Dusty Chalk

Since people have essentially rebuilt the M-Audio Sonica/Transit, one could mod that for the BNC jack, couldn't one? Does the Oppo BDP-83-SE count? It doesn't have the Sabre DAC in it, but it does have another one. (Um, right?)

Yeah, good ol' PBS. Castle -- finished reading Heat Wave, so caught up on the latest episode. One of the other things I liked about the book (in addition to all of the similarities it had to the show) was the dissimilarities it had with the show -- it really stands like the book he would have written, not just another episode of the show.

Yeah, contact that guy, he has a spare piece that's square that ought to just fit.

They're welcome to try. To 'They' -- I like Asians and redheads. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

Just got up, about to go shovel.

That's about where to stop.

Stephenson's Snow Crash, definitely. One of the few books I've read multiple times. Ditto Diamond Age -- fantastic book. Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead/Xenocide/Children of the Mind and the shadow series: Ender's Shadow/Shadow of the Hegemon/Shadow Puppets/Shadow of the Giant. It is my understanding that this series has continued, but those are the only 8 I've read. Tolkien, obviously. (Did you really read the entire Dune series? It kind of went off into never-never land towards the end.) If you want some serious angst, Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I actually preferred this to Tolkien, but I enjoy angsty. I wept openly during sections of these books. Surprisingly good was the Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko -- Night Watch; Day Watch; Twilight Watch (sometimes called Dusk Watch); Final Watch (sometimes called Last Watch) -- vampires and wizards and shit. I actually don't "get" Gibson, so my favorite book by him is Pattern Recognition, but Neuromancer (from the aforementioned Sprawl trilogy) is considered by many to have set the template for "cyberpunk". That said -- Difference Engine (steampunk blueprint) and the short story collection Burning Chrome are probably a good place to start. (I think "Dogfight" is one of his best.) I think steampunk will appeal to you. If cyberpunk appeals to you at all (Snowcrash), check out the short story collection, "Mirrorshades" -- it ended up turning me on to a lot of authors. Gaiman -- Neverwhere is outstanding. And if you want a funny, Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett. Heinlein -- Stranger in a Strange Land & Stormship Troopers are classics. Niven & Pournelle used to be my favorite sci-fi writing act -- Mote in God's Eye, Inferno, Lucifer's Hammer, Oath of Fealty, Footfall, and Legacy of Heorot were about as far as I got. Niven alone wrote some pretty interesting work, too: Ringworld is pretty great. Then there's the entire Tales of Known Space continuum. More wizards and shit: Roger Zelazny -- my first favorite author. Lord of Light, and then if you like that, the first Amber series. Another one that does short stories well. Asimov -- well, you gotta do I, Robot. That's where a lot of it started.

I vaguely remember drooling over reading a review of it over a year ago. I omnis.

This, coming from someone who prides himself on not knowing the weather more than 4 hours in advance.

I have to admit that the last episode had something about it that I didn't like either -- not sure it was "rushed", but not sure it wasn't, neither. It did have some (but not all) of the low-budget-ness of Epitaph 1. And it tried too hard to tie up too many loose ends. Didn't need to go the other direction, but they could have left off some of them. IMHO, the show ended with the previous episode. I agree with Thrice that Whedon's pacing is better when he's in for the long haul. Some of the developments over the last several episodes did seem rushed, like he was trying to squeeze an entire season's story arc in 4 shows. That said, I think one of the weaknesses of the show, overall, was the fact that many of the main characters weren't supposed to have a personality, sort of. I.E. Echo. That's just hamstringing yourself from the get-go.

No, it sounded like you described three different connections: digital audio out from PC into Azur 740C analog-ly into 640R; digital audio out from PC into 640R; and then in your second paragraph, something about the DacMagic. (Which is also where you use the word, "vastly", BTW.) So you didn't actually listen to the DacMagic in either of these scenarios? Actually, that smells right -- I think you mentioned that earlier, and from your other response, I get that second paragraph was based on the email exchange. And no, it doesn't really surprise me that the Cambridge Audio doesn't redigitize the signal. Good on them. I am kind of surprised that the digital connection is inferior to the analog connection, though.

Sweet.

There is currently a fad of larger watches, though. The blue-on-black Bell & Ross's that you're grailin' over range in size from 42mm (BR-03) to 46mm (BR-01). My huge ones (51-30) are 47mm without the crown, and I'm getting kind of used to them. But it's a fad. 38mm sounds about right, for non-fad-large watches. Next time you're in Nordstrom's, check it out. It kind of stands out a little.

Hublot launches Aero Bang Morgan

So you tried all three?

That's like asking me which I trust more -- the bookie, or the guy with the bookie -- how about neither? Pfff. I trust no-one. Sneaker net it is, for me.

I just noticed that every time Grand Enigma posts, it screws up the thread -- can someone fix his custom title, please? It looks like it opens with a bold but closes with an "a" tag -- the close should be a "b", I think.

Invizibul muvmnt watches (movements made with the same material as the crystal): Quinting

Cherry Vanilla Yogurt

I was talking about that argument in general from the perspective of the centralized superduperprocessor/mainframe & netbook/iTouchBigger/other lower-powered CPU-based device model.

Huzzah. Paid-off car is paid-off -- nice!

Here's the problem I have: Let's assume I'm also more ambitious than I am -- a day trader successful enough to make a living off of the stock market, but not enough to own my own supercomputer. And let's say I have a secret. That secret is my "system". Let's also assume that I do trust Apple/Microsoft/Google/Yahoo/AT&T/Verizon/Johnson&Johnson/Gerber/Palmolive/whomever enough to put my data on a superdupercomputer co-op as per the discussed model. I still wouldn't get any sleep, because EVERYONE ELSE would have access to my secret in a way that I couldn't directly defend against.

Newbury Comics, but not if you don't have any money to spend.

I don't think so. He mentioned in interviews that he actually had several years mapped out with the longer story arcs. But maybe compressing them made them better. I'd like to think not, just because I liked a lot of the set pieces (dialog-wise) the last bit.

Some models of the Aleph P come with a remote option. Just FYI: they don't all have this capability.