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Today's kitchen foray yielded onion rings. Mostly to try making a dipping sauce I recently had at a new burger place. I've always found it wise to flower the onion rings before dipping in batter. I think it makes the batter cling better. My batter consist of 1/4 cup corn starch (browns better) 1 1/2 cups of Krusteaz pancake batter and I used 1 3/4 cup of Trader Joe's ginger beer. The carbonation makes the batter lighter and the ginger adds just a hint of something you couldn't really name. The sauce is super simple, but absolutely delicious. Duke's mayonnaise, malt vinegar and cracked pepper. My new young friend thinks I'm a Chef.

Nice guy https://youtu.be/n4z098xxDCg?t=125

Valentyne Suite by Colosseum (1969) https://open.qobuz.com/album/jlrv0tner404c Example: '69 fusion (jazz/rock/prog/etc.) The title track is the highlight, but very enjoyable album.

After a tasty breakfast BLAT, went for a tour on the bayou. Where we saw plenty of wildlife, up close.

Just a few things (Not shown, warm Muffuletta) @ The Napoleon House

Hot, fresh, Beignets, from the source.

Bagels & Lox At on old school hole in the wall Delideli

I had this in an open tab for the longest time. Good {long} article - thanks Ric.

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Still got it.

I will never get tired of posting Kardi videos. Sorry/not sorry (Also, some really nice cinematography of Busan.)

Interesting day yesterday. First discovered a nearby restaurant burnt down. Then went to The Friends of The Library book sale and after buying an Atlas found a bunch of fun donation cards in the back. Finally stumbled across another Día de los Muertos celebration around the corner.

Going down a massive rabbit hole of cover songs by this band Nouvelle Vague. They are a bit kitsch a la The Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra (who did a GREAT cover of Wonderwall). These folks cover so many great and sometimes a bit obscure New Wave/Punk songs. Want Latin/Bossa Nova versions of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart? Check..... Want a light and playful version of the Dead Kennedy's Too Drunk To Fuck? Check.... If you can get past some monotony, these guys are fun, and their song selection is pretty cool! Some examples:

I figured it was worth its own thread to look at these aftermarket cables that have popped up. Now I don't really want to be a part of the whole cable mess but with electrostatics it is rather simple... the main component is capacitance. The cable will always add some and it determines how hard the entire system is to drive. So TLDR, more capacitance... everything is worse. The amp has to work much harder to try and push current into the top and bottom end. As a baseline, I tested a spare SR-X1 driver I had here and between the +/- inputs it is right on 40pF. We want to keep this as low as possible to keep the load low. So first off we have this ebay find, staight out of China: I was roughly 130$ shipped for the 2.5M version but I've seen them go for a lot more than that. It has the off the shelf Stax connectors on either end and they are nice enough quality. The wire is the cheapest, thinnest crap possible though. As a comparison the plan was to use a SR-X1/007S/009D cable but I only found a SRE-725 extension cable. Same length at 2.5m but is might be a tiny bit worse as the flat ribbon needs to connect to the Stax socket on the other end with wires will cross a bit doing that. Should be a small one but worth noting. I tested between the L+ and L- (I also compared against the R+ and R- but it should read the same) using a basic Uni-T capacitance meter at 1kHz. Both cables strewn out as long as they go on a wooden floor so minimal impact from that. So first off, here is the Stax SRE-725: That is 0.061nF or 61pF. Not bad and what I'd expect from the Wide PC-OCC cables. Now here we have the ebay cable... That is 0.46nF or 460pF. Yeah... that is not great is it. So as a comparison, the whole system capacitance with the Stax cable is 101pF, with the ebay cable it is 500pF. Yeah... this is utterly terrible and will make the headphones sound terrible. Now a second possible issue is how much voltage can the cable withstand. Again here we are hooked up to the L+ and L- simply because those pins are the easiest to get to with the large clips. This cable passes at 1500V with flying colors, almost 30 seconds and at almost 6 gigaohms so no issues there. I'm guessing this is actually double insulated as there is not a whole lot of wire in there.

Zoot Woman, "Grey Day" -- going back 23 years, nice mix of power pop and post-punk

80s electro-funk compilation... some real bangers:

Not today, but yesterday, played in a work golf event and used the laser to make some fun accessories.

Palo Alto snagged a Hauser & Wirth and it opened today with its inaugural exhibition ‘Calder | O’Keeffe.’ So long lines, sun, mobiles, “flowers” and wine.

Long but wonderful day yesterday. Left the house at ~7:30, got back almost midnight. Visited a dear friend in CT for a day-late birthday celebration. She was so supportive to me as I went through so much with Karen, and she has had her tough issues and hardships as well. But we had a wonderful day just checking out some small towns near her, and having a nice lunch and dinner. Happy Birthday Nancy!

Bill Evans, Nardis, and Broken Time https://www.thebeliever.net/broken-time/

Game of Wool: Britain's Best Knitters (Prime)