Craig Sawyers

On the plus side, with that rig you don't need a deck lamp

Pie's rants are just perfect! Although they seem off the cuff, every one is very carefully scripted and acted by Tom Walker (who is "Jonathan Pie"). He came up with the idea four years ago, when he realised that the best he could hope for as a trained actor was "Third spear carrier" in a Shakespeare play, with one line if he was lucky.

Happy birthday! Have an awesome day.

Nice second link Grahame. Although I think they have got it wrong in a big way with their business strategy over the last three or four years, they still make absolutely everything in that little company in Steyning. And that is every screw, nut and connector. The only thing that is bought in is the tapered arm tube, which they buy in raw and unfinished state from Chicago White Metal, and then do umpteen finishing steps to at SME. So I doff my cap to their attention to detail at a minute level. But they have positioned themselves increasingly to the financially exceptionally well heeled.

No - they are just a reseller and not anything to do with SME the company. But their supply of arms has dried up. The only ones they can now sell are the ones they have in stock and those in transit. To give an idea how much the price of SME arms has increased, I have a 1984 price list. The classic 3009 S2 with detachable shell was UKP97.33 . The price index change since 1984 is 3.26 so the price today should be UKP 317.10. The modern equivalent (if you could buy it) is the M2-9-R which was UKP2500. So the effective price increase is 7.9 times. In 2011 the SME IV was UKP 1373, in late 2019 that should be UKP 1694. When SME exited selling arms a few days ago it was UKP 3500 - So a factor of two increase in real terms in 8 years. The arms went from something that could be bought by the average Joe, to a high end purchase, and now is priced off the end of the scale as deck/arm packages. Anyway it is their company and they can do what the hell they want. But from where I sit, it looks like business suicide. For instance I know for a fact that the total number of the model 30 decks at UKP30k they have ever sold is 300 - so less than 1 million of turnover in 20 years since it was introduced. SME are not a big company.

Title says it all. As of 3rd December SME announced that they were no longer supplying pickup arms, and now would only provide them integrated with an SME turntable. https://sme.co.uk/2019/12/03/sme-product-announcement/ They instantly removed the entire pickup arm category from their website. Thus ends pretty much to the month 60 years and >1 million arm sales since Alastair Robertson-Aikman sold the first SME pickup arm. Of course, the new owner (Ajay Shirke) and the new MD Stuart McNeilis can do what the hell they want - but it seems to be a major strategic error to withdraw from arm sales. The entry price for the lowest cost SME package will now be the Synergy at UKP15k (including cartridge and phono stage) to the 30/12 at UKP35k (for which you need to add a cartridge and phono stage). So for anyone wishing to partner an SME arm with a Garrard 301 or 401, or any other deck for that matter - well tough shit. Ebay sellers of SME arms will be having a field day - watch the prices soar.

I have the LX521, which was the pinnacle of Siegrfried Linkwitz's (RIP) loudspeaker design prowess. However, someone I know has the LX-mini (shown above, with the optional subwoofer, designated the LX-mini +2), and we did a shootout between the my LX521 and his LX-mini (without sub). The result was remarkably close in terms of ability to give a wholly believable phantom image. The only difference was bass extension, and the various LX-mini versions (with either closed box or open baffle subs) sort that problem out. I have felt no need to upgrade the speakers for the five years I have been listening to them.

Miller succumbed to Alzheimer's apparently. Absolutely no respecter of your former life, fame and personality. RIP Clive James and Jonathon Miller. Also this week the chef, author of cookery books and TV chef Gary Rhodes, aged only 59. It has not been a good week for good guys. RIP all three

I'd forgotten about the retina examination - thanks for reminding me. They put drops in to open the iris wide open. So when you walked away you could focus on absolutely nothing for the best part of an hour, and everything was super bright. Found another one on Amazon - 20W (!!!) at 450nm for UKP122 including the power supply. And this one did not even come with free goggles. Anything more than 500mW is a Class 4 laser - the highest and most hazardous class. So that 20W unit is deep into Class 4. The flash blindness (ie long afterimages even at the 1/4 second blink reflex) distance is >10 miles from this 20W laser. It is extremely irresponsible for Amazon to sell these things at all, let alone for pocket money.

It made me feel a little sick

Also worth noting you can just buy a 5.5W laser module for less than UKP100 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Engraving-Control-Adjustable-Focusable-Engraver/dp/B07VW9YSSQ/ref=sr_1_49?crid=ACLL7JBCVN4C&keywords=diode+laser&qid=1574845348&sprefix=diode+las%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-49 You get a pair of googles thrown in. 'triffic. Back in the day when such lasers occupied a fair sized lab and cost a fortune, we were required to attend a laser safety course before we were let loose. That was sufficiently long ago that you could show live monkeys being subjected to laser light into their eyes. At least it pushed home the point that a high power laser was not something to be treated lightly. There was also a guy who said "I served in Vietnam. And nothing prepared me for viewing the world through my blood filled eyeball" We wore goggles every day. Fully sealed around the eye. They were hot and inconvenient - but so is a hole in the retina. And 5W is sufficient to boil whatever humour is closest to the retina before you can blink. The doors were all interlocked, with a light on outside. If the door was opened, the laser power supply shut down, and a shutter closed as a fail safe. Now you can buy such a laser for pocket money and hold it in your hand. So there is a complete decouple between the physical thing, and what it can do.

There was a guy on another list I'm on who was asking how to wire up a high power diode laser he'd bought with the intention of making a laser machining unit. Of course these diodes can be bought by any tom fool cheaply from Amazon etc. I pointed out to him that he could cheerfully drill a hole in his retina, or anyone who inadvertently walked in. Even scattered light when in use was way above eye-safe That he needed laser safety goggles with the correct specifications for the laser, door interlocks, a red warning light outside, blacked out windows. All usual precautions if you are going to frig around with multi-watt lasers. Particularly as he was totally unaware that these small diode lasers produce enough power to cause real damage. At that point he went very quiet. It surprises me not at all that a commercial unit that has all the necessary laser safety features is $6k, Nate. Superb results from it, by the way!

Bloodhound LSR completes its program for this year with a 628mph run. So back to base to fit the rockets for 800mph+

Next time my better half moans about my collection of classic era test equipment, I'm gonna show here this https://www.cbsnews.com/news/worlds-largest-collection-fighter-jets-france-wine-country-michel-pont/ A collection of 110 fighter jets.

Needs some carpets and soft furnishings. Just sayin.

Nonsense. It is all just part of the increasing delusion and decent into madness of Jack Torrance. Anyway, whenever Torrance sees these delusional things he is looking at a mirror or something reflective. All part of Kubrick's plot devices.

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a1oEy3G_460sv.mp4

California and Western Australia and in long term drought and burn, and here in Britain there are major floods in the midlands (a whole month's rain in 24 hours, in a county that is no stranger to rain)

Jeeze. That is a shit load of bad luck with work on your house Knucks. Bricks and mortar is a real money pit though. We've just had our roof de-mossed. I could hardly lift a sack of the stuff - and there were 20-30 sacks came off. There was a lot of moss! Took two guys two days to do it - manually scraping it off each roof tile.

He opened with Gandalf - with the section with the Balrog "Fly, you fools!". Then he hauled Glamdring out of a massive box on the stage - and the pointy hat - he was given both at the end of the shooting. He then got a young person from the audience up on stage to draw the sword, and signed a program for her. No Magneto though.... He did make a comment about Dumbledore though. Apparently Michael Gambon (who played Dumbledore) was frequently mistaken for McKellen, and asked for an autograph - so he didn't disappoint the fan and signed it "Ian McKellen". We're lucky enough to have seen him on stage quite a few times, most recently (2017) in King Lear in the 250 seat Minerva theatre in Chichester. Also Richard III in Bradford (1991), Waiting for Godot (in London with Patrick Stewart, 2009), No Man's Land (in London with Patrick Stewart, 2016), and a Godfather type of play translated from the Spanish called The Syndicate, again in the tiny Chichester Minerva (2011). He flew back from New Zealand during a break in shooting Gandalf in The Hobbit to do that. We've also seen Stewart, again in the tiny Chichester Minerva. The best Macbeth (2007) I've ever seen by a mile, that then went to the West End, then to Broadway, and then was made into a movie. And a not so good Twelfth Night as Malvolio (2007). In fairness he was miscast as Malvolio. And in a rather weird play called Bingo that Stewart is obsessed with (2012), about the late life, and death of Shakespeare, and the family squabbles around his death bed about the will. This is an outtake from the superb Macbeth movie. Follows the stage play perfectly, including the goods lift you can see in the background that Banquo's ghost uses to arrive. Get the DVD. If you like Shakespeare you won't be disappointed.

This was actually Saturday night, but we went to see Ian McKellen in London, who is doing his 80th birthday tour. A mixture of personal recollections from his life, and chunks of Shakespeare and poetry. Awesome. He did not even take a rest in the interval - he just got off the stage and mooched around the audience. Then climbed back onto the stage for the second part. A total of three hours of total awesomeness. https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/ian-mckellen-on-stage

Yeah - they are going to do some further runs to "probe the trans-sonic region", whatever that means. After which I guess it is back the the UK to start fitting the rockets and all the gubbins that is necessary to hold the propellents and pump them into the nozzles. They have not said so, but they must have mass dummies in the car for these runs to mimic the weight distribution of the rocket stuff. The design spec is once lit they should take Bloodhound from 500 to 1000mph in 17 seconds. We are not the only show in town in the quest for 1000mph. The Aussies have an entirely rocket propelled car using concentrated nitric acid and keronsene, called Aussie Invader SR which is specced to go from rest to 1000mph in 20 seconds. And another in NZ. And another possibly from the West Coast of the US. But there is no evidence that any other of these vehicles has entered the testing phase.

I had one of those CD players back in the day - it was a thing of beauty inside. That pic brings back memories of the superb construction standard. It was not lightweight!