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I can't identify a single music player for Linux that I like. Literally. The best solution I can come up with so far is using foobar2000 under Wine. I actually rather like foobar2000 and would be extremely happy if it supported Linux natively but I don't think that is going to happen. I just haven't been able to find any equivalent open source program that stacks up.

Luckily foobar2000 runs fairly well under the development version of Wine. Ever since I moved to Debian Stretch foobar2000 has been properly interfacing with the system wide audio mixer/configuration which is really nice. I have not suffered from any UI glitches so far and I've been running this configuration for a few years now.

The thing I like the least about foobar2000 under Wine is that the configuration option to prevent the screen from sleeping when audio is playing does not function. This feature does function just fine under Windows so I suspect this is just unimplemented in Wine. This is a problem for me because I use one of the HDMI ports on my video card to interface with my entertainment system. Coupled with the fact that my workstation is the primary source for audio only content with my entertainment system this stinks. The workaround I use is to set the screen to sleep after 2 hours and to bump the mouse throughout the day. I would like this feature so much there's a good chance I'll elect to implement the screen sleep inhibit in Wine, eventually.

If my machine is under a lot of load I might get some audio drop outs from foobar2000 though this is quite rare. When I originally tried running foobar2000 under Wine I had a lot of audio dropout issues. There were so many dropouts that I didn't think using it was going to be viable. When I decided to use the development version of Wine instead of the stable version 95% of the dropouts went away which encouraged me to stick with it. Over time the dropouts became even less frequent to the point that I can't think of the last time it happened.

Why do I like foobar2000 so much? Because it is very simple and very good at what it does: playing music and organizing a library and play list. It's also quite configurable and flexible and while it looks primitive it is not short on features. The project has been around since the end of 2002 but is still actively maintained so it is quite mature at this point.

Do you have a favored audio player that excels at play list management and library viewing? If anyone has suggestions on things to try I'm all ears: please leave a comment. Here's what I've tried so far not including random packages I tried out that I can't recall:

• Amarok - Poor library viewing. Crap useless features enabled by default.
• mpd - I'm not against the concept but I haven't found a front end I care for.
• VLC - This is all right but foobar2000 does better.

Cheers!

Every Vote Counts!

RICHMOND, Va. -- Among the holiday hustle and bustle of Carytown, Virginia voters react to what some might call a "Christmas Miracle" for Democrats in the Commonwealth.

"That's sort of amazing," voter Scott Williams said.

"That's pretty amazing," voter Ariel Furler said.

In a stunning turn of events, Democrat Shelly Simonds gained eleven votes in a recount to beat the Republican incumbent in the 94th District by just one vote.

The final tally: 11608 votes to 11607 votes.

UPDATE: Apparently it's a tie now. By state law, the winner of the tie will be determined "by lot."

When Cosplay Crosses the Line

And in other Indonesian news:

Gay Crackdown Continues in Indonesia Despite Court Ruling
Indonesia court jails men for two years over 'gay sex party'

Australian, American, Malaysian arrested in Indonesia's Bali for drugs

Vigilantes Stalk Indonesian Transgender Women

Indonesia is the world's 4th most populous country, behind the United States.

Holiday Parties Gone Wrong: Careful Where You Hang The Mistletoe

*Holiday Party #WarOnChristmas

Went to McDonald's for lunch today (shopping at WallyWorld) and waited FOREVER!

It's not like they were that busy; they could take your money faster than anything. But then you waited...and waited...and waited.

I believe it is all to try to force people onto their app and kiosk: order it and it will be ready ahead of time: meanwhile, we'll lay off more people! Yay, we win!

My wife doesn't like the 'order kiosk': she doesn't like it taking away jobs, and I don't like the app idea (or McDonald's period). Even as a person of autism who doesn't care for interacting with people, I prefer talking to a person ( I can then hold THEM responsible for a screwup, lol).

We finally get our food and the order is wrong, so we have to go back up and get it done again.
Meanwhile, people have had their money taken from them quickly and are lining up to get their food and the line just keeps getting longer and longer and people are waiting longer and longer....

(I prefer A&W: better food, great rootbeer, much better fries.)

So my guess is that McDonald's is willing to take a short term kick up the ass and make their customers wait longer and longer in order to make them order THEIR way.
Me, I'd just rather wait at A&W.

Previously: Another Former Facebook Exec Speaks Out

Palihapitiya's initial remarks included the statement that Facebook "overwhelmingly does good in the world". Maybe that wasn't good enough for somezucky?

Former Facebook Exec Who Suggested Social Media Was Destroying Society: I Love Facebook

He's already rich. He can feed his kids. But can he protect them from the reach of Facebook?

The USA just decided apparently to abolish "Net Neutrality" making the public Internet beholden to large, established corporations. This is bad news for individuals and small businesses.

What we need is a new internet, a grass-roots one, ad-hoc, created by volunteers.

Many years ago when WiFi was new, there was one such attempt I seem to remember called "Consume the Net." I never had the money to buy the hardware at the time, but it sounded like a great idea. The problem in those days was getting any sort of broadband connection was difficult and expensive. You could get a 56kbps POTS modem, sometimes ISDN (64k * 2) or cable (500-600kbps) if you were very lucky and ADSL was just coming out. WiFi was already running at megabits.

Now we have a different set of problems to work around, but the technology is ubiquitous, cheap and mature.

It would we cool to have the equivalent of open access points on this new co-operative internet that you could scan for and join if you promised to behave.

Any ideas?

The Guardian has a story about some Harry Potter stories written by Botnki's predictive text keyboard (complete with link to github).

        “He saw Harry and immediately began to eat Hermione’s family. Ron’s Ron shirt was just as bad as Ron himself.

        ‘If you two can’t clump happily, I’m going to get aggressive,’ confessed the reasonable Hermione.”

So not much worse that the original.

ITER fusion project lies about the dates, budget and power levels

Roy Moore Emerges from Self-Imposed Exile to Chat with 12-Year-Old Girl

Trump Group Sends 12-Year-Old Girl to Interview Roy Moore Ahead of Alabama Election

Millie in Alabama (5m49s)

Roy Moore seemed delighted to be interviewed by a friendly, innocent, and untainted young reporter. He touched her at 4m49s into the video.