dsavitsk

Best thing I've learned is to farm out casework to professionals whenever I can It is broken pretty flush to the case. But, there is a little wiggle, and the tap tip is fluted, so I may be able to stick some thin metal bits down these channels and turn it just enough to expose enough to grab with some small pliers. Maybe some vibration would cause it to extract itself? I could put it on a UPS truck for an afternoon.

Unfortunately, I don't know any Romulans, Klingons, or Cardassians from whom to borrow a disruptor. I do have the sense this is a lost cause as it is pretty tiny, and as you say, quite brittle. Note to self, tap cases before having them machined, rather than after And, replace taps when they seem like they might be worn rather than trying to eek out one more case.

Maybe keeping such things in one place will prove helpful? Maybe not. Anyway, to get the ball rolling, does anyone have a technique for removing a snapped off 4-40 tap from extruded aluminum side rails? Maybe the sort of kit one uses for removing stripped screws would work, but there is no head, essentially. Any other thoughts?

That's Emiliana Torrini. Also see Keren Ann, which is great. Also maybe Anja Garbarek, though that's getting far afield from the original request -- sort of a Bjork-lite. And, while we're at it, it is hard to go wrong with Emmylou Harris. Roses in the Snow is probably the definitive record.

That's a good record. Aw C'mon is good, too. And, if you like Lambchop, you'll love Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, which is similar but more rootsy. Everyone I know who like one (which is everyone I know) likes the other, too. Papa M is another similar artist to those two.

I think Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (Will Oldham) would fit with you taste. Sort of folk/country/punk, generally really relaxed. There are a lot of albums. "The Letting Go" and "Lie Down in the Light" are both pretty great. Master and Everyone is a little older, and also really great. "Sings Greatest Palace Music" is a bunch of his stuff, rerecorded by him with a traditional Nashville sound, and as someone who hates Nashville, I think this is one of my favorites, but maybe not the best initial introduction. M&E might be the best first listen. The Wonder Show of the World has also been in my playlist recently. He wrote the song I See a Darkness that Johnny Cash covered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h04I5MtuOMw&feature=related

I just pasted the url ...

From the transcripts from California's Prop 8 trial (via Andrew Sullivan)

This thread is better if you don't know what an MBA is, and assume it has something to do with business school. I'd get a Thinkpad X1.

Can you put the bracket on the top of the socket and tap the hole in the chassis? You'd have to mount the socket first before connecting it to the PCB.

Happy Birthday!

As I say, I'm surprised that this is so difficult. Spideroak really does everything I want, it just doesn't always do it all that well. And, the panic of finding that papers have disappeared, or reverted to an earlier state before I started editing leaving a big mess to clean up is pretty frustrating. The upside is that when it deletes something, it is just moved to a deleted folder. The downside is that each computer has it's own deleted folder, so it is not always easy to find what I am looking for. But, I may be stuck with it until something better comes along.

In this day and age, this should not be that hard. I am looking for some decent backup software. Here's how I'd like it to work. 1. I want real time backup -- I don't want to have to run it every night, or press a backup button. I want for the software to detect when I have changed a file, and back it up. 2. I want it to keep all version of the files it backs up. 3. I want the backup to be in the cloud -- I don't want to have to maintain a backup server, and I don't want to backup locally. 4. I want the software to sync several computers. I use about 5 different computers, and I want for a change on one to be replicated to the others. I have been using a piece of software called SpiderOak which, in theory, does all of this. But, S.O. has three major failings. One, the interface is awful. Two, the sync feature is a little spotty, and there is no button to force a sync (see point 1) and the only way I have found to do so is to reboot the computer (stopping and starting the software does not do it). Those failings would be, perhaps, forgivable, were it not for problem 3 which is that it sometimes randomly deletes files. And, it does this quietly, behind the scenes, so it is sometimes weeks before I notice something missing and have to go digging through the archives to find it. I am sure there are things I have not happened upon that are missing somewhere. Does anyone have a good suggestion for backup? This is Windows only for now.

http://www.dullmensclub.com/

Well, I have older eyes, an older back, and surely much less dextrous fingers than you.

I love the HF2's -- I've yet to hear a headphone I want to listen to more. If I wanted a sound stage, I'd listen to speakers.

I had a netbook for a while and found it to be totally useless. Underpowered, even for listening to music, and too small to work on. I replaced it with a used Thinkpad X61. It has a full sized keyboard, a big enough (4x3!) screen to actually get something done, and turns out to be a much more powerful machine. It also runs XP, which is a bonus from where I sit. I also get ~8 hours of battery life. And, it is barely bigger than a netbook. And, the difference in build quality between a thinkpad and a cheapo netbook is huge. Cost me $275 on ebay, and came with a docking station, so no need to pick up an external drive. Truly the best $275 I have spent on hardware, and my favorite computer I have owned. There is also a tablet version, though I am not sure how well that part would work. Not a bad price, though I'd still take the X61, even at the same price

I can't answer most of this, but I can make some huge over generalizations about tubes in DACs. And, that is, while I like tubes, and consider them to generally be the best active way to produce voltage gain, there isn't much place for them in most DACs outside of marketing, at least those using current out chips. The reason is that a current out DAC chip works best into a low impedance. That means either an opamp or the source/emitter/cathode of an active device. The input impedance for one of these devices is ~1/Gm. With a BJT or a FET, this is easily under an ohm. However, even a super duper high Gm tube, like a 7788, is still orders of magnitude higher. And, those are rare and unlikely to be seen in a commercial device. The highest Gm tube you are likely to see in commercial gear is a 6922, and it has an input Z around 80 ohms which is too high. Moreover, most higher end DAC chips run a pretty high current out, so you'd need to really push a tube like the 6922 to carry that sort of current. Secondly, there is also often a buffer stage, but again, sand devices just work better here. A cathode follower really offers no benefit over a source/emitter follower sound wise and has worse drive ability. And, it costs a lot more to make. And it is likely noisier. There are other topologies, obviously, so maybe there is some really novel circuit going on here to make tubes make sense, but it would be news to me. The place where tubes can work well in a DAC is with a voltage out chip (Wolfson for instance) where you want some voltage gain, but I don't imagine that this is the case with either of these.

Cool, thanks.

My Google ability has failed me -- I am looking for a TRRS to TRS adapter that has a built in mic (perhaps that can clip onto the cord of headphones) so I can use my regular phones to talk via Google Voice. If that is not clear, I imagine it would look like a TRRS male to TRS female jack, with a cord coming out the side with a mic on the end. Does such a thing exist?

I wrote a prototype of something that did most of this a few years ago using Apache/mod_python. As I recall, a basic version that "worked" took me a couple of days to do. There were still issues, and it could be broken if you were malicious, but it would work OK if taken care of. Anyhow, the point is, you can probably roll your own if the requirements are not that steep -- it is a pretty simple application. Otherwise, I'd go with Google.