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I took my daughter to see Jean-Michel Jarre maybe 12 years ago in Birmingham (UK). I got us tickets in the middle of the front row. Now I've seen Jarre before, so I warned Liz of a spectacular entry. Sure enough, fan of light and then a fist comes through it. Once it really starts, Liz says "wow - he's cute"; so I told her that he was 7 years older than me - and he'd had a bit of work done to keep the cuteness factor. It was, it has to be said, a totally awsome Jarre experience. Ancient synths, laser harp - the full beans.

There's a guy I follow on Flickr who has a Fuji X-E3 mirrorless body. He adapts a variety of old manual lenses to it, which is how he caught my attention. He's got a taste for old and custom tube gear and has a whole album of space heaters and funny wooden boxes.

Which is another shame, because Audeze brought a Carbon CC to Canjam Chicago in 23 and the original CRBN was best in show for me. Hardly any space at Axpona for anyone.

Sounds like Jean-Michel Jarre on the soundtrack.

Ouch, that's really sad as the Z10e is pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it comes to electrostatic amps.

Oh, man.....RIP Mr. Kroft....also hits home here.... One of my most notable memories was being extremely drunk from a Friday night party, it went deep into Saturday and I remember watching HR Puffnstuf the next morning while still occasionally spitting up....good times.....🙄 Another one hitting home too: RIP Máire Brennan (phonetically pronounced and often written as Moya). Have enjoyed Clannad's music for many years.... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm112y4jyzo

da7d922377ae419daf8fbcdf319722ac_d3cdd07b32.mp4 Pioneer stack and 🍑

Middle Eastern wars just sounded ... better in the 80s.

I had a chance to listen to an Audeze CRBN2 through this amp yesterday at Upscale Audio's Axpona 2026 table. Audeze had the Z10e at their booth for auditioning and the experience was starkly in the Z10e's favor. The Feliks Audio Bliss smothered the imaging, engagement and dynamics completely. I don't know about the Z10e's design or build quality, but the end result of my experience was a $20k+ amp missing the point of electrostatics.

RIP Sid Krofft thank you for my acid trip childhood shows.

Ex Skylark gathering nibbles.

Mega necro here. Last sumemr I bought an unlocked Android tablet. Today I taught myself how to use Morphe to patch the YouTube and Reddit apps for android. It involved a lot of jumping through hoops that were unfamiliar to me. It took me four tries, but managed to get both working. This means I now have native (or if you prefer, "native") apps for both platforms that support ad blocking. If I'm not mistaken, the YT app now has integrated SponsorBlock support, which is quite something.

One board, channel, completed. ZF setup was successfully. SS setup didn’t fall out well. It turned out that I’ve connected the feedback wrong with terrible current draw an 8.4V offset at output. After correction, easily done, offset came down to fluctuating 30-40 mV and BIAS acted all right, but not good enough to be used as an amplifier. Now, I feel I’m done with this project and end it with, IMO, a satisfactory Zero Feedback dynamic amplifier. Perhaps I’ll try to get the SS mode working in some future. Main problem is my eyes and enough steady hands to solder SMD and… lack of competence. I just copy others designs. Thank you Kevin. I have some PCB to much for own use. If interested to try this – ping me. Boards are right and left channels, one version is ZF two layers and the other FF/SS version (SS probably nor working) is four layers. Both versions have issues so they will be for free. A nice contribution to Doctors Without Borders will be appreciated.

The bike is looking SWEET! I got out for a nice 27mi windy rip around town this afternoon. Felt good to be back outside again before I have to travel for a few days and be away from the bike.

Rainy Day Brunch

I kind of despise this guy and his opinions. He’s so happy of meeting himself…

A very exciting Sunday in Hell. No spoilers this time! Apropos of Roubaix, I put some 40mm slicks on to try out. I am very interested to see how they feel.

Classical Guitarist Reacts to Rick Beato Reacts to Angine de Poitrine

^^ Because it's a goddamn brilliant camera. I got to shoot with a D4S at work for a bit but have too much Sony stuff at this point to ever practically think about another system. Speaking of Sony, the A7V's 30fps is goddamn bonkers. Sounds like a Gatling gun but allows for capturing some pretty great shots even in mediocre hands. Edit - yes, that's Andrew with the glasses running the 800m today.

My kayak instructor from Chile is playing as “Granny’s Mason Jar” tonight. Good bluegrass.

You're an amazing person, Todd. Cheers! EDIT: And that was before I saw the other post. I'm at a loss for words. Thank you so much, Todd and everyone.

Thank you, Todd. This last post of yours helped me to recover some faith in the human race, which I’ve been losing for a few years now.

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!