Uh oh, the time between posts on this blog is approaching the 1 year interval I release my DJ sets in. Content is hard, also scheduling is hard and also moving sucks.

LET’S GET INTO IT

Turns out working full-time and writing blog posts do not mix. I also didn’t have a ton of time to discover new music, but there are definitely some gems in here that have caught my ear.

Hope you enjoy!

If you’ve been following my blog for any period of time, or spoken to me about laptops in the last 3 years, you’ll know that I’ve been waiting for a 13 inch, all AMD laptop with USB4/Thunderbolt capabilities that I could use as a desktop replacement. The combination of open-source graphics drivers, performance, and battery life with ultimate flexiblity - the ability to become a competent gaming machine when plugged into an eGPU.

The ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 is not that laptop. I think the X13 Gen 3 might be a better contender for that. What the Z13 is, though, is a quite nice ultraportable that ticks almost all the boxes I could want.

I’m a fan of Pine64’s products. I own a PinePhone, have tried out the multi-distro demo image, and have even bought a keyboard (which is, unfortunately, not terribly great - it has mushy keys and is unresponsive) for it. I haven’t been able to replace my Android phone just yet, but when the PineTime was announced, I told myself I’d wait a bit for the platform to mature, then give it a shot.

In the meantime, I bought a FitBit Charge 4 (this was 2021-ish) which I used for about a year until now. The main features I liked from that watch were, in no particular order:

• Sleep cycle tracking
  • automatic sleep tracking, just keep it on your wrist and go to sleep. It sometimes detected me as sleeping while watching a movie, but other than that, very solid detection.
• Heart rate and calorie tracking in the app
• Small footprint, comfortable to wear
• Notification support (very hit or miss imo)
• It’s a watch and tells the time, of course

So, a bit ago I decided to give the PineTime a good solid test. At currently $27 plus shipping (!!) for a sealed watch, it was a clear next step, especially since supporting FOSS and data privacy are top-of-mind for me these days.

I’ve been using it for a week now - here’s my impressions.

Times are tough and the year is already going by too fast. Put it all out of your mind for a moment and take a break. Take a deep breath, too, while you’re at it.