Year: 2023
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Buddhism and 12 Step Programs
A few weeks back I was attending my regular Alanon meeting, and the person who led it asked the question “Why are you here?”. They were thinking more of “Why are you here at Alanon?” with the point being: are you here for the alcoholic or for yourself? (Spoiler: it should be for yourself.) But as a broader question, that’s something I have been mulling over for a while now. Why am I here – on earth, living this life? I can’t honestly say I enjoy life – or at least not taken as a whole narrative arc. There are… Read more
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Further adventures in music management
For a while now, I’ve been using a re-purposed Dell PowerEdge server as a home media server. I had all my music ripped to it, and linked it to my Sonos system so I could stream to anywhere in the house. It worked pretty well for almost 10 years, but it was running Windows Home Server 2003 and was slowly dying. I couldn’t install the latest version of the Sonos controller, periodically lost internet connectivity, and everything was just getting slower and slower. So I decided to upgrade. I settled for another Dell (after a temporary defection to HP before… Read more
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God-like Genius #2: Bob Dylan
Several years ago, over a dinner where I had my Apple Airport spinning random songs from my collection, my Dad asked me who I considered to be my overall ‘favorite’ artist. After mulling it over for a couple of minutes, I confessed that I didn’t know. I’ve got a lot of (what I’d consider) varied music, and I listen to different stuff at different times. It’s kind of difficult to rank Zappa against Mogwai, or Steve Earle against Radiohead, or Nick Cave against Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Plus, whenever I discover someone new I’ll obsess over them for ages and… Read more