Think about the fact that mens watches and Womens watches don’t actually fit differently, but they’re always 2 separate and visually distinctive categories. It’s a chick thing, I’ll never understand.
Makes me wonder if he’s been nutered. If not, it’s too bad he never get’s any considering Monica is a little nymphette. Course we don’t know what all goes on with the pizza girl.
I certainly agree with the eww/yuck-ola factor (how many Ws are in eww anyway, and why isn’t it eu, or eue?). Still, you would be amazed how popular it is. With ponies too. You think guys are bad? You have no idea what the world of horny women is like. And you don’t want to know. You’ll truly wish brain bleach was real.
ah you naughty girl, SoWhyMe… has too much mulled wine loosened you up??
I think it is the high vacuum that gives a bit more strength, but it been a long time since I saw one, not being hifi crazy..
FYI, *usable* objects are made of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_glass
- this is far stronger than any other, similar to that used in skyscrapers.. you can drop a car on it, without effect!
Some – particularly power triodes for radio transmitter finals – could be downright huge.
As to the “nipple” on top – some tubes (similarly to original Edison incandescent bulbs) have little glass peaks on top where they were sealed after being evacuated. (And after that, a small piece of metal inside, called a “getter”, would be heated white hot by an electric current until it vapourised, to pick up any remaining air inside; you can often see shiny metal patches on the inside of the glass of tubes where the vapourised metal from the getter deposited back out.)
OTOH, if it’s a little metallic thing like a small thimble (like the 3-500Z on the page i linked to above), that is the connection for the plate lead -where the high voltage is applied and (usually) the output signal appears.
Yeah – at least one reason for the top connection is that if you apply the B+ (plate voltage – tubes used to be powered by an “A” battery that heated the filament/cathode, a “B” battery for plate voltage – i once had one the size of a 9-volt battery that was rated at 67 volts- and “C” batteries for the grid bias) at the base, where it has to run close to other leads withing the tube, you probably couldn’t run a really high voltage because it would arc over.
True. High voltage tubes can have a connector on the top, but if I remember those are mostly tubes that were used in TV sets for the high voltage on the picture tube.
To some extent, what Monica is saying is true – but once the tubes stabilise after burning in for a while, they don’t actually change much until they fail completely. Other components (particularly capacitors, and more specifically yet, electrolytic capacitors) change significantly and continuously over their lifespans and might very well affect the sound more.
I am quite aware of that – my Navy electronics training (19678 – 69) was almost entirely vacuum tubes … though the class the week after mine was the first to get a mostly-solid-state cuuriculum, and the yalternated between the two curricula for some time after ward. The military had a lot of tube-based stuff in 1968.
In 1986, my high school class toured the ANG base here in Portland, which still had an F4 flight ‘computer’ that they’d show off — “look at all the vacuum tubes!” Bet that baby’s long since been recycled.
I spent my 4 year Air Force enlistment(79-83) on a Flight Simulator(SR-71A). It had started out with an analog(Vacuum Tube based) computer with gears and servos. In the early 70′s it was updated with a dual digital computer setup. In 85-89, I worked on the simulator for the RF-4C. It had a T2 Analog Computer two rows of cabinets housing tubes, motors and servos. You had to let it warm up for an hour before you did anything to it.
Back in the latter 1980s/early 1990s, at least, there were vacuum tube CD players (well, in the analog stages; they had to use solid-state for the digital stages).
Wow, even in the 90s? Still, don’t they use tubes in microwave ovens and high powered commercial transmitters even today? And if that’s so, that means some company must still make some tubes. Does anyone still make common tubes or are they all from old stockpiles now?
The tubes in the CD players were because “everybody knows” that “tubes sound better than transistors”.
And, yep. Microwaves use a specialised type of tube called a “cavity magnetron”, (first invented in the 1920s, further developed during WW2) to produce centimeter-range radio waves for radar. All it cam do is produce microwaves.
A more powerful and useful type of tube for radar use is the klystron, which produces more accurate frequencies than the maggie. (You wanna see a big tube – check out the picture f a klystron in that article.)
Many cities still have junk/surplus shops. Here in Portland, places like R3D4 or Wacky Willy’s were your friend; I haven’t needed to buy tubes for many years so I don’t know what’s out there now, but dusty shops still lurk in some places
I once walked into my girlfriend’s apartment to see her in a similar pose as Monica’s, talking to another man on the phone…that’s when I knew it was over…
There’s something small in her right hand, which is held in the same position as it would be if she were using a cell phone. I think Paul tried to suggest a cell phone in that hand by drawing the diagonal straight line just below her little finger.
i’m imagining Kevin’s face as she says this, and what the conversation must sound like coming from his end.
Uh? What? Did you say something? Sorry there was someone.. er, I mean something in my eye.
Is Monica using a Bluetooth headset ? ‘Cause , to me , it doesn’t look as if she’s holding a cell phone .
Oh , and RAWR !
Think about the fact that mens watches and Womens watches don’t actually fit differently, but they’re always 2 separate and visually distinctive categories. It’s a chick thing, I’ll never understand.
Almost any article of adornment or apparel…
I can live with that .
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
What TheDoctor said .
Here’s to another year of a wonderful comic !
You wouldn’t appreciate the punchline over this 12kbps cellphone codec.
Hah, I was thinking of this story line when I read the XKCD comic.
Love the xkcd reference! xkcd comes after Wapsi in my bookmarks, so I didn’t get it at first. ^_^; Hooray for audiophile jokes! =D
*click*
O HAR.
I read xkcd first, myself; I doubt there’s any useful pattern in the sequence. For the confused, look here: http://www.xkcd.com/841/
Deitzel’s reaction FTW
I don’t know. It would have been more “Deitzel” for him to be inching away while blushing.
I love Deitzel’s look!
Deitzel’s not disgusted, He’s jealous!
Makes me wonder if he’s been nutered. If not, it’s too bad he never get’s any considering Monica is a little nymphette. Course we don’t know what all goes on with the pizza girl.
Ewwwwww….
DOUBLE eeeeeeeewwww & a “Yuck!” to boot…
It’s a comic, and he’s apparently a sentient sophant.
I certainly agree with the eww/yuck-ola factor (how many Ws are in eww anyway, and why isn’t it eu, or eue?). Still, you would be amazed how popular it is. With ponies too. You think guys are bad? You have no idea what the world of horny women is like. And you don’t want to know. You’ll truly wish brain bleach was real.
So you’re you think Dietzel is like Brian?
He’s not jealous, she just cut one.
A little comment from the “Peanut Gallery”.
Yeah, I was just thinking that Dietzel belonged up in the balcony with Statler and Waldorf.
Like any good child, Dietzel has the normal reaction when his parent talks about having sex.
It’s a valid question. After all she would soon have a whole case of rigid, phalic shaped objects in the house. She is already personifying them.
Phalic objects made of thin, fragile glass. That’s not a “method of death” you want on your death certificate.
Aren’t electronic tubes made with thicker glass than, say, a light bulb, as Frank mentioned, or fluorescent tubes?
Some may even be metal,
ah you naughty girl, SoWhyMe… has too much mulled wine loosened you up??
I think it is the high vacuum that gives a bit more strength, but it been a long time since I saw one, not being hifi crazy..
FYI, *usable* objects are made of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_glass
- this is far stronger than any other, similar to that used in skyscrapers.. you can drop a car on it, without effect!
SoWhyMe=male
“You have no idea what the world of horny women is like. And you don’t want to know.” but that SO sounds like my GF or sister talking….
@Illiad: I see. Well, that’s the world in which I grew up so I guess that’s why I might come across as a female sometimes.
SoWhyMe:
[thumbs up] but hey, loosen up a bit, I think that mulled wine helps!! 
Depends on who made em’, these almost certainly. Still they are glass…
ah, we have a pimply youth here, who thinks ‘phallic objects’ are actually *used*, in his feverish imagination…
I’ve had ambulance calls where women have used light bulbs as…well…penis substitutes. Sometimes it does not end well.
Thank you. I had to use this. If you’re out you can borrow some of mine.
Sounds like Darwin Award candidates.
heh… vacuum tubes are a lot smaller though….
Looking at pictures and dimensions on-line, some of them seem to be quite large. A few even appear to have some sort of small “nipple” on top as well.
Some – particularly power triodes for radio transmitter finals – could be downright huge.
As to the “nipple” on top – some tubes (similarly to original Edison incandescent bulbs) have little glass peaks on top where they were sealed after being evacuated. (And after that, a small piece of metal inside, called a “getter”, would be heated white hot by an electric current until it vapourised, to pick up any remaining air inside; you can often see shiny metal patches on the inside of the glass of tubes where the vapourised metal from the getter deposited back out.)
OTOH, if it’s a little metallic thing like a small thimble (like the 3-500Z on the page i linked to above), that is the connection for the plate lead -where the high voltage is applied and (usually) the output signal appears.
um, I think we are talking about ‘for audio use’ here… though some *real* hifi freak may well have tried to use an ‘industrial’ one….
oh, yes.. I have repaired some old TVs ages ago, that use a giant tube, with the 20kV driven off the top cap… :~{)
Yeah – at least one reason for the top connection is that if you apply the B+ (plate voltage – tubes used to be powered by an “A” battery that heated the filament/cathode, a “B” battery for plate voltage – i once had one the size of a 9-volt battery that was rated at 67 volts- and “C” batteries for the grid bias) at the base, where it has to run close to other leads withing the tube, you probably couldn’t run a really high voltage because it would arc over.
True. High voltage tubes can have a connector on the top, but if I remember those are mostly tubes that were used in TV sets for the high voltage on the picture tube.
Poor Deitzel. No fingers to put in his ears…
Wait, wait … vacuum tubes do what?
To some extent, what Monica is saying is true – but once the tubes stabilise after burning in for a while, they don’t actually change much until they fail completely. Other components (particularly capacitors, and more specifically yet, electrolytic capacitors) change significantly and continuously over their lifespans and might very well affect the sound more.
They function like transistors. They were the only way to switch and amplify electronic signals until they were replaced by transistors in the 50s.
I am quite aware of that – my Navy electronics training (19678 – 69) was almost entirely vacuum tubes … though the class the week after mine was the first to get a mostly-solid-state cuuriculum, and the yalternated between the two curricula for some time after ward. The military had a lot of tube-based stuff in 1968.
In 1986, my high school class toured the ANG base here in Portland, which still had an F4 flight ‘computer’ that they’d show off — “look at all the vacuum tubes!” Bet that baby’s long since been recycled.
I spent my 4 year Air Force enlistment(79-83) on a Flight Simulator(SR-71A). It had started out with an analog(Vacuum Tube based) computer with gears and servos. In the early 70′s it was updated with a dual digital computer setup. In 85-89, I worked on the simulator for the RF-4C. It had a T2 Analog Computer two rows of cabinets housing tubes, motors and servos. You had to let it warm up for an hour before you did anything to it.
Argh. “1968 – 69″
Wow…Monica has a very tiny butt…
Does it look as if there’s enough to hang on to?
You can always hang on elsewhere where there’s more to fill a hand with…
I assume you’re talking about her hair.
Yeah, hair…right, that’s it! Hair!
Things don’t grow well in the shade.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, Otter.
Otter is using a gardening saying, to joke about ‘large objects’ robbing those under it of the ability to grow due to lack of sun….
It’s not the size, it’s the shape…
Where does one buy vacuum tubes in this day and age?
Google is Your friend:
http://www.vacuumtubesinc.com/Home.aspx#
One of many. Be prepared to pay a hefty price for premium examples.
Go through any website that has new/used guitar amps. Any amp listed as “Hybrid”, “Valve” or “Tube” Amp has at least one in there.
Back in the latter 1980s/early 1990s, at least, there were vacuum tube CD players (well, in the analog stages; they had to use solid-state for the digital stages).
Wow, even in the 90s? Still, don’t they use tubes in microwave ovens and high powered commercial transmitters even today? And if that’s so, that means some company must still make some tubes. Does anyone still make common tubes or are they all from old stockpiles now?
The tubes in the CD players were because “everybody knows” that “tubes sound better than transistors”.
And, yep. Microwaves use a specialised type of tube called a “cavity magnetron”, (first invented in the 1920s, further developed during WW2) to produce centimeter-range radio waves for radar. All it cam do is produce microwaves.
A more powerful and useful type of tube for radar use is the klystron, which produces more accurate frequencies than the maggie. (You wanna see a big tube – check out the picture f a klystron in that article.)
Hmmm. “Your comment is awaiting moderation” – i included two Wikipedia links in a comment i just posted, so that may be what tripped the moderation.
What i said was that microwave ovens and some radars use “cavity magnetrons”, but that a lot of radars use “klystrons” or “traveling wave tubes”.
Many cities still have junk/surplus shops. Here in Portland, places like R3D4 or Wacky Willy’s were your friend; I haven’t needed to buy tubes for many years so I don’t know what’s out there now, but dusty shops still lurk in some places
+1 on the dog’s expression in panel 2. Y’all pray for me, I’m going to be riding a bicycle after dark tonight. Duty calls, I have a paying gig.
Good luck, Opus. Yeah, I’ll add another +1 on Dietzel’s reaction.
Hopefully wearing light clothing, right?
<__>
……….
*its, not it’s
Heh, that thing turned my emoticon into something totally different.
Dem. Incorrect. Apostrophes. 8U
I once walked into my girlfriend’s apartment to see her in a similar pose as Monica’s, talking to another man on the phone…that’s when I knew it was over…
I don’t (usually) nit-pick, but Paul, you used “it’s” (the contraction for it is) instead of “its”, the possessive, twice in the first panel.
LOVE the expression on Dietzel’s face, btw.
Conversation aside, and liking Dietzel’s expression…
I’ve always wondered how uncomfortable it would be trying to sleep on her stomach, built like she is?
You don’t.
The pillows seem to be nice and fluffy. Laying in between would probably keep his ears nice and warm.
Lower back problems, neck problems, and sore boobs in the morning.
Sex and vacuum tubes DON’T mix!!! and I don’t see a phone in her hand; who’s she talking to? the only one there is dietzel… :-S
Probably a Blackberry in her left hand…
There’s something small in her right hand, which is held in the same position as it would be if she were using a cell phone. I think Paul tried to suggest a cell phone in that hand by drawing the diagonal straight line just below her little finger.