Astronomer

Beautiful shortened video of a longer short film. I tend to like melancholy music (not exclusively). The National remind me of Leonard Cohen.

Love these! Thanks for sharing! You have a great eye. I haven't posted in a while myself. I'll add a number of pictures over the next few days.

Thanks folks!

Happy solar-orbit day! Wishing you another great circuit around the home star!

Woot! Thanks Merlin!

I built a gaming rig last month. My old one was built in 2011-2012. No regrets: The new PC is a fast beast and nicely overclocked. I picked up a 1080 after some debate. I figure it'll do just fine for how I use it, and if I was buying, I may as well get a fast card. The TI's are still way too expensive here in Canada. As for the future, I may skip a generation and pick up a video card from the generation after next. I figure VR will be fairly mature by then.

Holy cow! That must have been terrifying. I'm glad the pup is doing OK and that nothing was broken.

Thinking of you and your family, Pete. I'm hoping the treatment is successful.

Also still researching power supplies and SSD storage. Looking at an efficient PSU of at least 850w.

OK, I've picked up a couple of bits: Corsair 2x16Gb 2666Mhz (easily overclockable) The case is a Corsair Carbide Clear 600C full-tower: I'm leaning towards the Asus ROG Maximus X motherboard, though the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming is pretty sweet too. I have an Asus in my current rig, so there is the "devil you know". I'm still researching a CPU cooler for the Intel i7 8700k CoffeeLake, and the cost of video cards nowadays is killing me. My wife says "just do it", but I may hold off for the 1180's to be released. Still on the fence on that one.

Beautiful shots! I have the f2.8 version of the 16-35mm. The f/4 is a tad sharper, but the f/2.8 was a gift. I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!

There were a lot of them around here this year, which happens every few years. Here's an obliging one that sat on top of a utility pole at sunrise in January for the hour that I watched it:

The lights are RGB, and it come with a controller so you can change them to any colour you want. My current rig is stuck with only one colour, red, in 3 of its fans.

@MikeB @Krackennutz, I may get the Corsair Crystal 570X Tempered Glass case. It's on sale until the 5th. I like the look: http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=6_112&item_id=103144

Thanks for the tip! I'm still working on the details of what bits and pieces I'll get. I've been researching online all day and my head is spinning faster! LOL!

No kidding!

Yeah, 16 cores/32 processes might be a little bit of overkill for me! I may look at making my old rig a "Hackintosh". I have an old Lenovo laptop running OSX, and it works great. Having a bit more video horsepower for the OS would be cool. I already have 3 Dell and HP servers (lease returns) in the basement rack, so no need for another server.

COD 5 for me, and same as Mike, all high-res. I want a rig that can handle VR when I decide to jump in.

@MikeB, I have a big Cooler Master HAF X case now. I love the size, so I'll go big this time as well. I currently have a 1200w Cooler Master PSU. It was top of the heap when I bought it, and it's still working great. I'm not settled on the PSU yet. I have a large Canada Computers shop nearby, and they have a huge selection and staff that actually know what they''re talking about. Those cases you posted look sweet! Lots of choices. Pic is my current case.

My current board is an ASUS, but Gigabyte has the lead for me so far. Man, video cards are expensive, thanks to cryptocurrency miners! The 8Gb video card is about $300 cheaper (Canadian) than the 11Gb cards. Here's my first pass at components:

Hi all, Well, my 6-7 year old Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500k (overclocked) rig is starting to show its age (with dual nVidia 680's!), so it's time to start putting together the components for a new PC. I use it for the basics, as well as tons of photo editing (Photoshop, Lightroom), and gaming. My rough thoughts on a base spec are: 32Gb RAM large SSD for boot drive and a small one for cache A couple of big spinning disks for bulk storage i7 CPU - 6 or 8 cores (or maybe i9, though the cost is nearly double for far less than double the performance) high-end nVidia video card I'm not wedded to Intel and nVidia - they're just what I'm used to - so I'm open to suggestions Any thoughts on the above, and other components like coolers, case, power supply etc? I'll be buying the pieces in a couple of weeks. Cheers, AstronomerXI

Wait! There's always another perspective. You Might Be A Conservative... You might be a conservative if... You think "proletariat" is a type of cheese. You've named your kids "Deduction one" and "Deduction two." You've tried to argue that poverty could be abolished if people were just allowed to keep more of their minimum wage. You've ever referred to someone as "my (insert racial or ethnic minority here) friend" You've ever tried to prove Jesus was a capitalist and opposed to welfare. You're a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty. You think Huey Newton is a cookie. The only union you support is the Baseball Players, because heck, they're richer than you. You think you might remember laughing once as a kid. You once broke loose at a party and removed your neck tie. You call mall rent-a-cops "jack-booted thugs." You've ever referred to the moral fiber of something. You've ever uttered the phrase, "Why don't we just bomb the sons of bitches." You've ever said, "I can't wait to get into business school." You've ever called a secretary or waitress "Tootsie." You answer to "The Man." You don't think "The Simpsons" is all that funny, but you watch it because that Flanders fellow makes a lot of sense. You fax the FBI a list of "Commies in my Neighborhood." You don't let your kids watch Sesame Street because you suspect Bert and Ernie of "sexual deviance." You use any of these terms to describe your wife: Old ball and chain, little woman, old lady, tax credit... You scream "Dit-dit-ditto" while making love. You've argued that art has a "moral foundation set in Western values." When people say "Marx," you think "Groucho." You've ever yelled, "Hey hippie, get a haircut." You think Birkenstok was that radical rock concert in 1969. You argue that you need 300 handguns, in case a bear ever attacks your home. Vietnam makes a lot of sense to you. You point to Hootie and the Blowfish as evidence of the end of racism in America. You've ever said "civil liberties, schmivil schmiberties." You've ever said "Clean air? Looks clean to me." You've ever referred to Anita Hill as a "lying bitch" while attending a Bob Packwood fund-raiser. You spent MLK Day reading "The Bell Curve." You've ever called education a luxury. You look down through a glass ceiling and chuckle. You wonder if donations to the Pentagon are tax-deductable. You came of age in the '60s and don't remember Bob Dylan. You own a vehicle with an "Ollie North: American Hero" sticker. You're afraid of the "liberal media." You ever based an argument on the phrase, "Well, tradition dictates...." You've ever called the National Endowment for the Arts a bunch of pornographers. You think all artists are gay. You ever told a child that Oscar the Grouch "lives in a trash can because he is lazy and doesn't want to contribute to society." You've ever urged someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when they don't even have shoes. You confuse Lenin with Lennon.

Snowy Owl

My first night-time test shot with my new-to-me Canon 6D, a camera that's very highly recommended for night-sky imaging. It was a 25 second shot at ISO 2500 with a 14mm lens at f/2.8. I can't wait to take it to a really dark area near Lake Erie next new moon. A 5D Mark IV will be my next camera, maybe later this year.