Tag: tech

HomePod Mini

I have an old Sonos speaker in my bedroom/office. I’m listening to an episode of the StarTalk Radio podcast through it as I type this. It’s too old to support Apple’s AirPlay so I have to use the Sonos App. It’s fine for the most part. I can run AppleMusic through it, but not Apple Podcasts. I had to setup Stitcher in order to play podcasts through the speaker.

The lack of AirPlay has meant that I have always wanted to upgrade to something newer so that I could just play my iPhone or my iPad directly through the speaker.

Along with the old Sonos speaker in the bedroom, we have additional Sonos speakers in the living room, and in the office proper. Our home theater system is all Sonos. Those are all newer models that support AirPlay.

We also have an Apple HomePod in the living room. It’s a great speaker, but more often than not the Sonos is the go-to when we want to play music through a speaker.

Yesterday Apple had their media event for the new iPhones. The iPhone 12 Pro Max looks awesome. That’s not what really caught my attention though. The standout to me was the new HomePod Mini. Not because of anything it does, but because of the price.

Given my interest in upgrading the speaker in the bedroom/office.. the original HomePod sells for about $300. The Sonos One runs for about $180, and the Move costs about $400.

The new HomePod Mini costs $99. That’s interesting. It does exactly what I want it to do, and it ties into my existing system, and it’s a lot cheaper than the alternatives.

Interesting………

Accidental Photo a Day

Remember that stretch from September 2019 through August 2020 when I was always mentioning how I was doing a photo a day thing on Flickr? Weren’t you happy when I finished that up on the last day of August with post number 366/365? Remember all that stupidity?

I wasn’t planning it… I didn’t even realize I was doing it… but I never stopped. I’ve posted a new photo* to Flickr each day since I “stopped” the 365. The picture I put in the previous post is day #43. Am I doing this again? I don’t think so… but I’ve gone this far, right?

*One day, September 7th to be exact, I posted a short video of Patches rolling around with catnip. I didn’t post a still photo that day, just the video, but in my mind it totally counts.

Instacart is My Crack Dealer

We just had an instacart delivery. They did a pretty good job getting things we need. My hat is tipped for sure.

Except.

My weight problem may or may not be the result of decades worth of mass consumption of cola drinks. 90% of them coca~cola, but there’s plenty of pepsi sloshing around in all that fatness too.

I can’t kick my addiction to cola drinks, but I have successfully transitioned to diet soda. Diet Pepsi, to be specific. I now drink mass quantities of Diet Pepsi and while it’s not good for me per se, just look at those teeth, bro, it’s better than guzzling the regular stuff.

Today’s instacart order included a couple of six packs of bottled Diet Pepsi. They brought regular. Oh no. I have regular pepsi in my house. Why don’t you just bring a great big bucketful of crack to a crack addict and tell him to have a ball.

Yikes!

A (non-musical) Personal Challenge

For the last 23 days I’ve been able to get in at least 30 minutes of exercise and close all three rings on the iOS Activity app. My beloved wife started tracking exercise a little more than a week before I did and she managed to close all three rings for the entire month of September. I am so impressed by that and so proud of her that I am challenging myself to do the same for the month of October.

Today is October 1st and all three rings are closed for today. I can do this.

Nerd Projects

When I was in college I took a circuit design course and had to solder together a circuit board. That was in 2003, I think. Maybe 2002. A long time ago. I haven’t done anything remotely similar to that since.

For a while now I’ve had this secret desire to buy a build your own amplifier kit and build the whole thing myself. I want to build a clone of a tweed Fender Deluxe. It’s supposed to be a simple build and it is a legendary amp.

I’d like to do this, but the idea of actually wiring it together is terrifying to me. The solution, of course, is to find a smaller scale project and do that first. Like, practice, you dig? There’s also the small matter of not having any of the tools required.

Today is one of those days where I feel myself getting close to pulling the trigger on a wiring project. Build Your Own Clone is a company that sells kits for all sorts of guitar gear. Their stuff is supposed to be excellent. I was surfing around their website today looking for something simple to use as a first project. Some kind of fuzz pedal maybe? How about a treble booster, those are supposed to be dead simple.

Then I saw they have a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal clone. I don’t know if it’s an easy build or not (the reviews say it is, but are those people first timers? Who knows) but I’ve been thinking about picking up a Bluesbreaker style pedal anyway. Wampler makes one. Keeley used to make one. Analogman makes the mother of all Bluesbreaker style pedals, the King of Tone and I’ve been on the waiting list for one for over two years. Maybe I could build one to hold me over until I bubble up to the top of the list.

Also, amazon has all sorts of inexpensive soldering kits that include everything I remember using in that circuit design class so many ages ago.

I do not want to spend money on any of this stuff… but I’m thinking about it. Thinking about it pretty hard. Who knows, build a pedal or two, then build a tweed Deluxe… then what? I bet I could find a 4×10 tweed Fender Bassman clone somewhere. Maybe even the amplifier the Bluesbreaker pedal is supposed to simulate, the Marshall 1962 aka The Bluesbreaker (so named because Eric Clapton used one on the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton album in 1966).

Fantasizing about guitar gear… that’s a new high of nerdness for me, I think.

Best Scam Robo Call EVER

Phone rings. The number on the caller ID is gibberish. Okay, I’ll bite. I could use a laugh.

“Hello, we are calling from the social security office. There has been suspicious activity on your account and we are going to suspend I.T.”

Huh? Suspend I.T.? Wait… did they mean “suspend it”?

Laughter ensues.

Life on Venus? Hell Yes!

Is there life on Venus? You wouldn’t think so…

UNTIL NOW!!!

Well… it’s probably not life. I haven’t read the article yet, but I’ve read the author’s tweet storm where he talks it through. It’s probably just something that on Earth is biological, but elsewhere is just some goofy chemistry that we haven’t seen in these parts yet.

Still… even though this isn’t even close to evidence that there is life on another planet, I am going to choose to error on the side of massive overreaction and say, WOOOHOOO! Life on Venus, babie!