Mike Meredith

All Modern Music Is Rubbish

Jun 292022

I have seen at least two or three Youtube videos by people of a certain age claiming that modern music is rubbish because of auto-tuning and other technology aids. I dare say there’s an element of truth to the accusation – certainly auto-tuning singing sounds a lot like cheating.

But people of a certain age have always claimed that modern music is shit – whatever era you choose. A certain Elvis Presley certainly had older people up in arms about this modern rock’n’roll rubbish back in the 1950s. And the Beatles in the 1960s, the Sex Pistols in the 1970s, etc. To a certain extent modern music is supposed to annoy people of a certain age – as far as young people are concerned that’s a feature not a bug.

What’s more, in every era most of the music of that era was just a little bit shit. We all remember the good stuff and forget about the dross. There’s probably no more rubbish today than there was in your favourite era of music (autotuning not withstanding).

Why Have We Never Heard of Captain Swing?

History No Responses »

Jun 022022

Captain Swing was a character that appeared in threatening letters during the Swing Riots. A series of riots across southern England numbering nearly 1,500 in number which in the end resulted in 19 executions (although nearly 250 had been sentenced to death). More people than were killed at the far more famous Peterloo Massacre, and who hasn’t heard of the infamous Luddites? Which went on longer and was perhaps more disruptive but less directly threatening to the land-owning ruling classes.

With the curious exception of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a casual student of history could be forgiven for thinking that the South of England didn’t suffer any labour unrest or discontent during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Yet the ancestors of those Tolpuddle Martyrs had been effectively tenant farmers who had been reduced to day labourers within two short generations. To compare the English enclosures with the Scottish Highland clearances is ridiculous, but there is one common thing behind them – greed. And there is one common result – suffering.

“The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose.”
(Part of 18th century poem by Anon.)

Sometimes those on the left are accused of the “politics of envy” … perhaps. But it seems to me that historically it is often the rich who are guilty of the politics of envy – envious of what the poor have because they think they can make “better” use of it (in other words make more money).

When Is a Command-Line Application Not?

Computing, Linux No Responses »

Jun 022022

It sometimes seems that every time I dive into a Youtube video promising “${N} Awesome CLI Applications” (or equivalent), that most of the suggested applications are not command-line applications. They’re TUI-applications – text user interface as opposed to graphical user interface – or to align with my bad habit of referring to GUI applications as gooey applications, perhaps tooey applications.

Now there’s nothing wrong with tooey applications; I use them every day. Especially nmon (just because I got used to it before I discovered htop). Or btop

But none of these are really command-line applications; by which I mean they aren’t used at the command-line even if they are (optionally) invoked there. A command-line application allows you to use the shell including pipes to produce an aggregate result. For example :-

» grep mike /etc/passwd | awk -F: '{print $5}'
Mike Meredith

That uses two command-line “applications” to turn a username (“mike”) into a full name (“Mike Meredith”). Yes it can be optimised into a single command :-

» awk -F: '/^mike:/ {print $5}' /etc/passwd
Mike Meredith

… which even improves the search, but makes the point less well. And we can do slightly fancier things too :-

Screenshot of a random URL being picked and turned into a QR code.

(don’t assume that QR code takes you somewhere nice)

I’m not suggest Youtubers should stop making videos about terminal-based applications; I’m not even suggesting they should concentrate on “proper” command-line applications. Just don’t call terminal-based applications “command-line” because they really are not.

Why Republican Politicians Should Be Jailed

Politics No Responses »

Jun 012022

Not all of them, perhaps. But the NRA has a very convenient list of politicians that are friendly to gun rights; which serves as a double-purpose – it’s also a list of politicians who don’t care how big a pile of dead kids it is, as long as they get their backhanders from the NRA.

In the latest tragedy (but hurry up they’ll be another along shortly), the rancid heap of necrotic pus that is the governor (Greg Abbott) tried the usual tactic of blaming mental health despite no evidence the shooter had any mental health issues. The same dude who not only cut mental health funding, but loosened gun controls to make it easier for those with mental health issues to get guns.

There’s a crime that fits the bill – “malfeasance in a public office” – which not completely unreasonably could be argued that certain Republican politicians are guilty of. The ones who take backhanders from the NRA whilst refusing to contemplate any concrete action that might have an effect on mass shootings.

Plus if you threaten them with a scary sounding crime like “malfeasance” they might start contemplating actually doing their fucking jobs.

A Couple More of Portsmouth

Photography No Responses »

May 012022

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