Funk Babblings

One thing that has kept me sane in my recent bout of working long hours is that I finally took a few minutes to set up SlimServer (which powers my Squeezebox) and my home router so that I can get access to my entire music collection (9747 songs and counting) from the office. So at work (and wherever else I decide to open it to) I'm no longer limited to just the few CDs worth of favorites that I've copied to the machine there.

(In the process I discovered that trying to stream MP3 via HTTP through an ssh tunnel just doesn't work so well. Every minute or so bits of audio would repeat a few seconds later. It's probably related to redundant congestion control happening in the TCP-over-TCP arrangement. Bypassing the ssh tunnel helped immensely.)

In addition, I now have both Amarok and SlimServer scrobbling my plays to Last.fm, so my profile there is becoming more complete. I'm up to over 7400 songs scrobbled there since I started last summer, and now rapidly increasing. If you like, you can check out the long list of songs I've listened to recently.

Because of the scrobbling, I've learned that (based on the top 15 artists I listen to) my musical taste is 9.24% mainstream. (It may be interesting to look into some things other people have done with the data there). Last.fm's Events section is also becoming useful for finding out about when bands I listen to are playing nearby -- especially since there are RSS and iCal feeds for recommended events.