Category Archives: Lifestyle

Music of the now #2

Its the end of the month again. What a month it was. It included slight pneumonia, family weekend, “apenkooien” and a lot of homework.

I managed to update my iTunes playlist, which is starting to become awesome. There are definitely more then 10 songs i want to share with you, but ill limit myself to the 10 best songs of this month.

Remember that this is not a chart, its just 10 random songs i got to know in the past month. 

A total of 453 different songs were (fully!) played in this month. A total time of 1 day and 10 hours. Only 3.45 GB if we are talking about data.

Lets kick it off:

DJ Anounymos – So i herd u liek musics (oh lawd, is dat sum insurgery) v2.1 (less kkk edition) (happy, fast, hardhouse)       

I downloaded the lulz CD’s from the insurg.in; a site for scriptkiddies and 3vil hax0r which, how would you not expect it, is ddossed frequently. On one of the first cd’s there is this track! A great uptempo mix with a catching melody and a fine beat. There was only one downside: there was a “join the kkk” sample it it, which i don’t condone. So i contacted DJ Anounymos and he was kind enough to render a version without the KKK samples for play during parties 🙂 I played this one during “apenkooien” in Arnhem. Unfortunately i’m not allowed to distribute this version, but you can still listen to the original track. See the links: 

Released: 19-01-2008. DJ Anounymos Website Youtube

JL Madskillz feat. JM – El Piloto Del Flow (reggaetón)
This one came along one of the promo cd’s. I haven’t got the faintest idea what they are talking about. This song was followed by Lee Wilson – Can i Get Your Number; also reggaetón in the same key and almost the same structure. I think its good. I heard a lot of ‘CALLE’ shouting in these songs, which translates directly to street… i think its the friendly sounding gangster sound from the carribbean. I love it though, so more of this in next months edition.

Released: 1997. No Youtube, No Discogs… effect of a promo probably.

State of Mind – Sunking (Drum ‘n Bass)       

Oh My fucking god! I heard this track as a leader for the second Utreg United party in Utrecht. Holy shit it rocked my world. I Love Drum n Bass. A friend gave me the whole album (Take Control, 2006) and there are more great tracks on it: Mindslicer and Real Mccoy. Its rough melodic drum n bass, which i like.

Released 2006. Youtube Discogs

Reyes – Fuck You (old school Hardcore)
The only worthwhile tracks on ‘The K.N.O.R. Anniversary Hardcore Inferno’ from back in the days of XSV, KNOR and Ruffneck. I listened to it back in 1996 when i borrowed the CD from a cousin. Now i was visiting the same cousin again, and asked if i could rip this cd to my laptop. Great success ensued. Released: 1996 Youtube Discogs
Bjork – Army of Me (Electronica, Pop)       

Thanks to radio 3 dj Paul Rabberink for playing this one on national radio. He called it a strange song, but i don’t share that opinion. I’ts a brilliant song, don’t mess with this one. It’s as massive as the large truck she was driving in in the video clip. This army will crush you.

Released: 1995 Last.FM

A.D.O.R. – One For the Trouble (old school Rap)       

Back once again with the ill behaviour, can you feel it, nothing can save ya. Its the A for Alla(h?!), D for Damager, O for Outta here, R for the renegade master.

And we all know what came from that. The album (The Concrete) is great. Although i don’t like the lyrics in some songs, but hey… i think he had some hard times.

Released 1994. Youtube Discogs

Down South - Tractors, Rakes And Hoes (old school Hip Hop)
What’s happening here? More Hip Hop? On MY website? YES! Another great album, which i found in the following torrents: “20 Classic:Rare:Obscure Rap:Hip Hop albums part 1” and “20 More Classic Hip Hop Rap Albums“. These torrents feature only rap albums with classic songs, lyrics and beats. 

This album Lost in Brooklyn from Down South is one of the best in the bundle. It’s also kind of strange due to its southern atmosphere. 

Released: 1994 Youtube Discogs

Strickly Roots – Beg No Friends (old school Hip Hop)
I can fill this entire blog entry only with Hip Hop that is worthwhile listening. I think 3 tracks is enough to describe 40 albums. But for people who are still in doubt, here are some names: “5 Elementz, Al Tariq, D.I.T.C., GZA, Mood, Rass Kass, Sadat X.This track has the real old school flavor: smooth beats, samples, scratching, rapping and dreads.

I also love the album cover. Thats a real picture, just as it is. 

Released: 1994 Youtube Discogs

Tsunami One & BT – Hip Hop Phenomenon (Electronica)
I had this song in 1999 in a mix i recorded from Einslive (a german radio station). Unfortunately i lost this tape. The mix was filled with absolute classics like this song. Found this in the Y4K Discography (which i never had heard of before). They carry a lot of good songs but haven’t got time to really listen to it. Probably more next month. 

To describe in more popular therms: it kinds sounds like the newer prodigy mixed with techno? I don’t know. I love it.

Released: 1999 Youtube Discogs

Funta – Kao Dekai (Anime, jPop, jRock, lulz)       

Moar lulz cd content: a fun anime song. The singer (girl) sings about a large head. This head is a great point of interest to the singer; it is large, surprisingly large, it is huge, it is long and it is impossible to hide anywhere. (translations). 

In general its a cute sounding track full of craziness; its best if you don’t understand the lyrics but only vaguely know what they are about.

Released: 1998 Youtube Insurg.in

That concludes 10 tracks from last month. There are many more to mention (for example Moby – In this world) but that will be saved for later. Who knows what’s up for the next month? I’ll be expanding my iTunes playlist up to 40.000 songs in the next months so probably lots of new stuff.

Music was my first love, and it will be my last. Music of the future and music of the past.

 

Bonus material:

I cleaned my iTunes library and playlists. 

For removing dead tracks (you know, with the exclamation mark) you can use this.

My library now looks like this:

Elgers playlist structure

The structure is simple:

– Everything is sorted by genre.

– All genres contain 3 types of playlists.

  • # prefixed albums with special content: dj stuff (selected), unsorted and unable to be sorted (yet)
  • Artist name playlists: only contains complete albums by this artist
  • Artist – Album playlists: when there is only one album from this artist in my collection.
Genres are vague on purpose. For example: rock will contain classic rock, popular rock, soft rock as well as metal, hard rock, punk and such.
Obviously i’ve not listened to all this music yet. Albums that suck will be purged, but this has not happened in repetition yet. Therefore there is no need (yet) to keep a list of all sucky albums and horrible artists.

Music of the now #1

Hey ppl, 

There are some new articles that i still haven’t finished yet. To keep you entertained, ill now post about 10 songs every few weeks with what i’m listening to. My musical preference is very broad, yet also very limited. 

So lets top it of with this month’s number 10:

 

Music of the now 1 Hamunaptra – Destroyer of Worlds (industrial, hardcore) 

Absolutely magnificent track, with more wideness than ever heard before. The sound literally swallows you whole. Comes from Enzyme release 23: Hamunaptra – Rise. There are other good tracks on the album, for example ‘Road to Salvation’; which is just plain hardcore noise which is fun now and then.

Released: 12-10-2006. Details at Cardiac.nl

Smash Mouth – Walkin’ on the Sun (pop, rock, happy) 

Instant feelgood happyness. Came with the YTMND collection, a collection of virtual compilations with music from the ever-useless website YTMND. Calms me down and makes me feel relaxed. 

Released: 1997. Smash mouth’s website, showing a lie we all know. YTMND

Cherrish – Happy Friday (Happy Hardcore, Oldschool) 

Super happy melodic track. With breakbeats and a high pitched voice. Still don’t know where the voice is from but that doesn’t really matter. Came with Happy Hardcore #3; which i need for my happy hardcore collection. Song was exclusively put on Happy Hardcore #3 as a filler track probably. Its still pretty good and i keep liking it.

Released 1995. Youtube Cherrish on Discogs

T.O.T.T. – Get up (happy hardcore, oldschool) 

This is the most energetic track on Happy Hardcore #3. Get up!, Get it on now, Try it again, Try it again, hold it up. Happyness, its just now or never!!!!! HAha, makes me happy everytime!

Released: 1995 Youtube Discogs

 

?????? Aliance – Soulshine (Drum & Bass) 

This is one of my favourite Drum & Bass tracks ever made. It’s inspirational, a bit weird in the beginning but just beautiful. Its hard to find any info on this track, so perhaps im wrong. Just listen to the youtube and be amazed.

Released: 2008 youtube

Calibre – V Neck (Drum & Bass) 

A beautiful relaxed drum & bass track (if the id3’s are right). Also one of my absolute favorites. No youtube this time. I’ll put this song up in my dnb mix whenever i come to it. You’ll be properly and thoroughly relaxed. 

Released 2006. Discogs

Unnatural Selection & Cik -  Day Of Judgement (Ophidians Mainstage RmX) (Melodic Hardcore) 

The second track of Masters Of Hardcore 27 was a cut of this stunning track. Beautiful melodic hardcore from the only hardcore producers i respect: the people at cardiac. If you don’t like hardcore, just skip the first 2 minutes of the track.

Released: 2009 Youtube Discogs

Juggernaut – Got 2 be a Ruffneck (Harcore, Old school) 

Ok, i admit. I’ve sorted out all enzyme / ruffneck mp3’s and supplied them with album art. (see pics at end of article). I’ts hard to find good rips / ruffneck collection cd rips. I’m still wondering why they don’t have an online shop where i can buy tracks from the old label. (i suppose it wont fit in their business model).

Anyway, this track is stunning from start to finish. Lots of energy. One of the best tracks on the Ruffneck label, which makes you feel cool about listening to their music and being part of the fans. 

Released: 1997 Youtube Cardiac

Cunninlynguists – Interlude 2 (Instrumental, Hip Hop) 

One of my favorite hip hop / rap bands, not so much for their lyrics but more for their beats. I abandoned rap-lyrics a while ago, so i don’t pay much attention to them. Its not gangster rap, so their message is probably one of good faith. The piano in this instrumental got me, feelings of happiness and regret. Wow it was so powerful and it keeps on being beautiful. Don’t put it on repeat though; it will lose its value.

Released: 2003 Youtube Wikipedia

Weaver & Andy L – Tell Me (New Happy Hardcore) 

Behinde this cheesy is a 3-cd collection full of happy hardcore made by the hardcore masif dj’s. That doesn’t mean its bad, it means that if you like 1 song; you’ll like them all. This is one of the tracks that really shines in front of the rest. Almost all vocals on the cd’s are performed by Or lisa marie Or Alison Wade, which are both nightingales. Note: The audio on the cd is so loud you’ll need to adjust your sterio volume before listening. I think these guys have won the loudness war. I praise them for it.

Released: 2008 Youtube (youtube audio = bad) Discogs

So there you have it, 10 tracks from my iTunes of last month. Aside from these (harder) tracks i also listened to sky.fm smooth jazz; its absolutely great. Who knows what i’ll be listening to next month 🙂

 

Bonus material:

I cleaned my ruffneck, gangsta, enzyme and enzyme x vinylrips. Albumart in iTunes rules. (note: the vinylrips are of poor quality (artifacts, broken, maximized); a disgrace. I lack the money to have the actual records. I do own some of them though.)

 

 

Par 2 for mac

Yesterday, during a BBQ, me and a friend developed Par2ForMac; a simple and effictive par 2 repair application for intel based macs. Par2 files are accompanied with usenet downloads to repair broken files. Thus-far there was no simple GUI application for macosx that could handle par2 files.

 

The state of technology today is awesome; this application and the website have been built in record time; within 2 hours everything was ready.

Par2ForMac is the best par2 gui available on mac; this should make you sad. I’ve never seen any well designed application that can do par2 repairs. Please correct me if i’m wrong.

(edit: macpardeluxe doesnt suck completely: it can do par2 repairs and auto extraction. Yet it doesn’t come close to windows implementations like autounpack of R’n’E from newsleecher. Primarily due to the fact it looks outdated.)

 

Checkout the Par2ForMac website and application:

http://web.me.com/elger.jonker/Par2ForMac/

Switching to English (with capital E)

From now on all messages on this blog will be in English (and sometimes in Dutch and English).

This because im used to talking English all day and i need to learn to use it EVEN MORE. The texts on this blog will be a mixture between UK and US and maybe some Dutch in case i mess up. 

That concludes my lecture for today… LETS ROCK!

 

Ow yeah… happy valentine to u all (pics comming up :)) 

Dageraadsimulator…

De philips wakeup light ligt zonbeetje overal in de schappen; dus ik naar de winkel om er een aan te schaffen. Wat blijkt; in het echt is hij lelijk en past absoluut niet bij mijn kamer. Dus tijd om op zoek te gaan naar andere dawn simulators. Ik iwl er het liefst eentje die goedkoop en mooi is. Deze combinatie gaat niet vaak samen dus het wordt nog een uitdaging om er een te vinden.

Waarom heb ik er een nodig?

WAKKER WORDEN!Heel simpel; ik wil graag optimaal wakker kunnen worden in de winter. Normaal gaat de wekker en dan snooze ik nog 5x. Daarna draai ik om en sta 2 minuten later met tegenzin op. Het is zelfs een aantal jaren zo geweest dat ik net zo lang rekte dat er nog maar 5 minuten waren om me aan te kleden en naar de trein te fietsen; op een of andere wonderbaarlijke rede haalde ik meestal de trein ook nog. Na het lezen van “uw brein als medicijn” en het marketingsgeronk van ome philips leek het me tijd om ook eens lekker op te gaan staan.

Technisch gezien

Een sunrise, dawn, dageraad, lichtwekker is technisch gezien niet veel meer dan een timer en een dimmer waarop je een lamp kan aansluiten. In eerste instantie zocht ik naar een goedkope combinatie van deze twee. Ik was niet de enige die dat heeft gedaan, zo kwam ik hetzelfde idee op forums e.d. tegen. Helaas had deze zoektocht geen kant en klaar resultaat opgeleverd. Iets zelf bedenken en in elkaar solderen zou waarschijnlijk uitlopen op het platbranden van de hele straat, dus toch maar op zoek naar een kant en klare lichtwekker.

Speurtocht

Ik heb smaak. Mijn smaak is meestal eenvoudig, strak en helder. Extra toevoegingen mogen maar die moeten dan ook helder, gebruiksvriendelijk, eenvoudig en overzichtelijk zijn. Met deze set onmeetbare criteria ga ik op zoek naar een dawn simulator met hulp van mijn vriend Google.

Er zijn behoorlijk wat van die simulatoren te vinden; de een nog beter onderbouwd dan de ander. Op de meeste websites kom je de bodyclocks en de philips wakeup light tegen. Over het ontwerp van de philips wakeup light is zeker nagedacht; hij ziet er apart uit maar in het echt vond ik em tegenvallen. De andere modellen zien er op de foto niet mooi uit. 

Philips lichtwekker   niet mooie lichtwekkers

 

Uiteindelijke keuze

Na een paar uur zoeken kwam ik op de site van TrueSun.com uit. Deze hebben de apparaten in huis die ik wel zie zitten. 

sunset 320  De mooiste uit hun collectie (ook het meest geekish) is de SRS320.  

In plaats van een normale lamp zitten hier iets van 100 fel-witte leds in. Deze zorgen gegarandeerd voor een zeer sfeervolle ontwaking in een soort van witte hel. Als ik deze aanschaf doe ik er waarschijnlijk iets van gele folie overheen. Geel licht maakt alles gezellig 🙂

 

De lamp gaat voor 113 euro van de hand als je em in de US koopt. Voor 167 vanuit de UK; niet echt goedkoop maar misschien wel de beste keus. 

sunrise SRS100 Ze hebben ook een ander apparaat waar je je eigen lamp op aan kan sluiten, de SRS 100 (EU). Deze is te koop voor 70 euro in de US en 120 in NL. Functioneel is dit apparaat identiek aan de SRS320.   

Om deze te gebruiken moet ik alsnog naar de CILO om een passende lamp aan te schaffen, daar heb ik nu geen zin en geld voor.

Nog een lichtwekker Deze wekker wordt gemaakt door Eurosolar. Het enige nadeel is dat deze wekker regel voor regel aan gaat. Ik denk dat het dim-effect het meest belangrijke is bij het natuurlijk wakker worden (intuïtie) dus aanschaffen zou ik niet doen.   

Overigens kan ik ook geen winkel vinden waar die te koop is.

Links…

http://www.TrueSun.com/ 
http://www.morningsunrise.com/ 
http://www.lichttherapiewinkel.nl/

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