Economy of Effort

December, 2005

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This week’s playlist

December 10th, 2005

Albums I’ve listened to this week:

Kate Bush – Aerials: A new Kate Bush album, and it’s pretty good. It’s a 2CD monster with the 2nd CD being a disc-long track (I’ll refrain from calling it an “epic”). Not as quirky and out there as my favorite Kate Bush album (The Dreaming), but very nice and dreamlike.

Broadcast – Tender Buttons: I first heard this group on Groove Magazine’s podcast, and went and got the album after reading the review in Wire. Nice electro-pop, kind of along the lines of Stereolab, but a “dirtier” sound, and much more willing to be sparse and not ride a steady, driving groove.

Tegan and Sara – So Jealouos: I shouldn’t like this album, and there are plenty of times where I don’t. They’re a pair of lesbian, indie-rockin’ sisters, but neither syrupy-sweet nor butch or punk-noisy. It’s punchy, catchy pop-rock, and though I can’t stand it at times, a few tracks keep getting replayed on the ol’ MP3 jukebox.

Radio Massacre International – Solid States: A two-disc release, the first disc of which contains parts of the group’s performance at ProgWest in 2002, which I got to see. Anything RMI is great to listen to when going to bed.

Amorphous Androgynous – Tales Of Ephidrena: One of my favorite electronic groups of all time is The Future Sound of London, and Amorphous Androgynous releases are as close as we’re going to get to any new FSOL releases. Good thing they’re good.

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Ubuntu

December 8th, 2005

I’ve finally got a Linux desktop set up how I want it, with the fewest steps possible.

Step 1: Download and install Ubuntu Linux (“Breezy” has been a big step forward IMO)
Step 2: Run the Automatix script to install all the pesky “non-free” stuff (Flash, Java, Windows fonts & media codecs, etc) with a few mouse clicks and no manual tinkering
Step 3: Open a terminal, type “dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig”, set Hinting to None, and Sub-pixel Rendering to Always

Step 3 was a revelation. I have long tried to get my Linux desktop fonts to look more closely like Cleartype on Windows. I was long been led to believe that hinting was the answer, and indeed, hinting was a big improvement over no hinting. But in the end, what I wanted was only sub-pixel rendering without hinting interfering with it. All that tinkering with font configuration files and stuff was unnecessary – just turning hinting off and sub-pixel rendering on in Fontconfig was all that I needed.

The Automatix script is something every Linux distro needs. Right now it is a 3rd party project with no shortage of developer drama surrounding it, but as it stands now, it just works. It gets all that non-free stuff installed without any of the hiccups that always seem to accompany doing it yourself.

It’s pretty sweet, and this last Ubuntu install and setup routine has easily been the most painless desktop Linux setup I’ve ever done.

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Dumb Stuff

December 1st, 2005

I don’t care for celebrity “news” much, but it’s hard to pass on this one: Paris Hilton believed in Santa Claus until she was 17. She must’ve at least figured it out by herself by then, right? Nope. Quote the trashy ho, “a mean person told me it wasn’t true.”

Here’s a mildly funny clip from Stacey’s favorite TV show, Boy Meets World: Corey wants to see more of Topanga (6MB video). What guy wouldn’t want to see that side of Danielle Fishel? Funny how episodes like this don’t seem to get shown on Disney Channel. Oh well. Here she is decked out football style. A Rashaan Salaam jersey never looked so good.

I don’t read or watch anything Harry Potter. I think I’ve seen this blonde French girl (the one on the left, not Gandalf!) in previews for the next movie or something though. Well, when people looked at her past work, they found she had been acting in the buff in some French film. I wonder if that’s what got her noticed by the Potter heads?

I recently discovered that Brian Eno’s “Another Green World” is a good album.

NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast is good too. Covers some music that I don’t normally keep that close of an eye on. Though recent episodes have featured stuff from Adrian Belew, Kasabian, and Gentle Giant, as well as the lost Coltrane/Monk recording that was discovered at the Library of Congress only this year.

Have you updated to Firefox 1.5? If not, get on with it already.

So the Sharks traded for Joe Thornton. Big deal. It doesn’t fix their real problem.

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