Update

So, it's been a month or so - what's been going on?

- The end of October was pretty quiet - went to a hockey game (local minor leagues team like the Charlotte Checkers - similar atmosphere too) - first event at Key arena - interesting building - too bad it is underutilized now.

- Peggle is a damn addictive game - simple entertainment - follow the bouncy ball - I think the physics model should include air resistance though.

- This weekend there are a couple of concerts I'm interested in - probably will only get to one of them though - Helio Sequence - should be an interesting show.

- Currently reading "On Food And Cooking" by Harold McGee - it's basically the next step in food-nerdiness after reading Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food (v2.0)" - gets into more of the history of different primary ingredients and what chemical reactions actually define 'cooking' of those ingredients. It's a bit of a textbook style approach, but still very well done and a good balance of entertaining and practical.

--------------- Nerd thoughts warning -----------------

- Ordered a single ended triode tube amplifier kit - should be interesting to see if I can still solder/read resistors

- As an aside to that - I have some sort of odd engineer's affliction... For the last 5 years I have been using a Sony ES amplifier - which worked great and was technically very nice - discrete power circuits per channel, very low distortion, so on... but I have always had this feeling that I was wasting it - it was a 5 channel amp with different sound environments and all kinds of other 'home theater-y' BS - I currently have 2 speakers, which are small - I didn't need all the technical overhead of the ES - so I put it on craigslist. So then I find a solution, which is more expensive, technically less sonically precise, and I have to put it together myself - just so that I will have a pure single input, stereo output, amplifier - there will be less 'waste' in the final application.

(Technically over time it will pay for itself in lower power usage as well, but that's beside the point)

It's an odd 'retro-technology' interest I have... mechanical watches, tube amplifiers, single speed bike...

All are 'old' - there are newer technological solutions which do more, more accurately (Quartz watches, solid state amplification, deraulliers). I guess I just don't like excess features... more for the sake of more... I'd rather apply modern engineering and manufacturing to old technology to get a solution that is accurate enough for everyday use and more, ah, human-understandable, than newer technology.

Perhaps modern life is more of a black box ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box ) world though - the watch tells the time until the battery dies, then a new watch or battery is purchased. The 'stereo' makes music until a newer model with more 'power' or more features becomes available, so on.

For some odd reason I have to know the how/why of everything I use in normal life. And once you find out the how you see the questions arise - why does a watch have to have a battery - why do stereos have 7 channels when music is still only recorded in stereo (vast majority of music that is - however yes, some people watch lots more movies than I do) - why buy convenience food when it's possible to make something better tasting and healthier in less time... so on.

While I concede completely understanding any of these examples down to their minutiae is not practical either, it is a bit enlightening to at least open the boxes that one encounters in everyday life.