No Middle Name

Today I used RSS to Javascript to make a page of the feed from Pandora that has my latest bookmarked songs. The RSS to Javascript thingie loads pretty slow. Neat idea tho. See the link in the right sidebar.

So, someone introduced me to Pandora.com not too long ago, and since my iPod got stolen at work, I’m back to listening to Internet radio, at least until the network admin slaps my wrist for sucking up too much bandwidth. (Side note: Just last weekend, my car stereo got jacked while I was parked at a friend’s house in Takoma Park. The music gods are not smiling upon me.)

Pandora is designed to help you discover music that you’ll like. It does this by playing songs with similar attributes to artists and songs you already enjoy. You can create different “stations” for different genres of music, or mush the genres together by entering dissimlar artists and songs into one station. (I haven’t tried this tactic.) You then can refine your stations by rating the music that Pandora selects from you. Thumbs up, and the song stays. Thumbs down, and it doesn’t play again.

The station I listen to the most started with the artist Death Cab for Cutie, then The Postal Service, then Frou Frou. After a couple of months of feedback from me, it has expanded well beyond these three, and sometimes plays Madonna, Bjork, New Order, and the Pet Shop Boys. I asked Pandora why it was playing a particular song today on this station, and it said, “Based on what you’ve told us so far, we’re playing this track because it features synth rock arranging, electronica influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony and many other similarities identified in the music genome project.” Not all of the songs have a pop/electronic sound to them. If I could, I would add a feature where I could tell Pandora I like a song, but don’t want it to play in this particular station. For now I’m simply avoiding giving these songs an up or a down. We’ll see how well that works.

Listen to my station, Emotronic. Registration NOT required.

Still trying to process the trip to Burning Man 2006. Once the salient points congeal I’ll write a bit more. For now, you should check out our friend Fitz’s take on the trip: http://zentropolis.com/

The gang cozies up in Plan A.

The man burns.

tunnelvision_color_prettier

Originally uploaded by Alisonchilla.

More doodles. I had this one sketched quickly, but then it sat for months while I decided how to color it. Not sure it’s done, but I’m afraid if I mess with it more it’ll get muddled.

So . . . little . . . time . . .

See our art car growing

More Burning Man prep photos, including the Evolve Revolve

MarketingSherpaEmailAwards06_041.JPG

Originally uploaded by MarketingSherpa.

So, today I was reading my MarketingSherpa Email and found that the photos from the event I attended this past spring were posted online at Flickr. See the blog post (open access until July 15). Looked quickly through them and yup, there I am – just before taking off with the slightly crazy eLoqua crew to gallavant around Chicago.

I’m willing to wager that we’re living in the most thoroughly photographed age of all time. Digital photography means you can shoot as many stills as your memory card will hold. Future historians will have no trouble reconstructing scenes from this time period. At worst, they’ll have to sift through all the drek to find the gems.

I laughed to myself while watching fireworks last night — I peered over at the bleachers, and saw a sea of little LCD displays snapping the fireworks. They outshone the glow necklaces the kids were wearing.

Our small world is getting even smaller . . .

Reading through a general mailbox at work can be quite tedious, though someone has to do it. You see the same “Out of office autoreply” message over and over again. It goes something like this “I will out of SF until May 12. I will only be checking e-mail occasionally during this time. My administrative assistant can help if you need to reach me. ”

Once in awhile, though, someone decides to break from the ordinary:

I am leaving to go back to my home in North Carolina on May 15. While this is a “working vacation,” I am hoping to indulge in plenty of artery-clogging fried chicken ‘n’ biscuits, which I’ll wash down with a gallon (or two) of fresh-brewed sweet iced tea. When I recover from my fried-chicken-induced food coma, I hope to indulge in some fried (is there any other way?) country ham and grits. I’ll wash that down with iced tea too, even though its breakfast. For lunch, maybe I’ll have some oysters, even though “May” doesn’t have an “r” in it. I’ll wash those down with iced tea also.

On May 24th I will be 5 pounds heavier. And, oh yeah, I’ll be back in Hamilton then too.

If you need to contact me while I’m away, call me on my cell phone. I will be too busy eating to check my E-mail.

——–
I am in the hospital recovering from a broken hip. Until further notice, I shall have very sporadic or no e-mail access. Important messages should be communicated to my wife.
———

I will be far, far away until January 2nd.

——

Then there are some messages that come to the general mailbox that don’t make much sense at all, but are amusing, nonetheless:

————–
I am out of office up to April 10, 2006 and I will not check my E-mail. Please apologize.

Joerg
———–

I’ll check our area for disposable materials and waste and deposit them
in the receiving area.

———-
Dear Ethel:
Thank you so much for the card; it really calls back Plum and even Manhattan Beach, and of course our walks with you! That is the one thing I really miss, but as I said before, the fossils we find prove that we are living on the bottom of a sea if not an ocean. And that is a wonderful thought. Very good wishes, we miss you. T&L

———

Quiz: How Gay are You?
http://www.sciammind.com/page.cfm?section=quiz

———–

Then, there is the praise, counterbalanced by the rants:

———–

Unfortunately, most of the real discoveries each year are rejected by main stream science, because their consciousness just isn’t high enough for them to see the truth.

———-

The language with which all biology is written is marvelously complex, and also incredibly specific. Just as scientists must identify the reference to the work of others, how can one can deny that there was an original author of the language with which all biology is written? I believe that nothing happens without God… the most common thing said in heaven will be “Oh, now I see”.
————

Dear AAAS
I don’t subscribe to Science because the U.S.A. is the greatest resources’destroier
of our planet.
Without grudge, sincerely your Giuseppe

————

I think {name omitted} is a bloviating fool, and does grave disservice to Science with
his self-important meddling in National political issues.

———————–

If it weren’t for these tiny gems, I’d definitely pull my hair out for having to sort through the complete junk that comes to the catchall address. Hope you enjoy them as well.

Dear god! In the past ten years, I have gone from being the only search result for my name to one in many. In principle, this is not too troubling. But then you find something like this . . .

http://profiles.urnotalone.com/7054

I am not alone, though I wish I were!

Let’s see, I’ve been home a total of one weekend out of the past 5. I slept all day Saturday that weekend, perhaps to make up for lost time.

I was in NYC for Patty’s bachelorette, my parents’ place for Easter, Chicago for a conference, and Herb’s parents’ new house the weekend after that . I go to Boston next week for work, then Patty’s wedding is over Memorial Day weekend. I’m starting to lose track of where I am, and this year is whizzing by at lightning speed.

My Spanish-speaking English student is MIA, soccer season has started, Burning Man is fast approaching, the Peru trip needs planning, my house needs cleaning, and I have to figure out how I’m going to finance all my fun.

Finished reading “Neuromancer” by William Gibson, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by Philip K. Dick, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom and have started a boring book about email marketing and another about how to be a research scientist. Side perk of my job is that I get to read Science or other things we publish, and it’s technically work. I mean, I have to know what I’m selling, right?

More to come . . .

This isn’t about me, per se, but I did always believe that my friend Ben Brown was going to be semi-famous (again – he has had his head on the Real World Austin for .5 seconds, written a book, helped found a dot bomb, and such)

His dating site Consumating.com, got mentioned in the Wall Street Journal the other day. Wee hoo!

I’m directly stealing from AAAS’s homepage today. Kinda cool to see your work on TV.
“NBC4-TV in Washington, D.C., focused on AAAS headquarters for a story on environmentally sensitive architecture.”
http://www.nbc4.com/video/8322873/index.html?taf=dc