Life in Ojai
June 12th 2004
I realized how long ago I had logged into Windows today when I checked my e-mail (in Windows) and found 37 messages. I think I like Linux better in general, though the desktop software (I use Gnome, and I hate how KDE feels) has a ways to go before being as usable as Windows, or anywhere close to the beautifully designed OSX. It’s all in the details — like when trying to find a certain file in a directory of 200 files, I can’t just start typing the filename to get to it.
Life in Ojai is quaint and goes by fast. I was supposed to do a lot of work this week, but most of it never got done. I find myself doing too much for myself and not enough for everyone else. I’m trying to fix it, honest.
One of those me-projects that I “wasted” a lot of time on today was ripping my dad’s CDs. He and I share some taste in music at least, so I’ve been ripping his new aquisitions that I like, and re-ripping others that I ripped to Windows Media, back when I was young and naive. I now encode all my audio in Ogg Vorbis quality 5 (~160kbps, variable bit-rate), which is relatively transparent to my ears (if I’m not constantly analyzing it) and easy enough on the old hard disk (only 2 gigs left!). Check out Hydrogenaudio if you’re into audio compression. My dad’s convinced he can tell the difference between a CD and any lossily-compressed music. I have to set up a double-blind ABX test for him so he can prove it… ::