Craig Sawyers

Happy birthday!

Siegfried Linkwitz http://www.linkwitzlab.com/What_is_new_at_linkwitzlab.htm ended up with this pair of products http://www.artistic-fidelity.de/index.php/de/afi Basically one of the pair connects to the PC/laptop's USB connection and produces three optical fiber outputs - clock plus differential data. The second unit takes these fibers and outputs RJ45. There are then a number of connection options to take RJ45 and interface it to typical DAC inputs http://www.artistic-fidelity.de/index.php/de/optionen . The idea is complete galvanic isolation to take the noisy stuff that comes out a computer's USB port and produce clean data to put into the DAC. Haven't tried the product, but anything that Linkwitz says is worth serious consideration (My speakers are his design - the LX521).

DCS is top drawer gear. The relatively small design team there are massively experienced and innovative. They started off designing electronics systems for defence applications back in the 80's, and then morphed into professional audio and then high end audio. Instead of using an off the shelf DAC, they use an FPGA and their own "ring DAC" (whatever that is...) I have heard one of their pieces of kit in a high end system owned by an ex-colleague and it was truly superb. The only "but" is that their gear is expensive - the Vivaldi above is the blunt end of $35k

There is only one word for it - UGH. What a mess.

Jotunheim in Norse mythology is also known as Utgard, meaning "beyond the fence", a place which is "chaotic, anarchic, and wild" So my friend Google tells me. But it seems about right for the POS above.

Have a great day Shelly!

That is a real labour of love, and super gorgeous

Even his link doesn't work - haha

Try a man-bag, then the size of the wallet is irrelevant. Started using these thirty-odd years ago when I got fed up ruining business suits stuffing all sorts of shit in the pockets, and seeing how relaxed the Europeans were with man-bags. Bought the current one in a market in Calais. Mine houses wallet, phone, calculator (still a tech-nerd), business cards, Oyster card, loose change, and odd shit like scissors earplugs ibuprofen etc. The other, larger alternative is generically called a Messenger bag, and you can also stuff an ipad or laptop in those too.

Latest episode has a comedian called Ross Noble. He comes from Cramlington - 10 miles from where I come from (Ryton on Tyne). The accent you hear is a rather softened local dialect called Geordie. Which is basically my accent too. If he had spoken in broad Geordie (in other words not softened) you would not have been able to understand much. Except perhaps Birgir - Icelandic has the same Scandanavian roots as Geordie.

Happy birthday!

The photo of the guys says it all.

Missed last night's ep - but will catch up today. Matt LeBlanc is a first rate, top drawer anchor for the show. All shuddering memories of the ginger one are fading from the memory like a bad dream.

This is only going to end in one way, and the faster the better

Condolences and RIP GG

Beer barrel urinal and cistern in Church Inn, Ludlow Herefordshire

That wouldn't happen to be an April Fool? If it isn't, WFT?

Wow. ^This.

Happy birthday!

I wired my T2, and made the umbilicals using teflon coated wire from Navships - and that is a good number of years ago. So the colours are different - not a problem provided you have enough colours to be unambiguous when wiring up.

Nah - he totally British. Which makes the whole, clearly expensive, exercise so very, very strange. It would have been kind of OK in a hot country - but in a country where you can get all four seasons in one day?

So the guy next door has been on a major project. The previous owner has put in wooden decking and a fish pond, which I thought looked kind of nice. Current guy didn't like it, so he hired a company of knuckle draggers to take that out and put "something" in instead. I need to take a photo of the edifice and post it. It is basically a built-in double barbecue. This is truly in the brutalist style - it is like an angular horseshoe that you can stand behind, but big enough that two or three can get behind there, and so seriously built could double as a nuclear shelter. One barbecue is I think gas powered (well, there was copper pipe going on at one point), and I think the other is charcoal. Where the decking was he has paved in off-white slabs, which are also on the top surface of the barbecue horseshoe. The outfit he got to do all this started in October, and have just finished. I swear you could build a whole house in that time. The problem is that this is in the UK - where it is cold and rainy more often than not. Last year we managed a total of three barbecues in our kettle because that was the only coincidence of (a) decent enough weather on the day (b) a weekend and (c) enough certainly of good weather to buy the meat. We planned to barbecue several more times, and ended up cooking inside on the hob. So I have absolutely no idea why the guy has spent so much money on something that will hardly ever be used. I look forward to seeing it used in anger, but I'm not holding my breath.

RIP the victims of the car atrocity in London on 22nd. The entirely home grown British citizen from Kent, married with three children, who after a host of aliases and violent past converted to Islam, hired a car and drove along the pavement at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge towards the Houses of Parliament. Got out and knifed a policeman to death before being shot dead. Total elapsed time, 80 seconds. Two dead at scene (including an American tourist), plus the policeman and the madman. One has died since, and many with life changing injuries. 29 casualties in total. Looks like he was acting alone, although of course ISIS has claimed he was one of their "soldiers". But that is precisely what they would say. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/24/london-attack-eight-suspected-associates-westminster-terrorist/

This guy writes synth music that draws images on an old storage monitor (Tektronix FWIW), This starts simple and get more amazing as it goes on.

Reminds me of the horseradish root I dug up last year. It looked so much like a madrake I almost heard it scream as I pulled it out of the earth.