Overcast Podcast App Update Still Doesn’t Sync

By Jay Torres

Overcast just released an update to its podcast app. It looks great but it still does not fix a long standing annoying issue.

It still does not remember or sync playback position.

A common use case for me is that I will listen to a podcast on my phone and once I get home, I’ll continue listening on my laptop, or vice versa. On many occasions, I’ll hit play on the new device and notice whatever I was listening to sounds familiar. And it’s because I’d already listened to this portion 20 minutes ago in my car! And then I waste another minute or so trying to figure out where I left off. It is extremely frustrating.

The fix is to remember that when I am switching devices, I need to swipe down to “force refresh” the state of Overcast of my phone to the servers, then do the same on whatever device I plan to listen on, so that the state is now synced on my new device. Isn’t this the point of having servers? I know Apple’s podcast app does this seamlessly but I have used Overcast for so long, I actually like the app, even with this annoying quirk.

Am I using the app wrong? Does no one else come across this?

Given Marco’s popularity as an app developer and podcast host, he has many friends in the Apple sphere and I feel like many of them, even those in the Apple press, give him a free pass. Not one of these PR pieces mention the sync issue. I get these are PR pieces and not reviews.

I’ve long argued that Marco needs to sell the app to a company who can give it the attention that more than one person, who is mainly a podcaster, can give it (forgive the typos, I was so angry I ended up dictating to Siri when left this review).

Even he admits that:

Most of Overcast’s core code was 10 years old, which made it cumbersome or impossible to easily move with the times, adopt new iOS functionality, or add new features, especially as one person.

That’s why there haven’t been many new features or changes in years.

You saw it, and I saw it. I wasn’t able to serve my customers as well as I wanted.

I stopped paying for the in app purchase to unlock all features honestly because I didn’t want to give my money to someone who makes an app that doesn’t have a feature I need.

It looks like I’ll have to keep my money in my wallet until he addresses this or until Castro can get its act together.

Garage Insulation [Update]

By Jay Torres

I’m in the process of building a home office in my garage. The walls are finished but there is very little insulation. The winters are tolerable but the summers are uncomfortable.

I looked into garage insulation panels. I ordered a set and installed them today. I had leftover so I hastily patched some on the bare roof above my desk.

On the warmest days, it’ll get up to 90F in the garage. It looks like we have a hot week ahead and I’m looking forward to seeing if these work or not.

Update: After a couple days, it seems like the insulation is working. While it still gets warm, it seems like the rate that the garage heats up is slower and the max it’s gotten in here is 86-88F. Which makes sense.

The insulation slows the heat transfer from outside, through the garage door, to the inside of the garage. And since it slows the rate of transfer down, by the time the sun has moved across the sky, it never has a chance to heat up the garage.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the insulation. It doesn’t get uncomfortably hot and it makes the garage door look decent.

Kuya Lord Chef Lord Maynard Llera Wins James Beard Award for Best Chef: California

By Jay Torres

It’s so awesome to see Filipino food and Filipino chefs honored for their achievements.

Kuya Lord has received numerous accolades over the past two years, including landing on the Los Angeles Times’ 101 Best Restaurants and Bon Appétit’s 24 Best New Restaurants for 2023. As one of the highest-regarded restaurants in Los Angeles’s expansive Filipino dining scene, this award puts Kuya Lord on the national map alongside Chicago’s tasting menu restaurant Kasama and Seattle’s Musang.

★

Obvious travel advice

By Jay Torres

I love lists. Some good tips on traveling.

30. Time seems to speed up as you get older. And you wonder—is it biological, or is it because life had more novelty when you were a child? Travel partly answers this question—with more novelty, time slows way down again.

31. My favorite part of of travel is the perspective it gives on “regular” life. Why do I live the way I do? Is the stuff I do for work what I want to be doing? Should I blog about a “topic” instead of whatever shiny object last caught my eye? These thoughts seem healthy but also… not particularly related to traveling? If you designed an experience to create this kind of perspective, what would that look like?

43. Travel reveals the value of stability, roots, routine, community, relationships, and cooking at home.

Number 43 is so true. After a few days away, nothing feels better than coming home.

★

Vitsoe vs USM shelving

By Jay Torres

Fatih Arslan has a Vitsoe 606 set up and talks about the differences between Vitsoe and USM.

Someone asked this question on Twitter recently. Both are great brands with great products that have been used for decades. They are iconic and still used after so many years. This is a subjective comparison; obviously, they are very different regarding looks and usability. I have an extensive Vitsoe 606 setup but plan to extend certain places with USM. Some friends use USM, and I’ve seen them as well.

Come for the information, stay for the beautiful pictures.

★

The Technium: 101 Additional Advices

By Jay Torres

Kevin Kelly with another list of great bits of advice.

Six years ago I celebrated my 68th birthday by gifting my children 68 bits of advice I wished I had gotten when I was their age. Every birthday after that I added more bits of advice for them until I had a whole book of bits. That book was published a year ago as Excellent Advice for Living, which many people tell me they read very slowly, just one bit per day. In a few days I will turn 73, so again on my birthday, I offer an additional set of 101 bits of advice I wished I had known earlier. None of these appear in the book; they are all new. If you enjoy these, or find they resonate with your own experience, there are 460 more bits in my Excellent Advice book, all neatly bound between hard covers, in a handy size, ready to gift to a person younger than yourself.

★

East Coast quakes are felt farther than West Coast ones

By Jay Torres

The reason? The rocky underground east of the Rocky Mountains is generally hundreds of millions of years older than the subterranean formations east of that range. Being older means that those rocks are harder and denser, and the older fault lines have had more time to heal.

All of that means that seismic waves travel much more easily across the eastern U.S. The reverse is the case in the West, where the much younger faults absorb more of the seismic wave energy, which, as a result, doesn’t spread as efficiently as it does in the East.

I had no idea.

★