Miscellaneous

Since Mike deleted the old one, I'm starting a new one. Did 80 miles today. It was the best cycling weather I've experienced since getting a bike. Absolutely perfect. I accidentally didn't get up on time (had my phone, which is my alarm, on silent and didn't know), and rushed out the door, forgetting that I didn't take the new saddle off my bike and also forgetting chamois cream. I got lucky and think this saddle is a winner. No issues at all. My butt and bits apparently like leather saddles. I road with my "team" from the Smart Ride, and this week, there were some stronger riders, so averaged 17-18 going north in the headwind, and 20-22 coming back south. Real…

After blathering in several different threads about photography, and blindly looking around for an already extant thread, I'm making this one. The purpose here is for me continue to natter on about my mad obsession with light painting, and maybe even get a response or two. I've just posted about my issues with cross processing and slide film development, as well as discussing lenses in the recently bought thread.

Anyone know anything about Fossil Watches? Good/bad/indifferent? Relic? I was initially looking for an LCD/analog watch of the likes of this, but ended up falling in love with the looks of this one, due to (a) its almost all-blackness, and ( the cool use of the wood, and the way the numbers drift outside of the face. Who knows, maybe I'll get more than one. I'm thinking of getting this one, too (again, due to its almost all-blackness), but I'm worried that the red "throb" might be visually distracting. Thoughts? Anyone know of any other companies that make that analog watch on an LCD face with the "throb"? I'm a high-tech guy, so I should have a high-tech watch. I'm…

I think it is time to have a thread for everyone to discuss their cars, what they are doing to them and where we are going to have our first HC Road Trip Meet. Brent seems to think a trip to the Tail of the Dragon in NC/Tennessee would be in order. Maybe a road trip to a track for a track day? Of course a primary reason for this for me is to follow all of Nate's functional updates and Rex's rocket booster upgrades to see what works and doesn't. Not that I do not think your rockets will work Rex.

I'll bet this is yet another thing a lot of us obsess about. The iPad thread has me considering several different murses. But now I also think I need a new briefcase. I have an old school leather Coach briefcase, which is nice, but heavy and somewhat impractical for my gadget-y self. I'm thinking about this: Zephyr: TOM BIHN Thoughts? Criticisms? Useless drivel?

I just started using my Droid X today and, so far, I'm very impressed. I know there are a couple of members with Android devices and there are a flood of them hitting the market right now. Right now, no news of netflix yet, hulu+ is probably working hard on making android their next big release, and Android 3.0 should start preparing for release at the end of the year. Not sure thats going to make as big of waves as 2.2 Froyo already has. So far, I love this damn thing and think its only getting better. Any particular apps I should look into? I'm waiting to root it for when the expected Froyo update arrives hopefully within two weeks.

I decided not to necro-bump Bryan's 2009 thread as it was kind of specific and not in my budget. I played through high-school but have not played in 20 years. I am looking to get back into playing and I am looking for a great acoustic and a decent electric setup to start with. I am thinking about looking into a full custom for the acoustic but it is pretty hard to figure out how they handle from websites. A few decent shops around my parents place in Dallas that I intend to check out when I get back there this weekend. First on the list is http://www.theguitarsanctuary.com. Has a decent selection of factory and small shop guitars to try out. I know there are …

There is an abandoned house next door that's in foreclosure. People moved out, and there is an unfinished pool in backyard, a large dig but without any concrete. After the recent rains, the hole is now full of water, apparently rife with numerous frogs. There's a dirt yard with wild bushes everywhere also. There is VERY loud frog noise intermittently throughtout day and night at all hours. Called HOA, who said they can't do anything as they can't enter the property. They (and I) called "Vector control," who do not deal with frogs but will come out "in few business days" to take a look for mosquitos. In the meanwhile, I got zero hours of sleep last night due t…

I know a couple of us make music as well as listen to it, so I thought I'd start a thread on it. For example, despite being a classically trained musician, I had never heard of Negative Harmony before, but now I'm all over it. Also, I found this instructive:

Color E-Ink would be better, but either way, it will have very very long battery life. The best part is the Amazon "Whispernet" which is bascially using Sprint's EVDO network. Whether or not it has a full web browser that you can use for free has yet to be seen, but if you can surf for free, the Kindle will sell like mad. http://www.amazon.com/kindle Hardware wise, not really all that into the off white color that will get dirty really fast. And the whole left and right side being page turning buttons means accidental page turning galore. Interesting product, though. Pretty spendy at nearly $400. It should really be less than $200 if they want them to …

Figure there are enough of these to start their own thread. Anyone brave enough on this one? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hellobragi/the-dash-wireless-smart-in-ear-headphones

I was just washing some sheets and heard some noise in the washing machine. There were two AA batteries in the washer that got in with the sheets. They were submersed in water. I took the batteries out and they seem to be ok - no obvious swelling or tears. Will the sheets be ok to use after washing again? Should I do anything to the washing machine? I guess I am worried that some battery acid might have leaked out.

So I've been going out and playing darts quite a bit lately, and I'm sick and tired of getting beaten by my fairer-sexed companions. I'm also sick of shitty house darts, and shitty boards. Since this is HC, and I have the space, I'm contemplating getting a setup for the house to practice, and have some darts to keep with me when I go out so we don't have to play with nylon nonsense. I think I've narrowed my board choices down to either the Winmau Blade 5 (60$) or Blade 5 Dual Core (better, and 85-90$.) The dart board surround, and the darts themselves, however, I'm not sure on. Anyone here throw? Have a recommendation for some mid-level darts I should conside…

I've been meaning to make a thread about this for over a year at this point. Last July I bought a Lord dual edge razor. It was like $12 and worth about as much as I paid for it. I also bought a 100 pack of Astra Platinum blades. Astras are made by Gillette in Russia. They offer a decent, but not amazing shave. The quality control is about as good as one might expect. After a few tentative weeks, I stopped using spray shaving cream and bought a Van Der Hagen brush, soap and bowl set. Unsurprisingly, shaving soap offers a much better experience than canned foam. I also invested in some pre-shave glycerine soap as well as some post-shave products (an alum block and b…

I'm looking for a small folding knife to use when dual sport motorcycle riding. Most of its use will occur while camping. I was thinking of this Gerber, but am open to other suggestions. The Gerber will give you the idea of what I want and the price point at which I'm interested. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

I dont know if this is the right subforum but whatever If you had only had $500 to put a good headphone rig together, then what components would you choose? If you choose computer as the source, the computer doesn't count towards the $500.

Wanted to start a thread for those of us that are interested in the water and those things you can do around, under or on it. Not sure if there are a lot of HC'ers that partake but should be a good place to discuss if there are. Video from today's paddle on the Potomac.

I saw a thread similar to this over at Steve Hoffman forums, thought it might be fun revisit the changes our rigs went through this past calendar year, and talk about our goals for 2008. Around January of '07, I was running a Singlepower PPX3 Slam. I thought tubes were the answer to all my problems. My source was a Sony Modwright 999es, and I thought SACD was the king of all music mediums. My preferred can was the HD650. In spring I discovered two things that changed my rig forever: vinyl and the RS-1. I was not really impressed with the SR60, SR225, or SR325i, all of which I had owned, but I sensed something cool was there, so I picked up a used RS-1. I've tried l…

Another possibly limited interested topic, but I know a few here spend time hiking/camping and I am trying to get into it and looking for a repository of the best products, etc. and tips on overnight, multi-day, etc. backpacking trips. So far I only have the backpack Gregory Baltoro 75, a spork, a fire kit, various Busse knives and Vapur collapsible water bottles. What are you guys packing and using on your hiking trips?

Yeah, moar power is always needed. The SR-007 also likes silver IC's so some DIY could be in your future.

My nice new office is horribly located, meaning the door right is near a hallway speaker, which pumps out gawd awful "soft" jazz 24/7. I can see only two survival options: A) Kill everyone Drown out the music I cannot use my computer for music, nor can I have computer speakers. Headphones are only an option for limited times during the day, so I'm thinking to get one of those smallish all-in-one ipod speaker dealios, but I have zero idea what's out there that may sound good. I've checked out two Apple stores (used to have setups and now don't seem to) a Best Buy (couldn't really hear anything with all the damn tvs going). I had one of those Bose ones years ag…

I've been sort of into mechanical keyboards lately. I spend a lot of time typing, and I felt I should start doing it properly. Naturally, that has meant spending money on unnecessary things. Out of DIY interest, I bought an Ergodox keyboard kit from Massdrop. Improbably, I assembled it correctly and I've been enjoying playing around with layouts. I've not gotten too interested in the more esoteric collecting popular elsewhere on the internet, but this little thing sure is fun. I have some legended keycaps coming, soon, but I've gotten okay typing on the blank ones. Anyone else interested in this type of thing?

This was fun last year, lets try it again. I discovered the DL-103 this year and it became my favorite cartridge. The same DL-103 went dead less then a year later, which is distressing. Hopefully the next one will last longer. As accessories to the DL-103 I purchased a Cinemag SUT (currently on loan) and a Hagerman Bugle. I also purchased a Bottlehead Seduction from thrice. I still own both these phono stages. I bought a digital stylus force gauge, which is awesome. I sold a Grado PH-1 phono stage somewhere in there, and at some point I owned a Grado Platinum, Grado Sonata HO and Grado Sonata LO, can't remember if that was 2008 or 2007. I bought and sold a be…

So I am looking at my comcast bill and realize they are kind of killing me and I am totally overpaying for cable and internet. I succeeded in downgrading cable to something that I will actually use. My current internet through comcast is the xfinity Internet at 12 Mbps and they offer that "power boost" stuff. My wife and I are really just internet surfers and email users. Obviously 90% of my time is spent here. No music or video or crazy downloading, we really don't watch tv or movies online or streaming. In fact I barely even hit up the YouTube but do occasionally. I can down grade to 3 Mbps for much cheaper but want to know how that would be.

So...I've been thinking. I need to stop dragging all my CD's around with me everywhere. Especially to meets, and to friends' places, when I need a very specific subset of my CD's -- the ones with which I'm most familiar and like. My "test" CD's. So what's the best recourse? I'm thinking: laptop->DAC, perhaps external hard drive->laptop->dac. I was thinking about something like a hard-drive-based digital media player (basically, an external hard drive with a play button): ...or perhaps even: (Obviously, there are more entry-level-priced equivalents.) But I haven't heard anything really about the hard-drive based ones, anyone heard any of these tha…