Dusty Chalk

I have zero desire to try a Lowther by itself. It's a very special sound, and one that I only find occasionally appealing -- I'd want to add a sub and a supertweeter to it. Tannoy's coaxials are much more interesting to me.

(looks around, waves at camera, mouths 'yo steve')

Hurray! (Or rather, half a 'hurray!')

Well then you wouldn't exactly be a good candidate -- I was thinking more for the "oh, the Mk 1's are so much better than the Mk 2's" school (spritzer, Hirsch, et al).

Oh, I don't mind that one as much, but those storky/flamingo looking ones do absolutely nothing for me.

I am slowly coming over to the church of EQ. I wonder if the O2 Mk2 can be made as good as the O2 Mk1 with some judicious choices made (I.E. get rid of that bass hump). I'm currently EQ-ing my L3000's to get rid of that ~4K swale, and it sounds delish.

Jesus! Well that would be why. I was going to guess that they had a strictly enforced upload/download policy.

Well yeah, considering I wasn't paying attention and had assumed it was a continuous style attenuator.

Yeah, there's three of them, IIRC: there's the one that I and A.--- B.--- linked to, there's the more sleddy style that shows up in the first page of image search, and then there's the one without the sled at all (looks like a normal hard drive). So yeah, you kind of need to be paying attention to what you're buying, but I think the price on all three are similar. So yeah, I think I'll wait. Even if it doesn't come down below US$230 again any time soon, I just shouldn't be spending the US$200+ right now.

Is this: Amazon.com: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000HLFS: Electronics ...a good deal? Or is it pretty commonly available for ~US$230, and I can get it for that later?

Serious answer: dirt. The impedance is fluctuating wildly when you turn it, so it needs cleaning or replacing.

Well, I was also saying that I love cyberpunk, so we just differ. In fact, I was this far from recommending a compilation of short stories called Mirrorshades which introduced me to a lot of my favorite authors in the genre. But the recommendation might still be apt -- have you thought about getting any of those "greatest sci-fi stories of 1999" or whatever? Or find a collection that has some of your favorite authors?

faust3d -- I don't really go for those Lowther-based designs, I don't know why.

Bizarre -- I get better speeds out of California than I do locally. They must've fucked up the routing again.

On the contrary, it's efficient. You're there for the most important part (to you). I've spent hundreds of dollars to get up to New York for $30 and "pay what you can" shows.

Sehr gut. It's possible you heard bad things about it -- I imagine the ruckus raised by hard-core Oingo Boingo fans would have been pretty dire. Now to revisit Dark at the End of the Tunnel, the other Oingo Boingo album I'm not as familiar with.

You're a lolcat, aren't you?

Oingo Boingo, Boingo (the 1994, as opposed to Boi-ngo, the 1987 album), including a reversed version of Insanity. Jesus Christ what a different album, I had completely forgotten they had done this. I usually only listen to "Insanity", but the rest of the album is pretty good, too. It's a bit Beatles-ish, but with Danny Elfman's inimitable twist on things. "Change" in particular is pretty epic, "Pedestrian" has a certain abstract Talking Heads groove going on, and "Can't See (Useless)" is just...well...good.

Okay, just disregard everything I wrote you, then, we obviously completely differ on this. I just assume anyone who loves Stephenson loves that novel. My mistake. I agree about the Baroque Cycle, though: crowning achievement, indeed. Have you seen the paperbacks? They rearranged the chapters so that the interweaving storylines are in separate books. I'm tempted to try and read it that way (I just found my copy of Quicksilver, which I had been missing -- it is now with the other two), but that won't be any time soon.

(sharp intake of breath) Oh!

Diamond Age.

What I usually do is look up a book on Amazon, and see what they have listed for "customers also bought". Stephenson...Stephenson...Stephenson...moar Stephenson...Gibson -- meh, nowhere near as much fun to read, Pattern Recognition is his best, though (although I'm sure you're already familiar with)...Gaiman -- now Gaiman is as much fun to read, but he's much more fantasy than sci-fi, much less hard sci-fi. Check out Neverwhere if you've never read anything by him....yeah, good old stand-by's like Ender saga by Orson Scott Card, Dune by Frank Herbert...but again, the classic Stephenson sense of humor is missing. (Do you mind silly? Discworld is fun.) But they definitely satisfy the "good" and "hefty" criteria. Christopher Moore is fun, but again -- more fantasy than sci-fi complete fantasy, no science fiction. And definitely errs on the side of sillier than Stephenson. You know what I enjoyed? Slant, by Greg Bear. I'm sure there are other books by Greg Bear that are better, but Slant was my first. ...bunch of names I'm not recognizing...my friend is trying to get me into Richard K. Morgan, but he caught me at a bad time (I don't do a lot of reading these days)...my friend is into hard sci-fi...

Alright, now you're just fucking with me. Fucker.

Just in case it wasn't clear, I was trying to say that you were obviously trying to pick two of the very nice category. I was also trying to say that most peoples' experiences are not usually with such two closely matched pieces of gear.