Author / Mike McAlister

Posts by Mike McAlister

I take photos, collect vinyl records and drink really good coffee. Creating awesome things at Array.
by Mike McAlister

Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States, the second deepest in North America, and the ninth deepest lake in the world.

Crater Lake is a caldera lake in the western United States, located in south-central Oregon. It is the main feature of Crater Lake National Park and is famous for its deep blue color and water clarity. The lake partly fills a nearly 2,148-foot deep caldera that was formed around 7,700 years ago by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama.

There are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake; the evaporation is compensated for by rain and snowfall at a rate such that the total amount of water is replaced every 250 years. At 1,943 feet, the lake is the deepest in the United States, and the seventh or ninth deepest in the world, depending on whether average or maximum depth is measured.

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by Mike McAlister

A Brief History of the 45

The 7-inch 45 rpm record was introduced in 1949 by RCA as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.

Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch vinyl discs. The most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch, the names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm and the standard diameter 7-inch.

The 7-inch 45 rpm record was introduced in 1949 by RCA as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs. The first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s.

The most common form of the vinyl single is the 45.

Although 7 inches remained the standard size for vinyl singles, 12-inch singles were introduced for use by DJs in discos in the 1970s. The longer playing time of these singles allowed the inclusion of extended dance mixes of tracks. In addition, the larger surface area of the 12-inch discs allowed for wider grooves (larger amplitude) and greater separation between grooves, the latter of which results in less cross-talk. Consequently, they “wore” better, and were less susceptible to scratches. The 12-inch single is still considered a standard format for dance music, though its popularity has declined in recent years.

Depending on its type, in addition to the song itself, a single may include remixes of the song, additional songs, a music video for promoting the single, and a collectible poster.

by Mike McAlister

Tea Tasting at Song

Most oolong teas, especially those of fine quality, involve unique tea plant cultivars that are exclusively used for particular varieties.

Tea tasting is the process in which a trained taster determines the quality of a particular tea. Due to climatic conditions, topography, manufacturing process, and different clones of the Camellia sinensis plant (tea), the final product may have vastly differing flavors and appearance. These differences can be tasted by a trained taster in order to ascertain the quality prior to sale or possibly blending tea.

A tea taster uses a large spoon and noisily slurps the liquid into his/her mouth – this ensures that both the tea and plenty of oxygen is passed over all the taste receptors on the tongue to give an even taste profile of the tea. The liquid is then usually spat back out into a spitoon before moving onto the next sample to taste. The flavor characteristics and indeed leaf color, size and shape are graded using a specific language created by the tea industry to explain the overall quality. Generally speaking, once the quality has been tasted/graded, each tea company places a value on it based on market trends, availability and demand.

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by Mike McAlister

Choosing The Right Style of Business Cards

Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver’s name, company or business affiliation and contact information such as street addresses, telephone number, fax number, e-mail addresses and website.

Before the advent of electronic communication business cards might also include telex details. Now they may include social media addresses such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Traditionally many cards were simple black text on white stock; today a professional business card will sometimes include one or more aspects of striking visual design.

Construction

Business cards are printed on some form of card stock, the visual effect, method of printing, cost and other details varying according to cultural or organizational norms and personal preferences. The common weight of a business card varies some by location. Generally, business cards are printed on stock that is 350 g/m2 (density), 45 kg (100 lb) (weight), or 12 pt (thickness).

High quality business cards without full-color photographs are normally printed using spot colors on sheet-fed offset printing presses. Some companies have gone so far as to trademark their spot colors.

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by Mike McAlister

Knobs, Buttons and Dials

The phonograph, also called gramophone or record player, is a device introduced in 1877 for the recording and reproduction of sound recordings. The recordings played on such a device consist of waveforms that are engraved onto a rotating cylinder or disc. As the recorded surface rotates, a playback stylus traces the waveforms and vibrates to reproduce the recorded sound waves.

Enter Edison

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison’s phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder, and could both record and reproduce sounds. Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders, and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a “zig zag” pattern across the record.

In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Other improvements were made throughout the years, including modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, and the sound and equalization systems.

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by Mike McAlister

Time Travel and You: A Beginner’s Guide

Any technological device – whether fictional, hypothetical or actual – that would be used to achieve time travel is commonly known as a time machine.

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the need for the traveler to experience the intervening period (at least not at the normal rate). Any technological device – whether fictional, hypothetical or actual – that would be used to achieve time travel is commonly known as a time machine.

Time Travel Methods

In technical papers, physicists generally avoid the commonplace language of “moving” or “traveling” through time, and instead discuss the possibility of closed timelike curves, which are worldlines that form closed loops in spacetime, allowing objects to return to their own past. There are known to be solutions to the equations of general relativity that describe spacetimes which contain closed timelike curves (such as Gödel spacetime), but the physical plausibility of these solutions is uncertain.

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by Mike McAlister

Writing More Efficient CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including plain XML, SVG and XUL.

CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content from document presentation.

CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). 

.post code {
	background: #90979F;
	color: #fff;
	padding: 40px; 
}

CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). 

.post pre {
	background: #F9F9F9;
	font-family: "Courier 10 Pitch", Courier, monospace;
	font-size: 15px;
	line-height: 1.6;
	margin-bottom: 1.6em;
}

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by Mike McAlister

Atoms For Peace Album Review

Amok has a score of 76 out of 100 on review aggregate site Metacritic, indicating generally favorable reviews.

Atoms For Peace is an experimental rock & electronic supergroup formed in late 2009 in Los Angeles, California. The group consists of Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker of Beck & R.E.M. and Brazilian instrumentalist Mauro Refosco. Their debut album, Amok, became available for streaming on February 18, 2013, and was released on February 25, 2013.

Atoms For Peace Shows

The line-up had their first live performance at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on October 2, 2009, where they played the entirety of Thom Yorke’s solo debut album, The Eraser, as well as some new songs and Radiohead B-side “Paperbag Writer”. This was followed by two shows at Orpheum Theatre on 4 and 5 October.

The band went on a two-week, eight-date tour of some major cities in the United States with opening act Flying Lotus during April 2010 before their performance at the 2010 Coachella Festival, known only as ‘??????’.

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