I do not normally write reviews of music. This is for a couple of reasons. The first is that I do not listen to that much new music. The second is that I generally just end up adding single songs from albums. However, this is a different situation. I am going to review the new album by Lucky Boys Confusion Stormchasers

History of the Band

It is possible that you have heard the name "Lucky Boys Confusion", also shortened to LBC, is likely a band you may have heard of before, but cannot place. The is because they had a single Hey Driver back in 2003 on their album Commitment. In fact, prior to Stormchasers, there were 8 previous albums.

The band hails from Naperville and Downer's Grove, both of these are western suburbs of Chicago. The fact that some of the band went to the same school as I did, does not hurt. There is something that makes their latest album special; it is their first album since 2009.

The previous songs from the band have had a variety of styles. These range from pop, to rap, to ska, and even rock and roll.

If you listen to a lot of LBC's songs, you will get a sense of what they are about. In the beginning of their career, a number of the songs revolved around two primary topics, "Life" and "Drugs", specifically weed and alcohol. The latter is not covered as extensively as it has been in their past songs, but the former is absolutely a primary focus of the new album.

The Songs

Stormchasers consists of 12 all new songs. They range from "traditional LBC" styles to more contemporary topics.

Growing Up

Some of LBC's older songs covered "growing up" and maturing. There are a couple of song on Stormchasers that elude to more maturing. The two songs that most exhibit this are "Sun In My Eyes", and "White Collar".

For "Sun in my Eyes", the following line exemplifies this.

How did we go from being so high to being so shallow?

This song describes the mellowing aspects to life, but also tackles the clarification of realizations as one ages. This song seems to capture the essence of how many individuals feel about their life.

The sun in my eyes doesn't bother me like it used to

The gossip and lies, they don't shake my world like they used to

And I don't need no paradise
I don't need careless points of view

These lines all express how as we get older the things that used to seem like the biggest concerns, are no longer areas of concern.

White Collar is likely my favorite song from the album. It is one of the top songs that I have listened to from the album. As the title implies, "White Collar" goes on to describe experience as a White Collar worker, with a twist.

"White Collar" in particular describes how many feel about their job:

Aren't we all stressing out without any meaning?
Chasing goals, put to you without any feeling
Show up, get paid
Hold on to your breathe while you plan your escape
Show up, get paid

These previous lines directly sum up how some people feel about their job. I also think there may be a hidden meaning in this song, somewhat of a lament of what could have been. Which brings us to the next set of songs, ones that reflect on life experiences

LBC's Experience

One of the the mainstays of LBC's music is their experience with record companies. This is most prevalent in the title track of their 2003 album, "Commitment". The "Commitment" song describes the limitation that record labels can put on artists. There are actually two spiritual successors to the song "Commitment" on this album. The first is "Name in Lights", the second is "Good Luck".

"Name in Lights" is what one might call a cautionary tale. What I mean by this is "Name in Lights" describes, what I surmise an experience that LBC went through when they became more mainstream and garnered national attention. The cautionary portion is most apparent in the line

I lost sight of the target
I got my name in lights

In this I think the band wants others to realize that while being a headliner is great, you can easily become distracted from the ultimate goal; playing and making music that the band and others enjoy. The advice within the song comes in the stanza:

Take ten shots at the half-moon
Remember not to fall in love
'Cause after the buzz, the chase kid
You'll get your name in lights

The song "Good Luck" is also a somewhat auto-biographical song about their experience with mainstream media. Most particularly the lines:

They skipped off to college
We got a van from a record company

This is exactly what happened to the band. While their peers were going off to college, the band went to California in a van from their Record Company in 2000. One of the other aspects to LBC songs is a somewhat "screw you" attitude. This is shown most appreciably in the lines:

Burned out they call us
Screw 'em, we got endless memories
Punk Rock and the polish
I hope it gave you something to believe

Even with the "screw you, I do not care what you think" attitude, there is still a bit of the "even though you are knocking us down, I still hope the songs meant something" feeling.

Songs about Life

There is one subject matter that prevails in LBC songs more than any other, "songs about life". This is covered in three songs, the title track "Stormchaser", "Burn a Little Brighter", and "A Candle in the Window (Please Come Home)".

Stormchaser is about two people, Johnny and Jamie. Both of these individuals are looking for a way to "feel alive",

When nothing's beautiful
You just want to disappear

Instead of doing something that they may regret, they decide to do something that changes this and likely outside of their comfort zone. So "Johnny built a rocket ship", and "Jamie had the nerve to quit". I think both of these lean towards a moral of the song. That moral is sometimes you have to do something drastic to make everything better in the end. This is definitely shown in the lines:

Stormchasers and stars
Find out who you are
Thinking like this can make life dangerous
Thinking like this can make life dangerous
Thinking like this can take life

On the subject of life, "Burn a Little Brighter" is one that I cannot tell if it is based on an actual incident, or merely captures a feeling about the state of America.

The song is about someone reminiscing about their fondest memories about a fallen classmate. I suspect this from the following.

And the best times that I remember 
Sneaking out the fire escape
Playing "Never Surrender"
But I never forget the officer said, 
"That you didn't come home from school today"

What this song is really about is school violence. Whether this is the shootings that make it into the national news, or just violence that many experience every day, I do not know. What makes me think this is the quote above along with this one:

There's something circling here on our street
Everybody's got a taste for more
It's a re-run, it's no mystery
I've seen this one before

All the outpour and the outrage was a spectacle to find
The pretenders and grifters, yeah just left me so resigned 
Grandma saw this part of his jacket and said he'd want it to be mine
Now Chicago burns a little brighter
Yet tonight she burns a little brighter

If you take the quotes above and pair them with the following one, I think it paints the entire picture.

It was later on the corner
The whole gang was getting high
And when we talked about it, everyone had alibis
Grandma always said there are different ways to say goodbye
Now Chicago burns a little brighter
I clench my fists a little tighter

This is only my interpretation of the song, but I think it is a plausible one. Regardless of what the actual meaning is, "Burn a little brighter" is a powerful song that can hit you on many levels.

The last song on the album is "A Candle in the Window (Please Come Home)". This song is a song about a woman whose husband is off to war. She is remembering all of the good times when he was at home. This is captured in these lines:

Days flew by when you were with me
Now missing you almost hurts
Until the siren sound
And feelings disperse

The song emphasizes that it will end at some point and to take solace in the dawn of a new day.

Sunrise don't cry
Listen to the birds they sing that everything's all right
He'll be home again to hold you
He'll be home again to hold you tight

The war is over
Finally we can sleep
The war is over
Finally we can sleep

There could be another interoperation of this song. "A Candle in the Window (Please Come Home)" may not be about an actual war, but could be about an internal war, or struggle, about losing a loved one, whether that is due to death or just due do a breakup. It is also possible that the song fits both interpretations.

Final Thoughts

If you are a fan of previous Lucky Boys Confusion music, then Stormchasers will not disappoint. It is a whole new set of brand new songs. While everyone will have their own personal favorites, there are absolutely songs for everyone on the album. Stormchasers mixes what fans have come to expect from Lucky Boys Confusion, but also takes it all to a whole new level.

While I do not want to wait another eight years for a new album, I think the time has allowed the band to really hone its skill and create one of the best, if not the best, album they have done to date.

In the intervening eight years since their last release, technology has changed significantly. Most notably, the modern era of streaming. Even though streaming has become the norm I purchased the album. I did this not only to support the band, but also because I knew I would likely end up listening to the album many times. I recommend that everyone go and give it a listen today. I think you will be glad that you did.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot stop all technology issues from occurring. We have all had our share of technology disasters. Through the years, I have had my own share. I have managed to lock myself out of countless computers, and I have even managed to delete some important files, this last one we have probably all experienced from time to time. One of the things that I do is take care of my devices. I cannot say that I am perfect with my gadgets I have had my share of issues.

I have managed to ding a couple of devices, most notably my original iPad, a cracked iPhone screen, and a scratch on a Series 0 Apple Watch. There is one product where I have had worse luck than others: the iPod nano. Besides experiencing the scratched front of the first iPod nano, I have managed to One of the other things that I have managed to do is lose an iPod. This was also an iPod Nano. Maybe I just have bad luck with iPod Nano. I have yet another story to add to the already existing list.

The Ordeal

So last Wednesday, just after 9 a.m. I went and used the restroom. After I was done and the toilet was flushing, I leaned over and I managed to lean over just a bit too far, and my AirPods fell out of my shirt pocket and straight into the toilet. Yes, you read that correctly. And before you think anything, the water was clean.

At first, as with most other times when something similar happens, you go "Wait, really?", and I quickly tried to grab them out of the toilet. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. If I would have been at home, I might have had a chance, but since I was at work, there was no hope due to the increased water flow. After realizing that what I hoped did not happen, actually did happen, I washed my hands, and went back to my desk.

If a single AirPod had dropped down a sewer or elsewhere I could have contacted AppleCare and paid for a replacement, or if I was able to reach it, I could have used a magnetic screwdriver or other magnetic tool to grab the AirPod, sadly that was not the case.

I already knew that getting a new pair of AirPods would not be very likely given that Apple's own shipping stated a 6 week order time. I had resigned myself to not being able to get a new pair anytime soon. I went looking on all sorts of websites to see if I could find any in stock, or relatively in-stock soon. This included the usuals: Amazon and Best Buy. Then I thought about it for a minute and realized that there was a site, Is In Stock and I looked there. As suspected, they said "Notify When Available".

I took a chance and looked at each of the sites listed. All of the sites either said "Not Available", or "add to cart" with delivery at a future date. I took a chance and ordered from one of the sites. An hour or so after I ordered, I contacted their chat help to see if they had any in stock. Lo and Behold, they did infect have "an stock". I take it that either the chat representative mistyped or English is not their first language. At this point, I was pretty confident that I would be getting my replacement AirPods this week. Luckily, they actually arrived on Saturday, so I now have another pair of AirPods. Even though I only spent a few days without them, I do have a few observations about having to return to using the wired EarPods.

Observations

During my few days having to return to using wired headphones. First off, wires are evil. They get tangled too easily in things, they are a hassle, and without an adapter, you can't charge and listen at the same time.

Of course, the EarPods do have some benefits, most notably that you can continue listen if you take an EarPod out, however, I have become accustom to it stopping when I remove an AirPod, so this behavior was a bit different to have to return to.

Having my Beats Solo 3 as a backup came in very handy. While the AirPods are very convenient, the bigger battery of the Beats Solo 3 Wireless allows them to to last for a quite a while. If I had not had them, I would have likely run home during my lunch and retrieved a pair of wired EarPods.

Once you become accustom to the AirPods, it is difficult to go back to using wired headphones.

Final Thoughts

I fully realize that me losing my AirPods is 1) entirely my own fault, 2) a "First World Problem". I will not deny either of them in the slightest. Strangely, I had the AirPods for exactly 120 days, this came out to about $1.33 per day. Was it worth the price, yes. However, I do wish the cost per day would have been amortized over the course of a couple of years, not 120 days.

I am glad that I was able to get another pair so quickly, otherwise it would have been tough to deal without them. Even in the short time that I have had them, I have come to rely on them. One thing that I will no longer be doing is putting AirPods in my shirt pocket. Instead, they will go in my side pocket or I will leave them somewhere else. If you are interested in the AirPods, now is the time to order them since it may take up to six weeks to arrive.

There is no way I could ever do this, even in 90 minutes, let alone 90 seconds.

While it is possible that Apple makes changes for developers outside of their World Wide Developer Conference, it does happen. Apple has made a few changes over the past two weeks that directly affect developers. These revolve around TestFlight, Search Ads, and Photos.

Test Flight Changes

Test Flight was acquired by Apple in February of 2014. Prior to purchase, Test Flight was capable of testing both iOS and Android applications. To no one's surprise, Apple quickly removed support for Android. As of February 2015, Test Flight, in its standalone capacity, was shutdown. Since then, Apple has slowly added some new features, but they have been modest. The most recent changes expand the service's capabilities.

One of the downsides that many developers have brought forth include the limitation of only allowing one build to be available to testers. While this approach may work well for testers outside of a company, inside the company it is often more beneficial to be able to test more than one build at a time. Test Flight now supports multiple builds, for both internal and external testers. When this is enabled, testers will be presented with multiple builds. The testers will need to choose which build to test, but the option is now available.

The second change for Test Flight revolves around testers, specifically grouping testers. As mentioned above, there are often times when a developer would like to be able to test multiple features. With the new multiple builds option, it is possible to test multiple builds, however each user who wants to test a specific build would need to be manually selected each time that a new build is to go live. This is no longer the case. Test Flight now supports grouping testers.

The grouping of testers now means that when there is a new build of an application, the developer can simply assign that build to a specific group. This streamlines the process that developers must go through when they wish to submit a specific build to a set of users.

The primary function of Test Flight is to allow developing of an application. Once an application has gone through the testing phase, the final step is to release the build into the App Store. When this step occurs, the test build that was running no longer runs. This behavior has changed. Now, when an application that was being used with Test Flight goes live in the App Store, the Test Flight build can continue to be used. The primary benefit of this change means that there should now be minimal interruption when an application goes live.

These are all of the changes that have been made to Test Flight, but these are not on the only changes that have been made. Next let us look at Search Ads.

Search Ads

Search Ads were introduced last June, the week before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. Search Ads are advertisements that developers can purchase and appear within the App Store application. At their launch, Search Ads was available only in the United States. As of Tuesday, April 25th, Search Ads will be available in a few more countries. These countries are the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

While the number of countries that are included is still small, being able to work out the bugs in the system, before doing a wider roll out makes sense. It is entirely possible that this is Apple's strategy. Alongside this, different countries will possible require different layouts given the difference in character types, as well as widths. This is a good start for future expansion.

Live Photos

At their September 2015 event for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple introduced a new feature, Live Photos. Live Photos are photos that allow motion. In reality, these are quick movies that have some photos on each end of the movie. One of the issues with Live Photos is that they do not work on anything other than iOS and macOS. This is no longer the case. Apple has released a new Javascript Framework, LivePhotoKitJS. This framework allows any website to be able to load and play Live Photos.

What this ultimately means that sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can all display any Live Photos that have been taken to other users. Once these sites do add this ability, it will go a long way to do making Live Photos available for everyone. Besides having big developers implement the feature, this is a way for other non-Apple developers to be able to display Live Photos within their applications as well.

If you go to developer.apple.com/live-photos/ you can see an example of the Live Photos Javascript framework in action. Apple has used it on their own website to show off a couple of Live Photos. Full documentation is also available at developer.apple.com.

Final Thoughts

While these changes only affect developers directly, there will be some smaller benefits to all users. With the Test Flight changes, this means that developers can focus on more than just one feature or update at the same time. With Search Ads, more developers will be able to get their applications in front of more users. With Live Photos Framework, the richness of the web has been expanded to allow an even better experience for everyone.

Apple makes a significant portion of its money off of its hardware. The gross margin across all of their hardware products is roughly 40%. When you sell millions of iPhone in a quarter, you generate huge amount in profits, enough to be the most profitable company in the world. With hardware being such a significant portion of Apple's profits, this means that a much smaller portion of their profits.

The best way to sell an even higher number of hardware devices is to provide good software. Apple began doing this with their iOS devices from the beginning, and allowed 3rd party developers to create software in 2008. By doing this, Apple has created a vast ecosystem of applications. This strategy has been so successful, that there are over 2.2 million applications available.

In order to provide an even better experience between their devices as well as provide an even more consistent experience, Apple had made a few of their applications free. The list of applications includes:

Previously, these applications were only available when you purchased new hardware. For instance, if you purchased a new Mac you could get Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for free. Similarly, if you purchased an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you could receive them for free as well. If you did not receive the applications for free they would cost between $5 and $20 each.

The rationale behind making these applications for free is not entirely known, but there may be a few possible reasons. The first is that by providing the applications for free, Apple is able to provide even more value for the amount already expended for hardware. Most particularly, this strategy may provide a boon to iPads. In particular, if a user purchases a new iPad having professional-level applications available will make the purchase even more worthwhile. Additionally, by providing the applications for free on both platforms the experience when going between both iOS and macOS will be even more consistent.

Given that Apple does make so much money from the hardware, it seems like a rounding error to provide these applications for free. If you decided to not purchase them before, you can now go ahead and get them for free.

As most may be aware, Apple is a very secretive company. Apple prefers to keep to themselves until they are ready to announce a product. There are only a few times when Apple will reveal a product before it is available. A few of the product that they have done so include the iPhone, the Apple TV, and the 2013 Mac Pro.

It is not often that Apple reveals what they are working on. However, Apple has done just that, although not as explicitly as they did with the iPhone or the Apple TV. Apple invited a handful of journalists to visit their "Machine Lab" on Apple's campus across from One Infinite Loop. Apple did not show off any physical product, but they did describe what they are working on.

In June of 2013, at their World Wide Developer Conference, Phil Schiller unveiled that Apple was working on a revolutionary design for their high-end Mac Pro. This came on the heels of many "pundits" indicating that Apple lost its way. This lead to Schiller giving the infamous "Can't innovate my ass" quote. This is when Apple unveiled the all new Mac Pro.

The design of the Mac Pro is a very customized design that had not been tried before. The thermal core of the Mac Pro is triangular. The Mac Pro has dual graphical processing units occupying two sides of the triangle thermal core. The third side has the processor. The thermal core is designed to move all of the heat up through the central core and out of the top of the Mac Pro.

The exterior of the Mac Pro is smooth. However, from Apple's own wording, the interior design, while ambitious, has ultimately not worked out as well as they would have hoped. In reality, the tolerances for the thermal core were too close and if Apple changed any of the internal components, the Mac Pro would not be able to work properly.

Due to the tight tolerances, the Mac Pro has lacked any upgrades since its introduction in 2013. Apple has made some slight upgrades to the Mac Pro. In reality, they are not upgrades as much as a better value for the same price. The new base model comes with dual AMD D500 GPUs, and a 6-core processor. This is up from the 4-core and AMD D300. The higher-end model comes with an 8-core processor and the AMD D700s. This is up from the 6-core and AMD D500 processors. For now, these are the only changes to the Mac Pro.

At this same meeting, Apple did provide some details on their new Mac Pro. Apple is currently working on a new modular Mac Pro. The modularity is not necessarily end-user modularity, but more likely, for Apple to be able to upgrade the Mac Pro on a more regular basis, but it will not be with the current form factor. Apple indicated that this new Mac Pro will "not be available this year".

Alongside the new Mac Pro, Apple also indicated that it is working on a new display. This goes against what some reports indicated before. Previously, it was reported that Apple was completely out of the display game, since Apple partnered with LG to work on the LG Ultrafine 5k Display that was introduced in the fall with the MacBook Pro with Touchbar.

Apple did not give any more specific information about the Mac Pro. However, they did mention that they are working on a new iMac model that is geared towards professionals. What this entails, is not entirely clear. It is entirely possible that Apple will have even more powerful processors, and possibly even higher maximum amounts of memory. One of the better items that Apple could put into an iMac Pro would be a 6 or 8 core-processor with the possibility of having 64 or 128GBs of memory.

All that we know is that Apple is working on these items. There is no information as to when the redesigned Mac Pro or the iMac Pro will be released, but it is only a matter of time before the new Macs are released. One thing that I would like to see is any new information about a new Mac Mini, but there is no new information about it.