Grahame

Contestants pose backstage before a Sarah Palin look-alike stripper contest at a strip club in Las Vegas Picture: REUTERS And just to restore some balance Scott Smith, dressed as Barack Obama, and Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld, dressed as John McCain, jump from a plane over Perris Valley, California Picture: AP

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I mourn the death of evidence based reasoning in hi-fi. When Hi-Fi meant Hi-Fidelity, Highly Faithful - the closest approach to the original sound. When new technology or design approaches improved the measured performance of equipment. Instead, today, Hi-Fi seems to mean High Finance, as marketeers engage in expectation bias as the ultimate placebo, and owners engage in a micturating contest as how much they can spend, in the pursuit of "perceived" improvement. When commoditization of hardware and economies of scale in component production is seen as a bad thing. It is almost as if the democratization of audio quality is seen as a bad thing. After all, how can you feel special, if it is within the reach of everyman.

Happy Birthday Guys!

Held a very enjoyable meet.

Final Bump. Drop-ins are welcome, if you are still undecided, or have a late change of plans. See you there. P.S. Did I mention we have These?

Happy Birthday! I trust our LA brethren will take good care of you.

Sounds good to me.

Folding Table?, extension leads? and if your are coming from Fairfax, maybe some of Scoops finest?

Costco run for the Marin meet ... Bottled Water Diet Cokes Tortilla Strips Pretzel Crisps Organic Salsa Fiesta Style Wholly Guacamole Pico de Gallo and not forgetting I think we are suitably provisioned

Given that I am not a Doctor and I don't even play one on TV feel free to ignore this anecdotal evidence. My previous doctor (before he retired) put me on the same regime that he was taking, which was a combination of statins (pravachol in this case) and "industrial strength" doses of slow release niacin (Niaspan). This approach got the numbers down to the "good" range. Note - not the "normal" range, as the average/normal numbers had an increased 10 year risk probability vs the "good" numbers. When I found a new doctor, she started me off with a cardiac calcium scan which came up clean, so that was reassuring. Good news is that some statins have come off patent and are now generic. Here's to your good health, and good luck should you need it.

Has your health care professional suggested statins?

Whether its pumping rounds downrange, or merely having a nice quiet cuppa, have a great day. Happy Birthday. All Hail Queen Vicki!

I likey Haven't had much time to crank it, but its clean and impressive for such a small package. Seems to drive the 650's OK from the headphone out. I'm particularly impressed by the internal architecture (software DSP crossover feeding separate DACS->digital amps for tweeters + woofers + built in (software) EQ correction curve for physical response of system, to keep it flat for as low as it can go). Clever stuff, and has potential for enhancement down the line. See the white paper, here http://wiki.slimdevices.com/uploads/a/ad/Logitech_Squeezebox_Boom_Audio_Design.pdf for the full gory details. Hopefully Al will be able to give some objective impressions, having a reference system for comparison.

Just another bump,as I notice over 1K views at the other place. Looks like the LA meet should be a great test flight for next years international meet, even bigger and better we hope. I notice that AMB/Ti Kan & co will be at Burning Amp, so plenty of opportunity to get your headphone fix in California this weekend.

Oh dear. McCain oven chips. You had to remind me, didn't you. Now I have to show everyone else. Never mind the micro chips This is what they are up to now. McCain - It's all good With the advent of Sarah Palin, John Cleese no longer considers Michael Palin the funniest Palin.

Dreamcatcher, Captcha Did you see what he just did?

For some people, that was the attraction. Apparently.

Glad to hear you are all right, Al. On a related note, this morning, our office was under the flight path of a(n) S-64 Skycrane engaged in firefighting on, we assume, Angel Island. It made several passes, re-watering, we assume, from the freshwater in Corte Madera creek. The discussion here assumed that they wanted to use freshwater, rather than saltwater from the bay, so as not to disrupt the ecosystem on Angel Island. The skycrane is an impressive beast - ours was #780 in red.

The missing subtext here is that drives fail, and that (inevitable?) failure should be planned for. To do otherwise seems hubristic.

Because there are only two types of hard drives in the world? Those that have failed. Those that haven't failed. Yet.

Cute and Welsh Sound at the concert was pretty good, and she can certainly belt them out, when she wants to. Joanne enjoyed it, and it was a good end to a very pleasant afternoon. If you have Rockferry, you were there, except for the addition of which she informed us is getting UK radio play. see what you think. zSHARE - 01 Rain On Your Parade.mp3