postjack

turns out nobody over there can fix my beta22, so i'm back to the hardcore group!!

^^^this worked. thanks man! time to get to work backing shit up. thanks for the link thrice, I'll try that if I run into anymore trouble.

thanks sandwich I'll give that a shot.

so last night I got through transferring all my music to my new drobo. this morning I wake up and it is in standby mode, unrecognized by Windows 7. I couldn't get it to mount by unplugging the USB cable, trying different USB ports, different USB cable. so I shut down my computer and power cycle the drobo. it comes back on fine, all green lights lit up, etc, but windows still won't recognize it. I get bad USB device errors when I plug it in. I'm currently scouring the Internet for solutions, and have tried lots of typical solutions, though I haven't power cycled the drobo again for fear of corruption (which might be what is already going on anyway). the screwed up thing is I can't get drobo back into standby mode, not via the dashboard (doesn't recognize), nor via unplugging the USB cord and powering off the computer. so I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience in this area. I was just about to start backing up to my blacx tonight.

are you really into season 5 yet? I always loved mcnulty so you might not share my enthusiasm.

I love me some season 5 mcnutty.

Phish 2010/08/15 East Troy, WI Alpine Valley 24/48 SBD

yeah.

i would guess he is referring to that upsampling "sheen" that you get with big upsampling jumps. i typically think it sounds quite lovely but I can see how one could put the word artificial on it, even if literally speaking the word doesn't apply.

glad to hear it! I'll post my impressions here once they've shown up and I've spent some time with them.

glad to hear it! I'll post my impressions here once they've shown up and I've spent some time with them.

having said that I haven't heard the W4S stuff. really I'm just saying I like to give my business to folks who communicate well.

mike, I agree that is bullshit, especially when we are talking about high dollar items. for the record, when I emailed the W4S guy years ago with some random question, he emailed me back that same day with a descriptive, professional, and friendly response. I would want to do business with that cat if I was in the market for a dac or amp.

birthday present to myself: stax basic system II with 15ft extension cable (202 +212). $370 shipped from eBay, which I think is a good price. I've always wondered how this humblest of contemporary staxen sound. actually I haven't heard any of the pro-bias lambas.

thanks guys and gal. on the road as we speak to Atlanta for a show.

I thought pattern recognition was boring.

Amazon.com: The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One) (9781591025948): Joe Abercrombie: Books The Blade Itself i envy you being able to experience it for the first time.

how are you going to burn it in?

I admit, I fear the Jordan Effect when it comes to Martin. I guess a part of me is waiting for the series to be done before I pick it up again. I actually own a copy of Pandora's Star. since I only read on the kindle I might have to rebuy.

hi macstah, thanks for your suggestion! I actually am a ASOIAF fan, but I've only read the first three books. unfortunately by the time Dance with Dragons came out I'd forgotten quite a lot of the previous books. maybe if I just pick it up and start reading it'll trigger my memory. I had the same problem with Erikson (my favorite "fat fantasy" author). both Martin and Erikson make good choices in their storytelling. I can't stand bad choices. goodkind, for example, is the king of bad choices. annoying characters are another. again, great characters are a strength of Erikson and Martin. have you read any Joe Abercrombie? if you like Martin but are interested in a plot that moves a little faster with a lot of action, you'd love Abercrombie.

thanks everyone, all looks like good stuff. funny I've picked up the Engineer Trilogy a lot in the bookstore but had forgotten about it. I'll try a kindle sample. last night i started reading a sample of this: Amazon.com: Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery (9780061723810): Jonathan Strahan, Lou Anders: Books. i'm usually not big on short stories but its gotten good reviews. the intro and the first story (erikson, one of my favorites, though malazan has gotten so dense I forgot what the hell was going on in the last book and set it down about 25 pages in) are interesting so far.

right on, I appreciate the warning. Drobo doesn't use RAID, though they don't really tell you how exactly it works.

i'm not really strong on the technical aspects of how the drobo do what it do, but a little light googling reveals they are an OK choice for a drobo. we'll see I guess.

Hey everyone- I'm in a bit of a pickle. I've run out of kick ass speculative fiction to read, and I need recommendations. Sci-fi/fantasy is such a scary genre to navigate. One second a book's premise seems promising, but then it delves into childish writing and predictable situations. I'm a short way into Peter Brett's The Warded Man, and it reminded me of these types of pitfalls. Of course it is hard to trust amazon-type reviews of fantasy, because not all fantasy readers are as discerning as me, you, and everyone else who likes good things. Anyway the premise starts out awesome: demons come out every night and try to kill people. The only thing the protects people from the demons are wards drawn on their houses. as long as the wards hold and they stay inside, everything is cool. The demons are pretty badass as well. They can really wreck shit. So that sounds awesome, but then it starts telling the stories of the individual protagonists, and I can just predict every little thing that is going to happen to these kids within a paragraph of the chapter "oh his parents are going to die and he'll be alone and angry" "oh this girl is either going to get raped or not raped and be regarded as a slut by the town" and so on. even judging by the title I can bet eventually somebody is going to draw wards on themselves and kick some demon ass. So I'm terribly disappointed and can't bring myself to read anymore. Primarily I blame Joe Abercrombie, whose books I just ate up earlier this summer and have really ruined me on other stuff. His fantasy is just so brutal, funny, unpredictable (well you can predict some things, but in a fun way), and full of the most fantastic characters. Anyway I like a lot of the new weird: china mieville, jeff vandermeer, neil gaiman, etc. But not the new weird stuff that gets so weird that is not entertaining. I adore Neil Stephenson, and his Baroque Cycle might be my favorite thing ever. Hopstretch turned me on to Tim Powers, and I read and enjoyed a bunch of his stuff until I had the misfortune of picking up the abysmal Declare which was really, really boring (I got about halfway through). I just read a pretty awesome Richard Morgan book, Altered Carbon, but I don't want to start on the next book just yet. So any suggestions? Throw out some sci-fi/fantasy authors that write good shit. I don't want anything super predictable or juvenile, just a good story with some fresh, original ideas and cool characters. And hell, if you got some non sci-fi/fantasty stuff you think I'd enjoy, throw that out there as well. Thanks for your help team. edit: or I'll just go on and read the next Ian Banks culture novel, Player of Games I think.

thaddy have you read my blog about nachos? it might help.