Category: Tech

Send for Clarence

Hmm… where have I seen that celestial grouping before?

https://www.wral.com/Classic-film-Its-a-Wonderful-Life-features-angelic-galaxies/18849527/

No Old House

The house across the street is getting a major addition, along with renovations to the existing structure. I told the 30-ish homeowner that when he gets to the front steps, walkway, and driveway, he would do well to hire the same contractors that I did.

As we were discussing the extensive work he is having done, I mentioned This Old House. “What’s that?” he asked. “Uh, the PBS TV series… ?” No reaction. “… on GBH?” Still nothing.

Who doesn’t know about This Old House? A lot of people, it seems, especially Millennials.

Bose Direct Reflecting Sound

Maybe this was what Amar Bose was thinking about when he designed the (discontinued) 901 speakers with Direct Reflecting sound? Here’s the setup at the moment.

The TuneIn app is running on the Roku stick that’s plugged into the 10-year-old Samsung TV on the porch. It plays through the aux input of my Bose Wave Series II, with the TV sound muted. (With the rise of HDMI sound bars, TV’s have dropped analog audio outputs.)

So here’s the thing. Regardless of what source is playing, the left channel is always noticeably louder than the right channel. If I move closer to the Wave then the left and right speakers are equally loud. Another option that works is putting my notebook computer on the arm of the chair, which is how most of these blog posts are written.

The sound must be reflecting off of the door glass, and the computer screen is blocking the reflection, so I am hearing more of the direct sound. Lowering and raising the screen on the computer confirms the change in L/R balance. SCIENCE!

More Reasons to Cancel Cable

On Monday, Better Call Saul starts its final 6-episode run on AMC.

Having zero interest in sports channels — a primary driver of cable rates — or cable news, once Saul is over that’s one less thing to keep me hanging onto FiOS TV. And now there’s another reason to let go of cable, because Adult Swim has canceled Joe Pera’s show.

This leaves Turner Classic Movies as cable’s only hold on me, because a cable subscription is required for the Watch TCM streaming service. My last Verizon FiOS contract expired about 18 months ago. For the same price I’ve been paying, if I renew for two years my Internet speed would kick up to 1 Gbps from “only” 100 Mbps. That’s tempting but I’m not doing that, at least not yet. HBO Max has a “TCM Hub,” and that has me wondering if it’s pointing the way to Watch TCM becoming available without cable.

As I’ve said before, it’s ironic that the cable service providers are also the Internet service providers. The cable half of the business saw too late that the Internet side of the business was taking over. They failed to adapt the long-established centralized billing model for premium channels to accommodate streaming channels.

Picture from the final scene in the last episode of Joe Pera Talks With You