• 0 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle
  • In the cheaper price point, IEMs are probably the way to go for noise isolation. If you can get ear tips with a good seal, then the passive noise isolation should be good enough. I’d recommend something like the kz zsn pro (~$20) or the kiwiears cadenza (~$30), along with comply foam tips (~$15) for a perfect seal into your ear. If you have smaller ears like me, then kz IEMs can be a bit uncomfortable, so keep that in mind. If your budget stretches further, then you can try Etymotic ER2SE IEMs (~$100), which have triple flange tips that really plug your ears deep, but I definitely don’t find them comfy enough for long sessions.

    If your device doesn’t have a headphone jack, an Apple USB C dongle (~$10) is plenty good enough for any IEMs, or you could get a Bluetooth DAC from Fiio starting at around $40 (for the longest time I had one doing double duty for my headphones and for Bluetooth audio in my car).



  • Division Bell! It’s punchy and tart with the citrus and slightly bitter aperol, and the mezcal gives a really welcome smoky flavor. I add just a quarter oz simple to the standard recipe, otherwise I find it a little dry.

    -1 ounce mezcal -3/4 ounce Aperol -1/4 ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur -3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed -1/4 ounce simple syrup

    -Add ingredients to a shaker with ice, shake well before straining into a coupe and garnishing with a grapefruit twist









  • You can get that same experience with coffee for much cheaper, but it does require a little effort. You just need to find a good coffee roaster near you or online where you can get freshly roasted specialty coffee(arabica, not robusta; and from a single farm, not a blend), instead of the stuff at grocery stores that’s been sitting for months. It might cost $15-$20 a bag, but that’s still less than a dollar per cup! If you want the absolute best coffee, then grinding the beans yourself and using something like an aeropress or pourover brewer is ideal, but you can still get great coffee just by buying locally roasted beans from a nearby shop, letting them grind the beans for you, then brewing with a regular old coffee machine









  • I think your best bet might still be a pixel (probably a-line), since that would be the path of least resistance for software support and custom rom development/rootability. Another fun option is ASUS with great price/performance and a huge battery (I think it’s fairly repairable too?), but it doesn’t seem there’s a community for custom roms. Here’s the main possibilities and downsides as I see them:

    Pixel: a little pricey, not great price/performance, not sure on repairability, weird issues with extra sw features apparently getting worse over time

    Samsung: forget about custom roms, again not great price/performance at your price range, repairability okay but not good

    Fairphone: bad performance, I don’t believe there’s any water resistance and build quality would be a concern for me, unsure about software support but I’d expect good custom rom community

    Sony: not a large user base, so I’d assume there won’t be custom roms. I think Sony hasn’t committed to the same software support as other big names. I’d be worried about availability of replacement parts for repairs

    ASUS zenfone: out of your price range. Bad track record for sw support