Download MP3 of Michael’s 1983 one-hour piece, The Solstice Suite, HERE.

Unlike DJ or Neema, I did not go to “J-School” (journalism school) for college. However, at Jamestown Community College (JCC) in Western New York State, I did take “Communication” classes, which basically taught you to be an intern at a local radio station. And maybe if you were lucky as an intern, you’d eventually get to be on the air. I took a different route to radio. But in my last semester of college, the second part of my second year of the two years I attended, I recorded a one-hour piece of music as an independent study in Communication. I composed and recorded the music, and wrote a paper explaining the process. I got an A. I also got Fs that semester in my other four classes (in English, History, Math and Phys-Ed), because I spent every day that semester skipping all my classes to lock myself in a room and compose and record that one piece of music that got me the A.

Inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, my “Solstice Suite” is four movements: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, flowing into each other. The instruments I played on it are: nylon string acoustic guitar, electric guitar (including slide), steel string acoustic guitar, acoustic piano, voice, bass guitar, synthesizer, timpani, cymbals, triangle, recorder (the woodwind instrument), tape loops and SFX (field recordings I made of crickets, birds, and rain). The music is reminiscent of third-rate Pink Floyd Ummagumma, (esp. the Pink Floyd song, “Grantchester Meadows”), Brian Eno, and Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells.” The Solstice Suite is, at moments, musically painful for me to hear now. But other parts are brilliant and beautiful, especially some of the acoustic guitar bits. I’m impressed that I pulled this off at age 18.

I recorded it in JCC’s “studio”, which was basically a converted concrete-walled 5′ x 6′ broom closet with two stereo reel-to-reel tape recorders, a cheap dynamic microphone and stand, a cheap four-channel mixer, and a pair of headphones. But for three months it was my home. It was the only thing I ever did in school, kindergarten through college, that excited me. I’d clock in every morning and stay until the janitor would kick me out after dinner. I pictured that some day this would be my day job, and in some ways, it was a lot of good early self-training for what I do now.

I did the multi-tracking by recording one part onto one reel-to-reel, then I’d play that back through the mixer into the other reel-to-reel, listen on headphones and add another part. Each time I did this, it would add tape hiss. Plus, I mastered to cassette tape, which made for even more hiss. And then made copies of THAT, on CHEAP cassettes. One of those, that my sister has had in her attic for 30 years, is what I made this file from. I’m glad she saved it. She sent it to me a year ago, I finally found time to do something with it.

To make this file, I had to get a cassette tape player. I haven’t owned one in 20 years. I got a decent-ish one from Salvation Army this morning, for five dollars. I tested it out in the store with one of their tapes. It sounded wobbly and horrible. It was a new wave band from the 80s (Berlin, who I actually like) and I thought “Maybe that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to sound……” So I tried another tape. It sounded fine. The lady threw out the first tape, and rang me up. I also bought the good tape, just to sound check my computer-import process on something expendable instead of my only copy of something from 30 years ago. The tape I bought was the soundtrack to “The Big Chill.” It was 25 cents.

When I got home I put in The Big Chill, and messed around with rewinding and such, I had to re-trigger muscle memory of how to actually use a cassette recorder, it’s been so long. The sound wasn’t bad, the main thing I hate is that you can’t immediately jump to a particular song. CDs and MP3s have spoiled me.

I finally got it how I wanted it, and tested importing some audio of The Big Chill to my computer. Sounded fine. A little tape hiss, but I can fix that in post. I closed that file, and put in my Solstice Suite tape. I played each side into Sound Forge, sort of mastering as I went, riding the volume knobs (left and right) on the cassette player to not get distortion. When I was done with both sides, I broke for dinner, then came back and used the Noise Reduction filter in Audacity to remove as much tape hiss as possible without crunching the sound. Usually when I do that for stuff I record on a computer, if I even have to, I use 6 Db of noise reduction. With this, I had to use 26 Db. Yikes! The noise print (taken from the beginning of the import, after the tape started and before the music started) was horribly loud. There was also a 60-cycle hum.

Here’s a shot of the meters in Sound Forge while the tape was playing, but before the music started. That’s a LOT of noise!:

Here’s a shot of the meters in Sound Forge while the tape was playing, with quiet parts of my music:

Here’s a shot of the meters in Sound Forge while the tape was playing, with loud parts of my music:

So, you can see I had my mastering work cut out for me.

After importing the tape to the computer (while riding the volume output on the tape player), then noise reducing, I brought the two WAV files (from Side A and Side B of my tape) into Sony Vegas, and added a little mid-high EQ to make up for what was lost in the noise reduction. This was tricky, because I wanted to add enough to make it have some “air” without bringing back the noise. After a few spot-check listens I think I found a good mix. I also had to find the right place and amount to cross-fade the end of Side A and the beginning of Side B.

Then I output a single WAV file, normalized it in Sound Forge (I actually used the “voice” setting, it sounded better than the “music” setting). I made the result into a 128-k 16-bit Stereo MP3 using Lame Drop. I rather like the results.

It was pretty neat how the music was in my head while playing, even though I haven’t heard it since shortly after I made it, 30 years ago. If I hadn’t been busy riding the volume controls while importing it, I could have picked up a guitar and played along pretty well.

I’m struck by how SAD some of the music is. I was a sad young man, and in a lot of pain. I’m incredibly happier now, much more comfortable in my own skin, and pleased with how my life turned out.

When I was done recording this in 1983, I actually took out an ad in a magazine and sold copies of it for two dollars. I sold three copies. I felt great. It was the first time I’d sold my creative work. It inspired me. Though I advertised it as “meditation music”, and while importing it today, I couldn’t help but think, “This would NOT be very meditative!” I wasn’t scamming anyone, I actually LIKED to meditate to music like this back then.

I DID commit one bit of “rock and roll swindle” to get this made. It’s something I would NEVER do now, but I’m kinda impressed with the ingenuity a young me had. I really wanted to use a synthesizer on this, but did not have access to one. I went down to the music store, looked at a $5000 ARP duo-phonic synth, and told the store owner “My dad wants to buy me a synthesizer, but he wants me to record me playing it for him to hear.” I brought a tape recorder and recorded me noodling on the synth for about a half-hour, then left, and imported it into my project the next day. My dad did not have five grand to drop on a synth for me.

The Track Listing is:

Winter – 15 minutes
Spring – 15 minutes
Summer – 20 minutes
Autumn – 9 minutes

I played everything except the whammy bar guitar on “Autumn”, which was my roommate Gregg Bowles. I credited him as “Odd Guitar.” He wanted to be credited as “Bad Guitar.” I should have let him. I like that credit now, and it fits.

The reason the “Summer” part is not cheery, and is more “blip beep”, is I was trying to imitate the sound of insects. lol.

I do love the lyrics on “Autumn”, the only lyrics in the whole suite (except the repetitive tape loop of me singing something like “you live your lives ignoring priceless guidance from above.” lol). The lyrics on “Autumn”, about watching the sun set while looking at “two empty cups of tea”, were inspired by an actual event….a woman using me as her one-night stand, having tea in the morning, and leaving. And me feeling sad and reflective in the autumn morn as I stared at our empty tea cups.

While writing this blog post, I did a search to find out how to spell the Pink Floyd song “Grantchester Meadows”, and ended up falling down wormholes on YouTube. A few of them were this very talented young lady from Poland, named Sylwia Urban, playing the FUCK out of some Pink Floyd.

The really nifty thing about the Solstice Suite, to me, is how mastering it and putting it up on the Internet is sort of like me now communicating with a young me back then. It could be part of the soundtrack for my book chapter “Letter to a Young Me.” If you’d told me in 1983 “One day this music will be listened to by thousands of people”, I would have said “Cool!” (or maybe “Of COURSE IT WILL BE!”) But if you’d added “…and you’ll be the one mastering it and distributing it yourself, on a home computer that’s more powerful than what they sent a man to the moon with. And you’ll be and sharing it with those thousands of people via a worldwide network of interconnected home computers, sent over phone lines and little television cables” it would have blown my mind. Because none of that technology was possible yet.

–Michael W. Dean

Written by Michael W. Dean, Freedom Feen. Most screenshots by Aida_Aida. Tech testing and proofreading by Link Porterfield/QPG, amifreetogo, feendaveoh, Adam Witthauer and Skippy.

The Freedom Feens recently wrote and published an extensive and kick-ass tutorial on setting up encrypted e-mail, here. However, e-mail isn’t always the best tool, especially if you’re going back and forth in a conversational manner. But there is a way to set up encrypted instant messenger, OTR (off-the-record) Pidgin. OTR Pidgin is more instant than e-mail, better for back-and-forth conversations, keeps no record and leaves no trace. It provides actual Plausible deniability (to borrow a phrase from the CIA). I don’t use OTR Pidgin for everyone, only like eight people I trust and know really well, but it’s even better than PGP mail because there is no record, the only record of the conversation is in the heads of both people involved.

A lot of serious hard-core white-hat hacker computer security experts don’t even use e-mail, EVER. They use OTR Pidgin for all Internet communications.

With e-mail and a public key, if someone can get your passphrase, they can read any saved e-mails. But with the OTR Pidgin, NOTHING IS SAVED. Again: The only record is IN THE BRAINS of the two people talking. And it’s even better if you’re using it over a VPN or Tor.

The OTR plugin was created by Cypherpunks. More on them and OTR is here. I showed this tutorial to Cypherpunk Ian Goldberg, who invented the OTR Pidgin plugin. He made a few suggestions for changes, and I made those changes. He added: “If you use OTR and also something like Tor, you can break the link between the username and your physical identity, but *only* if you _always_ use Tor with that IM account, even when creating it….If you need to break the link between the username and your identity, you need to use an anonymous communications network such as Tor in addition to OTR (they’re designed to work well together!).”

Setting up OTR Pidgin is a lot of steps, but each step is simple. The problem with getting more people to use encryption is there’s no way to do it that’s as easy as picking up a phone or using Skype (both of which are uber NOT secure). And so far, the really easy ways of doing encryption (like Hushmail) are not secure. The problem is human stupidity and State evil. Most people say “I have nothing to hide”, and governments don’t want people using encryption. In a real LibPar (without governments, and with all “power” removed from idiots and returned to each honest, smart person), encryption would be in all Internet programs by default.

Instead we get shit like Facebook, where if you’re one of their marks users, they add a chat bar EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT one. And if you set it to go away, it randomly comes back from time to time like a stalker ex. They WANT you chatting on their un-secure chat program, and they’re a company that will give any information to any law enforcement entity without a warrant. I recently left Facebook, and if you’re interested in security, you should too. You should also use Internet security programs like PGP e-mail and OTR Pidgin, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE. Because these days, not matter how “legal” or “ethical” your conversations, intentions and actions are, governments around the world (as well as some individuals, and almost all corporations) will try to use what you say against you. The repercussions of this can run the gamut from being spammed to being imprisoned….even if you think you’re not breaking any laws. We’re in a post-Patriot Act world, where doing things that one branch of the government tells you to do (like having a stockpile of food) can get you targeted as a suspect by another part of the government.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: There is a lot of “fake security” these days. For instance, the “Off The Record” option in the Google Talk client is *not* OTR. (They explain that here.) And as I said in our PGP tutorial, using BAD encryption or no encryption when you THINK you’re using encryption is far WORSE than using NO encryption and knowing it, because it only gives you an illusion of security. The way the world is headed, that’s like going into a war zone with a “magic” protection amulet instead of bullet-resistant body armor. Screw web-based encryption. Do it all on your end. No one should have your private keys and passwords but you. OTR Pidgin is secure. It is not fake security.

So, let’s set up OTR Pidgin….

The first step (on Windows, though you can also do this on Linux from the same link) is to download Pidgin (here) and the OTR plugin (latest Windows version, 4.0.0-1, is here. If you want to check for a newer version, check here, where it says “OTR plugin for Pidgin.”

Many flavors of GNU/Linux actually ship with Pidgin AND the OTR plugin installed. But if you’re using Linux, you probably already write encryption software to relax, and wouldn’t need this tutorial. And if you’re on Mac, you’re out of luck, but as Richard Stallman said “Steve Jobs made jail cool.”

But if you’re on Windows (the PC jail – see Footnote 1):

Install Pidgin:

Accept the license. Then accept all the default installs:

Pick your destination folder. The default should be fine:

You will get this screen when it’s done installing:

Install the Pidgin OTR plugin:

Accept the license, let it install, and when you’re done you’ll see this screen:

Now you need to configure your Pidgin Account. You may notice that Pidgin looks almost exactly like the old AOL instant messenger. Well, it was branched off of that project by the guys who wrote it for AOL, but they didn’t like working at AOL, so they went off on their own and made it into Pidgin.

Also notice that while Pidgin comes up as a program in your program list and/or task bar, the OTR plugin does not. That’s normal. the OTR plugin is not a stand-alone program, it’s a behind-the-scene add-on for Pidgin. We’ll configure it later, from within Pidgin. But first you need a Pidgin account. Click Add Account:

There are three tabs. The first we’ll configure is the Basic Tab:

^ (I’ve blurred out all contact info and keyprints in these screenshots, for security reasons.)

Under protocol, pick XMPP. This is very important. None of the other protocols will work in a truly secure manner, and many of them (like Google and Facebook) will send your info through servers of companies that gladly bend over for “The Man” without so much as a warrant. So use XMPP. Do NOT use “Facebook XMPP”, it’s not secure. Use the one near the bottom that just says XMPP:

You can use a gMail address, if you must, breaking the user name and domain up into the two boxes (username, and @gmail.com), but I prefer to use Rayservers. Rayservers is a VPN run by a cool security-minded guy named Ray (more on his VPN is here), and Ray allows cool people to set up free jabber accounts for OTR messaging. You can set up an account right through the Pidgin interface.

Pick a user name that is unique, and somewhat anonymous. Don’t use your real full name, or a nickname that can be absolutely tied to you. Pick something your friends would recognize, but not something that can be proven to be you. Enter it in the username field. For domain, enter

jabber.rayservers.com

Leave “Resource” blank. Enter a password. (Info on picking a good password is here.) Make sure “Remember Password” is checked. (Might be best to NOT check this if for use on a laptop that you travel with frequently, where physical access to your computer could easily be denied to you, and someone could log on and pretend to be you. But if you do not have it set up to remember password, you’ll have to manually enter it each time you start your computer. Remember, computer security is always a tradeoff between privacy and ease of use.)

Leave Local Alias blank, keep New Mail Notifications unchecked, and you can either accept the default buddy icon, or add your own. For this example, we’ve added our own.

Make sure “Create this new account on the server” is checked. Do NOT yet click “Add”, we’ve got a few more things to set up. Go to the Advanced tab:

Setting for Connection Security should be “Require Encryption.” “Allow Plaintext auth over unencrypted streams” should NOT be checked. Connect Port should be 5222. Leave Connect Server blank. File Transfer Proxy should be left as

proxy.eu.jabber.org

BOSH URL should be blank. Show Custom Smileys should be checked. Now go to the Proxy tab:

Proxy Type should be “Use Global Proxy Settings.”

Make sure “Create this new account on the server” is checked, then click the “Add” button in the bottom right. You will get this window:

Go ahead and accept the jabber certificate, even if you get a message saying it’s out of date or cannot be trusted. Trust me on this. SSL certificate issuance is controlled by government monopolies, and if you issue your own without paying The Man, the SSL cert is still valid, but SSL cert notifications try to scare you. Ray’s Cert is self-issued, but solid. After you click “Accept”, you will get a window with these certificate details :

SHA1 Fingerprint=20:A8:54:9E:BA:60:93:5C:2A:0F:CE:6E:43:B5:FB:13:E7:D6:20:1B

(That certificate is good to year 2020. After that, if this stuff isn’t either freely included everywhere automatically already, or punishable by death, there should be a new cert on Ray’s site when this one stops working, and you should get a notification from Pidgin when it is no longer any good.)

Hit “Close” and you will get this window:

go ahead and click Register, and you will get this:

You now have an account. But we’re not done yet. Go to your Buddy List window and click on Tools/Plugins:

Scroll down to “Windows Pidgin Options”, Single click on it, then click “Configure Plugin” at the bottom:

Make sure “Start Pidgin on Windows Startup” is checked. (It’s fine to leave Pidgin running all the time. It takes very little memory and will not affect your computing performance. It’s about as memory intensive as having Notepad running.)

Do not check anything else, then click “Close.” Now go back to your Buddy List window and click on Tools/Plugins. This time, single click “Off-The-Record Messaging” and click “Configure Plugin” at the bottom:

You’ll get this window:

It should automatically generate a key. If it doesn’t, it will say “No Key Present.” In that case, under where is says “No Key Present”, click the “Generate” button. When it’s done generating a key, you will get this message:

Under “Default OTR Settings”, make sure these are checked: “Enable Private Messaging”, “Automatically Initiate Private Messaging”, “Require Private Messaging” and “Don’t log OTR conversations.” In other words, check EVERYTHING. Also check at the bottom under OTR UI Options where it says “Show OTR button in toolbar.”

(Do not check “Require Private Messaging” if you plan to be chatting with any people who are not using the OTR plugin, but in my opinion, you should not be chatting with those people. lol.)

Hit Close. Then in the Plugins window hit Close. Then on your Buddy List window, go to Tools/Preferences:

UN-CHECK “Log All Instant Messages”, “Log All Chats” and “Log all status changes to system log.” THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, even though you’ve already set this in “Default OTR Settings” . For some reason, you have to do it both places.

Then hit Close. You are now set up for OTR encrypted instant messaging.

ADDING A BUDDY AND TESTING:

On your Buddy List window, go to Buddies/Add Buddy:

Add the Buddy’s user name under “Buddy’s Username.” This will be info you get from the person you’re trying to contact. It will be in the form of TheirUserName@domain.com (or .net or whatever.) If they’re on Rayservers, it will be TheirUserName@jabber.rayservers.com

We’ve actually got a few volunteers who have set up TEMPORARY THROW-AWAY TEST ADDRESS FOR YOU TO TEST THIS WITH US. For a limited time, when we’re online, we’ll accept requests, type a little with you to confirm that it’s working, and then delete you as a contact. We do this for free, because we’re the Feens, and we care about Freedom.

You can try any of these test address, one of us should be online:

carrierpidgin@jabber.rayservers.com

amifreetogo2@jabber.rayservers.com

otr-test@jabber.org

feendaveoh@jabber.rayservers.com

And you’re welcome. Please note, we will not accept file transfer tests, just text chat tests.

So, add your buddy’s username (with domain) or our test address. You can add an alias if you’d like, but it’s optional (like a person’s nickname if their username is a bunch of random letters and numbers). Then click “Add.”

If they’re offline, they will appear grayed out:

It will also be grayed out if they are online, but if they are online, within about 30-60 seconds, the gray dot will turn green to show that they are available.

You can ONLY communicate using OTR when both parties are online. If the other party is online, and have their status set to “Available” (which is the default), they will appear as a green dot:

To initiate chatting with them, double click on their green dot in your Buddy List. This will open up a chat window:

You’re still not chatting securely. Note that it says “Not Private” in the bottom right, above the chat area. You need to click on the OTR icon near the top right, and click “Start Private Conversation”:

It will say “attempting to start conversation”, and then within several seconds, you’ll be secure, and it will say “Private” in the bottom right.

(If it already says Private, then click on the OTR icon near the top right, and click “Refresh Private Conversation”)

Note that you are now OTR and encrypted, but not yet Authenticated (verified). Authenticating is proving that you are talking to who you think you’re talking to. You only have to verify a user once. You both authenticate each other. This is done by typing a text request with a question/answer response that only the other person would know. This is best done while in the same room in person, or on the phone, so you know by the voice that you’re talking to who you think you’re talking to. Even better is doing it with a person you know in real life, where you both share a secret that only you each would be able to answer.

To Authenticate, click on OTR/Authenticate Buddy:

You’ll get this window where you are to type a question and an answer. The answers are case sensitive:

Your buddy will get this message, and should choose “Authorize”:

You’ll get this message while you’re waiting for your buddy to answer your secret question:

And this message once they’ve successfully answered:

Hit “OK”, and you’ll be prompted to do the same process in the other direction:

You should. Authentication is a two-way street.

KEEPING THINGS PRIVATE

If set up properly, as in this tutorial, Pidgin OTR is secure if you do a few things:

1. Refresh your conversation every half-hour or so. Do this by clicking on OTR in the top right of a chat window, and click on “Refresh Private Conversation.”

In addition to the OTR menu in the chat window, you can click the “Not Private” button to initiate private chat, refresh private conversation, authenticate buddy, etc.

2. Keep your computer free of spyware and key-logging bullshit. This is obvious, but even though the conversation over the Internet is encrypted, if someone is logging your keystrokes on your computer (or over your network, if you’re in a corporate environment), they’re going to see what you’re typing. Same is true if they are taking screenshots of what you’re seeing on the screen. The best way to avoid this is to use Linux and never click on anything you don’t need or understand. Second best is using Windows with anti-spyware, anti-virus software, keeping up to date and running scans, and never click on anything you don’t need or understand.

It can be useful to have hidden motion-sensing cameras in your computer area, uploading encrypted to a non-public web folder. This is not only useful if you’re robbed, it’s also useful if someone does a “sneak and peak” where they break in while you’re gone, and without leaving a trace, physically add keylogging software to your computer. Most virus programs have deals with governments to NOT detect government keylogging software and backdoors, so cameras could be the only way you’d know that this had happened. The Feens will be doing a tutorial on security cameras in the future.

True Freedom Feens never click on anything we don’t need or understand. Many people will, but that’s not how or why we use computers. We use computers for communication, real communication, two-way with people we know, and one-way to the world. But this is not the way most people use computers. The way most people use computers is more like running naked through the town square yelling “LOOK AT ME! INTERACT WITH ME! TOUCH ME! LOOK AT THIS CUTE CAT PHOTO! LOOK HOW THE GOVERNMENT IS HARMING YOU, BUT DON’T TAKE ANY PRECAUTIONS TO PROTECT YOURSELF! AND LOOK AT THIS OTHER CUTE CAT PHOTO!”

Doing this is not wise, but most people do it. If you do, please re-think it, you’re putting yourself in constant danger of everything from spam to blackmail to arrest.

3. Have an anti-rubber hose decryption “I’m in trouble” secret phrase with people you know, and establish this phrase when you know you’re secure, that is, you know there’s no one holding a (literal or figurative) gun to either of your heads. What this means: With Pidgin OTR, you can be absolutely sure you’re talking to the COMPUTER of the person you think you’re talking to. But if that computer is seized by authorities, they could log in and chat as your friend and try to trick you into giving up information. Or, authorities or some other criminal gang could kidnap your good childhood friend, and threaten him/her with incarceration or torture and make them chat with you via Pidgin OTR and trick you into giving up some detail you would only give that friend.

You should have a pre-planned innocuous-sounding crypto-safeword to use if you’re typing under duress. Like calling the person “bro” if you never do, or saying “what up?” or using the world “indubitably”….basically anything you would never normally say. Don’t use those examples, find your own. Protecting your friends against being tricked by someone typing on your computer would be harder, but perhaps you could also have some pre-planned innocuous-sounding phrase you ALWAYS use.

For total safety, you should have a different phrase with each person you do OTR with. This could get complicated to remember, which is one more reason to not have a lot of people you do OTR with, keep OTR for real friends, and use PGP e-mail for everyone else.

4. CLOSE YOUR CONVERSATION WHEN YOU’RE DONE. And if you’re talking about particularly sensitive information, do that anyway every half-hour or so and start a new conversation. OTR Pidgin does not log chats internally when set up as above. But as long as you have a chat window open, if someone kicked in your door and your computer was still on with a Pidgin conversation open, they could scroll up and see both sides of the conversation. Close a conversation by going to Conversation/Close in the chat window. Once that is gone, the only record of what you’ve said is in your head and in the head of the other person.

Note: BOTH sides have to close the conversation to have it fully gone. Closing it on your end still leaves a record of it on the other person’s side until they close it too!

PIDGIN TIPS AND TRICKS

You can have two or more secure conversations with two or more different people at the same time, but there is no way to have a three-way or more-way secure conversation in Pidgin.

When you add a second conversation, it will open up in a second tab, like this:

You will have to close each one separately to leave no record.

Sending Files

While in a conversation, you can send a file to another authorized Pidgin buddy, but this is NOT secure, per the readme, so we do not recommend it. Lines 237 & 238 of the README file in the current source code says:
“This plugin only attempts to protect instant messages, not multi-party chats, file transfers, etc.”

PIDGIN NOISES

Pidgin, by default, makes a lot of notification sounds. It lets you know things like when a buddy goes online, when someone changes their availability status, when they try to start a conversation with you, and when they send you a new message. The noises are useful, and they’re rather pretty sounds. I got used to it really fast. But if you’d rather not hear them, you can turn them off. In your Buddy List, go to Tools/Preferences/Sounds, and turn off what you don’t want to hear:

CHANGING AVAILABILITY

Sometimes having people constantly pinging you with Pidgin can interpret your work flow, or your life flow. lol. But you can set yourself as “not available” by clicking on the green “Available” button at the bottom of your Buddy List window and changing the status:

CONCLUSION:

As white-hat hacker god Smuggler said in his interview on Anarchy Gumbo, “Security is a process, not an event.” It’s something you need to constantly work toward improving and perfecting. But using Pidgin OTR is a great start, and it’s kind of neat to be able to install something in under an hour that the biggest governments in the world cannot crack. Using Pidgin OTR gives you security that was only available to the CIA, MI6 and KGB not that long ago, and it’s free.

There’s really no reason NOT to use OTR. And get your friends to use it. Encryption used to be considered “munitions”, and it really is like guns in a few ways. One way is that the more people using encryption, the harder it is to stop, and the less “odd” casual use seems.

–MWD

Footnote 1: regarding my use of the phrase “the PC jail” for Windows, Richard Stallman, the inventor of the GNU part of GNU/Linux, said when Steve Jobs died “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone. Steve Jobs made jail cool.”

My feeling is this: I know PCs are a jail too, but I get really irked with people who are religious about Macs but hate PCs. One is not “freer” than the other. They’re both jails because they have too many rules, try to keep you in their “pen”, and actually cooperate with governments in a way that can LITERALLY get you put in real jail for doing things that do not aggress against anyone. I look at it that Apple is like tyrannical Democrats, Microsoft is like tyrannical Republicans, and GNU/Linux is freedom-loving libertarians/anarchists. That is, anyone who is arguing the value of the Apple jail over the PC jail is a total sheepish statist. And the only real argument is for GNU/Linux. Though I tend to write tutorials for PC, because of the large installed user base. And Linux users are smart enough that they don’t need my help. lol.

“HE WHO DIES WITH HIS ART ON THE MOST HARD DRIVES, WINS…..IF THAT ART PROMOTES LIBERTY.” –Michael W. Dean

So, this is so cool….Sean our Torrent guy and I have set up a torrent feed for all Freedom Feens episodes, Anarchy Gumbo episodes and movies. AND, you’ll get new things before everyone else who isn’t using the torrent link!

It works automatically, it’s completely legal (for now), and seeding will get you on the Golden Floppy Disc of Redemption by helping make the Feens’ media drone proof when it BECOMES illegal, which could be any day now, the way the Central Scrutinizer is stepping up its tyranny. Seed if you want, but at least have them. So if we get droned, or the site gets CISPAed, you can turn the torrents back on and start sharing.

HERE is THE FEENS RSS LINK.

It’s

http://freedomfeens.com/blog/FeenTorrentsRSS/FeenTorrents.xml

If you want to just copy and paste it.

WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?

You insert it into uTorrent and it will AUTOMATICALLY download all the episodes you don’t have, and new ones, as they arrive. And we’re going to start putting our Tuesday Feens casts out a day early on Monday, via torrent. And we also often record Anarchy Gumbo episodes a week or more before they’ll go out as web episodes, so by torrenting and seeding, you’ll get stuff earlier than everyone else! (Like the Mojo Nixon interview I’m doing Nov. 30, 2012 that won’t come out on the Gumbo until eight days later on the podcast!) That’s one of the benefits of being in our torrent club and getting on the Golden Floppy Disc of Redemption!

HOW DO I DO IT?

You copy the Feens torrent link to your clipboard. Then open uTorrent, and over on the left, single left click on “Feeds.” Then Right Click on Feeds, and choose “Add RSS Feed.”

The feed URL should already be in there if it’s on your clipboard. If not, paste it in to the Feed URL space (after deleting the http:// that shows up automatically). Then in the same dialogue box, under “Subscriptions”, change it to “Automatically download all items published in feed”, and click the OK button.

If you’ve never downloaded Feens with uTorrent before, it will start downloading all of them. It may queue some for after the first bunch are done. If you’ve downloaded before, and have some of them, it will only download the ones you don’t have. And when we add new episodes to our Feens Torrent RSS feed, uTorrent will automatically download the new episodes. Easy, fun and breezy!

2/16/2013: If you plan to seed, DO NOT remove the completed torrent listings from your downloads list, or people cannot download these files from you anymore, unless you re-download all of them and then leave the torrent listings intact. I didn’t include this fact in the original post, because I thought it was obvious. But we had one fan write us who deleted them and wondered why no one was connecting to him, so I added this part.

WHAT IF I WANT TO HELP, BUT DON’T KNOW WHAT A TORRENT IS, OR HOW TO USE ONE?

Want to contribute to liberty but short on cash? You can help the Freedom Feens without even spending a post-1964 dime.

Download uTorrent (free) and start seeding Freedom Feens episodes and Anarchy Gumbo episodes. We also recommend running PeerBlock (free) while you’re running uTorrent. And when you install uTorrent, chose the option NOT accept the add-ons and toolbar when it asks you. Leave your computer on seeding the torrents, while you’re at work or asleep. Make sure if you leave your computer on 24/7 that you reboot it every few days.

If your local ISP blocks or slows you down from torrenting, you need a VPN. You should have one anyway, to keep THE MAN from spying on you. We use Boleh VPN.

WHAT IF I HAVE A TORRENT PROGRAM OTHER THAN uTORRENT?

Here is a list of torrent programs and their features. Find yours on there and check the column called “Broadcatching (RSS).” It will say if that feature is supported for your program. If it is and you can’t figure out where to insert the RSS feed, a quick Google search of “RSS” plus “(the name of your torrent program)” will usually lead you to a page that will show you how. (Note: Transmission, the default torrent client in most GNU/Linux installations, does NOT have the RSS feature at this time. If you have Transmission and don’t want to install a different torrent program, you should be able to add the feed into the Live Bookmarks of your browser, and click on new items to manually download…When you click on an item, it will open up Transmission automatically and begin downloading.) NOTE: this is a machine-readable-only RSS feed, and will not work in iGoogle. If you want a feed that will work in iGoogle, this one of our Twitter feed will work, but you’ll have to manually click on each link to download.)

Thank you folks, and you’re doing a very good thing by spreading liberty and Feens media to the world. Remember, the more you seed the Feens, the more the State gnashes its teeth and fails.

MWD

So instead of the usual Feens Tuesday episode, today we have a special treat. The master recording, for free (!), of the new Feens hip-hop song with Rich Black, “Obama’s Feet Stink.” Rich Black provided his vocals, but is not in the video, because he lives in New Jersey and Hurricane Sandy hit there last night and cut off his power just as he was uploading his video. (He let us know via iPhone.) This collaboration is a dope track, has great rapping (and fun dancing!) from Neema, the best mix Neema’s ever done, and we are really proud of it. The song is about how there’s no difference between Obama and Romney, how voting is stupid, and how OBAMA’S FEET STINK!

PLEASE SHARE THE VIDEO, WE ARE TRYING TO GET THIS ONE TO GO VIRAL before the election! (We’re gonna need all the help we can get, with much of the Eastern Seaboard of the US without power.)

Video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI-UxZWwU-c&

Download MP3 for free, HERE.

CREDITS: RICH BLACK (Andre Anarcho-Capitalist Palm, a.k.a MC Fuck You, a.k.a Silver Stax): Words, rapping, beat.
MC LIE-BARRY (Neema Vedadi, a.k.a. MC Choreboy, a.k.a. NeemaV): rapping, beat, words, mixing. mastering.
DJ CONIACAL THE SCRIBE (MC Micromanage, a.k.a Michael W. Dean): Guitar, bass, background vocals on chorus, words, video editing.
Thanks to Jessica Romanowski-Vedadi for the camerawork on Neema.

Label: Angry Peasant Records.

Links: Rich Black‘s YouTube. Mc Lie-Barry and DJ Conical the Scribe’s Freedom Feens Podcast.

LYRICS:

Obama is a socialist, a liar and his feet stink

He’s sociopathic,
Slinging his bogus hope-and-change opiates by the boat load to the masses.
A black president to let him tell it, but he ain’t fooling nobody.
He dances worse than Ellen.
A felon in a nice suit who works with words to crash weddings via drone strike.
A thirst for murder is written all on his face.
When the worst occurs he’s in his element.
Hell bent on war for the hell of it.
O-Bam-a and Romney, like peas in a pod, the facade of peace deceives you
Your freedom is gone.

They’ll send the police to detain you at 3 in the morning,
Ship you to a black site without reading a charge,
and still convince you that the terrorists all be from Iran,
to scare you into thinking they promote freedom with bombs.
America, land of the fee, home of the slave, ruled by a stank foot.
The smell will blow you away.

CHORUS: Obama is a liar and his feet stink (4x)

MC Lie-Barry, NeemaV,
Obama’s one smelly dude, that’s very true,
he murders tons of children
and brags about it on the news.
But Romney’s a stooge too
steadily itchin’ to loot you.
Mittins is jealous Barack
stompin’ blue boots.
Romney wants to call the shots
blow the brains off little tots.
They’re both just tiny dots
turds in our melting pot.

And yes I’m mocking the democracy
’cause it’s a mockery.
TV is not stopping me
from thinking properly.
The government is a monopoly
and I’d rather play life
with my wife.

So fuck the left and the right.
MC Lie-Barry shine bright
while Barry lies right.
Sucking up the limelight.
Shoulda stayed a high guy
You feel me?
Now his feet smelly like
Porta Potties in New Delhi

(CHORUS)

Welcome to the fifth and final presidential debate, being hosted today by FDR-TV. We’re coming to you live from the stately and hurricane-proof Dick Cheney Bunker at the War Memorial Social Contract Center in beautiful downtown Lie-opolis.

Romney:
If I were president I’d do more to control guns

OBama:
Control guns? I’d make it illegal to hold one.

Romney:
What about the Fed? They need to print more funds?

Obama: (in a different tone but same words)
What about the Fed? They need to print more funds

Romney:
I won’t let the people bitch… How? Internet Kill Switch

Obama:
I’ll make ‘em pay to log on, so we can milk that shit

Romney:
Only if you spend the money on the drug war

Obama:
But we’ll need police for that so I’ll employ more

Romney:
I’ll put a cop on every corner so you’ll never be alone

Obama:
I’ll see your cops…and raise you: a drone above every home!

If I were to vote I’d vote for Ron Paul.
But voting is for suckers, nobody should vote at all.
Be your own kings and queens
and nobody’s slave
to sum it up in a phrase:
MOTHERFUCK THE STATE!

(CHORUS) X2

So, check out this short MP3 that I recorded talking about my new very expensive microphone, recorded on the same microphone. (If you’d rather hear it as an uncompressed WAV file, it’s not very big and is here.) I posted the file on Facebook and e-mailed it to some radio producers, podcasters and recording engineers I know. I said:

AUDIOPHILE INPUT PLEASE: Please check out this 20-second MP3. What do you think of the sound of this RE-20 microphone? I bought the mic, but it’s a “try before you buy” deal and I have two weeks to return it for a refund. It was expensive, and I might keep it, but need your opinions, especially compared to the ribbon and condenser mics I usually use on the Feens.

The opinions I got back were all great, and several engineers spoke glowingly of the sound and recommended that I keep it. The ElectroVoice RE-20 Dynamic Microphone is the holy grail mic of talk radio, has been since the 60s, and is in the booth of a high percentage of all professional radio studios in the world.

Only one issue: the recording was not made on a $430 ElectroVoice RE-20 Dynamic Microphone, it was made on a $17 NADY SP-4C Dynamic Microphone! (get it HERE) (gooseneck stand info here):

(I apologize for anyone who felt tricked by this, but I’m not “outting” anyone by name, and it was the only way to really get a good “blind test”, as I do not have an RE-20 to do a double blind.)

HERE’S HOW THIS CAME TO BE: Recently on Freedom Feens Live, in this episode, 62 minutes and 21 seconds in, we got a call from a guy named Brian. He sounded amazing compared to our usual callers. Our usual callers are usually calling on a headset mic over Skype (which sounds bad), or a cell phone (which sounds worse). I was fairly astonished at how good Brian sounded- I even told him right off the bat “You can stay on talking as long as you’d like. I asked him what mic he was using, he had a AKG D790, which is a 40-dollar chepo dynamic mic. I immediately said to myself, “This sounds better for a live show than my 80-dollar ribbon mic or 350-dollar condenser mic. I’ve got to get me one.” (I’m keeping the condensers for voiceover though, they’re better for that, but the cheap dynamic mic has such a “radio” sound, I love it.)

I looked around online and quickly realized that the AKG D790 mic is no longer made. So I searched “dynamic mic” on Amazon and started looking through them. Then I decided to challenge myself: I was going to buy a really cheap dynamic mic and see if I could get a stellar sound from it. After looking at the specs on a bunch of them, I decided to order a NADY SP-4C for $17. I like the Nady company, I own one of their ribbon mics (Nady RSM-4 ribbon mic) and Neema owns another of their ribbon mics (Nady RSM-5 ribbon mic.) We’ve been using those on all the Freedom Feens for a while, and dig their sound, quality and price (80 bucks each).

I got a very cheap foam windscreen for my cheap mic. ($2 for two, here.) It fits over the end of the mic, and replaces the giant pop filter I usually use with the ribbon mics and condenser mics. Those things obscure your view of the computer or looking at the squirrels being merry out the window while casting:

The SP-4C comes with a cheap 1/4″-end cable:

You should throw that in the trash as soon as you open the box…

…and replace it with a good balanced XLR-to-XLR male-to-female cable.

I used no audio sweetening with the mic (except normalization in post). I used no compression or limiting, just my own natural mic technique, intuitively riding my face-to-mic distance with my volume. I average around an inch or two from the mic, and speak right into the end of it. The pre-amp I used is nothing fancy, it’s built into my relatively cheap mixer/USB interface, a ALESIS MultiMix 8USB, which is no longer made, but it’s very similar to this $120 Alesis mixer, and that would work fine. I set the EQ for low, mid and high straight up at zero. And as I said, I did my standard normalization in post (using SoundForge) like I do on all spoken audio I record.

There’s a tiny tiny bit of 60 HZ hum in the NADY SP-4C, but all dynamic mics have that. An RE-20 has even more. And the NADY SP-4C has a high-frequency top end of 12,000 Hz, so it wouldn’t be great for some instruments with complex harmonics, but it’s perfect for talk radio and podcasting.

^ I used the NADY SP-4C mic for the latest Freedom Feens Live episode (archive here). And I used it for my background vocals on the chorus of the new Rich Black and DJ Lie-Barry rap song “Obama’s Feet Stink.”

I did some more mic tests, you can download the 70-second MP3 here or the same as a WAV here. There are four segments in the test:

–The NADY SP-4C just plugged into the mixer

–The NADY SP-4C plugged into an Art Tube MP preamp plugged into the mixer with a 1/4″ to 1/4″ cable (I didn’t have a short balanced cable handy). The Art’s stock Chinese 12AX7 tube has been replaced with this Russian gold-pin Tungsol variant.

I did both of those tests recording into SoundForge, then repeated both tests recording into Mumble. For Mumble I did as I do for the podcast archives of our live shows (which we do and record over Mumble), re-sampled to 44.1k and bit-depth converted to 16 bit in SoundForge. Then entire test file was normalized at the end in SoundForge using the “speech” setting.

The point of this whole cheap-mic experiment was to steer people away from the more expensive condenser mics everyone seems to think they need for podcasting. I encourage people to first try a good inexpensive dynamic mic instead. Dynamic mics are a lot more forgiving of bad mic technique and less-than-stellar vocal quality (but they sound GREAT with good mic technique from a host with a good voice). One reason the RE-20 is so popular is not simply its quality, but it the fact that it is extremely forgiving of bad mic technique, and can therefore accommodate the challenges of being used to interview lots of different guests who have never been on the radio. Condenser mics are unforgiving with bad mic technique and less-than-stellar vocal quality. (As in computing, “garbage in, garbage out.”)

I love that the NADY SP-4C mic has the word “STARPOWER” printed on the side of it. (Not surprising, since the mic is marketed toward karaoke applications.) Printing “STARPOWER” on a mic is cheesy and awesome, but the sound you can get from this mic is anything but cheesy.

–Michael W. Dean

Sort of….So, after my daughter died of Leukemia in 2006 I was totally crushed. I couldn’t sleep right for a year, and was really depressed. One thing that really helped pull me out of it after a year, something that was really cathartic, was this: I recorded a version of the heart-wrenching Jeff Buckley song (written by Leonard Cohen) “Hallelujah” in remembrance of Amelia. Doing that and making a YouTube video of me singing it really helped me be able to function again.

I actually only watched it a few times since 2008 when I made it. I can’t really watch it. I haven’t even checked comments on much.

I checked it out today finally, and noticed a bunch of comments on it from two years ago saying things like

The Freedom Feens episode “obedience to law is liberty” is messed up, audio wise and had to be put down. This is the fixed replacement:

In Soviet Russia, Drug Consumes YOU!

Enjoy!

PLEASE SEED IN CASE THEY GET DRONED!

The FREEDOM FEENS Podcast:
Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi’s fun ‘n’ feisty twice-weekly chat about libertarian, agorist, voluntaryist and anarchist issues, abuse of authority by police, the War on Drugs, self-defense, Natural Rights, Austrian Economics, activism, DIY no-budget filmmaking, digital recording, cats, dogs, punk rock, hip-hop, sex and more. http://www.freedomfeens.com

These torrents cover episodes 1-102. More will follow! Get ready, y’all!

Get them here:

• Freedom Feens 1-10.torrent
• Freedom Feens 11-20.torrent
• Freedom Feens 21-30.torrent
• Freedom Feens 31-40.torrent
• Freedom Feens 41-50.torrent
• Freedom Feens 51-60.torrent
• Freedom Feens 61-70.torrent
• Freedom Feens 71-80.torrent
• Freedom Feens 81-90.torrent
• • Freedom Feens 101 Garrett Fox Picks a Winner in th.mp3.torrent
  • Freedom Feens 102 Computer Security for You to Avo.mp3.torrent
  • Freedom Feens 103 Ladies Love the Cool Freedom Fee.mp3.torrent

Movie, Guns and Weed – The Road To Freedom: Torrent of decent-looking 900 meg DVD rip.

=-=-

Thanks to Sean DuVally for putting these up!

TWITTER FEED OF UPDATING CURRENT FEENS TORRENTS IS HERE.

Michael W. Dean does a proof-of-concept live cast with callers using the Feens streaming server and a freeware utility called BUTT (Broadcast Using This Tool.)

How to Set Up Your Own Streaming Server with BUTT (live proof-of-concept episode), article and audio HERE.

Freedom Feens 24-7 streaming link. Bookmark it! Whee:

http://station.voscast.com/4ea6d70bd7547/

Also, if you want to listen to the latest episode only, on your mobile chromed robot turd, click the image below to use Stitcher: