Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

[Colif]

When I build my next PC in about a month or so - need to wait for parts - I won't be able to attach speakers that I have used for so long that when I start thinking of new ways to arrange room without them in it, I had positioned two speaker stands without thinking... they aren't needed anymore. After 25 years they are part of my furniture. Some pieces of furniture only exist because I needed somewhere to put a speaker.

Not sure what I am going to do with them. The satellites aren't useful as they get their sound via PC, but I can use the sub woofer by attaching it with a pair of RCA inputs on back of my Wiim Ultra, I just need a pair of active speakers then as a sub not much use by itself. I mean, some people might like only bass but I feel songs would be missing details.
It is a thought though, as without speakers I will have to rely on headphones and that will feel strange for a while. The speakers I want will take a while to buy anyway so I see if I can cope.

I personally like how quiet it is here.

Shhh! you wake them up

Quiet forums where its not going 100 mph on front page are nice until you realise you only person posting in some threads (looks around) and go away until some other peoples avatar shows on front page.

Without getting too sentimental, I do believe forums are incredibly important for archiving purposes. The amount of human interaction, the decades and decades of posts, all formatted in an easily digestible fashion, needs to be preserved for future generations to see. Future generations will never use a traditional forum site, so in a way it will be like how we study the first written works, first recorded historical moments, all of that. Forums are historical artifacts that deserve to be archived and preserved.

that relies on the search function of the website to work. I know of a website that has 20+ years worth of records but that has forgotten entire years worth of posts, and in some cases it was better to use Google search to find posts from them. Now I rarely see posts from them in Google results which makes me wonder what went wrong. They fell into a black hole.

Most of the forums I have used in the last 26 years since I had a PC have gone now. Many different reasons, mostly drama. People being people, mainly.

 

[neogunhero]

I've never really considered looking into my family history. I know my mom's side can be traced to Prussia and there's a family tree for my dad's side, but I don't really know much about my grandparents, let alone anything before that.

I've been so bad about learning about my family my entire life. I grew up as a military kid so we moved around a lot and I never lived nearby any other family besides my immediate family. As kids, whenever we went to see our grandparents or cousins, it was so awkward and strange. My dad grew up in Minnesota as a country boy, and that's how pretty much his entire side of the family is like, but growing up in the military made me not relate to that sort of lifestyle/personality type. I never thought I was better than anyone, but I knew I would not fit in if I had to live the way they did. They weren't trashy or anything, but they grew up on cattle farms and rode ATVs and snowmobiles for fun, that was never something I grew up doing.

My mom's side is a lot more interesting. My grandmother survived the bombing in Hiroshima, was there during the reconstruction period in Japan, and met a man who then left after giving her three children. My mom grew up somewhat poor in Japan, but then met my dad who was stationed in Japan at the time. My grandmother is still around, I believe she is 91? I mentioned to my mom once that we should make a short documentary on my grandmas life, and she just goes "why? I have to hear her yap all day long, that's already enough for me". I think if I stressed the importance of knowing my grandma's story and having it preserved in video format that it could be passed down generations, but I still don't think she would agree. But then again, my grandma would agree, I may just do it.

 

[Pifanjr]

I never could solve those things. I liked making the patterns but I never understood how to solve them.
WE didn't have tutorial videos showing how to do it back in the dark ages. I might have worked it out then.

My brother taught me three tricks and when to use them, which is all you need to fix a regular Rubik's cube. It took some time for me to remember them and figure out when to use them, but now I even kind of understand what they do.

We still get a tiny bit of spam here and there, but it's taken down fairly quickly. We are all keen to spot spam, so our reporting helps a lot I assume.

I personally like how quiet it is here. We have the same handful of people posting regularly here and I really appreciate that. Part of me does wish to relive the bustling days when forums were a lot more popular, but younger generations don't use forums anymore these days. I'm perhaps the youngest person posting here, apart of the same generation that doesn't use forums anymore, but I grew up using forums and the like my entire life pretty much. I have dropped in and out of them, most recently not posting here for about 3 years before I picked it back up.

Without getting too sentimental, I do believe forums are incredibly important for archiving purposes. The amount of human interaction, the decades and decades of posts, all formatted in an easily digestible fashion, needs to be preserved for future generations to see. Future generations will never use a traditional forum site, so in a way it will be like how we study the first written works, first recorded historical moments, all of that. Forums are historical artifacts that deserve to be archived and preserved.

I also like how quiet it is here. I've only been active on one other forum which was more active, but I stayed in one little subforum where I could recognise every active member most of the time.

At this forum I also ignore the hardware part almost entirely.

I've been so bad about learning about my family my entire life. I grew up as a military kid so we moved around a lot and I never lived nearby any other family besides my immediate family. As kids, whenever we went to see our grandparents or cousins, it was so awkward and strange. My dad grew up in Minnesota as a country boy, and that's how pretty much his entire side of the family is like, but growing up in the military made me not relate to that sort of lifestyle/personality type. I never thought I was better than anyone, but I knew I would not fit in if I had to live the way they did. They weren't trashy or anything, but they grew up on cattle farms and rode ATVs and snowmobiles for fun, that was never something I grew up doing.

My mom's side is a lot more interesting. My grandmother survived the bombing in Hiroshima, was there during the reconstruction period in Japan, and met a man who then left after giving her three children. My mom grew up somewhat poor in Japan, but then met my dad who was stationed in Japan at the time. My grandmother is still around, I believe she is 91? I mentioned to my mom once that we should make a short documentary on my grandmas life, and she just goes "why? I have to hear her yap all day long, that's already enough for me". I think if I stressed the importance of knowing my grandma's story and having it preserved in video format that it could be passed down generations, but I still don't think she would agree. But then again, my grandma would agree, I may just do it.

I have one grandma left, I think she's about 93 now. I know very little about her life, but from what I understand it wasn't a very good one.

 

[Frag Maniac]

One of the DTC mtb bike brands I was considering called Ari (formerly Fezzari) just suffered an Ocean's 11 type loss. Apparently 100s of their bikes were stolen out of a delivery truck that was on it's way to their Provo Utah HQ from LA. There were 337 bikes taken, averaging just over $5000 each, for a total loss of 1.7 million. Ari makes high quality aluminum and carbon bikes.

I kept thinking it was odd that while reading the Pinkbike article about it, nothing was mentioned as far as whether the truck was parked or hijacked. So I figured it was an inside job where just the driver of the truck was guilty. I say this because Fezzari/Ari have been around about 20 yrs, and are well known and do a fair bit of business. They no doubt use a well established trucking service.

Watching this video confirmed there were a lot of atypical delay excuses reported by the driver, and that the trucking company was one they'd worked with a long time and trusted. Nothing in the article or video mentioned anything of serial numbers being recorded, but Ari plans to place tracking chips in all of their bikes, which I think is a great idea, perhaps even for customers.

I think it would be best if the tracking chips are placed inside the frame in such a way the bike would be unrideable if they were cut out. And better yet if the use of these chips could be transferable to the bike purchaser with any cell phone OS. I'm not sure if such chips couldn't just be located with a scanner and somehow disabled though, thieves are very clever these days unfortunately.

BTW, half of these bikes have already been preordered/purchased by customers, so Ari's main priority, since they have insurance to cover large scale losses, is to get them refunded or bikes of equal model, depending what the customer chooses. They expect the bikes to be fully assembled and sold at used bike shops for suspiciously low prices in or near LA or online, so keep a lookout!

I ended up calling Ari and spoke to one of their sales staff. I wanted to give them my condolences and commend them for prioritizing their customer's needs who had purchased half of the bikes stolen. I also conveyed my suggestion to him of making the tracking chips usable by the bike purchaser. He talked about how great their customers are and thanked me for the suggestion.

 

[neogunhero]

Update on my Nothing Ear A earbuds. I've solved one issue, and halfway solved the other. The first issue was that the music would just randomly stop, especially if I moved my body in a specific way like stretched or bend down to grab something. I found that in the app, there was a setting on that is supposed to detect when it's in or out of your ears. Turning that off solved the random pausing issue, but also slightly confirmed my strange ear shape. If only my ears were shaped normally, then I wouldn't have that issue.

Second issue halfway solved was the earbuds becoming loose over time. The earbuds shipped with the smallest ear tips on, which is a bit strange because from all the rubber ear tip headphones I've ever bought, medium is always the standard size put on. I switched between large and medium and found medium to work best for me. Still comes loose after a while, even if I clear my ears very well, so I think it just comes down to the type of rubber used being a bit slick. I'll have to look up some replacement ear tips since these ones have a slightly unusual oval shaped end instead of the standard circular.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Turning that off solved the random pausing issue, but also slightly confirmed my strange ear shape. If only my ears were shaped normally, then I wouldn't have that issue.

Guy walks into an audio store and says, do you have any earbuds for abnormally shaped ears. Employee says, your ears don't look abnormally shaped to me sir. Customer replies, yeah, but it's what's INSIDE that counts!

I feel your pain, it sounds a bit like what I go through when sizing glasses or helmets, as I have a pretty small head for my size. It sounds like you've got the cutting out solved though. As far as earbud tips go though, it's a very personal preference thing. If you can fit round ones though, I'm not sure your ears are all that abnormal in shape. Amazon has a ton of various types of earbud tips though, in all different durometers, shapes, and sizes.

When you put your buds in, do you pull down on your earlobe to open up the canal a bit, then push them in until you feel them seal? Any residual earwax can also make them slip out. This is the recommended way if you have a problem with them slipping out. Don't forget to let go of your earlobe. You might look funny listening to music that way!

 

[neogunhero]

Amazon has a ton of various types of earbud tips though, in all different durometers, shapes, and sizes.

I've found a couple on Amazon that say they specifically work for the Nothing Ear A's, but without showing what the coupling hole looks like, I'm not entire sure if they are or aren't. Those ear tips have oval shaped coupling holes, which is pretty abnormal for most ear tip using buds, so I'm not sure if they are really making them specifically for this one pair of earbuds or just reusing circular ones and claiming they are compatible.

A quick search online confirms that the ear tips shipped are just low quality slippery silicone, a bit sad given these are $100 buds. I've bought cheap Bob Marley branded earbuds in the bargain bin that came with much thicker and sturdier ear tips than these. I believe if I can get some nice foam ones that they will not slip out anymore. A Reddit commentor said they use a pair from ComplyFoam, which they claim on the product page work for my specific headphones, so I may dish out the $25 + shipping just for some bits of foam that fit in my ear, or I might play roulette and hope the Amazon ones work well.

When you put your buds in, do you pull down on your earlobe to open up the canal a bit, then push them in until you feel them seal? Any residual earwax can also make them slip out. This is the recommended way if you have a problem with them slipping out.

Haven't tried that specifically, I usually just mush them into my ear and twist slightly until I find a good fit. The app has a nice fitting feature, but I haven't tried it yet. Apparently it helps you move the earbud in your ear to find the best position. As far as earwax goes, the black rubber really makes it stand out, so after my first time using them, I make sure to wipe my ears before putting them in. I'm generally good at keeping my ears clean, but daily oil builds up over time. The silicone rubber can't stick to your ear skin if there is oil/wax, which is the main issue why they keep sliding out. Even with a clean, dry ear, they still slip out.

You might look funny listening to music that way!

I just imagined myself banging my elbow onto every surface in my house if I were to do this

 

[Frag Maniac]

The only problem with foam tips is they compress over time, so likely don't last as long.

 

[neogunhero]

The only problem with foam tips is they compress over time, so likely don't last as long.

Yeah, a lot of the stuff I read online about them say they need to be replaced every month or so with heavy usage. It’s a shame because I feel they would help a lot with my slippage issue but I’d rather not spend $100 a year on tiny pieces of foam.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've never had a good experience with earbuds. It's always such a bother getting them to stay inside of my ears and they get uncomfortable really quickly.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've never had a good experience with earbuds. It's always such a bother getting them to stay inside of my ears and they get uncomfortable really quickly.

Yeah I'd love to have good quality ear buds, if nothing else to resist the arms of my glasses causing pressure on my temples from prolonged around the ear type headphones. However with earbuds I would worry about ear canal irritation, which can potentially be more painful and even lead to ear infections. Not to mention having to clean them and your ear canals a lot. I DO clean my ears daily, just not way down inside the canals. Your ear canals produce wax for a reason.

I say take a chance on the Amazon ones, if they aren't a good fit and feel just return them.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yeah I'd love to have good quality ear buds, if nothing else to resist the arms of my glasses causing pressure on my temples from prolonged around the ear type headphones. However with earbuds I would worry about ear canal irritation, which can potentially be more painful and even lead to ear infections. Not to mention having to clean them and your ear canals a lot. I DO clean my ears daily, just not way down inside the canals. Your ear canals produce wax for a reason.

I say take a chance on the Amazon ones, if they aren't a good fit and feel just return them.

Nowadays I just use the on-ear headphones my work gave me if I can't use my speakers for whatever reason, which works well enough.