Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Don't heat it up

October in San Francisco has brought along the typical few days of hot weather (hot for this region, anyways), even though it’s autumn. This brings a unique problem to someone like me who lives in a studio (read: very small). When the temperature is high, I cannot cook at night. The room (singular!) is warm enough already; cooking a hot meal adds heat to it, delaying the natural night cool down. The slower the room cools down, the more difficult it is to fall asleep.

A cascade of negative consequences, that’s what it is. Good news is, I live right by a mall with plenty of food options. So on the hot days these past few weeks, take-out dinner was the only sensible option. Not that I need any extra excuse to not cook. The downside of course is the hit to the wallet. Inflation is still high, food prices are still ridiculous. Can you even eat a non-fast food meal for less than $20 these days?

In addition to not cooking when the weather is hot, I also do not use my LG OLED TV. Did you know that OLED televisions consume more power than the equivalent LED unit? All that wattage has to go somewhere: radiating right into the room. So what do I do for entertainment on a hot October San Francisco evening? I use the iPad. That thing runs so cooly that it doesn’t even have an internal fan. Indeed it’s kind of slumming it to go from a 65-inch screen to a 10-inch screen, but I must avoid heating up the room unnecessarily.

Because as mentioned: sleep is utmost importance. The body needs to cool down 1 to 2 degrees in order for the person to fall asleep. The warmer the room, the more challenging it is to get there. What would be ace is one of those mattress toppers that has active cooling. If climate change gets worse, and San Francisco sees more and more hot weather days, it’s something worth considering.

You can go to Chinatown for a meal under $20.

Apple TV 4K

I’ve always been a big proponent of spending money to make your life easier. It’s a wonder then why I waited so long to get an Apple TV 4K unit for my LG television. Farewell, LG’s utterly crappy WebOS! No more apps crashing, paused shows not starting back up, and general unresponsiveness. More importantly: LG can no longer harvest my usage information.

The reason I delayed on getting the Apple TV is the price. After spending $1,800 on the LG OLED, I really didn’t want to immediately spend another $129 (plus tax) for something that duplicates what the TV can already do (albeit poorly). One year later, I’m finally fed up. Still determined to save money, I bought my Apple TV 4K from the Apple Refurbished store, for a $20 saving. Combined with a $100 Apple Gift Card that I bought for $90, it brings the Apple TV to a price just palatable enough to click checkout.

If you’re going to run a TV operating system, you really want the power of the iPhone. The A15 chip in the Apple TV 4K makes everything buttery smooth. Apps launch super quickly; there’s nothing you the user can do to flummox the unit. Best of all, the exquisitely-built aluminum Apple TV remote can serve duty to control the LG TV as well. While it lacks buttons to switch the TV’s inputs (I have a PlayStation 5 plugged in as well), merely starting up the PS5 (using its own controller) will cause the TV to switch to the appropriate input automatically.

Consumer tech is as its best when it can delight like that. I can now relegate the LG remote to storage.

The only thing preventing Apple TV 4K from being perfect, is the inability to act as an interface for over-the-air TV signals. It would be sweet if I didn’t have to leave Apple TV to watch local broadcast channels. Perhaps in future iterations? Overall I am incredibly happy with the purchase.

When it works

Dehumidifiers are awesome. I run a tiny one in my bathroom to keep down the moisture. Every few days I would check the reservoir and it’s always amazing to see there’s water collected. I don’t pretend to know or care how exactly does a dehumidifier work to suck water out of the air. All I know is this little thing I bought from Costco nearly a year ago have continued to work magnificently, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Not bad for a $40 dollar thing that’s made in China.

I do love it when a product does its designated function well. Unfortunately I cannot say that for my LG OLED TV. Indeed it puts out an exquisite picture: 4K HDR content looks spectacular on it. However, there’s one big annoyance: the TV’s underlying operating system is absolute garbage. It’s so slow and unreliable that I wonder if LG really want people do use their native OS! I am this close to getting a Google Chromecast or an Apple TV device.

The interface’s slowness I can somewhat deal with. Once a show gets going, the issue becomes unobtrusive. What I cannot tolerate is getting unceremoniously kicked out of the app I’m currently using. I would be watching a Youtube video and then suddenly I’m back out to the no input selection screen. With zero warning! How did LG screw this up so badly? Did they blow the entire budget on the display itself? I mean, it is a super gorgeous display!

I think this will be one of the quality-of-life- annoyances that it would be best to just throw money at it and fix once and for all. Instead of death by a thousand cuts. Apple TV puck here I come!

Back to gaming

It’s been about a month since I lucked into buying a PlayStation 5: I just so happened to catch a stock release on BestBuy’s website. It remains baffling that you still can’t simply walk into any BestBuy or Target and buy one of these next-generation consoles. But whatever; I got mine!

And yet I only started to play games on the PS5 this past weekend. Why the delay? Well, before buying the console I already had set routines and hobbies to attend to. It took a bit of time for me to carve out a space within my schedule to dedicate the few hours per week towards gaming. Much like the few hours I allocate weekly to reading, studying Korean, and piano practice.

The days of playing games with every hour of a spare time is absolutely over. Those days (read: college) was awesome. But back then I wouldn’t have been able to drop $500 dollars on a gaming console at a moment’s notice. Nor would I have been able to pay nearly $2,000 for a television to go along with it. Having an adult income is very nice, though that comes with having adult responsibilities as well that takes up your time.

Anyways, the first game I’ve decided to play on the PS5 is the director’s cut version of Ghost of Tsushima. Having recently read James Clavell’s Shogun, I was in the mood for some feudal Japan action. The game is absolutely stunning: the fictional Japanese island of Tsushima looks utterly fantastic, no matter what the in-game time of day it is. Of course, it helps to have a 4K OLED TV. The last time I consistently gamed, it was on a PlayStation 3 hooked up to a run-of-the-mill 1080P TV (playing Gran Theft Auto 4). The 4X jump in visual fidelity is kind of breathtaking.

I’m going to finish Ghost of Tsushima before moving on to another game, whenever that may be. One game at a time, instead of buying a whole lot of games and jumping around.

Deep blacks

First world problems: I am surrounded by top-notch quality displays that when I use one that isn’t so good, the contrast is annoying. My iPhone 13 Pro is OLED, my television is also OLED, and my monitor is the infamous Apple Pro Display XDR. It’s a feast for the eyes. The problem then lies with my poverty-spec basic iPad. The LCD panel on that tablet is fine in it of itself, but when used amongst these other displays, it’s leaves a bit wanting. Something about comparison being the thief of joy.

What I’m spoiled by are the deep blacks that OLED and Apple’s Display XDR technologies offer. The resulting picture quality is deep, clear, and vibrant. Sometimes I would turn on the TV just to watch whatever, because the image is so enjoyable to look at.

Watching Youtube videos - in the common 16:9 aspect ratio - on the iPad’s 4:3 ratio display reveals the flaw. The black bars above and below the video aren’t really precisely black. Because an LCD backlight is always on, the most black the bars can get is a very dark gray. Again, this wouldn’t be noticeable if everything else in the house is also LCD. But black bars on my phone, the TV, and the monitor can achieve absolute black, so every time I use the iPad I’m aghast at the difference. The LCD “glow” at the top and bottom is rather obvious.

Of course, there is an iPad that solves my first world dilemma. The iPad Pro in then biggest 12-inch size has the Display XDR technology, offering the same deep blacks as the monitor. If I were loaded with money (despite appearances, I’m not), I’d upgrade in a heartbeat. However I only use the iPad during dinner and for piano practice, so dropping a thousand dollars just because the display doesn’t look as good is not a justification.

My tax return is going towards renewing insurance on the BMW.

I got a new TV!

Late last week I wrote that I was finally able to purchase a PlayStation 5. On that Sunday, I picked up the notoriously scarce gaming console at my local Best Buy. Was I a bit self conscious carrying the PS5 to the car? You bet! With the rampant retail crime going on in the Bay Area, some thugs could have rolled up in a Honda Accord sedan and rip the PS5 from my hands in a flash. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have parked at the lot on the roof. By myself.

Thank providence I made it home with the console unscathed. But now there’s another problem: I don’t have a television to plug the PS5 into. It’s been more than a year since I’ve moved to this new spot, and yet a TV still hasn’t materialized. I’ve always planned to buy one, but it’s definitely been on the back-burner, seeing as I don’t really watch that much TV. Other things I used more often were worth spending the money on, like a new MacBook Pro.

Because if I’m getting a TV, it’s got to be a good one. None of the poverty-spec models that costs in the hundreds. So it’s going to be spendy. The best in the business right now is the OLED televisions from LG. Dubbed the best TV for the PlayStation 5 by RTINGS.com, the LG C1 OLED is the one to purchase. 65-inch is the size I bought; could have gone bigger but alas I’m not made of money, despite appearances.

I’d thought about returning to Best Buy to buy the TV, but the 5% back at Amazon with my Chase Amazon card is too irresistible. What’s another few days of wait? Besides, I didn’t have to bug a friend with a large enough vehicle to transport the thing. It was white-glove delivery by a third-party contractor from Amazon. I know this because afterwards, Amazon emailed me a customer satisfaction survey regarding the delivery. I gave the team high marks as I’m sure their pay would be docked otherwise.

Needless to say I am loving the LG OLED TV. The picture quality is expectedly amazing. I’m happy to see the display has a glass cover, which enhances contrast and it’s easier to clean. Cheaper units would have been polycarbonate. Indeed the LG wasn’t cheap, but much like my Pro Display XDR, I’m looking to keep this for a very long time.

How the turntables

I was writing yesterday about how difficult it still is to buy a new-generation gaming console. The PS5 and the XBOX Series X is out of stock everywhere, and the periodic drops the retail stores do are infrequent enough to miss unless your’e super lucky. I even wrote at the end that I reckon my gaming days are over!

Well, I was super lucky shortly after that. Just as I was done with breakfast, I saw on my twitter feed a post by The Verge saying the PlayStation 5 is in stock at Best Buy online. Without getting my hopes up, it was a worth a shot, so I got in on the virtual line. Meanwhile, I created a Best Buy account as that was a prerequisite for purchasing. The stars must be aligning, because soon as I was done with account creation, it was a my turn to finalize a purchase.

I’ll be picking up a PS5 this Sunday at my local Best Buy store. What a surprising turn of events!

Sadly I won’t be actually playing on the PS5 anytime soon. I will need to buy a TV as well. The most suitable unit would be the 42-inch LG C2 OLED that was just announced this week at CES. That is scheduled for release in the Spring, so I’ve got a bit of waiting to do. It’s been a relatively long time since I actually had a gaming console, so what’s another few months of waiting? No need to compromise on the TV I want simply due to impatience.

Besides, there isn’t yet a truly next-gen game out that I’m desperate to play. Gran Turismo 7 isn’t out until March. If anything, I will probably be playing PlayStation 4 titles that received quality updates for the PS5. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is one such game.

Anyways, I guess if you shout at the universe enough, sometimes it will give you what you want.