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I wasn't sure where to put this either but this should be rare enough, the Sony ECR-800 energizer or the ECA-80 to be precise. Now there is a bit of a backstory to this one, I've never found a ECR-800 but I found this one for a song in China so I had to snap it up. It was in a bad way when it arrived, damage all over and the back sockets all a bit crooked but the worst was inside. See, Sony in their infinite wisdom, used a mercury switch for the input switching and that had broken in shipping. There was mercury all over the inside so I had to clean everything and dispose of it properly. It's a shame as its a very early unit with the custom Sony sockets, they later moved onto using Stax 6 pin sockets with these. I let it sit for probably a year before I decided what to do with it as so a full rebuild was in order. These are 100V only so for my use I need a new transformer, I fitted an IEC on the back, new binding posts with the switch function bypassed and all caps replaced. I also fitted a 6 pin Stax socket to the front as I don't have an ECR-800 and if I ever find one, odds are it will have that plug. Plus this works nicely with Stax normal bias sets. For the circuitry as it is a bit odd for 1978 or so. Most of the what's there is a protection circuit and output relay but the gray brick on the bottom is the bias supply, a DC/DC converter. It has clearly seen some use as there should be paint on there but it seems to work fine and there is clearly a ballast resistor in there too. It's also odd that the transformers have two sets of wires so each socket is fed from its own set of wires. See the 4 purple bias wires too, they are all common on the bias supply.

In an earlier era, I was a regularl reader of The Online Photographer. I haven't kept up with it in years, for a host of reasons ranging from lack of interest to not really gleaning much worthwhile info to entirely too many Amazon affiliate links. One of the entries on TOP from 15+ years ago was "No one cares how hard you worked." I took that one to heart. I've spent ages editing a photo only to earn a collective shrug. Conversely, I've had SOOC jpegs from years ago that get attention to this day. With that in mind... OnnnnOn two occasions recently I've had the hood on my 17-40mm misaligned and not realized it. It's not super noticeable in the viewfinder and I don't chimp (stare at the LCD like a monkey) much. The misaligned hood only shows up in super wide angle shots, say 17-20mm. On Saturday, I had that problem for the entire shoot and didn't noticed until I was done. I have had quite a job with the Healing Brush and Spot Healing Brush tools in Photoshop, painting out the upper left corner of dozens of photos. When that doesn't work, I have to crop. Sometimes, both are necessary. Also, as was the case last year, the lighting conditions were harsh and difficult. I'd already edited 30 or so photos in Photoshop before I decided I was unhappy with the results and ran them through Luminar 4. Let's talk about Luminar for a moment. I pirated it 5 or so years ago. I liked it enough that I bought it. It does a lot with pseudo HDR math, similarly to what smartphone cameras do. The advantage Luminar offers is that it has sufficiently deep granularity in its controls that it's possible to reel in the more cartoonish aspects of HDR. With careful tweaking, Luminar allows for improvement of the dynamic range of images without looking like Photomatix vomit ca. 2006 or Facebook family vacation photos. L4 is no longer updated and in its final state is a quirky and buggy app. I have to make a copy of every photo I feed it because if I use the original, L4 will delete it. I learned this hard way and had to do serious work to replace all the originals Luminar deleted when I discovered this "feature." The app dev Skylum is now pushing the successor, Luminar Neo. They want it to be rentware like an Adobe product, but they don't have ADBE's clout. There is a lifetime license. I bought it on sale months ago for like $120. I am ...underwhelmed. Some of the UI is better than L4, but Neo is enough different that my workflow is much slower in it. Also, said UI is basically a new coat of paint on the same old engine. I find this displeasing. So far I have edited 102 photos (ya rly) including in a number of cases several edits of the same image. If you're really impatient, they're on my Flickr page. It has been been uncharacteristically hot and humid here on the Vineyard, and I swear I can feel my brain swelling. I went over my work earlier and found I had uploaded dupes of at least four different photos. Then there's the issue of figuring out which photos to post here and arranging them. It's exactly like a DJ set in that regard. Anyway, here's a nice bright rear end to tide y'all over while I finish editing The truck. I'm talking about the TRUCK. Stop looking at me like that.

After around 7 years away from DIY, I got back into it a few weeks ago and finished this KGST. It’s been nice reconnecting with the bench. I still have a Carbon and a BH waiting to be finished (PCBs are populated, just need to design proper enclosures). Hopefully it won’t take me another 7 years this time...

Picked up another classic Kona.

ECP audio/Nitsch and our own @dsavitsk is your man. His stuff has been bullet-proof for me and sounds so good I haven’t been remotely tempted to upgrade since.

NYT distinguishes itself. https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527/

I like that riser for the power switch and the tubes visible through the front.

The Space Giants. (Ambassador Magma) - It's no U-FO. Also I don't think I will watch all 52 episodes... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061299/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador_Magma

Re-reading a chunk of Isaac Asimov's stuff - Foundation series, Robot yarns etc. The Foundation trilogy was published in 1951-3 and have really stood the test of time. I became curious how Asimov died. Turned out a too early 72. But in his early 60's he had a triple heart bypass (in 1983), and was given a blood transfusion tainted with AIDS - and that was what killed him in due course. Same thing happed to the tennis player Arthur Ashe aged 49 - again following heart bypass surgery in 1983.

Man, this one hurt. I grew up 2 hours from where the Braves played and I watched virtually every game on TBS. When I wasn't watching the Braves, I was watching the Cubs on WGN. RIP, Ryno. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/sport/hall-of-famer-ryne-sandberg-dead-spt

Read this a few months back, but as Beinart is making the rounds.