Shane_B.

I can't wait until 2/22/2222. I'm gonna have a big party and invite all you guys's.

It makes more sense than most of what is actually here. (It sort of looks like the hack screen of the computers in Fallout ?)

Works fine here. Never had a problem. It's the best rendition of that web site I've ever used. Must be your system.

This is what a tiny Ball Peen is.

Current Bing search engine home page . . .

Here's my layout this year since we're on the train thing. This is the first layout I've had since the mid 70's. We've collected the village items over the last 20+ years. We always wait till they are on sale after the holidays. Sometimes I'll buy broken stuff and fix it. Like the trolley. I got that for $5 bucks. It was a broken display model but I got it going. (I painted the thumbnail on the video 2 years ago at Christmas while on heavy duty pain meds while recovering from surgery. I don't remember painting it ... ) Side note: Do you hear the chuff sound of the engine? It has other sound effects as well. It can be controlled with a remote that is included with the set or via a cell app. The sound system was developed by Neil Young for his son who is handicapped so he could activate the different sounds by hitting switches while moving his body. He owns a small part of Lionel now. He was always a huge Lionel train fan from what I've read about him. It's pretty awesome that he developed that for his son and it became part of Lionel history.

This blows my mind ...

Gasp! It's on in 720p! ?

Here is the video I use to confirm whether or not I'm actually in HDR mode. If you are actually in HDR mode the Settings button where you change the video resolution will display the letters "HDR" over the top of the Settings icon on the bottom bar of the youtube video. Not all video's are uploaded in HDR though so it won't always say that even if you are set up correctly, that's why I always check with this video when I'm changing things around. My TV will also put up an icon on the screen for a few seconds that says HDR10 as well but my older one won't. This cheap little Vizio looks amazing in true 4K HDR but everything else that is only HD or less is all washed out. There is a setting in Windows 10 where you have to enable HDR capability. Right click on the Desktop and go to "Display settings". While swapping monitors it somehow got turned off and when I hooked the Vizio back up it wouldn't work in HDR mode until I turned that back on. ??

Just for the heck of it I hooked up the monitor I got. The TV actually works better. The colors aren't as vivid, but performance wise it's far better. And this is a really good IPS 4K monitor. Strange how that all works isn't it. The monitor is a 28" full 4K HDR gaming monitor with G-Sync and the TV is a cheap crappy Vizio 43" smart (ish) TV and it actually works better. Doesn't look quite as nice, but it performs significantly better. Funny how all this stuff works isn't it.

I was trying to find where I read that they can't achieve anything over 120Hz and what I found was it's the cost, not the ability to do it. Maybe at one time they couldn't but apparently it can be done now but it raises the cost significantly and has no benefit. Gaming is different because of the way the video is processed, but playing back a video file be it from disc or streaming benefits very little over 60Hz from what I've read. I've been tinkering with this cheap TV here and it's amazing how clear and responsive it is. It's native 4K@60Hz when connected to my PC and it's working great for what I'm doing. ??

I thought I read that about 1080p and 4K. I was truly shocked when I found out that 1080p Bluray's are compressed. I always thought the selling point to everyone about going from DVD to Bluray was it was uncompressed and the best quality you could get. Not true. I can't imagine a screen that big and still being smooth. Thankfully the prices are coming down. I'm convinced all screens are the same and they throttle their ability via software to create certain price points. There was actually a big scandal about the inner panels one time years ago but I can't recall the details of it all.

I know. Makes you wonder where this is all going to go. I can see a difference between some 1080p and 4K movies but I attribute that to the compression they use for 1080p. All these super duper Bluray's in stunning 1080p HD ... they're all compressed. If you had the original 1080p uncompressed file I'd bet almost anything you couldn't tell it from a 4K file. That's why some streaming movies look better than the actual discs. They are streaming from a better source with better compression. I downloaded a program to show the FPS while I'm running Fallout 3. It's steady at 60FPS which is all the TV is capable of doing. That's plenty for this type of game and it looks fantastic. Seeing how we're running on 60Hz AC, I wonder how you can truly have anything above that? I know you can increase voltage but I'm not sure how that works with Hz. IOW, is it all marketing scams and gimmicks? I've read that no matter what TV's can only do 120Hz native. Anything above that is artificially achieved. At any rate, my DAW is screaming fast, everything works (knock on wood), and I'm happy. Spring will be here soon and it will all go in the basement anyway so I better go enjoy it while I can. LOL!

GPU prices are starting to come down so I decided to put a video card in my old i7 6700K DAW. I had to upgrade the PSU and I decided to put some more RAM in it. I didn't see any difference when I put the RAM in but when I changed the PSU it made a significant difference. I don't know if the old PSU was too small (550W) or if it was the fact that I cleaned everything and reseated all the connectors, but it boots almost instantly again and everything loads incredible fast like it did when I first built it. I got an RTX 3060 video card and man it is incredible. I hooked up my inexpensive LG TV and it's running at 60Hz in 4K and 120Hz in 1080p. It blows my mind considering that actual PC monitors this size cost 3 times more than this thing at those refresh rates. I also downloaded a bios tweaking utility from Intel figuring I would have to take my BIOS settings out of DAW mode. The utility allows you to create BIOS profiles and you can change all your settings with just one click of a saved profile and a quick reboot. I tried a little bit of gaming with all the DAW settings and it's screaming fast. I didn't have to change anything. I can just leave it in DAW mode. Everything has stock fans for cooling and so far they haven't moved off idle. I can't even hear it running just like it was before I put the 3060 in. I got the GOG version of Fallout 3 and I'm running it set to Ultra settings with the highest resolution it supports which I think is 2K. I don't have software that tells me what the FPS is but it has to be near 100. It's smooth as glass on this cheap LG TV. It blows my mind. So now I just have to milk this system a few more years until I'm forced in to Windows 11. Then it's getting repurposed as a NAS server. I already have an i5 650 I'm going to set the server up with then transfer the hardware to the i7 when the time comes. The GPU is a PCI 4.0 card but my mobo is only PCI 3. I've read that unless you are really pushing the limits of the GPU to the max that you won't even see a difference. I can't imagine how this could look or feel any better. I found the exact part number for the RAM I currently have but I could only find 32GB sets so I'm up to 48GB of Kingston DDR4 now and I put in a 650 Watt modular PSU. All turbo settings off in BIOS so the RAM and CPU are running at stable stock speeds. The DAW side of it hasn't improved but I didn't expect it to. I've done some video rendering tests and it's lightning fast compared to how it was. I'm very happy with how this turned out and I got in to PC gaming and video editing again for not much more than the cost of a new game console. I can't complain about that at all. I ordered a monitor thinking the TV wouldn't work but it's going back because this TV is working flawlessly so I saved even more money there. I can't say how a newer game running in true 4K would work, but considering the TV is running at the same rate as the monitor I bought and it has excellent reviews, I think I'll be ok. I'm not really in to anything new anyway. I just like the old Fallout series games. I'm actually streaming 8K video's on Youtube flawlessly with this thing. All this technology stuff blows my mind. I can't imagine what we'll have at our disposal 10 ~ 15 years from now. ??

Don't rule out ART gear. It's cheap, but it's in almost every pro studio I've ever seen a picture of. See my signature for the two I have. The tubes are super easy to change, but it's extremely rare you have to do that. I've had mine for almost 15 years iirc and I've never had a problem with the tubes. I had one defective one from the factory and Sweetwater swapped the whole unit out and I've never had a problem since. These run on low voltage and don't take a beating like the high powered type. If you step up to the high voltage powered tube pre's then you're talking at least the 4K range and more and it's not worth it in my opinion. ART makes a mic pre that has the same features as your old Presonus but I don't think it's dual channel. I could be wrong. It's best to check their site because their products do change from time to time. I use the two in my signature all the time, simply just turned on, without ever adjusting the compression. The variable mic impedance adjustment has proven to be invaluable and I'm surprised I don't see it more on other mic pre's. They just add something that I can't emulate going DI. They are incredibly clean but can be driven. Zero line noise especially with balanced cables. I've even started using the compressor to master. It took forever to figure out how to loop them using my Presonus 1810C but once I got it figured out it's very simple. They are absolutely dead silent. No hiss or line noise whatsoever. I do use the compressor when mastering but when tracking I just have it chained with the mic pre with all the settings at minimum. Both pieces of gear in my sig are dual channel and the mic pre can be set to mid/side. All this inexpensive gear performs far better than I'll ever need and in reality I'd venture to say better than 99% of us need. Unless you have a professionally treated recording space where you can hear and capture such subtleties, mic placement is going to have a far greater effect on your sound than the pre's themselves for the vast majority of us. In my opinion.

The Stones do that in Angie. There's actually two very different vocal tracks going at the same time in that song. With your headphones turned way up you can hear the different vocal tracks throughout the song. It almost sounds like bleed through on the acoustic track on the left then they redid the vocals and couldn't fix the bleed? I don't know. But there's clearly 2 vocal tracks going through the entire song and whispering during some of it after the 3:40 mark.

That's clearly photoshopped. There wouldn't be any grass out in the desert like that. You just can't believe anything you see on the internet anymore. ?

Mine too until my clock broke. ?? That's clock with an L.

Sorry to hear all that Craig Hard drives suck. The larger they get the scarier they get and the more you stand to lose.

I'm really glad to hear that! I'm happy for you. At one point I did have everything on Indeed and I think Monster too, but that was a very long time ago the first time I was out of work up in IA when the company I worked for closed. I never got a single response. I eventually found a job from a tiny little ad in the paper but had to quit when my wife lost her job and we had to move to KC for her new job. The recession was still bad when we moved here and nobody was hiring in this area either. She was extremely lucky to find what she did and it's a great job. She interviewed at several places all over the country. I was really hoping she got one closer to NJ where I'm from but I knew in my gut she wouldn't. She loves it, her family is all down here, they love her, so here I sit ... I have to stop thinking and talking about this. It's starting to bother me too much being reminded of it all and thinking about my situation. Like everyone else in the world, I'll either survive or I won't and there are people who have it far FAR worse than I do and I'm very thankful to be in the situation I am even though it should be better. Them and Lowe's do around here. There isn't a single person under the age of 25 working at places like Target or any of the fancier Wal-Mart type places. Home Depot is just depressing around here so I never ever go there anymore. I like Lowe's. They will work with you on pricing especially if you spend enough time there buying building materials and the workers get to know you. When I going through the lumber and getting stuff that's actually usable, I always restack everything nice and neat so the guys don't have to do it. I always leave it looking better than when I got there and they appreciate that I think. I got $105 dollars worth of flooring for a small remodel project I'm doing this weekend for $20 bucks. The boxes were marked damaged and I asked if they'd take $20 for both and he said ok. Got them home and only a couple were damaged and at the ends that will get cut off so it all worked out. I have a gift for bargaining and selling. I should probably go in to some kind of sales. For example, this past summer, I sold almost $1,000 dollars worth of weeds. Seriously. I cut some cattails down around the pond the previous owners put in the back of our yard. I told my wife they were nice and I bet the home decor places around town would love them. She laughed at me, so I got mad and sealed a bunch of them so they wouldn't explode and drove in to town and just stopped in to talk to a few places. The first place I stopped bought 10 dozen from me. I used them as a reference and sold almost 1,000 of them to all the local flower shops. And they all want me to come back this fall. So there is money to be made and doing it yourself. You just have to think outside the box. It wasn't a lot of money but I felt so good knowing I found a little niche and actually brought in a little money. It made for great conversation with family calling myself a cattail farmer now that's for sure.

From one Special Ed., to another special Ed, Happy Birthday.

That's exactly what I've been facing, word for word, for the last 10 years. It's basically over for us if you are beyond 35 and not locked in somewhere. There is a factory I would love to work at about 20 minutes from me. Always has a giant banner across the fence of the front of the property. "HIRING. FULL TIME. PART TIME. APPLY ONLINE." It's been that way off and on for the 10 years I've lived here. They can't keep people there. I hounded them and they finally told me to stop calling. I have no record. Never been arrested. Never even been accused of anything. I haven't had a speeding ticket in going on 17 years. I've been in 2 accidents that weren't my fault. An old guy fell asleep driving and hit me and admitted it to the officer and a bus ran a stop sign and admitted to the officer. Yet I haven't even gotten a call back in years and I finally gave up after I was literally told to stop bothering them. And people think I have it made because of my wife's job. 6 years of college, $100K of debt, over 250 job interviews over our 24 years together and 2 job offers. She has a Master's and 2 Bachelor's. We got lucky with this cheap fixer upper house and if she can hold on till retirement and I can finish this place, this will be our retirement. If one thing falls out of place it's all gone. I'm scared for you Craig. I'm not facing what you are right now but I'm one HR decision with her employer away from it. It's an unbearable amount of stress at times. It's why she volunteers to do things like go to job sites for a month at a time. The Hawaii thing was awesome, but she's also been sent to area's by herself in a tiny trailer where there's gang shootings every night. I hope things pick up for you. Ever think of selling realestate? It seem to be where a lot of people are landing and I've been thinking about it myself. Just thought I'd get my 2 cents IBTL ... ?