Radio

Over the last two years the news has become increasingly depressing. I think that is because everything I hear goes against my views of what our society should be. All the politics since the EU referendum and election of May and Trump has been frustrating. I have often switched off from one of my twitter accounts because I find it depresses me, makes me worried for the future and makes me feel helpless.

I have tried to cut down the amount of news I consider. Recently I have found that listening to BBC Radio 4 a lot hasn’t helped my mood. The presenters don’t seem to approach the discussions in the way I think they should and they seem to miss all the important issues facing this country at the moment.

I went through a phase of listening to music in the mornings and evenings while in the kitchen and I am now at the point where I miss the voices. I like the music but I miss the discussion of talk radio.

So, I spent a little time last night trying to get a radio station from New Orleans play over my Sonos system. I am pretty sure that this station, WWL, broadcasts only to the USA and the website I get directed to doesn’t work properly in my browser. I don’t do any VPN type thing yet, although that might happen at some point.

So, I spent a little while trying to find the URL I could use to add WWL to my Sonos system. Sonos uses TuneIn Radio to connect to streaming services and WWL doesn’t broadcast over that network. However, you can add stations manually if you can get a streaming URL.

It took a little clever Googling around to find a source that would work but eventually I did it. I have now added WWL to my sound system. I am looking forward to, once again, learning about the weather in Louisiana and how the traffic is near the big lake.

A previous communication in 2016 covered this media switch also.

Why New Orleans? Because I follow their American football team, that’s why.

Sonos Updates

Oh dear. They’ve only gone and updated the iOS software for controlling my home sound system. It’s a full new version with a new “look and feel”.

The old version:

Old Sonos
Old Sonos (not from my phone so not my music)

The new version (my music):

20140514-063838.jpg  20140514-063847.jpg

Last night after the update it took me FIVE minutes to figure out how to control another room in my Sonos system. That’s not right! It means the app isn’t intuitive. I don’t like it. I know I’ll get used to it but I don’t think it’s an improvement.

I understand the aim is to make it easier to search for content. So the front page is now a nice clean white colour (I don’t like this) and the search icon is there, so you can easily search all content including online services to which you subscribe. The Sky TV guide also made this change recently so that searching for content is the main function of the controller. This means we are meant to watch more and download more stuff. I’m not sure it’ll work, at least for me. I guess I won’t have access to the data to find out and the companies are never going to let me know.

Look, I just don’t like change. Or rather, I don’t like change that is then less intuitive than the predecessor. Using this new software wasn’t obvious.

Head

HEAD is the title of my current favourite playlist on my iPhone and Sonos system. I use the iPhone in the car and the Sonos system at home. If I ever get the chance to listen to music at work then I use the iPhone there also, I have some Bose headphones I plug into.

Anyway the HEAD playlist consists of the following songs (an eclectic mix!):

  • “Das Grauen” from “Hell Starts With An H” by Reaper
  • “TIP the DANCER” from “YOUR WORLD IS BURNING” by Panzer AG
  • “Get Out of my Head” from “Today We Are All Demons” by Combichrist
  • “Inhuman” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
  • “Duality” from “Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses” by Slipknot
  • “Motherfucker” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
  • “Surfacing” from “Slipknot” by Slipknot

I once owned “If You Want Blood . . . . You Got It” by AC/DC on music cassette and I think that whole album pretty much played the same role in my life as this current playlist. I played the cassette so much that the tape eventually stretched in various places and I had to upgrade to a CD as it sounded awful.

I’m grateful to Andy for helping chose the songs for this playlist.

Sonos

I have installed some Sonos components in my house. I have been really impressed with the simplicity of them. They work really well. My only complaint would be that I have to physically turn the speakers on and off as I walk around the house. I don’t want them screaming out all the time to no-one.

I want an RFID chip installed in my arm and detectors placed in my house and then that connected to my Sonos system controller so it knows which speakers to turn on and off. THAT would make me extremely happy and also BIONIC. Yippee.

I lied, I have another complaint. As the Sonos controller unit reads my iTunes library I think it should be able to write to it so I get a “played” count whenever I play tunes. There are some tunes on my NAS drive that aren’t in my iTunes library but then I couldn’t care about those. It is highly unlikely I will ever play those through the Sonos system.