We picked BARDTracker (https://www.bardtracker.com) and so far have been generally very satisfied with that decision.
Big for us was the fact that BT had the ability to grab all the details of our Pivotal Tracker project through the Pivotal API, rather than just from the CSV export (which they also can do). It's unclear whether as of today, 1 May 2025, API access at Pivotal is still an option, but I suspect it may not be.
BARDTracker seemed also to be the closest to PT's UX. Nobody in our shop really wanted to rush to learn a new paradigm right now, so that was another important factor.
Their developers have been remarkably responsive to bug reports, feature requests and suggestions.
The only issue that we've encountered is that performance is a little slow, at least in the Web app; I have not tried their Mobile version yet. My understanding is that this is the area they are focusing on presently.
Lastly, they haven't initiated billing yet, so it was zero-cost onboarding. I hope they figure this out soon, because it's a good product that we'd be happy to pay for; their "early adopter" rate of $5/mo/user is more than reasonable and I hope they're able to make it be sustainable in whatever way PT proved not to be for Broadcom.
This reminded me of the story about Charles Proteus Steinmetz diagnosing the problem inside a generator at Henry Ford's auto plant just by listening to it very carefully.
"Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.
Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.
Steinmetz ... responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:
How much is the legal obligation to pay such a bill, legally speaking? It sounds like they hadn't agreed on a figure beforehand, so could he have billed an arbitrary amount (say, a million dollars) and would Ford have been required to pay that too? What is the limit?
What is an appropriate fee to charge any particular customer when what you’re billing for isn’t necessarily time and materials, but more so the skill / experience required to diagnose and rectify an issue, or otherwise provide a solution, in a timely manner?
I’d argue the most correct answer is: up to the customers ability to tolerate, such that they’d be inclined to want to become repeat customers.
The legal standard will be related. Absent a written deal, the court would look at what the customer would have or should have reasonably expected, based on typical rates for such work, the value and cost of doing the work, etc. It can get quite messy and usually it's not worthwhile litigating such a thing.
(heck, even with a written deal, the fine print often matters less that people might think in court, though a badly written contract will sure draw out much more protracted arguments about such details)
I’ve met a handful of technicians who have been somewhere up and to the right on the skill / experience axes, and they’ve typically know what the problem is immediately upon listening to, or otherwise observing, a machine, or plant / equipment in general.
They’re usually a pleasure to work with, and I’ve found they’re typically the sort of people who are more than happy to share their knowledge.
The modern equivalent of this would be a one-line change in a codebase that fixes a significant issue. If you then log three days of effort on the ticket, people may also start questioning that, but:
Changing a line: 1 minute
Knowing which line to change (which includes making sure that the change doesn't break something else): 23 hours, 59 minutes
Interesting! I was reminded of the skills of older physicians, who could make an informed diagnosis going just on the symptoms and maybe using a stethoscope, whereas younger ones immediately order a full blood test and maybe throw in an MRI just to be sure.
On the cello (and viola) three perfect 3:2 ("pythagorian") fifths down from the A string makes for a low C that's noticeably flat when compared to equal-tempered instruments. For string quartet playing, it's manageable, because the violins will adjust when necessary, but for piano-accompanied playing, cellists will raise the low C a little so it doesn't clash with the C's on the piano.
Some years ago I got an Enviracaire EWM-220, which looks to be discontinued now. This is a warm-steam one that also has a UV bulb in it to (presumably) sanitize the water. Twin tanks where one gets used up before the other one starts to drain, so you can refill them one at a time.
Didn't see this mentioned in another comment, but when it's time to de-calcify the boiling chamber (very easy to access on this model) I squirt a little Lysol toilet boil cleaner in there and let it foam and sizzle on the scale buildup for about ten minutes, then wash it away.
Anecdotally, I saw this model in a couple different violin shops around the time I got it. Typically in one of these places there will be showrooms where you can try out bows and instruments, and they usually have about a hundred violins/violas/cellos hanging up in there.
Humidity control is extremely important for fine string instrument storage, so I figured if this is the model a shop has settled upon to protect $100-200K of their merchandise, it's probably a good choice.
> For anyone else who likes Glass's piano work, you might like some pieces by Yann Tiersen or Erik Satie.
And then go find yourself any of the multiple-piano music by the Dutch composer Simeon Ten Holt. "Canto Ostinato" is the famous one, but "Incantante IV" is probably my favorite.
Some thoughts on this, from an enthusiast, collector, and amateur player of odd and arcane keyboard instruments.
On the subject of one string per hammer: while this is novel for a modern acoustic piano, it is not especially so for other members of the family. Smaller harpsichords, for instance, are always strung like this, and even in larger ones having multiple "choirs" of strings, the number of strings being plucked simultaneously by a single key can always be configured, typically through levers or pedals.
In the 1970s Yamaha brought out line of single-strung stage pianos (CP-70, CP-80, etc.) that were popular with rock players because they were relatively portable and significantly faster to tune. (Kawai also had an upright of similar design.) These were not loud enough to be played acoustically, but instead were fitted with electric-guitar-style pickups under each string much like the Una Corda has, producing a similar sound. In fact, as I listened to the soundtrack on the video, I was struck by the resemblance of the sound not only to the Yamaha CP-70, but to the Rhodes electric piano, which has rigid steel tines instead of strings, but also one to a key.
I like the ability to swap in various felts to modify the timbre; many modern harpsichords have this facility also, with something called a "buff stop." Player pianos in the first half of the 20th century frequently featured a lever that would lower a comb of felt with little metal rivets between the hammers and strings, producing a "honky tonk" or "tack piano" sound; presumably one could fashion something similar for the Una Corda.
Yes, these are quiet instruments, but the late-Renaissance and Baroque music one would typically perform on them is much better served by this sparse clarity than can be produced on the modern grand piano. I suspect that the Una Corda would be similarly friendly to this repertoire.
Another benefit of the single-stringing is that, presumably, a capable player might reasonably expect to tune the instrument themselves, permitting the setting of very specific configurations other than twelve exactly equal divisions of the octave tuned to A=440. For acoustic and historical reasons, a lot of pieces really bloom in a certain way when you can do this, but on the modern grand piano it's a time-consuming task usually best left to a professional tuner/technician. (Because of the relatively unstable nature of their instruments, harpsichord players, like harpists and guitarists, have to learn to do this themselves early on in their studies, and thereby gain exposure to various temperaments and reference pitches, e.g. Werckmeister III at A=415.)
On the matter of price, 22,000 Euro (~$25K) is about the going rate for a new custom-built harpsichord, so that's not totally unreasonable. Other classical and orchestral instruments of professional quality frequently command similar sums, and new grand pianos easily get up into the six-figure range.
I would love to see one of these in person. Anyone spotted one in the US yet?
100% under forty. (USA is 50% over 40)
95% white and Asian.
<5% Latino and black. (USA and Bay Area are >33%)
<5% overweight and obese (USA is 40% overweight and obese)
21% duckface (0% of USA finds duckface appealing)
Yes....it sort of reminds me of the HuffPo tweet about a boardroom full of women...completely neglecting that 95+% of them were white women(upon visual inspection).
1. "Ashkenazi are…"? 'Ashkenazim' is the plural; 'Ashkenazi' is singular.
2. Everyone except Christian Identity white nationalists considers Ashkenazim white. DNA lineage studies strongly agree. The majority of Ashkenazi DNA is Polish and German followed by Italian.
Sure, and everyone besides hard core white supremacists considers Ashkenazim to be white. I've hung out with plenty of blatant racists who treated me, as a Jew, as part of their in-group.
> The genetics suggest many of the founding Ashkenazi women were actually converts from local European populations.
Okay, even if they were over-represented in Ashkenazim, where were all the Latinos and blacks? 30% should be one of those two groups if you wanted to be proportionate to the US population, but it was definitely way lower than 30%(again, by visual inspection only).
I've only been there as a tourist (and happened to go during a period of historically awful weather last February), but I'm inclined to agree with all of this. I've never felt as safe walking around a city alone in the middle of the night, the food is crazy good, and the people are educated, courteous, industrious and free. I maintain that if aliens came to Earth, there could be no better place for them to land and get a first impression of mankind than in Taipei.
Big for us was the fact that BT had the ability to grab all the details of our Pivotal Tracker project through the Pivotal API, rather than just from the CSV export (which they also can do). It's unclear whether as of today, 1 May 2025, API access at Pivotal is still an option, but I suspect it may not be.
BARDTracker seemed also to be the closest to PT's UX. Nobody in our shop really wanted to rush to learn a new paradigm right now, so that was another important factor.
Their developers have been remarkably responsive to bug reports, feature requests and suggestions.
The only issue that we've encountered is that performance is a little slow, at least in the Web app; I have not tried their Mobile version yet. My understanding is that this is the area they are focusing on presently.
Lastly, they haven't initiated billing yet, so it was zero-cost onboarding. I hope they figure this out soon, because it's a good product that we'd be happy to pay for; their "early adopter" rate of $5/mo/user is more than reasonable and I hope they're able to make it be sustainable in whatever way PT proved not to be for Broadcom.