Penmachine

These seven-foot-high, 500-pound Steinway Lyngdorf speakers apparently sound pretty amazing. They look cool too.

They'd better, for $150,000. They remind me a bit of an advertisement I saw perhaps 25 years ago in one of my mom's copies of Architectural Digest magazine. I still remember the ad copy almost perfectly:

When your neighbor asks where he can get an Aston Martin Lagonda like yours, tell him he probably can't.

(Coincidentally, back in 1976 when that particularly ugly Aston Martin model was introduced, it also cost $150,000.)

Anyway, the same Steinway magazine in which I read about the speakers featured pianos, of course, but also luxury wooden boats, high-end Swiss watches, and even (in an ad my wife spotted) custom-bred dogs.

I wonder what percentage of people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Steinway piano actually play it very often?

Labels: audio, cd, gadgets, money, music

I've lost where I found these links, but they're good:

• NPR's list of 50 essential classical CDs. My one question: what, no recordings by Glenn Gould?
• A reader-driven top 100 jazz CDs. My one question: no Charlie Brown Christmas?

I'm no expert on either classical or jazz music. I guess that's who (okay, whom) those lists are for. It probably also explains why I think Gould and Vince Guaraldi should be on them.

Labels: cd, classical, jazz, music

• With Apple's new iWork '08, the venerable AppleWorks (formerly ClarisWorks) is finally officially dead.
  
  
• Jeff at the Digital Camera Resource Page (my favourite digicam resource) has updated his Buyer's Guide of recommended cameras. I'm puzzled that he prefers the Nikon D40 to the D40x, but that's a quibble—and, I guess he made the choice to fit the Nikon into his under-$650 USD price category. For a simple one-page "best of 2007" digicam list, it's a great resource.
  
  
• The compact disc, developed by Philips and Sony, is now 25 years old, with the first commercial release being an ABBA album. The first CD I ever bought was Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love"—still a good album, though my copy was stolen some years ago. Oddly, it does not seem to be available on iTunes.
  
  
• Together with my wife, I'm planning to attend this weekend's unconference BarCamp Vancouver '07. It will be my first real geek meetup in several months.
  
  
• The winners for all but the final two categories of the 2007 Podcast Awards have been announced.

Labels: apple, appleworks, barcamp, cd, iwork, linksofinterest, photography, podcast