Doge

No question aboutit. Shoot - audio engineering is the most underrated thing in the audiophile world (says me and the 20 or so in our "club"). Our guys all agree it is the recording and engineering that matters.

I'd bet we could partially fund a trip to SoCal to have him evaluate one of our sessions. We are all old, but very very picky.

gsteinb

I'll let him know! He'll be out in california at some point again for sure.

hubcyclist

I just got some inexpensive mackie monitors for my desktop "rig" I've had a couple of guitars for a while (an acoustic and a cheap strat copy), but have been playing a lot more since getting my Les Paul clone over the summer, and I play it through amp sims in my PC. The extent of my recording is getting a 30 sec riff that will never become a song lol

Flatballer

My wife and I finally hung up our guitars in our den, 3 years after we moved into this house.

I'm guessing his gear gets a little more use.

Flatballer

My parents just left from a visit (they had tests before coming and followed state rules and basically quarantined themselves for 2 weeks beforehand, obviously there wasn't 0 risk, but we did what we could, anyway....) and it sucks seeing your parents getting older.

My mom is getting really forgetful, and snaps at people when they gently remind her of things she's forgotten.

And my dad, a mechanic his entire life (and a really, really good one, in very high demand even still, used to teach classes) has tremors that are getting much, much worse. He's worked with his hands his entire life, and continues to do so, but I don't know how much longer he'll be able to. It was pretty bad. The stress of being here probably exacerbated it (my mom doesn't get along with my wife (or with me...)), but I'm guessing it's not great normally either. They're not even 70 yet.

TMonk

Just submitted a PO for $120k to purchase a new ICP-MS instrument. It's a critical QC technique here that my team use to characterize the concentration of many of our products and development materials (metal and metal oxide nanoparticles). It's a culmination of a lot of effort that I've done researching the market, offerings and support from the big three - Thermo, Perkin Elmer and Agilent.

I'm super stoked to get this thing in, it's going to be sweet.

Enthalpic

Good luck.

Our Thermo PQ Excell was a total POS. Our Aglient 7500ce was awesome. Perkin Elmer does some odd things (ion mirror) so we avoided them.

Two quads and a collision / reaction cell?

New instruments are fun.

TMonk

Yes indeed. We went Agilent - 7800. They were at the highest price point but based on my market research there seems to be a reason for that. I've been most impressed with their tech sales rep and applications scientist as well throughout this whole process.

Tech specs: Single Quad with collision/reaction cell, two MFC's, and single particle-ICP-MS plug-ins of course. We actually sell Perkin a consumable standard for that purpose - very uniform gold NP's at 1e7 p/mL. We had a relationship with Thermo as well since our current (soon to be retired) machine is a Thermo Xseries 2.

Despite those relationships my decision was to go with Agilent. They will end up being a bit more expensive over an assumed 10 year life cycle from consumables/service, but I think we made the right choice.

Enthalpic

You did well. The Agilent ICP-AES I used was also excellent.

ridethecliche

Thought I'd just stumbled into the geek thread on accident!

gsteinb cool to see that spawn has kept up with guitar and music! I feel like I remember your posting about him buying his first electric one almost a decade ago.

gsteinb

He got his first guitar at 5 and he's going to be 23 lol. He want to Syracuse music school to study sound engineering.

ridethecliche

Maybe it was a bday gift for turning 13 or some show he had at school.
My memory is hazy from those days 😂😂😂

big john

In 1973 I worked in a printed circuit board factory and we made boards for Perkin Elmer, among others. I worked nights and sometimes when it was busy one other guy and I would work 3rd shift, too, to get some overtime.
In the morning we would leave when day shift showed up. One of us would say "Goodnight Perkin and the other would respond "Goodnight Elmer".

TMonk

It does kinda sound like two first names

edit: Also sorry RTC, total geek status material haha

TMonk

Yikes, that sounds like no fun and just part of life in one form or another. My parents are around ~70 but fortunately still in good health for now.

Flatballer

I may have told this story before, but that reminds me of when I worked at Duke Energy, when we'd expense a meal or a trip (more in the past, from old-timers) they'd say "thanks Doris" because Doris Duke owned the predecessor of Duke Power and stuff. She was often called "the richest girl in the world". She was worth the equivalent of around $1B when she was in her early teens.

himespau 

Was she the one that tried to buy Princeton and have it renamed after her, but, when they said no, had Duke built with buildings to look like Princeton's?

Flatballer

I hadn't heard that, so I looked it up. Apparently that myth is about her father, James B. Duke, and it's apparently not true (but it sounds great).

https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/...cles/princeton

himespau 

Awe bummer. I hate it when fun stories turn out to be made up. Sort of like that story about Stanford being founded because Harvard wouldn't let grieving parents pay to have a building built in their son's name.

Flatballer

Yeah, it is a bummer.

I read a really interesting thing recently, that I now can't find to save my life, about how urban legends like that spread, and the value of them as social currency even when they're false, and how debunking them isn't always in everyone's best interest, and is usually not in the best interest of the person doing the debunking, because you cost everyone else social currency, and make the world less fun for them.

Enthalpic

Idiopathic tremors run in my family. Thankfully I don't have it too bad, it's noticeable in my older brother.

Odd thing with some forms of tremor is it only is a problem when you're not doing something. I've heard of surgeons that shake but when they go into the OR they are steady.

Flatballer

Yeah, I don't know exactly which kind my dad has, but his seem fine when he isn't concentrating on using them. We were making gingerbread houses, and he was trying to hold it while it dried, and was instead just shaking it to pieces. If he's just sitting on the couch or something I didn't notice them.

I don't know if his are genetic or non-genetic, I think his mom had them, but pretty late in life, so I guess likely genetic, in which case I've got a 50/50 shot. Hopefully it at least won't be bad until I'm much older.

Enthalpic

We had genetic testing done; no issues were found yet it obviously runs in our family from my fathers side. Upside is the doctors are pretty sure it won't progress much or kill us.

Flatballer

We're about to get absolutely pounded by a snow storm here. Low end estimate is 12", high end is 19 or 20". And it's likely to be wet and heavy. I hope our arborvitae privacy screen survives. We had them trimmed last year to reduce weight at the top, I guess this will be the test.

Edit: new forecast just came down, totals way down. More like 5-15 now, likely 12".

ridethecliche

I'm about to drive to hunter and get 3 days on the hill. Meant to get there at 9 but slept in because I've slept like crap recently.

Just want to get a couple of hours in today and get my sealegs back before tomorrow!