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Got any new electronics? Tell me about them!
Let's do a little show and tell for our new toys :)
(I was thinking about this as a non-recurring equivalent to the listening threads and such but I probably worded it a bit too...fluffily for ~tech so I moved it to ~talk)
I recently got an OP-1 from Teenage Engineering after years of having it on my wish list. This video shows the device fairly well. Its truly an incredible piece of design and engineering. The build quality is better than I have ever seen in anything, this thing feels SOLID. Its amazing what they managed to with the UI, there are so many features packed in to this device and yet all of them are available via one key press or by holding shift. Its so fast to navigate menus and switch between functions that you can basically play this device live in a performance.
The price is pretty insane at $1300 USD but wow its such an incredible device and the resale value is very high due to it being the exact same model that was released in 2011 and being built like a tank.
Oh man, I am incredibly jealous! Even though I'd only use it to a fraction of its potential, it seems like such a fun creative outlet. If you end up doing some jams, I'm sure at least a few people (myself included) would give them a listen
I'm actually really struggling with it. I don't have a huge amount of musical talent and I have spent the last month reading theory and trying to make stuff. I can come up with something but as soon as I try to add bass or drums it just ends up sounding chaotic. I'm getting closer to having something nice made but its certainly not as easy as it looks on youtube D:
Drums first can help with any sequencer, which is pretty much what the OP-1 is. Lay the beat down and play over it. Formal music training is to the beat of a metronome, so it gives you that base. I write (poorly) on the guitar, but I do it to a drum track. Imagining the bass parts first leads me to a melody. I used to think it was pretty backwards until I listened to Marc Rebillet.
I don't know if anything in here will be helpful, but this is a really neat series of interactive tutorials that Ableton (a music software/hardware company) put out a while ago: https://learningmusic.ableton.com/
Thanks, I'll have a look. There isn't really anything specific to the device that I'm stuck on so generic tutorials should work well. One thing that seems to be useful is trying to replicate existing songs. I think this helps create a link between the sounds you hear and how that maps to the keyboard. The animal crossing soundtrack has been pretty helpful because its all very simple slow melodies.
the same website has a new project about getting started with synths:
https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
I’ve been envious of those for a long time but fear that I might not be able to get max use out of them. I haven’t made significant music for many years and wasn’t very good to begin with. Do keep at it and post results when you’re ready!
Have any notes on what you’ve been reading for music theory?
Well...I gues it depends on what you consider 'new'. I recently picked up a late model IBM PS/2 with a Pentium 100 in it, and got it (mostly) working. It's new to my house so hopefully that counts, ha!
I got it because I recently acquired some old DOS games from my dad, and wanted to make a little project out of trying to play the physical copies/ see if they're even still viable.
Unfortunately he had thrown out all his old hardware, so it's been an interesting journey. When I picked up the system I have now it was missing a bunch of components, and I had to learn a lot just to make sure I knew what I was doing. By far though, getting an OS running on it has been the hardest part. I can only imagine it'll be really satisfying once I have everything installed and working smoothly.
Oh dude, that sounds awesome! I love me some old hardware. As infuriating as getting the drivers for it can be, it is indeed super satisfying once you get it set up properly, and a Pentium 100 should be really nice in Win 3.1 or 95. Depending on the hardware, you might even be able to get early Linux working on it...
It's funny that you mention the drivers, because it hasn't actually been a problem for me yet. The IBM computer I have comes with a BIOS option to set my HDD and CD drive to "compatibility mode", sidestepping the need for drivers at the cost of a little performance.
All the guides I looked at for getting an OS installed talked about needing drivers packed into your boot floppy. So I'm thinking this little feature wasn't all that common, but it is incredibly handy.
What has been an absolute pain is wiping the NTFS formatting on a semi-modern HDD, and replacing with something windows 95 or DOS can understand.
If there's interest I would consider making a post about the whole process once I'm done.
I for one would love to hear about it, that sounds really interesting. What've you tried so far, in attempting to format the disk?
What I ended up using is a version of FreeDOS loaded with software unimaginatively called 'NTFS Reader for DOS', from http://www.lsoft.net/ntfs-reader.aspx
Whats interesting about this package is that it can actually boot from a CD, wheras pretty much anything actually developed in the 90s requires a boot floppy to get things rolling.
It will let you delete, recover, and reformat a hard drive, along with a few other functions.
I recently got a Nikon D3500. It's been amazing to actually have control over photographs for once. Battling with focus and whatnot on smartphones has always been a ballache.
OH MY GOD, the buttons and levers and absolutely everything on this camera are so satisfying to click. I always wondered why there's like eleventy million different types of switch on cameras, but after using it for a while I can start to see why things ended up the way they did.
I've tried some low light stuff, but that's all been quite noisy so most of my experimenting has been with bugs, bees, squirrels, and I'm actually really happy with some of the stuff I've taken already. I got some really artsy fartsy shot of a hoverfly? perching on a leaf
I've mostly just been bruteforcing all the features, taking a picture, trying different settings, taking another one, and seeing how they compare. Mostly just bc its hard for me to find tolerable content on youtube. Everytime I look for a video explaining something, I'm met with the "HEY GUYS ITS YA BOI" energy types, someone just giving an extremely broad overview just reworded a bunch of times, or my personal favourite; clicking on a 20 minute video because you think it'll be somewhat detailed, but it turns out to be 5 minutes of explanation buried in personal story fluff.
Nah, I've been using the camera as an excuse to go on little expeditions. Camera in one pocket of my hoody and lens in another, then whenever I find a cool spot, I put it all together and spend 15-20 minutes snapping a bunch of pics with a bunch of settings.
Yeah go for it, that's from my most recent walk. I encountered this bush with some teeny bees went "Oh yeah, bees!" and then spent the next hour lurking around the park in town trying to find wherever the bees were hanging out.
I wonder if there are any nice ways of sharing the stuff I've taken, like a selfhosted gallery or something. Sharing via discord links feels kinda wrong haha
have some bonus pollen sac and twobees
I need to do this! I just have an old camera from my grand-dad, but I just need to take it out on walks and snap some pictures. I love these photos!
You really should! Whenever I've got to do something in town, I'll leave a half hour early and take the long way home.
Also been doing it whenever insomnia hits and I don't want to just dive into watching a tv show or whatever, which is nice for trying to do some long exposure shots
(taken in nearly pitch black) and artsy fartsy ones like these
Whenever I used to hang out with friends smoking, we liked to walk and talk. But sometimes I'd be compelled to just stop for a moment and admire a view. Sometimes it was the moon being framed between some trees or a row of houses, other times it was just admiring the bruatlism of urban structures.
Now with a camera I can kind of show people what caught my eye, instead of just hoping they saw it in the same light as I did. Had no clue I had this much of a photographer in me haha
That's awesome, and I love those long exposure ones, too! You've got quite the eye.
Actually your comments have made me think about why I don't, and why I tell myself I don't. I think I allow the "preciousness" of the camera -- it was my grandfather's, I don't want to break it, etc -- be an excuse for not taking it out and using it. But that's stupid -- it was made to be used, so let's use it! And the photos don't have to be good. They're just for me.
Anyway, I know what you mean about being struck by views or moments, and I don't document those moments enough, ironically in an attempt to "stay in the moment." But that just means the moments slip away and I'm left without them.
Exactly! Another way to think about it is like this; would that camera be as special to you if he never actually used it in the first place?
Things like that are held near and dear because they've seen and expressed so much, and you never know how much that story (and yours) could mean to next lucky soul you might share it with!
That's such a great point. Something on a shelf is worth nothing!
Now it's on to the inevitable search for glass. $1200 lenses will start to seem reasonable to you, in a very short time. I kid, but as a fellow chaser of that white horse of images, don't be surprised.
Yeah, I already want to get a macro lens! I know its far too early for me to be thinking about that, but still...
Although, I've been quite surprised with how capable the supplied lens is. It's got quite the range on it, so hopefully I wont get any terminal urges for glass anytime soon.
FWIW, macro tubes can get you a long way with whatever glass you currently have and they're MUCH cheaper.
These are the ones that I use on my 5100 and my 750:
Zeikos ZE-CVAFN Auto Focus Macro Extension Tubes for Nikon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003IVZVDO
You know what they call youtube videos without the fluff? Books.
Seriously.
Go to your local library and get out Understanding Exposure and something like The Beginner's Photography Guide plus Photography: The Definitive Visual History.
Also, seriously consider buying a 50mm and using nothing but that for a while.
Bought an old Xbox One, loaded it up with three years of Ultimate Game Pass and hopefully I'm not going to buy as many Steam games. Kinda want to play some of the EA access games, so mixed results.
I did the same thing! What games are you most looking forward to playing? I finished Ori and the Blind Forest a few days ago and am now playing Banjo Kazooie (which was just added to Xbox game pass via the Rare Replay collection).
Figured out how to import saves through Play Anywhere and now I'm working through Guacamelee 2. Looking forward to Psychonauts 2, a bit of the Rare Replay collection, and maybe Super Lucky's Tale. My brother tried out Sea of Thieves solo, but was run down by a big Galleon with a pride flag that stole his chests and quest items and never wants to play that game again.
Psychonauts 2 and The Outer Worlds are definitely games I'm excited for. Maybe I'll skip Banjo Kazooie and go for Super Lucky's Tale instead; it seems like just the sort of casual platforming game I like to play (Banjo Kazooie is feeling a bit dated).
Yeah, Sea of Thieves seems like a game that would shine with a group. But since it's PVP-everywhere (at least, as far as I'm aware), it doesn't seem like it'd be very accommodating to new players. And it looks like your brother confirmed my suspicions. I'll probably pass on it; tell your brother that I'm glad he suffered so I won't have to. :p
A couple months ago, I got my first smartphone, a Sprint Epic 4G (long story....), and I've been having an absolute blast with it. I forgot how much I loved Jellybean's aesthetic before the material redesign, and once I realized the importance of not activating Google Play Services, this phone has been nothing but pleasant surprises since. It handles everything I need it to do way better than I thought a phone this age would, including YouTube and web browsing with the stock Android browser, the physical keyboard is fantastic and wonderful for terminal use and typing stuff up like this, and it handles emulation and Android games superbly. It's large enough to be comfortable looking at, but still way smaller than most modern phones, so it fits in my small pockets with no problems, and it's super comfortable to hold because it actually fits in the hand and doesn't have these sharp corners. It has no problems with a 128GB microSD card, which can be kinda dodgy in devices from this era, and it makes for a great mp3 player. My one complaint is with the battery life - I'd appreciate it if I could get more than 3 or 4 hours of screentime before needing to recharge, but at least it supports replaceable batteries, so I can always just carry an extra if I need more time. Who'd have thought a 10 year old phone would still be going at it a decade later?
I recently purchased a Kindle Voyage (used, since they don't sell them anymore), which is a really nice e-reader hardware wise. It's a few years old, so it's lacking some of the features more modern e-readers have, notably an optional blue-light filter. However I prefer physical buttons, and I don't like the form factor of the Kobo Forma or the Kindle Oasis, so I'm basically stuck with the Voyage or the Nook Glowlight 3. I chose the Voyage over the Glowlight 3 mainly because it looks and feels a lot better hardware wise, but I do wish I could have a combination of the two, somehow.
The other e-reader I considered was the Kobo Clara HD. The Kobo Clara HD comes with a blue light filter, but doesn't have any physical buttons, which is a bummer. The one thing I really appreciate about Kobo e-readers is how open they are. Unlike Amazon, who actively try to prevent people from messing with their e-readers, the Kobo e-readers are really simple to modify, install CFW, or even install alternative reading software, such as KOReader.
The perfect e-reader for me (made with today's technology) would be something with the form-factor/hardware of the Kindle Voyage, that had a blue light filter, and was as developer-friendly as a Kobo.
KOreader has a lot of cool features, such as OPDS support (for online catalouges), RSS, and calibre integration. Along with that, with KOreader you can gain more control over the formatting of books, down to enabling/disabling the CSS itself. KOreader is open source, so you know exactly what it's doing, and can even add your own features if you want (and have the time).
The default reader software can sometimes have odd, obscure bugs that haven't been fixed in a while. For example, the default kindle reader doesn't like loading covers from sideloaded books. To fix this you have to jump through a few hoops and create a separate image file in a hidden directory. Thankfully, another piece of open source software, Calibre, does this automatically.
Another benefit is that if you install KOreader on every device you have, you'll have a consistent software experience across each device, which you don't get with a proprietary reader.
Do you know if it's possible for someone somewhat locked into the Amazon ecosystem to escape? Just about all my eBooks were purchased on my Kindle, so I guess I'm DRM'd in...
You can do it through Calibre.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/know/2979
I've always though a chess app would be perfect for an ereader, do you know if that's possible with a kobo, I've or a paper white and it's been totally locked down with the new updates.
It shouldn't be too hard, I only know of one chess app developed for the kobo, which is pbchess. The site comes with an installation guide as well.
Wow, how awesome, thanks.
I did not know there was alternative software for e-readers. I might just want to look closer into getting one, now!
My ideal form factor would be the size of a paperback book, maybe even with a cover. It'd be nice to have something chunky to hold.
Recently bought a USB floppy drive so I could look through a couple of old floppies from growing up I found at my parents house. Sadly they were mostly corrupted, but fortunately it was just old games. Looks like they had the MS Entertainment Pack (vol1), a Pacman clone, tetris, and the only one I actually remember playing--Mario Teaches Typing.
I also bought a frontlit mod kit for my original GBA, but I accidentally had it shipped to my old house because I hadn't used ebay in so long. Would've been nice to talk about that, but oh well!
Less recently (a few months back), I bought a CPUville 8bit computer kit and put that together. Had a blast refining my soldering talents, learning about the hardware, and of course interfacing with it via a USB-to-serial adapter. It came with instructions for installing the CP/M OS on it, which took some effort on my part because I had to find an old IDE drive, a power supply for it, and do some wiring to get it all working. But when all was said and done I'd learned a lot and had some fun. Software is limited though, so I haven't done much with it since. One of these days I'll learn the ancient tongue, Z80 Assembly, and write code for it. But having learned to program in a post-assembly era, that's going to take a lot of motivation :D
Floppies are really picky. Especially if they were formatted at home.
Sync, alignment, whatever you want to call it, can make a fully viable floppy seem like it's corrupted.
Are you sure that those corrupted ones might not have just been formatted in a way you couldn't recognise?
Also, if you have an android phone, plug the floppy into it for laughs. It'll work.
I recently bought two Cisco Catalyst 3560E-24PD Ethernet switches for the house ( one for upstairs and one for downstairs), I now need to learn to configure them and learn about vlans so I can configure the cisco IP phones I recently bought.
I'm currently awaiting delivery of a motherboard and processor from China. I decided to do a full PC build with a socket 2011 motherboard from AliExpress,with a Xeon E5-2589 and 64gb of ecc ram from eBay. I also bought the case, ssd, and power supply from Newegg and a cooler from Amazon. I'm planning on installing proxmox and using an lxc container for my main desktop, passing through a used to 580 8gb ( also from eBay) and a USB 3.1 card. I am also planning on moving my other proxmox vms into this new machine so it will also be my router with virtualized pfsense and also run 3cx for the aforementioned Cisco phones.
Today I went to a habitat for humanity re-store and bought an older Dell lcd monitor for $12 I will likely bundle and resell with one of my used Dell PCs and 3 Toshiba network phones for $6 bit sadly they don't work with 3cx so I will just try to resell them for a profit.
I honestly hope you bought a support contract to go with those Cisco IP phones, because the ones I dealt with broke down constantly due to a proprietary hook switch that appeared to be engineered specifically to fail.
Cisco IP phones are the worst
I recently purchased a used DJI drone. I'm parting it out to build a small robot that will hold my phone and follow me around. I'm building a rudimentary app that will use the DJI camera to recognize hand gestures. This way the robot can communicate a little bit from a distance. I am going to take apart an Alexia and see if I can stuff it in the body without adding too much weight. It will also notify me of incoming calls and chase me if I leave it somewhere. My biggest obstacle is battery life. I am thinking of making some of the limbs out of batteries like a Joby camera holder but then I run into issues with weight. Anyway, that is my fun electronics adventure atm.
Well, it isn't really new (new to me I suppose?) but I just got a Gameboy (DMG, the original model) to replace my childhood one which got lost moving a long time ago. Came across it at a yard sale in my neighbourhood and got it for a few bucks, and it's even the same colour as my old one! (it's clear, so not actually sure if that's a colour) I've already tested it (Still have a GBA around, so all my cartridges are handy) and everything seems like it's in working order. Looking forward to playing some of my old favourites when I get a chance!
I adore the grey brick! It wasn't my main childhood one since I'm a bit younger, but I remember winning one at a school "auction" along with Dr. Mario. That was the shit!
I have most of the Gameboy models now, they're fun to collect :)
I've got most of them too! I never grabbed a DMG specifically though given I had a GBC & a GBA, so I could still play all my games - just not in pea-soup green :). But I couldn't pass up a clear DMG in such good condition, I'm a sucker for clear casings.
I literally got some new Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones and oh my gosh they're so good!
I was a bit tempted to pick up some new headphones after I got the Sennheisser HD 4.50 BTC in October and well... I really didn't like them to be honest. I loved my Sennheisser wired headphones so I figured they would translate nicely into wireless headphones... nope. The audio cut out frequently over bluetooth, the noise cancellation wasn't really that great, but worst of all it felt so uncomfortable - like someone was squeezing my head and my ears together every time I used them. I kept listening with them in incredibly short bursts and got eventually fed up.
I wasn't really ready to buy a new pair of headphones, considering the 4.50 were £140, but after looking at twitter and seeing the one thing in common was these Sony headphones and people talking about how good they were, and especially as my colleague (who makes music in his spare time) giving his thumbs up and going out of his way to acquire some, I decided to do the same. I winced at the £300 price tag, but I got them anyway.
I just... I love these headphones! These are perfect! What I've always wanted in a pair of noise cancelling headphones! The noise cancelling is really good - don't think that it will cancel every single sound ever, some minor sounds do sneak their way in - but I just went to my Costa coffee shop and I was standing, waiting in line for a coffee and I thought to myself "man, it's awfully quiet in here". I took my headphones off and I felt like my ears were about to bleed with all the noise that went into my eardrums at once!
The headphones are surprisingly configurable too! You can have complete noise cancellation, all out let everything in, or a mix - and there's even a mode to let ambient noise in, but focus on any voices so you can have your music and have someone interrupt you.
The next best thing is that it can handle going outside pretty well - in our area the Sennheissers did not cope well at all with a brisk walk outside, cutting out pretty often and leaving me to having to in some cases disconnect the wifi to get better (but not perfect) performance out of them. These Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones fare much better - there is the occasional and somewhat frequent blip, but it doesn't happen too often and it's so quick that I can live with it.
Honestly these are so great - it feels like having a new pair of ears if I'm being completely honest. I no longer need to blast my eardrums with loud music to drown out the outside world.
I recently bought an Epson 2150 projector and have made a mini home theater in my small bedroom. Bought a used receiver and two bookshelf speakers off of the LetGo app.
Its honestly one of the best purchases I made recently. I can now play games and watch movies on an 85 inch screen. I have a pull down screen mounted right above two sliding mirror doors to my closet so now I am utilizing a wall with something. So far, I have watched Chernobyl, a handful of Studio Ghibli movies, and some random TV shows on it.
Early 3D games do NOT look good on such a large screen though. Switch/Wii U seems to look great so far as well does my gaming PC.
Just got myself a Pixel 3a. I had been using a Revvl 2 Plus (an Alcatel-built phone with a Helio P23 in it) since January, but the constant needing to kill the garbage Smart Manager software that was built in and would not. stop. killing. Blokada or DNS66 regardless of what I did to whitelist it got really old.
I've always been a fan of stock Android, and the decent price point, good camera (the main thing I look for in a phone), long (for Android) support period, and great third party ROM support made it hard to pass up. It honestly reminds me a lot of my Nexus 5, which is high up on my list of favorite phones I've ever owned.
Me too! I feel like the 3a is the spiritual successor to the Nexus 5, which is also at the top of my favorite phones.
I don't get excited about phones like I used to (10 years ago!). Besides the Blackberry KeyOne, the 3a is the only interesting phone that has come out in the last five years or so. I was using my N5 for years until I broke the screen, then upgraded to a two year old Nexus 6, and went through two of those. The KeyOne is actually an great phone (that battery life), and the 3a came out and I bought it pretty quick once I found out the battery is great. It's pretty much a Nexus 5 but way better.
Wow, a 3A! I don't know if it works in my country. Is it cool?
It is! I've had it for almost a month now, and I'm still enjoying it. The camera is every bit as fantastic as everyone said it was, I love that soft-touch plastic feel (admittedly, I have it in a case), and it's buttery smooth, something I can't say for other phones I've bought at this pricepoint before.
Here's a link to Google's support page with the LTE band support of each model. The 3a does have four variants (Verizon, rest of North America, EU/Global, and Japan) with slightly different band support, so unless you're in Japan or on a carrier that uses LTE on Band 32 (for which the global and Verizon variants are the only ones that support said band), they all should work fine.
Actually, the global version is supported by my country (just realized lmao). I would buy it if I had the money and if I didn't like MIUI over stock.
Hey, I also changed into a MIUI powered phone! How does it run?
Happened to me with my Redmi!
I got a Husqvarna Automower. It's like a Roomba for cutting the grass outside. Only requires installation of an invisible fence then it keeps the grass at a nice height. It works by constantly cutting 1/8 to 1/4inchnof grass over long periods of time so The grass stays at a good height constantly as opposed to it getting shabby, then cutting it once a week.
Only thing I really need to do is run the weed whacker around the edges every 1 to 2 weeks.
Just bought (and now using) a Thinkpad T460s to replace my Surface Pro 3, absolutely a beast and far better than the surface at doing no only overly simplistic things (web browsing), but also more complex 3D Modelling with real-time events.
It's in the mail, but I got Aston's new Stealth microphone. I had an Origin for a long time and it handled everything really well, and the Stealth is supposed to be that but with additional dedicated presets for voice and guitar.
I recently completed building a Helix split ortho keyboard. It was my first time soldering SMD components and it wasn’t as bad or annoying as I thought. I bought a new bench style soldering iron and tops for this and that probably made it much easier. I had a couple issues with cold joints but those were easily diagnosed with test firmwares.
Using the keyboard itself completely changed my expectations of how a low profile switch can feel. I used to always think higher switches were better. Now I’m leaning towards much preferring the low profile Kailua-type switches I used vs. cherry MX. A couple weeks in, ice finally nailed down a layout I like (JIS base with same punctuation access for programming) and I can type just as fast as any other keyboard now.
I bought a 2U rack server case for my new pfsense router that I installed Friday night. I got an OpenVPN client and server running on it, pfblockerng and dynamic DNS. Perfect timing too since our internet will be upgrading to 500/20 next month.
I'm jealous of that internet speed.
I bought a Rock64 a couple weeks ago. The intent was just to have Nextcloud running fully self-hosted. Was a huge learning experience and time sink setting it up and getting knee-deep in custom NAS setup - I learned that WiFi is really shit when it comes to transfer speeds. Currently I've decided just to use a smallish (32GB) USB for my cloud storage (Nextcloud in OMV) and running on Wifi because the bottleneck is my ISP bandwidth anyways. Next place I live in though I'm going to aim for a proper Gigabit Ethernet connection...
This was a pretty nifty Nas setup idea using odroids and gluster:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/8ocqwa/200tb_glusterfs_odroid_hc2_build_xpost_from/
I haven't bought it yet but I'm thinking about building a 1-2tb off-site backup system to leave at my parents house similar to this one
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/8ocqwa/200tb_glusterfs_odroid_hc2_build_xpost_from/
This was pretty interesting using glusterfs and odroids to make an expandable cluster. Though I doubt you'd want a crazy switch setup at the parents house.
My most recent tech-ish purchase was a microphone. It's just a Neewer NW7000, so it was £26 including a stand and a pop filter and so on, but it's so much better than the previous mic I had which was the internal mic on my laptop. The quality isn't quite, as they claim, "professional" but it's pretty damn good for recording me speaking, I don't really know how it would handle singing or music.
Now I just need to find time to shoot some more video to put a voiceover on!
My wife just gifted me a Nintendo Switch. I used to be a huge gamer but stopped outright when I long-term travelled.
I am super impressed! The system is a sleek execution, clearly building on some of their previous HW lessons learned.
I only gave Smash Bros and Mario Odyssey, but maybe I will pick up a labo pack.
I haven't bought it recently, and it's not technically even new to me, but it was at my parent's house for years and I've just brought it home to mine to use it: a tape recorder. I've just ordered some tapes from eBay and I'm excited to start noodling around with recording!
I got a powerbank for the first time, a cheap Xiao Mi 10k one. Can't tell you how useful the stupid little thing is, I hate myself for not having gotten one earlier. The days of searching for plugs in cafes &c like a junkie is over!
I'd rather wish I could get something that did not consume more power than a big cellphone and which I could use as a mobile Emacs typewriter. If the USD/TRY gets a bit better or I happen to earn some more than I think I will, I may try get a Gemini PDA. After slapping some Debian on it and mapping Tab to Ctrl (it does not have a Caps Lock), it'd be just the perfect device to take out with me when leaving home. Compact, light, nice looking.
The newest thing that I've gotten is a screen from aliexpress... which came broken...
I can't wait to get my Redmi Note 7 though!
Plantronics RIG 800LX headphones for my xBox One X.
I'm digging them more than my Hyper-X Clouds. I really started hating the wire.
I still have my Tritton AX Pros for my PC. I'll be sad when those die. There really isn't any comparing virtual surround to real surround.
Just today I got my Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 and reflashed with a custom rom. Thus far it looks like it is going to be an amazing replacement for the Nexus 7 that I used to have. Been meaning to get a new tablet for a couple years, tired of used an old ereader and my phone for everything.
I'm incredibly impressed with what I am getting for the $200 I spent on the device. The screen looks really good, far better than I remember IPS LCD's looking in the past. Been awhile since I had one though, but it holds up really well even compared to my OLED on my phone. The blacks of course aren't as good as an OLED, but I think I can deal with that issue to save some money.
Build quality feels really solid, doesn't feel like it will fall apart on me. And just goes to show how much tech has progressed in the years since I had the Nexus 7 2013.
The main selling point for me though, regardless of everything was the healthy modding scene. I don't trust any phone company expect Apple to continue to support their hardware for more than a year or two. So knowing in 5 years I'll be able to flash LineageOS on it and be running the newest version of Android is a massive plus. This is especially important given it is from a Chinese company and I don't have a clue what the future holds regarding various trade embargos and such.