Is Slashdot only for older americans? The rest of the world has gone metric long ago, also many younger americans. And NASA! And when Volvo decided to limit new cars, it was certainly not like they came up with a not round number like 112 mph, but instead - 180 km/h.

Here's a recording I made of one of the Artcraft rolls, Chicago March on an untuned Duo-Art player piano, and with it's Duo-Art system out of operation, so it does not serve the quality of the roll complete justice!

I have myself a Duo-Art player piano, and have lots of those QRS Music rolls, and although the work of QRS is impressive, there were and are smaller roll producers, who made and makes much better quality music rolls, Artcraft being one of the very few who still makes such rolls. Since there's less mass production involved, the perforations are more accurate providing for better musical quality.

There are lots of old non-operational player pianos, as I have learned, in at least the english speaking parts of the world. One should look for one and pick it up, sometimes almost for free, and then learn how to restore it self, properly.

It is however important to have done research, so one picks a piano well suited for restoration, and which plays standard rolls!

Most people will have to have the regular piano part refitted and restored by a professional company or piano tuner, and then learn how to restore the player part of the piano, which is fully achievable. There are also professional player piano restorers out there, but then we are talking about expencive work a little in the same class as restoring, let's say perhaps not cars, however more like restoring small motor bikes or big furniture.

ALso important to know that restoring player pianos involves using original types of materials, which means hot hide glue and not epoxy which would ruin the possibilty to open up wooden parts and restore them again, later!

Also, it would be a huge mistake, to use PVC tubes instead of rubber tubes, since PVC dissolves and becomes 'goo' in 10-15 years time, while rubber, though hardering and eventually cracks, might last for 50 years depending on atmospheric conditions.

Restoring a player grand piano or an orchestrion however, could be compared to restoring a car, measuring the amount of work having to be done.

Back to Artcraft rolls; if you have a regular, or much better, a Duo-Art player piano, I can really recommend the Artcraft rolls, which are really well made, perforations being very correctly made, so the music doesn't sound so "mechanical", as with some other piano rolls. Chicago March is probably a bad example in that manner, however it was the recording I already had put on the web, a few years ago, or I would have linked to a better example of how fine-tuned those Artcraft rolls might sound on a well tuned operational Duo-Art piano.

For those who are looking to alternative sources of piano rolls, here's the home page of an (albeit) small producer of piano rolls. Artcraft music rolls, in addition to producing regular, what is called, standard 88 note rolls, also produce Duo-Art rolls, which contains control punches which automatically adjust the sound level of the music, and is able to enhance single notes, so the music is more realistic, like a real piano player would achieve.

You would need a special Duo Art player piano, to get the most out of those rolls, but luckily, Duo-Art rolls are 'backwards compatible' with regular 88 note piano rolls, which means, you just have to tape over some of the holes on the right and left side of the tracker bar on a regular 88 note player piano, to play those Duo-Art rolls!

I don't think people are aware what implications this could have for what really could exist 'out there'.

If the natural laws are quite different in many other universes, warp travel, time travel could be possible, or even life itself could be much more common or varied, and it could be easier perhaps, to travel far, in other universes than our own. Energy-based life-forms, even "gods" in the meaning of very powerful beings, which have spread out in the galaxies and taking control, might exist. They might exist here too, however the physical constants of our universe makes it very cumbersome to travel and communicate, and radiation is also a problem, so it seems like we are somewhat alone in our corner of the galaxy. That is, unless this is correct!

Thus - the 'reality' of some of our science fiction stories could be true in other universes, while we live in a "boring" one with few means of transportation and (quick) communication over long distances. Even the brane we reside upon seem to be very stiff, since gravity waves haven't been observed (yet), so no easy wormhole solutions for transportation seem feasible with moderate amounts of energy. Even though other universes probably never can be observed directly, this is exciting stuff, hopefully we will be able to collect at least indirect evidence of other universes, perhaps with some of the experiments done in the big hadron collider.