boom3

Carl Sagan, clip from the original COSMOS

I am a published author. Send me a PM with your e-mail for more info

In my case, in a quiet house I can hear an ant pass gas. In a noisy bar or restaurant (remember those?) I sometimes struggle to understand what the person across from me is saying.

Many people here in FL still in denial, like our Guvnuh

That reminds me of a long-standing question of mine. Instead of "flat" response as measured by a microphone, why not design a speaker to have the inverse of the F-M curve, so as to be "perceptually flat" ?

I hunt them relentlessly. They like to build nests near electrical outlets and inside the shades of outdoor lights. I also had a major hornet nest in a palmetto clump and had to call a professional to deal with it. They are more aggressive than wasps. All the sprays I used to use on wasps are losing their effectiveness. One day in the shop, one attacked me and I grabbed a can of 3M 90 spray adhesive (great for attaching carpet to speaker boxes). I let him have a facefull of that and he crashed. I have since relied on that as my go-to spray since it jams their wings, coats their nests, and they can't develop resistance to it. The only downside is the residue it leaves on the house. There is no fix except to leave it to dry out in the sun for a year or so and then scrape it off. Inside a house, hairspray also works well; I had a bee colony in the HVAC air handler closet and with a can of White Rain Extra Hold, I dispatched the few bees that got inside the residence. I had a pro come out and relocate the hive.

Is this a scene from "Mildred Pierce"? The man raising his coffee cup looks like the department manager from Miracle on 34th Street, Porter Hall

Hi Amy, glad to hear from you!

I connected my trusty HP 204 oscillator to a JVC ribbon tweeter and started at 5 KHz, on axis about one meter away. After I could no longer hear the signal, I looked at the dial, 13 KHz is where the old ears faded out. Not bad for 64. The last time (about 10 years ago) my ENT tested my hearing, his test (which stopped at 8 KHz) indicated my hearing was much better than the average for 50+ men. He said that many of his male patients had worked with loud machinery most of their lives, I have been an office worker most of my career, and that explained the difference. By way of comparison, when I was 18, I connected a similar HP oscillator to my Koss PRO 4AA headphones. My ears gave up at 18 KHz.

"Bosebud!"- Charles Foster Kane

Thanks for the link!

guess the dog works for Stereophile edit-that is just a GIF still-the animated GIF is too large, oh well

I used Fairfield Poly-Fil Extra Loft from Joanne's in my 12 inch woofer and passive radiator enclosure (75 liter). It is inexpensive and works well. Whatever is used, it must not get between the woofer and the basket. Damping material also can only reduce, but not eliminate resonances from an inadequate structure. If you have an existing vented system you need to carefully measure what effect the extra filling has on the performance. This is just a 10,000 foot view and there are more detailed discussions online and in the reference books.

My association with her music began at the end of Dr. Strangelove when "We'll Meet Again" is used over multiple clips of nuclear detonations. She was better known in England, but my American parents heard her songs during the war.

What difference it makes are the conditions for the workers. The "just offshore it" mentality has not only hurt American manufacturing, it has created an enormous amount of exploitation in the countries where the production went. Did American industry get complacent and make serious missteps that cost us jobs? Sure. But I've worked in American factories and on their worst days, even with small-town amateur management, they are better than the conditions normally found abroad. At least Apple stepped up and demanded Foxcon make changes for the workers. I'm sure it still not up toAmerican standards, but it is an example of offshoring with some concept of social responsibility.

Thank you. I liked this hat better.

Speaking of Germany, here's a much younger yours truly in front of the Linderhof, one of Ludwig II's palaces

Beautiful! That outdoor pavilion reminds me of the Denver airport...who inspired who?

https://www.pcmag.com/news/350-usb-stick-that-claims-to-block-5g-is-actually-a-6-generic-thumb-drive "The 5GBioShield makes it possible, thanks to a uniquely applied process of quantum nano-layer technology, to balance the imbalanced electric oscillations arising from all electric fog induced by all devices such as: laptops, cordless phones, wlan, tablets, etc....brings balance into the field at the atomic and cellular level restoring balanced effects to all harmful (ionized and non-ionized) radiation." So I guess if I wore whilst CAT scanned, the film would be blank? With a few substitutions here and there, this could be ad copy for capacitors, speaker cables, power cords, magic beans, you name it.

I get the Nat Geo, I will look for this, thanks.

Win 10 is garbage, one of those bad releases of Windows MS just can't fix fast enough. It's mantra is "Not Responding"

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Mt St Helens erupting with a violence not experienced in the United States in modern times. One estimate was a force of 24 megatons, which is larger than any weapon the US ever tested in the atmosphere. Although I was not a witness, I do remember the incredible sunsets of the rest of the year as the ash cloud circled the globe.I recall sitting in McElroys restaurant in Biloxi, looking out over the Mississippi Sound, and the ever-changing layers of color as the sun went down. Let us also remember all who lost their lives in the eruption. I think especially of David Johnson, the volcanologist yelling "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" into his ham radio, and Harry Truman, the irascible keeper of the Spirit Lake Lodge. Yesterday I played Alan Hovhaness's Symphony No. 50, "Mount Saint Helens". This is my favorite work by Hovhaness. I don't listen to the final movement very often, but when I do it is a stirring experience on a powerful system (Klipsch, of course). Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle symphony have recorded this and I hope to hear it in person someday.

New Orleans, from the 15th floor of an office building in the central business district, the Crescent City Connection (CCC) bridges in the distance.