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For those of you so inclined.....my nephew (niece's husband) Chris is in Russia (Kazakhstan) now, and he will be launching EARLY local time on a Soyuz rocket to go to the ISS!!! Streaming is available at https://plus.nasa.gov/ 3 highlights (times are EST):

Had dinner with @cetoole and @MexicanDragon, who graciously drove out to meet me in Lake Forest Park. I am also convinced Seattle is entirely too cold for me. Get me back to sunny California!

Starting to look the part!

Bourbon pecan pie.

Congrats to Chris! Perfect launch.* *to time with my middle of the night switch from legs to breasts in the sous vide.

Fuck it. I made a full batch. Cheers Matt!

I just got a colnago c50 with super record 11, but no pictures until Christmas because it’s under the proverbial tree.

Got a ride with the ANG two weeks ago to check out our remote project site in what southerners call Northern Maine (Bangor area). They had an issue with the first aircraft, but thankfully had a spare, and the delayed departure made for a convenient return time.

Indeed!! My mom said his kids took it hard when he left for the rocket but were excited to see him in the ISS itself.

Arrived

Glad that you got to see Colin.

Jumpstarted the holiday cheer (winterless necessity) with a trip to lights.

Thanks Ric! Something was meant to be, we had a power blip at ~3:45am EST and my alarm keypad beeping woke me up. Managed to watch the launch as well! Time for caffeine....a whole fucking bunch of it! 🤣 Have a 3.5-4 hour (if I'm lucky) drive in a bit.....

Bit excessive but I got an unworn Platona from EWC. Traded the Lange 1815 Chrono and a couple of other watches I wasn't wearing much. We're all going to die soon, might as well enjoy it. IDK?

Decided to have a go at Chicken Korma. Bites while seasoning were pretty great. Naan is staying warm in the oven to go alongside.

When I was a kid my Mom made the same Thanksgiving dishes every year. One of them was green bean casserole. Probably like many of your Moms made too. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. Canned green beans, French's fried onions and cream of mushroom soup. Like many vegetables and other dishes of my childhood I didn't know that I liked them until I was living on my own and tasted the fresh version. So I thought the concept (Trump joke) of green bean casserole was good. But what if it was elevated to using fresh ingredients? So today I set out to test that theory. I trimmed and sautéed about 3 pounds of green beans. Then sliced and sautéed a large amount of mushrooms in butter and white wine. I decided that making my own fried onions might not be worth the extra effort, so French's fried onions it was. In place of cream of mushroom soup, I used cream of celery soup, as I like the flavor better and had already incorporated fresh mushrooms into the dish. I have enough for a small army, as I had planned to take this to Al's before catching a cold. How is it? Well it has about 15 more minutes to bake, so I'll let you know later. You can't tell, but there are two layers of everything in the dish.

Hope you feel better soon.

A slightly different kind of speaker porn. In the early 90s I was prone to spacing out and doodling in class, in stead of doing what I was supposed to be doing. This pattern explains a lot about ...everything that has followed since. A month or so ago I was going through some of the myriad of paperwork that made it with me from the mainland. In it I found a really old school notebook. Most of it was fantastically uninteresting (I have not cared about the Sumerians for 35 years and counting) but I did find one page that had some amusing doodles on it: We've got a couple cars, an attempt at a Roland TB-303 Bassline, what might be a Marshall half stack and ...two attempts at one very iconic speaker design. That's a Legacy Audio Whisper. I was one of the cool kids, I tell you.

Some 18s:)...Don't know how Juan's celebratin'...

Finally the PCB's arrived for the Kiwi Ears headphone drivers: Just three different PCB's needed, on the left is the diaphragm ring which is a 0.6mm pcb but with no solder mask so it is actually 0.51mm. This has to be ENIG to make it completely flat but most fabs require that anyway. Film is 2um mylar-c as that is so simple to get and relatively easy to work with. In the middle is the dust cover holder/spacer. I made this 1.6mm thick as that way it clears the stock lip on the baffle that was around the dynamic driver. I used the first one as spacer and then stacked up the driver sandwich. For the dust covers I used the same mylar as the diaphragms but not stretched as much Finally the stators, 1mm ENIG pcb's and this is the outer side with the inner side having a smaller active area, aka like the SR-007. Holes are a bit less than 1mm but that can easily be altered for another run. Here they are assembled with the only alterations to the baffle where I counter sunk the mounting screws. There were just the three holes there in a row and with the earpad mounting plate being flush to this, it had to be done. One second with a counter sunk bit will do this as this is nasty, cheap ABS plastic. Here they are assembled. Only mods to the chassis is that I enlarged the two holes there are on each side (cable entry and a port on top) to 5mm so the strain relief would fit and the solid plastic plug I glued into where the port is. The cable is the 6 core silicone wire that can be found everywhere now with a 3D printed Y-split and Stax plug made from an XLR plug and pins. Now for the sound... lets just call it work in progress. This is very much the first draft and one channel is slightly weaker than the other (I swapped out the diaphragm for another which fixed it mostly) so I need to look into that. I'll probably just build a second pair of drivers so I can match them into pairs as I have another set of the headphones. Massive baffle leak too and the housing... has issues... so bass is not their strong suit for now. That needs to be fixed but I might have to get creative with that. Still for a cheap project that took only a few hours to make and cost less than 150$ all in... there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

I saw the launch as well. Looked like a hell of a ride to be strapped to that thing. Glad he made it safe!

But hopefully not too far in the evening. https://theonion.com/astronaut-hates-long-nightly-spacewalk-to-iss-outhouse/

I, ahem, like to sing sea shanties, so I cheerfully pay for Proton VPN. Don't let the UK government back you into a corner!

That's awesome! Congrats to him on being the furthest from Trump one can get.

A while back, I bought a lot of camera gear because I wanted one specific piece. The lot was cheaper than the item on its own, because eBay. Included in the pile of gear was a Tamron "vacation lens" (all-in-wonder, not good at anything) 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD A010. Yes, that's its name. I was not expecting much with the Tamron and it's barely delivered even on that meager promise. With that said, I did have some fun with it. This past September, I took the 5D IV and Tamron for a walk around downtown EDG. This New Beetle is parked in front of this shop all summer. 78mm @ F/9, 1/200. Old Beetle! It made genuine air cooled noises, and belched out noxious exhaust fumes. 87mm @ F/8, 1/200. The main drag, which is one way, because it was built for horses. 70mm @ F/8, 1/200. Zoomed in on the same, 179mm @ F/7.1, 1/250. Main St. never meant to hold a Wagoneer. A rather famous boat, with Chappy in the background. 28mm @ F/10, 1/320. Speaking of famous, the Dolphin returns to harbor. 71mm @ F/10 1/320. Both On Time ferries, 109mm @ F/9, 1/320. A Series III on Kelly St. That's a pet pickup truck I see in the summer behind it. 195mm @ F/7.1, 1/200. The line for the On Time, Daggett St. 97mm @ F/8, 1/160. Mose St. is two way, and has parking. It's even less suited for Wagoneers. 97mm @ F/8, 1/200. The Connaught House, now just another goddamn rental. 109mm @ F/8, 1/250. North Water St. 179mm @ F/7.1, 1/250. A cute MG and absolutely garbage bokeh. 223mm @ F/7.1, 1/320. South Water St, which I have callously ignored for 20 years now. 87mm @ F/8, 1/200. September is still vacation for some. 43,mm @ F/8, 1/250. The Tamron is not a very good lens. It covers a large focal range and not well. I had to work over many of the above pretty thoroughly to get decent results. I also had a bunch of shots that were not really worth the effort to salvage. Tune in next time for Vineyard wildlife and some seasonal colors.

Jack is just getting into the Simpsons and we just watched the Mr. Plow episode, so I got to tell him about your Linda Ronstadt story.

Fortunately, important index finger was in the glove.

Well I definitely have something. Haven't tested for covid yet, but will later. No cough at all though. Just my usual cold symptoms, which means just a stuffy nose. Musinex is effectively handling that. I have several pounds of Green beans, a ton of mushrooms and fried onions that I was going to turn into an elevated version of Green bean casserole. Not quite sure what to do with it. I guess I'll make it up later and try freezing in portions. Sorry Al. As for myself, I'm going to start my Thanksgiving with biscuits and gravy. Not the traditional meal I had been looking forward to, but still a favorite of mine. Still, this far better than my worst Thanksgiving. In 1983 I had flown to Juneau, Alaska for a new job building a mall. I flew the evening before Thanksgiving. Got into my hotel and went to sleep. Thanksgiving day I woke up to find everything in walking distance completely closed up. Even to hotel Cafe was closed. I had candy bars from a vending machine for Thanksgiving dinner. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/oi-you-got-a-loicense-for-that-mate

nice... If not ready for Christmas, there is new years, MLK day, President's day, Juneteenth, Talk Like a Pirate Day, next thanksgiving.... etc. (fuck you matt)

After listening for a while (and getting the output under control: it's HOT out of the box), I think the DAC3 is a subtle audio upgrade, but a noticeable one. The voicing is just so similar to the DAC1 that I didn't notice it at first. Also, trying out DSD audio for the first time.

Jimmy Cliff was an absolute legend. I saw The Harder They Come on VHS in the 1980s when I was entirely too young for such things. It left a lasting impact on me.

That's a stunner! Love my chocolate on an oysterflex strap...zero regrets. Enjoy! HS I realized I never posted it....

Thurston Moore's (and Neneh Cherry, Joe McPhee, Bryan Coley, and Mats Gustafsson) new book on free jazz. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/nov/28/free-jazz-history-most-maligned-music

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace by John Williams (1999) https://album.link/h4zfvgpn2qsmk Example: Movie Sucks: John Williams does not suck. I have the soundtracks to the original trilogy, but was not thrilled with the pre-post movies, so I never picked them up. Recently organist, Anna Lapwood, added Example to her shows, inspiring this listen. There are a few lovely themes, and snippets of themes you love sprinkled throughout. I don't know if this means I need to listen to 7 more soundtracks or not, but I enjoyed this one.

From Wikipedia 1 breakfast cup = 8 British imperial fluid ounces = ⁠4/5 tumbler = 1 1/3 cups = 1⁠ 3/5 teacups = 3⁠ 1/5 coffee cups = 4 wine glasses = ⁠2/5 British imperial pint ≈ 7.69 US customary fluid ounces ≈ 0.96 US customary cup ≈ 227.3 millilitres ≈ 0.91 metric cup The mind boggles. I actually had no idea what the markings on our kettle actually meant; now I know Hahaha! Just checked our very British kettle - and it is calibrated in metric units up to a maximum of 1.7 litres. So so much for the British Imperial fluid ounce red herring.

Yes, I'm going to be fine Brent. Thanks for your concern.

Damn delicious if I do say so myself!

For a guy who never gets sick, sure sounds like you're getting sick a lot lately. You get all those vaccines? Prolly the 'tism acting up.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-325-whos-the-boss/ Common Sense 325 – Who’s the Boss? The President is outraged at multiple Democratic lawmakers for reminding members of the military of their constitutional oaths and responsibilities. Dan points out that individual agency among soldiers is a societal firewall protecting all of us.

Thanks for that. And this! This is really well shot/directed. Almost gives me a Jonathan Demme vibe (yes, I realize the chronology is reversed). Von Karajan is of course a favourite, but my first was this one: I grew to a big appreciation for Concertgebouw Orchestra, not just from this recording, but multiple recordings across multiple conductors. And since you're a Rick Wakeman fan, I will also recommend his soundtrack for Crimes of Passion. I know that seems like a non-sequitur, but it's not, trust me.

And this is the way i tried to do that - it worked and is still working. Thanks!

Happy AI Birthday, Jason!

Thanks all, it's great to be back.

Helmsman/Navigator, Master Gunner/Quartermaster, Cook/Surgeon, Shipwright/Powder Monkey, Boatswain/Mystic... Captain/Master-at-arms in the front The Shipwright/Powder Monkey is the Tinkerer (reskinned Wizard) and will have an actual Monkey familiar that will be trained to assist the Gunner with the cannons. It's a little blurry, but the swashbuckler with the Rapier has a hooked hand, which I love. The fishman karate master will use natural weapons or improvised weapons like mops, oars, etc. I'm having way too much fun with this, lol.

Happy (AI) Birthday, Guys!

Hey, thanks!... Steak, whiskey repeat...

I'm afraid it'll start talking to me if I open it up... But perhaps there's a science project in my future to see what happens when I do.