Dave Garrett

Yeah, I was googling fruitlessly after reading that, to no avail. The way the writer worded it: "One of the new songs “Colt .45 Swinging” — which Cobb wrote for Houston’s then nascent baseball team — was made available this week to coincide with Major League Baseball’s opening day." could mean any of several different things. He doesn't specifically say it was released, but that it was "made available". Maybe they let the Astros use it in conjunction with some of their opening day activities?

That was indeed a great piece - pretty sure it was featured by Longreads recently, which is how I stumbled across it. There is so much crap posted online about what constitutes "healthy eating" that a link to that piece should henceforth be the default response whenever someone brings up a questionable nutrition-related claim backstopped by dubious science.

Previously unreleased Arnett Cobb sessions from 1963 to be released this August in observance of his centennial: Treasure unearthed from late Houston jazz legend

Blue Note Label Boss, Don Was, Is Not Ready To Give Up On Jazz

My understanding is that SquareTrade will attempt to repair a covered component, and if they can't repair it, they will either replace it with the same model or pay the replacement cost/original purchase price. If the item's value is below a certain price point (they say "typically around $400"), they skip the repair attempt entirely and pay the claim. I'd agree that repairs are probably a non-starter with most AV receivers these days, unless the repair involves replacing the entire circuit board. And since my unit was already discontinued when I bought it, if I'd had to file a claim they wouldn't have been able to replace it, so I'd have presumably wound up getting reimbursed for the purchase price. I almost never opt for extended warranties, but the combination of Onkyo's HDMI board issues and the positive comments I'd heard regarding SquareTrade's customer service convinced me that it was reasonable to do so in this case. Like any insurance, you have to decide whether it makes more sense to pay the policy cost up front, or self-insure and assume the risk of further out-of-pocket costs down the road.

FWIW, I got my Onkyo TX-NR818 from Crutchfield. That model had been discontinued already, and supplies had dried up everywhere. Mine was a B-stock unit that was the last one they had in inventory. I took a chance on it as that particular model had some specific features I wanted that had been phased out in the model that replaced it. I did wind up getting a 4-year SquareTrade warranty for it as well, but never had to use it. Most extended warranties are garbage, but SquareTrade is worth a look if you think you might need something more than the standard one-year manufacturer warranty on an electronic component.

Does the connection drop after the components have all been powered up and running for a while, or does it not sometimes fail to recognize the connection when the receiver is initially powered up? Sometimes AV receivers can be sensitive to the order in which components are powered up, and the HDMI handshake can fail if that order is deviated from. I usually have my TV already powered up, then I power up the source component (Oppo 95, Roku, or cable box), then wait a bit before powering up the receiver last. I have a several-years-old Onkyo AV receiver and have been very happy with it. I haven't kept up with the newer models, but Onkyo had some fairly well-documented issues with HDMI board failures in units manufactured between 2009-2012 and wound up repairing a lot of affected units even though they were long out of warranty. I assume their QC processes related to HDMI boards have gotten better since then.

There's always been a debate about whether hard drives were more likely to fail from repeated startup/shutdown cycles or from being powered up all the time, although I assume this may be less of an issue as SSDs have become more common. FWIW, my computers have run 24/7 for years with no problems, and they're off-the-shelf, consumer-grade PCs, not purpose-built servers. My monitors are likewise powered up all the time, but they're set to go to sleep after ten minutes of inactivity.

+1 on what Jim said, just to confirm that the problem is with the monitor and not with the computer or video card. But I'd strongly suspect the monitor has crapped out based on your description - I had a Samsung monitor that did the same thing several years ago. Don't know how big your current monitor is (or how big a monitor you'd like to have), but I've found ASUS monitors in the 23-24" range to be a solid choice at a low price point. Those with more specialized needs (gamers, folks who do a lot of photo or video editing, etc.) may well prefer a higher-end monitor, but for general use the budget ASUS models work just fine. Newegg has this 23" one for $139.99 with free shipping, but you get a $20 rebate card for a final cost of $119.99: ASUS VX238H Black 23" 1ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 ASCR 80,000,000:1

It wasn't discussed in that interview, but pulmonary fibrosis is not a disease that can be slowed or significantly controlled through treatment. The median life expectancy after diagnosis is only 2-3 years, with 5 years being pretty much the best-case scenario.

She passed away on Friday. Wesla Whitfield, elegant jazz and cabaret singer, dies at 70 RIP

No date on that article, but Ken Gjemre died in 2002.

I've heard a lot of good things about that book, but for as much praise as it's garnered, one of the more common comments seems to be that the editor had to have been asleep at the wheel, judging from the number of obvious gaffes that should've been caught well before it went to press.

I don't think this was an accidental overdose related to recreational use - I've seen some comments that indicate that the combination of physical ailments he was suffering from had led him to rely on the mixture of multiple very potent pharmaceuticals that ultimately killed him just to manage chronic pain. The implication was that he felt compelled to continue performing, and couldn't do so without some pretty heavy opioids to cover up the messages his body was trying to send, which for most people would be a strong indication that it was time to slow down. At his age and physical condition, when those kinds of drugs are involved the threshold between a deep sleep and a fatal overdose narrows considerably.

There have been three editions. The first "big red" one was IMO the best one, in terms of both the writing and the photography. It was also available in hardcover but the paperback is far more common. The second and third editions were smaller, more the size of a regular trade paperback, and were significantly different in terms of content; a lot of stuff had been added since the first edition, but much of the content that made the first edition so good had been edited out in the later editions. They are not entirely without their own merits, but I think it would have been a better idea to augment the content of the first edition with new material rather than largely take the clean-slate approach. OTOH, the oversized pages of the first edition enhanced the photographs immeasurably, and I'm sure they would have lost some of their impact in the smaller format of the later editions. The second edition looks like this: And the third edition:

I can't think of any other surviving American driver of his generation of similar stature - A. J. Foyt is probably closest, at around five years younger than Gurney was. Mario Andretti and Al Unser Sr. are both almost ten years younger. It's said that Gurney started the tradition of winning drivers spraying the crowd with champagne from the podium when he did so after winning Le Mans with Foyt in 1967.

I'm really sorry to see Musgrove go. Without his performance in key high-leverage situations, the Astros don't win the WS. But I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't excited by Cole joining the rotation. Can't wait to see if Brent Strom can work his usual magic to help Cole regain the form he had in 2015.

Believe it or not, I came to appreciate Dreams via Faye Wong's Cantonese cover in CHUNGKING EXPRESS before I'd ever heard the Cranberries' original. I think I still prefer Faye's version, but that's probably due more to familiarity with it than any objective merits. RIP to Ms. O'Riordan. She will be missed.

Yeah, that "hybrid" type of setup is very common, not least for the reason that it's a hell of a lot cheaper to have a 100GB SSD just for OS and applications than it is to have a 1TB SSD for everything (I'm not sure how large they're making them now, but the price of a 1TB SSD is already enough to give you pause compared to a regular old spinning HDD, so I'm pretty sure I'd have sticker shock at anything bigger). Plus, the SSD should theoretically last longer in that configuration because you won't be writing to it nearly as often as you would if it was being used to store data.

Solid state drives (SSDs) do have a limited number of write cycles before they fail, but that number is high enough to where it's usually not something to worry about in normal use. To optimize the lifespan of an SSD, though, there are some settings that should be changed as they are really only needed on a regular hard drive: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2043634/how-to-stretch-the-life-of-your-ssd-storage.html Swapping out a regular hard drive for an SSD is probably the single most effective thing you can do to dramatically improve the performance of an older computer. It will boot up and load programs much, much faster.

If I were looking for the next step up from a soundbar, as far as speakers go I'd definitely consider the Energy Take Classic 5.1 system. It's long been regarded as one of the best "bang for the buck" budget systems out there, and you should be able to get it new for around $300. https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Classic-Theater-System-Black/dp/B001202C44 I've been happy with the Onkyo A/V receiver I have, but it's a several-year-old model that was one of their top-of-the-line units at the time. Not too familiar with their current product line, but the TX-NR656 looks like a pretty nice unit in the $350-400 range, and they used to have a lower-priced NR5xx series that might be worth checking out as well. Be forewarned that if the newer units are anything like my Onkyo, they will probably be pretty complicated to set up due to a wide variety of configuration options, but once you've invested the time to do so, you shouldn't have to touch it again unless something else in your system changes significantly.

My wife is from Springfield. The first time she mentioned Kum & Go, I thought she was joking. In Texas, we had 7-11, UtoteM, and somewhat later, Stop & Go. Kum & Go would've been an endless source of amusement for legions of 14-year-olds.

That would be Microsoft's Home Use Program (HUP), and it's definitely the best deal for Office if you're eligible. Companies that have a Microsoft enterprise software license and opt in to the HUP can offer dirt-cheap copies of Office to their employees for installation onto a home computer. Technically, you're not supposed to continue using software purchased via the HUP if you leave the company, but in practice I don't think this is actually enforced (although this may have changed since the subscription model gained traction - it's been several years since I last had to deal with Microsoft enterprise licenses on a regular basis). I despise the subscription model, but I'm about to have to grit my teeth and get an Office 365 subscription in response to some recent business requirements. Chuck, I'd only add that if you do decide to try one of these alternatives, you may have to change the file associations if you want to continue being able to just double-click the file to open it, otherwise your Mac will still try to use Office to open them, putting you right back where you started. As lipi points out, you can always open the files from within the alternative application, if you don't mind going to the File > Open menu option (or something similar) instead of double-clicking the file icons. Here's a step-by-step guide to changing file associations in OS X: Change File Associations in Mac OS X

Microsoft, along with Adobe and other major software purveyors, has moved toward the subscription-based model in recent years, irritating many of us who don't require the latest and greatest versions every time a major update is issued and find the older one-time-purchase versions continue to work just fine. Of course they love it because it ensures an ongoing revenue stream from every licensed user. You might want to consider one of the open-source competitor packages available for free download, such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice, both of which are available in Mac OS X-compatible versions. Both are compatible with MS Office documents and file format, with certain caveats. OpenOffice LibreOffice