Category: Tech

Lunch Break

I’m on my lunch break. What’s going on?

Podcasts… What’s the deal?

MacOS used to have its podcast functionality baked into iTunes. At some point recently (was it the current MacOS or the last one? I can’t remember) they spun it off into its own application. It sucked. Like… bad. It sucked bad. The interface is terrible and nearly impossible to use. Discovering new podcasts… can you even do that? I don’t know. It just sucked.

iOS and iPadOS had their own standalone podcast apps. The two are virtually identical. There’s a screen thing here and there that is a little different, but the two of them are basically the same. That app (I am going to refer to the two as if they are just one app on different platforms. Hey, it’s my post I can do whatever I want. FREEDOM!) was never good. In fact, it was always pretty crappy. It was, however, a work of absolute genius when compared to the MacOS app.

Something happened recently. I don’t know what. I heard the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast talking about it a few months (I think) ago, but I am still not sure what happened. Whatever it was, it took the two mobile platform podcast apps, stabbed them in the heart multiple times, cut their heads off, and flushed all the bits down the toilet. It is absolute garbage now. Nothing viewable has changed. The interface is exactly the same. It’s just the performance that has more or less overnight become unusable. The Apple mobile podcast applications are now as useless as useless can be. Crap-tastic. Crash-tastic. Terrible. Garbage.

They are so bad that I am currently listening to podcasts while I work via the MacOS podcast player. I have my MacBook Pro streaming through the HomePods in my bedroom. I’m using the awful Mac version… that’s how bad the mobile versions are.

There are new versions of all three OS’s on the way. I am hopeful, though not optimistic, that improvements are coming.

Come on, Apple. Let’s fix this. You are making my work day more annoying than it needs to be.

Fans

It’s not particularly hot out today, nor does it seem to be particularly humid. For some reason though, I am covered with sweat, head to toe. I feel like I just jumped into the shower.

It started when I took the laundry down cellar before work started. Over the last four weeks or so, “laundry” has been code for finding an excuse to go down cellar and check on the flood. I actually do laundry on these trips but it really is not the primary reason for going down stairs.

I vacuumed up Lake Asshole, dumped out the wet vac, and dumped out the dehumidifier. I also did a load of laundry. An hour later I went back down to flip the laundry to the dryer, but also vacuumed up the latest puddles. An hour after that I went down again to bring up the load of laundry and did the same vacuuming update. At lunch I carried a huge desk from Bellana’s room to the cellar, and then vacuumed up the much smaller puddles and emptied the dehumidifier again.

I am drenched with sweat. I have the wall mounted AC in the bedroom cranking, and a second fan on the floor blowing right on me and still I am drenched. The upside of all of this is the exercise.

Yesterday when I mowed the entire lawn (ouch), I closed the exercise ring in my AppleWatch Activity App. Bonus! By the time the day was done I had closed all three rings for the first time in ages. That was a good feeling. Even better, my SleepWatch app numbers from last night were out of this world. Everything except the total amount of sleep time (six hours and 50 minutes) was as good as it gets.

It made me think… is it time to start closing those rings again? Yesterday was the first of the month… could I get back on the wagon with a perfect month? I don’t know. It’s tough to close the exercise ring when I am at my parents, and even harder when I am at the office. It might be a challenge.

With all the lifting and going up and down the stairs over and over today, I’m already about half way to my 30 minute exercise ring today. The 10 minutes of walking I did before work didn’t hurt. heheh

We’ll see how it goes.

Welcome to August

Happy August 1st, everyone! August doesn’t have a national holiday so this year I am going to try and make it feel better by acting like every day is an extra big deal. No I’m not. I’m just so happy that July and its constant rain is over. Granted, August might get constant rain too, likely will thanks to climate change, but for this one, sweet, shining morning, August is dry and I am happy about it.

I wore a mask at my mother’s house yesterday. Not all the time, just when I knew she was near me. We are both vaccinated, but she ain’t catching jack shit from me. The MA department of public health is recommending vaccinated people wear masks when they are indoors with other people around because we can’t tell who the morons who aren’t vaccinated are and if they aren’t going to do anything to protect their own health, then we the vaccinated have to do it for them. Because they are stupid. Because they are morons.

Thanks to the never ending pandemic of the unvaccinated we are still using instacart for groceries and they screwed up big time today. We had to go back for a second round. All in all I am happy for the service, they are right a crazy high percentage of the time, but every once in a while… We asked for hamburger patties and got pumpernickel bread. Riiiiight.

What else is going on on this fine Sunday morning in August that hasn’t seen any rain yet? I broke the music mold a smidgen today. We slept kinda late. Not super late, I was up at about 8:15, but for me that’s pretty late. I wanted to do some car music but the aforementioned instacart delivery was on its way, and I had some things I wanted to do before I left so I didn’t get into the car until almost 10:00. I do my car music in a movie theater parking lot, and due to the idiotic decision to re-open the state despite the never ending pandemic mentioned in the previous paragraph, the movie theater was going to be open at 10:00. I rolled the dice. I park in the back parking lot so hopefully anyone going in early to catch the delta variant and a movie would probably park in the front. My risk paid off.

August 1st

I did park in a different area of the lot though. I recorded four songs. There were two technical problems but neither stopped me. First, I use Trello to track my progress. The songs I needed to work on are on a list called Complete Lyrics/Melody on a board called 2021 50/90. My normal workflow is to bring up the Trello app on my iPhone and use that to let me know which songs to work on. The last couple of times I’ve done this though, the iOS app wouldn’t refresh. It’s showing me the board from about two weeks ago. Nothing is up to date. I had to turn my iPhone hot spot on and bring it up on the Mac. That is annoying as all hell.

The second technical problem wasn’t a problem but I would have had I kept going. The temperature outside was in the mid-70’s but the sun was out and shining bright and damn if it didn’t get roasting hot in that car. I’d open the windows but then people would be able to hear me “singing” and ain’t no way that’s happening. About halfway through my little “session” the Mac’s fan kicked on and it never shut off. I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to go before it started to overheat but “fortunately” my voice ran out of gas after about an hour and I had to stop.

I did manage to finish four songs. That’s one more than I had planned. I had three songs with the guitars finished and I wanted to pick those off. I also had six songs with lyrics and melodies already written that don’t have guitars yet. A couple of those have MIDI guitar tracks acting as place holders. I did one of those.

So the plans for the rest of today include, but are not limited to, cutting some grass, recording some guitar parts, having a cookout for dinner (weather permitting, of course, though July is over so the weather will be glorious), and hanging out with my step son who only has a few weeks left before he moves to college.

Of course, as I type out that to do list I am sitting at my computer reading twitter, making fun of creationists, and thinking that it would be really nice to just sit and watch movies with Harry and Jen all day. That might be the better to do list.

Welcome to August, may it stay sunny and dry. Good luck, folks!

Please Install

I want to play World of Warcraft with Jen while I’m at my parents house but it just won’t install. I deleted the battle.net desktop app and I am trying to reinstall it… and that status bar hasn’t moved in ages. Why do I even bother?

Reminder: Try This tonight

I drive a Kia Niro. The climate system in the car sucks ass during the summer. It has an auto function that works about as well as… hmmm… what’s a fittingly stupid analogy… fish with a bicycle? Something like that. Anyway, in the summer when it’s 100 degrees outside I set the temp at 68 and it blows hot air. So literally the system blows. I turn the temp down to 65, or the minimum setting, and it blows cold air. It’s dumb. It’s the only thing about that car that I don’t like…

…and there is no obvious way to fix it. There is no auto button that I can find.

To the Google I go! Kia’s website had nothing. Kia’s manual had nothing. A Kia customer forum suggested pressing and holding the defrost button for two seconds. That should turn it off. I am excited and skeptical a the same time. I am excited because I really want it to be off, and skeptical because the solution sounds dumb.

I’m going to try it after work tonight.

I’ll let you know if it works.

Headphones

Why did I put two pairs of headphones into the bag of stuff I took to my parents house for my nana sitting shift?

On the left we have a pair of AirPods Max that Harry loaned to me. They sound awesome and are great for everything I use headphones for on my computer, iPad, or iPhone… with one glaring exception.

They are bluetooth and bluetooth has one huge drawback. It is slow. Incredibly slow. The lag is ridiculous. Watching video or listening to music is fine but actually recording music… no way. Too much lag. As the track is recording you are hearing and playing as much as a full beat after where the computer is actually playing. When you listen back everything is grotesquely out of time. Bluethooth headphones are absolutely useless for recording purposes. Hence the second pair, which actually plugs in.

So when I watch a video (like the episode of The Flash I just watched… Covid protocols are doing season seven no favors), or when I mix a song (like the one I posted last night) or when I’m listening to music or a podcast, I’m using Harry’s AirPods Max. When I am recording something, like the guide track for the melodies I added to two songs earlier, or the bass and drums I added to a new song idea, I am using the cheap little Sony things that I bought at the Orlando Airport a couple of years ago.

How’s that for a fascinating blog post, huh? You learn so much when you read my brain farts. You’re welcome.