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Had Joanne compare similar different greens under various lighting conditions in various locations. Apparently getting Gemini / nano banana to replace wall colors in a picture isn't good enough 🤷‍♂️ Also, how many greens are there. Many many many apparently.

Gag-ish gift as in stocking stuffers. Forgot to post as I don’t even currently have the vinyl rig connected, but all the best holiday 2025 Tiny Vinyls. Reconfigured listening rig soon.

looks like my lumberjacking will have to wait a bit. 🪓

Took the new bike out for a first ride today. My new shoes (five ten) need to have the release adjusted, because when I stopped, I fell over because my left foot wouldn't let go. I need to adjust the front brake, it's grabbing intermittently. It could use some minor fit adjustments, but over all, I'm pretty happy with the fit, I got the right size. The big issue is I haven't ridden enough to make a difference since I met my wife in late 2020, so I'm in AWFUL shape. I was gassed after less than a mile. Kayaking isn't a particularly aerobic exercise. I'm gonna set up my indoor setup with my old bike and see if I can get slightly less out of shape before trying anything not mostly flat outside again.

Dunno where Woot is getting these from, but they have new Nikon D800 bodies going for $629. While a couple of notches below the latest D810 model, this has to be the best deal in full-frame DSLRs atm.

Crew fell six trees yesterday, and one more this morning. All about 2' diameter. I have a lot of cleanup work to do. So I bought a beefyer chainsaw. 16” 56V. I still have a tree that should be topped, but not critical. Edit: We did take out one green one - it had no more friends to protect it from the wind.

^^ thanks youtube copyright whatever... Anyway - this has a groove. Just have to get past the 45 seconds of the most boring intro ever...

ok, this is head case :), what do you mean by inexpensive? I found it almost impossible to motivate myself to ride a purely mechanical trailer. Just got bored. I would get any trainer that would connect to zwift, and would read https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/11/trainer-recommendations-winter.html to get an idea about what the options are.

To be determined (most likely the sturgill)

Well I've been away and a certain SR-009D showed up in the meantime... Sorry for the crap picture but I've only had a couple of hours with them and I should have been in bed an hour ago... First impressions, I like the color but it's clear that Stax have cheaped out with one of those surface treatments that are so popular in China. Nothing as nice as the 009BK here, it's that matt but shiny black except in the grove on the back. It's okey but we are clearly seeing production moving away from Japan here of crucial parts. Same is true for the earpads, very different from regular 009 pads and the smell and feel is identical to the various earpads I've been buying from China. Nothing wrong with that really... if they didn't resell the 10$ pads at 200$. They are also odd as they don't seem to fit nicely on the headphones but feel nice, much better than the 007S trash pads. They are similar to the Omega pads in some ways, large opening and pretty thin. The headpad seems also different from the older models so likely a new supplier there too. Same basic thin pad design though but a bit wider overall compared to the L500 part I have on the MA-009 in the picture. Same cable as the SR-X1 and the 007S. I'm not in Japan so I'm not getting the shorter cable as instead of throwing them into the boxes, Stax wants you to send in for them, in Japan only. Gotta love companies living in the 70's. As for the sound... I was expecting to hate them but no... these are the first 009's that aren't way too colored for their own good. For the most part, they are easy to live with with plenty of bass and presence. Maybe a tad dull and uninvolving at times but still easy to get long with. Now they are not perfect, there is a distinct "bass drum" resonance on many tracks and some certain ranges make them way too shouty in the midrange but it's far from as bad the originals or what the hell the 009S was. Nice controlled soundstage with some depth to it, good extension on both ends of the spectrum so yeah... I'm pleasantly surprised. I haven't detected any of the serious driver resonance issues as with the 007S either. Only a couple of hours with them but some volume matched comparisons with the MA-009, I prefer the fuller sound of the latter but it's not a long way off. I do feel the irony of me finally tackling the long planned project of fixing the 009's, only with Stax releasing a new version which doesn't suck like the older ones at the same time. Still, this is good move in general and at present I'd recommend these over the 007S and the X9000, let alone the older 009 models.

My existing direct-drive trainer had started to had multiple signal drop issues so Santa was kind enough to bring me:

colnago c50 with super record 11 and shamal ultra wheels. It’s officially the riders fault when I can’t go up hill or fast.

Anyone know anything about indoor trainers for the winter? Looking for an inexpensive one to use during the icy parts of winter. Lmk how you like it. Any idea how much it runs for?

Ditto. I have a Sony UHP-H1 as an SACD player, so it's probably not comparable to a stack of separates from dCS or EMM Labs 💸 There have been very few pop/rock albums that were recorded for hi-res from the beginning - the few recordings were usually converted from old masters. I have a few jazz and classical SACDs, but most of them were also from old sources (1950s-60s) so it's hard to say whether the better sound quality comes from the format or the number of times the masters have been fixed and edited. In general, I get the impression it would take a knockout recording and an extremely expensive chain of equipment to notice the difference - also, I think people underestimate how good CD quality can sound on modern equipment. In the early days of hi-res, I think much of the novelty came from the new multi-channel mixes (like 5.1 or more), rather than the actual quality improvement on a stereo recording. And don't get me started on HDCD... Personally, I'd still rather buy CDs and SACDs than invest in a high-res digital streaming or files library setup.

I do a lot of live concert recording at 96/32 or 192/32, and so I do playback at that, but as you say, the primary advantage is hi res sources are likely better mastered. 48/16 has plenty of dynamic range and resolution for most recordings.

they're "green beige" and "green grey"

Is that seriously green? I'm colorblind and that... none of those look green to me in the slightest. I can't tell if you're fucking with me or not. Could go either way.

Living under large Redwoods, Mikey, I understand the trauma of laying in bed listening to huge gusts of wind and cringing, hoping one of those "widow makers doesn't break off and find its way to the roof. Glad you'll have a little more piece of mind.

Sarah on Kelly - just a pretty tune.

‘I’d never heard anything like it’: the prepared piano revelations of jazz star Jessica Williams Dave Brubeck called her a great and Mary Lou Williams gave her advice. But the prodigy grew frustrated with jazz, quit and started dismantling her instrument. A superb new reissue showcases her findings https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jan/05/jessica-williams-jazz-prepared-piano-blue-abstraction

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTIw5mdDvq2/?igsh=MWRhbW02MGx3c2x3bQ== This could be amusing.

Hey - at least we are number one in the search results --- over the actual manufactures site.-- Need to work on their SEO as well.

If Only AI suggested "Saybrook Sage" "A soothing aloe hue cooled with a splash of gray." Was rejected as "too dark". Manually eyeballing color swatches etc ended up with candidate short list of 4. AI allowed me to place some candidate furniture in a picture of of one the bedrooms / potential office, and with the right prompting and sample "digital dollops" ... WIth the original walls it looks like The Candidate Colors chosen were Budding Green CSP-790 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/csp-790/budding-green Calming Aloe 533 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/533/calming-aloe Stolen Moments 477 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/477/stolen-moments Sweet Caroline 478 https://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-colors/color/478/sweet-caroline

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted. “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper, the CNN host, after being asked repeatedly whether he would rule out using military force. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/us/politics/stephen-miller-greenland-venezuela.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/06/politics/trump-greenland-venezuela-colombia-miller-analysis