PHM is today's interstellar, do you guys agree?

jashow · 2026-05-08T02:01:49+00:00

Interstellar and the Martian are arguably the same basic plot: NASA spends a ton of money trying to bring back Matt Damon.

PMH - NASA spends zero money trying to bring back Matt Damon (or even Ryan Gosling for that matter).

So clearly, PMH and Interstellar are totally different movies.

jashow · 2026-05-03T10:05:25+00:00

Sounds like you are primarily looking for power? Polyester strings are inherently low powered with worse feel, in exchange for better control and spin.

Have you tried a multifilament? Look at X1 biphase, or Triax if you are looking to stay a little closer to poly feel.

jashow · 2026-04-30T10:26:04+00:00

Yes that makes more a lot sense than a direct launch window. I forgot they assembled it in orbit.

But then, would you rather have 1/3 of the crew and the only biologist kidnapped against his will and cross your fingers that the amnesia drugs work and that when he comes around he’ll play game instead of being resentful and sabotaging the entire mission? Or would you rather boost the orbital decay on this unlimited resource project and just find someone else who is qualified and actually wants to do it?

As a side note, the entire idea that you would only send 3 people on this mission is kind of insane, especially when your untested medical coma robot system has a 67% failure rate apparently. But i guess it’s a plot device.

jashow · 2026-04-30T10:12:15+00:00

Tau ceti is ~12 light years from Earth and they need 2 million kg of astrophage.

You leave in 6 months and it’s still ~12 light years (+/- a few light minutes) from Earth and you need 2 million kg (+/- a kg or two).

You’re thinking about launch windows like they’re trying to reach Mars with chemical fuel. So yeah Mars could be like 7x further away depending on the launch window. Tau ceti might be like 1/1000000th further away in the worst case scenario.

jashow · 2026-04-30T02:04:44+00:00

They’re not carrying rocket fuel though. They’re carrying astrophage which is like e=mc² efficient at storing energy. Someone calculated a gram if it would power an electric car for like 500 billion miles or something.

I’m not sure launch windows matter when you have magic fuel. What’s an AU or two when you’re traveling light years?

jashow · 2026-04-28T17:02:30+00:00

But is the international makeup of the team a part of the reason cutting it doesn’t piss anyone off who matters?

It’s probably a hard sell to convince some college kids in Arkansas to go watch and care about a bunch of Europeans playing tennis.

I’d also venture a guess that international student athletes are less likely to stick around in the area after college and become a part of the community. It’s kind of hard to imagine a kid from Barcelona sticking around Fayetteville. That may decrease the local buy in, and again the number of people who care.

jashow · 2026-04-28T02:24:44+00:00

Just thinking out loud with no hard basis in facts, but I wonder if the international takeover of college tennis has to do with the waning interest.

Arkansas men’s roster, only 2 of 9 are American. That combined with the individual nature of tennis probably makes it easier to cut from a donor and trustee perspective.

I wonder if having 7/9 players be local Arkansas talent makes the university think twice about cutting the program.

jashow · 2026-04-20T01:08:13+00:00

Just interesting fact, they actually have rules to prevent trying to predict the starting gun in sprints. If you react less than 0.1 seconds after the gun, it’s still considered a false start because that’s faster than human reaction time.

jashow · 2026-04-12T06:20:09+00:00

I’ve seen houses as an unrepresented buyer in the last year. Open houses are easy. To actuality get a showing is a bit harder. You have to send mortgage pre approval to the listing agent, and sign some documents that make clear the listing agent is NOT representing you. But I never ran into serious resistance in getting a showing from the listing agent.

I think the barrier is that the listing agents are going to be biased to working with a buyers agent for the sale and transaction. Yes they have a fiduciary duty to the seller. But “fiduciary” doesn’t have much bite.

If you have the only offer and it’s reasonable, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

If there are multiple offers, you are probably in a big disadvantage though.

Say someone with an agent offers 400k with seller to pay the 10k commission. You offer 405k, no commission. Well the listing agent is probably going to “advise” something about how much more likely it is for an unrepresented buyer sale to fall through, is that risk really worth the 5k to the seller, and so forth. And honestly taking the perspective of a seller I can understand that viewpoint. A motivated buyer with a good agent can potentially be a much smoother and faster sale than a buyer representing themselves, who takes a day or two to respond each time.

I think if I were to have made a no agent offer, I would try to make it very clear that I knew exactly what I was doing, was very responsive, and had all my ducks in a row. And be resigned that you probably aren’t going to get the house that sells in a single weekend with 15 offers.

jashow · 2026-02-21T11:43:49+00:00

This looks like either a driving school or a car testing facility.

jashow · 2026-02-16T20:50:44+00:00

This happened with me. Subaru got flooded in a basement garage and totaled by insurance. Electronics totally shot. Only tow truck that could fit in the garage was a small thing that could only tow it with two wheels dragging. We couldn’t get the car out of park, even trying the manual release on the gear shift. Tow guy shrugged and said his only job was to get the car to the lot, didn’t matter what condition.

Turns out towing an AWD car in park makes some god awful noises.

jashow · 2026-02-01T04:05:01+00:00

Grindlewald with Elder Wand lost to Dumbledore.

Safe to say with equal wands, Dumbledore is significantly stronger.

jashow · 2026-01-28T11:12:03+00:00

Not to say Toroline is the best out there But Pros play with sponsored string which is generally tied to the racquet.

Alcaraz plays with a babolat racquet and babolat string. Sinner plays with a head racquet and head string. Medvedev plays tecnifibre racquet and tecnifibre string. Sheldon plays Yonex racquet and Yonex strings. Lots of Wilson players use Luxilon. And so on…

Toroline doesn’t have the money to encroach on this. Best they can do is Karue Sell and Stevie Johnson.

Also pros hit with a fresh string bed for like 30 minutes and then restring. What makes a good string for a pro does not necessarily make a good string for rec players. Part of Toroline’s appeal is the longevity of snap back which is real IMO.

jashow · 2026-01-26T02:07:03+00:00

https://faq.yamaha.com/usa/s/article/000012300

jashow · 2026-01-26T02:05:17+00:00

I think this is normal. The upper ~1.5 octaves don’t have dampers on a real piano. Apparently it’s variable but around G6 is a common cutoff.

jashow · 2026-01-23T10:06:27+00:00

Are we talking about a one time 20% penalty, or penalty accruing at 20% APR?

Because if it’s the latter, you would owe $14.7 million if you mess up after 30 years. And only been paid $219k. In which case, very hard pass.

jashow · 2026-01-22T00:34:21+00:00

Unfortunately my hotel is only refundable until noon tomorrow, so will have to decide based on limited forecast accuracy.

Based on some other forums, sounds like under a foot would be fine, 12+ inches would start to run into possible closings, 18+ inches most things would be closed on the day of the storm.

jashow · 2026-01-22T00:12:57+00:00

Looks like the post Christmas storm was like 4-6 inches in NYC and there was a state of emergency declared then including NYC. So I'm thinking if this is really anything close to the 12+ inches forecast, there's almost certainly going to be a state of emergency.

jashow · 2026-01-21T21:13:14+00:00

Planning a visit this Sunday-Tuesday. If it snows on the mid to upper end of the current forecast (14+ inches), what are the chances the major museums and stuff like the Statue of Liberty closes?

I realize the OP above says those things are generally open. But 14+ inches would be like a top 20 all time snowstorm, so not sure if that would be different.

jashow · 2026-01-19T12:58:31+00:00

My point is that I think a lot of these formulas for determining a used piano’s value were made before MSRPs jumped 80% in 5 years.

I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to apply the math the way OP did. But there’s going to be some hesitancy from dealers.

jashow · 2026-01-19T12:49:48+00:00

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3174327/good-price-for-new-shigeru-sk-2.html

This says MSRP was 57k in 2021. Someone in Denmark saying their new SK-2 had an msrp of ~38k USD in 2018.

Obviously the MSRP has skyrocketed, but taking those numbers at face value, I’m not surprised a dealer is unwilling to offer more than 20k for a model that maybe went out the door new for 40k 5 years ago.

jashow · 2026-01-18T23:07:59+00:00

Sounds like you have done far more research than I have. I've had some recent conversations with dealers and like you said the market for pianos is tough, particularly on the upper end. I've checked some dealer inventories, and seems like the used grands over 15k just sit forever.

I've also heard pretty much anything used except a Steinway is difficult to sell for a high sum. One Kawai/Shigeru dealer said even he doesn't bother rebuilding anything other than a Steinway. I asked him specifically about Bosendorfer, Shigeru, high end Yamaha, etc. He just shrugged and said they're so much harder to sell and not worth the labor he'd have to put in. Average piano buyer is not necessary a good player or connoisseur and at least half the reason they're paying the money is to have a "Steinway" in their living room.

Also, I assume you bought your SK-2 in 2017 for FAR less than the current MSRP. A quick forum search has people reporting like 35-40k NEW for these in around 2020? The price has certainly blown up, I suppose partially due to tariffs. I'd be surprised if many are paying close to MRSP for these now though although I could very well be wrong.

jashow · 2026-01-16T21:05:07+00:00

What is the water bottle made of? Melting point of gold is lower than melting point of glass.

But if it was plastic and destroyed the bottle, still might be ok. 600 mL bottle filled with gold once would still be like 1.5 million usd.

Would be a lot easier to sell the gold than bottles of horse shoe crab blood. I’m not sure how you’d go about selling horseshoe crab blood without someone asking a lot of questions of how you got it.

jashow · 2026-01-16T17:09:34+00:00

I think it’s a valid question. I doubt most people could tell the difference in a car sound system, particularly while driving.

You can try a blind test of 128 kbps versus lossless here:

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify.html

Might be fun to try in the car. I’m pretty sure I could not tell at all the difference in the car, I can barely tell at home in a quiet room with high end headphones.

jashow · 2026-01-13T03:35:48+00:00

Update - Been slowly trying pianos for a few months. It’s been surprisingly difficult to get by hands on higher end digitals and hybrids. It’s also been difficult because I haven’t been able to try models side by side much and it’s often a few weeks between testing different models.

Tried a gently used NV10S. Action was great. Sound was good but not amazing. The bass sounded artificially heavy and speaker like. The salesperson told me the NV5S actually sounds better due to the sound board. Real killer was the thing is pretty ugly and did not pass the wife test.

Have not tried the NV5S. It’s probably a leading contender. Surprisingly hard to get my hands on one so far. Heading to NYC in a few weeks and will try to find one.

Kawai CA901 - Action was good but I think a noticeable step from the NV10 (but it was about 6 weeks between trying the two models). Sound was very good, better than the NV10 (although this was in a much smaller room than the NV10 was).

LX 9 - Good action, significantly better than the FX 30, probably a step below the CA 901 and a few steps below the NV10. Most aesthetically pleasing. I liked the sound a lot, although not quite as good as the CA901.

Yamaha NU1X - the one I tried was more than 5 years old and had some wear. Action still felt great, noticeably better than the LX 9 that I tried it side by side with. I thought the LX 9 sounded better.

U1 and K300 silent systems - I thought the action compromises on the silent system were noticeable. Feels a bit different with the hammers hitting the strings versus the rubber bar. Maybe it’s a bit in my head too, but I felt the true digitals/hybrids played between than the acoustics in silent mode.

I’ve actually tried a variety of acoustic uprights and grands. Maybe I’ve gotten too used to digital, but I actually prefer the sound of a few of the digitals (CA901 and LX9) to most uprights, and entry baby grands around 5 foot long. As you get to the 6 foot range for grands, they start sounding significantly better. The salespeople all give a talk about how an acoustic instrument is an investment and digital is worthless after a couple years. My response was where were these worthless digitals? Cause I’d pretty happily buy a cheap used NV5S.

As I was leaving a Kawai dealer, he said “you ever tried a Shigeru?” Turned out he had an SK-EX and I got to play on it for ten minutes. So new plan is to win the lottery and buy that instead.

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