Rafi's Website
Personal Website. Writings on tech and music mostly.
Latest posts
Wireless HDMI Transmitters for my phone - Not a Fan
I bought a wireless HDMI transmitter to connect my phone to a monitor or TV. It hasn't quite worked out as well as I'd hoped. Much of that is because of the fact that the Miracast streaming protocol hasn't been improved in a very long time. But another factor appears to be that companies think wireless streaming doesn't need to go any further than beaming whatever you have up on your phone's…
Curating my Corner of the Internet with a freehand web editor
T hirty years after it began, the Internet feels like it has lost most of its magic. We as a society appear to have decided that constant novelty is the only thing we'll agree to suffer through ads for. Correspondingly, our collective web experience frustrates more than it excites. It is a whiplash feed of ephemeral 'content' interspersed with ads and walled within 3 or 4 platforms with…
Pro Evo Soccer - a relaxing Android game
Casual Games - A Misnomer? I'm into casual games, but I rarely find any worth playing. A casual game to me is a single-player affair that I can drop out of at any time, and pick it back up again without needing to retrain myself on the controls or the mechanics. It should feel relaxing ; like throwing on a pair of slip-on shoes to take a leisurely walk to the mailbox. Most modern games I come…
Building a Personal Internet from Markdown Files
Briefly Note-taking apps like Obsidian have helped me link my digital libraries together, but don't go all the way to meeting my archiving needs. I jerry-rigged my own solution, which I'm calling Folderbase . All the information I've ever committed to electronic storage consists of text files, images, audio and video. Computers have been able to handle these file formats for decades, and yet I…
I don't understand the subscription model either
I came across this seemingly innocuous tweet from a men's fashion blogger that resulted in a classic Twitter pile-on. derek guy (@dieworkwear) i support everyone who's trying to make a living and hope people are able to do what they love, but i don't understand how people start substacks and patreons and ask people to pay them $5/ month for content. 3:40 PM · Mar 1, 2023 Original Link The…
Zines - a personal printing press
I spent the past weekend (and a few weeknight evenings prior) cutting and printing some zines at home. It wasn't particularly complicated, but spending those hours doing it led to me coming up with some thoughts I wanted to jot down. Although I'm already on Issue #3 of the GLIDER fanzine, I found the process of home-printing paper zines to be qualitatively pretty different. Issues of GLIDER are…
The soon-to-be lost art of concert ticket stubs
The music world offers a litany of paraphernalia on which the quirks of particular styles and cultures get etched on to forever. You'll see this on liner notes, beer coasters, fanclub pins, gig posters and ticket stubs. It's that last one that I'm worried is disappearing before our eyes. With live music's descent into a vertically-integrated rent-seeking perpetual motion machine complete, the…
Hobby Newsletters, Digital Members' Clubs and the Monetization of Online Communities
The hobby economy sounds great in theory. What if your particular area of nerdery was something that could be shared, for profit? The most common way this happens today is with a content stream of some sort: a blog, a newsletter, a Youtube channel, a podcast, all focused on an area of general interest. The ecosystem of businesses that do nothing besides write about Apple is enormous and…
USB Monitors are suprisingly portable
I came across this tweet, and in an effort to stop and think about stuff more often, instead of scrolling by on to the next fleeting thought, I decided to write a bit about it, particular #13: You don't need an office, it's freeing to fit your business in a backpack . Usually these Twitter lists have a signal-to-noise ratio of maybe 1:4, and this one is no different. I will say that #13 made sense…
GazePop15 rundown, Nov 2022
1. Jesus and Mary Chain - Tumbledown Where 'Teenage Lust' felt like they were trying too hard to Americanize their sound, this deep cut did it right, matching the sweetness of their melodies with grungy production featuring a sample from EINSTURZENDE NEUBATEN 's 'Tanz Debil' 15. The Radio Dept - Closing Scene (2008) A mesmerizing B-side from the 🇸🇪 dreampoppers, and a fitting choice to close out…
A small milestone for Glider Magazine
The first issue of GLIDER is sold out! Only 50 copies were printed, so that might not be that many. But aside from a couple of copies given to friends, the remainder have found themselves in far-flung corners of the world, from Irvine, CA to Auckland, NZ, Hong Kong and London, UK!
Galaxy Z Fold 3 - my use cases
I picked up a refurbished Z Fold 3. I'd been wanting one ever since the first one became commercially available in 2020. Since that time, the tech has come a long way. The Z Fold 4 is available, although physically there is not much difference between that and the Fold 3. The Z Fold 3 is still pretty expensive, but at least I was able to use my CC cashback to defray the cost ever so slightly.…
Bluetooth headsets - A tale of hassle
I've used Bluetooth headphones since around 2013. My first pair was this $25 ode to fugliness. It was an around-the-neck style set of 'phones with with on-ear earcups, which didn't cut out external sound; I thought they'd be good for using while biking. Kinivo BT headphones, apparently a white-label brand whose clones are widely available Despite the dorky look, the unreliable microphone and a…
SEO Endgame
For personal sites, its probably a losing battle. Writing on the ibternet feels like a weird exercise. I write a para or 2 and immediately go over it wuth a fine toothcomb, wondering if the words are 'relevant' for search engines. I work partially in an SEO role professionally so that instinct does kick in. It's a good instinct to have, but over time it leads to a style of writing that optimizes…
A Salute to David Thorpe
The master of incisive, hunorous quips about the bands we hold dear There are increasingly fewer places to go on the Internet for snark that doesn't feel cruel or petty. I remember waiting each week/month for articles. The first one i read was modern rock summer 2004 which took aim at Muse. Thats probably how I found the article in the first place The hits just kept coming. My favkurote has to be…
Amateur Rockumentary Channels on Youtube
Being stuck at home for the better part of the past two years has had me exploring all kinds of strange corners of Youtube. Usually I don't touch amateur Youtube channels with a 10-ft pole, because it's all subscribe this and Discord that and Patreon subscriptions and giveaways and a bunch of inane silliness I can do without. Lately however, as I began the planning for GLIDER magazine, I became…
Back to the Kobo Mini
Recently, I came across an article on the Raptitude blog: https://www.raptitude.com/2022/02/what-i-learned-during-my-three-days-offline/ I've been researching note-taking systems and productivity stuff in general in an attempt to be a bit more alert and intentional about my goals. Going online remains a major distraction and time sink, even as it becomes harder to waste time online . I've had a…
Everything Stupid about the Internet
Format Everything Stupid about the Internet Domain: internet.sucks Small paragraphs about each Add rating scale for how stupid you have to be to fall for this: BD - Brain Dead. [brief description:......] BR - Boneheaded Rube [brief description:......] AP - Average Punter DR - Digital Revocation. You shouldn’t be allowed to have a computer Add rating scale for how irritating this is: 1 2 3 4 1990s…
Downloading the Internet to a bunch of PDFs
INCOMPLETE Summary: export your bookmarks to HTML send it to yourself Install Kiwi HTML extension (iffy on FF Android) Or use PDFTools app (couple of extra clicks) I bought a tablet recently. It’s a Chuwi Hipad Plus. Yes, it’s a total iPad Pro ripoff but seeing as how Samsung abandoned the wonderful 4:3 aspect ratio for the frumpier 16:10 years ago, I had no choice. Anyway, I was surprised to find…
What's in My Bag? (2019 Edition)
1. Kobo Mini e-Reader This absolutely brilliant little device is probably the best $50 I’ve ever spent. A 5-inch square of e-ink, it has a form factor that’s perfect for fitting in your back pocket. Living in Toronto, I use public transport 99% of the time, so the ability able to fit this in a pocket while trying to grab a support rail on a winding streetcar route is invaluable. I love how…
Music Magazines Going Digital: We All Lose
It was a long time coming, but the stately indie music rag New Musical Express (NME) has finally shut its doors. Which is to say, it’s print edition is dead, and now it exists as an online-only website. Originally print version for 1 GBP, then went free.\ Survived until 2018, much longer than Melody Maker Economics I know the decision to go digital was not an easy one, and probably based on the…
Arsenal FC Dashboard - Arsene Wenger's last 5 years, 2013-2018
Arsene Wenger is writing a book: My Life and Lessons in Red and White. It won’t come out until October 2020, and there’s already talk that it won’t have as many details as fans would like about his relatively turbulent final years managing Arsenal. I’ll still be buying it regardless. For those that don’t follow football, Arsenal FC are a team in the English Premier League, and Arsene Wenger was…