Whenever I encounter a book/movie/album review or mention that seems interesting, then I typically write the title in the notes app on the iphone.
Low tech but good enough.
The way we, as a species, are wilfully negligent about global warming and more generally the environment, or otherwise the restarting nuclear weapons race, makes it more likely that we cause our own demise before any AI matures to true intelligence and consciousness.
A cousin committed suicide. It is something you’d think happens to other families, until it happens in your own family.
By our understanding his close family was living and caring, they didn’t expect it. Only when looking back afterwards they realised that he had gradually become more serious.
We wondered it we could have prevented it. Linking back to the article, I feel it is important to indeed not overly detail a celebrity’s suicide and to stress the professional help and counseling that exists. Anything to lower the barrier to seeking out help is welcome.
Forgot to mention that direct support of apple music is sufficient for me. Some other services can be airplayed. I think that I could airplay netflix audio from the apple tv to it but must check (can anyone confirm?).
It is for me really a matter of also adding non-computer sourced audio from analog line level or derived from hdmi.
Exactly - “brittleness” of the chain and latency are worrying.
Currently the best option seems to be an old tascam acquisition module that can accept line in next to mic to the digital connector of an old iphone/touch and then use a software that acts like an airplay megaphone. If it works well, remains to be seen.
It looks to me like the kind of device that would be successful on kickstarter.
Actually I was not impressed by the sound of any Sonos speaker. I have not yet heard the Homepod, not sure if I’ll find it good enough but eager to see it in action - the reviews are uniform in extolling the audio quality. In the end I might give up on the idea and just replace my big floorstanders with small speakers, though I like the idea of using the homepods for music streaming without switching on the hifi, and only switching it on for other sources incl tv sound.
I can't be alone with this question. Conceivably I could replace my ok but bulky floor standing speakers with a pair of Homepods. Provided they indeed sound good to my taste.
But, I would want to use it for ALL my audio sources. I also have an AV preamp that is used for several sources: tv audio, CDs (these can perhaps be dropped) and BluRay discs, and eventually a game console when the kids are old enough.
Ideally I would take the analog out of my AV preamp (or alternatively extract digitally from the hdmi out) and convert it to an airplay stream towards the home pods.
However I am not aware of a simple device (a mac mini would be overkill, and is there software that would do it? not sure) that does this? I also checked raspberry pi projects. An airport express would NOT work as it is a receiver, not a sender.
Any tips?
Many of us are so jaded and cynical these days, yet no matter how you look at it, this is indeed very impressive. It is like standing at the coast in France and noticing a butterfly in New York. Very cool.
I will add that Apple might return to my high respect level if they can one day solve the challenges (both technical and regulatory) for comprehensive sensors (like blood sugar etc) in an off the shelf watch or similat product, thst could improve the life quality of many people, not only diabetics. They hired a number of specialists in this area but it is a formidable challenge.
Really influential in improving the world. It is well possible that they will be eclipsed by traditional car brands that are more comfortable with big production runs, but Tesla surely was a big push towards EVs in general use. Also their roof solar panels etc. I have respect.
If this sounds as good as nearly all initial reviews mention, I can imagine buying a pair to replace my ok but bulky floorstanding speakers.
However it looks like it can only handle Airplay for external input, next to streaming apple music directly. So that is ok for my apple tv for netflix (I think), ios devices and mac.
But I also would like to stream the sound of tv, blu ray and eventually a game consol for my kids through them. It looks like the only way to make it work would be with a gadget that converts analog or hdmi sound from my AV preamp to an airplay stream. An Airport express will NOT work since it is an airplay receiver. I can’t find such a device or raspberry pi project. Conceivably i think that with some software one could use a mac mini to capture the audio and then stream it but that would really be overkill. I don’t want to switch on and connect my main mac laptop whenever I want to watch tv either
Hence does anyone know of an airplay transmitter?
This was an interesting summary. For music + video, streaming is 4 to 5 times cheaper in China.
On average salaries are lower in China: a quick google showed me $1424 monthly in Beijing compared to the use average of $758/week or monthly $3032 (for age 25-34).
So, approx half.
Hence relative to salary, does it make sense to say that a monthly video streaming fee of $6 and for music of $4 would cause the same behaviour in the west?
I think it would. For $10 per month without wasting time, I think that most would switch to legal streaming.
The iPod hifi speaker was actually remarkably good sounding and loud for the price. I think that what held it back was that it was visually a big brick.
I would conceivably be interested in a pair of homepods (if the sound is good enough) to replace my good but bulky floorstanding speakers. I do like the streaming concept.
However, unless I overlooked it, it has no external input. That is a dealbreaker for me; because I would like to use it as a speaker for everything, including tv, dvd/bluray/cd, a console when the kids grow up, etc. Hence ideally I could go with a line out from my audio amp to these speakers so they would be truly universal.
It looks like this is not possible, or is there a workaround?
I actually had my 6Plus battery replaced at the Apple store shortly before this situation blew up (out of proportion).
I missed my phone less than 2 hours, meanwhile I did some household shopping nearby.
2 hours in 4 years use, that is not too bad, even very acceptable for having a thinner device, and in the case of more recent iphones than mine also having decent water resistance.
Hence I don't miss the user replaceability.
My current Air 11" is the nicest computer I ever bought. It is my home computer, good enough for hobby photo and video editing, and so deliciously portable.
Only dongle I have is one for SD cards. I use wifi at home and 2 usb ports are sufficient.
Because it is so portable I didn't mind bringing it along on my business trips next to my work computer - though my iPad Pro 10.5" has now taken that role.
I splashed out a bit when I bought it in january 2014 - an i7 processor with 8gb ram and 512gb add was top of the line then, and it still works smoothly with the current OS.
I need to replace the battery though, it holds like half the original time now. So that will happen in the next month or so, and I should be ok for another few years.
What if it breaks? I would probably buy the Macbook 12", not the Pro.
Actually it is selling more by value. Expectation is that in 2017 there were approx 20 million + Apple watches sold. Indeed that is like 10% or less of the iPhones being sold but still a pretty good number,
End of this month is Apple’s quarterly earnings call, which will include the commercial effect of iphone X. Then we will know whether they were succesful or not. I still see people queuing to pick up their X at the local Applestore, hence my bet is on it being a commercial success, despite cherry-picked negative articles on slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Incorrect, they had working cameras. Not vaporware.
Yeah right. Typical kneejerk reaction from a wanker whose own life realisation amount to nothing much.
Whenever I encounter a book/movie/album review or mention that seems interesting, then I typically write the title in the notes app on the iphone. Low tech but good enough.
The way we, as a species, are wilfully negligent about global warming and more generally the environment, or otherwise the restarting nuclear weapons race, makes it more likely that we cause our own demise before any AI matures to true intelligence and consciousness.
Well this was in a European country with decent universal healthcare. But i agree it is a national service that is worth fighting for.
Your assumption of what I thought and felt couldn’t be farther from the reality.
A cousin committed suicide. It is something you’d think happens to other families, until it happens in your own family.
By our understanding his close family was living and caring, they didn’t expect it. Only when looking back afterwards they realised that he had gradually become more serious.
We wondered it we could have prevented it. Linking back to the article, I feel it is important to indeed not overly detail a celebrity’s suicide and to stress the professional help and counseling that exists. Anything to lower the barrier to seeking out help is welcome.
Forgot to mention that direct support of apple music is sufficient for me. Some other services can be airplayed. I think that I could airplay netflix audio from the apple tv to it but must check (can anyone confirm?). It is for me really a matter of also adding non-computer sourced audio from analog line level or derived from hdmi.
Exactly - “brittleness” of the chain and latency are worrying. Currently the best option seems to be an old tascam acquisition module that can accept line in next to mic to the digital connector of an old iphone/touch and then use a software that acts like an airplay megaphone. If it works well, remains to be seen.
It looks to me like the kind of device that would be successful on kickstarter.
Actually I was not impressed by the sound of any Sonos speaker. I have not yet heard the Homepod, not sure if I’ll find it good enough but eager to see it in action - the reviews are uniform in extolling the audio quality. In the end I might give up on the idea and just replace my big floorstanders with small speakers, though I like the idea of using the homepods for music streaming without switching on the hifi, and only switching it on for other sources incl tv sound.
I can't be alone with this question. Conceivably I could replace my ok but bulky floor standing speakers with a pair of Homepods. Provided they indeed sound good to my taste.
But, I would want to use it for ALL my audio sources. I also have an AV preamp that is used for several sources: tv audio, CDs (these can perhaps be dropped) and BluRay discs, and eventually a game console when the kids are old enough.
Ideally I would take the analog out of my AV preamp (or alternatively extract digitally from the hdmi out) and convert it to an airplay stream towards the home pods.
However I am not aware of a simple device (a mac mini would be overkill, and is there software that would do it? not sure) that does this? I also checked raspberry pi projects. An airport express would NOT work as it is a receiver, not a sender. Any tips?
Many of us are so jaded and cynical these days, yet no matter how you look at it, this is indeed very impressive. It is like standing at the coast in France and noticing a butterfly in New York. Very cool.
I will add that Apple might return to my high respect level if they can one day solve the challenges (both technical and regulatory) for comprehensive sensors (like blood sugar etc) in an off the shelf watch or similat product, thst could improve the life quality of many people, not only diabetics. They hired a number of specialists in this area but it is a formidable challenge.
Really influential in improving the world. It is well possible that they will be eclipsed by traditional car brands that are more comfortable with big production runs, but Tesla surely was a big push towards EVs in general use. Also their roof solar panels etc. I have respect.
Actually initial reviews suggest that the sound quality is very noticeably better than sonos.
If this sounds as good as nearly all initial reviews mention, I can imagine buying a pair to replace my ok but bulky floorstanding speakers.
However it looks like it can only handle Airplay for external input, next to streaming apple music directly. So that is ok for my apple tv for netflix (I think), ios devices and mac.
But I also would like to stream the sound of tv, blu ray and eventually a game consol for my kids through them. It looks like the only way to make it work would be with a gadget that converts analog or hdmi sound from my AV preamp to an airplay stream. An Airport express will NOT work since it is an airplay receiver. I can’t find such a device or raspberry pi project. Conceivably i think that with some software one could use a mac mini to capture the audio and then stream it but that would really be overkill. I don’t want to switch on and connect my main mac laptop whenever I want to watch tv either
Hence does anyone know of an airplay transmitter?
This was an interesting summary. For music + video, streaming is 4 to 5 times cheaper in China.
On average salaries are lower in China: a quick google showed me $1424 monthly in Beijing compared to the use average of $758/week or monthly $3032 (for age 25-34).
So, approx half.
Hence relative to salary, does it make sense to say that a monthly video streaming fee of $6 and for music of $4 would cause the same behaviour in the west?
I think it would. For $10 per month without wasting time, I think that most would switch to legal streaming.
The iPod hifi speaker was actually remarkably good sounding and loud for the price. I think that what held it back was that it was visually a big brick.
I don’t think it has a line-in, or am I mistaken? I understamd that otherwise the sound of whatever is on apple tv can be streamed to homepod.
For example, is there a simple device that takes line in, converts to digital and transmits the sound over airplay? That could be a workaround.
I would conceivably be interested in a pair of homepods (if the sound is good enough) to replace my good but bulky floorstanding speakers. I do like the streaming concept.
However, unless I overlooked it, it has no external input. That is a dealbreaker for me; because I would like to use it as a speaker for everything, including tv, dvd/bluray/cd, a console when the kids grow up, etc. Hence ideally I could go with a line out from my audio amp to these speakers so they would be truly universal.
It looks like this is not possible, or is there a workaround?
I actually had my 6Plus battery replaced at the Apple store shortly before this situation blew up (out of proportion).
I missed my phone less than 2 hours, meanwhile I did some household shopping nearby.
2 hours in 4 years use, that is not too bad, even very acceptable for having a thinner device, and in the case of more recent iphones than mine also having decent water resistance.
Hence I don't miss the user replaceability.
My current Air 11" is the nicest computer I ever bought. It is my home computer, good enough for hobby photo and video editing, and so deliciously portable. Only dongle I have is one for SD cards. I use wifi at home and 2 usb ports are sufficient.
Because it is so portable I didn't mind bringing it along on my business trips next to my work computer - though my iPad Pro 10.5" has now taken that role. I splashed out a bit when I bought it in january 2014 - an i7 processor with 8gb ram and 512gb add was top of the line then, and it still works smoothly with the current OS.
I need to replace the battery though, it holds like half the original time now. So that will happen in the next month or so, and I should be ok for another few years.
What if it breaks? I would probably buy the Macbook 12", not the Pro.
Actually it is selling more by value. Expectation is that in 2017 there were approx 20 million + Apple watches sold. Indeed that is like 10% or less of the iPhones being sold but still a pretty good number,
End of this month is Apple’s quarterly earnings call, which will include the commercial effect of iphone X. Then we will know whether they were succesful or not. I still see people queuing to pick up their X at the local Applestore, hence my bet is on it being a commercial success, despite cherry-picked negative articles on slashdot.