Notices by DJDarren (djdarren@mendeddrum.org)

The tunes played this week, in case your FEEBLE HUMAN EARS WERE INCAPABLE OF DECODING THE BINARY I SPIT

...ahem...

#ThePlaylist

THIS WEEK'S DEFINITELY REAL HUMANS WHO ARE ALL VERY MUCH MADE FROM WET MEAT AND NOT METAL AND CIRCUITS

@aaron
@Andyyyfish82
@arakin
@artnacrea
@astronomerritt
Ben Gray
Dr Caitlin Swisslet
@ccferrie
@daveybot
@dddz
@giflian
@greem
@ianRobinson
@internetsdairy
@KaraLG84
@Laura_2222
@losttourist
Mama English
@mejc
@Nickiquote
Papa Irish
@pete
@ptoothfish
@RealAleRocks
@RolloTreadway
@RonaldSnijder
@roytoo
@sheepnik
@slevelt
@sodslawyer
@theplaguedoc
@WiteWulf

REJOICE IN HOW MOIST THEIR REAL, ORGANIC BRAIN MATTER IS

#ThePlaylist

Join #ThePlaylist once again, where this week the Mainframe has chosen the theme of:

Electric Dreams

And we're too scared of the Mainframe to go against its wishes. So two hours of whatever the phrase "electric dreams" conjured up in the silicon minds of the LLMs that sent in their suggestions for thematically appropriate songs that humans 'enjoy'.

#TheArchive - https://djdarren.site/archive/podcast/theplaylist-114-electric-dreams/

Listen! Enjoy! Tell all your friend!

// https://stream.djdarren.site // Monday 19:00-21:00 UK //
// https://djdarren.site/archive/podcast/ //

#Podcast #NowPlaying #Music

"spherical bastard"

Holy shit! The literal video version of Total Eclipse of the Heart is on YouTube again. I remember looking for a few times, but I guess it kept falling foul of copyright strikes.

Anyway, in honour of the memory of the great Bonnie Tyler, enjoy one of the finest things YouTube has ever hosted.

https://youtu.be/fsgWUq0fdKk

@NanoRaptor I spent a year self employed, making wood burners out of old gas bottles. All told I managed to knock out about 12 of them before I accepted that I'm not cut out to run my own business.

Anyway, the last one was due to be delivered to a customer, but was stolen from my garden. So I posted on Reddit asking if anyone in the UK had seen it.

Reddit had fun with it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/5jwm88/a_darth_vader_wood_burner_i_made_got_stolen/

Sat in the garden awaiting the delivery of our new fridge freezer, where it's 25⁰ with the very gentlest of breezes. If it were to stay like this it would be damn near perfect.

But the forecast suggests it'll be 34⁰ by 2pm.

In other news, I've managed to clear the way for the new fridge freezer, thus opening that corner of the kitchen for the time since we moved in.

Oh god, the horrors.

Still ruminating over last night's #Eurovision semi final.

I'm real fuckin' grumpy that something that has, for so long, been a source of pure joy for me, has become something that I feel I should watch illicitly, because it's become heavily tainted.

I know my privilege, and I know that bad things are happening to innocent people, but there's very little - if anything - that I can do about that. Whether I watch it on TV or not, atrocities will continue.

While the Eurovision voting has always been comically political, the competition itself has, certainly in my memory, not been. Not really. I mean, it has in the sense of allowing LGBTQ+ voices to take centre stage, and yes, a number of songs over the years have given their performers a chance to speak truth to power. But by and large, it's been a beacon of unity and joy; a chance to celebrate a shared experience with other European (and Australian) countries.

As a casual observer, I'm not privy to the workings of the EBU, so perhaps it has all along been little more than a front to whitewash the reputations of less progressive nations. Perhaps these past few years are the anomaly, I don't know.

But I'm at a point where I'm genuinely deflated that a very real high point in my year has been reduced to the discourse that rages around it now. That it appears to have been taken over almost in its entirety by the horrific actions of one participating state, and their ongoing mission to spread soft propaganda.

We can't have nice things any more, it seems.

#ESC

Seasoned #Linux users, can I pick your branes?

My system at work has an enormous 250gb SSD, which is, it must be said, inadequate. So what I've done is install /root on the internal SSD, and /home on an external 1tb NVME SSD. It's a Sabrent USB3.2, using the short, supplied, known good cable.

Most of the time it's fine, but every now and then the system will sleep the external drive, then obviously it'll crash during the night when it tries to run my backup script from a drive it can no longer talk to.

What's the best way around this?

I've added 'usbcore.autosuspend=-1' and 'pcie_aspm=off' to the GRUB options. The former mostly worked, and the latter I've only just applied, so don't know whether it does. Is there anything else I could try that isn't just "get a bigger internal SSD"?

Having one of those days where I've done a few reasonably energetic things, such as unload/load the dishwasher, swapped the TV onto a new cabinet, and tidied up a little bit, and now I'm completely and utterly wiped. Zero spoons.

Going to try heading out into the timid afternoon sunshine we've got here. We're going to visit one of the two ruined abbeys that are within a twenty minute drive. Take some photos and see how the rest of the afternoon goes.

Well, the sunshine ended up being not that timid.

I've lived across the river from Netley Abbey for half my life, but never visited it until today. It's really cool. Saw a buzzard too, but didn't get a photo.

I know what you #Mosstodon folks want, and it's bloody disgusting.

Email from Royal Mail: "We delivered your parcel! How did we do?"

Mate, you did the bare fucking minimum expected of you. Your entire job is to accept the parcel that someone wants to send me, transport that parcel to my house, then ensure that the parcel enters my house. That is literally your job.

Reviews are for things that cost people money to experience. I will review a meal. I will review a new record, or a new movie.

I will not review a fucking parcel delivery. Particularly not the default parcel delivery service in the UK.

Settle back in that comfy chair, get pumped up to the ceiling, and enjoy two hours of #ThePlaylist while getting your hair did, for the theme this week is:

Haaair

We thought about just playing the original Broadway cast recording of the musical ‘Hair’, but instead decided to once again take suggestions from the Eternal Angies out there, who stepped up and suggested another raft of utter bangers.

#TheArchive - https://djdarren.site/archive/podcast/theplaylist-082-haaair/

Mixcloud - https://www.mixcloud.com/DJDarren/theplaylist-241125-haaair/

Listen, enjoy, tell all your friend!

(@Troggie apologises for this week's art work, though they don't need to. It's glorious.)

// https://stream.djdarren.site // Monday 19:00-21:00 UK //
// https://djdarren.site/archive/podcast/ //

#NowPlaying #Radio #Music

We were, up The Range earlier, thirsty for batshit deranged christmas decorations. And we were not left disappointed.

#UKBatshitDerangedChristmasDecorationsScene

It is absolutely shitting down out there this evening, so there are some very soggy demons and ghouls rap-rap-rapping at my front door.

Currently weighing up the ethicality of whether we can post stills of the doorbell camera footage of kids in some truly excellent costumes. The shots are made even better by the camera being in night mode, so they're extra creepy.

There was a kid last year whose costume absolutely smashed all the others.

It was a home made mask; a sheet of cardboard cut into the shape of a large pumpkin with two eye holes in. He was carrying what looked like garden fork, and looked like something from a German language horror movie.

10/10

A timely reminder that with a cheap projector, a thin sheet, and a bunch of videos nicked from YouTube, you can make an awful lot of kids yell with joy.