Category: technology

Confessions of a Neurotic Audiophile: Bargain Hunting My Way to $89 Sony Headphone Bliss

Three weeks ago, crammed into a flying aluminum sausage between Los Angeles and Miami, I found myself envying the travelers swanning around with $500 AirPods Max clamped over their smug skulls.
Meanwhile, I was roughing it with a $10 pair of gas station earbuds, gamely trying to absorb Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty on Audible — Charles Leerhsen’s excellent biography about the famously complicated, mercurial baseball legend.

It wasn’t just the status parade that triggered me. It was the simple, physical longing for some real insulation from the shrieking toddler in 34B and the endless snack cart rattle. Add to that my growing irritation with my usual setup: cheap wireless earpods for napping, which jam into my ears like corks in a wine bottle, utterly ruining my quest for a gentle, dignified snooze while listening to my favorite podcasters.

When I got back to Los Angeles, I plunged headfirst into the shimmering, self-defeating abyss of headphone reviews.
After hours of caffeinated obsession, I settled on the Soundcore Q85s — on sale for $99, and allegedly a bargain.
They arrived dead on arrival. Not just sleepy-dead. Full weekend-at-Bernie’s dead.
After 24 hours of desperate charging attempts, I admitted defeat, boxed the corpse, and sent it back.

Then I struck gold — a sale on the Sony WH-CH720N noise-canceling headphones for a criminally low $89.
I ordered them, and then — naturally — descended into the familiar buyer’s spiral:
Had I gone too cheap? Should I have splurged on Sony’s crown jewel, the WH-1000XM4s, on sale for $248?
Was I an idiot forever exiling myself from sonic paradise for a lousy $159 savings?

Before I could drown in regret, the WH-CH720Ns arrived. I checked the fit–very comfortable for my big head. Then I downloaded the Sony app, dialed in noise-canceling, jacked the equalizer to “Bright,” and hit play.

First test: Josh Szeps interviewing Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on Uncomfortable Conversations.
I was so blissfully submerged in the sound that 72 minutes evaporated — I barely surfaced in time to stagger into my office hour Zoom call, looking freshly abducted.

Later, drunk on my own tech triumph, I sampled music on Spotify:
SZA’s “Good Days,” MorMor’s “Whatever Comes to Mind,” LoMoon’s “Loveless,” Nao’s “Orbit,” and Stephen Sanchez’s “Evangeline.”
The music sparkled. The instruments had space to breathe.
The sound was bright, crisp, separate — not the muddy sonic stew I’d suffered through before.

Which left me wondering: What black magic could the Sony XM4s possibly possess to be worth more than double the price?
Because right now, $89 felt like grand larceny — I didn’t buy these headphones, I stole them.
And considering how easy it is to lose or destroy a pair of headphones in an airport stampede, maybe it’s time to quit while I’m ahead and leave the luxury models to the Instagram aristocracy.

April 28, 2025
Protein, Lies, and Artificial Flattery: Wrestling with ChatGPT Over My Macros

Two nights ago, I did something desperate: I asked ChatGPT to craft me a weight-loss meal plan and recommend my daily protein intake. Ever obliging, it spit out a gleaming regimen straight from a fitness influencer’s fever dream—four meals a day, 2,400 calories, and a jaw-dropping 210 grams of protein.

The menu was pure gym-bro canon: power scrambles, protein smoothies, broiled chicken breasts stacked like cordwood, Ezekiel toast to virtue-signal my commitment, and yams because, apparently, you can’t sculpt a six-pack without a root vegetable chaser.

Being moderately literate in both numbers and delusion, I did the math. The actual calorie count? Closer to 3,000. I told ChatGPT that at 3,000 calories a day, I wouldn’t be losing anything but my dignity. I’d be gaining—weight, resentment, possibly a second chin.

I coaxed it down to 190 grams of protein, begging for something that resembled reality. The new menu looked less like The Rock’s breakfast and more like something a human might actually endure. Still, I pressed further, explaining that in the savage conditions of the real world—where meals are not perfectly macro-measured and humans occasionally eat a damn piece of pizza—it was hard to hit 190 grams of protein without blowing past 2,400 calories.

Would I really lose muscle if I settled for a lowly 150 grams of protein?

ChatGPT, showing either mercy or weakness, conceded: at worst, I might suffer a “sliver” of muscle loss. (Its word—sliver—suggesting something as insignificant as a paper cut to my physique.) It even praised my “instincts,” like a polite but slightly nervous trainer who doesn’t want to get fired.

In three rounds, I had negotiated ChatGPT down from 210 grams to 150 grams of protein—a full 29% drop. Which left me wondering:
Was ChatGPT telling me the truth—or just nodding agreeably like a digital butler eager to polish my biases?

Did I really want to learn the optimal protein intake for reaching 200 pounds of shredded glory—or had I already decided that 150 grams felt right, and merely needed an algorithmic enabler to bless it?

Here’s the grim but necessary truth: ChatGPT is infinitely more useful to me as a sparring partner than a yes-man in silicon livery.
I don’t need an AI that strokes my ego like a coddling life coach telling me my “authentic self” is enough. I need a credible machine—one willing to challenge my preconceived notions, kick my logical lapses in the teeth, and leave my cognitive biases bleeding in the dirt.

In short: I’m not hiring a valet. I’m training with a referee.
And sometimes, even a well-meaning AI needs to be reminded that telling the hard truth beats handing out warm towels and platitudes.

April 25, 2025
How I Accidentally Found Laptop Bliss with the Acer Chromebook 516GE

I own a couple of monster Acer gaming laptops—top-tier, fire-breathing beasts packed with high-powered processors and NVIDIA GPUs muscular enough to render Middle-earth in 4K without breaking a sweat.
Not that I’m a gamer. I’m just the lucky soul who was handed these brutes for review.

They work like a dream if the dream involves hauling around seven pounds of hot, whirring metal that sounds like it’s preparing for lunar liftoff whenever you so much as open a YouTube tab. One of them now lives tethered to a monitor as my desktop replacement. The other, in an act of familial charity (and an unspoken prayer to the gods of lighter tech), I gifted to my daughter after she murdered her Chromebook via the ancient teenage art of “gravity testing.”

Suddenly laptopless for bedroom lounging and travel, I embarked on a quest—not for more horsepower, but for something portable, civilized, sane.
After some research, I landed on the Acer Chromebook 516GE, the so-called Gaming Edition. Except here’s the truth: I don’t game on it. I write. I blog. I watch videos. I listen to Spotify and plow through my Kindle backlog like a caffeine-addled librarian. And if I had to distill my experience with the 516GE into a single word, it would be this: clean.

Clean because the thing weighs a little over three pounds, not seven. Clean because it boots in seconds, without the bloated tragedy of trial software and manufacturer junk lurking in every corner. Clean because it feels secure and unobtrusive, like good tech should.

The QHD screen looks fantastic—sharp enough that reading, writing, and watching feel almost decadent. And the speakers? A revelation.
Sure, reviewers have whined about them, but compared to the sonic misery most laptops offer, the 516GE sounds three times better—good enough that I no longer instinctively reach for headphones.

In fact, I like this clean, uncluttered experience so much that if I were in the market for another machine, I’d be dangerously tempted by the new king of the Chromebook hill, the Acer Spin 714.
But for now, I’m content—writing in bed, traveling light, and marveling at the fact that somewhere along the way, my laptop experience stopped feeling like a hostage negotiation and started feeling… well, human again.

April 25, 2025