound. (Makes up for the weaker heavy distortion sound on the Blackstar.) And this digitech Mosaic is a fun, jangly 12-string simulator.

Long time, no pedal update. So this isn't a pedal but I somehow got this little Blackstar tube amp and it is the best. The overdrive sound on this thing is just [chef's kiss].

I wrote some more words about this on my blog: https://www.onfocus.com/2022/01/8295/spotify-wrapped

After a contentious family meeting last night we are canceling the Spotify Family plan. Moved my playlists last night and it wasn’t too bad. I’ve been thinking that Music isn’t entirely rational—it’s about feeling. These centralized music services don’t feel like music. They’re not run by music people. I’m not surprised their Podcast business is at odds with music.

Trevor Bedford thinks this Omicron infection rate is unprecedented in human history so I’m going to give myself some slack on a couple things today.

This "voting rights showdown" media framing is so discouraging. As if having a political party openly trying to stop people from voting is a perfectly valid position. Just another wacky fight in Washington amirite?

How are we supposed to slow down a pandemic when pcr tests are taking days to return results, rapid tests are scarce, and society is full speed ahead on doing things in person?