AirPods review

01/05/2017 kirsch 3 Comments

Introduction

AirPods, Apple’s latest foray into Bluetooth audio.

I’ve had a life long addiction to gadgets. And I’ve had several Bluetooth headsets.

For exercise: a few from the same line as the Motorola S10-HD (pros: they stay put while I run and they don’t break from my sweat; cons: extremely uncomfortable and mediocre sound).

For other things: several different LG neckbuds (pros: decent sound, comfortable; cons: uncomfortable in bed and make you look like an a**hole).

More recently for exercise: cheap TaoTronics (pros: cheap and light; cons: awkward because heavier on one side, need to constantly adjust while running).

So when I saw the AirPods announcement I knew I wanted them, but I didn’t know that I wanted them $160 bad. Regardless, when the preordering system went live, I set up an alarm to place the order… I can always cancel before they ship, right?

A few weeks later, I got an email saying they are about to ship and they’d arrive on… the same day I’m leaving to Mexico for two weeks. I knew I didn’t want them to sitting outside my door for two weeks. I had to cancel even though at this point I did want them. At this point the thing is backordered 3 months.

In Monterrey I went to the local mall. As I’m walking by the MacStore I casually ask if they had them in stock. What do you know? Score! They had 10 units (should have bought more for Craigslisting) at the same price as in the U.S.

First impressions

These things are slick. The case has a nice feel to it with a solid magnetic latch. As expected, the packaging is nice. You first take them out of the box, open the case, and boom! a little popup on my iPhone comes up asking me to pair. I did not have to wait several seconds, press any buttons, go into Bluetooth Settings, look at spinning wheels. Nothing. It just worked.

This is light years ahead compared to any other Bluetooth pairing experience. Someone finally got it right.

Other products

Even cooler, once I paired with my phone, the things just started showing up on my list of Airplay speakers on my iPad, Mac, and even watch. If I want to switch which device I’m listening to, I just have to select it from the device itself. This compares with my other Bluetooth headsets for which I need to put them in pairing mode and go to Bluetooth Settings and select them every single time. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

Sound

Without doing comprehensive side-by-side testing, they appear to be comparable if not a little better than Apple’s EarPods which I think are perfectly adequate for most uses. They sound better than any of my previous Bluetooth headphones.

The microphone also seems to be very high quality in my limited testing, and it works well in noisy environments.

So, not audiophile quality but perfect for casual listening.

Comfort

One of the worries I had is that they’d keep falling off. They don’t. These things are very light, and since there’s no cable adding weight or tugging, they stay put.

They are very comfortable, but maybe my ears just happened to be perfectly shaped for them. If you like the headphones that came with your recent iPhone, then you’ll like these. Added plus: listening in bed is great. With neckbuds you have the pillow pushing the thing to your neck and the blinking light distracting you in the dark. None of that here.

Another thing I really like is that the case is smaller than expected, so you can keep them in your pocket. This was not really possible with any of the Bluetooth headphones I had before. Yet another little but really useful perk.

Usability

The controls are very limited. You can double tap to bring up Siri (configurable to Play/Pause in the iPhone settings). You take one out while listening and it pauses, put it back on and it continues (cool!).

But that’s it. If you want volume control, next/previous, or anything else you need to go to the phone. Or, if you have an Apple Watch you can go to the Now Playing Dock Item. This is actually very convenient and it shows that the more money you sink into the Apple ecosystem, the better things work together… but then you’re bankrupt.

I wish there were better controls, even if they are better voice commands. This is the biggest drawback with AirPods so far.

Exercising

I’ll stick with my cheap TaoTronics. I don’t like the prospects of a $70 tiny AirPod flying off my ear or my pig-like sweat drenching them dead. Maybe one day they can use the little speaker to push water out.

Conclusion

These are the best wireless headphones I’ve owned. That’s good, because they are also the most expensive. I’m taking them to work every day and I don’t look horrendously goofier than usual.

Keep Austin Weird

Austin Zoo Review

12/15/2016 kirsch 1 Comment

The mighty Austin Zoo.

I knew it existed, but in 15+ years of living here I never went. I had heard too many times that “it’s just some rescued animals, like goats and stuff”.

It’s true, but the place is a lot nicer than I had pictured. And while there were some goats, they also had some pretty good animals: bears, lions, a senile tiger, wolves, alpacas… and by far the most enourmous, impressive, mutant pig I’ve ever seen. That alone was worth the 45 minute drive (yeah, it’s far from my house).

And for those of you who have two year old kids obsessed with trains: there’s a little train you can ride!

Two thumbs up.

Selfie from the train. The ride is pretty long, as far as little train rides go. About 10-15 minutes.

It’s hard to tell by the photo, but that pig is basically the size of a smallish rhinoceros.

Ilán and Lucas looking for the missing tarantula.

Lion (left), myself (middle), Ilán (right).

Life of Marcos

Early vote

10/26/2016 kirsch 2 Comments

Yesterday morning I exercised my newly acquired right to participate in the American democratic process.

This year’s choice was especially difficult, since none of the candidates is a demagogue that praises brutal foreign dictators, denigrates women, brags about sexual assault, demonizes immigrants from my country, denies scientific knowledge, nor provides a platform for white supremacists to come to crawl out of their holes.

The process was exceedingly easy. Voting station was in the library by my house. All you had to do is follow about 200 signs like the one below, positioned 12 inches apart, to the polling station. Only two people ahead of me in line.

img_2247-2 — There were so many of these signs, that when I arrived I joked out loud: “Is this where we’re supposed to vote?” I thought it was funny. Everyone else disagreed.

You vote on these machines that were probably state-of-the art back in the Bill Clinton vs George H. W. Bush. Not hard to use for me, but definitely something that would confound my mom. Doing a write-in must be especially rough, kind of like typing on a new Apple TV. Good thing “Mickey Mouse” is not that long of a name.

Conveniently located in a corner outside the library: a taco truck! Delicious!

Uncategorized

To Our Boy on Your Birthday

10/21/2016 shlomit 6 Comments

Happy 2nd birthday to our beautiful little weirdo, who loves cauliflower but hates berries, whose favorite car color is brown, who can seamlessly shift between three languages in the same breath and never mix them, who takes care to translate everything Papi says in Spanish into Hebrew for Mami and vice versa, who runs and plants huge kisses on us out of the blue, who suggests his cheek as a suitable alternative when Papi asks to eat his pulke, who is so insanely intelligent beyond his years that we often shake our heads in wonder at one another, who makes us laugh daily.

We love you so very much, little man. Happy second birthday!

Separated at birth

Separated at Birth? Ken Bone and Señor Barriga

10/11/2016 kirsch Leave a comment

The whole world tuned in to the Second US Presidential Debate and saw their faith in the human race decline steadily for two hours… until Kenneth Bone showed up to save the day.

But here’s my personal conspiracy theory: few realize that Ken Bone is actually a Mexican undercover agent with excellent fashion sense trying to steer the campaign away from crotch grabbing and towards taco trucks on every corner.

Specifically: Ken Bone is secretly Mexican tycoon El Señor Barriga.

Judge for yourself:

Falafel and more

Happy 5777

10/09/2016 kirsch Leave a comment

Time flies… it feels like just yesterday it was 5710, barely a year after the founding of the State of Israel.

Ok, not really. But it will after you see these five Rosh Hashanah greeting cards (cartisei bracha) from 1949. My mom found them in a box that belonged to my great-grandfather zeide Elias Zack. For the most part, these are well known photos, but it’s still cool to see in this format.

Let’s see if I can track down who these Yaffa, Nili, and Baruch Sandomirsky were.

Here is a download link for all five as separate PDFs scanned at insanely high 600 dpi, in case you want them. If you do download, be nice and leave a comment? kartisei-bracha-1949

Film Critic, Keep Austin Weird

Velma is Living

08/11/2016 kirsch Leave a comment

FullSizeRender-1 — Velma is Living debut at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Velma is Living – A Neo-Noir Narrative Musical Adventure by director Dan Jimenez has come out (Facebook page). Great movie.

Also, it’s my movie acting debut, playing the part of Christopher Wayne Thomas: a rugged bar goer who mostly sits and cheers for the almost 10 seconds of on-screen time and has no talking lines. You may have briefly read about him here. Yes, I look amazing with that mustache. I used Stanislavsky’s system of acting and I think it shows. If only I were a member of the Academy, I might have a chance of an award. Most (all) of my scenes (the one) were shot last November.

In any case, I have no idea how you may watch it yet, so you will have to sit tight. I will update this post when I get more info.

Congratulations to the director and all the crew, and thank you for the opportunity.

Tech

Playstation VR

07/12/2016 kirsch 2 Comments

I’ve played with the Oculus Rift, the MS Hololens (AR not VR) and the HTC Vive.

For completeness, I had to go check out a demo of Sony’s Playstation VR which was being demo’ed at a local Gamestop.

The main difference between the Playstation VR and the Rift/Vive is that it works with the Playstation 4 gaming console instead of a high end (~$1500 and up) decked out gaming PC. The headset itself is cheaper too: $400 vs $800 for the Vive. So if you don’t have any pre-requisites, this is a much cheaper way to get into VR – and no, I don’t think of Google Cardboard as a viable alternative.

Playstation and Move controllers not included.

The VR headset itself is slick, as one would expect from Sony. The way it sits on your head feels comfortable. There’s no elastic bands nor cushions involved.

FullSizeRender 6 — Flying a spaceship in VR.

They would let you play one out of five games, and that’s it. I chose to play Eve Valkyrie in which you get to fly a spaceship and have space dogfights. I had never played before, and the demo dude didn’t explain how to play, so I was on my own. This compares poorly to the Vive demos at Microsoft, where they guide you through a few very simple, very different games.

The headset is much lighter and much cooler, as in it doesn’t have plasticky cushions on you face making you sweat.

But whatever, I got to fly a spaceship. You see yourself sitting in the cockpit and it wasn’t too hard, although I had no idea who I was shooting at. You can do barrel rolls and those made me a little sick. Interestingly, I felt mildly sick for a few hours and it was those barrel rolls. YMMV.

The headset seemed to be of good quality and the immersion and tracking seemed to be on par with the other systems in spite of the cheaper price and specs. But the fact that you can walk around in the Vive still sets it apart, in my opinion.

Mundo Dilbert, Tech

Video: Masacotes vs PBD Stars

07/04/2016 kirsch Leave a comment

Manuel (of the opposing team) recorded all their Volleyball matches using a little Geek Pro. They use them to analyze their matches, correct their mistakes, improve on their technique… or to make fun of each other. He sent me the video of last Thursday’s Championship match which was right around one hour long.

Because nobody wants to watch a one hour long video of mediocre amateur volleyball, I thought it’d be a good idea to edit out the significant dead time. But that’s a lot of tedious work, even for me.

Enter: Amazon Mechanical Turk: “The Artificial Artificial Intelligence”.

Cleverly named after the 18th century fake chess playing machine; which I thought was a well known story but turns out I only know about it because of my odd childhood reading habits; Mechanical Turk is a service that allows you to set up jobs for someone else to do. It’s a great way for those who earn in US Dollars or Euros (but not British pounds!) to get people in China or India or some other low income country to do their menial tasks.

In any case, I uploaded the video to Dropbox and set up a gig, offering $5 to whoever does it.

Screen Shot 2016-07-03 at 10.41.37 PM — Boom! It’s done.

For your enjoyment, the full edited match:

Life of Marcos

Call me gringo

07/03/2016 kirsch 1 Comment

After almost 15 years of living in the United States, following the law, paying taxes, not bringing drugs, and not killing nor raping anyone (I assume I am one of the good people) I have joined my wife — also a naturalized American — and son — true born Austinite — in being a citizen of this country.

FullSizeRender 2 — Outside the Delco Center, where the ceremony was held.

The stage is all set. A few hours later there were over 1000 new Americans from over 90 different countries.

That’s me in the center, with the bad hair day.

Now I need to find something to do with this newfound status, like voting. I haven’t been keeping up… is that coming soon? Who’s running? Any suggestions?

Marcos’ Naturalization FAQ

Will you lose the accent?
Yes, I will now stop faking the foreigner accent.

If Mexico plays against the US in a soccer match, who would you root for?
Mexico.

Where did you get that lovely purple / pinkish shirt?
Macy’s.

The Marcos Kirsch Experience®