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My nephew is doing a space walk (his first, the woman he's doing it with is on her fourth)! Live link, think it will be saved as well: Trying to watch while at work, very cool stuff!

Yumi was out of town for 8 days last week. I guess the cats were so lonely they started bonding (they are from the same litter - 2018). This never happens!

Saturday was Pie Day so we had previously agreed to celebrate this week. So tonight I made but did not bake Taco Pie and also made the crust (and did bake) for a Chocolate Chess Pie.

Even this guy gets the role.

Rode 20 miles with a fair amount of climbing in the heat today and felt like I had done something. But then I watched the 150th Milano - Torino race that was a bit longer with more climbing. Oh well. HBO Max and Peacock have way more cycling during the classics season than was available here before and I watch lots of it.

Sweet Italian sausage and leek Detroit pizza

Finished this morning, devoured at work.

Calling him a cunt is too kind. RIP Bob Mueller

Funny you should mention that. We finally did the surrender of the vehicle and got our check -- even though the "transfer agent" didn't have the check at first. Apparently it was sent before our prior appointment date and the agent went and found it after completely pissing me off telling us there was no check in her paperwork. Anyway, thanks for all the good wishes everyone!

A few roadside graffiti snaps from two mostly grey days on a recent trip to Monument Valley and Route 66, that aren’t at Monument Valley or on Route 66. Colors are from the SL2 (CV 50mm f/1 Nokton) and monochrome the M9M (LLL 28 f/2.8 9E). Final two are with the Sigma BF (24mm f/2 Contemporary). I need more road trips in my life.

Mexican night in NH. Enchiladas Verdes Cilantro-Lime Rice

I had a leftover crust, so tonight I decided to make spinach-bacon quiche so I'd have something good for breakfast.

Happy Birthday Al!, Last year's prompts, this years images, plus a bonus image incorporating your recent car troubles!

Shepherd's Pie...sort of -- used ground turkey instead of lamb and beef culinary stock, but otherwise...NAILED IT! It came out delicious. Didn't overwhelm with any one particular spice (I'm looking at you, the usual suspects garlic and black pepper), but it was sweet and savory and the carrots came out perfectly al dente...just...(chef's kiss)... Yes, I realize I'm kissing myself.

When I've had time recently I've assembled a few more DIY electrostatic headphones: First off, the last of the Superex chassis I had in stock so I designed a new stator design for them: This has been a long running project to to make drivers and test the various aspects in a controlled housing. They are not ideal as they are mostly closed but I got a bunch of them for next to nothing years ago. New stators with some minor tweaks and a protective grill too: These are not really built for sound quality but to test different coatings, distortion tests on drivers and all that jive but still fun to have a pile of these here. Since the Superex is just a Beyerdynamic clone, I found some DT880's with blown drivers that could also work: The need to be modified internally a bit to open up the back but nothing major. Different stators on this one and the drivers have to be at a 45° angle to get it all to fit (not that it matters at all) but same basic idea as above Round them off with some nice leather pads, silicone 6 core cable and my new Stax plugs that I've been refining recently. These do sound better than the Superex shell as the backwave is more open. Finally, the second of those Kiwi Ears headphones was fitted with drivers: No major changes here except I didn't use the bayonet plate to fix the earpads, I rather slipped the stock pads over the lip of the housing which helped a lot Also some simple tweaks to ensure better baffle seal: Thick cloth tape here and it works nicely. These are okey sounding headphones for next to no money at all.

Previously: One day lad, all this will be yours. What, the curtains?

Love Yellowbird but prefer the habanero.

Outstanding Baja Fish Tacos 🐠 🌮 🌮 At http://www.mayanbeachclub.com/

Lunch meatloaf

There's a persistent internet rumor that Benjamin Netanyahu died on March 9th (Biggie Smalls is not happy to share the date.) The theory is that Bibi was killed or injured in an Iranian air strike. Supposedly he's missed some key cabinet meetings. Also, there's a (in my jaded opinion, extremely flimsy) theory that one of Bibi's kids was observing Shiva ...by not posting on social media for seven days. The Israeli government has released three videos of Bibi since then, and all have been "debunked" on the internet as AI generated, enhanced, manipulated, etc. In the first video, Bibi appears to have six fingers on one hand for a moment. In the second, he's in a coffee shop. In that one he actually counts to five in Hebrew on each of his hands and takes a sip of some mocha latte whatever. There are a lot of theories about the coffee video: The cafe in question is not currently open because of the attacks on Tel Aviv. The original footage was shot in 2024 (some say 2020) for a different propaganda effort. The third video is him and the huckster himself Ambassador Mike Huckabee. It's clearly a scripted bit, where ol' Huck meets Bibi in a hallway, they have a stilted and awkward conversation about Israel's assassination list, shake hands and talk about the number of fingers they have. There are a number of weird digital artifacts in the video, but it all seems pretty real to me. An AI generated video wouldn't seem stiff and forced in the same way (it'd be unreal in a completely different one.) I did go on a bit of a deep drive, which even lead me to Xitter for a bit. Wading through the legion of Nazi posts, I found some pretty funny remixes. (There may not embed correctly.) https://fxtwitter.com/abdulhyefahad/status/2034006657722982435 https://fxtwitter.com/drvijaysrinivas/status/2033988906576974124 https://fxtwitter.com/JaiNDoC_RL/status/2034032032813040007

I’ve just finished an updated version of my CFA3smd something. Main difference is dual OPA445 bias servo with optocoupler as Kevin suggested previously in this thread.. Diagram of bias behavior from cold and the first 3 minutes. With optocoupler there is an overshoot before stabilizing at desired 150 mA. Removing optocoupler gives a nice take-of and climb to 150 mA. The diagram also shows the old single OPA445 servo with no optocoupler. It takes some more seconds before start climbing compared to dual OPA445 and a small overshoot before stabilizing.

The Remains of a Handmade Utopia In the wooded enclaves of Northern California, Michael Schmelling documents what’s left of the 1960s back-to-the-land movement. https://aperture.org/editorial/the-remains-of-a-handmade-utopia/

Dang! I would at least do the gallon jug thing and then cross my fingers and hope for the best. I had considered the DIY route as well but Tobasco and Franks Red Hot are good enough for me from the store. Plus my kids always buy me hot sauce samplers so I'm always trying something new. Here's something to try 10-15 arbol, 5 guajillo, and 1 ancho peppers - all dried (you can re hydrate or simmer for longer) 2 garlic cloves 1/2 tsps of cumin, pepper, oregano 1 Tbsp of salt - (Salt and vinegar are key to a Tapatio clone) 3/4 - 1 cup vinegar Water to balance the solution so it barely covers the ingredients. However, you should have much more vinegar than water. Simmer for a LONG time. 15-30 mins. Blend and run through a mesh to pick up any dried bits of pepper.

^Got a nice thermos bottle with NASA gravity fed flow technology engraved with the logo of my local bike shop / brew pub. 👍🏻

I’m starting to get sucked in to watching the professional races. Yes, they are on in the middle of the night, but the replays work just fine. The strategy is interesting and the knucklehead-ism (as Chris Horner would say) is amusing. The racing is quite a bit more exciting than the early F1 season. Milan-Sanremo should be fun this weekend.

In other news from China, here we have the fake SR-X1: I've known about these for a while and I finally bought a set as they are so cheap... and very, very rough. They didn't arrive with any earpads but the knockoff leather X1 pads you can find in Asia do work nicely. They are clearly not a 1:1 clone and that headband is something really special in terms of being pure and utter garboleum but it was stupid cheap to add it to them. Housing is 3D printed and quite badly done but look at that cable... to make the 3D print soft and pliable it looks like an absolute mess. Same on this end but the actual plug is nice quality. Nothing wrong with those pins and the spacing seems just fine. Better look at the actual cable used, it is pretty stiff and unwieldy but at least it is 6 parallel cores so the capacitance shouldn't be too bad. It's too short though at 1.5M or so and who knows what the voltage rating is on that thing. I did order a couple of extra ones (and some extra housings too) so I'll zap it with some high voltage and see how it holds up. Anything that can't withstand 1kV AC over an extended time isn't really suitable for this role. Better shot if the actual plug, nothing wrong with those pins and it even has the cutout relief for the bias pin which I always skip on my own plugs. The driver face and the electrodes are etched aluminum or stainless steel. Not sure which as I haven't taken them apart yet. This headband was clearly an afterthought and that metal bends if you look at the wrong way but it does function... kinda. Here we can see the assembly "quality"... or very much lack there of. The housing does not fit correctly together and you might ask... why was this printed in white and the painted? Well I paid extra for the paint... but whey when there are excellent black filaments. Dunno and why not resin print this? Done right and that is superior to injection molding. More of this ace paintjob and the headphones falling apart but nice gold pins there as well. As for how they sound... well sound is produced but something is very wrong inside those drivers. They are far more inefficient than a stock unit and there is audible distortion... quite a bit of it actually. It gets worse and worse as you push the volume to normal levels for me so I'll have to take them apart and see if the drivers are misaligned. They are balanced between the channels though and at low level listening... these are not the worst ever. Now all of this is pretty terrible but clearly a work in progress and not done by some estat fanatics as one would suspect. The drivers don't really work (well they do produce some sound) and the quality is downright atrocious but funny enough, that crap cable does have strain reliefs on both ends which the aftermarket Stax cables do not have. Needless to say, best to stay away from crap too...

Molcajete "Zapata"

(moved from beverage thread) Grace Under Pressure (Super Deluxe) by Rush (1984) https://open.qobuz.com/album/fpz7sd7tvobor Example: Okay, I know that I have shit on Deluxe, Super Deluxe, Ultimate Editions in the past. And I have to say I was worried about this release. But how could Rush disappoint me? Well they didn't... No demos, no Alt takes, no unreleased tracks. Just a new remaster of the Album, followed by a new Mix of the Album (Terry Brown). And then for fun the entire live show from September 21, 1984. That is how you do a deluxe album my friends... Thanks as always Rush... 🙏🤘

Apple announced their new Airpods Max 2 today (lossless audio over USB-C cable, improved noise cancellation and Live Translation): https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-airpods-max-2-powered-by-h2/

The Hatch Yellowbird is also really solid. I think it’s limited edition though.

Last of the party hand rolled from my friend. lit with my Laphroaig matches I picked up in Scotland in 2000. Processed some logs into smaller bits and burning them. Taking advantage of a rare non-snow non-rain day.

So I know these eateries started opening about 11 years ago, but I finally had dinner with a couple friends at The Rooftop Restaurant at RH (Palo Alto). Apologies for the lousy steak frites photo, but I'm not sure people really come here for the food. First time also having the 2022 Migration Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, which was nice waiting for our table, though any traditional restaurant glass to outside bottle price ratio went out the window. Anyway, out of all the I'm-old-enough-to-have-seen experiences, Restoration Hardware's path of quirky & interesting, original store and concept in Eureka, CA (see photography thread for related news), where I saved a confused bird and Melissa offered to "get them on the internet", to rebranding to RH, to multiple celebrity CEOs, to these weird restaurants, to chartering jets and yachts is a very, very strange one. Kind of progress. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah that looks good. IMHO, too much vinegar is the key. I suggest modeling in LTSpice

Which president would you respect more? What a fucking cunt. The second one, to be clear. Note: Brent's image won't load for me, so this may be partly repetitive.

Unexpected sunset serenade on the ferry ride back.

No no, really guys, I have friends, for realsies, and... and we like hang out all the time.... ...you don't even know...

I have no idea how she did not get flour all over her black top, so I just watched this very carefully 13 times in a row, to see if I could spot the trick: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qN4a6kCI_t8 ...oh well, on to number 14...

I saw Maybe my demographic is different.

Nvidia released some DLSS5 teaser images and are getting absolutely roasted. The Akakichi no Eleven meme, which I still don't fully understand. My personal favorite, Gen XLSS5.

John Tavener's Not Staying Alive Academy of Ancient Music, Paul Goodwin

Kick Out The Jams by MC5 (1969) https://open.qobuz.com/album/0603497885787 Example: A little morning MC5!!

Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Bande originale du film) by Yann Tiersen (2001) https://open.qobuz.com/album/zliipnmsqpfhb Example: Been discovering some more of Tiersen's work - so I might as well listen to some of the best.

It's amazing how different weathers can be. We are just starting a heat wave with temps in the low to mid 90Fs. It supposed to last at least a week.

Martin Stutzer is doing a live broadcast. Neptune the kitty is having a nap.

Give Detroit a shot, Mikey. https://www.seriouseats.com/detroit-style-pizza-recipe

One of those songs that sneaks up on you gradually. Robert Quine (Voidoids, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Tom Waits) on guitar.

If Stayin' Alive Had Been Written in the 16th Century