Author: wjl

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The official Wikiloops “Member meeting 2024 report” is out

Richard, founder of Wikiloops and host of the 2024 members’ meeting just wrote his official report about the meeting which took place last month, and to which I also attended. Read, see, and hear all about it on Wikiloops. You can also watch the videos on Youtube, and/or see the photos in Diana’s gallery. Here are two of these photos:

Some of the attendees who were either late or had left the day before already had to be “‘shopped”, as they say, into the picture – you probably see it because of the very different lighting on some of the faces.

The videos have very different maximum resolutions sadly, from 480p to 1080p, and for my taste I’m a bit over-represented in the first one, the second one shows me playing a tune from a lead sheet which I hadn’t seen ever before, so excuse my uncertainty at some times (for instance on when the outro was about to start, couldn’t exactly read this). Oh, and before you ask: no; playing from lead sheet or from notation isn’t what’s representative of the “normal” jamming – but I’m always glad if people put up the chords to their songs anyway. And I love playing OliVBee‘s songs. And the ones from Moonchild of course 🙂

Anyway, enjoy, and like always, thanks for viewing and for reading.

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The Barnadise, from up the hill

Took this short before sunset on Saturday. It’s the village where the 2024 Wikiloops members’ meeting took place, and Richard’s “Barnadise” is pretty much in the middle of the photo:

Taken with my Pixel 6a phone on my way back from the last walk over the hill with the “Hubertuskapelle”.

As always, thanks for viewing.

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It ended, somehow…

This is what I wrote in the song description on Wikiloops:

“I’ve been at the Wikiloops meeting 2024, woohoo! But like all good things in life, it had to end, somehow – and that reminded me that I wanted to play on this awesome track of Isa and Devin. And since both my upright and myself aren’t really up to the task right now, I had to take the fretless instead to noodle around on this a bit. Thanks to Isa & Devin, and I hope you’ll like it…”

So here is it:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

And like always, thanks for listening, and for reading. If you’re a musician, consider to join us and to play with us.

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Hoping that they’re okay…

Just watched stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes race, and saw a pretty severe mass crash some 6.7 (or so) kilometers before the finish.

Sadly, neither the French TV nor the German commentators (on sportschau.de) stayed with the affected riders, so I had to look it up elsewhere, in cyclingnews.com, where they wrote:

“Among those worst affected by the crash were Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM-Firmenich-PostNl) and Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), with the Brit unfortunately having to abandon the race due to her injuries. Georgi was one of two riders who had to go to hospital after the race, alongside EF-Oatly Cannondale’s Magdeleine Vallieres.”

The official site lists Pfeiffer Georgi, Magdeleine Vallieres, Spela Kern, and Ruby Roseman-Gannon, the first three of which are listed as “DNF”. So let’s hope that they’re okay, and not hurt too much…

… I find it sad if the results of a race seem to be more important than the wellbeing of those who crashed. But maybe that’s just me who’s missing some empathy here…

Anyway, and as always, thanks for reading.

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Perhaps the best choice for Linux newbies?

I have a sister who still owns an older notebook which runs Windows 7, and a friend from England who just moved from a Windows 8 to a Windows 10 machine. Both machines wouldn’t run Win11 I guess, tho I didn’t ask. You don’t recommend that to friends anyway.

So what to recommend? Linux of course, yes, but which one? Liam Proven (and many others) think it’s Mint. From his article in The Register, let me just cite these two sentences:

“Linux Mint remains the most sensible, pragmatic desktop Linux out there.” and, a bit further down, “If you have an aging PC that can’t run Windows 11, this is the one to try.”

One remark tho: Mint’s website, documentation, and all are really cool as well – as long as you speak English fluently enough. Maybe the user base could be much bigger if these pages were localized, like Debian’s for instance? Just saying…

For my late brother, using Debian – with a little help of myself – wasn’t a problem, but for any beginner who doesn’t have more “expert” friends or relatives, Mint might really be the sensible choice for now. Try it in a VM if you have the resources to do so, and if not, have a look at the Live image which you can start from a USB stick. One thing it *does* have as an advantage over its grandma Debian is the possibility of an OEM install (like “Mama” Ubuntu offers as well), so I could offer an installation to my sis or to close friends…

Anyway, have a look. It’s better than Win11, as are all other Linux distros.

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Congrats, Tadej!

Congratulations go out to Tadej Pogačar for his third win of the “Grand Tour”, as the “Tour de France” is also called. Congrats as well to all other riders. There’s also a nice interview and “Cafe Ride” which Matt Stephens did with him some 7 months ago, and in case you’re interested in his bicycle, have a look at how it’s built for him. The estimated costs of those parts sum up to the equivalent of your used Toyota btw…

As always, thanks for reading.