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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!

For @MexicanDragon - Allied is now ready to roll as it should have been from the factory.

So, we finished the shelf install last weekend. Linda was in really good spirits. She was like a kid with a new toy when we finished. It made me feel great to make her happy! She then invited us into the living room for homemade lemonade. I started talking about music, and I think I threw her for a loop with my knowledge of musicians and music history. I told her that the first time I'd actually seen her on TV was on Dolly's show in the 70's. I was a young teenager and Dolly had Linda and Emmylou on her show. I was amazed at their harmony! They did several old country standards and it was magical. She was surprised that I even new of that appearance, and happy to hear how much I had liked it. She then gave me the greatest gift she could ever have given me. We sat and talked about music for nearly 3 hours. She told me about meeting Emmylou first, through Grahame Parsons, then her and Emmylou meeting Dolly together. We talked about Jackson Brown, and him introducing her to Glenn Fry and Don Henley. About her telling them to form their own band. We talked about her youth and her Mariachi history. I think that she enjoyed revisiting the past as much as I enjoyed listening to it. She kept being surprised at my knowledge and set a few of the stories I'd heard straight. I had one of the best times of my life!

How about amp box porn?

Lily wanted to come home for lunch today so I asked her if she was up for trying new tacos. She said yes so I tried my hand at Birria Tacos. I blended a couple recipes to come up with something. The day started with browning beef. Then cooking the veggies and rehydrating the peppers. Then everything was set to braise for 3 hours or so until it was time for assembly. They were tasty and will be made again.

Just wanted to post a last note of thanks here. Never expected, always appreciated support led to me exceeding my fundraising goal. I've got the two bikes prepped and mostly ready. I just need to do a shakedown ride or two on the Allied which I picked up from the mechanic yesterday. Thanks again, d-_-b, #NFLO.

While heading to Melissa's parent's house last weekend we visited the small town of Winters CA for the first time, and stumbled across their small car show in the early evening. So out came the M Monochrom (M9M) and LLL 35mm f/1.4 Double Aspherical "11873", shot mostly at f/2 for a classic, low res look. It's a cute little town if you haven't been @TMoney

Second big metric century is done and dusted! It is so hard to pace these things. Also, fueling remains a work in progress. It seems like however much your gut can tolerate in terms of food and drink is the amount you should be eating. Crushing gels gets old pretty quick. I skipped eating the last 10 miles or so and really felt it at the finish. We merged courses with the people doing the 30 mile ride in the last 1/4 of this and that meant it was time to put the power down and show the flat-bar riders the error of their ways! It is amazing how much of a confidence boost it is to overtake people. Kudos to all them for being out there though. Any ride is better than no ride (ahem, Brent). I do want more climbing than this going forward. There was really only one climb/descent (Chalk Hill). West Dry Creek Road is the stuff of riding dreams. Smooth country road, not wide enough for two cars to pass so the cars have to go ultra slow, curvy and lots of rollers. Can’t ask for better than that. Even on 32s I got so sick of road buzz on some of the Sonoma County cheese-grater roads that I threw the 40s back on after. The 40s are for sure slower, but my god do they smooth out the road and they are a joy to descend on. I’ll ride them for a bit until I feel ready to start doing group rides where the speed will matter. For training rides I’ll take comfort over speed any day and twice on Sunday.

[Warning: way too many photos] It's what I call "lowrider season", so hit the ever growing show in downtown San Jose yesterday (alway's good light when not behind skyscraper and tree shadows). For those going to be in San Francisco next weekend there's one there. As opposed to the photos above, went all color. The graffiti shots are with the ever reliable combo of Canon 6D Classic and Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake. The main show's are with the Leica SL2 and very unpancake 16 elements, 3lbs Zeiss Otus 28mm f/1.4. And when you have a fast wide angle everything is a nail.

As it turns out, Moondrop are finally releasing the MoonZero soon: https://www.hifihub.com.br/en/product-launches/moondrop-moonzero-445-electrostatic-headphone-takes-on-the-stax-sr-x1 This image courtesy of Fujiya Avic: Looks cool and if they can bring them in for under 500$... that is mighty tempting.

Whatever you did to post like that, don’t do it again.

With all the Coltrane at 100 celebrations going on Atlantic has remastered a six CD mono (1960-1964) album set (earlier versions also on streaming) . So Olé currently. Full (non-mono aka stereo ;) version) or if you want a highlights 100 station (from a new separate LP set)

DeAgostini Blue Note #2 Herbie & #3 Sonny Ex.

'Murica Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Starting off gently with what the Australians would call "a sausage sizzle" Spousal approval achievement unlocked.

The Juiciest Homemade Birria Queso Tacos | Chef Joshua We...I may struggle to pronounce it correctly, but this is an easy winner as one of the juiciest tacos you will ever have in your life.This is essentially the recipe that I used. Notable differences, I used 4 Roma tomatoes instead of tomato paste. I generally don't like tomato paste. I added a tsp of cumin, coriander, and oregano and I did a slightly different, but essentially the same, mix of Mexican peppers. Finally, I did a mix of queso fresco, manchego, and standard mexican shredded cheese that seemed to pair very well with the whole thing.

Today is a Led Zeppelin kind of day. Was: Houses of the Holy deluxe edition In through the Out Door deluxe edition Is: Presence deluxe edition Will be: Physical Graffiti deluxe edition Also Seefeel's Sol.Hz earlier, because I'm still me

Carole suffered more angst than me when our kids went to college; Rob to Warwick and Liz to Essex. But the thing to remember when this happens is "Job done". You bring these little creatures into the world totally helpless, they progressively grow up - then they are adults, and quite rightly fly the nest. Now at 41 (Rob) and 37 (Liz) they both keep in touch regularly, and with each other. By phone and WhatsApp. Rob lives in the NE of England, and Liz is on the Gold Coast in Australia with a permanent residence Visa (so she can apply for citizenship). WhatsApp is a wonderful tool.

The Physics House Band, Horizons/Rapture -- math rock Giraffes? Giraffes!, Pink Magick -- math rock ...after that, back to Rick "plinky plinky" Wakeman Music on TIDALRick Wakeman solo piano albumsPlaylist - Rick Wakeman solo piano albums - 182 items

Charles Mingus - The Clown

Heavy Drops by Adam Ben Ezra (2025) https://open.qobuz.com/album/dnnz2oia5ba1a Example: Jazz that does not shy away from funk.

Paolo Fresu and Omar Sosa’s Food Ex.

Embarrassment of riches and switching on a whim..

New Moon Daughter by Cassandra Wilson (2013) https://open.qobuz.com/album/0060253744592 Example: Finally getting back to this tribute - so pretty... RIP

@TMoney - Try playing with tire pressures a little bit and nice job on the metric. Fueling and hydration are a battle and it's hard to come up with rules because weather plays a big factor. But one thing I started doing 5+ years ago that has helped a bit, drink every 10 minutes. If you can't remember the last drink you took, drink. I got the Allied out for a series of road tests this weekend with the hope that it'll be good to go for the century this coming weekend. Had a minor tragedy yesterday with a failed/ruin crank arm but managed to find some local used parts that'll get me through and the revisit of a shakedown ride this afternoon went off without a hitch.

I approve of this message!

We’ve been many times. In fact, I start one of my usual bike loops from the Hotel Winters parking lot. It is a little hidden gem for sure. Only about a 20 minute drive from where I live.

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.

The transition from Swing to Bebop

Old Bisbee got some more Bali in if interested.

¡Qué Bueno! Those look tasty. I've been meaning to make some goat birria but keep forgetting. Perhaps this week I will get my act together before we leave Michigan

Not on Qobuz... Released September 1969, a good example of the transition period from Psychedelia to what would become heavy metal. Their third and final album.

Patio Breakfast

I have like six AAPL posts in the works, but right now I'm going to focus on this: Someone on island is selling The. Worst. Mac. ever made. A good friend of mine bought one of these when it was new. His was over $3K (jn 2013 dollars) and it was an utter piece of shit. Nevermind the lack of upgrade path an other limitations due to the form factor. He knew all about that going into it. The damn machine hard locked at least once a day. Not when he was working, but if he left it on and came back later, it'd be completely unresponsive. No amount of OS reinstalls, calls to AppleCare, and even having the unit sent in to be serviced ever fixed it. The techs "could not replicate the issue." Conversely, the "cheese grater" G5 tower and Mac Pro he owned on either side of it continue to work to this day. He maintained that the little trash can was the worst Apple product he ever owned. TBH, if the seller was asking ...$150 and not $350, I might buy it just for the lulz. At the price he's asking, I could pick up a used low end Apple Silicon Mini and get far more performance at much less power consumption.

1959, The Year That Changed Jazz

This song has been going through my head recently, for some odd reason.

so you need about 4 times the current just to drive the cable. so say 100ma bias. only the D&G can do this. or a 150+ watt speaker amp and a really large boost transformer. say a pair of transformers from a mc2300.

That is a hell of good story Steve - I'm massively jealous! We saw Emmy Lou in concert around 6 months ago in Birmingham Symphony Hall (UK). She's 79, and made it clear that was the last time she'd tour outside the US - because of her age she finds it difficult now on endless long hauls. She was superb - lost the clear as a bell high notes, but still absolutely awesome. Back in the late 70's and getting seriously into audio, standard albums that showed off the quality (or not!) of a system was Linda Ronstadt albums. And one of my favourite albums even now is Trio - Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmy Lou Harris - released in 1987 (nearly 40 years ago - eek). Like you said the quality of the harmony and the way their voices complemented each other raises goosebumps. They actually spent well over a decade after the TV show you remember, Steve, trying to follow up with an album. But their personal tour commitments got in the way until Trio was finally recorded.

Fresh Air: Celebrating 100 years of jazz great John Coltrane https://www.npr.org/2026/09/01/nx-s1-5951499/celebrating-100-years-of-jazz-great-john-coltrane https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fresh-air/id214089682?i=1000787230888

Home sick so the perfect time to start perhaps my most ridiculous recent CD purchase, the decade old initial DeAgostini Japan Blue Note Best Jazz Collection subscription set (minus the accompanying magazines - my Japanese isn't what it never was). Every other week a new CD was sent with 5-7 tracks introducing an [in this set Blue Note] artist. So we start with the little known American trumpeter Miles Davis. Ex.

No, neither the dealer nor Stax inquired about the amp (a @GeorgeP DIY T2). BTW, I'm in Canada, so a different service network. I can't comment on any of your service concerns.

We did three nice things in London yesterday. Theatre, matinee at the Old Vic. "How the other half loves", a farce by Alan Ayckebourn with a stellar cast including Roger Allam. Absolutely laugh out loud hilarious https://www.oldvictheatre.com/stage/other-half/ Followed by an Indian meal at the famous Cinnamon Club https://cinnamonclub.com/about-us/. Canapes, starters, main course and pudding, two glasses of wine and coffees UK£115 for two. Stunning value for money in London; had to pre-book of course because it fills quickly. If any of you all get to London and like really subtle Indian fine dining - go there. Followed by this https://luminiscence.com/london/ at Westminster Cathedral (Catholic). Narrated (recorded) by Hugh Bonneville and sung live by the renowned Cathedral choir. The cathedral, built in the late 1800's to early 1900's is huge, seating 2000 .

No masterpiece here, just my first roll of film with the AE1p, some examples testing the camera/Gold 200.

I can't believe I'm going to bore you all about Newton. Although English, he wrote Principia and Optiks in Latin. An that is a real problem - translating back into English is a tickly thing, particularly the more fundamental stuff which is to do with what we learn as Newtons laws of motion at school. What is the precise translation of momentum for example? After that the translators have an easier job. Newton derived all his proofs in his long book Principia geometrically, step by step. He finishes off by meticulous measurements of the motion of the planets etc. At one stage he says that a chunk of the measurements was lost, but he can recall the basic idea behind the measurement. By "lost" he actually meant that his dog ate some of the sheets, or knocked a candle over and set fire to some sheets. Accounts vary. As professor at Cambridge University, his lecture course was so unpopular that no students attended. But part of his job was to give lectures. So he'd turn up and give the lecture to an empty theatre. In later life he spent most of his time studying alchemy. I'll shut up now

Finished building CFA3 Ver1.21 recently.But offset reading seems off ,about 0.8V relative to gnd and 0.2V after solving oscillating issue ,VO+ to VO- also high as 0.2V and bias went huge bump when switching ss to zf with oscillation on scope.I was quickly solving the problem by pulling 600pf,20pf caps form the mentions in this thread. After some wild goose chase then I noticed a slight difference between schematic and board silkscreen.R211,R222,161,R262 value at current mirror is 680ohms but showing 300ohm on PCB. now I have about 40mV offset w/o servo at each side with 680ohm resistor,haven't done any further test but I think I can have a good sleep tonight Scrolling through the thread and it seems nobody mentioned .Not sure if that's a issue but just a heads up