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Just watched the 1st 2 episodes of this and it seems pretty good so far. Stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as a pair of Louisiana detectives trying to solve a serial killer case.

Happy Birthday Mike! Any FFF in your near future?

^ Curious. Had you heard back from lil knight before you sent the money? Or did you just send it...

Conductor Claudio Abbado, 80, passed away yesterday. I believe my favorite Mahler 2 recording was by him, with the CSO, from the late '80s. Sometimes I think the CSO made a mistake hiring Barenboim instead of Abbado, but I suppose Barenboim left some good influences also. RIP

I was planning on using the mini as a workstation, but I suppose I could also let it run this as its not like I have many systems on the network. One of the mini's I was looking at is a 2011 server on local CL here.

Would you guys trust the OWC SSDs? Getting them to maintain backups can be a problem. The only reason it happens now is the one external is up in my younger son's room and is always connected. On another note, I am considering replacing my aging PowerMac G5 with a mini. If I put the PM upstairs and connected to the router, could I use this as sort of a backup server? I'll probably replace the Linksys router with an Apple Airport Extreme as well. The PM would be connected to the router via Ethernet as its airport card is limited to 802.1g.

Macbook Pro upgrades: My son has a Macbook Pro 5.5, 2009 model, with the stock 2G RAM (2 x 1G DIMMs), 160G HD. We'd like to do some upgrades (RAM and HD) in preparation for putting OSX 10.9 on it. For RAM, figured I'd use Crucial, and get either a 4G DIMM (for 5G), or get the 8G kit. I assume since they sell single DIMMs that these are not in a paired slot arrangement. 8G is the max for this machine. HD: They want to keep the superdrive. I know most of you like SSDs, but since they will be paying for the upgrades, not sure if they can swing that or not. And since it is still a relatively infant tech.,reliability is a concern. We do have at least 2 externals, 1 of which they have been using for Time Machine for this computer. We were thinking something in the 500G to 1T range, though with the externals, if a more reasonably priced SSD in the 240G+ range were recommended, they could deal with that. I see Hybrid SSHDs coming out, and priced pretty reasonably. Any experience with those? Thanks for the recommendations!

Happy Birthday Grahame!

There was some speculation that some of the fake J109/K389s that tested as bipolar parts might have been these... I'd agree that making fakes in this packaging would not be economically feasible, unless the faker was looking to lose money.

Now Marc Also, are you testing this with the input(s) shorted to ground? Leaving the input floating will cause the output to drift a lt. Otherwise, you have some problems in the amp it would seem.

If it were mine, I would get it so that DC offset is in the 1-2mV range WITHOUT the opamp in. Yours is much too high at 100mV. Are you using all 4 (or is it 8 for balanced?) pots? 620 or 680 ohm resistors in parallel with the pots?

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday John!

^ Bingo. That is also why I think people who make statements about a power cable, et. al. making a "world" of difference might notice more difference from a piece of equipment with a proper power supply and run thru a bog standard AC cord. A tight grip on the plug blades should only be a good thing, though not sure you would hear anything unless you are trying too hard. As for outlets, the ones that used to be considered good for readily available (i.e., home improvement store or hardware store) were the Pass and Seymour 5262s. Of course that was before the Oyaides and whatever nonsense came on the market. There's always the bargains here as well...

I also believe it is technically illegal to put 20A receptacles on a 15A circuit... if that is what you did.

^ since there are more than 1 of them, I would think the goal would be to build all 24 in one day; 364 days vacation. What's not to like?

^ This! Hoping for good news...

^ They must follow the Mike Elliot (counterpoint) school of design. In the preamp I had, he used an EZ81 / 6CA4 rectifier with a CRC filter of 100uf / 500 ohms / 100uf. Datasheet for that rectifier has 50uf max after the tube, and I'm sure it likely performs better with something more like 20uf. When he was doing "upgrades" he was selling EZ80 / 6V4s and claimed they sounded "amazing" in place of the EZ81, Coupled with poor layout of the heater supply (ripple special). Lots of similarities.

Goals: Do 2000+ miles (up from my current ~1000) Tour de Cure this year, try to do the 100k Dairyland Dare (hopefully with my brother), also try 100k Try to get below 170, maybe 160 and see where that gets me Commute more (see #1)

Power is back on, house had only dropped to 67 at the time, so good. That sucks Todd re. your friend's furnace. Hope they get it fixed! Crossing fingers for you Mike!

Just got a call from my son; apparently our power went out about half an hour ago. Hope they get it restored soon (says around 3:00). Otherwise, I'll have to talk them thru how to shut off the water and drain the system if the temp approaches freezing. So far thermostat says 69 or so, so it doesn't appear to be dropping very fast. Joy.

Had to take my son to work and just picked him up. Driving was OK (not good by any means). I'm not going out again today This is what our back yard looks like currently. Grilled some burgers on that grill last night, in the snow (deck had been shoveled).

Fuck you! Fuck all you Florida or other southern states guys!

^ I remember the first December when I lived in Dallas. It got down to 5F for a day or so. The little furnace thingie in our apartment ran nonstop and only kept the apartment in the mid-50s. $300 heating bill that month. Sweet. According to the weather channel hourly forecast for Monday, it is supposed to be -19F when I go to work and -16F at noon. Nice. Add a 20+mph NNW wind. I might actually break out the parka Reks: for normal non-accessorized shoes/boots, I've always loved these Ecco Track II boots on slick surfaces; they grip the best of anything I have worn. Some sort of polyurethane sole. Never tried the Yaktrax or others and am sure they work well.

Happy Birthday!