While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background music going. Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-09, Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background
music going. Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some
youtube channels and playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it
is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

i like lofi too but this days i'm finding myself listening to the solo
piano sets of Erik Satie.

--
~{,_,"> insidious LabRat
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background music going.

Same here, it focuses me better than anything else when working on
something relatively procedural. On the other hand when I'm being
more creative then silence can be just as good. It's probably just
that the rhythum muffles the endless side-tracking thoughts that I'm
always thinking, particularly when I'm actually pretty tired of
working on something.

Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

The main requirement for me is just something without lyrics - any
frequent occourance of words immediately distract me because I've
never been able to _not_ listen to people talking/singing. So if there
are lyrics, then I can't do any significant reading at the same time,
or even really think about complex sets of words or figures, because
that's like following two conversations at once. It's fine when doing
purely physical tasks though.

I discovered tracker modules in my early teens and they're still my
main source of music. They're free, take up very little disk/download
space, and I have fun searching through various scattered sites
trying to complete a collection of every file released by my
particular favourite artists who have often been otherwise forgotten
since the mid-90s. It's fun when you do trace them all the way up to
the present day via chains of archived personal websites and old
email addresses, and see what they're up to now (often little if
anything musical).

Also the texts in the sample lists can be great fun to read - from
the days when people shared their complete personal contact details
on the internet.

Also SID chiptunes, which are sort-of a secret weapon for really
focusing against a pure desperation to do something else, good while programming when I'm way out of my depth/understanding of what I'm
trying to work on, or just dead bored. I built a clone of the
original ISA HardSID card earlier this year, but actually got
distracted and haven't tested it out yet.

Then there's classical music, which I mainly just listen to on FM
radio (ABC Classic, an Australian state-owned station - no ads),
though I sometimes put on one of my second-hand cassette tapes.
That's mainly while doing electronics, driving, or around the house.
Generally not while using a computer, my laptop is RF-leaky and
messes up my weak radio reception for one thing. :)

My tracker module and SID collection (as of 2019 - but I don't add
very much these days anyway) is available here on two CD images: gopher://aussies.space:70/1/%7efreet/moddisc

Joseph Jahn, Pseudolokian (MLP), Decibelter, are some of my
particular (and somewhat lesser known) favourite artists that come
to mind at the moment.

--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-09, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background music going.

Same here, it focuses me better than anything else when working on
something relatively procedural. On the other hand when I'm being
more creative then silence can be just as good. It's probably just
that the rhythum muffles the endless side-tracking thoughts that I'm
always thinking, particularly when I'm actually pretty tired of
working on something.

Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and
playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

The main requirement for me is just something without lyrics - any
frequent occourance of words immediately distract me because I've
never been able to _not_ listen to people talking/singing. So if there
are lyrics, then I can't do any significant reading at the same time,
or even really think about complex sets of words or figures, because
that's like following two conversations at once. It's fine when doing
purely physical tasks though.

Yes! I know what you mean!

I've recognized it as a problem with input-output, similar to what
happens with hardware peripherals, if you wish :)

If I'm doing some "input" operation (such as reading documentation),
it gets for me more difficult to focus with some music. The hindrance
grows if the music comes with lyrics, and even more if it is in a
language I know, or if it contains repeated chunks. It is a little
better if I know the song by heart. I get benefit from white noise,
instead.

Let's talk about "output": I'm writing code, knowing what I'm doing,
on a known code base… I can afford to listen to anything.

My tracker module and SID collection (as of 2019 - but I don't add
very much these days anyway) is available here on two CD images: gopher://aussies.space:70/1/%7efreet/moddisc

Your gopherhole seems really rich! Thanks for sharing, and congrats
for your great work!

I gave a quick look, but I couldn't download anything: I got a 404...
but it might be due to me using lynx, perhaps. I will try again in
future (no much time for the moment)
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

On 2020-12-09, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and
playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

The main requirement for me is just something without lyrics - any
frequent occourance of words immediately distract me because I've
never been able to _not_ listen to people talking/singing. So if there
are lyrics, then I can't do any significant reading at the same time,
or even really think about complex sets of words or figures, because
that's like following two conversations at once. It's fine when doing
purely physical tasks though.

Yes! I know what you mean!

I've recognized it as a problem with input-output, similar to what
happens with hardware peripherals, if you wish :)

If I'm doing some "input" operation (such as reading documentation),
it gets for me more difficult to focus with some music. The hindrance
grows if the music comes with lyrics, and even more if it is in a
language I know, or if it contains repeated chunks. It is a little
better if I know the song by heart. I get benefit from white noise,
instead.

Let's talk about "output": I'm writing code, knowing what I'm doing,
on a known code base... I can afford to listen to anything.

Ah well that's probably the difference with me that I'm never really
working on a known code base. Even if I wrote all the code myself
I've probably forgotten how it works, and usually I'm trying to key
into some new library, file format, or communications standard. So
even when I'm trying to output, there's probably still more input
going on overall.

Electronics is much the same - past coming up with an overall
concept, you have to do all the design with one eye on various
component datasheets. Maybe when doing circuit board layouts though,
that might be something where music with lyrics would work. But it's
usually the SID tunes for that as well actually - I need something
sharp and slightly jarring to keep chogging along with it, though
mainly because I tend to make them very, very hard for myself.

My tracker module and SID collection (as of 2019 - but I don't add
very much these days anyway) is available here on two CD images:
gopher://aussies.space:70/1/%7efreet/moddisc

Your gopherhole seems really rich! Thanks for sharing, and congrats
for your great work!

I gave a quick look, but I couldn't download anything: I got a 404...
but it might be due to me using lynx, perhaps. I will try again in
future (no much time for the moment)

Oh boy, I must have copied those links off a piece of paper or
smething - full of 0 instead of O, 1 instead of l, etc. Funny, you'd
think I'd have checked it, but I was probably on some old computer
without a modern web browser (the days before my "internet client"
was set up) and forgot to check it later.

And there was I all disappointed that nobody had ever downloaded
them...

It won't work in Lynx though, you need Javascript. I don't like it,
but as I say there, it's just the result of me keeping anonymous on
the cheap. At least the Russian ads are more subdued now.

--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-13, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

Oh boy, I must have copied those links off a piece of paper or
smething - full of 0 instead of O, 1 instead of l, etc. Funny, you'd
think I'd have checked it, but I was probably on some old computer
without a modern web browser (the days before my "internet client"
was set up) and forgot to check it later.

And there was I all disappointed that nobody had ever downloaded
them...

It won't work in Lynx though, you need Javascript. I don't like it,
but as I say there, it's just the result of me keeping anonymous on
the cheap. At least the Russian ads are more subdued now.

Just out of couriosity: why not hosting them in the gopherspace
instead, since you already have a lot there? :)

(heh, self-answer: you might want to have them available as links from a http[s] website too, nvm :D)

But please let me know when you fixed the links: I'm curious, and I'd like to try them.

Cheers
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-09, Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful
to have some background music going.

[...]

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

Ambient/drone music. The "Drone Zone" channel at SomaFM <https://somafm.com/dronezone/> is one favorite of mine.

--
Dario Niedermann. Also on the Internet at:

gopher://darioniedermann.it/ <> https://www.darioniedermann.it/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

On 2020-12-13, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

Oh boy, I must have copied those links off a piece of paper or
smething - full of 0 instead of O, 1 instead of l, etc. Funny, you'd
think I'd have checked it, but I was probably on some old computer
without a modern web browser (the days before my "internet client"
was set up) and forgot to check it later.

And there was I all disappointed that nobody had ever downloaded
them...

It won't work in Lynx though, you need Javascript. I don't like it,
but as I say there, it's just the result of me keeping anonymous on
the cheap. At least the Russian ads are more subdued now.

Just out of couriosity: why not hosting them in the gopherspace
instead, since you already have a lot there? :)

Well I try to keep it from being too much of a burden on the
aussies.space Tilde server. I don't know whether it has a bandwidth
limit, but there is only 40GB storage available, including space for
the OS, so you couldn't have very many users taking up ~1GB of space.
At the moment I'm using 80MB - mostly the archive of 'Firetext'
messages which I probably should clean out.

(heh, self-answer: you might want to have them available as links from a http[s] website too, nvm :D)

But please let me know when you fixed the links: I'm curious, and I'd like to try them.

They should have been working as of my last post. Glad to hear
someone's interested. I'll do an audio CD 'mix' of tracks that I like
to listen to while driving one day as well - I've had my shortlist
for over a year but haven't put it together yet. I really like the
sweeping 'orchestual' techno tracks (I've got no idea about the
teminology for these things) in the car, such as "Network" and
"Beyond the Network" by Skaven.

--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-09, Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background
music going. Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I have a few things I use:
- Film & TV soundtracks
- Video game soundtracks (Journey OST is amazing)
- Classical music, especially boroque
- Drone
- Drone + classical at the same time (minimizes gaps between tracks)
- Drone + ambient sound effects
- All my full music albums on shuffle (best when doing art stuff, not
coding. Like others, lyrics are distracting)
- Drone + ambient sounds + classical / jazz in layers (usually 6 layers
of sounds creates a nice discordant buzz in the background that sort
of fills the soundscape so completely that it becomes nothing)
- Pure silence (only good when nobody is home. brings me back to my days
in religious life)

--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-14, Dario Niedermann <dnied@tilde.institute> wrote:

On 2020-12-09, Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful
to have some background music going.

[...]

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

Ambient/drone music. The "Drone Zone" channel at SomaFM
<https://somafm.com/dronezone/> is one favorite of mine.

Thanks for sharing! I like this: it seems to boost my
focus.

It is easy to play without a browser in the way by
streaming this URL directly (e.g. via mpv): https://ice6.somafm.com/dronezone-128-mp3
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-18, Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

On 2020-12-14, Dario Niedermann <dnied@tilde.institute> wrote:

Ambient/drone music. The "Drone Zone" channel at SomaFM >><https://somafm.com/dronezone/> is one favorite of mine.

Thanks for sharing! I like this: it seems to boost my
focus.

Absolutely. It's great for meditative activities in general.

Another favorite is channel "Ambience" at electro-music.com.

Try this URL in your player: http://electro-music.com:8506

--
Dario Niedermann. Also on the Internet at:

gopher://darioniedermann.it/ <> https://www.darioniedermann.it/
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On the other hand when I'm being more creative then silence can be
just as good. It's probably just that the rhythum muffles the endless side-tracking thoughts that I'm always thinking, particularly when I'm actually pretty tired of working on something.

Oh yeah! There's something to be said for the ability to just kinda zoom
into something you're doing when you don't have things to break you out
of flow--and a lot of music is extremely good at getting me into a flow
state.

But also, sometimes just pure silence, especially when I still have a
little internal rhythm of something that I'm not currently listening to
can also be really potent~

The main requirement for me is just something without lyrics - any
frequent occourance of words immediately distract me because I've
never been able to _not_ listen to people talking/singing. So if there
are lyrics, then I can't do any significant reading at the same time,
or even really think about complex sets of words or figures, because
that's like following two conversations at once. It's fine when doing
purely physical tasks though.

Oh yeah! Lyrics can derail my train of thought so fast if I need to
forumlate thoughts of my own when doing something.

This is actually the same reason why I can't listen to podcasts while
working on anything, and instead just kinda limit them to when I'm doing
chores or something that I can mostly-autopilot.

I find the effect is lessened with music in different languages though.

I discovered tracker modules in my early teens and they're still my
main source of music. They're free, take up very little disk/download
space, and I have fun searching through various scattered sites
trying to complete a collection of every file released by my
particular favourite artists who have often been otherwise forgotten
since the mid-90s. It's fun when you do trace them all the way up to
the present day via chains of archived personal websites and old
email addresses, and see what they're up to now (often little if
anything musical).

Also the texts in the sample lists can be great fun to read - from
the days when people shared their complete personal contact details
on the internet.

Modules are the best! Originally I would get a lot of mine from MegaZeux
games, since people would often include their favorite modules in their games--so it was kinda like a little sampler of someone's taste every
time I tried something new out!

That might be unconventional, but gosh, was it ever an *aesthetic*

I also developed an appreciation for C64 (And beyond) music that I never
would have otherwise, which caused me to seek out modules on my own,
which was its own infinitely-deep rabbit hole that I'm still traversing.

I have mad respect for the people who compose these.

Nowadays, I mostly just listen to them in VLC, but modplugplayer used to
be one of my most well-used programs for just casually listening to
things while I was working on my projects.

Also SID chiptunes, which are sort-of a secret weapon for really
focusing against a pure desperation to do something else, good while programming when I'm way out of my depth/understanding of what I'm
trying to work on, or just dead bored.

Chiptunes and bitpop are one of my favorite genres since so many melodically-interesting ideas are made because of the way musicians
needed to express themselves with the original limitations.

(I wonder how many musical ideas I love originally came from chiptunes?)
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

James Tomasino <tomasino@cosmic.voyage> writes:

- Video game soundtracks (Journey OST is amazing)

Nice!

I feel like video game music is super-underrated for focusing on things,
since it is intentionally designed to put you into a flow state.

Maybe I should play Journey so I can enjoy its whole aesthetic passively
as well~
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

https://tube.cadence.moe/watch?v=KBHxx-Q2JVk


--
Take Back Control! — Mesh The Planet!
--- Synchronet 3.18b-Linux NewsLink 1.113

On 2020-12-09, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

Dacav Doe <dacav@tilde.institute> wrote:

While working, I find it incredibly useful to have some background music going.

Same here, it focuses me better than anything else when working on
something relatively procedural. On the other hand when I'm being
more creative then silence can be just as good. It's probably just
that the rhythum muffles the endless side-tracking thoughts that I'm
always thinking, particularly when I'm actually pretty tired of
working on something.

Since a good while I monitor the rss feed of some youtube channels and
playlists, so that I can get fresh music as it is added.

I like the lofi hip hop style, e.g. chilledcow.

What do you like? :)

The main requirement for me is just something without lyrics - any
frequent occourance of words immediately distract me because I've
never been able to _not_ listen to people talking/singing. So if there
are lyrics, then I can't do any significant reading at the same time,
or even really think about complex sets of words or figures, because
that's like following two conversations at once. It's fine when doing
purely physical tasks though.

I discovered tracker modules in my early teens and they're still my
main source of music. They're free, take up very little disk/download
space, and I have fun searching through various scattered sites
trying to complete a collection of every file released by my
particular favourite artists who have often been otherwise forgotten
since the mid-90s. It's fun when you do trace them all the way up to
the present day via chains of archived personal websites and old
email addresses, and see what they're up to now (often little if
anything musical).

Also the texts in the sample lists can be great fun to read - from
the days when people shared their complete personal contact details
on the internet.

Also SID chiptunes, which are sort-of a secret weapon for really
focusing against a pure desperation to do something else, good while programming when I'm way out of my depth/understanding of what I'm
trying to work on, or just dead bored. I built a clone of the
original ISA HardSID card earlier this year, but actually got
distracted and haven't tested it out yet.

Then there's classical music, which I mainly just listen to on FM
radio (ABC Classic, an Australian state-owned station - no ads),
though I sometimes put on one of my second-hand cassette tapes.
That's mainly while doing electronics, driving, or around the house. Generally not while using a computer, my laptop is RF-leaky and
messes up my weak radio reception for one thing. :)

My tracker module and SID collection (as of 2019 - but I don't add
very much these days anyway) is available here on two CD images: gopher://aussies.space:70/1/%7efreet/moddisc

Joseph Jahn, Pseudolokian (MLP), Decibelter, are some of my
particular (and somewhat lesser known) favourite artists that come
to mind at the moment.

Hello, could you upload the isos to https://transfer.sh?
Plain curl could work:

curl --upload-file /path/to/file.iso https://transfer.sh/file.iso ; echo

After uploading it, it will return a URL, that will be valid for two weeks.

This way the file could be downloaded without even using a browser.


--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

anthk <anthk@texto-plano.xyz> wrote:

On 2020-12-09, The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

My tracker module and SID collection (as of 2019 - but I don't add
very much these days anyway) is available here on two CD images:
gopher://aussies.space:70/1/%7efreet/moddisc

Hello, could you upload the isos to https://transfer.sh?
Plain curl could work:

curl --upload-file /path/to/file.iso https://transfer.sh/file.iso ; echo

After uploading it, it will return a URL, that will be valid for two weeks.

I'll keep that site in mind, might be very handy.

However I was really hoping that upload would be a one-off. My
internet access is all via (cheap) mobile broadband and uploading
1.4GB of data is a very slow, very frustrating ("NO NO NO, DON'T
STOP NOW!!!"), experience. Currently I've got 3GB left to use before 2021-05-25, I've only used 2GB in the past 20 days so I probably
could get away with it on paper. But then there's all the data that
goes down the drain if a transfer fails (and if it can be resumed,
I've had data corruption problems in the past, so then one is
inclined to download it to test).

There are other options, such as when I visit a relative who
doesn't live in the middle of nowhere like me, in a week. But I'm
inclined to suggest that if you think it should be uploaded there,
it would probably be much easier to do it yourself (I'm happy for
anyone to host it wherever they like).

Sorry for the lecture, just trying to explain what might otherwise
seem like an unjust "no". People don't seem to "get" that some
people don't have an unlimited-data wired internet connection.

This way the file could be downloaded without even using a browser.

Checking now, it seems that at most one person has downloaded the
Artists ISO and two people the Collections ISO (probably minus 1
regarding whether it counted my early-aborted test downloads after
uploading, which I think it did). So I don't think I should put
much effort into allowing for a tiny two-week window for a slightly
easier download method. Clearly nobody's all that interested.

This is a strong affirmation of my "anti logging protest": gopher://aussies.space/0/%7efreet/phlog/2020-02-29An_Anti-Logging_Protest.txt (skip past the second "------------" for the relevant part)

Not to sound like I actually did anything impressive just by
lumping a bunch of files onto a couple of ISOs, and it was mainly
for my own use anyway.
--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

1.4GB of data is a very slow, very frustrating

Oh right, 960MB. I forgot about the ZIP compresson.
--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113

The Free Thinker <freet@aussies.space> wrote:

I'll do an audio CD 'mix' of tracks that I like to listen to
while driving one day as well - I've had my shortlist
for over a year but haven't put it together yet. I really like the
sweeping 'orchestual' techno tracks (I've got no idea about the
teminology for these things) in the car, such as "Network" and
"Beyond the Network" by Skaven.

Actually given that nobody downloads the mod discs, I probably
won't bother putting that online (nobody else would need it in
audio CD format anyway). But here's my current shortlist, not
yet finalised or arranged into a playlist (the Skaven ones are
already on another CD in the car):

Silencio - Euthanasie - Definate
Silencio - XtaZ for mE - 5m 1s
Silencio - Eclipse: Solar Walkabout -maybe
Pulse - Fountain of Sighs - def.
aurora - maybe
Decibelter - Arizona Dreaming -5m 21s - def.
Thor - Dissonance (anightnearthesea.xm) - 3m 08s
Joseph Jhan -Look But Don't Touch (look.it) - 6 1s
Joseph Jhan - moontrack.it - 4m 54s - def.
Ranger Rick - A Spire, Aspire.it - 5m 7s
Ranger Rick - Pap - 3m 51s
Ranger Rick - Flashing Across the Heavens - 7m 55s
Ekorren - Emofever - def.
Ekorren - I'm Back (imback.it) - 4m 31s
Necros - "Point of Departure" (pod.s3m) - 5m 13s - def.
Buzzer - Lukkosula - 3m 43s
Syphus - verzion.it - 3m, 1s
Xemogasa - Swaggering Elements - 1m 1s
Xemogasa - azure

In general long tracks with a strong beat is probably the closest
I can get to describing a theme. Maybe they're not for everyone.

Ranger Rick is under Phaedrus on my Module Mania CD, Verzion isn't
on there but you can find it on Modland here: ftp://modland.com/pub/modules/Impulsetracker/Syphus/verzion.it

You can also find all these tracks at Modland here: https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/Special:Modland
--

- The Free Thinker | gopher://aussies.space/1/%7efreet/
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Linux NewsLink 1.113