Or the joy of listening to music while you perform your ablutions.
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Plugged In

Plugged In is everywhere: the kitchen, the bathroom, the coat rack... you can’t hide, so succumb.

One of the reasons I love being a technology journalist is I’m constantly confronted with the fact I don’t know shit about anything.

For years now, I’ve spent hours every single day immersed in the world of consumer tech, yet whenever I’m like “I get this,” I’m reminded emphatically that, no, I do not “get this” and I'm actually a fool who knows nothing.

This time? Well, it’s all about AirPlay 2 and multi-room streaming.

airplay 2 logoThis is the logo for Apple's AirPlay 2 because I need to break up the text somehow. 

 

I’ve been an acolyte of playing perfectly synced audio across my house for a long while, something I achieve using Bluesound gear and Apple’s audio standard, the aforementioned AirPlay 2.

Yet, I realized I've been living in ignorance. In a swamp of cluelessness. In sin.

Let me compose myself. Okay, here we go: I thought multi-room audio would only work with equipment from the same manufacturer.

This, friends, is most definitely not the case.

planet-apes-ending

An image of me discovering that AirPlay 2 works across any speaker.

 

The only thing I can put this down to is THE PAST. I remember trying out multi-room audio with AirPlay before and having a terrible time with slightly out-of-sync music.

Oh, and my dopiness probably helped too.

Thankfully, I was baptized from my mistake by the Sonos Roam.

We're dropping a video review of this portable speaker next week (TEASER ALERT!!!), but this is the key information: I set the device up and was surprised that it played music seamlessly with my other audio hardware.

You know when you read a book and the antagonist sees an opportunity to do something evil and they “rub their hands together in glee?”

This was me. This is me. This will be me forever more.

Gargamel_Comic_BookNever thought I'd associate myself with Gargamel, but here we are.


I had a few AirPlay 2 speakers gathering dust, so I did the only possible thing: installing them in more and more unlikely places in my apartment so I can drown in sound.

And it worked.

The music is inescapable. It’s everywhere — even in the bathroom.

No, especially, in the bathroom. Life is good.

At first, the discovery of my audio-streaming blindspot was annoying. But, as soon as I realized what this knowledge meant for my life, it was impossible to see it as anything but a glorious gift from my dumb brain.

It’s part of the human condition to react to your own ignorance with irritation, deflection, or one-upmanship. Not knowing something — whether it's obvious or obscure — can make you feel small. That's unavoidable for many of us.

Yet the choice on how to react is yours.

You can mope and be bitter — or you can have a house brimming with so much music that it feels like you’re in a club while you poop.

And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want?

News you need

CUT A HOLE IN YOUR STOMACH SO THERE'S SOMEWHERE TO PUT THE SIM CARD.
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Apple had an event. A great event tbh. Here's all the sweet shit it announced.

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Looks like the OnePlus 9 Pro and the Vivo X60 Pro+ have stripped down and are about to have a good old fashioned camera shootout.

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TELL ME, FRIEND, WHAT IS A SPEAKER'S WAVEGUIDE?

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The old Apple TV remote was one of the worst things ever. The new one looks better. Please. Please be an improvement. I'm begging you, please.

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MARINADE ME IN OIL AND SERVE ME WITH CORIANDER: you can now display book covers on the Kindle lock screen.

A review you’re required to read

COFFEE!

Screenshot 2021-04-30 at 12.49.32

I'm glad I got your attention. What you're looking at above is the Flair 58.

This is an espresso machine that builds on the success of the company's other models (the Flair and the Flair Pro). 

The idea behind these machines is to let you make barista-level coffee at home, but you provide the pressure with your smart human arm, rather than dumb electricity. 

The Flair 58 is the first of this range that uses external power, but don't worry: this is used for controlling temperature, not pressure stuff.

Basically, we love the damn thing — and think you will too.

Here’s a book (also, bye)

giphy-Apr-30-2021-09-38-05-44-AM

Thomas Pynchon is one of the greatest novelists ever — but he's also one of the most difficult to read.

His novels are incredibly dense, brimming with characters, and involve complex, conspiratorial plots.

Inherent Vice has all of those elements, but is packaged in a far more accessible way.

The core idea of the book is relatively simple: it's set in 1970s California and a weed-smoking detective called Doc gets involved in a case regarding a crooked land developer. 

From there, of course, things get strange. I mean, it's a Pynchon book — I'd be sad if it didn't descend into weirdness.

Inherent Vice is comic, dark, and entertaining. Oh, and also confusing and overflowing with paranoia. 

Still, it's the one of the best ways to ease yourself into the world of Pynchon — a novelist you'll either find a deep affection for, or one that'll leave you feeling cold and alienated.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

inherent vice

Don't forget to tell you friends (and enemies) all about Plugged In. UNTIL NEXT TIME.

callum-shrug (1)

Peas & Louvre,

Callum.

(Find me on Twitter here, yo)

From Amsterdam with <3