
Using lpd to spool MP3s (2003) - wtbob
http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2003/05/23/lpdforfunandmp3playing/
======
pridkett
I wrote this article 12 years ago and it took me until I saw my own name in
the comments to realize it was my own article. Now I want to take the advice
of the commenters and make it work for YouTube videos our animated gifs -
except have them play on a large LED array.

This brings back some great memories if trying to explain to my the girlfriend
why I didn't want to go look at engagement rings, "Y'know that old computer
under my desk with the noisy fan? Right now thousands of nerds are visiting it
to read an article about how I used the printer system to play music."

Fwiw - the original is still up:
[http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2003/05/23/lpdforfunandmp...](http://patrick.wagstrom.net/weblog/2003/05/23/lpdforfunandmp3playing/)

------
wtbob
I love how standard Unix tools can be repurposed for other uses. Granted,
sometimes it's not the most efficient thing possible (like those databases
built on sed & awk), but it's still nifty—and in the case of playing music, it
really does make a lot of sense.

~~~
est
idk, change mp3 to youtube, the article is instant relevant today.

~~~
voltagex_
I'm tempted to try youtube-dl in place of the audio players and try it out.

~~~
anon4
mpv can directly play youtube urls, so you can just do e.g.

    
    
        mpv --vo=null https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

------
0942v8653
Just in case the server does die, here's a snapshot someone took a few minutes
ago: [https://archive.is/TkaU4](https://archive.is/TkaU4)

------
voltagex_
I've just realised, you could use a networked queue and something like `mpd`
to make a multi-user music system... but at that stage you might just want to
pay for Spotify.

~~~
anon4
If you're interested in that, see groovebasin. It only plays your local music,
but it does allow multi-user access to a shared stream.

------
mappu
Neat!

...could you use it as an init system?

------
tedchs
Cute idea... Has anybody tried this with CUPS?

------
dang
Ok, we've changed the URL from [http://pipan.org/mirror/lpd-
mp3/](http://pipan.org/mirror/lpd-mp3/) to yours. Was that an unauthorized
copy?

Edit: We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10378327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10378327)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
pridkett
It's not an unauthorized mirror. The whole deal was that I was serving the
content from an old computer off a residential broadband line. Well, it wasn't
even broadband - it was this interesting wireless service in Chicago from
Sprint that bounced signals off the Sears Tower. Anyway, Slashdot got it and
my machine melted, so I put a plea for mirrors at the top of the page (my
writing has improved dramatically since I wrote the plea, please don't judge).
This was back in the day before automatic mirroring services existed. Also, I
was a very poor grad student at the time, so I didn't have a VPS that could
have handled the bandwidth.

Carry on then. It's all good.

~~~
wtbob
Heh, I must have seen it on Slashdot all those years ago, and picked up that
mirror link. Thanks for posting it, and thanks for keeping your site going!

