Early Risers.

[AndyID]

56 minutes ago, BR60103 said:

Our CD collection is 48" wide and 7 shelves high.  And I have no idea how I would copy it onto a card in a phone.

My dentist has extracted all my blue teeth.

 

 

You could always get something like this.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Products-Portable-Walkman-Relaxing/dp/B083WNRH45/ref=asc_df_B083WNRH45/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=416875733679&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13295352061303968937&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029636&hvtargid=pla-898965313623&ref=&adgrpid=100759324304&th=1

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by AndyID

[pH]

In the car park at the soccer field this morning, I saw and picked up a one-inch brad. Then this afternoon, approaching the car from the back, I saw another brad sticking out of the shoulder of a tire. A visit to the local tire store confirmed it - tire is not repairable. At least they can get another of the same type, but at a cost of $300 (plus tax)!

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by pH

[jjb1970]

I am back from Bangkok, not a bad junket as junkets go. Bangkok is very different from Singapore, much more vibrant, it's a bit seedy and dirty and all that but it's interesting and enjoyable. Terrific food. If visiting for a few days I would recommend Bangkok over Singapore, but as a long term proposition I'd recommend Singapore. The qualities that people complain about in Singapore (it's a bit sterile, rules are rules, it's all a bit too safe and organized) are the things that make it a nice place to live with on a longer term basis (especially with two teenagers).

 

I had a bit of harmless fun, it was a forum organized by one of the UN agencies, and one session was encouraging gender diversity in shipping which is an entirely positive thing. However some brainiac dreamt up the promotional slogan 'you cannot be what you cannot see', the idea being that young girls need role models in the industry to show them what is possible. No objection to the underlying principle, but I asked the question - are you saying blind people can't make anything of their lives? That sounds rather discriminatory against people with poor vision or who are blind. Cue embarrassed looks and a lot of mumbling. I was both throwing a hand grenade and making a serious point as it annoys me there is still such a casual attitude to disabled people. In all the commendable efforts to encourage more women into shipping there is zero effort to encourage disabled people into shipping careers. Now the usual answer to that is 'yeah, what's a disabled person going to do on a ship?', which ignores the fact that the majority of maritime transport careers are land based and many of them have no barrier to disabled persons (naval architecture, design engineering, design approval, commercial operator to name just a few). I find it profoundly annoying, I left a professional institute over it when they said outreach to disabled people wasn't a priority while bombarding members with all their good work on gender diversity.

[jjb1970]

I still buy CDs. Classical labels have been selling box sets of complete works of composers, or of conductors, or of performers for peanuts. I buy them and rip them to FLAC then archive the discs, and occasionally use my old CD player when I'm in the mood. For some reason it's often cheaper to buy the discs than downloads. Some of these sets are wonderful, a while ago Sony released a set of their complete recordings by George Szell which was really outstanding.

 

People keep telling me that physical media and downloads are dead, all we need is streaming. Well, maybe, but I like not being reliant on a web connection, and if I really like a particular performance then why not have it stored given that I'll listen to it more than performances that are a bit average. 

 

Another advantage is it gives you a fixed point. It's not so much of an issue with classical music, but for other genres the mastering version is crucial as labels keep remastering. They sell this as a positive, which it probably is for car audio and monoaural small BT speaker users, each remastering seems to add more compression and some now look like brick walls when analysed for range. It may be good for small speakers and car audio systems to narrow the dynamic range right down but for half decent audio systems and headphones it destroys audio quality.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

... remastering seems to add more compression and some now look like brick walls when analysed for range.

The audio CD was designed to faithfully reproduce the full dynamic range of classical music. (The specification for the duration of what could be stored on an audio CD was the longest symphony.  I don't remember which one that is.)  At one point* I worked with a gentleman from Phillips who represented himself as being one of the 'inventors' of the audio CD.

 

* In the early 1990s. 

 

We were working on MPEG audio compression which at that point was impractical in real-time applications - fast enough decoder chips hadn't been built. The goal (at the time) was for 'essentially lossless' compression**. There was an audio booth where a 'golden eared' individual would listen to the decoded output of compressed content to determine if he could hear any compression artifacts.

 

** There is, of course, some, but the intent was for it not to be audible.

 

With the bandwidth implications of streaming all considerations of lossless compression seem to have disappeared and the objective is to crank up the compression rates irrespective of the results.

[AndyID]

CDs are still a good investment. They will survive unimpaired for a very long time and they are a lot harder to lose than data files stored on just about anything else. Gramophone records are pretty good too just as long as you never take them out of their sleeves 😀

[jamie92208]

13 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Beat I'm watching you.

Our two cherry trees are nearly ready for harvesting, the plums are coming on well. 

 

Good moaning from the Charente.  We had our goat curry last night with three friends, two of them French.  Most conversation was in French and we had a very good evening.  

 

This time 44 years ago I was in Leeds City Centre trying to pick up a hire car for the get away from our wedding reception. Timing got a bit tight due to a delay but I did make it to the church on time. 

 

As to radio, Radio 4 Am on  198 is the main thing I listen to in the car since the CD player died.

 

Jamie

Edited June 2, 2023 by jamie92208

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Met up with my old work colleague last night. Beer was drunk and the world was put to rights.  I then walked home as, at 23:00 you have a 30 minute wait for thr next bus. Pah!

 

Exciting news though.. Yorkshire beat Lancashire in their T20 match last night..

 

Even more exciting as I have been asked to go to Malton & Old Malton Cricket Club on Saturday to do an Observation on an umpire.. I know him and his colleague already but never seen him umpire for a number of years.. I would do more local observations but my League have some "mates" who do it for them.

 

If this works I will use it as a good reason to stopLeague umpiring. 

 

On the "wolf at the door" list of  things to do today.. organise some questions for a volunteer role we are going to fill. Sort out a location for the interviews..find and fix a short on my layout .

 

@southern42 her indoors says the flutes are very nice. The very expensive one on sale is expensive as they can get people to pay that price. She has some recorders whiich need recorking.. she would like to find someone else to do it but a trip to Saltaire is looming.  Ouch!

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Tony_S said:

is Mickey one of the Chinese MGs?

 

The very same - an MG3.  Not perfect (it could do with more MPG) but pretty good for this Bear.  £9K brand new in Dec 2016 for the top model - though I'd got £2K for Ricky the Rover under a scrappage deal.

Still miss Ricky though....😢

 

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

Our CD collection is 48" wide and 7 shelves high.  And I have no idea how I would copy it onto a card in a phone.

My dentist has extracted all my blue teeth.

 

 

Bear worked with a guy who's SWMBO was on at him to downsize his record collection (big band music).  "Have you got many?" Bear asks....

"Oh, about 30,000" came the reply......

 

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Talk of radios takes me back to my old Sony SW7600 AM/FM/short wave radio, at one time that model was almost a de-facto global standard purchase for seafarers and people working in remote places. I wish I kept it rather than disposing of it when I no longer needed it, good examples still seem to sell quite well. 

 

Plenty available on the 'bay at not very much prices....

 

Bear here......

Yet more H/S/L (hey, what a surprise.....).  It looks like danglin' will be the order of the day.....

 

In other news....

Looks promising - Bear would be very pleased to have such a test every 6 months:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65775159

 

In other, other news.....

It seems that Muskie (no, not the one in Deputy Dawg) has made £44Bn since January.  Jealous?  This Bear??

 

BG

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, BR60103 said:

Our CD collection is 48" wide and 7 shelves high.  And I have no idea how I would copy it onto a card in a phone.

 

My CD collection is all stored in "Useful Boxes". On shelves, they would probably extend to the same width and height. Then there's the LP collection to consider, again all "Usefully" stored.  I'm considering getting a number of "Useful" storage boxes for the cough loco cough collection...

 

59 minutes ago, Barry O said:

 

@southern42 her indoors says the flutes are very nice. The very expensive one on sale is expensive as they can get people to pay that price. She has some recorders whiich need recorking.. she would like to find someone else to do it but a trip to Saltaire is looming.  Ouch!

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

 

When writing one of my earlier posts, I looked up the current price of my Moeck alto.  10 times what I paid for it!!!

Times definitely ain't what they used to be....

 

[New Haven Neil]

Mornin' all.

 

Nice again here, two weeks now - crikey.

 

I'm a CD buyer too, listening via a decent player (Arcam here) and system there is a difference to sounds delivered via a phone etc.  Picky, me.

 

Talking of sound, those of us who like a vibrating tube longer than the ones Polly so skilfully plays, may like this.  Some (sound) reproduction equipment with decent frequency response needed.

 

 

Oooooohh Anna!

 

 

[DaveF]

A fine morning with some sun, I shall soon decide what to do.  So far I've eaten breakfast and done the usual Friday morning jobs.

 

I too still buy CDs, now and then a new one but very often second hand ones from charity shops.  I've no idea how many but they take up nearly 4 feet x 7 shelves high (that sounds like BR60103's post earlier).  They used to be neatly sorted but recently I've just fitted new ones in to spaces so sometime I must put them in a logical order.  .  I still play them most days, I've only ever had one CD which has deteriorated to be unplayable.  They are mix of classical, old pop, folk, country and German language volksmusik.

 

David

 

 

 

 

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from a Sidcup that remains determinedly grey and cool, although dry. Work continues to be very busy, so I am glad to be WFH today. Out of sight out of mind means I can get on with some things that mean I don't get interrupted.

 

All the talk of radio tuning reminded me that on  one occasion I managed to pick up radio signals (from the police IIRC) while playing vinyl. I thought at first that the song had some special effects in it but they carried on between tracks - and were never heard again. I suspect it was when I had been using the old family stereo which I was given when I went to university. It was a Phillips one which we'd got in Singapore (the Dutch bloke next door worked for them and I guess a discount would have been involved!). It had a reversible needle that meant you could play old mono records as well. I seem to recall the belt stretched to the point of uselessness and I replaced it with an elastic band. I also blew the front off one of the speakers playing it LOUD...well I was a student.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bright and sunny start to the day, it’s currently 9C out there, so a little cooler than yesterday. It being Friday means my first task will be a walk to the butchers to secure a pork pie for my dinner and collect the weekly meats rations, I’ll also get a couple of pasties to go in the freezer for future consumption. After that it’s a visit to the Trafford Centre, followed by doing norralot for the rest of the day. 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Preparing this mornings breakfast I went to remove an egg from the carton only for the shell to disintegrate. Upon examination the shell was very thin compared to another egg from the same carton. So instead of my couple of boiled eggs for breakfast I had a fried egg sarnie instead. Nottalot to do today so I will probably end up watching daytime TV.

[iL Dottore]

I too am an enthusiastic CD buyer. Apart from the durability of the CDs, you also actually own them outright; which is something that seems to be a bit iffy with all this downloadable media.

 

I vaguely remember a legal case, not too long ago, when a widow found out that her late husband’s extensive collection of downloaded music didn’t actually belong to him. but was merely – ahem – “rented”.
 

I also vaguely remember that the legal case took place in the United States, so perhaps our North American correspondents can provide further details and the outcome of that particular legal issue.

 

I see that @PupCam and @polybear are moaning because they are, respectively, down to their last mini-Swiss chocolate and last mini-Toblerones. What they haven’t told you on ER is that both got a kilo bag each of such treats (and free, gratis and for nothing to boot - courtesy of CC).

However, they can be reassured that at the next BT meet up they will have the opportunity to purchase resupplies at trade prices…

I note that no one has taken up my “name that blog” challenge. Tsk tsk…..

 

Finally, as I’m now in a grumpy mood, I hope you find the following as pernicious an earworm as I did

 

 

[PupCam]

Morning All!

 

A bit of "Life Admin" has been done this morning.  

 

Now on to cogitation as to how to reduce Beeza leakage and also provide a a sight gauge for the oil tank as the design of the tank is very poor with the oil filter in the neck of of the tank.  You have to remove the filter to see the level and in so doing you let all of the carp in the filter into the oil tank and oh yes, get very oily doing it.    The oil tank/filter arrangement on the AJ is a far superior design (which might upset the BSA diehards!).

 

I feel I should make the effort for a walk today.  When I first retired I was very good making sure I went out for a decent walk every day.   Unfortunately I've slipped a bit but it would of course be in my best interests to be more consistently mobile.

 

14 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I too am an enthusiastic CD buyer. Apart from the durability of the CDs, you also actually own them outright; which is something that seems to be a bit iffy with all this downloadable media.

 

 

I'm very much of the opinion when I shell out for something it should become mine in perpetuity and not just  a temporary right to make use of it.   But then I'm a MOG stuck in the old ways.    Similarly; subscription software access for 365 days.  No I don't think so!    You'll be wanting me to lease the ink for my printer next!   What's that you say HP?    Well you can shove your printers where .....

 

Pah !

 

14 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I see that @PupCam and @polybear are moaning because they are, respectively, down to their last mini-Swiss chocolate and last mini-Toblerones. What they haven’t told you on ER is that both got a kilo bag each of such treats (and free, gratis and for nothing to boot - courtesy of CC).

 

No, no, no!      Not moaning more lamenting the passing of a fine treat.     Anyway, Mrs Puppers nicked a load 🤣

 

14 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I note that no one has taken up my “name that blog” challenge. Tsk tsk…..

 

How about "So long and thanks for all the fish"  although that might be better as a title for the post-trip memoirs 🤔

 

TTFNQ

Edited June 2, 2023 by PupCam
Added replies to iD's quotes

[Coombe Barton]

Spotted elsewhere

Congratulations on your 44th Wedding anniversary, @jamie92208

[iL Dottore]

Your Friday Poser:

 

Original or Cover?

 

I’m thinking of adding either the original or the version of Love On The Streets to my repertoire:

ORIGINAL

COVER

Or perhaps a bit of the best of both???

[Barry O]

Yes,Happy 44th Anniversary to Jamie and Beth!

 

In two weeks or sos time it's our 43rd.. lummy.. double prison sentence (with good behaviour)🤣

Baz

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

here......

Yet more H/S/L (hey, what a surprise.....).  It looks like danglin

My extendable ladder isn't quite long enough to let me tie some climbing rose stems to the trellis over the front door. I mentioned to Aditi that I could put the ladder on top of the step stool having seen suggestions on RMweb. She has seen the photos you posted.  Her response. I don't think so!

[polybear]

58 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I see that @PupCam and @polybear are moaning because they are, respectively, down to their last mini-Swiss chocolate and last mini-Toblerones. What they haven’t told you on ER is that both got a kilo bag each of such treats (and free, gratis and for nothing to boot - courtesy of CC).

 

 

We did indeed - but made no mention purely so that CC can't be charged with Bribery & Corruption you understand (we're thoughtful like that).

Not that B & P could be bribed**, you understand......

 

**OK, possibly - but it'd take more than a bag of (very nice) choccies

[southern42]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Talk of radios takes me back to my old Sony SW7600 AM/FM/short wave radio, at one time that model was almost a de-facto global standard purchase for seafarers and people working in remote places. I wish I kept it rather than disposing of it when I no longer needed it, good examples still seem to sell quite well. Short wave reception and sound quality was poor (to be polite) even with a decent antenna but it made the difference between being able to listen to news and radio at sea or being isolated. At that time the BBC World Service was really good and respected around the world, they offered a service tailored to the audience, now I'm not sure I know anyone who listens to it. 

Talk of radios takes me back to my sailing days...

 

13 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

In UK terms, LW was important for the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 (1500 metres), plus of course The Archers and the Today programme.  It was alleged that the British nuclear submarine deterrent was based on being able to receive R4 longwave.  In the absence of direct instruction, if R4 was missing from the airwaves after a certain period of time, the Captain was entitled to open his safe and deal out worldwide  Merry Hell...

 

and the Shipping Forecast at unearthly hours* before setting out to suit the tide...

Post midnight for a 4 am sailing (short bedtime); 5 am for a later venture and you can still be caught out - like sailing all the way to the IoM, in a patch of fog that seemed to have missed all our co-sailers; seeing black clouds with accompanying strong wind fast descending on us off the Skerries forcing a quick reduction in the sails; getting pelted in a heavy downpour on the way to Holyhead in a friend's yacht, on what should have been a bright sunny summer's day - just as well we had brought our waterproofs; and, of course, there was always the occasion when sailors would respond, over their VHF marine radio to the forecast given out by the local Coastguard, with the words: "Look out of the window!"

* Forecast at 00:48, 05:20, 12:01, and 17:54

 

When the time came we upgraded our basic FM radio with a DAB one. It was small and fitted nicely on the narrow shelf below the cabin window. Now, it sits on the kitchen worktop or the dining table, although I am more likely to listen to other devices.

 

Keyring Minion Bob, says, "Hello!"

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by southern42

[jjb1970]

Happy anniversary to Jamie! Enjoy many more!

[PeterBB]

Happy 44th Wedding Anniversary Beth and Jamie.