Wot Larks, eh?
Week from Monday 14th August 2023 - The UCI CYCLING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS up that Scotland have now drawn to a close, with Sunday's brutal but exciting ELITE WOMEN'S ROAD RACE being a fitting finale. Real pro-cycling FANATICS (i.e. folks who are willing and able to watch everything on Eurosport and the like) won't have time to suffer any withdrawal symptoms though. This week, there are at least five different stage races going on somewhere in the world, all at the same time! Of course, I'll be content to follow the 'stories' on Twitter. In particular, the DANISH contingent seem to be having a right old time cycling in their own 'TOUR' on home soil.
There's yet another 'new' version of the KCrim's "LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC" album coming out.
This is where I must draw the line.
I mean, it's a bit special and all, but how many times do they want us to keep buying the SAME music in different formats? As far as I'm concerned, the "40th Anniversary" 'definitive' edition is as good as it'll ever get for me (I strapped on the AKGs and cranked it up yesterday evening to confirm this).
I don't have the means to hear the album in DTS 5.1 or Dolby Atmos or any of those other newfangled 'surround' formats they keep coming up with. So the Blu-Ray discs, containing 'everything' twice over again, usually sit in the box unplayed.
In addition, the 2012 'BIG BOX' version of the album contains all the alternative takes and fluffed partial run-throughs that I could ever possibly listen to (and I'd already built my own 'indexed' disc of "KEEP THAT ONE, NICK!" the last time around). I'm not so completely bonkers that I NEED to hear the isolated sound of Jamie Muir's zither falling over, remastered in multiple sound formats... so I'll pass, thank you!
It probably helps my decision making no end that I currently have zero expendable income to splurge on such frivolities anyway!
There's yet another 'new' version of the KCrim's "LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC" album coming out.
This is where I must draw the line.
I mean, it's a bit special and all, but how many times do they want us to keep buying the SAME music in different formats? As far as I'm concerned, the "40th Anniversary" 'definitive' edition is as good as it'll ever get for me (I strapped on the AKGs and cranked it up yesterday evening to confirm this).
I don't have the means to hear the album in DTS 5.1 or Dolby Atmos or any of those other newfangled 'surround' formats they keep coming up with. So the Blu-Ray discs, containing 'everything' twice over again, usually sit in the box unplayed.
In addition, the 2012 'BIG BOX' version of the album contains all the alternative takes and fluffed partial run-throughs that I could ever possibly listen to (and I'd already built my own 'indexed' disc of "KEEP THAT ONE, NICK!" the last time around). I'm not so completely bonkers that I NEED to hear the isolated sound of Jamie Muir's zither falling over, remastered in multiple sound formats... so I'll pass, thank you!
It probably helps my decision making no end that I currently have zero expendable income to splurge on such frivolities anyway!
Xandy Xints Update
I typed out a simplified(? well, more logical anyway) version of my 'INSTRUCTION LEAFLET' for a Twitterchum. I'll keep it on my G***leDrive for a while, so that other folks can have a go. Again, I make no guarantees that it's a permanent solution, and you do it at your own risk, etc. etc. << The document >>
In the same article, I posted a link to a Firefox add-on that I thought might be a pretty nifty idea...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/old-twitter-layout-2022
...which was supposed to revert Twitter back to a version predating the current (ahem!) 'cosmetic' changes. Sad to say, it didn't work for me. Like all those OTHER third-party 'provider' apps, they've seen through that ploy and blocked it.
For some months (even before 'X'!), I'd been using a Firefox Extension called "BETTER TWITTER" to improve my desktop experience. Another Twitterchum (who is an AppleMAC user), recommended one that he uses on SAFARI called "MINIMAL TWITTER", which appears to do similar things, but in a way that gives you a lot more control. I was delighted to find that there are also versions for Firefox and Chrome...
https://typefully.com/minimal-twitter
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/minimaltwitter/
Why! it even has its own CSS editor, so I no longer need to tweak anything on Twitter with an additional 'userscripts' add-on like my beloved STYLUS! I was able to hide not just the 'X' icon on the left-hand menu, but the ones relating to blue ticks and promotions and 'communities' and all the other shit that Elno would like us to be obsessed with, but I'm not. All that toxic waste on the right-hand column can disappear entirely, just leaving your OWN timeline(s) running down the centre of the screen.
Mine's a bit of a compromise eyecandy-wise, as I still maintain a DARK THEME across everything (else) on my laptop, and the demonic 'X' will always be there when I log in. But it's COMFORTABLE now.
Plus I noticed that, in the the period since I started using it, the MINIMAL TWITTER extension has gone from being one NOT supported by Mozilla (to be used with 'caution'), to finding itself near the top of the Firefox "RECOMMENDED ADD-ONS" list, with its little gold 'trophy' icon and all.
I typed out a simplified(? well, more logical anyway) version of my 'INSTRUCTION LEAFLET' for a Twitterchum. I'll keep it on my G***leDrive for a while, so that other folks can have a go. Again, I make no guarantees that it's a permanent solution, and you do it at your own risk, etc. etc. << The document >>
In the same article, I posted a link to a Firefox add-on that I thought might be a pretty nifty idea...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/old-twitter-layout-2022
...which was supposed to revert Twitter back to a version predating the current (ahem!) 'cosmetic' changes. Sad to say, it didn't work for me. Like all those OTHER third-party 'provider' apps, they've seen through that ploy and blocked it.
For some months (even before 'X'!), I'd been using a Firefox Extension called "BETTER TWITTER" to improve my desktop experience. Another Twitterchum (who is an AppleMAC user), recommended one that he uses on SAFARI called "MINIMAL TWITTER", which appears to do similar things, but in a way that gives you a lot more control. I was delighted to find that there are also versions for Firefox and Chrome...
https://typefully.com/minimal-twitter
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/minimaltwitter/
Why! it even has its own CSS editor, so I no longer need to tweak anything on Twitter with an additional 'userscripts' add-on like my beloved STYLUS! I was able to hide not just the 'X' icon on the left-hand menu, but the ones relating to blue ticks and promotions and 'communities' and all the other shit that Elno would like us to be obsessed with, but I'm not. All that toxic waste on the right-hand column can disappear entirely, just leaving your OWN timeline(s) running down the centre of the screen.
Mine's a bit of a compromise eyecandy-wise, as I still maintain a DARK THEME across everything (else) on my laptop, and the demonic 'X' will always be there when I log in. But it's COMFORTABLE now.
Plus I noticed that, in the the period since I started using it, the MINIMAL TWITTER extension has gone from being one NOT supported by Mozilla (to be used with 'caution'), to finding itself near the top of the Firefox "RECOMMENDED ADD-ONS" list, with its little gold 'trophy' icon and all.
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