Short form
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Edit: that didn’t take very long ↩︎
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External link to YouTube ↩︎
A Raspberry Pi project is a bit like getting your first tattoo. Once you have one you keep getting more and more.
I don’t have any tattoos myself but the ever increasing number of Pi project is proving my point.
Often people try to mask their intentions with words. But in the end actions or lack thereof always reveal the true story.
Last week we saw a prime example of this behavior. With a political implosion as a result.
These days, a relatively modest investment can buy amazing audio quality. One dilemma is sending music to the DAC/AMP (now directly connected to the PC). With a bit of tinkering and a Raspberry Pi this should be solvable. Should look into this some more, looks like a fun project to do1.
Ever since Spotify launched in The Netherlands I have been a subscriber (even before the official launch… but let’s not tell Spotify). But now music discovery and keeping everything organized is getting harder by the day. These issues small and not real dealbreakers, but still…
My 60+ playlists (educated guess, didn’t want to count) are a hot mess of curated lists and my lists (with no way of keeping them separate). I have lists based on genre, new finds, based on band, albums, list where I store all-time favorites, ….. (sometimes even creatively combined). So if I want to find a specific artist/track and I don’t recall the name I have to start guessing in which playlist I may have saved the song. This wouldn’t be so bad if I would know which playlists are mine and which are curated by the service. Well I just have to open them all and start looking… wait… was “90s acoustic” my own or is it by Spotify??
The “Made for You” part has gradually starting to offer me more of the music I already listen to… just split in more different playlists.
What also doesn’t help is that the play and search history isn’t synced between apps and desktop. And don’t ask me why the homepage only shows “Recently Played” playlists but leaves out individual tracks?? Earlier today I couldn’t remember the name of a new artist I listened to the day before and wanted to check out. Spend half an hour to find the track I listened to (was well hidden in the search on the iOS app so showed no trace on desktop).
At the moment I do not have a solution for the issues above. And don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the service, just getting my thoughts out there for future reference.
A daily writing habit never stuck. Is this topic interesting and my writing good enough? The one thing the Mbnov challenge showed me is to adjust this mindset. Not every post has to be insightful, long, and articulated. Just, write. Tomorrow offers a new opportunity to do it even better.
Working from my home office, most of the day is spend on Teams video conferencing. After quite some time, I’m now pretty used to looking at a screen while discussing stuff. But for a one-on-one conversation, it’s still not as convenient as the good old telephone call to me.
I got triggered by a post from Ton Zijlstra about the 512k club. With two quick changes to my Micro.blog website I reduced the uncompressed size from 3,3Mb to 141Kb. Mainly resizing a image and not embedding YouTube.
Still some other small optimizations I will do tonight (getting rid of Gravatar in the Marfa theme).
The provision to focus on important topics vs seemingly urgent random stuff requires me to look ahead. 4 PM each day I draft my todo-list for the next day. This single action results in two things: a todo list for tomorrow and a clear picture of what still needs to be done today
After 16 years my trusty Sennheiser HD-25 headphones broke. Nothing that can not be fixed with some DIY maintenance. I the meantime this provides an opportunity to tryout a new set of headphones with a different sound signature. Picked up the Beyerdynamic 770 Pro, quite excited.
Capture a thought, even if it’s only a short message, by writing every day. I realize that it’s not so much what I write. It’s about how it helps me to reflect on the day.
For the second time this year, the youth department of a right-wing political party in The Netherlands crossed a border. Sharing anti-Semitic expressions on WhatsApp and Instagram. Unbelievable, but you get what you sow. Throwing out whistleblowers, letting offenders stay.
Exactly one month from now before it will be officially winter. That means one month of autumn left. Didn’t really get outside that often with my camera during this beatiful time of year. But still 31 days to make it up and enjoy the fall colors.
Why does Spotify think it’s a good idea to auto-start the app? Didn’t set it up to do so and it’s not in the OSx login options. Disable auto starting is kindly hidden by Spotify in it’s own menu. Burried in the “advanced” section. Bugs me everytime I do a clean install.
Staying within the theme, one of those old gems for me is “Mazzy Star - Fade into you”1
Being at home more re-sparked my passion for music. It’s kinda liberating to kick back with a glass of wine. Hit play and enjoy an evening listening to new music and rediscovering old gems. If things return to normal this, I hope, will not fade away.
Today marks my Micro.blog anniversary (based on my initial post). The first project I’ve backed on Kickstarter. It has been a great three years in this awesome community. Less focus on fiddling with templates and code, more attention to the writing part.
I’m switching note-taking setup. I’d used a combination of DevonThink, Apple Notes, and Notion. Now moving everything to Obsidian. Various buckets didn’t work out for me. Moving is a challenge, but it should be possible and will help bring much-needed structure.