Not Insignificant
I'm pretty happy with the way <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/011006mothers/">yesterday's entry</a> came out, but it didn't go the way I meant it to.
LATEST ADDITIONS
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The 2006 CES: A Final Wrap
Jon Iverson, Stephen Mejias, and I were sitting in the Venetian's food court after the Primedia cocktail party on Saturday night with Mo-Fi's Coleman Brice and Music Direct's Bes Nievera, Jr. We'd wanted to grab some sushi, but Tsunami (what an unfortunate name) didn't have a reservation for five for another two hours and our second choice, an Italian restaurant (what else?) had just laughed when we asked. So we wound up eating pizza slices off of vinyl tables rather than sashimi off of bamboo.
CES: The Stereophile Blogger's Lament
Climb the AP's stairs day by day, <BR>
Push on through the screaming fray,<BR>
Get those pictures anyway.
Handsome Hansen from Canada
Hansen is a new line of ultra high-end speakers from Canada, using proprietary drivers and said to feature extremely dense, non-resonant enclosures. The company is headed by Lars Hansen, who, as former president of the Dahlquist Corporation, is no stranger to the world of high-end speakers. The sound of the Prince ($27,000/pair, third model from the top) was simply excellent—an auspicious debut, I felt.
Pioneer's S1-EX: Upstairs Downstairs
"Larry, I've just come from the Alexis Park." Tom Norton, editor of Ultimate AV button-holed me. "I think the Pioneer speaker is worth a visit. It's one of the only new things I've found over there." Tom's words rung in my ears. Had to see it!
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"The Wind Cries Mary"
Jimi Hendrix on Swedish television in 1967. Need I say more? Computer speakers don't do it justice, turn it <I>up</I>.
Starbucks Sells Rationally-Sized Coffees?
Make mine a Venti? Give me a break! I once asked a Starbucks counterperson why they called their humongous-sized hot-milk drinks "ventis." "That's Italian for twenty," the barrista said. <I>Riiiight</I>, like any Italian I've ever met would slam down 20 oz. of coffee at a time.
The Desert Libraries of Timbuktu
This is so cool—the Library of Congress has posted excellent scans of pages from its exhibit of manuscripts from the era when Timbuktu was not synonymous with "as far away from here as you can get." Nine hundred years ago Mali was a flourishing trade center, serving as the entry point for goods from the Mediterranean and exit point for African trade. And, at the height of the Middle Ages, it was a nexis for scholarship and science.
Losing Sleep Impairs Spatial Learning
Learning rejuvenates the brain; going without sleep impairs cognitive function. That single sentence repudiates my whole strategy for getting through college—no wonder I find myself going, "It's just like wassisname said . . ."
As Simple As Boiling Water
Simple? Then <I>explain</I> what happens when liquid converts to gas. <I>Hah!</I> Not all that simple, eh smartypants? No, I can't do it either, but Eldred Chimowitz and Yonathan Shapir have created a mathematical model that might just do the trick.