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Have heard good things about it and it was on my list; guess I'll bump it up.

Funny, I just came here to post what I listened to yesterday. The sound quality is pristine. I've always been a fan of HDCD, especiallly in Reference Recording's hands. YMMV, but I very much enjoy the performance as well. I've had this disc for years.

Copland: Our Town Suite, The Red Pony Suite & El Salón México by Aaron Copland (1988) https://album.link/kjqzqbb7js4mt Example: Finally getting back to finish off the trio of CBS Masterworks: Copland v Copland... Like the others, just lovely, maybe not the most audiophile of the recordings out there, but super lush and the performance is unquestionably good. I may poke around a little bit more for other recordings, I have a few others in my queue (Bernstein, MTT, Marriner), but I feel that in the future, I will probably just come back to these.

ew... {begin rant} Well you were right. I didn't have the stomach to watch past a few minutes. As soon as I heard 'Physics Establishment' I knew that it was Crackpot time and I was done. I am sorry I gave it that much time, they probably got credit for a view. I at least was able to give it a thumbs down. There are several vids by Angela Collier about Crackpots - and they are scary people that are mad.... I like Sean Carroll - I read his pop physics books back in the day: From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime I would rather read papers than books aimed for public consumption now. But Sean is a well respected in the industry with over a hundred published research papers. He falls in the camp of Brian Greene for me as a science educator. In some ways I hate that he did this. It raises the status of 'people that yell' that their theory is worthy of debate. {end rant} Back to working on my theory of everything that they cannot handle....

Glad you posted that Jimmy. I've read all of the Dept Q novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen, which are set in Denmark, but it seems they kept the characters and themes the same. Gonna check it out.

Dept. Q (Netflix) - An Edinburgh-based detective involved in a shooting gets re-assigned to a newly-formed cold-case department. A crazy set of twists & turns connects all the dots. We liked it alot. Hopefully there will be an S2.

a friend of mine is planing to build a similar amp but cannot find the pcb files for the pcb in center can you please link those?

Slava Ukraini

If I wasn't certain that I haven't been drunk since I was 16, I'd swear I was shit-faced in that second picture. I've come to terms with having a bald spot, but Foster Brooks has to go!

Steve wanted a couple to action shots.

Shostakovich: The Piano Concertos; Solo Works by Yuja Wang (2025) https://album.link/cw0v6b3mzztxf Example: Up to all the standards that one would expect.

This video is probably exceeds the time and interest of anyone here. I've had it on while working on photos. I have mixed feelings about it. Piers Morgan is an insufferable, pompous jackass and physical evidence that the denizens of my fine state didn't toss quite enough things into the Boston Harbor back in the day. I don't know much about Sean Carroll. Eric is the, uh, less crackpot of the two Weinstein brothers. This is damnation with the faintest of praise. There was a time, maybe 15 years ago where I heard him speak on learning disabilities and thought he was seriously smart. It could be he was, in that moment and on that subject. It's also just as likely that I fell for a grifter. It wouldn't be the first time. In any case, Eric stages a Chernobylesque meltdown here because the "serious" physics community doesn't regard his crackpot theories in the, ahem, gravity he'd like. Sean Carroll is a polite academic type and responds to the full state of Eric's emotional diaper as best he can. Piers, whose job it is to have as much drama as possible on his show, barely manages to contain his smirk while thinking "this is going to get SO many views" to himself. The temper tantrum starts around the 20 minute mark.

Are we alive, Walnut Creek? Part Deux, it's 4/4 time with Neon Velvet. I can neither confirm nor deny if there was any getting on down. The Band were down with post gig selfies. And a Chauffeur driven ride, to and from the venue. This is Walnut Creek, after all.

A year later seems just as strange.

Make some noise, Walnut Creek! Walnut Creek Art and Wine Festival part 1 with Pride and Joy (SF). We managed to set up on a slope, with a view overlooking the east stage, shade, and the odd waft of Jazz Cigarettes. The crowd are on their feet, getting on down. Interesting view the other way.

Brit picnic At Sugar Loaf Open Space (Picnic Area, that we had to ourselves) Not too Shabby Dessert? Yes, but of course!

2007 doesn't seem almost 20 years away. 🫣

Al and I are building a bathroom vanity, and a closet door for his Sister in law, and her wife. We've built many things for them in the past, including a full kitchen remodel. This vanity will be a modern, White Oak, 60" unit. Center mounted single sink, and three drawers on each side. If you've ever had to squeeze into a 14" opening to install drawer glides, you will have learned to measure and install them prior to assembling the cabinet. So that's just what we did today. Not too much head scratching, before figuring out the correct placements. Those are the interior dividers. The side pieces were done before these.

Sonny Meets Hawk! by Sonny Rollins (1963) https://album.link/s94wfwvvrgh6z Example: Sonny, Hawk. Hawk, Sonny. Nice to meet you. Good colab. They play with themes and sounds back and forth the entire album. With some experimental things going on as well.

As others have reported, a bit of a heat wave here yesterday. What better time to stand in the sun and eat funnel cakes at a county fair (elephant ears were sadly out of stock - damn you West Coast)? In a sign of the times, about half the animals on display as normal due to the bird flu. As a stabilizing influence, every band still knowns Tom Petty. if you’re curious about the disadvantages of using an old lens without modern coatings…

I'm not sure this was ever mentioned (search comes up empty) and it kind of came and went without substantial buzz outside the LGBTQ+ community, but Gentleman Jack (Max),from way back in Covid Daze, is worth a watch. Props for not always going the pleasing route. Criticism for occasionally going the ridiculous direction.

In 1996, a then 19 year old woman founded "Haven" a goth night hosted at Club Metro in Northampton MA. I was there in the first year. I still have a flyer from a 1997 event ...somewhere. Club Metro became Diva's at some point, and was the biggest gay nightclub in the area. Space-wise it was the biggest nightclub period. In 2006, Haven celebrated their 10th anniversary and it was insane. I have alluded to the fact that I have taken a fair amount of shit for the nightclub photos I took in the mid 00s. This got stuck in my craw and I (as I am wont to due) overrated a bit. There's a lot to unpack here and most of it is, to be frank, fucking irrelevant. The bottom line is that a lot of freaky shit happened at goth night, I gleefully took photos of it and posted them online. I got rather puritanical reactions from a number of people in the local nightclub scene, earning me a reputation as some kind of leering pervert. In the fall of 2007, I made ~1500 photos private because I was tired of hearing about it. As I have said before my edits to many of the photos I took were crap, primarily because I thought it was a good idea to crop in super close, with zero regard to aspect ratio and framing. Bad editing definitely made the situation worse. Now with nearly two decades of reflection, I've concluded that yes many of the photos were without merit, the reaction against them was primarily from assholes, and I am remarkably bad at not taking things personally. With that said, here's Haven's 10th anniversary. There will be some titty. When I get to a later photo set from Haven, there will be a lot of titty. You have been warned. Diva's had remarkably crap lighting. They had a bunch of flat mirror scanners set to "synchronized spaz" and two 1000W strobes that went off irregularly. The combination made for the worst imaginable source for available light photography. This shot is 1 second with the camera placed on a railing. I should add that all of these photos are ISO50, because at this point I didn't know how to adjust the ISO setting on my PowerShot(!) See the woman in the far left? In '06 I cropped the image to just be here ...resulting in something that would barely be a thumbnail today. She's still the subject of the image, now she just has some context. This is The Enigma. He's a heavily body modified performer. He's actually quite a showman. The goths ate up his schtick. He hammered a nail up one of his nostrils. He ran a drill up the other one. He blasted himself in the face with an angle grinder. He pumped a bottle of what he said was Windex up his nose. People went back to dancing. This guy is not the founder of Haven, but he was the main DJ for many years. He's like 6'5 and rail thin. I used to call him "The Alpha Goth." I know him a bit. He's dedicated to his craft, but we have some ...philosophical and creative differences. The two main people behind Haven. They had a falling out as some point. This photo is absolutely terrible from a technical perspective, but documents the moment in time. I did say there would be titty. 1/8 second handheld. 2 second exposure of discarded Champagne glasses. I really like these two shots. My friend Felicia has been a belly dancer for decades. She did a performance. None of these shots are very good, but they do capture he abilities. Back to dancing. 1.6 seconds with the camera on a railing again. I think someone bumped it. Neat effect. There was one guy with a pair of glowsticks. I took a number of long exposures of him with the camera on a railing. To the credit of Diva's, they had all sorts of places to place a camera. The Enigma is back. Now he's got Peaches with him. Things are about to get interesting. She's got a bed of nails. They also smashed the watermelon Gallagher style, and I utterly failed to capture it. Part of the act was "force feeding" Peaches some of the watermelon. I missed that as well. Thank you for attending Haven's 10th!

Last night we saw Simple Minds....super show. Really impressed with how strong Jim Kerr's voice still is and how good a shape the gent is in. Modern English was the first act and did a great job. Soft Cell, unfortunately, was a bit of a disappointment. Can't help but wonder if they need a better sound engineer. Overall, great show and nice to run into some old friends. HS

Yessssss! HS

Good to see audio gear still outranks practical realities like space.