We are, you might say, "brainwashed" into thinking that money is the source of happiness while what we really need to know is that inner peace is something that comes from within.
— Dalaï-lama
We are, you might say, "brainwashed" into thinking that money is the source of happiness while what we really need to know is that inner peace is something that comes from within.
— Dalaï-lama
I often ask myself what is the purpose of our lives and I conclude that life's purpose is to be happy. We have no guarantee what will happen in the future, but we live in hope. That's what keeps us going.
— Dalaï-lama
My system has three key pillars: “Make sure to get the important shit done”, “Don’t waste time on stupid shit”, and “make a lot of lists”.
Sounds good to me. Sam Altman has a few other productivity tips. Check his website for more.
What a great story by Businessweek Kit Chellel:
Across the road from Happy Valley, 27 floors up, two Americans sat in a plush office, ignoring a live feed of the action that played mutely on a TV screen. The only sound was the hum of a dozen computers. Bill Benter and an associate named Paul Coladonato had their eyes fixed on a bank of three monitors, which displayed a matrix of bets their algorithm had made on the race—51,381 in all. Benter and Coladonato watched as a software script filtered out the losing bets, one at a time, until there were 36 lines left on the screens. Thirty-five of their bets had correctly called the finishers in two of the races, qualifying for a consolation prize. And one wager had correctly predicted all nine horses. “F---,” Benter said. “We hit it.”
We go straight to the doctor office with Dr Erick Morillo and Dr Jamie Jones Featuring Gene Farris serving a good dose of Medication
{% spotify 1DBvGrfyTK834XHgbLZIUw %}
Moving on with a track by Rumore called Gotta Have It - Fresh 2 Mix
{% spotify 5kpT3AApsOZvAywixuS3yH %}
Coming from left field, Andreas Henneberg drops a phat beat and rhymes away on Password Invalid
{% spotify 76UWRD9HRIjqhzoslmDsRi %}
Deep house track from Sabb, SIS Down Under - Original Mix
{% spotify }7JHfnH8BJKDh5GFTniEr0V %}
Going deep with Clarian tracks remixed by Tim Engelhardt Television Days
{% spotify 5x88oDLGIIdaY48G2kXc5t %}
Another deep track this time from Cubik called On Islands - Original Mix
{% spotify 251vKvj1JiA9QtF7CvkB0F %}
I also am a parent of two kids with iPads and Dave’s post about parental control resonated with me. I agree with everything he said in his post. To be able to make a category of apps disappear during homework hour would be awesome. Having the iPad auto-shutdown at a certain time and not being able to start without entering the parent password would be sublime. Thanks Dave for writing this and I surely hope Apple listens. Go check out his article, he has more ideas to bring forward.
The death of network neutrality and the loosening of regulations on how Internet providers handle customers' network traffic have raised many concerns over privacy. Internet providers (and others watching traffic as it passes over the Internet) have long had a tool that allows them to monitor individuals' Internet habits with ease: their Domain Name System (DNS) servers. And if they haven't been cashing in on that data already (or using it to change how you see the Internet), they likely soon will.
DNS services are the phone books of the Internet, providing the actual Internet Protocol (IP) network address associated with websites' and other Internet services' host and domain names. They turn arstechnica.com into 50.31.169.131, for example. Your Internet provider offers up DNS as part of your service, but your provider could also log your DNS traffic—in essence, recording your entire browsing history.
My first pick of the week is soulful god Mr Robert Owens with Misty - feat Robert Owens - Hammer and Tongs Version
{% spotify 16W8L9rToPmA6zoRGMH5IK %}
Going deep with Mr Davide Squillace with In The Mood For Love - Original Mix
{% spotify 7lt6WPaswwUO0JCYUe0FxS %}
Second track Dole & Kom with Phara Oh
{% spotify 5TrkFfJgrGa1PdAkJO5QAs %}
Next comes this rework of the Pink Panther from PAWSA the Groovy Cat Extended Remix
{% spotify 1T4SOyIghsWjNjeQ5C3Amf %}
Looping through hard and up beat with Stanny Abram My home
{% spotify 0u8fH6mG7BfxtFLEoolTM1 %}
Ending with this classic track from Mr Finger and Mr Robert Owens Can you feel it (Alternate Mix)
{% spotify 0XRLJelccHnnJ5scCab6GR %}
UPDATE 1: I've modified a bit of a section from this here.
Here is my music setup at home. I have a mac mini that's been transformed to a server running debian stretch. It runs a few deamons. I have mopidy as my main web interface which is also connected to Spotify and Soundcloud through mopidy plugins. What is mopidy? Taken from their github site 'Mopidy is an extensible music server that plays music from local disk, Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Play Music, and more.' The backend is forked-daapd which is a Linux/FreeBSD DAAP (iTunes) with support for AirPlay devices (multiroom). Mopidy connects to forked-daapd that then streams to any AirPlay devices to multiple rooms in my house. Im pretty happy with this setup but I wanted more. I wanted to be able to use my iDevices or having my spouse or kids to be able to steam to our multiroom setup. That's when shairport-sync comes in. I can pipe the music stream to forked-daapd that send audio to all AirPlay devices and not only that but also the metadata from the shairport-sync.
I know you could do with something like Rogue Amoeba Airfoil but then you need your mac to be on at all time which I didnt want to do. Part of the reason that I installed linux on the mini is also because I run Kodi on it. It runs these daemons and kodi. I didnt want the bloat of running macOS just for that.
Here is the kicker with this setup, I could put speakers anywhere either inside or outside the house thats connected to the network and play music from any devices to them. Putting speakers outside is on my to-do list which seems to be getting longer and longer. Ohh the joy of owning a house in Upstate NY. But in any case I digress, it's super easy to transform a raspberrypi into an audio hub with shairport-sync. The quality of the audio isnt that great on the first generation of raspberrypi devices but seem to be fairly decent on newer 2+ models. Dont quote me on this.
Here are the steps I've used.
To download mopidy you should follow the instructions on this page https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/installation/. For my debian box, here is what I did.
I added the mopidy GPG key:
$ wget -q -O - https://apt.mopidy.com/mopidy.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
Added the APT repo to your package sources:
$ sudo wget -q -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mopidy.list https://apt.mopidy.com/stretch.list
Install Mopidy and all dependencies:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install mopidy
You can search for every extensions on the repository with the search command which is very useful. For example, installing extensions spotify and soundcloud.
$ apt search mopidy
$ sudo apt install mopidy-spotify mopidy-soundcloud
If you have a local music library then make sure you point it to the right directory. Here is my config file located in /etc/mopidy/mopidy.conf. You should check out https://docs.mopidy.com/en/latest/config/ to fully understand all the possibilities. I disabled MPD because I didnt need it. You should replace $USER with your actual home folder.
[core]
cache_dir = /var/cache/mopidy
config_dir = /etc/mopidy
data_dir = /var/lib/mopidy
[logging]
config_file = /etc/mopidy/logging.conf
[audio]
output = audioresample ! audioconvert ! audio/x-raw,rate=48000,channels=2,format=S16LE ! wavenc ! filesink
location=/home/$USER/music/mopidy
[mpd]
enabled = false
[http]
enabled = true
hostname = 0.0.0.0
port = 6680
zeroconf = Mopidy HTTP server on $hostname
[softwaremixer]
enabled = true
[local]
enabled = true
library = json
media_dir = /home/$USER/music
scan_timeout = 1000
scan_flush_threshold = 100
excluded_file_extensions =
.directory
.html
.jpeg
.jpg
.log
.nfo
.png
.txt
[spotify]
enabled = true
username = alice
password = secret
bitrate = 320
client_id = client_id value you got from mopidy.com
client_secret = client_secret value you got from mopidy.com
[scrobbler]
username = alice
password = secret
[soundcloud]
auth_token = 1-1111-1111111
For more information on the mopidy-spotify plugins check out https://github.com/mopidy/mopidy-spotify. What I had to do to be able to fun spotify was to modify the config files /etc/mopidy/mopidy.conf. You will need to find your spotify username and password that are located in your account overview page at https://www.spotify.com/us/account/overview/ and put it instead of the ones below. After you put your info in the conf files you will need to visit https://www.mopidy.com/authenticate/#spotify to authorize this extension against your Spotify account:
[spotify]
username = alice
password = secret
client_id = client_id value you got from mopidy.com
client_secret = client_secret value you got from mopidy.com
To configure mopidy-soundcloud located https://github.com/mopidy/mopidy-soundcloud you need to follow the following steps stated on the website:
[soundcloud]
auth_token = 1-1111-1111111
explore_songs = 25
Systemd ways of running services is fairly easy. You should enable it using:
$ sudo systemctl enable mopidy
Now that this is enabled, it will start mopidy after each boot.
To start, stop and restart you use the following command:
$ sudo systemctl start mopidy
$ sudo systemctl stop mopidy
$ sudo systemctl restart mopidy
You can check the status of the service with:
$ sudo systemctl status mopidy
We will need a web interface to be the front end of mopidy. My two favorite are Mopidy-MusicBox-Webclient and Mopidy-Mopify both available with pip. Mopify is great for spotify access and musicbox is great for iDevices.
$ sudo pip install Mopidy-Mopify
$ sudo pip install Mopidy-MusicBox-Webclient
Now that its installed you should go to the URL 0.0.0.0:6680 to see if it worked.
Here are the step that I use to install forked-daapd.
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential git autotools-dev autoconf libtool gettext gawk gperf antlr3 libantlr3c-dev libconfuse-dev libunistring-dev libsqlite3-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavfilter-dev libswscale-dev libavutil-dev libasound2-dev libmxml-dev libgcrypt11-dev libavahi-client-dev zlib1g-dev libevent-dev libplist-dev libsodium-dev libjson-c-dev libwebsockets-dev
Optional packages:
| Feature | Configure argument | Packages |
|---|---|---|
| Chromecast | --enable-chromecast | libgnutls-dev libprotobuf-c-dev |
| LastFM | --enable-lastfm | libcurl4-gnutls-dev OR libcurl4-openssl-dev |
| iTunes XML | --disable-itunes | libplist-dev |
| Device verification | --disable-verification | libplist-dev libsodium-dev |
| Live web UI | --with-libwebsockets | libwebsockets-dev |
| Pulseaudio | --with-pulseaudio | libpulse-dev |
$ git clone https://github.com/ejurgensen/forked-daapd.git
$ cd forked-daapd
$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --with-pulseaudio --enable-lastfm
$ make
$ sudo make install
Now that it's installed check the config file /etc/forked-daapd.conf and make sure you have your music directory in the config file like below.
# Directories to index
directories = { "/home/$USER/music" }
and to stream the music from other devices via the pipe that we will create later we need to make sure it set to true. Let's adjust one more thing in the config file.
# Watch named pipes in the library for data and autostart playback when
# there is data to be read. To exclude specific pipes from watching,
# consider using the above _ignore options.
pipe_autostart = true
I disabled a bunch of other options because I didnt need them like MPD, spotify and such.
Done with config file, lets move to have it run it as a service. Here is my forked-daapd.service file located in my /etc/systemd/system folder. I use the following options are
-f-d 0-c /etc/forked-daapd.conf[Unit]
Description=DAAP/DACP (iTunes), RSP and MPD server, supports AirPlay and Remote
Documentation=man:forked-daapd(8)
After=network.target sound.target remote-fs.target pulseaudio.service avahi-daemon.service
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/forked-daapd -f -d 0 -c /etc/forked-daapd.conf
# Restart, but not more than once every 10 minutes
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitBurst=2
StartLimitInterval=600
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Like mopidy and any other systemd services, to enable forked-daapd to run here is what I do.
$ sudo systemctl enable forked-daapd
Now that this is enabled, it will start forked-daapd after each boot.
To start, stop and restart you use the following command:
$ sudo systemctl start forked-daapd
$ sudo systemctl stop forked-daapd
$ sudo systemctl restart forked-daapd
You can check the status of the service with:
$ sudo systemctl status forked-daapd
If it's running you should be able to go to http://[your_server_address_here]:3689 and see your current AirPlay devices. You will be able to toggle them on or off.
Now, here is where the magic will happen, creating a pipe. Make sure you have the right permissions meaning that $USER can read/write to the music folder. Maybe perharps a chmod -R 755 music. Lets also restart forked-daapd.
$ mkfifo /home/$USER/music/shairport
$ mkfifo /home/$USER/music/shairport.metadata
$ chmod 777 shairport shairport.metadata
$ sudo systemctl restart forked-daapd
Now that we have forked-daapd running we need to start installing shairport-sync in order to have other user or devices able to stream to the AirPlay devices.
sudo apt install build-essential git xmltoman autoconf automake libtool libdaemon-dev libpopt-dev libconfig-dev libasound2-dev libpulse-dev avahi-daemon libavahi-client-dev libsoxr-dev
Let's download shairport-sync and build it. I used the following settings for building shairport-sync. Do check the README.md file for more information about each settings. It has tons of information. I also run shairport-sync on a raspberrypi
$ git clone https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync.git
$ cd shairport-sync
$ autoreconf -i -f
$ ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --with-alsa --with-pa --with-avahi --with-ssl=openssl --with-metadata --with-soxr --with-systemd
$ make -j4
$ sudo make install
My shairport-sync.conf file in /etc
general = {
name = "SHAIRPORT";
output_backend = "pipe";
};
metadata = {
enabled = "yes";
include_cover_art = "yes";
pipe_name = "/home/$USER/music/shairport.metadata";
}
sessioncontrol = {
allow_session_interruption = "yes";
session_timeout = 20;
}
pipe = {
name = "/home/$USER/music/shairport";
audio_backend_buffer_desired_length = 48000;
}
Now that you have the pipe set up you will be able to have music sent to all your speakers selecting the SHAIRPORT device. You should now make shairport-sync start at boot time. Lets use systemd again. It should have installed the file already in the /lib/systemd/system/shairport-sync.service folder and possibly created a shairport-sync user and group. Here is the conf file just in case.
[Unit]
Description=ShairportSync AirTunes receiver
After=sound.target
Requires=avahi-daemon.service
After=avahi-daemon.service
Wants=network-online.target
After=network.target network-online.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/shairport-sync
User=shairport-sync
Group=shairport-sync
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Let's make sure it will run after each reboot enabling it in systemd and then let's restart it.
$ sudo systemctl enable shairport-sync.service
$ sudo systemctl restart shairport-sync.service
In any of the systemd services conf file above either for mopidy, forked-daapd or shairport-sync you should make sure if it's running. Troubleshooting various issues like permissions, wrong ExecStart configuration would be where I would start if you run into trouble.
Now you should be able to stream either via mopidy using the web interface within the URL 0.0.0.0:6680 to your AirPlay speakers or you could also use your iDevices/laptop to stream to all your AirPlay speakers. Ive been running this setup for quite some time and its rocking the house. I should also mention that it does have a 4-5 sec latency issue but I dont mind since its only for our listening pleasure. No mixing involve yet..
How cool is that. I didn’t expect the newly released movie to be based on a true story. Fun times! Thank you Jason for bringing this up.
{% youtube kjC1zmZo30U 1024 %}