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It stopped being funny a long time ago…

Erik Zalitis
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It stopped being funny a long time ago…
Ok, sorry, it is still funny. But the joke is in increasingly getting darker as time goes by.

In the 50s and early 60s mass media were tightly controlled in the US. Movies were regulated under the Hayes code and Television had severe restrictions. A lot of producers tried to work around the problem by using metaphors and innocent-looking euphemisms. Have you ever seen old movies where two lovers go into a room and then you see fotage of trains going into tunnels for a while? Pretty obvious, right? But you couldn’t censor it, as it wasn’t dirty per see..

In 1959 the Twilight Zone made its debut. Created by Rod Serling, it explored love, hate, mystisism, racism, intolerance and inequality in the guise of science fiction. One the most well-known episodes was “The monsters are due on Maple Street”. The whole story starts with a sudden loss of power and as people get more and more scared, they start accusing each other of being behind the whole thing. Friends become enemies and everyone is potentially a spy or a saboteur. It ends with a person getting shot and then we get to see a number of aliens watching from afar. They note how easy it is to destroy the fabric of society and civilization. The realization is that they can use this to destroy the human race without ever having to attack them with real weapon power.

This is probably based on the horrible experiences the Hollywood industry had during the McCarthy-era and the ever lingering threat that was the HUAC. But disguised as just mere science-fiction, Serling’s scathing critisism could easily pass scrutiny by the censors.

But even in societies that are generous with what can be said and written, this is often done to make people think. A seemingly cute story that in reality unmasks the goverment or societal norms, is a very common theme in litterature.

George Orwell does quite the opposite. 1984 has NO such thing as talking in riddles. It clearly exposes the very leadership it seeks to mock and ridicule. Or is that it? I actually get the feeling that the proper emotion at work here is hate, as Orwell was a jilted lover of a communist, who saw what the Soviet union had become without understanding that it is the ineviatable effect of all communism to destroy its own people.

The mysterious leader “big brother” is Stalin in everything but the name. He even has Stalin’s trade mark oppression mustache ™.

Today, we seem to live in a mix of the best and worst of times.

How many have you read/heard/seen? I’m, almost at a 100% here. Is that a good or a bad thing? Does all this make me wiser or more paranoid? Asking for a friend… I’m that friend.

In my opinion, we can scratch many of those above from “where western society is today”. I would say that the most fitting story is “Brave new world” with a few of the elements of “1984” and a small helping of “Fahrenheit 451”.

But they rest… Oh please…

  • Soylent green? NOOOO!!! Come on… Can you say death by Kuru-kuru?
  • Logan’s run. Maybe the “culture of youth/never trust anyone above 30”-theme, but that’s about it.
  • Brazil… Not here, but maybe elsewhere .. at some time..
  • The Matrix… Haha, you wish… I haven’t found the VMWare tools icon in real life yet…
  • Lord of the flies, obviously not. That story can never scale into large groups of society.
  • A handmaid’s tale. May be the only dystopia we’re actually leaving… Thanks!

Then yet again…

  • Animal farm. Yeah, sorta kinda. It was meant as a discussion on how naive people put power hungry manipulators in charge and afterwards never really understod where it went wrong. It might sound strange, but has happened before I have you know.
  • Gattaca, we could be going there some day. I’m looking at you Ancestry.com! … And everyone else who would fancy a global DNA-database.

My mind is an unquiet rambling one. I originally didn’t mean to write this text. I thought that putting this picture as a funny but still tragic epitaph over a world heading into that good night, would be good for a lark. It wasn’t…. And it never will be…

Snowden on privacy

Erik Zalitis
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Snowden on privacy
Thoughts?

Automation joke

Erik Zalitis
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Automation joke
Image may contain: text

Consider this picture above… Good case for automation, but ultimately not appreciated by those that believe manual labor should be a punishment for … well… doing bad stuff.. 🙂

… And here it is in Powershell… Hell yeah!

That’s a big fat negative, sir…

Erik Zalitis
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That’s a big fat negative, sir…
Darn… My free card to the “may do whatever I want”-club was rejected… Back to the bunker to social distance…

So, I’m negative. This should of course come as no surprise to anyone, but I’m actually talking about the Covid19 antibody-test here, rather than the less than sanguine attitude you come to expect from me.

“Go home, Erik. Columbia is not for you. You could die from Covid19… 1919…” – Elisabeth

“Isn’t that tecnically the Spanish flu?” — Erik Zalitis

(In Swedish) an open letter to IKEA

Erik Zalitis
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(In Swedish) an open letter to IKEA
An artist’s rendition of IKEAs chatbot. It does not, however, seem to able to actually launch any nukes… They would probably not work anyway. It’s IKEA we’re talking about here…

Hej kĂ€ra Ikea, jag mĂ„ste skriva nĂ„gra vĂ€l valda ord om er fantastiska kundservice. Men först bakgrunden: jag köpte ett arbetsbord som heter Micke. Det Ă€r alltid trevligt att kunna förnamnen pĂ„ sina möbler. Det dök upp och tyvĂ€rr saknades tvĂ„ trĂ€bitar, nĂ€mligen de som formar lĂ„ngsidorna pĂ„ lĂ„dan man sĂ€tter under bordskivan. NĂ„vĂ€l, inga problem. Jag gick till er hemsida, ikea.se och letade fram formulĂ€ret för att skicka in reklamationer. Eftersom ni tydligen inte vill besvĂ€ras av besvikna kunder, har ni pĂ„ klassiskt manĂ©r sopat denna funktion under en fyra-fem persiska mattor i ett försök att omöjliggöra alla försök att faktisk anmĂ€la nĂ„got. Men jag lĂ„ter mig inte hindras av usel webbdesign gjord av ett okĂ€nt konsultföretag som fick jobbet huvudsakligen för att ni inte Ă€r beredda att betala för en vettig hemsida. Ni Ă€r allt nĂ„got smĂ„lĂ€ndska, Ă€r ni inte? 🙂 SĂ„ jag hittade till sist formulĂ€ret som Ă€r byggt för att lĂ„ta en be er skicka diverse skruvar som man kanske har lösa eller om det Ă€r möbeln som har det. Vet inte sĂ„ noga.

Men att tala om att delar av möbeln i sig saknas, det kan aldrig ha slagit er att det Àr möjligt. Det finns inget artikelnummer för en brÀda och att anvÀnda artikelnumret för hela produkten tillÄter inte formulÀret. Hur skulle det se ut? Dessutom vill formulÀret inte ha artikelnumret i det format som det anges pÄ hemsidan. Den Àr korrekt i att punkter inte Àr en form av siffor, men det gör inte en datorovan person glad att fÄ en utskÀllning nÀr man skriver in artikelnumret som 330.666.111. Eftersom jag inte Àr datorovan utan en sur gammal gubbe, sÄ bryr jag mig inte. Men inse att försöket att anmÀla via formulÀret var dömt att misslyckas.

SÄ  Jag ringde dĂ„ er support och gladeligen lĂ€t mig berĂ€tta att delar saknades och givetvis kopplade fram mig
 till en röst som förklarade att jag inte kan/fĂ„r/bör/Ă€r lagligen berĂ€ttigad till/mĂ„ste anvĂ€nda telefonen för detta Ă€ndamĂ„l, utan bör anvĂ€nda ert formulĂ€r (se ovan för en beskrivning över hur det gick!) pĂ„ hemsidan..

Blodtrycket gick över nÄgon grÀns dÀr mÀtaren inte lÀngre Àr tillförlitlig utan ber mig kontakta min lÀkare om jag vill fortsÀtta gÄ pÄ denna jord.

Men dĂ„ finns ju chatten. Denna chans att fĂ„ nĂ€mna för en sjĂ€lvsfrĂ€nde att man Ă€r mindre nöjd med sitt köp, var jag ju bara tvungen att ta. Nu tror jag inte pĂ„ sjĂ€len som koncept, dĂ„ jag Ă€r icke-religiös och rĂ€tt mycket en skeptiker till min lĂ€ggning. Men dĂ„ jag Ă€mnar respektera de som tror pĂ„ en gud (eller flera) och sjĂ€len som en odödlig kraft, mĂ„ste jag Ă€ndĂ„ sĂ€ga att chattboten var sjĂ€llös pĂ„ alla sĂ€tt den kunde vara. Jag förklarade för botten Anna att jag behövde hjĂ€lp dĂ„ delar till min kĂ€re vĂ€n Micke saknade, och fick dĂ„ veta 
 att 
 du vet
. det dĂ€r (trasiga) webbformulĂ€ret
 Det Ă€r ju det du ska anvĂ€nda. Jag jĂ€mförde henne med Skynet och bad om en snabb död badande i radioaktiv strĂ„lning, men hon verkade inte förstĂ„ vad jag menade eller kanske inte Ă€r kopplad till nĂ„gon missilsilo. SĂ„ den optionen fanns inte heller.

I detta lĂ€ge har jag slut pĂ„ möjligheter att kontakta er för att fĂ„ delarna till min möbel. Och dĂ„ Ă€r jag helt pĂ„ det klara att Ă„teruppvĂ€cka Ingvar inte Ă€r möjligt, dĂ„ vi inte har den teknologin (Ă€nnu?), försöker jag istĂ€llet med denna text att skicka er en önskan om hjĂ€lp. Förhoppningsvis kommer denna flaskpost fram nĂ„gon gĂ„ng och lĂ€ses av nĂ„gon som, oddsen till trots, har ett mĂ„tt av intresse för era kunder vĂ€l och ve


Med hopp om bÀttring

Erik Zalitis

Covid-19

Erik Zalitis
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Covid-19
Maybe a bitter joke … or just a sober realization that dark humor is quite useful today.

Today I took a Covid 19 antibody-test and now I’m waiting for the results… We’ll see.

Brain surgery on an old CD32

Erik Zalitis
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Brain surgery on an old CD32
Oh dear, what kinda mess is this? Picking it apart was the easy part. Putting it together is going to be a different type of challenge alltogether…

The Amiga CD32 was pretty much the last gasp of Commodore before they went out of business. A gaming console that had the potential to turn everything around, but due to a number of mistakes and problems never got the chance.

It was basically a cut down Amiga 1200 with a CD-rom reader. It’s a cool little thing. But after nearly 30 years, the laser reading the CDs was on it’s last legs. So I bough a new laser pickup from Hong Kong and replaced it.

The calibration was tough as the potentiometers did not act like was described in the guide. But I got it to work within specifications through a lot of trial-by-horror.

The situation was shaky until I lubricated the mechanic parts with oil, after which it started working fairly.

Afterwards, the test CD, a jazz collection signed by legendary Swedish radio DJ Leif “Smoke rings” Andersson, loaded right away. It tracked the CD mostly righr, but there are two places where the player gets stuck. And other CDs doesn’t work as well. So it was an improvement, but not as good as I had hoped for.

Probably have to have another go at it later. But for now, it’s a least decent rather than mostly broken…

A bit of retronerdery (In Swedish)

Erik Zalitis
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A bit of retronerdery (In Swedish)
Yup. It’s me talking about my new Commodore SX-64 and the roadtrip I had to make to get it. It’s in Swedish, I might have to warn you.

The lacquer record – a story from Sweden’s past

Erik Zalitis
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The lacquer record – a story from Sweden’s past
Sorry to all you Charlie Parker fans out there, this is not about him. It’s just the sleeve the record was stored in. Also the record is fine, the “stain”, is just my thick head reflecting back from its surface… The pencil is just for a size reference.

A week ago, I woke up to my radio and the program that was on, told me about a long forgotten record format that was very popular in the 40s and 50s here in Sweden. I’ll talk more about it in a moment, but first let me tell you a story…

The boy with the record in his hand is Åke Emmer, the little girl beside him is Britta Emmer (my mother) and the woman to the right is Alice Emmer (my grandmother). This picture was take outside the radio club where the record was created.

My grand father on my maternal side, Sven Emmer, lived with his family in Norrköping, Sweden. They would later move to Stockholm, but in the late 40s, the second world war was over and for amateur radio hobbyists, things were looking better as the Swedish government had lifted the ban on using radio equipment that could transmit. This meant that a lot of radio amateurs were coming back to the airwaves, and Sven was one of them. He actually started the Norrköping radio club sk5bn, which operates to this day. As its first chairman of the board, he spent a lot of time there, which put a strain on his relationship with his wife Alice Emmer (my grand mother). In 1947, the whole family went to the club on a Sunday and recorded a lacquer record where Sven and Alice talked and Åke (my uncle) and Britta (my mother) also appeared. Åke did so quite eagerly, but Britta was too shy obviously. The running time for both sides is just a few minutes, but it was the only way most people could record sound at the time. The open reel tape recorder as something that ordinary people owned became a thing first during the 50s.

The record is in my ownership today as Åke died in the 80s and my mother gave the little piece of history that it was to me last year. I had no idea how to play it, but just so happens, I had a record player that was on its last legs. I intended to replace it a few weeks later, so I decided to use it to play the record even if there was a chance the needle would be damaged in the process. It was no problem getting the sound out and recorded digitally, but as the record had no proper lead-in or lead-out, dropping the needle correctly proved to be a bit of a challenge. When the recording was done, another problem had to be solved: it ran the wrong speed. The record was meant to be played at 78 RPM, which my player just could not do. The sound editing program had no problem letting me adjust the playback speed. So here is the content of the record, for a walk down memory lane:

On the 5th of October in 1947, Sven Emmer, my grand father and his family made this recording.

Is this how it’s supposed to sound? Probably close to right, but the stereo-pickup meant to play normal long playing records was most likely not optimal for this task. So I guess with the correct equipment, it would have sounded clearer and better, but hearing what was said should be easy. And the low quality of the record is alas what it sounded like, as the technology was very primitive and not up to par with the proper studio recording equipment that was available to the professional recording studios of the day.

A Swedish history of lacquer records

The Aftén-brothers. Leo and George came to Stockholm in Sweden in 1930, and soon started playing in jazz bands. They later started a studio where artists could record their music directly to a record. Editing was not possible, so you had only one chance to make it work per record you used.

Erik Lindström was the man who created the recording mechanism later used by the AftĂ©n brothers. He had a store in famous Swedish park “Skansen”, where the visitors could create a recordings and take it home as a memory..

The most common lacquer record was built on a base of paper with a veneer of … well … lacquer. I’m not sure if this is exactly how the record I now own was built or if it’s a different type of record, but I guess it’s pretty much the same.

Links

The podcast that inspired me to write this post (It’s in Swedish):
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/1499442?programid=4917

Dial tone!

Erik Zalitis
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Dial tone!

Everything seems to be running… More to come (eventually)

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