Yeah, it’s a hot take 🔥 and also click-baity. Recently my uncle asked if I like the new flag (it’s on my hat), while he was wearing this t-shirt:
So probably not racist, but he hasn’t come around to the new design yet, so I offered this same explanation you’ll find here… And if you aren’t a racist, you’ve at least got poor design taste, but maybe we can fix that 🤔 I’m going to try to convince you to fly the new flag on design principles alone. If you still think the new flag is woke, I probably can’t convince you to stop being racist 😥
If you’re truly flying the old flag because you can’t afford a new one, I’ve got a proposition for you at the bottom…
If you’re otherwise flying the old Minnesota flag, you’re doing it to make a statement. I’m not seeing it everywhere – mostly on well-to-do homes. The argument to keep the old flag posted is playing out in public, usually in suburban cites with aging populations that largely self-identify as conservative. One suburb concluded that flying no state flag was the best solution 🙃
The old flag is a bad design. And to show what good vs. bad design looks like, watch this:
The old Minnesota flag, like many other state and city flags, break multiple tenants of design:
Simple ❌
Meaningful Symbolism ⚠️
2-3 Basic Colors ❌
No Lettering or Seals ❌
Be Distinctive or Related ❌
⚠️ The symbolism is where the old flag could be easily be seen as depicting white man “conquering” the natives. But honestly I think the old flag flyers are probably too dumb or ignorant to come to this conclusion themselves. Part of this is because those elements are hard to see vis-a-vis poor design. So I’m going to keep focusing on the design elements 😅
All of the old iterations of the Minnesota state flag were fantastic examples of “seals on a bed sheet” adopted by many other states. To prove my point, can you pick out your state flag from this grid if you only look at it for 5 seconds?
I removed the blatantly obvious text where the designers printed the state name – probably so you could identify it within the crowd. If you’re doing it right, no text is needed.
Good Flag Design
Here’s another grid with state flags that employ good design:
Many of these flags are immediately recognizable. Even if you can’t name all of the states they belong to, the people that live there recognize and can. This makes them a source of pride.
The new Minnesota flag literally checks all of the boxes:
Simple ✅
Meaningful Symbolism ✅
2-3 Basic Colors ✅
No Lettering or Seals ✅
Be Distinctive or Related ✅
What’s not to like about it?
Need an upgrade?
If you truly cannot afford one and need an upgrade, here’s my proposition. Comment on this post. I’ll reach out to you via email. You MUST have an old flag that you’re looking to replace and have a photo with your old flag alongside a date identifying document to prove it.
You also MUST live in Minnesota. I’m not starting a charity for drunken ‘sconnies to burn our flag. While you’re at it Wisconsin, maybe think about changing your flag – because it’s also just as ugly.
There are plenty of articles out there about the origins of “woke” and how it went from a call-to-action to a pejorative label. This article is good, short, and cites several of the other sources that I looked at when researching the history as well: https://foreignfocus.substack.com/p/woke-origins-of-the-term-and-how
Yawn 🥱
Woke is short for being awoke, or awake. So those that aren’t awake on the issues, are asleep. Ironic that a movement that branded their public enemy #1 as Sleepy Joe, is “anti-woke” – sleeping themselves – both figuratively and literally.
Being anti-woke is actually an admission of ignorance. It means you don’t have all of the facts on an issue.
It’s not binary ☯️
I don’t think there are woke and un-woke people in this world. Someone can be woke to a subject while being completely ignorant of another. Not everyone can be woke about everything, the world is just too complex. But I like that there are people out there that are woke about civil rights, while others are woke about animal cruelty. Someone can be woke about climate change, and someone else can be woke about urban design.
Be woke about your thing
So can we stop with weaponization of the word? Go ahead and be woke on the thing you hold dear. If you’re given a chance to educate someone else, go for it, but remember that it’s impossible to know everything about everything. You can evangelize a little, but it must be based in fact, and backed with science. If they’re just beliefs, you’re just evangelizing yet another religion. There are way too many goddamn opinions floating around today masquerading as facts.
Preface: I know very little about live sound. I know even less about mixing equipment. While I’m audio enthusiast, my most recent significant audio purchase was a set of Klipsch speakers for a home theater… in 1999 😲
So when it came time to cobble together some equipment MBI Winds, I did a lot of asking around. There were plenty of people in the area with experience using the Behringer X32. So we got an X32 Rack which would fit in our small audio cart nicely.
When I try to figure out how to do something on the X32, my first stop is YouTube. It’s probably by someone who does sound for their church, so their application might not be the same as yours. They’re also likely using the full X32 console mixer – the OG big boy.
I don’t have the luxury or ease-of-use that comes with the full console that has all the buttons. Instead, it can be even more confusing because I have three options to configure the mixer:
The screen on the front of the X32 Rack (same as the big console, which makes YouTube Videos still helpful)
More choices = better, right?! Well, there’s no consistency in interface between any of them. So I’m starting this series “X32 Rack 3-ways” to show how to get things done. I’ll document a small feature using all three methods which will hopefully be helpful to other X32 Rack users out there. Full console folks can go about their YouTube business per normal 📺
DCA Mutes
My drumline peeps have been telling me DCAs are the way to go to simplifying live mixing. For me (with a much simpler setup than a WGI drumline), it seemed logical to use – if only to get all of the faders on to one (DCA) screen on X32 Mix on my iPad.
What initially confused me is that when I muted the mic to our front speaker from within the DCA group, it did nothing 🤔 This is because the default setup of the X32’s DCA mute button is to mute output to the main L&R channels but keep it in other monitors for adjustments. Our front soloist speaker is a seperate bus from the main L&R channels, so this wasn’t the desired effect I wanted. The solution is a global setting called “DCA Mutes” or “Mute System -> DCA Groups.” This setting mutes every channel that’s part of the DCA group mixer-wide. This was what I needed 🔇
X32 Rack Screen
On the mixer itself you can get to it through the Setup screen, then the Config tab. There’s a “DCA Groups” box that needs to be checked in the “Mute System section.
On X32 Edit you’ll find it in a similar place, but slightly different words: Setup, then Mixer, then the “DCA Groups” box needs to be checked in the “Mute System” section.
X32 Mix on iPad
On the iPad app it’s again named a little differently: Setup, then Global, then the “DCA Mutes” box needs to be checked in the “General Prefs” section.
In Practice
For live mixing I use the iPad. When the “DCA Mutes” option is active there’s a key visual indicator that it’s doing what you want. Press the mute button on the DCA channel and it will light up pink. With our new setting active you can go to the channel you expect will mute across the mixer, and it’s mute button will be blinking pink:
When we were putting together MBI Winds last year, I started asking around about equipment early in the summer. A nearby high school had a plastic sound cart that they hated. They said they were going to throw it away, so it was free for the taking 😲
I picked up the roto-molded SKB Gig Rig and we quickly put it into service. It was worse for wear. Missing the end cover doors, wheels that needed TLC, many latches broken. For the first season we used it as-is and just put a ratchet strap around the whole thing to hold it together since the latches were broken 😂
For the 2024 season I wanted to fix the latches and remove our ratchet strap for a more professional look 🤵 I reached out to SKB and started doing some research on my own. I found this Southco latch and catch plate to be drop-in replacements. However, SKB support was able to send me replacement latches free of charge.
Installation posed a challenge as I’ve never worked with pop rivets before. But I watched a couple youtube videos that I found helpful to remove the broken latches:
Trying it for myself
I purchased a pop rivet tool that included several rivet sizes. I did a couple practices on scrap pieces of metal to get the feel for it. Since the SKB rack is plastic, I don’t want to damage it.
I was able to remove the old rivets fairly easy using a drift/punch and a drill bit as shown in the first video. But when it came time to install the new rivets, there was an issue…
Above the rivet is in place, ready to be installed. The rivet tool pulls on the section of the pop rivet sticking out. But as you can see below, the nose piece gets blocked by the latch hinge:
The quick and dirty solution was to use two small nuts as stand-offs. I could have used washers or something else, but this is what I had laying around that worked. Then the nose piece could be pushed in flush, and there was still enough of the rivet to grab.
Conclusion
I was able to fix all four broken latches with this method. I wound up using the 3/32″ rivets supplied with the tool because they were made of a softer aluminum that seems to get along better with the SKB’s plastic. SKB support included their own pop rivets but they seemed to require multiple pulls of the rivet tool and didn’t always behave like I expected. I chalk it up to first-timer experience, but whatever the case is, this rack is back!
Hey y’all, it’s been a while. I straight up neglected my 10+ year run of fortnightly posts in November & December 2023. But with a new year comes a renewed commitment to all-the-things, and I am going to make this site one of them.
Besides me, I hope that others can rekindle their love of longer form content. Not everything fits in 280 characters or a single photo. Your stories shouldn’t be held captive in the golden cage of meta.
Maybe you could start or renew your commitment to writing on a schedule as well. It’s cathartic, I promise 😎
