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What did you do this week?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I finally got my new hearing aids with bluetooth. (The appointment got delayed two months due to the virus.)
They are very nice for phone calls, which I previously had a tendency to avoid, and they will probably be okay for watching videos that aren't primarily about music. But they're pretty meh for music if you'd like to actually enjoy the music rather than just hearing it. After trying it with Spotify, I won't be using them as music headphones.
Also, they make musical instruments sound different by boosting the treble and adding an odd vibration to pure sounds. My digital piano sounds like a toy piano, and a melodica sounds closer to a trumpet than a clarinet. So I'm still using my old hearing aid for anything to do with music. I made an appointment to adjust the settings.
It's frustrating having to make an appointment to adjust settings when I could probably do it myself. I could probably even learn to program the firmware myself if I had the source code. (The audiologist said they should soon have a way to adjust settings remotely but Kaiser needs to fix a firewall problem.)
There is also a smartphone app which would in theory be nice except that the app is borderline-unusable, and again this is an area where having the source code would really help. Unfortunately, open source is barely getting started for hearing aids and most models are still closed source.
Wait, are you in Kandahar? Neat! I didn't know we had any US military members on the site.
Also neat! How goes that? Are you confident that the Afghan government and armed forces will be able to successfully keep their country and people safe once the US pulls out?
p.s. I don't mean to pry, and I understand it might be a very touchy subject, so feel free to not answer, but I have never had the opportunity to talk to someone who is on the ground there and has first hand experience with this, so you have piqued my curiosity. :P
Thank you very much for your frank answer, and sharing your opinions on the current situation there with me. Depressing as it was to hear, regardless of that, it is still much appreciated.
And yeah, I am familiar with the history (and military history in particular) in the region, especially because of my interest in the Byzantine and later Ottoman Empires, as well as its thoughtless partitioning after WWI, the consequences of which we are still seeing today. However I have unfortunately not spent nearly enough time trying to understand modern issues in the region (other than doing some reading on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Iranian revolution + Shah's reign leading up to that, and Iran-Iraq war)... so I will definitely have to remedy that.
Speaking of which, do you have any recommendations for good books, podcasts, or any other sources for learning about the current situation in Afghanistan and surrounding area?
Ah dang, I guess I will just have to seek out some current stuff on my own. I added those books to my reading wishlist though, so thanks for those recommendations, and the pleasant convo! :)