EART guitars are really stepping it up
I'm glad these guitars exist, and I'll tell you why.
Take the EART Explorer-II. My kind of guitar? Not in the slightest, but I'm happy to see them.
The Explorer-II has stainless steel frets, ebony fingerboard, exotic veneer top, 9.5" to 14" fingerboard radius, 24-fret, custom pickups...
...and it's under $1,000. And in three finishes as you'll see on the link. All very exotic looking.
I can remember not-so long ago when axes like this sold for multiple thousands of dollars. The Explorer-II by EART, while not my style of guitar whatsoever, is something I can respect because it's a steal for what they're selling it for.
There are guitar companies right now charging upwards of $2,000 just to get a guitar with stainless steel frets on it. Never mind the ebony fingerboard. Never mind the custom pickups. Never mind the exotic veneer. Just getting those stainless steel frets is something other guitar makers charge thousands for just to get. EART sells it along with some other seriously highfalutin (and legit) stuff for under a grand.
So yeah, I can respect this instrument even if it's not my style of guitar.
I love the fact guitars like this exist at the price they're selling for, because it gives the middle finger to other guitar companies that grossly overcharge for this stuff.
Well done, EART.
Using a Garmin GPS in 2021
I decided to go big in 2021. Somewhat.
I recently acquired my first 6-inch screen size GPS, an older model Garmin DriveSmart 60LMT. The current model at the time I write this is the Garmin DriveSmart 65, which for all intents and purposes is a 7-inch as its screen is 6.95-inch diagonal.
Not-so long ago, it was thought insane to have any electronic screen in your car larger than 5-inch. Times have changed, every new car has a screen in it now, and the "basic" screen size is 7-inch. For example, a new base model Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV does come with a 7-inch screen as standard equipment, as does a base model Nissan Versa, as does just about any new car you can think of.
In addition, most people carry around phones that have 6 to 6.5-inch display screen. Using a 6-inch GPS in the car basically looks the same as if I were using a smartphone as a navigator.
The reasons why I'm still using a Garmin GPS in 2021
I could use my phone right now to do the same thing my Garmin DriveSmart does, but I don't. I use the GPS instead, and this is why:
Does not change
Phone navigation apps get updated, and sometimes features get moved around or outright eliminated entirely with no warning whatsoever.
Garmins thankfully don't do this. The interface stays the same. The menus stay the same. Stuff does not get shuffled around. If something new gets added in with an update, it doesn't overtake something else.
I genuinely get nervous whenever there is an update for a navigation app on the phone, but not with Garmin GPSes.
Better favorites management
I mark a lot of locations as favorites on my GPS. Favorites and be easily sorted, renamed, edited, and so on. I can search any of them easily at any time. No problem.
Using favorites on the phone is not fun. With several navigation apps, you can't sort the list, can't rename, certainly can't edit, can't assign categories... it's just one big unmanageable list that you have to hunt through manually just to find what you want.
As crazy as this sounds, when you use the phone for navigation, you are literally better off writing down your favorite locations on a piece of paper, as that is actually faster than using the in-app favorites list. It's that bad.
Fewer steps required to enable a detour
On most Garmin GPSes, you can enable a basic detour of a route with just 2 or 3 taps. (Advanced detours obviously require a little more effort.)
On the phone, if a detour function is even offered within the app, too many confirmations are required just to make it work. That's just bad design.
Better GPS signal lock
Garmin solved the problem of weak GPS signal lock way back in 2007. Better chipsets were introduced along with some software prediction magic for where GPS satellites are, and ta-da, problem solved.
A very common problem with smartphone navigation is when the GPS signal drops. "Searching for GPS" is an on-screen message phone navigation users unfortunately know very well.
A screen I can actually read
I can actually get along with a 5-inch Garmin GPS just fine, but with the 6-inch model I get a bump up with screen resolution which results in easier-reading fonts.
However, even way back in the late 2000's with 3.5-inch screen models, Garmin knew they had to make the fonts big and bold and the direction arrows and instructions thick for easy viewing while driving. And they still design the modern DriveSmart like that even today.
Phone navigation apps bounce all over the place with their interfaces.
An example that really happens with some of these apps: "Let's put text stuff in a box with a border that's WAY too thick, blocks the map and other stuff you need to see, while at the same time making the font big but really thin so you can't read it even though it's larger."
Another example: "Let's make the road lines on the map separated by color so you can see them easier, but then make the roads ridiculously thin so all the lines just look like a jumble of garbage while driving, completely defeating the point of having different color road lines in the first place."
And another: "Let's take away the compass on the map. Who needs that, anyway?"
And yet another: "When arrows are shown on-screen instructing which direction to turn, let's make the arrows skinny and the arrow tips tiny so it just looks like a stick with a blob on top, because that looks cool."
You get the idea.
What Garmin does with their interface - and this makes total sense - is they actually make their UI look similar to actual road signs. This is a fantastic idea and it absolutely works. Yes, it has an industrial vibe to it, but so do road signs. The signs aren't made to be pretty but rather to give drivers information. Garmin followed suit with this, and that was a very good decision.
I'm glad Garmin still makes car GPSes
Great interface, great navigation, very readable, works anywhere, no internet/data connection required.
That's why I keep using these things, keep buying them and will continue to for as long as Garmin makes them.
Converting to 24 hour time
This is something everybody in America should do.
I'll explain first how to convert from 12-hour to 24-hour time a.k.a. "military time". This is very easy.
Convert from 12-hour to 24-hour:
For any afternoon hour, meaning 1pm to 11pm, add 10 then add 2 and you have the correct hour for 24-hour time.
Example using 2pm: 2+10=12. 12+2=14. The correct hour for 2pm is 14.
Example using 9pm: 9+10=19. 19+2=21. The correct hour for 9pm is 21.
Example using 11pm: 11+10=21. 21+2=23. The correct hour for 11pm is 23.
Convert from 24-hour back to 12-hour:
For any afternoon hour (13 to 23), subtract 10 then subtract 2 and you have the correct hour for 12-hour time.
Example using 13: 13-10=3. 3-2=1. 1pm is the correct hour.
Example using 17: 17-10=7. 7-2=5. 5pm is the correct hour.
Example using 20: 20-10=10. 10-2=8. 8pm is the correct hour.
Why is there no conversion of morning hours?
Morning hours from 12-hour to 24-hour are identical except for midnight, which in 24-hour time is 0. Every other hour is the same. 4am is 4, 5am is 5, 8am is 8, and so on.
Why I switched to 24-hour time on my watch
I did this to solve two problems that kept happening enough to bother me.
Problem #1: Waking up after a nap at dusk and not knowing if it's morning or evening.
Day is day, night is night and a quick glance out a window tells you that instantly. If dark, night. If bright, day. Easy.
However, dawn and dusk, as in sunset and sunrise, appear nearly the same when looking out a window.
Sometimes I will take a quick nap. If I fall asleep at 7pm and wake at 7:30pm, the light in the sky when looking out a window basically looks the same as it would at 7:30am. Yes, I know nightstand 12-hour clocks show a little dot indicating PM. I don't see that when just waking up. All I see are the bigger numbers.
Now I just look at my watch in 24-hour time. Instead of 7:30pm, I see 19:30 and I know for a fact it's evening hours because the 19 is so different from 7pm.
Problem #2: Incorrectly setting the watch alarm
The display on my digital watch, while plenty legible, only shows a small indicator for AM or PM (usually just PM). And that's the way it is on all digital watches.
For example, if I set an alarm for what I thought was 2pm, I would mistakenly set it for 2am because I wasn't paying attention to the PM indicator.
With the watch in 24-hour time, I never get the hour wrong anymore. Instead of 2pm, now it's 14:00.
Weird at first, but I'm getting used to it
The only two clocks I switched over to 24-hour time are my watch and phone since those are the only two I use to set alarms with.
And as far as other things I use that tell time, there are certain ones where I can't set the clock to 24-hour even if I wanted to. An example of this is my car. 12-hour clock only. That's not really a big deal, but still, it's annoying I can't switch it to 24-hour.
What I look at to tell the time when I wake (my watch) and where I set alarms (watch and sometimes phone) are the most important.
I'm already at the point where I've memorized what "weird" hour numbers mean in 12-hour time. 19 is 7pm, 21 is 9pm, and so on. Again, weird at first, but it makes a lot of sense when used regularly.
People read time digitally anyway, so...
Most use the phone when they want to know what time it is. And kids these days aren't being taught how to read analog clocks anymore...
...so I'm mystified as to why we still even bother using 12-hour time in the first place.
The only place 12-hour time actually makes sense is on an analog clock since there are 12 hour markers on the dial. Yes, there are 24-hour analog dial watches (where the traditional 6 o'clock position is actually 0:00) but I've never seen anybody wearing one.
The more I use 24-hour time, the more I'm coming to appreciate it just for the fact it's much faster and easier to tell the difference between morning and afternoon hours.
I'm not saying to throw away all the analog watches and clocks. But I am saying that in the electronic digital environments, which quartz digital watches and phones are, we should all be using 24-hour time.
What's the easiest watch for getting along with 24-hour time? Casio F-91W, of course. All it takes to swap between 12-hour and 24-hour is one press of the bottom right button. When in 24-hour mode, a little "24H" appears on the display. It doesn't get any easier than that.
The best audio tester for your song recordings is your phone
...but not for the reason you may think.
While true that phones are getting better, the one thing that will absolutely never sound right is the crappy tiny handset speaker. No matter what, that thing will always sound awful.
And it just happens to be that chintzy speaker is in fact exactly what you want when testing out your music recordings.
I'll explain.
The standard advice that used to be given to anybody who made music recordings was to use a stock car stereo for audio testing. The reasoning behind this is that car stereos for a very long time were terrible. Most cars and trucks used to be delivered from the manufacturer with a stereo that, at best, only delivered 30 watts. All you had for sound shaping options was a 2-band EQ (treble and bass) and maybe at loudness on/off toggle. The speakers were also seriously cheap and would blow out easily as well.
Garbage car stereos made for great audio testing environments, because if your recorded song sounded good there, it would sound good anywhere since just about every other stereo sounded better than what was in most cars.
This advice no longer applies because even the cheapest cars now have sound systems that sound a million times better than what car manufacturers used decades ago.
Crappy smartphone speakers to the rescue
The handset speaker on your phone has a crackly nasty sound and distorts very easily when you increase the volume even moderately. It doesn't matter what phone you have because they all sound terrible. The speaker is tiny, and because of its size and the fact it's in such a slim enclosure means no bass response whatsoever.
Nobody likes the sound of a smartphone handset speaker - but - like with those old crappy car stereos, if your audio recording sounds good on that tiny terrible thing, it will sound good on any other system. And by "good" I mean "good enough".
What should you listen for when testing?
It's not so much what you hear when you test your music recordings on the phone, but rather what you don't.
A telltale sign your mix isn't quite correct is if certain things "disappear" from your song when listening to it on a smartphone speaker. Hearing no bass is a classic example of this, but the fix is not to make the bass louder. Instead, you increase the midrange frequencies of the bass track instead. Once the bass is to a point where it can be heard on a smartphone speaker, even if only a little bit, then at least your song sounds closer to what you originally intended.
Partially passing the test is the goal
Will you ever get a "perfect mix" when playing back your recorded song on a phone speaker? No. The goal is, as said above, to make it sound good enough.
The phone's handset speaker is the worst sounding audio environment. I honestly can't think of anything people use that sounds worse. This being true, as long as your song sounds somewhat right on that tiny terrible speaker where you can hear mostly everything you want to, job done.
Making a song sound good on computer desktop speakers or ear buds is easy. But getting the song sounding partially right on a phone's handset speaker? Definitely more of a challenge, but one worth taking on.
5 awesome Casio watches you never see
Usually when people think of Casio watches they think things like the F-91W and G-SHOCK. That's not what these are.
Instead, what we have here are most likely watch models from Casio you have never seen before. There are actually quite a few, but these are the ones that stuck out to me as looking pretty darned good.
Looks like a classy dress piece, but it is so much more than that. It's solar, has Bluetooth mobile link and atomic timekeeping. Heck, it even has a Daylight Savings Time indicator too at the 6 o'clock index. This is one of Casio's best examples of loading a watch chock full of tech while at the same time keeping the look simple and classy.
A much simpler and much more affordable model compared to the Oceanus mentioned above, but with one huge advantage that's printed right on the dial. Sapphire crystal.
The sapphire on this Edifice model is a big deal because that means it's very scratch resistant. Some guys spend a ton of money to get it, but on this Casio it's not expensive at all. And with this you get supremely good legibility from the thick hands and index markers.
Super Illuminator night light? Yes. Proper unidirectional rotating bezel? Yes. Day-date complication? Yes. 100m water resistance? Yes. Cool looking red second hand? Yes. Easy-to-read hands and markers? Yes.
This Edifice model, simply put, just looks cool. Instead of the typical shiny stainless steel case and bracelet you get a darker charcoal look, and that agrees with the gold accents very nicely. Legibility is still very good from the fencepost style hour and minute hands.
Oh, and yes, this is a chronograph model.
Yeah, this Edifice model is a bit nuts. Absolutely not your typical Casio, but that's what's cool about it.
This first thing to mention is that it's not as big as it looks. It appears to be an over-50mm monster, but actually has a case size of 47mm. The link design on the bracelet is so different on this one with an almost dragon scale like appearance. The outer two rings of the dial do have a radial pattern.
Is this watch all show? Hardly. It does have a screw-down case back for proper 100m water resistance and all 3 subdials with their multi-levels are 100% functional. And although I guaranteed you missed this, there is a date complication at the bottom left just above the 7 o'clock marker.
A ton of effort went into the design just to make everything on the dial be functional and work correctly. And because it's Casio Edifice, everything will work well - and that includes the second ticking which will line up with every marker properly just as it should.