Song of Albion

"Before the sun and moon and stars were set in their unchanging courses, before living creatures drew breath, from before the beginning of all that is or will be, the Song of Albion was sung. The Song upholds this worlds-realm, and by it all that exists is sustained."

This concept, that music is somehow at the heart of, is somehow responsible for all that exists, is the subject of many articles. For example Rubino, reminding me of Douglas Adams' 42, claims that:

Ray Tomes asserts that "The universe, believe it or not, is nothing other than a giant musical instrument with a very special but predictable pattern of harmonically related oscillations which determine the structure of everything from galactic clusters to subatomic particles...The universe consists of a wave which develops harmonics and each of these waves does the same."

The concept is also suggested, though perhaps not explicitly, in the Bible in passages like:

Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding! Who has set its measurements, for you know? Or who has stretched the line on it? On what are its bases sunk, or who cast its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb 1:1-3)

The ability to appreciate and to make music seems to be core in human experience through the ages. The fact that it serves no obvious Darwinian advantage suggests that it might have a higher source. Passages in Ezekiel and Isaiah suggest that Lucifer, otherwise Satan or the devil, was once the angel presiding over music in the heavens so it is hardly surprising that "the devil has all the best tunes".

Thus sets the scene for music (in its broadest sense) as the or at least a language of God, as inextricably entwined in His creation, but perverted by the fallen angel Lucifer.

I intend that this will be the first of a series of posts on the 'Song of Albion' aka "the extraordinary spiritual power of music".

Dyslexia

Perhaps I have a twinge of numerical dyslexia. In my work I order stuff online from Farnell who use six or seven digit order codes. I can think I have committed such a code to short-term memory then type it into my order and find I have the digits in the wrong order. Often I know I am writing it wrong, but cannot be sure what the right way is. This happens so frequently that generally I have resorted to writing down even the simplest of codes. It is the same with telephone numbers.

SOT23-5 semiconductor package

Microchip make amplifier chips and specialise in lower power rail-to-rail input and output types, and these I find useful in my work. Recently I chose the MCP6401 in SOT23-5 package from the many to choose from.  So I ended up ordering the MCP6041 by mistake, and after re-ordering got mixed up between the MCP6401 and MCP6041R.

Whilst similar there are enough differences between MCP6401 and MCP6041 to matter, and you can see that MCP6401R has a different pin-out. So I decided to purge my stocks and only keep the MCP6041R for which I have a symbol in my PCB-CAD software. In the design I am currently working on I used this symbol only to find I had mixed up the two pins VIN+ and VIN-.  Duhhh...

My next catastrophe was with LED's. I needed a high-brightness red indicator LED and chose one by Cree in a PLCC-4 package. You'll see from my picture that three of the legs all connect to the cathode of the LED, and one to the anode. And there is a diagonal line "cathode marking".

PLCC-4 LED package

In a subsequent project I wanted high-brightness LED's in different colours so manfully chose a bunch from the Farnell online store only to find, after designing my PCB and soldering them in, that they didn't work because they use the four pins differently. I had naively assumed all PLCC-4 LED's would use the same pin-out - indeed, why-ever not?

There's a moral somewhere...

Double wammy

There are muscles just above my knee that I didn't realise I had until I was labouring uphill in the forest this afternoon, barefoot, with the dog. Interspersed with having to stop because of cramp. No doubt because directly before the run (which I did solely for the dog's sake) I had cycled to the top of the Wicklow Gap and been caught in fairly hard rain so was drenched through and therefore cycling back for dear life with visions of hot baths and cups of tea forefront in my mind. And as this was my first cycle ride this year (not counting the one I did with K some while back) no doubt my cycle muscles have gone soft. Which muscles do remarkably quickly.

Barefoot Pinot Grigio

OK, I know, I haven't posted for ages, and this one is hardly worth much...  I guess the muse comes and goes, or more stuff that needs to be done.  Anyways, tonight we dined with some guests who brought this bottle of wine which seemed very appropriate - not only the "Barefoot" label but also the yellow cap!  It tasted good too - Pinot Grigio is my favourite grape variety at the moment.