Washtub bass

Steve lent me his washtub bass, so I could take it home and try to learn to play it. Steve’s washtub bass is simplicity itself: a 15 gallon galvanized washtub with a hole drilled in the center of the

Musical arts DIY Chronicles

What it means to be a liberal

In Isaac Asimov’s memoir, I. Asimov, published in 1994, he explained why he was a political liberal: “I wanted to see the United States changed and made more civilized, more humane, truer to its own p

Bay area, Calif.

Browser privacy

I’m not keen on having anyone know my Web browsing habits; I’ll go into my motivations in the last paragraph of this post. I’ve taken the obvious steps to reduce the risks of being tracked online: usi

New media

The Great Recession

Geographer Richard A. Walker, in his 2018 book “Portrait of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area,” writes: “The Great Recession has been calamitous. The offi

Bay area, Calif.

“God” and monotheism

I have found the concept of god to be useful, regardless of whether one is a theist or atheist; God as a concept has a long history in Western philosophy, at least as far back as the ancient Greeks. B

Ethics Aristotle