busybee fluffy rambles

Several years ago I tried using Qrates to do a pressing of Refactor. Unfortunately it didn’t hit the minimum preorder size, so the project was canceled.

Recently someone at Qrates reached out to me and was enthusiastic about the idea of me giving it another try, and since Lo-Fi Beats to Grind Coffee To has somewhat broader appeal, I decided to give it another shot.

So, if you would be so kind as to visit the Qrates crowdfunding page and maybe even consider buying a copy or two or ten, it would be greatly appreciated.

So, within a day of the Bandcamp announcement, several folks had already started building their own tools for escaping from Bandcamp. Of particular note (and brought to my attention many times) is one called blamscamp, which is a web-based GUI that builds a web player bundle for itch.io.

This tool definitely has a lot of merit, but in the near term it only handles one specific use case, namely taking a collection of already-encoded-for-the-web mp3s and turning it into an itch previewer. The player itself is nicely-written, but this isn’t the sort of tool which works well for me.

So, I adapted the player engine into my own version, which is a CLI tool. Feed it a JSON spec, audio files, and ancillary data (album art and lyrics and such), and it automatically encodes and tags the album for MP3 preview, high-quality MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC, and builds a web player (based on the original blamscamp’s although it’s diverged quite a lot now). And, if you install butler, it can also automatically upload these bundles to your itch page!

Here is the first public demo of it.

With all that said, I do still intend to keep using Bandcamp as my primary music distribution platform; it’s been very good to me over the years, and just because they’re being bought out by a questionable company doesn’t mean it’ll actually go downhill. But diversifying my offerings is always a good thing, and by posting my music in both places, I get even more of a potential audience. Plus, the satisfaction of owning (a big part of) my own delivery pipeline.

The pyBlamscamp pipeline can also be adapted to anything that takes a bundle of files; it could also be used, for example, to simplify the process of posting albums on Gumroad.

At present the main difficulties of it are that it’s a Python application and that it relies on external encoders. One of my potential change sin the future is to have it self-host the encoder libraries which would make a lot of things easier, and would also make it more feasible to provide a stand-alone application.

It’d also be really handy to have tools that make it easier to create and edit the .json file. That’s definitely a rough edge that’s not suitable for general end users.

There’s also a heck of a lot of things that still need to be done even for my own uses. But for now, this tool is at least ready to get started with.

EDIT: god damnit I should have called it “bandcamp” aejrklajrlajlajla i’m not gonna rename this twice in one day

Maybe I should have been checking my blood pressure more frequently. I didn’t check it at all yesterday like I should have and just assumed it was fine, because I just woke up at 4:40 AM feeling a bit off and on a hunch I checked my blood pressure… which is now 169/86.

Wellp, so much for my last chance at being medicated.

Wellp, now there’s water that leaks out from around the base of my toilet when I flush it.

I am guessing that the plumber didn’t replace the wax ring.

Sigh.

So I’ve been on Vyvanse for many days now. Four total, one last Friday and three this week.

So far it isn’t really helping me, but it also isn’t hurting me. This is also just like the lowest possible dose for trial purposes, though.

It makes me feel awake and a bit alert. I also feel like I’m a bit more prone to irritation and feeling stressed, but that might just be other situational things happening right now. It hasn’t really helped with focus at all.

My heart rate and blood pressure are slightly higher than usual but not alramingly so.

I think it’ll be worth trying the next dosage up at some point. I have a followup with my doctor next week to discuss that. It’s promising.

Today I drove for the first time while on it and boy howdy did that feel weird. I’ll probably want to go without it during my trip in a few weeks.

We’ll see how I feel this weekend.

A large chunk of the company I work for is Ukraine-based. Today, one of my coworkers (who lives in the US, but still has family back in Ukraine) posted this message, which I am sharing with his permission (he asked not to be named, for the safety of himself and his family):

Please read this carefully. This is a most realistic analysis from me since I’m thinking about it for last 40 hours non stop.

The World has changed. This is the biggest act of aggression since the WW II.

Guys I wanted to emphasize this again. US media might not represent it well, but Putin’s idea is to take down the whole Ukraine, because he can’t stand the idea that some of what he thinks satellites has chosen the democracy… After he taken down Ukraine, he will heal his wounds… And since he has nothing to lose he will take over Eastern Europe and maybe claim Alaska as a “historical” russian land. He has no moral identity — they are shelling our schools, hospitals, blood donation centers, kindergardens.

More than that China is watching this brutal act of aggression and making some conclusions of the Western world weakness.

And trust me if Ukraine falls — here in the US, everything will be very bad. It’s not even about our business it’s all about global economy and possible global militarization. Next elections will win Trump — guaranteed with the help of russian funding if they succeed today. So the only way to save our World as is and DEMOCRACY — right now is to help Ukrainian military. They are fighting versus second world larges army and winning.

WHAT CAN WE DO NOW?

The only weakness point is lack of airdefence systems since russia is attacking from everywhere — from the Black sea, from it’s border, from Belarussia and pre-Dniester Moldavian republic. We have to ask NATO to shield the airspace over Ukraine. Trust me the rest of russian troops will be taken care by Ukrainian army.

SO we have to attend rallies, to ask US government (your congresmen) to block Russia from SWIFT system and to close the airspace over Ukraine and start lend lease with tanks and stuff.

Please donate to Ukrainian army - they are the last frontier of the democratic world as is. This the truth. Spread the word about this, please. US folks should now what at stakes. 

For those who would like to contribute financially, there is information from the National Bank of Ukraine and a charitable fund based in Ukraine, which you can specify as going to the Ukranian Army or to a general fund.

Now the real celebration can happen, as we put Twosday to bed.

See you in 198 years.

It is 2:22:22 on 2/22/2022, which happens to also be a Twosday.

This is not the only Twosday which will ever happen on the Gregorian calendar; 2/22/2220 is also on a Twosday. If anyone else is still around in 198 years, they can also have a celebration of numerical assonance.

2/22/2222 is, unfortunately, on a Friday. Pope Gregory XIII clearly failed to think ahead.

Anyway, the real celebration will be in 20 hours, when it’s 22:22:22.