Command discovery of the day: zless – for directly viewing zipped text files. Now I can stop manually gunziping and lessing server log files like an idiot.
file perusal filter for crt viewing of compressed text
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I’m a web developer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. I make a RSS feed reader called FeedCity. I co-organise the local Homebrew Website Club. I’m also a passionate film photographer, a husband and father, a bass player and guitarist, metalhead, and movie fan.
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- Daniel Pietzsch
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Instagram seems to have definitively locked out people without an account. I couldn’t open a single page for weeks now.
A shame some people only post there. But I’m not going to get an account.
🎥 Look Back
Here’s my take on the melody and solo part of Spiritual Beggars’ Look Back. I love that melody.
But I’m actually not a very good lead player, so the solo part is a bit so-so. And it’s only loosely based on the original anyway. But hey, I’m doing these mostly for fun, and to be able to look it up later again. So that’s my excuse for being lazy.
I used the Pitch Fork pedal to shift down my guitar by one octave to simulate the bass track underneath. And I used my looper pedal to record this and play it back as the backing track.
The lead uses the EHX Cock Fight plus expression pedal for the Wah, distortion, a bit of delay and reverb.
Oh, and this is played in standard tuning while playing all the notes like on the recording. It’s very likely they had their instruments tuned to C standard.
Pedalboard-shot:
📖 Die Kunst des stilvollen Verarmens – Alexander von Schönburg
Insgesamt ein gutes Buch. Habe nicht allzu viel Neues gelernt, da ich viele der Ratschläge und Lebensweisheiten seit längerer Zeit sowieso beherzige. Aber es ist doch ab und zu nett von anderen Leute mitzubekommen, dass sie ähnlich denken.
Offensichtlich geht es in dem...
🎬 Booksmart
This was a waste of time. It’s just not something I enjoy (anymore?).
Honestly, the only thing that made me laugh was how strangely similar this one actor looked to a young Jackie Chan.
🎬 Jackie Brown
What can I say? I’m always nicely entertained by Tarantino’s movies. The plot, the characters, the dialogues, how it’s filmed etc.
I have seen this before, but that was long ago. Didn’t regret this rewatch at all.
🔗 Shoe Mount Light Meters - Which One is Right for You...? - 35mmc
35mmc.com/03/05/2021/shoe-mount-light-meters-which-one-is-right-for-you/
This will probably come in handy one day!
I’ve reviewed a whole load of the new crop of shoe mount light meters recently. I’ve liked something about all of the meters I’ve tried too.
How come Rails’ String#blank? never made it into Ruby itself? So frustrating! And I thought, Ruby was about “programmer happiness”!? Well, guess what, Matz: I’M NOT HAPPY!!!1!!
🎧 Like An Ever Flowing Stream – Dismember
🎥 A little Ukulele phrase
I got a ukulele for my birthday. And here’s a little phrase I came up with recently.
🎬 Them
This is a TV series. But ten episodes is like a very long movie really. Anyhow, we’re not going to continue watching this when or if another season comes out.
Overall I liked how this was filmed and edited and the acting was very good, too. And the main topic is interesting as well: racism and its nasty repercussions in the US of the fifties (and earlier).
But mixing this with supernatural elements missed giving the subject the seriousness it deserved.
Some episodes managed very well to portrait all that racism – big and small – the family members are subjected to. But then, the violent scenes were often just over-the-top cruel in my opinion.
In addition I found this had too many plots.
🎬 Jaws
I’m ticking titles off my list of “classic horror movies I’ve never seen”. And again, I understand why this is a classic. Enjoyed this one a lot. Story, filming, editing, acting, special effects and stunts: all superb. And you wouldn’t necessarily notice this is a film shot in the seventies. This must have been way ahead of its time. And that poster is the menacing cherry on top.
I don’t know how parents regularly have their child(ren) sleep in their bed. Nine times out of ten we get beaten, kicked and headbutted. Best case, we get woken up multiple times per night. Worst case, we additionally get hurt. Plus, Zoe also wakes up way earlier than usual. The snuggles make up for the abuse a little, though.
🎧 Carnage – LIK
Messing around with the website again. Now having pages grouping all blog posts (articles, notes and links) at /blog and all media posts (music, movies and books) at /media.
Makes it easier to scroll through all content at once.
🔗 Neuanfang mit Mitte 40 | WDR Doku
Ein Paar aus Ratingen lebt und reist seit 5 Jahren im Wohnmobil. Gute Idee, wie ich finde!
Noch vor fünf Jahren führten Diana Knigge und Phillip Alexander Schubert, beide Mitte 40, ein Leben im sogenannten Wohlstand: eigenes Café, schickes Auto und...
Here is the signal path and pedalboard settings for how I recorded “Bridge of Sighs”:
- Strat knock-off, pick-up switch in 4th position.
- Distortion with low gain.
- Tremolo in a subtle setting.
- A bit of delay.
- Some reverb.
- A clean amp in Garageband.
The audio in the video is a combination of the Garageband recording and the sound recorded by the iPhone.
🎥 Bridge Of Sighs
Playing Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs” on guitar. It’s a bit improvised, though. Of course, I first got to know this song via the great cover version from Opeth.
And still figuring this video stuff out. This time, it’s filmed with my iPhone’s back camera and shared in 1080p with 60fps.
Update: Settings.
🎧 Misanthropic Breed – LIK
I’m mainly in love with the sound of this album. But it’s also an easy album to like musically: well-done good old old-school Swedish death metal à la Dismember and Entombed. Just listen to “Funeral Anthem” to get a rotten taste!
Also: how can one not love that cover artwork?
🎬 Green Room
Suspenseful and overall well done. Certainly had parallels to Blue Ruin. But the latter was better.
📖 Off Grid Life – Foster Huntington
This is a beautifully made book with great photos and inspiring approaches on how and where to live.
Unfortunately, though, I found this too superficial. Maybe that’s fair enough, since it’s actually more of a photo book than a “book” book. But I was hoping a little more for stories about what it’s like and what it really means to live off grid in these housings. So, in this regard it was a little disappointing.
But this reminds me to check Foster’s blog again, which I remember to be more insightful1.
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… but which I haven’t followed in recent years, because the RSS feed was and still is broken. And which – sadly – is (by far) not an isolated case for RSS feeds. I’m sorry for this brief appendix rant about the state of RSS… ↩
🎬 Death Proof
This was a whole lot of fun! Unrealistic, nonsensical, and over-the-top fun. A bit too self-indulgent (for Tarantino), and partly because of that a little bit too long. But overall dialogues, filming and the action were great! That car crash and the final car chase were simply spectacular.
🎧 Serpents of the Light – Deicide
For some reason, I was listening to this last Sunday. I haven’t listened to Deicide in years. But it remained in rotation.
It’s Easter after all.
🎬 Searching
This was ok. It was mainly interesting because of how it was “filmed”: completely through computer UI. And it was suspenseful. But in the end story didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I still wish more people/bands/utilities/companies/restaurants had RSS feeds, so this wouldn’t even be necessary.
Oh, sweet: NetNewsWire – my RSS reader of choice – added the ability to subscribe to Twitter timelines.
🎧 Only Ghosts – Red Fang
I recently came across their remarkable videos again. While a while back I mostly listened to their debut and “Murder the Mountains”, this time I’m givin’ their latest output a few spins. And I am not disappointed!
Videos are now served via HTTPS. This fixes playback in Google Chrome. For now, I uploaded a manually generated Let’s Encrypt certificate to my HostEurope webspace for that subdomain. So now, videos should finally be working for most people!
Gestern auf die “Heavy Metal”-Playlist von Amazon Music gestoßen. Als erstes kommt Iron Maiden, dann Metallica, und danach – natürlich – als drittes – ganz klar – gleiche Liga! – …
… Guano Apes! 🤷♂️
Argh! I didn’t know Chrome doesn’t allow mixed content (HTTPS + HTTP) anymore. So, I should get SSL sorted for my newly created videos.danielpietzsch.com subdomain.
Update: Sorted!