This probably falls into the category of weird hobbies. Friends have asked me about it, so I figured it was time to write it down. Some history I grew up in the 80s and cassettes were a big part of how I experienced music. I remember recording bits of radio shows to create my own mixtapes. Furthermore, I also recorded records of friends and relatives to play on my Walkman. ...
The Big Digitization Of Cassette Tapes A big post today, as last week I was distracted by too many puppies. I caught up with my podcasts and there is some good stuff like the Dunbar one. Also a small section about my cassette tape problem. Management Robin Dunbar makes the case for human connection [Podcast] - sometimes one forgets that there are people behind things like the Dunbar Number. ...
I like looking at pictures of other people's office set-ups. With most people working from home at the moment you see more and more nice workspaces especially tuned for video conferencing. I was lucky enough to have a space and a reasonable set-up already. By chance I also had ordered bits and pieces before everything was sold out on Amazon. There are a few things I still want to improve. The light is not ideal for video conferencing and I am also going to try a separate microphone for better sound. DeskMy basic desk set-up is always the same. This is the first time I have two big screens, but I always have the same keyboard, headphones and mouse. I think this goes back to at least 2000. In our currently closed office I have the same again and when I start a new job I usually bring the devices with me as not every company lets you freely choose. The computer is always running the current version of Fedora Linux, often upgraded over many years. 1. Dell Monitor U2719DC UltraSharp. I really just wanted one of these as I still had another very old monitor. This one came with a pixel error and Amazon send a replacement, but never managed to get the pick-up of the broken one sorted. So now I have two and use the one with the broken pixel for the not important stuff, like Slack. I think the broken pixel is not even a broken pixel, but an insect stuck between the layers - a real bug. 2. Dell Monitor U2719DC UltraSharp - the nice one, which has my browser, shell and Emacs. 3. Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 GB layout - while I am always looking for new fancy hacker keyboards I have stuck with this one. I have another one in storage in case this one breaks. 4. Logitech Mouse G502 Hero - my mice and keyboard are always wired, which limits choice a bit. I have pretty big hands and like a mouse that fills them. 5. Logitech Mousepad G440 - matchy-matchy with the mouse. I could do with a smaller one, because of the hight DPI of the mouse. 6. Sony Headphones MDR-1RBT - I am a bit addicted to headphones. I have three different Sony MDR-1 versions (RBT, ABT and R). I love the fit and sound. 7. PC AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB, 1TB, build up recently, also has a cheap fanless graphics card 8. Chair - from my first job/start-up, still works 9. APC BX1400U-GR Back-UPS BX, power outages and brownouts are quite common in Spain and even more so in the countryside. This protects the computer, there is another one for the routers and NAS. a. Fleximounts F6 monitor arm for laptop - it works, not a lot of movement b. Fleximounts F6D monitor arms for screens - same for two devices c. Logitech C920 HD Pro - I am lucky I ordered this in time, it works, I probably won't upgrade any time soon. The Logitech Brio is also silly expensive. SupportNot directly related to work, but supporting the main computer. d. Thinkpad T430s on a arm and T470s on the floor - laptops from work, I use them in the office and here when I need another small screen or different device. One of them also has Windows on a partition for devices that require Windows for firmware upgrades e. AmazonBasics paper shredder - goes together with the messy GTD stack on my desk, everything that I don't file goes into this one. f. Synology DS218+ - backup of the computer, Syncthing backup, all my music and films. g. USB Charging station (with Raspbery Pi running Syncthing on top), with various USB-A, micro-usb, and USB-C connectors and one for Garmin watches h. Rubbish router from provider i. AmpliFi HD Router - super simple set-up, annoyingly only with a mobile, supports multiple mesh repeaters that are all over the house j. HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 - maybe I should have gone for a laser? I don't really print a lot k. Thermometer / Barometer - it is way too hot in my office SoundI like my old school Hi-Fi components. If I had unlimited money I would just be buying this stuff on ebay the whole day. The combination of the Sony amplifier and JBL speakers gives a sound I love. The amplifier is also connected to a Chromecast Audio for multiroom sound, computer and headphones. l. Tape deck Sony TC-K790ES - needs some work, the rubber transport bands disintegrated and need replacement, which is a bit tricky m. Tuner Sony SA3ES - I never use it, but it is pretty! n. Amplifier Sony TA-542E - this must be pretty old too, still works fine o. JBL Control 1 Pro speakers - come with mounts for the wall and look sleek Art & MemoriesSince we bought the house and I have no further move is planned I made some effort to finally put all kind of stuff on the wall. p. Sven Vaeth & Paul Cooper flyer 17-7-93 Warehouse Cologne q. Photo from the Space Shuttle signed by Astronaut Robert Crippen r. family s. My dad and myself on our last holiday together. I have no idea why we shake hands. t. family u. X-Ray Cyclist by Nick Veasey sold by IKEA. Nick is one of my favourite artists and this is the cheapest way to get a great quality print. v. Newton MessagePad 130 - I really did use this back in the days. It is a bit bulky. w. Palm V, Palm Tungsten T, Ericsson t39 with extra antenna and calculator from school - this was my "smartphone" back in the days when phones got smaller every year. I sometimes connected it with bluetooth to the Palm for connectivity on the go. I miss small phones. x. random memories box: old business cards, passport, party flyer, motorcycle key y. Curves Calendar - don't google that. It has photos of mountain roads for each month to remind me of cycling. I just get a new one every year and replace it.
Today I finally finished digitizing all of my techno and house cassette tapes. It took me a little bit over two months. Here are some statistics: 290 “a” sides278 “b” sides (sometimes the tapes broke after the first side)12 tapes which unusable41 tapes which turned out to be copies of CDs which are available to buy5 tapes were copies of stuff I have also on CDs which are not available to buy8 tapes had unreadable labels 249 GB in 16 bit 48khz WAVE filesthe whole list I probably still have some tapes flying around somewhere and my girlfriend also has some, but the vast majority of my music is digitized now. The music is mainly mixed techno and house DJ sets, from my friends like DJ Gomez, Motik and Nitin. A lot of sets are recorded from radio like HR3/HRXXL and Hithouse Stuttgart and in clubs around Stuttgart and Cologne. The most popular DJs are Sven Vaeth, Roland Casper, Richie Hawtin, DJ Hello, Dag, and Laurent Garnier. I used my little python tapetransfer script, which I wrote for this purpose. It basically waits until there is music and then records until there is a longer break, which is perfect for DJ mixes and rubbish for normal music CDs. I recorded everything with the same level, which means that some tapes are really quite now, but the alternative would have been to play every tape twice. If it turns out that some tapes are too quite I will record them again in 32bit and normalize. I probably write another script to find out the level of each wav file. In the end it didn’t take me as long as I expected, I usually managed to do one tape before work and maybe three in the evening and a bit more on the weekend. All that is left now is converting them to flac and mp3. The files have to be tagged and named more consistent. Another idea is to also scan pictures of all the tapes and add this to the music files. And listening to all of them again, but I already found some real gems.
My current home office setup. The newest addition is the Samsung 245b 24" 1920x1200 TFT display. It is probably not the best one around, but is pretty good for the stuff which I do, which is mostly programming. The main computer is an old Athlon XP 2400. I am currently waiting for replacement parts. I brought most of the stuff with me from London, which means it is from 2003 or older. At the moment the machine is running Fedora 9, but will be upgraded to Fedora 10 once it is out and the parts arrive. I think the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 is the only Microsoft product I use. It is the UK version, because I can’t get used to the local versions. The mouse is a Logitech G9, just upgraded from a G5. I am not sure about the G9 just yet, the previous mouse somehow feels better in my hand. I also got two old Dell Dimension XPS B600r. One of them is used as firewall and the other one as backup server. You can see in the picture that the backup server has a front mounted fan, otherwise the three disks stop working. Both of these computers run CentOS 5. The computers and router are protected by APC UPS, because we have a lot of power problems here in Barcelona. In the cable jungle next to them is also the ADSL router, a KVM switch and a network switch. Behind the monitor is also an old scanner to scan old photos and just off the picture to the right is a HP OfficeJet scanner/fax/printer combo. The Sony TC-KA6ES tape deck is currently broken and I am trying to fix it. While this is not working I am using the Technics tape deck, the amplifier and the two JBL Control Ones to digitize my tapes with the tape recording software I am currently writing in python.