Andrew Cooke | Contents | Latest | RSS | Previous | Next

C[omp]ute

Welcome to my blog, which was once a mailing list of the same name and is still generated by mail. Please reply via the "comment" links.

Always interested in offers/projects/new ideas. Eclectic experience in fields like: numerical computing; Python web; Java enterprise; functional languages; GPGPU; SQL databases; etc. Based in Santiago, Chile; telecommute worldwide. CV; email.

Personal Projects

Choochoo Training Diary

Last 100 entries

Surprise Paradox; [Books] Good Author List; [Computing] Efficient queries with grouping in Postgres; [Computing] Automatic Wake (Linux); [Computing] AWS CDK Aspects in Go; [Bike] Adidas Gravel Shoes; [Computing, Horror] Biological Chips; [Books] Weird Lit Recs; [Covid] Extended SIR Models; [Art] York-based Printmaker; [Physics] Quantum Transitions are not Instantaneous; [Computing] AI and Drum Machines; [Computing] Probabilities, Stopping Times, Martingales; bpftrace Intro Article; [Computing] Starlab Systems - Linux Laptops; [Computing] Extended Berkeley Packet Filter; [Green] Mainspring Linear Generator; Better Approach; Rummikub Solver; Chilean Poetry; Felicitations - Empowerment Grant; [Bike] Fixing Spyre Brakes (That Need Constant Adjustment); [Computing, Music] Raspberry Pi Media (Audio) Streamer; [Computing] Amazing Hack To Embed DSL In Python; [Bike] Ruta Del Condor (El Alfalfal); [Bike] Estimating Power On Climbs; [Computing] Applying Azure B2C Authentication To Function Apps; [Bike] Gearing On The Back Of An Envelope; [Computing] Okular and Postscript in OpenSuse; There's a fix!; [Computing] Fail2Ban on OpenSuse Leap 15.3 (NFTables); [Cycling, Computing] Power Calculation and Brakes; [Hardware, Computing] Amazing Pockit Computer; Bullying; How I Am - 3 Years Post Accident, 8+ Years With MS; [USA Politics] In America's Uncivil War Republicans Are The Aggressors; [Programming] Selenium and Python; Better Walking Data; [Bike] How Fast Before Walking More Efficient Than Cycling?; [COVID] Coronavirus And Cycling; [Programming] Docker on OpenSuse; Cadence v Speed; [Bike] Gearing For Real Cyclists; [Programming] React plotting - visx; [Programming] React Leaflet; AliExpress Independent Sellers; Applebaum - Twilight of Democracy; [Politics] Back + US Elections; [Programming,Exercise] Simple Timer Script; [News] 2019: The year revolt went global; [Politics] The world's most-surveilled cities; [Bike] Hope Freehub; [Restaurant] Mama Chau's (Chinese, Providencia); [Politics] Brexit Podcast; [Diary] Pneumonia; [Politics] Britain's Reichstag Fire moment; install cairo; [Programming] GCC Sanitizer Flags; [GPU, Programming] Per-Thread Program Counters; My Bike Accident - Looking Back One Year; [Python] Geographic heights are incredibly easy!; [Cooking] Cookie Recipe; Efficient, Simple, Directed Maximisation of Noisy Function; And for argparse; Bash Completion in Python; [Computing] Configuring Github Jekyll Locally; [Maths, Link] The Napkin Project; You can Masquerade in Firewalld; [Bike] Servicing Budget (Spring) Forks; [Crypto] CIA Internet Comms Failure; [Python] Cute Rate Limiting API; [Causality] Judea Pearl Lecture; [Security, Computing] Chinese Hardware Hack Of Supermicro Boards; SQLAlchemy Joined Table Inheritance and Delete Cascade; [Translation] The Club; [Computing] Super Potato Bruh; [Computing] Extending Jupyter; Further HRM Details; [Computing, Bike] Activities in ch2; [Books, Link] Modern Japanese Lit; What ended up there; [Link, Book] Logic Book; Update - Garmin Express / Connect; Garmin Forerunner 35 v 230; [Link, Politics, Internet] Government Trolls; [Link, Politics] Why identity politics benefits the right more than the left; SSH Forwarding; A Specification For Repeating Events; A Fight for the Soul of Science; [Science, Book, Link] Lost In Math; OpenSuse Leap 15 Network Fixes; Update; [Book] Galileo's Middle Finger; [Bike] Chinese Carbon Rims; [Bike] Servicing Shimano XT Front Hub HB-M8010; [Bike] Aliexpress Cycling Tops; [Computing] Change to ssh handling of multiple identities?; [Bike] Endura Hummvee Lite II; [Computing] Marble Based Logic; [Link, Politics] Sanity Check For Nuclear Launch; [Link, Science] Entropy and Life

© 2006-2017 Andrew Cooke (site) / post authors (content).

Using Last.fm tags to play my mp3s on SqueezeCenter

From: andrew cooke <andrew@...>

Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:54:21 -0300

I just published a small set of scripts I've hacked together over the last
week or two called Uykfe.  They let me listen to music on my SqueezeCenter
(Squeezebox Boom and Duet / hifi).

The advantages are:

  * I get to explore my music in a meaningful way.  I have music from artists
    that I hardly know.  By playing "random" tracks that have a common theme,
    music from new artists is placed in the context of music I recognise.

  * I get themed "radio station" music, even though I have mp3s that cover a
    pretty wide range of styles.  This is often preferable to "random shuffle"
    which can be playing Bach one minute and NoMeansNo the next.

  * I can generate playlists to load dmusic on to my portable mp3 player.

  * It naturally interoperates with the SqueezeCenter playlist.

The last point is particularly cool.  The program monitors the current
playlist and whenever that reaches the "last track" it adds a new, related
piece.  Also, if no music is present at all, it provides a random starting
point.

This lets me skip tracks I don't like, do a "random jump" by clearing the
playlist (good when I get bored), and even lets me set a context (so I
manually select a track by someone in the style I want to hear and then Uykfe
"takes over").

It requires Python 3.2 and there are full instructions here -
http://code.google.com/p/uykfe/

Andrew

(It's fun, although perhaps not too meaningful, to compare this to Uykfd,
which did a similar job in Scala.  That took much, much longer to write, runs
more slowly, is harder to understand, and has more lines of code ;o)

More Info on Last.fm Tags

From: andrew cooke <andrew@...>

Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:57:30 -0300

I just read the above and realised I didn't explain how it actually worked!

The program scans my own mp3s then uses Last.fm's API to tag my music (by
artist).  Using the tags it works out which artists are related and plays
their music together.

Everything is stored in a SQLite database.  The initial download of data from
Last.fm takes several hours, but once that is complete calculating the "next
track" is instantaneuous.

Andrew

Comment on this post