However, to my dismay, the last time I pulled my Shures out of the case to listen to music, I found that the sound coming from the left driver was much quieter than the right. At first, I didn’t even hear anything and thought that the driver was dead. I frantically searched the internet and the forums on Head-Fi and found that it might just be wax build-up (eww). I took the rubber tip off and the sound was still very quiet. There was no visible obstruction and I poked around lightly with a paperclip to see if I could free the wax, but there was none.

When I got home, I used the paperclip to GENTLY remove the filter (without poking it through the end, I just pushed to the side and pulled back, the friction of the paperclip pulling the tiny silver plug with green filter out). I then soaked the filter in rubbing alcohol for about 10 seconds, using the paperclip to ensure there was no air and that the alcohol got in and through the filter. I then picked it up and let the alcohol drain through the filter. I let the filter air dry for about a minute, then re-installed it the same was it was installed before I removed it by gently inserting it, green “cap” side first, then pushing it down by the metal sides (DO NOT PUSH ON THE GREEN FILTER, IT WILL TEAR) until it was properly seated at about the same depth as the other side. Volia, worked.

The entire filter is about the size of one grain of couscous, maybe 2mm by 0.75mm. The filter has TINY holes to prevent wax from getting in the driver, and obviously did its job. Shure should really include instructions on how to change the filter like Etymotic does. Instead they advise you to contact customer service, and I’ve heard of repair bills around $80 to just clean and replace the filters.

Link to the User’s Manual

Let’s start by looking at what we have and what we have to do:
Files on a Linux fileserver playing on a Windows server (via samba) in Winamp using EdCast to stream to sc_serv (Shoutcast) on a different Linux server in the DMZ. Currently, I have the X: drive on the Windows server mapped to the Linux Fileserver. Winamp re-scans the fileserver every 3 days for new music and adds it to the library, but I still have to manually go in and add new tracks to the playlist.

Some initial ideas and problems:
-Use XML-RPC / SOAP from another music cataloging program that I currently use
+I just really feel like there was an easier way to do what I wanted without going through all the trouble.

-Telling Winamp to [re]load the playlist: the Winamp API Uses C++…yuck…I don’t know or want to learn C++ just for this project. Plus, DRY applies, someone HAS to have thought of this before.
+Solution: httpQ, a simple http listener plugin for Winamp that uses a simple and easy to implement control scheme: simply call the right URL and Winamp does what you want. Awesome. ( http://httpq.sourceforge.net )

-Finding files that have been modified recently, and if none have been modified in the time specified, keep looking until you find enough files

So let’s look at what we’re going to do with this script:
-Set up some variables for internal use and for how many tracks we want in our playlist
-Loop through something to find our tracks and write them out to a file
-Check that file to see if if has as many lines as we want (I know a better way to do this would be to just store it in memory and index it until you have enough, but on a modest p4 this executes in about 1 second in a directory with ~300GB files…YMMV but it wasn’t slow enough to justify re-writing it for me)
-if it doesn’t, re-generate it and let some files that are a bit older get included as well
-Tell Winamp to drop its current playlist
-Tell Winamp to load our new playlist
-Tell Winamp to play, just to make sure it’s playing…you don’t want to have dead air, even on the internet.

And finally, the script:

#!/bin/bash

DAY=3
#set the default to search for files 3 or less days old

CNT=0
#initalize count…don’t really need to but it makes me feel better

DESIRED=200
#how many files do you want (at least)?

until [ $CNT -ge $DESIRED ]; do
#until the playlist has as many or more files than we specified, keep doing this over and over…probably should set some limit so it doesn’t go nuts if it has an error

find /foo/bar -mtime -”$DAY” -iname “*.mp3″ -print | sed ‘s^/foo/bar/^X:\\files\\^’ | tr ‘/’ ‘\’ > /foo/bar/current.m3u
#find files named *.mp3 in /foo/bar with a modified time of minus X days and echo the results…to sed which replaces /foo/bar with X:\Windows\Path…fix for converting slashes to
#backslashes…sed also works but tr runs faster

CNT=$(wc -l /foo/bar/current.m3u | cut -d\ -f1)
#count the lines of the playlist. Note that I’m passing a space as the delimeter to cut, by escaping with a backslash then double space until the next flag,
#which grabs column 1 (col2 is the filename, yick)

let DAY+=1
#shorthand for day = day+1…won’t be used unless we loop again.
done

wget -O – –quiet “http://windows:4800/delete?p=passwd”
wget -O – –quiet “http://windows:4800/playfile?p=passwd&file=X:\current.m3u”
wget -O – –quiet “http://windows:4800/play?p=passwd”
#the RPC calls to the Windows server. Note that we’re telling wget to output to -…i.e. drop the output.
#Also, be sure to double quote that URL.
exit 0;
#exit with no error code

Anyway, enough OSX86 talk for now, enjoy the preview of a recently-revived track I have been working on, Black and White

Have a listen.  The title is Broadcast0.  There is no artist as far as I am concerned, I’m just playing what I feel.

here

http://seanp2k.com:12000/listen.pls

Check it out!

I just fooled around with cue points…it’s a really nice program and has a cool plugin that you can use to make sort-of breakbeat stuff with, but sort of difficult to use without a MIDI controller (I haven’t tried to get my M-Audio Trigger Finger working on Mac yet).  The program also beatmatches really well and is very responsive…unless you try to drag-n-drop from a network share in OSX.  Maybe this works better in the windows version?

Anywho, check it out at http://www.virtualdj.com

http://www.amazon.com/Split-Bonus-CD-Thursday/dp/B001GJ2ZBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1223244491&sr=8-1

In other news, Thursday is supposed to release a split with Envy on November 4th…I already have it, of course, but I’m glad that Geoff Rickly finally decided to put out an album that is a bit closer to real screamo.  This is not to say Thursday is a bad band, they are the closest thing to actual screamo that you will ever hear on the radio.  The album is going to be released on Temporary Residence Limited (of Explosions in the Sky, Grails, and Mono fame) will be a 12″+CD set, with both containing the same music.  It is rumored that they will also be releasing a hand-printed limited edition via their web store.  I’m really glad to see them break free of the BS relation with Island Records.

Geoff is also still involved in his side project, United Nations.  It’s really refreshing to see a band go from mainstream to playing more traditional-eqsue screamo, although they seem to want to call it “emo-power-violence”…which basically seems like real screamo.  “The band was started by Daryl Palumbo, vocalist of Glassjaw and Head Automatica, and Geoff Rickly, the vocalist/lyricist of the band Thursday. Other artists involved in the project possibly include Ben Koller, drummer for Converge; Christopher “Chree” Conger, former drummer of The Number 12 Looks Like You; bassist Eric Cooper of Made Out of Babies; and Jonah Bayer of The Lovekill. However, due to contract obligations of all members except Rickly, the official lineup isn’t well-known, with the exception of Rickly and Palumbo.^[3][4] Since Rickly is the only member whose primary band is currently not under contract, his name is the only one that can legally appear in press materials.^[5] Press photos of the band released in 2008 depict 4 people wearing Ronald Reagan masks.^[6]“

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_(band)

Hopefully other bands will follow in Thursday’s footsteps and break away from the mainstream.  The record companies forget that this is the age of technology and they can’t get away with selling a $15 cd with one hit single on it anymore…people will just download it or buy it on iTunes or some other online music store.  Also look into the latest release of Radiohead, Girl Talk, and Y.A.C.H.T.    — they all were involved in some form of digital release of an album, and I hope this trend of bands releasing their own material continues.

• very similar drum beats that are usually a variation of, or exact replica of kick, hat, snare, hat with some occasional fills.  Don’t get me wrong, it usually fits in very nicely, but it is seriously used in just about all their songs.
• usually has a simple driving loop on an analog synth, usually Moog-ish in tone, sometimes arpeggiated, sometimes not.
• short clips of sampled vocals, if any.

And yes, I do realize the above describes a fairly large quantity of music, but damn if MSTRKRFT hasn’t taken this formula and ran with it.  In fact, I am currently planning a track based around this formula, however many times it has already been done.

Ahh, my first real site…brings back memmories.

If anyone needs anything from my old site (seanp2k.com), I have all of it still, or at least most of it, as my old hosting provider screwed me and deleted my account a few days after I didn’t renew a few years back, and I lost the MySQL database for the image gallery I had up there which a few people used quite a bit.  So, if you do need anything, shoot me an email (dot com [ÀT} seanp2k.end junk.c o m) or leave a comment here.