mirumu

Finally moving my home wireless network up to 802.11n so I just bought one of these Dlink DIR-855 dual band/dual radio routers. I've still got some legacy wireless gear I want to keep and don't want to have to run two routers. The 855 is undeniably overpriced, but it'll probably be six months or more before the cheaper models show up in this part of the world and probably longer before their firmware is stable.

That really looks great. I really wish I'd picked up or built a Blue Hawaii a few years back when cash to more fluid for me. I'm sure though that even then I'd be getting a strong urge to upgrade looking at this.

Dreamcast + VGA Box + VGA to DVI-D adapter + DVI-D to HDMI adapter?

Is that Nehalem based Xeons I see in the Mac Pro? Do want. Very nice upgrade to the Mac minis too. I'm tempted to make a media center out of one.

M83 - Saturdays = Youth

Utada Hikaru - Distance

Fever Ray - Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer Andersson)

We don't get the same selection of beers down this part of the world and most of what's brewed locally are pale lagers which are fine occasionally but not all the time. There's very few US beers sold and the only one I see consistently available is Budweiser (entirely flavorless to me). I'd love to try some of the Dogfish and Great Lakes varieties, but I've never seen them sold locally. Out of what is available here I tend to favor some of the Belgian beers. Hoegaarden, Chimay Blue, Saison Dupont, Forbidden Fruit, Trappistes Rochefort 10 and KWAK are probably the favorites there. Reasonably fond of an ice cold Sapphoro or Hofbr

The last photo shows a Jaycar DIY board. Jaycar are an Australian hobbyist chain with various stores in the south pacific region similar to Radioshack. There's a store of their's just down the road from home. Pretty much all of Jaycar's designs come from Silicon Chip magazine and a quick google indicates this one does too. They have a good reputation and I'd be very surprised if they were copying the designs of others. The price is very cheap and I'd actually been tempted to build that kit myself to see what it's like although with a few mods and part substitutions. I don't really see any similarities to the Beyerdynamic amp other than that they're both op-amp based circuits. Certainly the parts and layout aren't similar at all as others have said. I'm no expert by any means and can see some vague similarities in the circuit around the opamps, but I would think that's to be expected and no indication of anything sinister.

Yes, from my understanding they encrypt the PS3 partitions with some key that's unique to each PS3. I think they use some odd partition table format too that no operating systems currently will read (My bet would be on Linux doing this first). You could mirror the entire drive on a Mac from the command line using dd (not for the feint of heart), but even if you restore it to the new drive the new PS3 would not be able to decrypt the data and would want to format it. I know nothing of Gamestop since they don't exist in this part of the world, but personally I'd argue with them that losing your data is not acceptable. I don't know if you have any Playstation store downloads, but personally I've bought some retail price things like Siren: Blood Curse and if they tried to tell me I wasn't getting that back I'd be hassling them no end. This is a problem they are going to deal with more and more as digital downloads become more common and the more people that complain to them about it the sooner they'll come up with a solution.

That thread is far funnier than many webcomics. I do occasionally laugh out loud at xkcd. It's not funny all the time or even most of the time by any means, but even when it's not funny I can still appreciate the thought patterns behind it. I'd rather look on the bright side too. I mean at least it's not CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Just stumbled across an announcement from a few days back that Sony is pushing a new CD standard called "Blu-spec CD". The articles I've found on this seem a little confused with many suggesting it's a new format, but as far as I can tell they're simply manufacturing Redbook compliant CDs to higher tolerances. Here's some of the more informative links I found. [url=http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/05/blu-spec-cd-sonys-new-cd-boasts-high-quality-is-based-upon-blu-ray-technology/]CrunchGear Archive Blu-spec CD: Sony

It's a long shot, but you could try turning it on and holding your finger on the power button for about 5-10 seconds. Normally you'll hear two beeps which indicates the system settings have been reset to the default values. Probably not much chance it will help, but there's no harm in trying.

We still call it armistice day here although technically it was yesterday given the timezone difference. Attendance at the remembrance ceremonies is getting higher each year. Good to see those who've served getting the respect they deserve.

Heh, well I wasn't meaning to take any potshots at it either. I just use all three of these operating systems most days so tend to run into whatever problems they have going.

I noticed that and it's certainly the first I've heard of it.

At the risk of restarting flames of old...I see far more problems with sound on Windows than I ever see with either Linux or MacOS. Microsoft's Universal Audio Architecture especially has been nothing but a world of hurt.

Great news. I'll definitely be picking this one up. Makes me glad I got my vinyl rig up and running again last year.

Really it's the first time someone's disagreed with me for supporting Bush in any way since it's not my stance to support him. It's a strange feeling to be honest. As I said, I never was a supporter of the Iraq war, but I do feel in the long term and taking an optimistic view that at least some good may come from removal of Hussein and the Baath party from power in Iraq. Certainly Qusay Hussein looked like he would have continued down the same path as his father. I'm not suggesting for a moment the cost America, their coalition partners or Iraq itself payed to achieve this was worth it, I really don't think it was. It's more a case of the bed having already been made and now we've got to lie in it. Making the best of a bad situation if you will. I tend to agree by-and-large. The only complication I see is when you have hostile states in the mix muddying the waters between terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Not that this was the case with Iraq, I've yet to see any credible link made between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Personally I think that attacking a civilian population should always be considered a criminal act, and dealt with as such. The world as a whole needs to be a bit more pro-active here too. I don't think America would have the same concerns about becoming the world's police force if others pulled their weight. Military spending is not popular in many parts of the world though (until it's too late that is).

I think if it came down to pure numbers of dead the Iraq war will ultimately have resulted in more deaths over time than not having a war, and I've certainly seen people argue this point. That said, it's never as simple as pure numbers and it's very easy to say this in hindsight. I'm no fan of Bush or the Iraq war, but I do have a degree of sympathy for the backlash he received over starting it. Even today the world turns it's back on human rights violations all too often. Irrespective of how we got here or the collateral damage caused, he and America as a whole did the world a favor removing that regime. It's clear many mistakes were made along the way and if the decision to go to war was being made today it probably wouldn't happen, but again it's easy to say this in hindsight. I think it's too early to really evaluate the results as it will take generations to really see, but all we can do now is look forward and make the best of the situation.

I liked both, but of the two I'd say the graphic novel was better mainly because the film waters down the political side of the story too much.

Agreed. Even countries that aren't infected are being dragged along with the roller coaster ride.

As non-American living elsewhere in the world I think that mythological hero view you mention is the way many outside of the US viewed Obama. Certainly speaking about here in New Zealand it was the view promoted by our media and resonated with the average person on the street. Most of these people though had only heard a few sound-bytes. Unlike the majority here I followed the US election campaign quite closely and my view is more in line with yours. Were I a US citizen I would still most likely have voted Obama, but would have done so without any illusions of what he is or isn't. Either way, he certainty looks to have an uphill struggle and it would seem very unlikely he'll be able to satisfy the unrealistic expectations many out there have of him.

My only experience is with the Dunlop Grand Prix although they're a bit bright for my tastes. I'm thinking of splashing out and importing a Slazenger instead. I really don't understand why Penn is so popular, just a muddy mess IMHO.

I'm not sure where they could find adequate supplies.