Musings

Feed reading on my tiny tiny RSS instance is quite nice. I had to change a few CSS properties (make the font bigger for my old eyes) and I installed another (more Google Reader like CSS). I have started to look at the options, learnt how to enable the digest plugin (edit config.php to enable it) and actually read through the descriptions of the different features on the TT-RSS home page. Today I also got a mail from TheOldReader that my feeds had been imported - just around a week after I uploaded the OPML file to them. I think I’ll pass :) ...

In my quest to “own my own data” I spent the last few days to get an alternative to Google Reader going. I decided on trying Tiny Tiny RSS instead of Fever mainly because TT-RSS is supported and in active development, while Fever (while looking more interesting) has been on hold for a few years and Shaun Inman basically hinted that he will not update or support it in the near future at least. Also, Ràmon has endorsed it… ...

The one thing that my scientific mind likes about having a terrible cold is to experimentally find out, which sort of herbal tea goes together with which kind of schnapps. Tonights experiment: Mint tea with Raki

I have been ill the last few days, which has given me time to oscillate between reading and sleeping. I have been going through the first 400 pages of “How Music Really Works” that can be read for free. The book is - shall we say - quite peculiar, with long passages about evolution, but it has given me a totally new understanding of music theory. There is a lot of thought that has gone into the description of the components of music, and the last free chapter has an impressive analysis of chord progressions. ...

Yesterday I had a brief Twitter discussion with @halfbyte and @stilkov about “owning your mail” . I think the issue is much more important than just mail - it is about owning your data (and moeffju has written more about it here - in german though). Projects like Ebend Moglens Freedombox are (or in that case, were) a great idea - but don’t seem to reach enough traction to be viable and realistic. ...

Last time I was at a concert of Stephan Eicher must have been in the mid 1980s. Stephan was solo on stage with a guitar and a sampler and a box of floppy discs and after each song, he would smile shy and ask what we wanted to hear. He then proceeded to load that floppy disc and play it. I have heard most of his music since then but never seen him life again. Until tonight. ...