Terry Poulin

Sonos + AirPlay 2 = :)

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For years, a friend’s told me to just buy a damn Sonos. To which, I’ve generally regarded that as the same kind of problem as why I don’t drive a Porsche–to damn expensive 😜.

Recently though, audio has been a minor thorn in my side. Getting bluetooth audio stuff to work with Alexa is mostly a pain in the ass when you have multiple input devices, and picking music in the vain of ‘Alexa, play ….’ is nice but not preferable. I used to have a pair of JBL Bluetooth speakers, one of which I gave a friend and the other, well, I frankly have no idea where the fuck it ended up.

So, flash forward to today: I may be in the study, in my bedroom, or in the kitchen. My iPad Pro’s quadraphonic speakers were great, like really I didn’t give a hoot about it being four channels-the speakers themselves were great, and while it doesn’t fill my entire home with music the way it used to in the apartment, it’s close enough. Nerine was a great machine for music.

Mayumi, the iPad mini that replaced it, on the other hand has more ordinary speakers: not great, not bad, but nothing really to write home about either. I’d say it’s a little worse than Shion’s speakers and most of my Alexas. But to be fair, music from my tablet speakers has always been an auxiliary function not a primary function–that’s what headphones and speakers are for after all.

In practice it works better to AirPlay from my iPad to my laptop when I’m in the study than to use the younger Echo. If Shion is docked, the pair of Pebbles that replaced my desktop’s old 2.1 Logitech system when it died some years back, actually sound pretty damn great and I love the audio output. I forget how much I paid for those Pebble v3s but damn, it was money well spent! In my bedroom, I’ll usually use the old Echo Dot with a clock on my headboard, after the occasional argument over which device to Bluetooth audio from and that sometimes ends with silence from the lack of wanting to beat it into submission. Downstairs the way it typically goes is wanting to use the really-old Echo Dot and ends with using my iPad speakers because the goal is to cook dinner not win battles against technology.

My remaining Bluetooth speaker hasn’t turned up over the past year, and a replacement surround sound system has been on hiatus for other reasons. So, I decided to shop for a suitable speaker for Christmas. Sonos’s Roam 2 being the winner in the end.

Contenders for this plan included Apple’s HomePod Mini, which would provide both an AirPlay target and an avenue for an idea I’ve had on the mind for a while: possible replacements for Alexa. The problem there is unlike Echo Dot’s, they’re expensive to scale and some new hardware is likely on the horizon, so I’m hesitant to dig into that. The other contender: find an AirPlay capable speaker, preferably one with a Bluetooth function or an analog line-in.

Turns out that there are actually a good number of AirPlay capable speakers now. In the end though, I opted for the Roam 2. Probably cheaper than finding another one of the JBLs I used to use, which apparently were popular enough that as years went on, the price went from okay to crazy, lol. While for me, the Roam 2 is very expensive, unlike creating a whole home audio or a surround sound setup with Sonos, it’s not prohibitively expensive.

Thus far, the little buddy passes the first test cases: P!nk’s Funhouse album and AirPlay. I often use “So What” as one of my reference songs for audio playback, among several others. So far, it’s a win ;). While waiting on my Blu-ray rips to finish, it’s also a good excuse to listen to music.

I was a little concerned about the Roam 2’s audio quality, given reviews that I’ve read. But I have no complaints. Being someone who likes music but isn’t an audiophile, I would say if this puppy sounds bad, you shouldn’t be using a portable speaker or must be moving beyond its range. Generally, I answer both those questions with “If I wouldn’t otherwise have audio, I’m not gonna complain unless it sounds like ass,” and quite frankly it sounds better than my tablet and laptop. Certainly no worse than my various Alexa devices :P.

More importantly, it doesn’t drive me batshit when wanting to connect something….

RTX space heating

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One thing that I’ve learned with being cooped up by this hamstring, is Rimuru makes a superb space heater. A while back, I bought a small sensor wanting to get an idea of the humidity in the study, since sometimes it gets rather warm.

Rimuru’s waste heat when pumping out the 4070 Ti is actually enough to significantly raise the temperature in here. After a long gaming session the study’s temperature can climb as as high as 26 C versus 21 C across the house where my thermostat is located. Or roughly, play video games long enough and the temperature rises about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Enough that opening the window is more effective than mucking with the thermostat, but then that dries things out on the humidity front. It’s quite an effective space heater when outputting 2160p, but fortunately that’s predominantly waste heat rather than internal. It’s got great cooling, the problem is the place it sends that heat is outside the case ;).

By contrast while the study TV likely has a larger amount of waste heat than the monitor at my desk, Steam Deck event when combined with its dock and an external hard drive, doesn’t really seem to affect the temperature in here at all. Considering the machine would probably become a hand grenade or a pot of thermite if it generated as much heat as the RTX card, that’s not too shabby. It’s more of a 720p/low than 4K/high on more modern games since the APU’s more like an Xbox One, but Steam Deck is actually quite capable for what it’s able to actually run. Plus for older games like MGS:V that were developed around the XB1 era, it can basically pump those out at 720p with max graphics.

So, I think in the future I may want to consider a wee bit more about how to ventilate Rimuru’s place in the study, or perhaps just angle its asshole towards the open door instead of the wall.

And then there’s the fact that without hamstring trouble, I’d actually like to get up and walk around more often \o/ \o/ \o/.

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On one hand, starting off Christmas break with a pulled hamstring kind of sucks. On the other hand, there’s a great upside to being home: not having to walk a lot.

Of course that also comes with the downside of hauling my ass up and down the stairs, lol.

An unexpected fusion

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Sometimes when it comes to music, you’ve just got to listen because it makes you go, “Huh, I really wonder what that would sound like. And ya know what? Sometimes I’m not disappointed!

Shamisen is a sound that resonates a little closer to home, being a stringed instrument. It’s just a different spectrum than I’m used to hearing. By contrast the metal aspects, well, that both kicks it up a notch and works well.

Urge to play video games, rising….

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A Valve engineer fixed 3D lighting so hard he had to tell all the graphics card manufacturers their math was wrong, and the reaction was: ‘I hate you’ — PC Gamer.

I can’t help but giggle snort, and also wonder how many times a piece of 3D accelerator could be defined as fundamentally broken until they redesign something.

For some reason, I’m picturing the evidence as akin to Klaatu taking a chalk to Professor Barnhardt’s blackboard….gah, I’m getting old, aren’t I? 😀

Text version 1.04

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An updated version is uploading, as I’ve finally finished reviewing on my kindle. This is the last planned update to the ebook text for the time being. Further edits, likely being based on feedback or if I happen to spot a typo.

The delta between v1.03 and v1.04, is that optimizing the formatting for readability and the smaller screen of a kindle is now complete for chapters 5 onwards. A few minor corrections have been made, most of them in chapter 9. If you don’t see a version code on the copyright page, your device has yet to download the latest update.

Going to take a break for a while. But soon, I will return my attention towards preparations on volume 2 of a Demon Lord of a Small Village. My goal there is to have it ready sometime early next year, preferably with greater optimization in place, now that I know better how Amazon’s tools differ from my actual Kindle’s rendering.

To those handful of readers out there, I hope you’re enjoying the first book :).

A small update to the text

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An updated version is now live. A few typos have been corrected, notably “Epilogue” (🤦‍♂️) and “dace” in part of chapter 3. For anyone with the usual automatic book update enabled, these should roll out shortly. There’s also the manual option. In the future, I think I might add a ‘text version’ code to the copyright page.

Most other changes are adjustments to the paragraph splitting and capitalization in various passages. There’s a fair bit of difference between Amazon’s preview tools and actual device rendering, making it easier to review on my Paperwhite with its small screen.

As I continue to work through the kindle edition, interspersed with my regular reading, there may be other fixes. But I’m happy that misspellings have been rare. Yes, of course you always find them after deciding you’ve fixed them all :).

Demon Lord of a Small Village

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So, there’s been a project that I’ve been kicking around for a few years. It originally began as a story idea that grew from another idea for a light novel, and took on a small life of its own among my pastime of typing words into a computer. When I was reaching the end of the experiment, I found myself wanting to continue that tale, and well, by the time I was working on the second major story arc, I was already thinking of publishing the first one as a traditional ebook in order to share it with a wider group or creating a new section on my website to host the series.

In the end, I decided to focus on a Kindle release.

Now available on Amazon!

As Lucious lay dying on the battlefield, he never could have imagined that his final moments would lead him to a meeting with the breathtaking goddess Luna. She needed a champion’s aid in saving her realm of Cerulea, but it turns out there is just one problem with saving the world – she needed him to become the demon lord!

Reincarnated into a world full of swords and sorcery, Lucious is left in the tutelage of the goddess’s devotees, from whom he learns all manner of magic and martial arts. He spent his childhood in the demon’s village of Nefharoh, preparing for a future confrontation with humanity’s summoned hero.

Meanwhile, the half-elven Seraphim grew up traveling across Cerulea with her merchant parents. At first, she believed that Lucious found her annoying, but as they spent more time together by the river, they became close allies, supporting each other, and their friendship blossomed with the passing years.

However, life remained peaceful in the quiet village of Nefharoh as time passed. Seraphim inherited her father’s business, becoming a successful merchant herself, while Lucious resigned himself to living an ordinary life, believing that he would never be called upon to face down the hero. When Seraphim needed protection for a special delivery to the capital, Lucious joined her on the road, unaware that this journey would push them both closer to their destinies and to each other.

Recently, I turned my attention from ideas on volume 8’s story to preparing the first volume for publishing, specifically having a professional book cover made. While the general flow of the story hasn’t changed since my original creation, significant editing and cleanup has gone into publishing volume 1, along with writing a new chapter bridging the first and second acts.

The more I’ve worked on my little hobby, the more I’ve enjoyed their adventures and the characters that join them along the way. Volume 1 focuses on the protagonists and introducing them and their world, setting the stage for the rest of the story arc and those that follow it.

I’ve written a fair bit of stuff for fun over the years, but I usually talk myself out of taking it any further than a short story. Well, this time I managed to talk myself in the other direction. Over time it’s gone from a small concept to a complete work with a length similar to the light novels I often read for fun. Here’s hoping that some readers out there will enjoy Lucious and Seraphim’s antics, and be interested in later volumes.

Perhaps I’ll add a section to my website as a place for books I’ve written…assuming I can talk myself into sharing the rest of my stories, lol.

As a side note, ordinarily I don’t earn anything if you click links on my site. Never had any interest in that sort of thing since this place serves as my journal. But obviously as the author of the book, this scenario is a tad different :).

Necromancers: Like a Cleric but Cheaper

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Having watched this series a while, I can’t help but think it an appropriate episode for the halloween season.

And it totally figures that Evandra and the Necromancer are on such friendly terms. The only shocking part is the apology, lol.

From Pro to Mini

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Based on progress thus far, it’s looking like the iPad Pro will be retiring after five years of use, most of them as my primary computing device for non-gaming tasks, and the past year as a secondary since I mainly find myself desk bound.

Adjusted for the years, the A17 Pro is exactly what I wanted versus the 6th generation Mini, and a much appreciated bump from the A12X. Not to mention the increased storage capacity out of the box.

This will be the first time that I’ve used a smaller tablet since my Galaxy Note 8.0 back in the Jelly Bean era. While the various 4:3/9.7” Galaxy Tab S’s were a pretty perfect size, the worst thing that I can say after 5 years with the 11” iPad Pro is that it’s not the device to reach for when compact or one handed operation is called for. But otherwise has been a superb tablet even if its SoC has been getting a bit out moded.

When I used Android tablets, I always favored the smaller ones or found them the best compromise between a phone and a laptop form factor. Phablets and large phones are just not large enough, and at least in Android land, typically fall short of the magic 7” crossing point that lead to tablet layouts being supported. Can’t say I’ve ever been impressed with the “Tablet” support of iOS, but the Mini 7 at least delivers the tablet layouts and is vastly superior to my phone.