Only $87,500! If you love your records, you’ll get yours today!
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/nagra-hd-phono-phono-preamp
The least expensive phono preamp worth buying is the German-designed Behringer PP400. I bought one five years ago for $25 to use in my office.
While costumed kids were at my house treating themselves to candy, Bluehost was tricking me with an expired SSL certificate. The site went down with a 403 FORBIDDEN ACCESS error. Which was doubly frustrating, because a few days ago I’d received notification that my certificate renewal had been processed.
So at the end of the night’s activities I had a text chat with customer support. It began with the usual scripted questions. “When was the last time the site was working? Did you make any changes?” Knowing with certainty what the problem was, I replied, “These are pointless questions. Did Bluehost let my SSL certificate expire? Please answer MY question.”
A new certificate was issued, and a couple of minutes later the site came back up at 9:45 ET. The question now is, why is the new one good for only three months?
Issued On Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 7:43:37?PM Expires On Monday, January 29, 2024 at 6:43:36?PM
I had a routine appointment at a large dermatology practice this morning. When I first saw a dermatologist there, for a biopsy that turned out to be melanoma, they had paper medical records. Six years later, they still don’t have an electronic medical record system. Appointment scheduling and billing yes, but EMR no. Why that is, I don’t know, but it’s interesting they’re a holdout. My guess is the owners don’t want to invest the money and deal with the hassle of transcribing all of those records, because their long-term plan is to sell the business.
A hospital in a small neighboring city is one of the last in the area to still be a customer of my former employer. Cost is the obvious reason why. The leading HIS/EMR software, from Epic Systems, is typically much too expensive for a small community hospital. Last year I chatted with an employee at the hospital, who said of my alma mater’s system, “you get what you pay for.” Ouch! Well now it appears they’ll be getting Epic after all. A pattern that I have seen played out many times over the past 10+ years is about to be repeated. The hospital has announced its intention to be acquired by a regional medical center that, I’m certain, will convert them to their existing Epic system.
January, 2004 I became a Netflix customer.
Three years later, Netflix gave me access to its brand-new streaming service.
With streaming barely out of the starting gate, that August The Boston Globe profiled the expansive Netflix disc distribution center that serviced the area.
In February, 2009, exactly two years after having my first taste of Netflix streaming, the service had expanded enough to justify buying a first generation Roku player. Half a dozen streamers have come and gone from the house since then, with two Rokus and a Fire TV stick remaining.
In September, 2011 Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced Qwikster, a premature move away from discs.
In April, 2017, one month after retiring, I ended my Netflix disc subscription.
The final few days of Netflix’s physical media service, ending what it began, are here. Slate has a good opinion piece about it.
https://slate.com/culture/2023/09/netflix-dvd-rental-service-ending-movies-queue.html
A key point of the striking auto workers is concern over the push to all-electric cars. GM sure looks stupid for killing, and literally destroying, the EV1.
My concern about, and hope for, electric cars is, they could end up being an interim solution, like compact fluorescent lights were on the way to LED. CF was a mistake, leaving us with a lot of mercury to worry about. It would have been better to wait for LED, the way the decision was made to wait for digital HDTV to be ready, rather than approving analog HDTV. The battery problem is far from being solved, and with no essential breakthroughs in applied physics on the horizon it probably never will be.
There is also the essential question of whether or not the electric grid(s) can meet the charging demands of all those cars. The time it takes to charge a car battery means people will be lingering for much longer at highway rest stops, leading to serious congestion problems, as well as longer travel times.
Offering rest stop swap-outs rather than charging, as I’ve seen proposed, will never work. People won’t risk losing their expensive new battery for an old, defective unit. So we’re stuck waiting for a ubiquitous network of well-maintained charging stations.
Until hydrogen or refined sea water can be used reliably as fuel, I don’t see myself going all-electric. My next and possibly last car, that I expect to buy sometime in 2027, will be a hybrid, if that’s still available as an option.
About a week ago, I posted YouTube videos where the movement of an overly active musician playing a clarinet was audible in a recording. It was characterized as being a problem, but what if musical instruments flying around the room, even overhead, is done intentionally? Last night’s PBS NewsHour had this infomercial for Dolby Atmos.
