Once again I'm going to try and post about all the shows I've seen, although given that I'm seeing over two dozen I'm not even going to try one post per show. So here's the five shows I've seen in the first three days of the festival presented in cronological order. All of these were preview shows so had a few rough edges which generally just added to the enjoyment.

• Goth v Nerd - A short double stand-up show, if you read PLOA or wear anything best described as "shiny & black" you're the target audience.



• Sort of the Rings - Another short parody re-telling of LoTR, with audience partiticaption and helium orcs.



• Otis Lee Crenshaw (Rich Hall) - American stand up followed by comedy country music. If you watch any of the comedy shows on TV you've probably seen Rich before.



• Collingwood Club Therapist (AKA Ben Coussins the musical) - This one is only really for the footy tragics, particularly of the Collingwood persuasion, but "Ben Coussins the Musical" is just *classic*



• Highly Sus - This one is more for the legal/criminal tragics, three perps, are they telling the truth or are they "Highly Sus"

All five shows were quite entertaining, and if you think they're up your alley (and you're in Melbourne) you should certainly make the trip.

Tonight's show is Heath Franklin doing "Choppers F%@#ing Bingo".

This week I've upgraded the turntable in my second hi-fi setup at home (my main setup has yet to get a 'table, mainly as I haven't got around to getting a proper pre-amp for it) with an old Systemdek IIX, one modifed with a Rega (RB-300) arm and Grado (8MZ) cartridge, and, after a stylus replacement on the Grado (which cost more then the entire 'table setup) I now have a very nice system which has been home to some lovely John Coltrane LP's that had just arrived.

Unfortunatly this upgrade now reveals that my Auratone's have gone from being a nice compliment to now being the obvious element holding my sound back.

So now I'm looking for new bookshelf speakers (and possibly a sub) to replace[1] them.

The current contenders (roughly from least, ~$1k/pair, to most ~$3.5k/pair expensive):

• Dali IKON 1 (w/Dali IKON Sub)


• PMC DB1+


• Tannoy Autograph Mini

Fortunatly both PMC and Tannoy have local dealers from who I should be able to get a trial.

Much as I've always wanted a pair of PMC's I always thought they'd be at least the IB2 or above, not the "dinky" ones.

If there's anything people think I've forgotten that's bookshelf size, and < 5kg each I'd love to consider them.

1: Not that the Auratone's are going, they will just move into the studio as a comparison monitory (which they should have been from the start).

I'm after some form of shelves for my record collction (99% 12", with just a handful of 7"s). I've got too many for milk crates and want something I can actually flick through and keep in (semi-) order.

Any ideas?

Dear lazyweb,

Is there a way to have for loops (or any loop for that matter) in shell run in (controllable) paralell?

I'm thinking a makefile hack could work, but for given the several hundred iterations it would get ugly.

So here's the latest.





Yeah, I guess I might post about LCA some time after I make it back to Melbourne (oh, and am sober, which seems to be rarely at LCA outside of sessions)

Russell,

You should know better then to say "transcoding to OGG". Ogg is the container, you can have almost any codec.

At least the video codec often implies the audio codec, MPEG video usually has either an MPEG1 audio layer 2 or layer 3 (what we know as MP2 and MP3 audio). MPEG4 either uses the old MPEG1 audio or "AAC". "Ogg" Theora and Dirac both usually imply Vorbis for the audio layer, being the only general-purpose high-quality audio codec in the Ogg family.

But some containers like Matroska are completely agnostic and if all you know is that a file is in "Matroska" format you really know nothing.

Even "Quicktime" has had many meanings (as a file format) over time. For many years it implied video encoded by a Sorenson codec, although just like Ogg and Matroska (and AVI etc) that's not the limit. Recently as the basic Quicktime container has become the official MPEG4 file format new Quicktime files are almost always MPEG4 or H.264 video, usually with AAC audio.

And now to see if I can drink this information out of my head.

At least when they're in someone else's living room.

However my very own pair of Magnepan Magneplaner MG-II's arrived today along with a nice Bryston (3B ST) amp to drive them.

Here's an image from Wikipedia to give you an idea just how big they are:

(Those are MG I's, but the design & dimensions are almost identical at 72" tall, 24" wide)

You can't really tell from that photo but they're only about 5cm (2") deep, about the same as an LCD TV and weigh less then 10kg.

What you can see from the photo is the very 1970's design, fortunatly the drivers can be easily removed and put into a new case which I'll probably have to do just so they don't get thrown out at the next hard rubbish, which would be a shame, because when driven by the Bryston (or better, a valve amp as I tested at the store when I bought them).

Now all I have to do is not give in and buy that nice looking Pro-Ject 6 PerspeX turntable (or worse, the model that for an extra US$1.5k comes with a cartridge).

It's time to upgrade my laptop HDD, for once because I've run out of space and not because it's dead (although given that I've had the laptop for a year tomorrow and the drive's about the same age, it probably is on the way out).

I was hoping to get the 160GB Intel SSD, however they're not available in Australia, and to ship one from the US would be ~$1700 which I can't justify.

So a 160GB Seagate 7200 is now on order.

My beloved old "Targus Sport Deluxe Computer Backpack" recently celbreated its fourth birthday, but, much as I love it, is starting to get a frayed base, and other serious wear marks.

I know I need to replace it, but the problem is that I use every single bit of space in the pack, at least some of the time, and the biggest missing feature from current packs is the top flap which I use to hold my headphones (AKG K271) when I'm not wearing them.

I'd also prefer something with an integral padded laptop space instead of a removable slip case which appears to be the current hip feature that many otherwise nice bags have.

At this rate I might have to just give up and order one or two out of retailers spare stock.

You've now joined Extreme Networks on the list of companies that I will not recommend or buy from, at least until you accept that copyright law applies to you as well as your customers.

It's a shame, you made quite decent products (although JunOS is so much better it's not funny).