enlightenment

Listening to the Enlightenment album by McCoy Tyner, recorded in 1973 at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Alphonse Mouzon on drums (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mouzon). More about the album here.

two from pragmatic

Found two nice articles from pragmaticlinux.com. First:

"Getting started with Double Commander" - https://www.pragmaticlinux.com/2020/06/getting-started-with-double-commander/

This article, from back in June, offers some tips on using the dual-paned, "orthodox" Double Commander file manager. As the author writes:

Double Commander is a free and open source dual pane file manager. It is an excellent file manager, especially for those who prefer a consistent file manager experience, while trying out different Linux desktop environments. This article assists you with getting Double Commander installed and configured on your Linux system.

Each desktop environment ships with its own file manager: Nautilus on Gnome, Dolphin on KDE, Thunar on XFCE, etc. Working in the file manager forms and integral part of my daily PC work flow. Therefore I do not enjoy being forced to switch to a different file manager, each time I try out a different desktop environment on Linux. Additionally, I really enjoy dual pane file managers. If you recognize yourself in these file manager preferences, then I can highly recommend giving Double Commander a try.

Kinda sums up why I use "DC".

Second:

"Install a minimal KDE on Debian 10 'buster'" - https://www.pragmaticlinux.com/2020/10/install-a-minimal-kde-on-debian-10-buster/

Good tips here. Basically, do a netinstall, choose only "standard system utilities", then run:

sudo apt -y install kde-plasma-desktop plasma-nm

After that, add whatever packages/apps desired.

sweet music

Listening to Iron Starlet, a very nice album by young jazz pianist Connie Han. Here's a link to it at YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Vywx6n3Qzo4&list=OLAK5uy_njjp_GoWQ7v0iRuvuhDeR57KcwYPSu4aE

More info: https://modernjazztoday.com/album/iron-starlet-connie-han/

 

asunder

Testing out the Asunder CD ripper and encoder. Project homepage: http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/

I installed Asunder in Debian Buster GNOME:

$ sudo apt install asunder

Optional dependencies include the lame and vorbis-tools packages, the latter of which was already installed here. I decided not to add lame.

I inserted a CD and started up Asunder. Asunder showed the found CDDB info.

For now, I left everything at the defaults. Asunder was set to encode to OGG Vorbis, which was exactly what I wanted.

I ripped the files and then opened them in the Audacious music player. Track information was picked up as expected, and the songs played perfectly.

I was planning to look at some other options for ripping CDs in GNOME. I took a quick look at ripperX, but then I tried Asunder and it seemed to give me what I wanted out-of-the-box. Good software, does what it's supposed to do. Sold.

 

getting filenames/pathnames

Here's a tip on how to quickly copy and paste the full path of a file from GNOME's Files (aka nautilus) onto the command line in Terminal (aka gnome-terminal): Drag And Drop Files And Folders In Terminal To Print Their Absolute Path

Not all terminal emulators will support this, but it also works with KDE Plasma's Konsole.

I found that this trick also works for copying the absolute pathname of a file from my preferred file manager, Double Commander, into gnome-terminal.

Double Commander offers a few other options for copying filenames. In this shot I've got the ~/scripts directory selected, and I can copy the filename to the clipboard via a menu entry (Mark > Copy Filename(s) with Full Path or Mark > Copy Filename(s) to Clipboard):

 

Even nicer, buttons for those actions can be placed on Double Commander's toolbar:

Very handy. From the clipboard, the filenames can be copied to the terminal emulator with the Ctrl+Shift+V keystroke.

The menu entries in Double Commander show keystroke hints for yet another way of doing this:

Ctrl+Shift+X - copy filename to clipboard
Ctrl+Shift+C - copy absolute pathname to clipboard

I've found it worth my time to practice those keystrokes a few times to get my fingers used to 'em. And, again, after copying:

Ctrl+Shift+V - paste from clipboard to terminal emulator

ugly, ignorant, and just plain sad

"The grocery manager, the anti-maskers, and the one thing he wouldn't say"

C'mon, people.

brilliant decision

Not everyone thinks that it's such a good idea to have organized football, at any level, during this particular time. USA Today's Christine Brennan penned a column that speaks for many of us: "Opinion: Big Ten's decision to play football signals darkest day in conference's sports history":

 An excerpt:

 [...]

Just as the Big Ten was looking smarter by the day as COVID-19 outbreaks popped up at Michigan State, Wisconsin and Maryland while other conferences playing football announced COVID-related postponements and soaring cases, the league’s presidents reversed themselves and decided to steer their schools and their football programs right into the teeth of what are predicted to be some of the worst days of the pandemic in October and November.

And how are they doing it? With a mountain of daily antigen tests, special delivery for Big Ten football teams only. Rapid tests for football players, but apparently not for the elderly in Ann Arbor or Columbus or Evanston, or for school children and teachers in Bloomington or New Brunswick or Minneapolis, or for students paying for their education amid the outbreaks in East Lansing or Madison or College Park.

So how will this work? Smooth as silk, I’m sure. Let’s look at Michigan State. The other day, all MSU students were asked to self-quarantine – and 30 large houses, including 23 fraternities and sororities, were ordered into mandatory quarantine – after the school announced 342 new coronavirus cases.

“This is an urgent situation,” Ingham County Health Officer Linda S. Vail said. “The exponential growth of COVID-19 cases must stop.”

So hey, Michigan State, let’s start football! What could go wrong?

[...]

Indeed.