As we have in the past, our family participated in Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina. It is a wonderful opportunity to share ideas we’ve been developing and to learn from many, many people whose perspectives are truly global. This year I was invited to share some remarks as part of the closing plenary, titled “If these were my final remarks”. It is both a privilege to be giving the opportunity to have the last word, but it is also a challenge: of all the things that I could say, what should I say (and therefore what must I not say)? To help me with my choice, I wrote down my two favorite themes, read them out, and decided, based on votes from a few trusted friends and my own instincts, which to deliver to the audience and which to share after-the-fact. Here are the two texts. Please feel free to comment on which text you prefer, or any other thoughts they elicit from you.
January 2, 2012
November 6, 2011
Speech text from Miraverse Power & Light Solar Double-Cropping Ribbon-cutting
North Carolina is a great place to grow. Our family moved here when the growing company I started in Silicon Valley back in 1989 was bought by a faster-growing company here in North Carolina, Red Hat. North Carolina is home to a great community of innovators, and today we are proud to stand with many of them as we unveil what has truly been a community effort.
When I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, I realized that the question “what should we eat for dinner?” had life-changing implications. We are what we eat. But as a society, we also decide what we grow, how we grow it, how it comes to market, and at what price. In 1903, commercial seed houses offered 288 varieties of beets; by 1983 the choice is down to 17. From 544 types of cabbage, we’re down to 28. From 307 types of sweet corn, we’re down to 12. Our dinner-time choices are a function of many choices made before we were even born. 
The Omnivore’s Dilemma teaches that when the question “what can we do?” becomes too limiting, the question of what should we do becomes all the more urgent. And not just when it comes to food.
Speech text from the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse
He set his mind to work on unknown arts and thereby changes the laws of nature – Ovid, Metamorphoses
Welcome, and thank you for coming to the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse! Some years ago Amy posted a little quote on my side of the mirror we share in our bathroom that reads “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.“ After five years of planning and construction, we have realized a dream, a dream that is now so real you can see it, you can touch it, you can enter it. You are welcome to do so-once we cut the ribbon.
Today we want to share with you an even bigger dream, the one that begins today. This dream cannot be built with concrete and steel, but it can be realized the old-fashioned way: with magic.
October 29, 2011
TEC Award Nomination for Outstanding Creative Achievement
“Manifold must be one of the finest music-dedicated studios built in the world in the last decade. ” — Alex Oana, Manifold Recording: Inside the Miraverse
Manifold Recording is honored to have been nominated for a TEC Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Studio Design Project category. We congratulate and thank Wes Lachot Design, and especially Wes Lachot, who succeeded brilliantly in helping to realize this ambitious project. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and then the 10,000 pictures I have taken of this project during its four years of construction suggest just how much could be said about what he conceived, drew, detailed, and then argued for in its implementation. But there is much more to this creative achievement than meets the eye, or the ear for that matter.
“we wanted to reboot the music industry by reinventing the role of the recording studio”
When I first sat down with Wes, he asked the question that every studio designer must ask: what do you want to do? I told him that we wanted to reboot the music industry by reinventing the role of the recording studio. We agreed that we would need to honor the laws of physics (especially acoustics), but in all other ways we would seek to be the change we wanted to see in the world. We would be a model for acoustic and technological excellence, but we would also be a model of transparency and collaboration. We would be an ideal environment for musical performance, but we would also be a model for entrepreneurial innovation and economic sustainability. We would honor the great teachings of organic architecture and sacred geometry by becoming the best example of those teachings we could be. All of this was discussed before Wes put pencil to paper and began drawing the lines that ultimately became footings, walls, structures, buildings, and operating commercial facilities. In accepting this commission, Wes accepted the whole of the project, and he delivered brilliantly, even when certain aspects seemed to be in irreconcilable conflict. Such is the nature of an outstanding creative achievement.
September 15, 2011
Neocapitalism
There seems to be a general consensus that the two fundamental governors of capital market behavior are fear and greed. I believe that a new kind of capitalism can be implemented based on two other levers: curiosity and generosity. When things are not working, we can be curious and discover new solutions. When things are working, we can share our abundance. Thoughts?
August 21, 2011
Community Chorus Project
The Chapel Hill News reports on a project we managed to squeeze in at the end of the summer: the Community Chorus Project. These kids worked hard, and it was great to be a part of documenting their efforts just in time for their new school year. As the news article reports, we’re not the only ones pleased by the results. R.E.M. manager Bertis Downs promoted the video on the R.E.M. news page, and mention on R.E.M.’s Facebook page received over 1,000 likes. Downs told the Chapel Hill news “It’s very professionally done. It’s a great arrangement, it has a really good feel, nice energy, and I like the way the choral director interacts with the chorus. The kids did a great job.”
Indeed! Here’s a link to the video, which you can watch in HD if you have the bandwidth to do so:
July 9, 2011
Week 183 (Lighting Up the Trion)
Time for some fun! This week we got the wiring in the Annex to the point where we could turn on our Harrison Trion console:
As you can see, we have not quite tidied up the Annex Control Room. But with only six PSU cables to plug into the wall and a single CAT6 cable to plug into the Console, it’s pretty easy to turn on, turn off, and move into position when we get our painted floor plates next week.
July 4, 2011
Week 182 (Pergola Progress)
Ten months ago we poured the concrete footings for our Pergola. Four months ago we had our cypress and steel orders in. Over the next 6 weeks we finished the cypress with several layers of UV-resistant varnish and we galvanized the steel posts and flitch. Six weeks ago we received the finished cypress boards, and five weeks ago, we swung the steel into position.
From the site’s perspective, we’ve gone from this:
To this:
The good news is that there’s a good chance that next week we’ll have the other half up!
June 29, 2011
Week 181 (Surrounded)
Try as I might to get the posts out in a timely fashion, sessions this past week really got in the way of that. Which is a good thing!
The title of this blog post is taken from the fact that we had a session requesting surround monitoring capability. With a 64-channel API Vision, there’s no question we’d be doing surround work in the Main Control Room, but we kinda expected we’d ease into that work after having a chance to do a proper speaker shootout. Not so. Luckily for us, we got our hands on a fully 5.1 Dynaudio AIR 15 surround setup, and here’s what it looks like all set up:
