Linux, musical road-dogging, and daily life by Paul W. Frields
 
Author: <span>Paul Frields</span>

Latest DVD rental report… we watch ’em so you don’t have to! Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Certainly better than its predecessor. More action, more laughs, and more thrills. The characters are even gaining some depth, even in the oafish and hammy hands of director Chris Columbus. The …

Memo to the Dixie Chicks: With rights come responsibilities. You have the right as an American citizen to express yourself (short of ways that directly endanger the health or safety of others, see judicial decisions as necessary) as you see fit. With this right comes the responsibility to live with …

I’m practicing guitar yesterday, and Evie wandered in and started dancing and singing as she tends to do nowadays, anytime there’s music in the air. When I got to a particularly loud and raucous part full of power chords, I admit I “dug in” a little. Evie responded by stopping …

You must check out the many musical masteries of an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Brad Derrick. I am especially fond of plink; their music has a gently hypnotic quality, which doesn’t fully disguise the taut emotional undercurrents. And yes, I’m plugging this just in case you stop by, Brad. …

Dr. Nina Simone High Priestess of Soul Feb. 21, 1933 – Apr. 21, 2003 A woman of singular talent, presence and courage. Her music was a gift to the world of jazz and pop, whose voice expressed the most exquisite joy, sadness, longing, languor, and pain. She was an outspoken …

Seems to me that BitTorrent offers an easy opportunity for the BSA, RIAA, MPAA and others to pursue pirates. Since a torrent tracker has a record of IP addresses that are participating in swarming downloads, it would seem like an ideal solution, if you were one of those groups, to …

Sunday my friend Ellen and I went to see the Signature Theater’s production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Two words: simply outstanding. Rick Hammerly was captivating as Hedwig, and the rest of the cast, which consisted mainly of Hedwig’s bandmates, did a great job in their supporting roles. My …

Now I have mplayer and its associated plugin working properly as well, I am enjoying pretty much full-on feature compatibility with you poor suffering Windows users. Evie likes watching QuickTime trailers for kids’ movies on the computer, so this is very much a Good Thing(TM).

My mom got remarried on Saturday, so we had a fun time at the reception. Evie was pretty well-behaved too, which was a real plus. Having overindulged (very slightly) at the reception, I spent much of Sunday just watching Beatles: Anthology that I just got on DVD. Still the world’s …

Red Hat Linux 9 is out! One of my coworkers and I managed to get it via BitTorrent yesterday. Some real improvements, mostly in the “user-transparent” area. The menus incorporate the improvements from the betas, as well as the new Native POSIX Threading Library (NPTL). This may be invisible to …