Category: Tech

Tech Talk

This month marks one year of blogging without technical trouble, after several years of the WordPress installation hanging on by a virtual thread. Well, that’s not entirely correct. There was a problem not long ago.

The SSL certificate for HTTPS encryption that comes with my level of hosting service doesn’t work. I paid $80 for a 3rd party certificate, and it’s working. Fine, whatever, as long as the WordPress dashboard looks like this.

Anyway, the point is that, after sixteen years, I can either keep doing this… or not. If I quit it will be at my discretion, and not out of frustration because the site keeps crashing.

Crypto Grifto

In the wake of the revelations about the FTX debacle, Leo LaPorte goes on a justified tear against crypto currency.

Economist Paul Krugman, who sees crypto as a financial hideout for criminals, had some choice words recently.

But if the government finally moves in to regulate crypto firms, which would, among other things, prevent them from promising impossible-to-deliver returns, it’s hard to see what advantage these firms would have over ordinary banks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/opinion/crypto-banks-regulation-ftx.html

Speaking of Leo, this next video will start with a bit of Santa twin Scott Wilkinson, the Home Theater Geek, who I have followed for some years. After Scott, Leo has a caller. Keep listening until you realize who it is, or you reach the reveal.

Mapping the Information Superhighway

It has been 50 years since I first read about the thing that evolved into being the Internet: https://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html

One popular new feature on the Net is [the] Associated Press service. From anywhere on the Net you can log in and get the news that’s coming live over the wire or ask for all the items on a particular subject that have come in during the last 24 hours. Plus a fortune cookie. Project that to household terminals, and so much for newspapers (in present form).
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Since huge quantities of information can be computer-digitalized [sic] and transmitted, music researchers could, for example, swap records over the Net with “essentially perfect fidelity.” So much for record stores (in present form).

Stewart Brand
Rolling Stone
December 7, 1972

Onkyo Lives and Updates

Another nice tech surprise. Onkyo, operating as a unit of VOXX/Sharp, has updated its phone app, and it’s a significant improvement. Unwanted sources listed for my versatile TX-NR676 receiver, that I enjoy using very much, can now be hidden in the app. Yes, I want to keep AM radio as an option!

A major functional fix is the Music Server client now works as it should with my DLNA server, which runs on an old Windows netbook concurrently with Logitech Media Server. The receiver still can’t play the lossless WMA format, but almost nothing outside of Windows and LMS does. I’m in the process of re-ripping those CD’s to FLAC anyway.

The BIG enhancement is the addition of — be still my heart — GAPLESS PLAYBACK! Yet another niceness is the ability to play albums by either track number or by the song title. A very good job by Onkyo.