Helping the environment
A lot of work is done in making linux suspend work better. For me it works perfect (from linux kernel 2.6.20 or so). Therefore I wanted to go a step further and let my class A, heavy power-using receiver switch off when my desktop computer suspends (to ram). And switch back on when my computer wakes up. The motivation is that I only listen music via my computer.
To achieve this I bought the Gembird Silver Shield, a USB-switchable power adapter. I was prepared to do some nice USB snooping and C programming to get this device working in linux, but (un)fortunately there was already a working utility for this device.
Configuration for suspend/hibernate is not so easy and documentation is sparse for the user mode utilities. Since it took me more than the usual googling I will summarize my conclusions here for later use. First the gnome-screensaver measures the idle time. After this timeout is expired the gnome-power-manager starts to measure his own timeout (so before suspend the two times will stack). When the gnome-power-manager times out it will look at the Inhibit flag. If there is no inhibiting (for example my rhythmbox pushes Inhibiting, because I do not want to suspend when music is playing) your computer will suspend.
Since a custom script should be added to switch the power-switch off via usb with sispmctl the suspend-backend is important. Gnome power manager can use multiple backends to go to suspend mode. This works via hal (the hardware abstraction layer). Configuration for this is in /usr/share/hal/information. HAL is responsible for calling the suspend-backend. The default suspend-backend on my machine is pm-utils. (which can be tested with pm-(suspend/hibernate/power-save etc.). I also have a package called hibernate (which can also suspend, confusing isnt' it?). A third one is suspend2 (which can also hibernate....). These backends have different ways of adding custom hooks.
To add a hook to hibernate I added a file called local in /etc/hibernate/scriptlets.d/. The API is as follows (ugly in my book):
# -*- sh -*-
UsbPowerSocketDown() {
/usr/bin/sispmctl -f1
}
UsbPowerSocketUp() {
/usr/bin/sispmctl -o1
}
AddUsbOptions() {
AddSuspendHook 10 UsbPowerSocketDown
AddResumeHook 10 UsbPowerSocketUp
return 0
}
AddUsbOptions
Pm-utils has a much nicer API. To add a custom hook add a file to /etc/pm/sleep.d . This uses init style ordering. So look in /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/ for a proper number. I needed to talk to the usb-bus AFTER the modules were loaded, so a number lower than 50. So I added /etc/pm/sleep.d/10usbpoweroptions with content like this:
#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
suspend)
/usr/bin/sispmctl -f1
;;
resume)
sleep 1
/usr/bin/sispmctl -o1
;;
esac
After all this fiddling it works like a charm! Now hopefully one standard will emerge; because how to achieve the same result with KDE I don't know. I had to manually patch rhythmbox to change calling (via dbus) the Inhibit method from org.gnome.powermanager to org.freedesktop.powermanagement (because i used a wrong combination of versions..), so this suggests a move in the right direction.
[Permalink] -- Filed under: [music] [linux] [science]
Nine million bicycles
While the
music industry is having their holy war against downloaders to disguise the bringing of yet another
clone (this time Norah Jones II: Katie Melua); it is time for someone to show the music industries
hypocrisy, with their blatant copying of classical music.
Just kidding of course ;), I actually like the Melua cd's. Especially Mike Bright Eyes Batt's songwriting is very smooth. Time to find out where Mike got his ideas and start with some analysis for my (not yet in shape) coverlist, this time with the megahit Nine million bicycles.
The chord sequence is something like:
Verse: | I iii | ii IV | ii I | Refrain: | iv I | iv vi | iv I | ii V |
The verse is a disguised form of the I-IV-I, the tonic-subdominant progression. The mediant (iii) is there to provide some color, the ii is very much linked with the IV (the relative minor of IV). A similar progression can be found in preludes by Bach (for example the prelude from cello suite 6 in D).
In the refrain the subdominant is taken and the key is referred to minor. This is an early romantic period trick (A. Pollack calls this barbershop harmony) for example used in Schubert's songs. I will look for a specific example, but I don't have a CD with this music. Actually I am not so sure where the vi comes from??
So in my (probably wrong) view Nine million bicycles is a mix of a Bach prelude and a Schubert-style song.
[Permalink] -- Filed under: [music]
Ensembles
In the beginning I played at various flute ensembles at my music school. From 2000-2002 I played early music with the Consort of Muesli. This consort existed of- Dorothea Schulz, recorders, flutes and bass flutes
- Margje Bekkering, various recorders
- Jitske Kuiper, various recorders
- Jochem van der Vorm, renaissance and baroque traverso
[Permalink] -- Filed under: [music]
Copycat
Today I added a new page to this site, containing
a list of pop songs borrowing certain elements of famous
classical music. You can find this list of classical
covers by clicking on the link or in the menu on the right.
This page is by no means in the shape I intended, but perhaps I will try harder if others can look over my shoulders.
Pop and rock songs often borrow some parts of melody, rhythm or harmony of classical songs. When listening to (pop) music I sometimes notice, but later almost always forget the connection between the song and a classical piece. Since knowing useless facts can be fun, I have decided to write these "classical covers" down.
It is very difficult to exactly pinpoint when a song is a "cover". Therefore I decided not to maintain a bare list, but also write a few words about the connection between the songs, ranging from a small theme or chord progression to a literary transcription in the same key. I try to mention the oldest occurrence in written music, which is very often from the Renaissance or Baroque, simply because mankind started most annotating around this time.
Hopefully I will find some time in the future to accomplish part of these goals.
[Permalink] -- Filed under: [music]
Enter
May 1997: I was visiting a concert on Dynamo Open Air,
by a very unknown band, named Within
Temptation. About 5000 long-haired and black-dressed metalheads were
there to see a very special and refreshing gig.
Now, almost ten years later, this band is very popular and their music has not changed much (genre-members Nightwish, Tristania and After Forever for example, deliver much better, more sophisticated albums). Visiting the Within Temptation concert at Parkpop was however again a nice experience. A crowd of 200.000, consisting of a very wide variety of people, complete families, house- and rapfans, old blues-lovers, ultra-hip designers, etc. etc.) were enjoying the still heavy sound of Within Temptation. Can the world change or what??
Totally unrelated: If someone has/needs a graph of the colour of bread through the ages, contact me; I assembling one.
[Permalink] -- Filed under: [music] [concert]