| 01.07.08: Time Away, Windows Vista, DJ Sets
and Creativity So, I have been away for a little while, and I appologise for this. The reason is that I run the old blog somewhere else now, and I have been trying to blog every day in June. I almost achieved it too. I only missed a few days. The downside is that at present I am writing this blog, the other blog, and working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a store. It gets exhausting! Especially when trying to also cram in playing on the Wii, writing a new Linux distro, learning guitar from scratch and trying not to ignore my ever loving, ever suffering girlfriend! And this month I can forsee more trouble ahead, as I need to tell the PR guy to do something a little different, and I can see that being a problem. Not knocking the guy, he's great and he does a stunning job, but...in the same breath, I do occassionally have to hold his hand and say "No, we want it done this way..." I tried writing the other blog in Windows Vista today. I actually thought I had it sorted out. Open Office and Seamonkey installed on an SD card, since I am trying to do things with the Glastonbury Festival in Vista (yes, it does need Vista) and to save a little time and disk space I decided to try and put blogging tools on an SD card for when I have to use Vista. Can someone explain why nothing is simple in Vista? Vista downloaded the software, and installed Seamonkey onto the SD card. No problem there. But flat refused to install Open Office at all onto the SD card. No. In typical Vista fashion it decided that what I wanted was stupid, therefore it took over. Argh! This is why I have moved to Ubuntu. Ubuntu doesn't say "No, you're doing it wrong, here, let me do it for you". It lets you make mistakes. In fact, my mother is now a devoted convert to Linux having used it. To the point where when my brother left it in Windows (we've got her laptop on a dual boot system now) she shouted at him and demanded to know why Windows was running. Then rebooted into Ubuntu. My mother. A 56 year old woman who 3 years ago had no idea about computers whatsoever. And now she uses Linux over Windows by choice because of speed, reliability and the fact that Linux doesn't get spyware or viruses. Yesterday afternoon I began creating my part of a challange. My friend Steve challanged me to create a set using just software and under Linux as he thinks it can't be done by a guy with literally no experience in DJing. I downloaded Mixxx and got it to beat match some tracks and sort them into ascending order of BPM, then got RhythmBox to create a playlist, crossfading 30 seconds before the end of the track hit. The result? A very rough but listenable to set. It's now saved as a playlist, ready for my amatuer DJ friend to come over and listen to. However, I'm not done. Steve likes obscure artists. I am going to give him something better than obscure. Bleeding edge. Literally the newest unsigned artists put into a mix compiled by an amatuer and created using free software only. Suck on that Steve. Thing is, he wants a new electronica DJ to play for him at his new (and previously legendary) club night in Southampton, so maybe he'll like it enough to give me a job. Could be interesting considering the guy is already on the up and up. Lastly, me and my girlfriend had a small argument this morning about creativity. You see, my argument for smoking goes like this. Nicotine enhances creativity, and this is a fact. Every significant artist of the 20th century smoked, inhaled or imbibed in some way tobacco. Ergo, I should continue smoking and continue to enhance my creativity. Her argument is that I am creative enough without needing to smoke, therefore I should quit. I pointed out that I enjoy smoking and she argued that she didn't care because she wanted me to live to 100 with her by my side. It then kinda degenerated into the typical corny lovey dovey exchanges we normally have. However, I still argue that I am right... Permalink | |
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