Useless Conversation

[WayAbvPar]

I am assuming it is a fundraiser for the school, and not going to AB's hooker and blow fund? If so, $125 would be well spent, imo. He seems like a good dude and would be really fun to talk to, or just listen to as he BSed with people. 

[Merusk]

Fuck old classmates who look you up saying "hey I just found out from <so and so> you lost your job" then proceed to do the hard sell on a MLM scheme.

[Viin]

I'm interested in a tankless water heater because the 40 gallon unit I have now doesn't supply enough hot water.  It also has a convection flow going so that I get rather warm water right away in the master bath, which eventually becomes hot and then later just warm and finally cold.  My plan is to install a propane-driven tankless unit directly below the master bath, which will solve three problems.  Faster hot water, less energy use, and unlimited supply.  Actually doing this is, for some reason, an ongoing political battle.

We installed a Rianni tankless hot water heater for the whole house, in the original location as our tankmore hot water heater.

It does take awhile for the water to heat up to hot (10 seconds?) but it'll stay hot forever. Once you turn the hot water on, the gas kicks in and starts to heat the water on the fly (takes a lot of flame to go from 35* to 120* in the amount of time it takes the water to leave the heater). The water pressure has been good, and it's awesome that we can both take 30 min showers and have hot water the whole time.

There is another type of "tankless hotwater heater" that is installed locally to the output (under your sink, etc) and is usually electric powered - this will provide "instant" hot water, but you'd need to install one everywhere you wanted hot water.

[ghost]

Fuck old classmates who look you up saying "hey I just found out from <so and so> you lost your job" then proceed to do the hard sell on a MLM scheme.

I had a dentist that refers patients to me to do this to me a few years ago.  I showed up at his office and he wasn't even there but there was a lunch provided for people to sit and listen to some drivel about some sort of shitty scheme.  Gah.  

[Strazos]

There is another type of "tankless hotwater heater" that is installed locally to the output (under your sink, etc) and is usually electric powered - this will provide "instant" hot water, but you'd need to install one everywhere you wanted hot water.

Ugh, see these overseas a lot, like in showers. Darn things can be extremely dangerous, for obvious reasons.

[NowhereMan]

The actor who plays Sherlock sucks donkey balls.  He's the epitome of poncy British twatitude.  I want to stab him in the eyes.  The writing is far from Doyle.  And the leaps in logic that the supposed 'genius' asks you to suspend disbelief for when he makes his elementary deductions are many and cumbersome.  That said, the third episode is decent.  And I thought the dude who plays Watson was actually fairly good.  If you just pretend the show is about him, it's bearable.  And really, it could be.

I believe you're referring to Sherlock rather than Sherlock Holmes, unless you think RDJ is the epitome of poncy British twatitude. Martin Freeman is an awesome actor but I thought they did a good job of modernising the dynamic between the two without really altering it and frankly I've never really rated the incredible deduction as the impressive part of Sherlock Holmes. I think Holmes was incredibly entertaining but it was never Great Writing, although it makes Doyle's attempt at Great Writing look like an academic treatise.

[Fraeg]

tankless heaters always freek me out when the flamethrower gets turned on.  I guess this comes from growing up with the belief that hot water comes from the thing lurking in garage, not an inferno just a few feet from where you are taking a shower.

[rattran]

My boss put a Aquastar propane tankless in his house, thing works great. I have a newish 50gal gas tank, but my plumbing is a combination of old iron and copper, made mostly out of 6" sections and elbows. Madness. And I have an ancient dead boiler and radiator system to rip out this spring, so doing it all at once would be nice.

Happy birthday, I'd have baked a cake for you, but it was -10F this morning, so I went back to bed.

[Oban]

Actually quite hard to complete:

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

[ghost]

Actually quite hard to complete:

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

Is that shocking, with the amount of ADHD that clusters on this board?   

[Minvaren]

Whoa - the price for a 100' roll of PEX delivered is the same as for 12' of steel pipe?    

(plot plot plan)

[RhyssaFireheart]

Actually quite hard to complete:

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

I could do it, but I had to actually put my hands in my lap because I was multitasking when I clicked the link and the urge to just keep working was strong in me.

[Ironwood]

Watching Sherlock Holmes.

God, it's utter tripe.

The actor who plays Sherlock sucks donkey balls.  He's the epitome of poncy British twatitude.  I want to stab him in the eyes.  The writing is far from Doyle.  And the leaps in logic that the supposed 'genius' asks you to suspend disbelief for when he makes his elementary deductions are many and cumbersome.  That said, the third episode is decent.  And I thought the dude who plays Watson was actually fairly good.  If you just pretend the show is about him, it's bearable.  And really, it could be.

 

[stray]

Heh.. I've been watching those older Sherlock stories (with Jeremy Brett) on Netflix lately. I didn't know there was a new one. When I was young, I used to go out of my way to avoid these other ones.. seemed like really dull Masterpiece Theater/PBS/Old people shit.. but it's quite good. 

[Ironwood]

Despite Musashi kinda missing the point, the new BBC Sherlock is all types of awesome.  I reccomend it.

Sometimes Old People Shit can be really good.  So good, in fact, we get really, really irked when Hollywood turns Sherlock into Midnighter.

[Chimpy]

Isn't Moffatt in charge of Sherlock? I thought you had a "Moffatt sucks and should die" thing going on due to Dr. Who.

[Lantyssa]

The actor who plays Sherlock sucks donkey balls.  He's the epitome of poncy British twatitude.

So a spot on portrayal of Holmes.  What's the complaint?

[Ironwood]

Isn't Moffatt in charge of Sherlock? I thought you had a "Moffatt sucks and should die" thing going on due to Dr. Who.

Gatiss did the writing methinks - Not that it matters, I'm on a 'Moffat should stay the Fuck Away from Producing Dr Who...and die' rather than a straightforward 'Moffat Sucks and should die'.

[Ingmar]

If you haven't watched the old(er) Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes stuff I second Stray's reocmmendation.  him.

[Morat20]

Man, I'm a page behind...

I have heard a couple of local contractors say they are starting to use PEX, but I have heard other plumbers indicate skepticism due to it being a relatively recent thing.  I hear it's pretty slick and easy to install, though.  Care to share your experience?  I'm looking at a potential replumb (or pipe coating) within the next 10 years.

Redid my house with PEX. Fuck copper pipes. It's not that recent, but code changes take awhile so it's possible that it just became allowable in your city. One thing to watch for: There's two ways to seal PEX to junctions or other pieces. One requires a special, and rather expensive tool,. It basically stretches the end wide, you slip the join or connector in, and let is compress down. It seals very effectively, because the seal has hundreds of pounds of pressure on there. The other uses basically a crimp that you wind around it and pull tight. The compression version works a hell of a lot better, but --- special tool. My city requries the former, so it wasn't a big deal, but you want to make sure it's done that way.

I almost paid extra for the 'junction box' water setup -- where they run seperate lines to practically everything, all joined at a single box, so you can cut off water to various parts of the house the way you can power through a breaker box. Not worth the extra money, but I understand it's common in new houses.

[Merusk]

It's called a Manifold system if you want to look further into it.   The addition on newer houses depends on the builder and the region. It's added expense so it's not something production tends to do unless all the competition is doing it so it's become an expected feature in the area, but it's a very nice feature if you can get it.

It's also not a new idea, just one that seems to have caught-on with Pex since the connections are a lot quicker.  My parents' house was built in the 70s and it had a copper manifold system to shut off the exterior pipes, bathrooms, etc on an individual basis.

[Sky]

Manifold is really the way to go if you can. It's great not just for zone control (shutting off selectively, so a leak in the bathroom doesn't lock you out of doing the dishes and vice versa), but you can get better pressure in multiple use situations. It's pretty much essential if you're doing a radiant system in the house (and I dream and I dream).

Loving the wood stove this weekend, though I've had to run the traditional heat more than usual (for a wood-heated weekend). Problem with my wood stove system is that there is no way to heat the basement. So I've been letting the furnace run for a couple hours while I'm sleeping to keep the temps down there as close to 50 as possible. Probably run a space heater down there tonight, looks like -16.

Nice and toasty up here, even if I'm struggling to hit 80 with the wind. Today/night I'm also balancing with the stand-alone radiant baseboard unit (electric) on the other side of the house, because the slab over there is an icebox (thus the radiant floor dreams for that end of the house).

[ghost]

So have any of you guys ever messed around with the different encoding types that are available for digital media, i.e. AAC versus MP3 versus the various "lossless" types? 

I've checked out the forums at hydrogen audio and read a little about it.  Unfortunately, it tends to be a little too technical for me and their suggestions always seem to revolve around blind testing when anyone has a question about the formats.  I don't have time to blind test all my music in the various formats to see what sounds best, nor the desire to do so.  Can anyone render an opinion on whether or not I'm missing something in the music?   

[bhodi]

The chief reason to use lossless is for the ability to re-encode the audio into any other, newer formats. All "Lossless" formats are fungible but FLAC is generally the most supported. Generally speaking, lossless formats are 2x-5x as large as high quality lossy formats like mp3.

If you don't care about lossless, just use a VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 of 192kbps or slightly above. Current encoders don't cut off higher or lower bounds of sound to save on space but if you're worried use the LAME encoder.

There are some very slight tonal losses/changes in lossy formats but you won't notice because playing it over random speakers is going to cause way more "damage" to the recorded sound anyway. There are definite, easily heard changes in sound below 128kbps, 192kbps is the "standard" for encoding random CDs for personal use. Chances are, that CD has already been muddled with in post-production and has it's sound stage altered and loudness increased already, so going crazy on quality is fairly silly.



A good rule of thumb for tech like this is to simply look at how people are encoding audio/video on illicit sites/torrents. They are fairly obsessed with getting the best quality, as distributing low quality is a personal insult, but they are also very space conscious and have the time to sort through all the bewildering array of options.

[ghost]

Thanks, bhodi.  That makes a lot of sense.  Any thoughts on the 256k itunes plus encoding?  Specifically versus the 128 that the older stuff was sold as?

[bhodi]

Thanks, bhodi.  That makes a lot of sense.  Any thoughts on the 256k itunes plus encoding?  Specifically versus the 128 that the older stuff was sold as?

I don't use itunes, but you can hear the difference between 128 and 192+, assuming you have a high enough quality stereo system or monitors and turn it up loud enough. You can't hear the difference on, for example, an ipod with ipod headphones. The drivers in the earbuds just aren't high enough quality. Most agree that the line gets much thinner above 192k, I think actual training and careful setups are needed to tell the difference between 192 and 256.

In general, we're not talking a huge amount. 128k is perfectly listenable, as confirmed by the wild success of itunes before they even offered 256k. The "knowledge" that it's a lower bitrate colors the listening way more than the actual fact.

[ghost]

Yeah, I just recently got a set of the B and W P5 headphones and a nice set of in ear Monster Coppers.  My home system is decent, but I don't listen to a lot of music on it any more.  I did get a couple of nice live blue ray DVDs for christmas though-  Queen and the Talking Heads.  Maybe I'll get to try them out sometime when the kids grow up.   

[Chimpy]

I used to use 160k MP3 encoding from iTunes and had no issues with it (back when I ripped most everything with iTunes v2 like 8 years ago), I never really used the AAC encoder because my MP3 cd player in my car did not support AAC, but I have ripped a couple of things with 192k AAC on accident with new installs that sounded just fine (I am not super picky as most the stuff I am listening to is not Beethoven or anything, but I do use studio monitors as speakers so I do notice artifacts etc.)

[Selby]

I used 128k for years, from like 1998 to 2005 or so, and then switched to 192k ever since on MP3 format.  Personally I don't have anywhere near the quality stereo that it takes to hear the difference on anything above 192k.  128k is perfectly listenable, but I just started using 192k because there *is* a slight detectable difference if you can spot it and hard drives got big enough that I could justify the extra space.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Not going to make it to the Super Bowl if you wait until the 4th quarter to put any points on the board.   

[Sky]

I use 192k AAC. Until I get my proper setup where I have room for lossless conversion, anyway. The bitrate seems like a good balance of size vs quality, sometimes I have to transfer things onto my recording unit from my ipod, so it's real handy. If I were doing release-quality recordings, I'd go straight AIFF, though.

[Lantyssa]

192k VBR mp3 is what I use.

Anything more isn't really noticeable on any set of speakers I've used.  (I do use fairly standard cheap speaker systems though.)  It gives the best quality to size ratio for my purposes, and if I want to un-encode to put it back onto a CD without just pulling a wave off the original CD, then it still sounds fine in my car.

[rattran]

I rip stuff to flac, then use lame to make apx mp3s for my mobile player. Sounds good, and if I ever end up with a player that prefers another format, I have the flac to reencode again.

[ghost]

What ripping program do most of you guys use?  With iPhone/iPod I'm pretty much stuck using iTunes, I suppose, for storage. 

[Chimpy]

What ripping program do most of you guys use?  With iPhone/iPod I'm pretty much stuck using iTunes, I suppose, for storage. 

I use iTunes because it is:
A) the player I use as i like the way it organizes things/habit.
B) Does not make fucked up ID3 tags.
C) Sounds just fine and is easy.