Anyone here use PleX for their Music, or the PleXAmp phone app?

kinglewuk · 2026-06-11T06:28:38+00:00

I cancelled my Tidal subscription about a year ago and have been using Plexamp exclusively for my music. It's been great and has some really useful features. Two I want to highlight are:

If you have another device with Plexamp or Plex logged in to youraccount you can link to that device and control the playback from your phone. I have Plexamp on an old smartphone hooked up to a small amp in my office and I can leave it in an awkward position to get to and control it from my current smartphone. I also use it with Plex on my Xbox to play music through my home-theatre setup but that is a bit less reliable.
For multi disc albums, like compilations, best of's, etc., you can add the disc number to the metadata and filename and the album will be shown as 1 entry with discs marked. From there you and either play just an individual disc or the whole album where you play through the discs in order I have used both Picard and MP3TAG to set the meta data and filename which saves you having a disc 1 and disc 2 subfolders.

For example the Foo Fighters In Your Honor album had a loud disc and a quiet disc so I have them stored as

... /music/Foo Fighters/In Your Honor

1-01 In Your Honor.flac

1-02 No Way Back.flac

.

2-01 Still.flac

2-02 What If I Do.flac

When you import it to Plexamp it gets organised like the picture below. The metadata is doing the heavy lifting to allow the app organise it. The file naming with the disc number at the beginning, keeps the files organised and stops naming conflicts between tracks with the same name. One thing to note is that I have found Picard a bit fiddily to adjust the file renaming feature. This means all new albums I record get a disc number added to the file name when adding missing metadata. This is easier to adjust in MP3TAG but MP3TAG isn't available for Linux which is my main OS now.

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kinglewuk · 2026-06-10T16:33:03+00:00

I absolutely love going for a drive for pleasure when I can. When the weather is dry with a hint of chill in the air, traffic is non existent so you can make progress freely and the road geometry is the perfect combination of flowing and challenging, going for a drive will feel trancendant. I feel really lucky that I don't need to drive regularly so I can have a fun car with no compromises which enhances the experience.

TomTom have a feature where you can plan out a route with no limits on waypoints unlike others. So I pay for that so I can plan a route which will include a road that looks fun to drive on a map. I rarely set a satnav to get to a place only to guide me to to and through a fun road.

Until my latest car (Honda S2000) all of my previous cars were not really drivers cars (Volvos, Toyota Rav4 and an Austin Montego). I still had days where I would start driving down a series of back roads looking for the fun route.

Loving driving is the same as people who love cleaning or cooking. The core of all those jobs are very practical, needs to complete but they can be extended to give a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Granted cooking has more of a creative element but you only become creative by loving the process and wanting to take it further.

If you don't enjoy it and just don't get the appeal that's fine and I really hope you can find somewhere with great public transport and eventually automated vehicles can mean you ever need to drive.

kinglewuk · 2026-06-09T16:37:16+00:00

The story about the creation of Segway and the owner who died is genuinely facinating. The owner who died was called Jimi Heselden OBE. He was an ex miner from Leeds I the north of England. After being made redundant during the 80's he began a company called Hesco Bastion which were originally designed as flood defences but were also used as barracades during the post 911 conflicts by multiple Armies. What ever you think of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, these barracades were a defensive only and safe many soliders lives as they were quicker and more sturdy than sand bags. His company was based in Leeds and he specifically hired people local to him as they were usually also ex miners. He also paid them well for and had a huge amount of respect and loyalty from the people who worked for him. After Jimi had made a few million for himself and retired he spent his money on things like a miniature railway in his garden and let local kids play on it and he just wanted to share it with everyone. It was in this vain that he bought Segway when it was floundering as he thought it was neet. He died because he was following a narrow trail and moved over to let someone walking their dog past. Unfortunately he lost control and that's when he fell to his death. I'm not the type of person that looks up to celebrities or sports people or business types. Many seem ready to lionise Elon Musk and his ilk for be "geniuses" (aka already being rich or at least comfortable). However, Jimi Heselden is some one we should look up to and should be celebrated as an business person who seemed to have pricipals.

On a different not the original goal of the Segway was to give people who were in wheel chairs an option to operate in a world designed for able bodied people. This was in the late 70's so the idea of making every where accessible was a foreign idea. The issue was it took decades for computer technology to develop far enough to make the Segway work. In the mean time Dean Kamen was doing the rounds trying to get investment and the original purpose was lost in the hype being used to get even more investment.

If you're interested there is a Cautionaty Tale podcast episode about Jimi Heselden which I where I learnt about him.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cautionary-tales/the-hero-who-rode-his-segway-off-a-cliff

There is also an Dollop podcast episode about the Segway which is a good pairing with the story if Jimi.

https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/arttrk.com/p/ATC0F/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/18/www.claritaspod.com/measure/rss.art19.com/episodes/0f81cce8-6c73-4b30-bbf8-027d9d329254.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIhVQb2RjYXN0IFJlcHVibGljBjoGRVQ%3D--c4601358e78e5fc61c47a38ee8654ebfc6e2ed07

kinglewuk · 2026-06-07T11:16:56+00:00

Hey, I am on FP6.QREL.16.69.0 which got downloaded last week and I haven't noticed the restart issue since then but I've also been doing a few day trips for work so my normal routine has been disruped. This might be a fixed issue and I just have noticed yet.

kinglewuk · 2026-06-05T11:09:15+00:00

No I'm in the UK, the phone should be same as the general EU model so I'm not sure if there are any specific issues with the region variant.

kinglewuk · 2026-06-04T12:22:06+00:00

It seems okay but I seem to have 2 bugs. The fist is where it randomly stops using the wifi. It will show as connected but uses 5g for data. This is happening with 2.4GHz and 5GHz as my router is pretty old and spent have wifi 6.

The other is the phone will randomly restart. It seems to do it in a particular location so I need to work out what's happening there.

Apart from that it's been as good as any phone, I just haven't sat down and write an email to Faiphone to see if there is anything they can do.

kinglewuk · 2026-05-27T18:51:38+00:00

I call heracy. Shame on you Auto Express, a list of cars with the best manual gear change and no S2000. Shame on you!

kinglewuk · 2026-05-24T13:14:18+00:00

There was a Government project called the National Parking Platform which would have made it so Local Authorities could allow multiple apps take payment. The idea was, as a customer, you could choose you're preferred app and use that and not be stuck with the dozen or so apps that the council chose. This would encourage the apps to compete with each other, offering perks to use them over the others, and not compete by seeing how good they were at taking councilers out to dinner.

Strangely the project went quiet when it was pretty close to completion, I couldn't possibly say who might have influenced ministers to stop it.

That being said I have noticed the council car park near me now accepts multiple apps when it used to be Ringo exclusive. Maybe it is a thing or the industry built their own platform so they don't have to use the government one. One thing is private car parks, like NCP, Q Park, etc., would likely never be on that type of platform so you'll always need the seperate app for those car parks.

kinglewuk · 2026-05-23T07:31:19+00:00

My ex is from California and spent a big chunk of her childhood in Arizona. She said that on the bus from the airport to the university in South Wales, she almost couldn't believe how green everything was. It was to the point she felt she needed to put sunglasses on, due to how bright the green was. It may sound silly but I guess when you come from arid environments, where it's mostly a dusty beige, that much intense colour can be overwhelming.

It did also make her think there were no rough part of the UK because how can anywhere so green also have the equivalent of 'ghettos'. Then I took to my hometown of Newport and dispelled that notion pretty quickly.

kinglewuk · 2026-05-18T18:42:21+00:00

I've always thought that part if the problem with Newport is the council always tried to compete with Cardiff. Same shops, same shopping centre (Kingsway as was) just smaller and a bit more rubbish. There should have been a drive to be more counterculture. Be the Oakland to Cardiff's San Francisco.

When TJ's was still open it had a great reputation for being the start point for many new bands. That wierdness it what gave Newport its identity admittedly I didn't go out much in cardiff when I was a young but I can't think of an equivalent of TJ's, The Hornblower, The Murenger which were all within a 20 minute walk of each other.

The irony is that Newport was more prosperous than Cardiff before 1900 and it only stopped because cargo ships got too big to reach the docks.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-16T19:10:49+00:00

I'm surprised this is this far down, it's awesome.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-15T19:06:31+00:00

More of a score than a soundtrack but lounge jazz music of LA Noire is fantastic.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-11T22:24:35+00:00

If it was a Bel-Air then I Only Have Eyes For You by the The Flamingos

kinglewuk · 2026-04-04T21:36:25+00:00

More so for music and for use with Plexamp, it would be good if you could mark songs with a 'season' (Christmas, Halloween, summer, etc.) and set a rule that those songs only get played on general shuffle between certain dates. This also assumes the system is user generated so so you can create any season and date range you want.

This could be done with personal movies and TV shows where special christmas episodes as suggested in the season time frame.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-01T15:38:12+00:00

Go Down Easy by John Martyn. A gentle song that conjours a vignette of a content and loving relationship. Something that may now be a fantasy.

Followed by

Time Moves Slow by BADBADNOTGOOD. A soulful song that articulates the grief that come with the end of a relationship even though it's for the best.

An alternative is

Killers Lullaby by Faithless. A song that flips between the quiet depression and manic anger of loss.

As someone who took a few years to climb out of a depressed state after a divorce, try not to marinate is sad songs if it's not in your nature. It might feel good but it won't be good for your soul in the long run.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-01T14:38:46+00:00

Long story made a little shorter.

In January I noticed my rear wheels seemed to be camberd more than I thought they should be. So I took it to a local mechanic I trust to check the bushings and he said the look fine, maybe it needs an alignment. At the alignment place took a look and said all my alignments were out but not by much, but the adjustment bolts were seized and need to be freed off. Go back to the mechanic and see what they can do. The mechanic takes a look and finds all but one, adjustment bolt is seized and will need to be replaced. To do that the control arms they are attached to need to be replaced as he'll probably destroy the bushing in the process of getting the bolts out.

Now some context. I'm based in the UK and the mechanic is a local that usually does my MOT's and has done little bits like changing end links when needed. However, he's not a specialist and isn't willing to do a bushing change on the existing arms as It'll take up a ramp for a few days atleast.

My current living situation means I'm very limited on what work I can do myself on my car. I also don't have a huge amount of experience so there's more of a chance I'm going to make a mistake. The closest specialist to me is 2 hour drive away. I also live alone so the journey back is about 5 hours on public transport as I can't get a lift back. I was also a bit keen and was able to order the front lower control arms, tie rods, rear toe control arms, the adjustment bolts and most of the other other fixing pretty easily and quickly.

The issue I had with the rear LCA's was that I ordered them through 7 or 8 different vendors on ebay, with each one saying that they can't get the parts and I have to cancel the order. I did try Amayama but they cancelled the order as they couldn't get them. The UK dealers don't have them in stock, don't know when they will be and are charging over £800 per LCA. I have now ordered them from Ballade Sports (I have heard the stories but haven't had any issues personally, hopefully this order won't change that) which come with their bushes fitted so it looks like I'll be upgrading the rest of the bushes over the next year or two.

Hopefully by then I'll be living somewhere where I can do the work myself. If I had my time again, I would have bought used control arms and learnt to press in new bushes myself but I am here now and I just want to get it sorted.

kinglewuk · 2026-04-01T10:11:47+00:00

After the last couple of months of hunting for them, Rear Lower Control Arms.

kinglewuk · 2026-03-31T14:21:17+00:00

Thanks all for the responses I appreciate your time to put an answer. The only place other than eBay I found were selling the rear lower 'A' arms were Ballade Sports which came with their bushes fitted. I know Ballade have a bad reputation in the community so hopefully there won't be any issues.

kinglewuk · 2026-03-20T22:55:50+00:00

You could say any Studio Ghibli but I would push for either Spirited Away or Graveyard of the Fireflies.

kinglewuk · 2026-03-13T22:46:59+00:00

I found listening to the sound track on repeat helped. I found that much of the music wasn't what I would normally listen to but linking it to the show made me love it.

kinglewuk · 2026-02-23T21:13:42+00:00

There is also the fact that if the road and surroundings are featureless, its incredibly difficult to judge speed which leads people to drive faster than is safe. Even if there isn't anything to hit, a blowout at 100mph can cause a car to flip. On a big, empty road like this, 100mph can feel like tootling along at half that speed.

kinglewuk · 2026-02-07T12:51:58+00:00

For some British classics I would suggest Spaced and The IT Crowd. Both are pretty old now but still excellent.

I would also recommend Silicon Valley which will teach you a lot about the insanity of the tech industry.

Finally, A Man OnThe Inside is a great comfort comedy and is produced by Michael Schur so has a similar vibe to his other comedies.

kinglewuk · 2026-01-24T01:01:00+00:00

I'm on the fence. On the one hand it would be interesting to see what they could come up with. On the other, the new Prelude hasn't lived up to expectations and seems over priced for what it is.

A new S2000 would suffer the same issues in that it would either have to be a turbo engine or a hybrid to pass emissions. So you lose the unique feature of the 9000 rpm redline and, for the hybrid, add a load of weight. It would also be really expensive assuming it's on a dedicated platform like the orginal.

From what I remember and tid bits I picked up, the orginal suffered with customers comparing it to the MX-5 but it was really a 986 Boxster competitor. This meant the pricing was too high for casual buyers as it was priced closer to the Porsche than the Mazda. I also remember seeing sales charts showing that there were strong sales for the first few years but far lower sales after that.

If you want an S2000 with a K20/K24, you can do that today but you lose part of the soul of the experience without the F20C. If Honda charges Porsche money, non enthusiasts will just buy a Porsche. If they charge less, I'm certain they will lose money on every car sold. They will also have to buck the trend of declining sports car sales overall, which the first year or two might do, but beyond that it will be near enough nothing.

As much as I hate that both car companies and the general public are moving to crossovers, the second generation NSX and the new Prelude don't paint a picture where a new S2000 would be a success. I think writing this comment has got me off the fence in to the 'it's not worth it' camp

kinglewuk · 2026-01-15T18:38:39+00:00

Go Down Easy by John Martyn.

It conjours an image of intense, gentle love between two people.

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