Craig Sawyers

This was actually Saturday night, but we went to see Ian McKellen in London, who is doing his 80th birthday tour. A mixture of personal recollections from his life, and chunks of Shakespeare and poetry. Awesome. He did not even take a rest in the interval - he just got off the stage and mooched around the audience. Then climbed back onto the stage for the second part. A total of three hours of total awesomeness. https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/show/ian-mckellen-on-stage

Yeah - they are going to do some further runs to "probe the trans-sonic region", whatever that means. After which I guess it is back the the UK to start fitting the rockets and all the gubbins that is necessary to hold the propellents and pump them into the nozzles. They have not said so, but they must have mass dummies in the car for these runs to mimic the weight distribution of the rocket stuff. The design spec is once lit they should take Bloodhound from 500 to 1000mph in 17 seconds. We are not the only show in town in the quest for 1000mph. The Aussies have an entirely rocket propelled car using concentrated nitric acid and keronsene, called Aussie Invader SR which is specced to go from rest to 1000mph in 20 seconds. And another in NZ. And another possibly from the West Coast of the US. But there is no evidence that any other of these vehicles has entered the testing phase.

I had one of those CD players back in the day - it was a thing of beauty inside. That pic brings back memories of the superb construction standard. It was not lightweight!

I've done the falling asleep thing too, with much more inedible consequences. I then faced around an hour of cleaning the carbonised mess off the bottom of the pot.

Bloodhound LSR hits 461mph on just the jet engine. Next is to add the two rockets that will take it from there to 1000mph. Bloody amazing how quickly it gets to speed (and back down to rest too). The driver, Andy Green, is a fighter pilot, and was the guy who took Thrust SSC to beyond the speed of sound in 1997. Bloody awesome!

I'm a Brit, so I had to look this up. And suddenly Voltron's comment made perfect sense

In spite of being convicted as a cocaine trafficker (twice!), he was responsible for a long string of iconic films in his roles as movie mogul and producer. RIP Robert Evans, a real character.

The news in the UK shows how bad this is. Looks totally insane. Keep safe all of you in the general area of this firestorm.

Carry On Brexit - ha ha ha!

That is one outrageous system - love it! The JBL one with the mega-deck that is

Four . Why four??

A question for the few who might have an original fried-egg-temperature-case original Stax T2 - is there a problem with the battery trimmers in that?

Well, open baffles are superb (I have Linkwitz LX521's) but those above are far too close to the wall - they need to be 4 to 6 feet from the back wall. In fact Bastanis website shows their latest offering (Sagarmatha duo) about that distance in front of a curtained wall (which will tend to absorb rear radiation)

Happy birthday!

Na na na na na BatFord. Love it.

FWIW I have the same problem with the 6DJ8 telflon sockets on my original Gilmore T2 Clone. Like you, I must get around to sorting it out more permanently than just jiggling the tubes until it behaves. The power tube sockets have been just fine though.

That statistic is quite correct. Not just London, but the entire UK is the most surveilled on the planet after China. I have no clear idea why.

Happy birthday Dusty!

Happy birthday Peter!

Have a great one! Happy birthday

Oh *that* chair! I hadn't even seen that one in the first picture. Must change my specs ??

The first picture (if you look at the pattern of the carpet) shows the chair is absolutely on axis between the speakers. The second photo's angle gives a deceptive perspective.

O think it is an AC regenerator for the turntable motor. The variac is used to set the voltage. I think that the knob at the bottom is a frequency switch to set the motor speed (45/33/78). Looks homebrew.

This is long, but fascinating. A serious Scottish rock scrambler going up Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis. This is Grade 3 - the highest grade, with some spectacular exposure.