TMoney

^ Wait, you bought the fully decked out iPad Air when you already had an iPad 4 with LTE? Why not just get a macbook pro at that point?

Having owned both, I think the iOS7 redesign is generally a good thing, though there are some notable sore spots, especially the calendar app on the phone. I hate that thing. Also the safari icon is quite the eye sore. That being said, I couldn't imagine downgrading back to iOS6 at this point. The biggest different in the platforms, to me, is the developer/app support. Both sides are great for checking email, watching netflix and youtube, and surfing the web. But I draw the line there. The (non-google) apps on the apple side are just plain better. Maybe it is the fact that they only have to design apps for a few specific display resolutions/hardware skus that leads to a much more polished and coherent design interface on the apple side? Whatever it is, the difference is startling.

I went to the Apple store today to compare the size of the new Air to the mini. I was thinking there was no way in hell I'd walk out of there prefering the Air. I was wrong. Coming from the retina-pad (3rd gen aka the heavy one) the reduction of weight is nothing short of stunning. The 3rd gen ipad just had to have so much battery to power that retina screen. The weight of it didnt seem that bad at the time but one-handing the thing got old fast. The Anandtech review talked about the reduction in weight being similar to the feeling you got going from the iphone 4 to the iphone 5. I totally agree with that assessment. I didn't really like how wide the mini was for one handed use. I can easily get my hand around the Nexus 7, but the mini just seemed a little too wide for holding that way. I figured as long as I couldn't really get a hand around the thing why not just go for the big one? After all, at arms length the Air is considerably easier to read. After playing around with the Air a little more I decided to go with it rather than wait for the retina-mini and I'm now the proud owner of a black 32gb wifi. I'm really happy with it. The Nexus 7 will be going up for sale this weekend.

Just finished Carl Sagan's Cosmos in anticipation of the remake of the TV Series next year with Neil DG-T. IMO the original Cosmos series was probably the best thing PBS has ever aired. It is a masterpiece. Sagan is a bona-fide genius, and a very good writer to boot. He is excellent at explaining some very complex topics and through his organization he keeps you from getting lost. Its also amazing how much his personal politics/philosophy comes through even more in the book than it did in the TV series. He can be a bit heavy handed at times, but he is ultimately right. The most fun part of the book that didn't make the TV Series? The reductio proof in the appendix showing that the square root of two is an irrational number. I literally broke out a sheet of paper and worked it out for myself along with the book. It brought me back to my undergrad days of having to demonstrate proofs up at the board. Good stuff. Next up is either the sequel to Game Change about the 2012 election or the new Malcolm Gladwell.

Great list, Dusty! I'd really have to sit down with a deck of notecards with album names written on them to pick and choose a top 5. Maybe an activity for the weekend.

I sat next to Lou at a Restaurant in the West Village about a year and a half ago. I didn't want to bother him, as I figured there was nothing I would say to him that he hadn't heard from other fans a million times before. Its sad to see that he is gone.

Fix? Of course not. Step in the right direction?

I've always thought what head-fi needed to solve some of these issues was a reputation system, ideally with a way to upvote/downvote posts. I've told this to Jude personally at meets, but I don't think he was all that keen on the idea. Also it'd be nice if reputation in certain forums like the DIY thread and the Summit-Fi thread were weighted much more heavily as opposed to the budget/joke/lifestyle threads to help distinguish who knows what the heck they are talking about from those who don't.

FWIW I find it somewhat difficult to read comics on my 7" Nexus 7 (which will be sold when the new mini comes). If you view panel by panel it looks great, but at times when viewing entire pages of panels the smaller text can be a pain to read. I like to play board games on iOS and I'm hoping the mini wont be too small for that. We shall see. Still, in using a similarly sized Nexus 7 for the past few months I will say the smaller size is very nice, especially if you already have a suitable laptop. Once I got the Nexus 7 I sold my full sized retina-pad. It won't be the case for everyone, but for me the 7-8" size is just right.

I'm pretty excited about the retina mini. With the A7 it should be a big upgrade both in form factor and performance from the 3rd Gen Retina-pad I am upgrading from. Gotta hand it to apple on their updates to the big ipad too. While some thought they might launch it with some sort of A7x chip with extreme performance, they took the alternate route and decided to chop down the thickness and weight (presumably by chopping down the battery). This was probably the right move. I'm a bit surprised to see that we don't have gold versions of the ipads like with the 5s. After all, we all know that gold is best.

I have the exact same problem running multi-monitor. The dock just does not want to come up unless you give it some effort. When I unplug the second monitor it goes back to normal. My guess is it is just a bug.

As if there wasn't already enough reason to be impressed by Adrian Peterson I can't believe he is actually going to play today after experiencing the death of his two year old from abuse by his baby's mother's boyfriend. Truly impressive, Mr. Peterson. I don't know how I'd even get out of bed, let alone play a football game.

Congrats on the build. Everything looks good except that AMD gfx card in there. #teamgreen Kidding, of course. Your machine should smoke all games short of Crysis 3 and Arma 3 at 1080p. Plug it in to the TV and you have a PS5/XboxTwo.

I had a feeling after the first Sonny Gray/Verlander matchup that the winner of the Detroit-Oakland series was going to win it all. I still feel that way.

I lived in SD for three years while I attended law school at USD so I'm pretty familiar with the place. The zoo can easily turn in to an all day affair. I would plan on at least 3 hours there. Its quite impressive, and, like all things in San Diego, its just nice to be outside. As far as things to do I highly recommend just walking around downtown in the gaslamp district. Its very neat, and you can always cut over a few blocks and walk along the waterfront. Start down by the ballpark (Petco Park) and work your way up. Also, if you have time, drive the 15 minutes up to La Jolla to walk around or to grab dinner. Its absolutely beautiful and worth the trip. There are some nice restaurants where you can eat and overlook the ocean. If you are looking for Mexican food, check out Old Town. It is kind of touristy, but the locals actually go down there to eat just as much as the tourists.

Spritzer is selling a KGSS IIRC.

^ Potential mini-meet opportunity? They do have a website but it just has the same "upcoming events" over and over again so I have no idea. http://www.coltranechurch.org/

Out of curiosity, Voltron, as a fellow Bay Area resident have you ever been to the Church of St. Coltrane? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_coltrane#Religious_figure

With the help of a friend I swapped out a long-malfunctioning Khozmo pot in my HV for an RK50 over the weekend. For the longest time I put up with clicks/pops/random volume cut-outs and blasts at max volume from the Khozmo pot seen here. A couple of weeks ago my friend and I decided to take the Khozmo apart and see if we could find the source of the problems and potentially repair it. What we found was kind of shocking. On one of the four channels of the Khozmo there is clear signs that someone goofed up during the manufacturing process. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that something sharp had cut some of the traces on PCB. Look at the traces coming from pads 3 and 4 and you'll see the scratch. Also, if you look very closely you can see that pads 3 and 4 have been bridged. For reference, here is a photo of one of the (presumably) fully functioning channels. Unlike the channel above there is no scratch on the PCB, all the traces appear to be fine, and none of the pads are bridged. Judge for yourself whether this kind of workmanship from Khozmo is acceptable on a nearly $300 part. In any case, I figured in order to avoid any more problems with the pot I might as well go for the gold (literally) and throw in an RK50 purchased from Justin as a replacement. Thankfully my friend and I were able to borrow a drill because the volume control post on the RK50 is friggin massive. Not only is it 8mm thick (10mm at the base), it also is quite a bit longer (30mm) than the Khozmo (20mm). Drilling the front panel went smoothly and the RK50 mounted nicely. However the volume knob ended up being a bit more of an issue. The knob I was using was (A) for 6mm shaft, and ( only 21mm deep. We ended up having to drill out the knob to within a mm or two of drilling all the way through to get the thing to mount without a large gap between the edges of the knob and the front panel. It still doesn't look perfect, but it will work for now. I'm happy to say that the amp is now back up and running and fully functional. I'm not sure the RK50 is worth the extreme cost, but it really tracks well. The sound is beautiful and there are no more pops/clicks/etc. Mission accomplished.

Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates Its not often that I hear something that makes me sit up in my chair and take notice, but when "We Belong Together" came on I was wow'ed. Its one of those songs you just have to play again right away. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgSb1TGGcQ Christgau gives the album a C+ which I think is insane. To his credit he says: " In short, she writes and sings and composes as if she has something to hide. From herself, most likely" I agree with him, I just dont see it as a negative the same way he does.

After a day, I really like it. I think there are some things that are going to get worked out in the next few "point" releases, but on the whole I think the changes are mostly for the better. The animations are pretty smooth on my iPhone 5, but the retina iPad is definitely dropping frames all over the place. IMO the best change by far is the ability to finally put all those Apple applications you don't use into folders. I hated how in IOS 6 I was stuck with stuff like news stand that couldnt be filed away even if you didn't use them.

It just finished downloading on my iPhone. Whoa boy. It sure looks different. A lot of less informed users are really going to freak out when they see it for the first time. Initial impressions are pretty positive, but there is a zoom-in/zoom-out animation that happens EVERY SINGLE TIME you open anything that is either going to have to be sped up significantly or done away with all together. I'm already sick of seeing it and it hasn't even been 1/2 an hour.

Happy Birthday!

Just Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It took me a while to get through it because it is so dense. The chapters are like morsels to be savored, thought over, and discussed. It is fabulous. Easily one of the most important books of the 1970's. It helped a lot that, as a philosophy major, I had read nearly all of works Prisig discussed back in undergrad.