Tag: tech

80 Decibels

My AppleWatch has a sound pressure level sensor. There’s a complication on the watch face that I put together that constantly shows the decibel level of whatever is going on around me. I have a mechanical keyboard that I am using to type this post. The clacking of the keys is about 64 decibels. Cool, huh?

A minute ago I was looking at my watch (I have another complication that displays the current value of the timer app. I have a timer running right now and I wanted to see how much time was left) and I unexpectedly burped. Like, not just a burp but a burp. Like an oh my brother you just chugged a can of diet pepsi burp.

80 decibels.

Kick ass.

What Does Mars Sound Like?

NASA has answered an age old question: What does Mars sound like?

It sounds like a microphone without a wind screen and the fact that we can listen to it, even though there is basically nothing there, is one of the coolest things that has ever happened in the history of Earth.

I’m Dumb

We bought a new washer dryer set a while ago. It was pre-Covid so it was at least a year. January 2020? December 2019? I don’t think it was that long ago. Whatever.

The set we bought were side loading. I am super tall so we bought pedestals to sit them on. We let ourselves be upsold on one of them. The washing machine pedestal has a small washing machine built into it. How cool is that? Let’s say you just finish the last load of laundry and then you spill something all over yourself. You could throw your dirty clothes into the hamper and wait until there’s enough to do a full load. You could wash them right away and have a huge amount of overkill on the water usage front. No, those aren’t good plans.

Or, you could wash them in the little pedestal washing machine thing. It only holds a few items so it’s perfect for those forgotten, last minute laundry needs. Awesome!

Did we actually need it? No. Did we buy it because it’s awesome? Oh yes, yes we did.

I don’t have a picture of it to share, but it actually slides out from under the big washing machine. It’s probably about two feet tall, max. You slide it out, fill it up, start it, slide it back in, and you’re off.

Or so I thought.

One day, back when we were still going to the office every day, I didn’t have a pair of business casual pants clean for the next day. Perfect! I’ll use the little guy! I slide the thing out, loaded it up, put some detergent into it, hit start… and got an error message. Huh? I tried again. Error message. What the hell? I put it away and forgot about it. I tried again a few weeks later, I forget why, and I had the same result. Our little upsell item is a lemon! Sonofabitch! I then proceeded to forget about it for a year or so.

Until today.

The scenario detailed above happened. I finished the laundry and then messed up some clothes. I took them downstairs to wash them and decided to give the little spud another go. This time, no error message. The timer went to 39 minutes and sat there. Okay. It was too dark to read the settings but I figured I wouldn’t look this gift horse in the mouth and went back upstairs to work.

About an hour later I checked on it. The timer was now off, but the clothes were dry. What happened? I took the clothes out and put them into the big washer and was about to start it when I figured I’d give it another chance. This time I got the error message again. Ugh. I took the clothes out and pushed it back in… and it started filling. What?

I had to hit pause in order to pull it out again, but I reloaded it, pushed it in again, hit start, and it worked! Holy Crap!

I then realized two things. The error message I was getting was because you have to push it back in before you start it. That’s it. That was my problem. You have to close it or it won’t run. Well, I feel like a tool now, don’t I? The other thing was that when I didn’t get the error the first time I tried today, I must have bumped the pause button. I never restarted it so it just shut itself off.

Dummy.

Well, at least I can use the little washing machine now. So I guess I’ve got that going for me. Suck it, Covid.

Apple Watch Problem

I took the latest AppleWatch update on Wednesday night. Was that a mistake?

Ever since then my watch has failed to send data to my iPhone. The Activity app, the SleepWatch app, even the full battery notification. Nuttin. Anyone else seeing this? I’m still getting notifications sent from the phone to the watch, it just appears that nothing is going the other way.

I am a sad Apple fanboy.

Intermittent Fasting

I just started my lunch break and in doing so I just ended last night’s intermittent fasting fast. I started the process 162 days ago. I haven’t missed a day. My Zero app tells me I missed a day, but that was due to a sync mess up when I tried to track a day on my iPad instead of my iPhone.

For the most part, the process has been pretty easy for me. I stop eating at 9:00PM and don’t start again until 1:00PM. There have been a few days where I had to end the daily fast a little early for whatever reason, and there have been a ton of days where the fast went long. The longest was a touch less than 24 hours. The shortest was… about 14 hours, I think. Over the last few days though it has not been easy. I don’t know what changed, but I have found myself bordering on ravenous at about 8:50 each night this week and have had to start my night’s fast 10-15 minutes late. Then the next day, by 10:00AM I am hungry enough that I am feeling a little sick.

Why? What’s different? My stress level is through the roof, but it’s been like that for three weeks. Why did the hungries start three days ago? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

I haven’t gotten to the point where I am going to skip a day, or even stop all together. I’m thinking about it. I have come close to ending a night’s fast early, or start it an hour or two later instead of just a few minutes. I also haven’t exercised this week, and I didn’t weigh in on Tuesday. I don’t know what to do. I would like to ride this out and get back into the groove, as it were. I just don’t know. I told myself I wouldn’t do it if it made me feel sick, and it’s starting to make me feel sick.

We’ll see.

The Case of the Missing Roomba Part 2

I really don’t want this to become a thing for me, but here goes part two.

During Mr DJ Roomba, Esq’s Monday morning run he managed to get stuck behind a door in my step son’s bedroom and was unable to escape. Eventually his battery ran out. When I got up that morning and walked past his home base he wasn’t there.

This morning was Mr DJ Roomba, Esq’s first run since that tragedy and once again when I woke up and walked past his base he wasn’t there. How? This time I found him in the living room under a table. He got one of his wheels stuck on something and he couldn’t get free. I don’t know if he shut himself off or if he let his battery run out again. His dust bin was almost empty so it is safe to say he got stuck very early in his journey.

Poor Mr DJ Roomba, Esq. After a few weeks worth of successful missions he has now failed on consecutive outings. I’m not sure if I should give him an encouraging pep talk (you’ll do better tomorrow) or if I should be harsh with him (we’re looking into a performance improvement plan). Either way, he next rolls at 3:00 AM on Friday morning. Safer travels at that time, Mr DJ Roomba Esq.

More Stuff

Not to be left out of the birthday fun, my nephew is 10 today. Double digits. He’s a mini-me. He’s lucky in two ways. If you’re going to have the misfortune of looking like me, it’s good that you didn’t lose your curly hair the way I did, and also it’s extra lucky that you’re skinny while I was already well on my way to being a fat ass by the time I was 10. He is keeping all the good stuff that I had when I was little. He’s also hysterically funny and he’s not afraid of his own shadow. Two things I didn’t have at 10. So basically, if you eliminate all the stuff that I was bad at when I was 10 you have my nephew. He’s awesome and I love him and I hate that I haven’t been able to visit in forever. I am so sick of the pandemic. It’s killing me.

My father showed some improvement on Tuesday. On Wednesday he seemed to take a bit of a step back but was still better than he had been. Today the word is he seems to have improved a little bit again. We have tentative plans for next steps starting next week. It’s all scary.

We should have the bedroom done tomorrow night… assuming we don’t come up with any new ideas. The mattress is going to be the killer. We have plans in place though. The kitchen stuff starts coming next week. Next weekend is going to be another crazy furniture assemble-fest.

I made a works in progress playlist for RPM. Still not 100% invested yet. Maybe if I can get some guitar parts down it will trigger me. Maybe.

https://hearthis.at/roberjames1971/set/rpm2021-works-in-progress/

I haven’t played with blog themes yet. I browsed a little before bed last night. We’ll have to book some time soon. I have so many reminders in my phone right now. I have to schedule everything with myself or I forget everything.

I’m tired and sad and I want everything to go back to normal and I want it now.

Air Pods Pro

I got a set of air pods pro for Christmas. I like them, but were they better than the original air pods? I couldn’t really say. I think the originals fit better, or at least were a little more comfortable. They feel more secure in my ear. Sound wise, they were about the same. If the seal on the pro’s isn’t good the sound is really toppy and a little tinny.

Last night though, it all changed. Last night I seriously bonded with the little suckers. I was sitting up in bed watching an episode of The Stand (I’m still a bit behind) and I literally couldn’t tell if I was hearing the audio through the air pods or not. It was so clear and perfect, I thought it was coming through an actual speaker. Nice. I had the noise canceling on, which was okay. The transparency thing is good too, but I was the only one awake. The spacial audio… well… as someone who used to be an audio engineer (at least in his head he was) I find the very concept offensive. Some kick ass audio engineer worked his or her ass off to place every sound within the stereo spectrum, and then here’s Apple saying if you turn your head the air pods change the perspective with you. Ummmm… no. I think I’ll go with the audio professional’s opinion of where the sound should be coming from.

Anyway, the point here is that I’ve finally had a break through moment with my air pods pro. For the first time, to my ears at least, they lived up to the hype. Nice!