Top Tracks of 2012

Well, it's that time of year. Once again I can abuse my html knowledge and shove a few YouTube videos into a blog post to illustrate what I've been listening to.

This is the first year I haven't had to strip out my common running tracks from the chart. Mainly because I haven't done much running, but also because I've started listening to other things when I do go out.

So, without further pause the four tracks I've listened to 13 times this year:

fun.: Some Nights

Irma Thomas: Anyone Who Knows What Love is (Will Understand)

Neil Diamond: Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

Warren Zevon: Werewolves Of London

Four very different tracks for four very different reasons. Fun appeared on my Radio 2 playlist earlier in the year, and the combination of the driving drums and the way the singer roams around the octaves piqued my interest. I had first picked up on them via "We Are Young" (more later), but this track saw a reasonable rotation too.

Irma Thomas is singing the original version of a song used in Charlton Brooker's "Black Mirror" show about fame. The track grabbed me during the show, and he tweeted out a link to the original shortly after.

Neil Diamond popped up because I was thinking about Pulp Fiction one day. No idea why, but I added the track to the main playlist, and it's been there ever since.

Warren Zevon is just a classic. Seriously, go read up.

My 7th most listened song is Marlon Roudette: New Age

Lovely track, lovely song. Again cropped up on the Radio 2 playlist.

At number 6:

Trent Reznor: Immigrant Song. A pounding version of the Led Zeppelin classic.

No. 5 (Apologies in advance):

Gotye: Somebody That I Used To Know. (I did apologise)
Doesn't he sound like Sting?! Couldn't really get away from this one, very catchy.

Two songs at number 3 with 18 plays each.

Hugo: 99 Problems

Avalanche City: Love LoveLove

Hugo was the end track of the remake of "Fright Night" A fairly crap film, but a great song. I've never really gone for the original, but this version is great. I've had to avoid playing it near the 5 yr old, but it gets a fairly regular outing when I'm alone in the car!

Avalanche City is one of those tracks that I like but everyone else I speak to seems to think is OK at best. No idea why, just strikes a chord with me.

At number 2:

fun.: We Are Young
I was away in Chester earlier in the year to meet up with some friends; and, killing time in my hotel room with one of the music channels on, this came on. The video grabbed me, the song followed. Brilliant lyrics, hooks, and beat. I know this band is something of a marmite band apparently (more in US I believe), but I do like these tracks in this list. Tried the rest of the album once, mainly filler!

And finally, at number 1, with 21 plays since it came out at the end of September!:

Ben Folds Five: Do It Anyway.
I mean come on, Ben Folds Five! Fraggles! What more could you want!? One of my favourite bands came back this year with a new album, and this great track and video. If you included the YouTube plays then I've probably listened to this over 50 times. I saw them live just a few weeks ago and they were everything you'd want them to be. This was one of the stand out tracks too. I still don't know how they manage to play and sing and stay in time with all that's going on in this song. A worthy winner.

Media System Setup

I've had a request to write something!! Admittedly it's a tech request by a family member, but it still allows me to make use of the blog before it fades into complete obscurity in the face of Google+(https://plus.google.com/104031145895548702140/posts)!

My brother has asked that I detail my lounge media setup. So here it is:

Thecus N5500 NAS in the study connected via a cat6 cable around the outside of the house to a...
Revo 3700 PC. A small, silent little box with a 1.8GHz processor and 2 Gig of memory. The 160 Gig hard drive is largely unused, but it is running...
Ubuntu 10-10 (yes, Maverick) running...
XBMC 11.0 (Eden)
The PC is connected via HDMI to a Onkyo amp, and from there to some speakers and the TV.

The old version of ubuntu is because the repository I use to get a pre-compiled version of XBMC didn't, at the time, support anything newer (http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu maverick main). The repository now deals with everything up to Oneiric, and XBMC is now in the main Ubuntu Universe repository for Precise.

You have to do some, well documented, hacking with the /etc/asoundrc file to get sound over HDMI, but that's a one off. A quick play with alsamixer should get you tested and running. The internal config of XBMC for sound was a bit trial and error, but there is only a handful of options, so it didn't take that long (it's better documented now as I've just discovered by searching google for "revo 3700 ubuntu xbmc")

The NAS is split into directories for TV, Movies, Music, and Pictures (although I'm not currently using the latter 2), and the config of XBMC points the relevant section at the relevant directory. This works really well, and took no configuration. Go into movies, point it at the movies directory, configure the type of media as movie, and the system went and scanned everything in there, looking up all the relevant details from IMDB as it went. There were only a handful of movies I had to correct it on, and there were down to the directory name being ambiguous.

The system can be controlled by keyboard and / or mouse (the keyboard is how my daughter navigates her "Scooby Doo" episodes), or via an official XMBC Android app(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xbmc.android.remote). We have the Android app on both mine and my wife's phones, and it works brilliantly. Layout has the same options as the system, browsing is intuitive, and the "Now playing" option allows direct control of whatever is on at the time. Remote control allows you to browse around the system as though you were using the keyboard / mouse directly, but from the comfort of your seat. The app even pauses the current program if you get a phone call (resuming seamlessly when the call finishes).

XBMC has apps for YouTube and IPlayer both of which we've used easily enough. The YouTube one syncs with your account, so your favourites, playlists, and subscriptions are there when you open the app up. In fact there are many apps and plugins, so if you have a specific need it can probably be met(http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Category:All_add-ons).

Overall the system is low maintenance and easy to use. My 5 year old, and my "non-geek" wife use it without issue. I spend almost no time worrying about it. The only "maintenance" I do is to initiate a scan when I add something new one of the directories. That's a simple menu option, and could be negated if I turned on active scanning (I don't because I don't add stuff that often and don't want the overhead).

I'd highly recommend the system as long as you have the media to support it. It took a while to rip all our DVDs to the NAS, and the options for getting media in a digital format that you can copy straight onto the NAS is still currently limited. Ripping blue-rays is a PITA, copying DVDs makes that new disk redundant almost immediately. The media companies will catch up though. Eventually. And I'll be right there ready and waiting.

I think that covers everything, but if I've missed anything (or you want something clarified), you can put any questions in the comments.

More Links

'Cos that's what it's all about!

Just a girl and her AT-AT
Trololo sing along
Never be a puppet
Game of Thrones - Squeaky Toys edition
Background behind that event you probably missed last week
All the Captains in one picture
Paper Prometheus. Might be better than the original from what I've heard
The Credible Hulk
Anyone got $30,000 knocking about? Brings the lounge together
New Disney Trailer

Closing tabs

These are links I've been collecting since last September or October, and meaning to get around to looking at / posting. Rather than release a deluge of posts onto my social networks of choice I thought I'd be kind and put them into a post that you can bookmark and come back to. Aren't I nice? :-)

The links are in two roughly equal halves. The YouTube videos, and the rest.

Here come the YouTube videos:

Shatner does Bohemian Rhapsody
Aliens! On Ice!
Geek Speed dating! Have to look for this show. There, but for the grace of...
The impossibility of texting and driving. Don't do it!
10 Science party pieces
Proper science! With chemicals and everything!
Optical illusion
Definitely a dumb idea
Portal song (Still Alive) done on an old exercise machine computer
The Portal song done on old Floppy Drives
An, unnecessarily, censored version of a Zelda cartoon
Doctor Who meets Metal
Duck Tales, the Rock version
Don't think of Deliverance. Don't think of Deliverance
Human Jukebox: 90's megamix
George R R Martin reads children's Stories
3 minutes (you won't want more) of a Superman Musical
Minecraft Catsplosion
Bring on the cute! A Baby monkey get's a bath
Flaming waterfall of Mexican Coffee

And now the rest:

Bat-tache
Nothing (apparently) is going to stop me now.
You'll need this after the last link
Doctor Who-of
An elevator Tardis
Relaxing Prisms
Everything Bart's written on a chalkboard
Tasty Breakfast. Have to try this one sometime
Rabbit(!) Olympics
Star Wars font
Empire Strikes Back feature from '81
George Lucas can go to hell!
Uber-meta! Space station built in Space Station!
Bring on the cute!!
A Badger Theremin!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses. Click through a few pages.
Clever paper trick
How many can you spot?
Some writing ideas...

Now, aren't you glad I didn't post them in a huge swarm of posts!!

Comments, thoughts, links of your own, all welcome.

Enjoy.

A few links around the #NHSBill. Read, take action, feel good.

Start here, this is what the bill is about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_Social_Care_Bill_2011

Then get the breakdown here: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/03/grim-meathook-future-english-s.html

Referenced is Ben Goldacre's Post here: http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/what-will-the-nhsbill-do-i-dont-think-youre-w

Both articles are based on the article published in the British Medical Journal: http://www.allysonpollock.co.uk/administrator/components/com_article/attach/2012-03-08/BMJ_2012_Pollock_HealthSocialCareBill.pdf

Some more breakdown is here: http://scruffymutt.posterous.com/the-bill-that-no-one-wants and here: http://nhsvault.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-patients-are-not-objecting-to.html

The Royal College of Surgeons don't like it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/09/royal-college-surgeons-nhs-reforms. The GPs governing body don't support it either: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/13/andrew-lansley-nhs-reforms-unworkable. In fact, as showed here: http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/who-is-and-is-not-invited-to-camerons-emergen most of the key parts of the NHS oppose the bill.

Here was today's political blow: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/10/liberal-democrats-debate-nhs-bill

After all that, go here: http://nhsalert.org.uk/, read more, and click the "Take Action" link to here: http://nhsalert.org.uk/pages/take-action; then, at least, sign the petition http://nhsalert.org.uk/page/signup/nhs-alert-petition, and email your MP http://nhsalert.org.uk/page/speakout/will-you-email-your-mp-now

Any questions? :-)

How a geek gets fit...

...or at least how he starts motivating himself!

I've been faffing about umming and ahhing over getting back into shape for about the last six months. False starts here, good intentions there, but nothing concrete. With the coming of spring I have finally started to do something properly; and those who follow my Twitter stream will have noticed the odd runkeeper report starting to creep back in.

Baby steps so far, a few 1.5 mile runs initially; a couple of 2.25 mile ones this week. Still, something is *far* better than nothing!

Last time I did the "getting fit thing" I started out using "My Tracks" by Google on my Android phone before changing to Runkeeper as a way to track my exercise. This worked to a point, and is working again. Posting regular updates to my stream keeps me honest (even if it may annoy people who get annoyed over automated updates), and the stats show me how I'm improving. Going faster / further is a good incentive. Remebering to take my headphones also helps!

However, this time it just doesn't seem to be enough. I managed to sort my diet out last time by following the Dukan diet, and the newness of this , combined with the strict, easy to follow rules, really helped. I can't do it again! Having done it once I know what awaits me, and I can't face it alone!

But I'm a geek!! Technology is *always* the answer. With this in mind, I've been researching Fitbit. It tracks everything, not just the main exercise. It checks my sleep patterns. It gives *lots* of stat porn! One, minor, problem; apparently the food tracking is very American based. Quick bit of research, and I came up with MyFitnessPal. This links with Fitbit, and tracks your food through their database which either works through keywords, or by barcode scan (if your food comes that way (which most of mine doesn't!)).

I ordered the Fitbit today, setup my account and linked it with Runkeeper. Then I setup MyFitnessPal, linked that with Fitbit, and setup the app on my phone. So far, it works. Obviously the system isn't tracking my movements yet (I haven't got the dongle), but some assumptions are being made to give baseline results. Food is being tracked, and calories counted. Exercise is recorded, and calories dropped accordingly. It all looks good.

The mental side is working too. I went to Subway for lunch, and got one of their Subway club sandwiches. 6 Inch, no cheese, honey and mustard dressing (not fat). On adding it into the app, I couldn't bring myself to add the crsips that I was going to get to go with it; back on the shelf they went. The bottle of water was an easy purchase! The sandwich didn't taste nearly as good as it usually does. I don't think I'll be back at Subway for a while!

The final piece of my geek setup is my Withings scale. I got this last time I was losing weight on a special deal (also, I paid for it, via Amazon, with some returned items). It's a simple thing; but again, the stat porn more than makes up for it. I know my weight over time, how much of that is fat / lean, how it varies against exercise, and, now, how it varies with food, daily routine.

Hopefully all this new geeky stuff will be enough to kick start things to the point where the weight loss / fitness level is itself the main driving factor.

Leaving on a fast train

I'm on a train, leaving Paddington, for the last time (for a while). I am now unemployed.

Four weeks ago I was told that our department had lost my headcount, and that I had a month of employment remaining as per the terms of my contract. That time is now over, and I am returning home.

As the birth of our second child is imminent the timing couldn't have been better (or worse, but who wants to be a pessimist?); so I'm taking some time, and anticipating a new challenge ahead.

I'll start looking for work again when things settle down. Until then, no more data, lots more Daddy.