Alright, this week’s setup and show were actually rather uneventful. I had zero stress when preparing the show, zero stress while setting up, I didn’t forget a single thing (even though I felt like I did), and during the show? Zero stress! I could get used to that…
So now the only trouble I have is that I have to pick a Favourite of the Week and once again it’s not easy. I still like “Futuro” by Giuseppe Ottaviani and Ilan Bluestone, “Mirrored Soul” by Metta & Glyde is great as well, and then I was also quite smitten with “Hit Me” by Shugz so I guess it’s the Favourite of the Week now.
As usual, please don’t rely on my judgment, there may be many more tracks you actually like more than I do!
Will there ever be a week again where all setting up for this show is completely, 100% uneventful? I really hope there will be because I’m not sure how much more of this stress I can handle…
But I really should start from the beginning. I have small collection of shell and Python scripts that collect HTML, extract JSON from it, and convert that to CSV. This collection is situated on my server, and runs several times a day.
On my workstation at home I have a project with the chart generator tool and it needs the JSON data generated by the script collection. For easier handling, I rsync all the data files from the server to my workstation when I want to generate the charts for a new week.
So, on monday I rsync’ed all the files, ran the tool, and was met with an exception. A short investigation yielded the result that the JSON file had a length of 0 bytes. Well, that’s no good!
I took a look at the accompanying HTML file and it was full of data… and it looked different, like, structurally. It finally happened, Beatport changed their website! (On a sidenote: the website now is actually usable, before you had to wait forever for pages to load but now it’s way faster than that!)
The script that extracted the JSON lived on the server so I hopped over there and changed the script to match the new format of the HTML. It’s way easier to work with now! Easy change.
I had to change a whole bunch of files, though, so I whipped up a bit of shell:
for h in *.html; do j="${h/html/json}" ./extract-json-from-html.py < "$j" > "$h" done
This script will extract JSON data from an empty JSON file and write the results (which will be empty) to the HTML file.
Sounds wrong? That’s because it is wrong. It is even maximally wrong, the kind of wrong where you not only waste time and other resources but also lose the possibility to fix your mistakes because you mangled/deleted your source files.
I didn’t notice, though. I fired up the rsync script on my workstation, restarted my chart generator and was expecting different results — but… nope. The JSON was still empty. What?
Oh… oh, I see. Fuck.
FUCK.
“Fuck.” – Geralt of Rivia
Not only did I manage to delete the HTML files on the server, no, I went right ahead and removed them from my workstation as well!
I was angry and frustrated after that and had to step away from the computer so instead of shredding everything that uses electricity I went to have some dinner. During dinner not only did I feed my body, but apparently also my mind. “Hmm, didn’t I add a new disk to my NAS a couple of weeks ago? Yes, I believe I did!”
How is that relevant? Well, you see, the NAS is where Time Machine makes its backups to. And before I added the new disk the space on the NAS was full and I couldn’t make any backups but since I added the new disk I can finally make backups again! (You really, really should have backups.)
The directory where I rsync’ed the files to regularly was also being backed up so at this point it was a breeze to go back to earlier in the day and restore all the HTML files, saving the day and the show. I regenerated the JSON files, changed the chart generator to parse its data from the new JSON structure, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Phew, what a story! Anyway, Favourite of the Week? Easy! Time Machine! Oh, I have to pick a track? Oh well, Nhato it is, then…
The rest of the Nhato EP is also still in there, and it’s all in one single, easy-to-listen-to block!
Alright, second week with the new setup (under conditions of having to work) and today everything was very relaxed, and I had plenty of time to spare. So I’m not sure why exactly I forgot to connect the most important thing: the console’s master output!
This week’s show was heavily overshadowed by Nhato’s “Colour Trance EP” which gave us four (4!) tracks, and they are all great! So… I guess the only possibility is to pick the whole EP as Favourite of the Week? No, that’s weak sauce! I will choose one!
There you have it. From the four tracks, this was my favourite but don’t be fooled by this, every single one of those is a banger. I guess you have to hear for yourself, not only for the great Nhato tracks but also for all the other good tracks!
This week marked the first week where I had to go to work before I could put up the DJ table and all the equipment I need to start the show. The schedule was tight but I managed to get it all done in time!
And the show itself was nice as well but I really need to remember to put up the yoga mat for my feet next week, our floor is simply too hard.
Like every week we had a bunch of great new tracks by many old and new names. The beginning was made by “Vertigo” by Gareth Emery and Sarah de Warren, we had a new track by Ørjan Nilsen (“Amnesia”), the wonderful track “Started a Fire” by N-sKing, Metta & Glyde had Susanne Teutenberg sing on their track “The Universe You Need”, Ehren Stowers delivered a banger with “Supernatural,” and Simon Patterson’s “Up” hit home with me right away. However, as Favourite of the Week the goth in me simply had to pick the Aly & Fila remix of Schiller & Heppner’s “Leben… I Feel You” and I’m not ashamed of that!
However, it’s still important for you to make up your own mind about the tracks I have played and that is why I have recorded it so you can listen to it whenever you want. How nice of me!
Oh, I have to pick a track? Oh well, Nhato it is, then… 
