All Activity

If Only AI suggested "Saybrook Sage" "A soothing aloe hue cooled with a splash of gray." Was rejected as "too dark". Manually eyeballing color swatches etc ended up with candidate short list of 4. AI allowed me to place some candidate furniture in a picture of of one the bedrooms / potential office, and with the right prompting and sample "digital dollops" ... WIth the original walls it looks like The Candidate Colors chosen were Budding Green CSP-790 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/csp-790/budding-green Calming Aloe 533 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/533/calming-aloe Stolen Moments 477 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/477/stolen-moments Sweet Caroline 478 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/478/sweet-caroline

so the idea is to keep the voltage going to the 10m90s that drives the zener string between 600 and 900v. depending on voltage input, just a standard voltage doubler will push the voltage well above 1kv. and no reason for this. so in the very original spoilers, a pot was added to spoil some of the voltage that would normally have been generated by a standard doubler.

Took the new bike out for a first ride today. My new shoes (five ten) need to have the release adjusted, because when I stopped, I fell over because my left foot wouldn't let go. I need to adjust the front brake, it's grabbing intermittently. It could use some minor fit adjustments, but over all, I'm pretty happy with the fit, I got the right size. The big issue is I haven't ridden enough to make a difference since I met my wife in late 2020, so I'm in AWFUL shape. I was gassed after less than a mile. Kayaking isn't a particularly aerobic exercise. I'm gonna set up my indoor setup with my old bike and see if I can get slightly less out of shape before trying anything not mostly flat outside again.

they're "green beige" and "green grey"

I’ve mostly finished the layout at this point. The current board size is 107 mm × 166 mm, and it integrates the following onto a single PCB: Bias GRLV interface Circlotron PSU interfaces Soft-start circuit Four IXTH6N100 Stand outside. Should be fine w/o heatsinks. Both Circlotron supplies merged into one board. For reference, the original Circlotron PSU boards were roughly 176 mm × 190 mm per board, so the overall footprint has been reduced to well under half the original total area while keeping full functionality. The shrink seems reasonably successful so far. There is one point I’m still not fully confident about (see Fig. 4): C15, left side +HVAC-N — which rectifier bridge should this node reference? In the non-floating implementation, it would naturally reference the rectifier feeding B+. However, once the supply is fully floating, I’m not entirely sure which point should be considered the correct reference for this connection, and I’m unclear which node I should be tying it to. Any clarification on the correct reference point here would be appreciated.

Dunno where Woot is getting these from, but they have new Nikon D800 bodies going for $629. While a couple of notches below the latest D810 model, this has to be the best deal in full-frame DSLRs atm.

Is that seriously green? I'm colorblind and that... none of those look green to me in the slightest. I can't tell if you're fucking with me or not. Could go either way.

I don't know about the new MS Windows logo

Had Joanne compare similar different greens under various lighting conditions in various locations. Apparently getting Gemini / nano banana to replace wall colors in a picture isn't good enough 🤷‍♂️ Also, how many greens are there. Many many many apparently.

Living under large Redwoods, Mikey, I understand the trauma of laying in bed listening to huge gusts of wind and cringing, hoping one of those "widow makers doesn't break off and find its way to the roof. Glad you'll have a little more piece of mind.

Sarah on Kelly - just a pretty tune.

Figured I'd post this picture here as well as in the Stax thread, MA-009 vs SR-009D I've just been on holiday so no work on this project but I'll probably make some new diaphragms for the MA-009 soon. The ones in there are just too unstable, any major airpressure and they just stick to the stators.

Well I've been away and a certain SR-009D showed up in the meantime... Sorry for the crap picture but I've only had a couple of hours with them and I should have been in bed an hour ago... First impressions, I like the color but it's clear that Stax have cheaped out with one of those surface treatments that are so popular in China. Nothing as nice as the 009BK here, it's that matt but shiny black except in the grove on the back. It's okey but we are clearly seeing production moving away from Japan here of crucial parts. Same is true for the earpads, very different from regular 009 pads and the smell and feel is identical to the various earpads I've been buying from China. Nothing wrong with that really... if they didn't resell the 10$ pads at 200$. They are also odd as they don't seem to fit nicely on the headphones but feel nice, much better than the 007S trash pads. They are similar to the Omega pads in some ways, large opening and pretty thin. The headpad seems also different from the older models so likely a new supplier there too. Same basic thin pad design though but a bit wider overall compared to the L500 part I have on the MA-009 in the picture. Same cable as the SR-X1 and the 007S. I'm not in Japan so I'm not getting the shorter cable as instead of throwing them into the boxes, Stax wants you to send in for them, in Japan only. Gotta love companies living in the 70's. As for the sound... I was expecting to hate them but no... these are the first 009's that aren't way too colored for their own good. For the most part, they are easy to live with with plenty of bass and presence. Maybe a tad dull and uninvolving at times but still easy to get long with. Now they are not perfect, there is a distinct "bass drum" resonance on many tracks and some certain ranges make them way too shouty in the midrange but it's far from as bad the originals or what the hell the 009S was. Nice controlled soundstage with some depth to it, good extension on both ends of the spectrum so yeah... I'm pleasantly surprised. I haven't detected any of the serious driver resonance issues as with the 007S either. Only a couple of hours with them but some volume matched comparisons with the MA-009, I prefer the fuller sound of the latter but it's not a long way off. I do feel the irony of me finally tackling the long planned project of fixing the 009's, only with Stax releasing a new version which doesn't suck like the older ones at the same time. Still, this is good move in general and at present I'd recommend these over the 007S and the X9000, let alone the older 009 models.

Crew fell six trees yesterday, and one more this morning. All about 2' diameter. I have a lot of cleanup work to do. So I bought a beefyer chainsaw. 16” 56V. I still have a tree that should be topped, but not critical. Edit: We did take out one green one - it had no more friends to protect it from the wind.

‘I’d never heard anything like it’: the prepared piano revelations of jazz star Jessica Williams Dave Brubeck called her a great and Mary Lou Williams gave her advice. But the prodigy grew frustrated with jazz, quit and started dismantling her instrument. A superb new reissue showcases her findings https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jan/05/jessica-williams-jazz-prepared-piano-blue-abstraction

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTIw5mdDvq2/?igsh=MWRhbW02MGx3c2x3bQ== This could be amusing.

Trump would repeat that we could until you made it true.

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted. “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper, the CNN host, after being asked repeatedly whether he would rule out using military force. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/us/politics/stephen-miller-greenland-venezuela.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/06/politics/trump-greenland-venezuela-colombia-miller-analysis

Finished Stranger Things. Now back to my first viewing of The West Wing. About to the end of S1. This will be worth it to grok an Aaron Sorkin joke in 30 Rock. Also, 93% chance I'm about to re-watch 30 Rock another couple times. Oh, also constantly have on Wednesday as background whilst I'm falling asleep as of late.

Nope, still needs a bunch of processing, especially their heavy crude. Think diesel.

Okay, but the oil is still there and ours for the taking, isn't it? @naamanf you can fly a helicopter on crude oil? I thought you said we can do that./T

Yeah, shawarma is good stuff. I've had the Wegmans pre-marinated stuff, restaurant made (today, even!), and it would have disappeared faster than light with me around, too. Yum yum yum, gnosh gnosh gnosh, yum yum yum

Interesting that he has abandoned his trademark plain black leather jacket in favor of a snakeskin (?). I wonder if he will use the word, "molt".

Yeah, he's really just a shill for Skynet our soon-to-be-bot-overlords. That said, I was still very interested in everything he said about Vera Rubin. (The hardware platform that he just introduced.) Their usual rule is only change one or two things. They threw that out with this iteration and completely redesigned everything. My theory: they == AI. I don't think they actually were directly involved with the design. Having spent most of my life working in the cleared sector, no-one in the government that I knew would let this pass muster. Additional editorial note: The only way we are going to be able to defeat Skynet AI-used-for-evil is AI-used-for-good. And we are way behind with that. We are so fucked as a planet.