HiWire

I would look at getting a refurbished iMac directly from Apple to save a bit of money. Most of the Macs in my office are refurbished and they run without issues – Apple gives you the same 1-year warranty (here in North America) as a new Mac and I believe you can get AppleCare (expensive) if you want an extended warranty. In my opinion, some of the current Apple computers are handicapped due to Apple's refresh cycle or the manufacturing constraints of their suppliers – e.g., the AMD Radeon Pro 570 and 580X are actually old product and quite a way behind the state of the art, especially at the prices Apple is charging. The Vega is an expensive option and at this point it is also an old architecture. The Radeon Pro 5300M and 5500M in the 16" MacBook Pro are two generations newer (going from AMD Polaris to Navi) and perform like you would expect midrange mobile graphic processors to do in 2020. Check out AMD's upcoming 5600M and 5700M's specs to see what the new iMac GPUs might look like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_RX_5000_series#Mobile Dell's new mass-market gaming laptop has the Radeon RX 5600M (6GB) and you can check out its performance (definitely behind the Nvidia 2060) here: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-g5-15-se-5505-amd-smartshift Perfectly adequate, but nothing revolutionary and running hot in a small enclosure. So, in my opinion, it would be a good idea to wait until the refresh, or buy a current or used iMac at a decent discount if possible, because they aren't worth what Apple is charging. Intel's current 10th-gen (Comet Lake) CPUs aren't a huge jump from 9th-gen, but Intel added more cores in the flagship CPUs and the Core i5-10600 has 12 threads rather than 6 because Intel brought hyperthreading back (your performance mileage may vary) as well as increased cache, going from 9MB to 12MB. There is a good chance that Apple will also include Wi-Fi 6, which will benefit you in the long run. Regarding heat – if the newer processors can get the work done faster, they'll spend less time at max power. If you're doing a long gaming session, however, you'd want minimal throttling and excellent heat management without too much noise – we'll have to see if the new iMacs can do that. I think they will definitely have a lot more graphic power than the current iMacs, but at a price. The other possibility is that Apple enlarges the display in the current 21" iMac chassis to the rumored 23", which might give you a middle ground choice. The 21" iMac has typically been a better value than the 27", but Apple has always handicapped it with lesser hardware. That being said, the 27" 5K displays in the current iMacs are fantastic and they do make the computers seem like a better deal compared to most PC monitors.

She's got the Björk bangs. I think her playing is excellent. Like most prodigies, her early education and accomplishments are exceptional... it's funny that you can be blasé about genius in the performing arts because it is so commonplace. I'll get her latest album (Nightfall – Debussy, Satie, and Ravel) and let you guys know if it's any good.

Beethoven : Concerto pour piano n°3 ( Alice Sara Ott / Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France)

A different kind of cooking show – nordic gold:

Tessa Lark She got an excellent review from The Absolute Sound, so I thought I'd check out her music before ordering the album: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/fantasy-lark-yang/

From some Meowzaki film, I presume:

I got to 8 minutes. I finished The Road. Never saw the movie. I don't think The Road is the greatest novel ever written, but I also don't think these guys understand the concept of literary fiction. It's not a zombie novel. The minimalist writing style and repetition of the man and the boy's survival habits are the point of the novel. A good writer does not try to fill in every irrelevant detail, he allows the reader to use their imagination. If the Let's Read guys were looking for some kind of plot-driven adventure, they were barking up the wrong (dead) tree in McCarthy's ash-filled wasteland.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Creep – Radiohead (The Running Mates cover)

I was looking at the Hobie Mirage Outback kayak – this year's model has kick-up fins (on the foot paddle drive) that fold when you hit shallow stuff: https://www.hobie.com/kayaks/mirage-outback/# It's meant for kayak fishing but I thought it would be useful for regular, non-competitive kayaking too. I didn't even know such products existed until I searched for kayaks a few weeks ago. Here's the longer Revolution 16 with turbo fin speed test (vs. paddle):

The Look of Love – Say Lou Lou It looks better when other people dance in their underwear

Debussy - Deux Arabesques (Harpe) – Héloïse de Jenlis

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes One of the most intense war novels I've ever read. It's a gigantically thick-looking hardcover, but easily devoured regardless.

Sophie Milman (2006) In retrospect, I think her first album was the best one.

Happy Birthday!

Very nice – this is the first time I've heard of Ruike and the design and materials are impressive. What do you use to sharpen the knife and how long have you owned it?

When the Phone Stops Ringing – Eighth Wonder Too pretty for music. Patsy Kensit was in the '50s period film Absolute Beginners (David Bowie wrote a song for the movie with the same title), but apparently it wasn't very good. She left music to go into film and she seems to have had a good career there. The comments mention that Mike Chapman was also the producer for Blondie, thus the similar keyboard tune... Eighth Wonder was most famous for their singles I'm Not Scared and Cross My Heart. This song was co-written by Holly Knight (Obsession, Love Is a Battlefield) and Bernie Taupin.

I wonder if anybody has set up a Tesla Powerwall for an A/V system ("My other Tesla is my stereo") – given the price for most audiophile equipment, it's actually not that bad: https://news.energysage.com/tesla-powerwall-battery-complete-review/

What a babe. 🥰 This was before the hairspray incident (mom rock, ahoy!)... only 10 years after Dreamboat Annie, but it's taking over 30 years for the ozone layer to recover

Dreamboat Annie – Heart

Massage Detective Joe (Amazon Prime and possibly Apple TV)... couldn't find English subtitled trailers anywhere

Happy Birthday!

2019 Hyogo Hachi Highland Hillclimb (pre-event testing) with Keiichi Tsuchiya (Drift King) driving the Maou (Demon King) Honda S2000 from J's Racing (turn on English subtitles) Some tech details on the car: https://www.s2ki.com/2019/02/14/js-racing-touge-devil-king-s2000/ 2016 Kyoto Arashiyama Hillclimb (Takao Parkway)

I could blame the Marc Rebillet browsing or Firebird research...