Yeah, so the Z1 — Sony’s pride and joy — got its 4.4 push today. Ever since I ditched my Nexus 3 I’ve been missing how dead simple Fastboot made flashing. Sony, of course, can’t be bothered…

I wasn’t about to sit around waiting for the OTA, so manual flash it is. I looked up the Flashtool guide and — ugh. What a pain. Just installing the Windows drivers alone means two reboots. I’m lazy. Then I noticed Flashtool has a Linux build, so obviously I went with the version that doesn’t need drivers at all.

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I’ve said I don’t usually share articles… but I do love this kind of piece that slaps the pseudo-geeks right across the face… even if it’s from iFair.

This world was never the geeks’ world

I once discussed with someone why some people always like to beat others verbally, even when the other person is genuinely stronger. A top student told me: “Because they have no other way to beat anyone.” Life is either screwing someone or getting screwed… looks like I’d better work hard so I don’t get screwed (and so I can screw others better)~

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Bought a Dell Venue 8 Pro with one goal in mind: watch Bilibili and play visual novels. By now I’ve run into every problem imaginable, so here’s a roundup to save the next guy from asking around and getting dunked on like I did.

First, thanks to the kind souls who didn’t dunk on me. You’re good people:

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During Spring Festival JD had a coupon, 200 minus 50, so my hand slipped and I chopped off a Logitech touchpad that normally goes for 199. The T650, 149 out the door. Been using it a while now, so let’s talk about how it feels — and since I mostly use Ubuntu, that’s what I’ll focus on.

For the summary crowd, look here: works, usable, serviceable, wouldn’t call it good, fine as a spare.

Actually, when the shop owner said for ten extra yuan he’d throw in a knockoff Polar Bear or whatever, I declined……

1. The battery life is garbage

Charged it full this morning, and by evening I’d listened for maybe three and a half hours, 45% left, FLAC files. 89% of that juice went to standby. No idea why the ZX1 guzzles power in standby — I already had airplane mode on. I figured physical buttons meant no need to light up the screen, so it should sip battery…

2. The controls are garbage

If the F800 series was already bad because you had to hit the Walkman button and then swipe on the screen to change tracks, then the ZX1 rolled everything back except the physical buttons… Say I want to glance at what song just came on, or check the time. On the F800 I at least press the Walkman button once and the lock screen shows the current track and the time. The ZX1 doesn’t do that. You have to go fish for that power button that’s borderline impossible to hit… and after that you still have to unlock the thing and open the player app again… 3. The sound upgrade is minor

Sound-wise I honestly don’t hear a night-and-day difference. Compared to the F800 and F880, the gain in output power is pretty obvious, and a couple of my IEMs do sound noticeably better because of it… but nothing else changed much. If you already have an amp or whatever, don’t bother.

4. Too expensive

Not much to say. Faith is expensive as hell!!!

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Roadside Rag version:

Ergouzi: Oh man, Sangunzi, my bro, I heard you know a lot about this stuff. My old phone broke, right, and I wanna buy a new one. People say Samsung and that Apple thing are the good ones now. So give me some advice, yeah?

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Normally I’m not that willing to recommend what other people write, but this one hits the spot for me. Check it out if you’re interested.

Wang Yin: The Psychological Illness of Programmers

After reading it, my take is basically this: it’s actually a widespread disease. It’s just a critique of power worship / superiority complexes / arrogance / laziness……

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I can’t take it anymore. I have to vent. There are way too many things to complain about… The backstory between the protagonist and his neighbors is a complete mess…

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I’m the kind of guy who feels like something’s missing without BGM, so I need music accompanying me to varying degrees — whether I’m alone for long stretches or just trying to wall myself off for a bit. Anyway, that habit got baked in back in middle school when I started listening to the radio.

In high school I got my first MP3 player, a Walkman perfume-bottle model. I honestly can’t say exactly when I started inexplicably chasing sound quality. Anyway, once I had a job and money, I accumulated a bunch of gear that looks a little more audiophile-ish: players, sound cards, headphones, IEMs. So this time I’ll talk about the three IEMs I’ve actually been listening to: TF10, ER4P, and Creative IE3.

I really hate using baffling vocabulary when describing sound quality — plenty of those words I can’t even feel the meaning of myself. So, as the title says, no mysticism this time, just impressions.

Source: Sony F807, everything in FLAC.

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As I keep going on about every day, I’ve been dieting — for almost a year now. Oh wait, today makes it exactly a year. Unluckily enough, on this commemorative day I stopped running. The reason, naturally, is that my legs and feet feel off. On days I can’t run my OCD acts up a bit, but then I figure I’ve been running to lose weight for a year now. The goal failed, sure, but at least I shed the fat — isn’t it about time to call it a wrap? The weight loss is a done deal; all that’s left is figuring out how not to bounce back. The weekend came around and I got a craving. I wanted hot pot, but I was also worried about putting the weight back on. Being the kind of guy who lives parasitically on the internet, I fired up the search engine again… Searching around, digging through every bit of experience I could find, all I got was “keep up good sleep and eating habits, don’t go stuffing yourself just because you lost weight… blah, blah, blah.” Finally I found an answer on Quora: “An occasional binge is no big deal. Once you stop dieting you can relax a little — no need to stay wound so tight.” I let out a long breath. Finally, I could eat hot pot. My mother, who had watched the whole process from the sidelines, said: “So you searched for ages just waiting for that one sentence, huh?” “The other answers aren’t scientific. This guy’s take is comparatively reasonable.” I defended myself. “So because he said what you wanted to hear, you think he’s reasonable?” Yeah… no comeback for that.

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