Craig Sawyers

One of the places I used to buy timber, run by a really nice guy, has burned to the ground. Apart from the workshop, which contained industrial grade Felder machines https://www.felder-group.com/en-gb/products/planer-thicknessers-planers-thicknessers-c1948 , his fine timber store went too; he used to supply musical instrument makers. The extract system burst into flames while he was working in there. He beat a hasty retreat and watched as it burnt to the ground. You can just about make out the carcase of the Felders and radial arm saw. Fortunately he was insured, and Just Giving raised £14k. https://mactimbers.com/

There are some folks that you know would devour time (AKA a Chronophage) if you met them at a party. "This is really interesting - my 7th bandsaw was..."

That is a good solution! But put an interlock on the door anyway. Costs nothing, and is a belt and braces precaution. My experience is with pulsed IR lasers, which of course you cannot see. Had to be careful to keep fingernails out of the beam, because that particular laser would blow a fingernail off. Frequency doubled into the green it used to attract flies and wasps, which would explode spectacularly. An interesting calculation was that a single pulse from that laser, if divided up evenly and without losses, was enough to cause eye damage to the population of London. It ran at 30 pulses per second.

Anyone using laser engraving with a 20W laser needs to be exceptionally careful. That is 2000 times eye safe, and is a Class IV laser https://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/laserclasses.html . The raw beam will drill a hole in your retina, causing explosive boiling of whatever humor is next to the retina. Assuming that you aren't going to get the raw beam in your eye, scattered light from the focus is also far above eye safe. So - you absolutely need to wear safety goggles. Not Amazon hokey ones - but serious ones from say Thorlabs https://www.thorlabs.com/ , and expect to pay $200. Then interlock the door to prevent anyone in your household inadvertently walking in and getting eye damage. I spent many years working with lasers in this class, and wearing googles was mandatory as was interlocked doors. During laser safety training (also mandatory) an ex-Nam veteran said that nothing in active service remotely compared with the horror of looking at the world through his blood-filled eyeball. Nuff said.

PIP Billy Woodman, founder of ATC loudspeakers. One of the audio greats. Too early at 76 after long ill health. https://atc.audio/

He got his just deserts. She cut him out of her will. https://radaronline.com/p/nichelle-nichols-star-trek-startrek-last-will-testament-exclusive/

RIP Isabella - what a nice doggy. She had a great life from the pics. But it sure is tough to say goodbye to an animal companion. The difficult kind thing to do. And RIP Nichelle Nichols. Alas boldly gone.

Have a great one, Todd!

Happy birthday Antonio! Hope you had a great (and hopefully cooler!) day.

The main feature the foreground galaxy cluster, so massive (with visible and dark matter) that the light from more distant galaxies are gravitationally lensed into curved arcs. If you look deeply into the image you can find faint red dots - primordial galaxies that formed 600 million years after then big bang (so ~13.5 billion years ago) But you are looking at them as the were, 13 billion years ago But of course since then, they have receded further due to expansion of space. Somewhat paradoxically those far distant galaxies are now 32 billion light years distant, as a result of physics I used to remotely understand, but now rely on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe#Measuring_distances_in_expanding_space

My sincere condolences - how awful. As you rightly say, fuck dementia.

Hope you have a great one Birgir! Happy birthday!!

The mind boggles

Couldn't resist it....

That turntable was a real beast. Apart from pneumatic suspension, it had a vacuum hold down for the record (with the pump in another room) and an air bearing linear tracking arm. The ultimate deck IMNSHO.

One of the finest speakers I heard were the Rockport Arrakis, in non-ideal conditions at an audio show. Using a pair of Upsilon power amps. Heaven knows how they got the speakers into the hotel room used for the demo at 900lbs each. At least it was on the ground floor! Like these

A good friend who runs an audio accessories company (one of the good guys - not a snake oiler) visited the Wilson room when David Wilson was still alive and at the helm. After listening for a short while, he said quietly to Wilson "I think one of the midrange drivers is connected with the wrong phase" Wilson went into a major rant, that it was impossible a driver was wired incorrectly - yak yak yak. My mate shrugged his shoulders and went back to his own room. After a while one of the Wilson techs came and apologized for Wilson's rant, and told him that he was absolutely right - the left hand speaker has one of the mids antiphase.

Well, expensive though that Sony device is, it undoubtedly is a thing of beauty.

Stripped pine audio?

We went to see an absolutely hilarious new comedy at Chichester, in the tiny 300 seat Minerva theatre. Called "The Unfriend" https://www.cft.org.uk/whats-on/event/the-unfriend This was directed my Mark Gatiss (Mycroft Holmes in the series Sherlock), and had a cast of 7. Including Amanda Abbington (Dr Watson's assassin wife in Sherlock) and Reese Shearsmith (Inside no 9). It was belly laugh funny.

The infamous Telarc 1812 with cannons that can push even a good cartridge into leaping out of the groove was a digital recording.