Giorgos Stefanou’s Travelling in Space-Time has been released on Petcord: Described as an imaginary journey to a future form of civilisation, the hope for success appears to be of a rather limited nature. What is the driving factor behind this journey? One may conclude it could be related to the religious notion of salvation, the eventual reward after a troubled life, however does not seem to fit to the scenery and its lack of euphoria. Instead there is solitude and isolation, thrown into a rather hostile environment with a lifeless machinery as the only communication offer. A journey which seems to meet its (lack of) expectations like a disillusioned look into the mirror with no one or any circumstances to blame. On the other hand even a pointless occupation serves as an option to keep oneself busy, at least until an alternative option will occur on the horizon.

The intensity of its nihilism Travelling in Space-Time seems to imply turns it into an electro-acoustic masterpiece. By deliberately avoiding significant culmination points and creating a cavernous sound similar to Martin Hannett’s production of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures this approach appears as an effective means to an kafkaesque end. Form follows function follows spectromorphology, but does not follow mainstream conversations.

In its default package on Debian, qpopper is a pop3 daemon, which is easy to configure and quite complete in its implementation (supporting apop and ssl encryption), however has the nasty disadvantage of listening to port 110 on all the interfaces a server provides. The reason is that on Debian, qpopper is started via inetd and inetd does not know how to listen to specific interfaces. If we want to change this, we have two possibilities to choose from:

1. Compiling qpopper ourselves as standalone server and have it listened to one interface.
2. Replacing inetd with xinetd.

The latter is the one I would like to focus on because it allows what we want to reach with minimal changes. At first it might be useful to explain xinetd is: xinetd is thought as a replacement of inetd and one of its biggest advantages is that it make services listen to specific interfaces only, even if they themselves do not provide such a configuration option. Xinetd can be easily retrieved via the usual apt-get install command. /etc/xinetd.d is the directory where all the services that are supposed to be run by the daemon should have their configuration file. As we like to run qpopper, we simply create a new file called “pop3″ (after the service) and fill it with the following values:

service pop3
{
        disable         = no
        id              = pop3
        socket_type     = stream
        protocol        = tcp
        user            = root
        wait            = no
        flags           = nameinargs
        server          = /usr/sbin/tcpd
        server_args     = /usr/sbin/in.qpopper -f /etc/qpopper.conf
        bind            = 1.2.3.4
}

Of course you want to replace 1.2.3.4 with the ip address of the interface you would like to use for qpopper. Restart xinitd by invoking

# /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

as root and if things went well, you should see qpopper now listening at your specified ip address:

Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address    Foreign Address   State     PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:587    0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN   20888/sendmail: MTA
tcp        0      0 1.2.3.4:110      0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN   14263/xinetd
[...]

Composing is really strange: Each completion of a circle already spawns its follow-up. And so, after weeks of collecting and generating new audio sources, the work has begun once more. A larger track is currently in the making and may see its completion in the next days, depending on how much time I can spend with it. There is another shift in sound, perhaps an influence of Giorgos work, in that some elements that have not encountered in my music since Concrete Muser seem to reappear: Weird noise, sometimes like delusive voices or sonic splinters of a broken speaker bouncing from left to right in the stereo panorama, breaking the dominance of theme progression and variation. Perhaps it is more like an event than a planned happening and as such the music is harder to catch and more irritating. One has to see what course this will take and whether it will prevail in the other tracks too. At this time, I am not sure whether to compose another set of movements or single tracks without relationship to each other.

The first quarter of the year is gone and I think it is about time to reflect it with a photographic retrospect:

For armchair botanists and others interested in plants I added the scientific names where it made sense (requires at least a prominently featured plant in the first place ;-), providing I know what it was. This is only a small selection of what I considered worth keeping and the decision process was quite hard, as there were much more pictures of equal quality than usual. In case you wish to see more, you can have a peek at my Picasa repository, but please note that these images are copyrighted and may not be incorporarated into someone else’s work, republished or reproduced without my prior permission, whether commercial or non-profit. For this matter please contact me and if I like your project or offer, we may even get to discuss details and conditions.

One common problem with script based redirects is that often they default to using 302 (moved temporarily) as response code. However, as the meaning moved temporarily already implies, that code is not meant for pointing to permanent locations like linked sites of a redirector script (for instance an outbound click tracker). In this case it would be more appropriate to tell both browsers and search engines that the endpoint of the redirect should be preferred over the link that caused the redirect. So how to get it done the correct way, when the stock location header sent by PHP defaults to code 302?

The answer lies in reading the PHP documentation thoroughly, especially the provided examples ;-). As long as no html output has been spilt (sometimes accidentally via whitespace as result of sloppy editing) you can send as much headers as you like. The documentation specifically mentions two cases:

There are two special-case header calls. The first is a header that starts with the string “HTTP/” (case is not significant), which will be used to figure out the HTTP status code to send.
[...]
The second special case is the “Location:” header. Not only does it send this header back to the browser, but it also returns a REDIRECT (302) status code to the browser unless some 3xx status code has already been set.

(emphasis mine)

There lies the answer: If we want to use a 301 redirect, we will have to send two headers:

<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301");
header("Location: http://www.example.com/");
?>

which results in:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:22:56 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.34 (Unix)
Location: http://www.example.com/
Content-Type: text/html

Exactly what we wanted.

Also, this response demonstrates that headers mentioned will replace similar ones and the rest will be accomplished by server defaults. Another usage of this “replace” feature could be to fool nasty bots with unexpected error codes like:

<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 402");
?>

Which yields in:

HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:29:57 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.34 (Unix)
Content-Type: text/html

You may wish to add an error page with a credit card payment form to complete the confusion :-).

I know, a lot of time has passed since my last entry and that I used to write more frequently in former times, but I had been busy over the last days. Part of that was related to programming a backend of a website and preparing a new Petcord release by Giorgos Stefanou called Elati. As you may have guessed already, this music is not likely equipped with a mass appeal and catchy melodies, else it would not wind up with Petcord ;-). But fear not, my dearest friends, it is a very fine work that deserves to be called electo acoustic, maybe even electro acoustics, as the virtual room created by the stereo panorama play an important role in Elati, namely being just as a parameter as tone length, pitch, volume or tempo.

Even better, the release does not endorse contemporary tendencies of flattening dynamic ranges by means of heavy compression, so that a song can be played on any equipment and any environment (independent from the background noise level). Instead, low volume really means hardly discernable sounds, since a huge dynamic range was carefully preserved during the mastering. Something this kind of music really benefits from as culmination points really get noticable just by the immense gain of volume. The cover art’s history is not less interesting either. Originally I made a draft similar to previous Petcord covers, but somehow the result was not convincing. Giorgos then had another draft, but I found it too conventional, as it featured just the run-of-the-mill “photo with subject line” type of cover. However combining the best of both surprisingly resulted in a satisfying solution and only little adjustments were necessary as most things worked out of the box.

The link between Elati and the music is unkown to me, or perhaps undefined by default, as Giorgos Stefanou does not care about carrying a message that is so important that every listener has got to identify it in order to qualify as worthy audience. Perhaps similar to my conviction that music is all about the listener can think of and the creator in this process is entirely irrelevant. If stated otherwise the music has become supplemental to the ritual of stage adolation. There are people in desperate need of someone they can look up to and project any of their unfulfilled dreams into as well as there are inflated egos who constantly need someone to tell them how great they are, before they doubt it.

Music as vehicle for attention craving sociopaths can be easily identified by its lack of substance and identity. Curiously, the most peculiar and controverse star shamans publish the most trivial and anonymous type of music. Stereotypes that could apply to anything and anyone. It comes in bulk, it lacks personal identification and we are exposed to unsolicited presentations. It perfectly fits to the definiton of spam. Musical spam, junk music. I laugh about their efforts of their marketing departments to have them considered as geniusses. If someone actually is, it will show and no justifications, redefinitions or explanations are necessary.

Last.fm and their notion of “similar artists” somehow leaves a thing or two to be desired, so it seems:
Nodepet on last.fm
(The corpus delicti is the box to the left)

How on earth is my music similar to big bands, blues or some yodling bozo from the 40ies? I really feel sorry for those who unsuspiciously click “play similar artists” and will be amazed by this interesting selection (or not). Vice versa, someone not knowing my music and catching sight of the similar artists block will most likely turn away in disgust. Last.fm state this list would be compiled based on listening habit. Maybe those who listened to my music did happen to have a rather eclectic music taste, but I somehow doubt that. Other musicians do not seem to be affected by this feature, so it is not that this automation would not work at all.

An alternative conspiracy theory would be someone is willfully “polluting” the list by exploiting a “feature” (some call it sloppy programming). But where is the benefit? Featuring some obscure music? Or just seeing that my music never gets heard by an appropriate audience? Whatever, I have to look for a way to manually clean up the list, so similar artists actually means what it promises.

Last night my latest release on Petcord called Decay went live on air. Decay is one composition consisting of four movements, the last one with reoccuring themes of the previous ones put together to a contrastive final. What the liner notes did not mention, is how the titles came into being and not without a reason: People may be tempted to misinterpret these titles as authoritative instruction about what to think of when listening to the work. I personally feel strong aversions towards degrading music to a mere transport means for some kind of message and only add these explanations “for the records”.

My enemy insight
This title is a pun and refers to being one’s own worst enemy (as in “enemy inside”) and being aware of the problem (hence “insight”). It matches to the rapid swing between agressive feedback, friendly ninth chords and menacing drones, similar to a confused state of mind where moods change from one extreme to another within minutes. Of course this is a subjective and distorted perception as this enemy is part of oneself. An enemy that once escaped our control and now seems to live a life of its own despite its irrational nature.

Behind the mask
In order to become an accepted member of society one is required to wear a mask of conformity. Picking up what is deemed most popular and advantageous rather than following one’s unique gifts. Or judging attitudes by their degree of popular acceptance rather than necessity or validity. As most people are trained at an early age to play this game successfully they may not be aware of it and consider it as natural as eating and sleeping. Some people are afraid of silence and solitude, because that may force them to discover the void behind the mask.

Wall of fear
This is another pun referring to the phrase “wall of silence”. It is meant to go one step further by not just stating an inconvenience as a result of something embarrassing or someone unresponsive to inquiries, but the mere prospect of getting into such a situation. The wall is not just a defence someone else has built up, but could refer to limitations defined by one’s own fears. Some may only have a funny feeling inside their stomach and move on, whilst others will stagger and tumble into a psychotic state of apathy.

last possible lie
Judging from the previous definitions one may conclude that life is lie. Lie in itself is considered inacceptable in most civilisations, yet our plastic fantastic age does force us to posture as someone who we not really are. In reference to the overall character to the music, this “last possible lie” appears as a resolution at first. But as the relief is the result of an escape, the actual issue still persists. The moment someone comes to realise this may mark the beginning of the collapse. This could be anything from insanity to suicide.

As written before, please be advised that this is only an attempt at explaining the history of the titles, not the music itself. Whilst working on them there did not exist any kind of concept or “story board” the music tried to follow and the titles where the last thing I added as a description of the sound characteristics. Hence you can associate with the music all you want and it will be a personal and correct way of utilising it. The music itself does not contain any other message other than itself.

I really do not know what this bot is trying to accomplish, but it looks rather pointless:

66.167.105.59 - - [10/Mar/2008:04:47:50 +0100]
"POST / HTTP/1.1" 403 210 "-" "BioSearch"
66.167.105.59 - - [10/Mar/2008:04:47:51 +0100]
"POST /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 403 220 "-" "BioSearch"

You would only use POST for submitting form data, but not retrieving data. Apart from that, the request order is wrong: A bot should first ask for robots.txt and then, depending on the outcome, either go away or start indexing.

Unfortunately the netblock, where this brainless wonder resides, does not reveal any details about the bot’s owner:

[rwhois.covad.net]
%rwhois V-1.5:003fff:00 rwhois.covad.com (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-you-guess)
network:Class-Name:network
network:Auth-Area:66.167.0.0/16
network:ID:NETBLK-NONE-66-167-0-0.66.167.0.0/16
network:Network-Name:NONE-66-167-0-0
network:IP-Network:66.167.0.0/16
network:In-Addr-Server;I:ns3.covad.com
network:In-Addr-Server;I:ns4.covad.com
network:IP-Network-Block:66.167.0.0 - 66.167.255.255
network:Org-Name:Covad Communications
network:Street-Address:110 Rio Robles
network:City:San Jose
network:State:CA
network:Postal-Code:95134
network:Country-Code:US
network:Tech-Contact;I:ipadmin covad.com
network:Admin-Contact;I:ipadmin covad.com
network:Created:20030508150409000
network:Updated:20041506165200000

The rDNS of the offending ip address is not more talkative either:
h-66-167-105-99.lsanca54.dynamic.covad.net
This reads to me like Los Angeles/California.

Although there is a company in California called Biosearch Technologies, they are unrelated to the bot, as they are only offering products derived from their biological research and are based in the San Francisco area. So it seems to be just a broken anonymous bot which is safe to block.

I spent some time not writing knowing that I was supposed to do so, because otherwise the value of my blog would be questionable. But what do you do if there is nothing you can write about? Citing “news” which in fact are not really relevant to one’s life? There is a limit to what I can write about in a blog, personal things for example. You would not really want to give anyone the chance of using search engines to learn about your weak spots, especially your enemies and competition. This is paradox somehow, because I can never really use a blog in its original sense, but on the other hand by allowing these sites to be indexed, I do want to be read by the public.

Perception without exhibition. Cowardness? Or careful consideration of the impacts of one’s behaviour? You are held accountable for the way you are describing events, what seems to be important and what is omitted by you. There is no way around it. So essentially my silence over the past weeks was fueled by the feeling of not having anything appropriate to say. I did feel like writing about a great deal of things, but they were not suitable for the public eye. There is no such thing as privacy unless you cease publishing on the Internet by pulling the plug.

My musical creativity is at a record low: Since January I have accumulated nine fragments that do not make much sense. On the other hand I created some good graphical artwork as compensation (used as covers for netlabel releases). I was even fortunate enough to publish an artist on the netlabel who even became part of the latter. I should resume my writing and hope for the best, but much like Antoine Roquentin, I loathe listening to other’s music and review it. Why would I want to play an useful idiot for them and help them promote their releases? How many of them would bother to listen to my music? What are my motives? Am I doing this because I want to do it?