Fitz

A quick look through the DVDs confirms my thoughts, the tropical setting shows up initially in season 2, episode 3 complete with Batou in a hawaiian shirt, and the shot in the picture is from the very end of Solid State Society. Ghost in the Shell is the kind of anime even non-anime fans have seen or heard of, you should check it out. You've seen the Matrix, right? Not the same setting/story or anything, but it had a lot of influence from GitS. Not that I've heard of, at least not in the states. That's probably my most wanted anime on Blu-Ray.

Yes, you are a bad nerd, I mean even my mom has watched both seasons of Ghost in the Shell.

I don't think it's the episode you're talking about, given the lighting, camera angle, and that he seems to be talking to someone. Wasn't there some scene where she had the image curtains set to look like she was actually at some tropical resort, and she and Batou were discussing something or other?

Just got my parts to start assembling this, except the switch. I found another one than in the BOM since it was out of stock, except I didn't look closely at the datasheet and it's a momentary switch. Mouser description says On-On, datasheet correctly says On-(On). Dammit.

And it looks like he's at the Major's place too, hmmmmm...

Wut. Is that some crappy fansub / computer translation or sommat? I know the R1 DVDs don't have that nonsense.

Sweet score! I don't like many IPAs, but I really liked the Dreadnaught that I had during CJ. If I ever get back on top financially I'll definitely want to order some stuff from Archer Liquors.

I don't think I'll be able to fit it into my schedule to attend the meet, sorry.

Better than spending most of your day in a hot, nasty attic, or with your head in the ceiling making trying to make a fishtape follow a very long and creative path.

I doubt I'll be able to afford making another trip this year.

I like it in large doses.

How about buying tools to calibrate your other tools. Then buying more to calibrate the ones you used to calibrate the other ones.

Of course there will be the red vodka, otherwise Danny won't turn into Pete Millet.

obligatory "that's what she said"

I'd be more worried about the beer cost.

I'll give you tree fiddy for it.

Nah Joe only comes out once in a lifetime, remember?

Alright, since I've been asked to, I'll go into the incredibly unimpressive process of fixing the K1000 driver. To start with, I removed the foam disc from the back of the driver, giving me access to both sides of the driver. I was limited to not using any of my metal tools because of the proximity to the magnets (how do they work?), so I took a rounded off plastic rod and used it to slowly and gently push the big dent back out from behind. Then once I could see what I was working with, I used a plastic rod with a flat, tapered end to uncurl and flatten out the parts of the diaphragm that were folded back over on itself. The actual tear caused by the puncture was worse than I had initially thought, but the material was less warped than I expected and only a very tiny piece was actually missing. It essentially ended up with four triangle flaps, with the space between them forming a nice little +, further proving it was a phillips screwdriver that pierced it. Now the material was back in approximately the original position, but all crinkly and sticking up in spots, so I used a variety of curved objects and my fingers to sort of compress the material back into shape. Once I got it as good as I figured I would, and it looked reasonably even under magnification, I decided to move on to sealing the hole. It still had a tendency to pull back in a little and form a dip when any pressure was applied from the front, so I would need something to support it from behind. Blu-tak would work nice to form a rounded support that I could easily adjust in height and curvature, but it would stick to the diaphragm and probably make things worse when I tried to take it off. To solve that I took a thin piece of plastic from a little baggy and stretched it out on a finger so it would fit over the rounded top of the blu-tak without creasing (ok so it's a condom for the blu-tak, happy?). I took a very small dab of run of the mill blue gel glue and applied it to the outer part of the hole, where the end of the tears were. After wiping off 99% of the glue, I ended up with just the little bit that made it between the edges where the diaphragm was torn, and none on the surface of the diaphragm or in the middle of the hole. Now that it was halfway done, I went back and repeated the flattening process again, to further smooth out the tips of the little flaps, since one was still sticking up a bit. There was also a very small pinhole in the middle where the material didn't come all the way back together, which I would have to seal up as well. Using the same blu-tak from before, I supported the diaphragm from behind and used another tiny dab of glue to seal the middle part of the hole. This time I had to also be careful in wiping up excess so it would leave a very thin film across the pinhole, so it would be fully sealed. Once that dried, I checked that the hole was completely sealed and matched the original curve reasonably well, put the foam disc back in, and that was it. Not very exciting, huh?

I still want to run some measurements on it to make sure its working the same as the other driver, regardless of if it sounds perfectly fine. I'll describe the process in more detail later if there's actually any interest in it... it's rather unspectacular compared to the pictures.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Since Steve never noticed any major effect on the sound from this (which actually doesn't surprise me... it's ugly as hell, but probably not big enough to really throw off the sound), I have an idea I want to try that will hopefully get it mostly restored. It won't be perfect, but should be good enough. Still, it wasn't something that was pleasant to see when opening them up. I think I'm more pissed off by this discovery than Steve is; it's one thing to have damage and a sloppy soldering job on a cheap headphone, but it kills me to see this kind of reckless attitude applied to something like the K1000.

A couple weeks ago I managed to sort out all the parts on my workbench by the project they went to. It made it easier to find things, but also made it painfully obvious I start too many things without finishing them. Some literally just need a few more pieces of hardware to put it all together, but I'm flat broke right now and can't even do that much.

Happy Birthday! Have some red vodka to celebrate!