Word-of-the-Day

Monitist

"I may be a monitist, but at least I'm not as procrumpulent as you!"

Word-of-the-Day

Nosocomial

"A good way to prevent nosocomial infections is to change gloves in between rectals."

DrCujo's Word-of-the-Day

Legerdemain

It is a well known fact that my formidable lexicon wins friends and frightens enemies. I have come to realize that the hoi polloi could use some direction in this area.

As such, I have started a new column over to the right---------->
Try not to use this power for evil...

My best friend

This is a recent email I received:

John P... to me 5:02 AM (7 hours ago)
Nice view. Did I mention that your excitement over time graph was awesome. That said, I was somewhat perplexed by the massive increase in excitement when you realized that you had 8 more hours to work. Seriously, it seems to represent glancing at your watch, realizing that you have an entire 'working joe' shift left to complete and raising your excitement from "Having ascended from your dive, you realize that you scuba group has left for home, leaving you three miles offshore in shark infested waters," to "you have inoperable cervical cancer, which is nuts, because you're a dude." What would it take to get you to "meh." I am a bit worried about you. I think that you need a break, and I personally prescribe more sierra nevada. This would have went in your comment section, but I am hammered and do not want to leave a public record of my drunkenness. If you copy and paste this fully on to your blog, you will be sued...with extreme prejudice.

Let me highlight for you the salient features of this email:

........... 5:02 AM .......... ........................................ but I am hammered....................

A view from my prison

Crummy weather

I'm on hour 14. I've got 16 more to go. Luckily the gnomes are good conversationalists.

By popular demand

Magnepan 2.5R

So a lot people (read: one) have asked about the speakers. Unlike a conventional cone driver, planar-magnetic driver stretches a thin electric membrane (e.g. aluminum) over a magnetic field (e.g. permanent bar magnets). When electricity is passed through the membrane it vibrates within the magnetic field. There are two immediate advantages: (1) the mass of the ribbon (it is often < 0.005" thick) is significantly less than a traditional cone; and (2) the driving force is applied across the entire surface of the diaphragm--unlike cone speakers where the driving force is applied to the tip of the cone and the entire cone has to react. This allows a system to be extremely "rigid"(the entire manifold moves in concert) and lightweight--avoiding such exotics as diamond and berrylium(!) tweeters.

The picture above is annotated to show the ribbon tweeter (red square) which handles the high frequencies and the mylar diaphragm (blue square) which handles the mid-low frequencies.

The long coat

I am feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I haven't felt this way in a very long time. I'm questioning my clinical decision making, my technical skills, my 'people' skills. Mostly, I'm questioning my decision to skip lunch.