Not Tempting Fate

I’m already giving up hoping for a better year. After last year’s cancer treatments and with my upcoming heart ablation, I wasn’t in a good frame of mind to receive some very sad news about a friend who has been fighting the same cancer for more than ten years. We wished each other Happy New Year, and now death could be days, even hours, away.

Assault on Battery

With my Pixel 4a’s battery at 35%, I attempted to manually take the battery update.

After charging the phone the update completed.

Now I will watch for changes related to this update, while waiting for Google to send me the promised code for the $100 discount on a new Pixel phone. If they’re recommending the battery be replaced, how can I not be eligible? In the past, something like this would have been considered a First World Problem, but that’s no longer true.

Update: So what has changed? The battery meter is locked at 100%, which can’t be correct. Having no idea when the battery is about to die means Google has effectively broken my phone.

Update Update: After sitting at 100% all day, the battery is at 94%. Most curious. Maybe I’ll resort to checking a 4a forum to see if anybody else has taken the update.

Flames On!

These fires are catastrophic and unprecedented in my lifetime. Trump is blaming the inability to control the fires on Governor Newsom, rather than expressing any sort of concern or promising to offer support after he is inaugurated.

There’s no reason to hold back from belittling and insulting Trump. We know that when he’s confronted with a real crisis, as he was with Covid, he’s going to screw up. It’s a certainty that by the end of his term, Trump’s reputation will once again be in tatters and many will wonder why they voted for him.

Speaker Up for Denmark

Denmark is well-known in audio markets for its brands of high-quality loudspeakers. These companies would be harmed by Trump imposing import tariffs on Danish goods in his mad wish to take possession of Greenland.

The granddaddy of Danish speakers was the now-defunct Dynaco, which also made highly regarded amps. I am the proud owner of a pair of beautiful Dynaco A25 speakers, now over fifty years old.

Dynaco A25 with “Aperiodic” port behind the non-removal grill cloth.

Here are present-day Danish manufacturers of premium loudspeakers that Trump is unknowingly threatening. Bang & Olufsen is a brand, now 100 years old, that you may have heard of before.

Bang & Olufsen
Dynaudio
Dali
Jamo
Buchardt

Also based in Denmark is a leading manufacturer of raw speaker drivers that other companies incorporate into their designs. Its woofers and tweeters were used in the original line of Dynaco speakers.

seas

And, oh yes, let’s not forget Denmark’s Ortofon, my favorite phono cartridge maker. Will Trump follow through on his reckless threat?

Ortofon Super OM 20