"Now... more than ever"

One of the promos they play on 680 News is the Deep Voice Radio Man saying "Now... more than ever... you need 680 News... so tune in for news, weather..." etc., etc. No disrespect to 680 News, I listen to it all the time, but the expression "Now... more than ever" is one of those marketing clichés that fills me with dark hatred and righteous indignation.

Let us dissect this "clever" turn of phrase.

If we are to assume that this is actually true, that we need 680 News NOW more than EVER, then this implies that at any given moment, our need for 680 News is greater than at any other time in the past. That is, our need for 680 News (call this β), is a non-decreasing function of time, t. To illustrate:




So eventually, our need for 680 News will reach infinity, and we will all become helplessly glued to the radio.

(If this post seemed kind of crazy, I am just trying to demonstrate how we use certain expressions and phrases that don't really make sense if you think about it. This kind of thing is especially prevalent in marketing; working in the tech industry, I've seen plenty of impressive-sounding, but empty, doublespeak to promote products. Perhaps a topic for a future post.)

In Defence of Wikipedia

There's been some controversy over Wikipedia lately, and it takes the form of a lawsuit against the online encyclopedia. Someone has started a website at WikipediaClassAction.org, which plans to file a lawsuit against Wikipedia, on the basis that there is harmful and inaccurate information in some Wikipedia articles.

Wikipedia is well known for being an open encyclopedia, i.e. anyone can edit the articles. The idea is that for any given topic, someone in the world has the knowledge to be able to write about it. If this person posts some erroneous information (either intentionally or not), then someone else in the world will have the knowledge to correct it. In my experience, this model works, and Wikipedia has become one of my favourite sources of information. If something in an article seems controversial or somehow "not right" to me, a quick look at the discussion page for the article will show that the community is aware of the potential issues and is working to amend the entry.

There is no doubt that Wikipedia will never be 100% accurate at all times. The fact that it's a collaborative effort necessarily implies that any information posted can evolve. Also, differences between one author's perspective of a certain topic and another's are bound to arise. The point is that it's open for everyone to discuss and decide on an article's final content cooperatively. I believe that when it comes to information, a large open community has more to offer than a single "authoritative" source, even if it means the occasional error or bug.

This lawsuit was sparked in part by an incident involving the biographical entry of John Seigenthaler Sr. Someone posted false information (apparently as a joke) implying that Seigenthaler had been involved in JFK's assassination. The lawsuit claims that because of Wikipedia's open nature, such misinformation is more likely to be spread. The ironic part of it is, as soon as the story came out, it was loudly discussed, and much attention was brought to that particular article. It has since been fixed, and in fact, there is now another article explaining the whole situation. Doesn't this show the openness of the system actually serves to increase its accuracy? People will make false statements, through all kinds of media, whether they are open to the public or not. What's worse, a self-correcting system such as Wikipedia, where information becomes fact only when agreed upon by everyone? Or supposedly authorative sources (e.g. the news media) which routinely present opinions as fact?

I fear that this lawsuit might actually have some success. They'll never be able to shut down Wikipedia (at least, I certainly hope not), but they might succeed in forcing them to do something stupid like dropping the "pedia" from the name, just because it's "misleading." No matter what happens, I'll continue to use and support the Wikipedia project.

Credit card telemarketers are mindless automata

Ring, ring

“Hello?”

“Hello, may I speak with Albert Choi, please?”

“Yes, speaki…”

“Good evening, Mr. Choi, I’m calling from MBNA to tell you about our credit card offer for students…”

“Uh, well, actually…”

”...this student card offers a low interest rate, no annual fee, and many other features. We have your address as ******, Mississauga, Ontario, is this correct?”

“Actually, I’m not a student anymore, I’ve recently graduated…”

“That’s not a problem, sir. Our card has many features, it can help you around the house, do some cleaning, some vacuuming…”

“Hello? I actually already have an MBNA card.”

“That’s not a problem, this card is loaded with features, you can play MP3’s, download movies…”

“No, I don’t…”

”...with this card, you can reduce gang violence and inner-city homelessness…”

“No thank you, bye.”

”...this credit card can cure cancer! Solve world hunger!”

“Good-bye.”

Click

iJohn

Evidence of John Lennon’s god-like power: my iPod has played his songs more frequently over the past couple days (since December 8, the anniversary of his death). The spirit of John Lennon permeates all portable electronic music playing devices.

Apparently, I don't like the music that I like

Let me explain. There’s this online music player called Pandora, which is supposed to “read your mind” and play music that you would like. You start off by giving it the name of an artist or song that you like, and it will play things that it deems “similar.” The people behind Pandora analyzed a whole bunch of songs and assigned traits to them using a lot of pretentious musical terms, like “subtle syncopation” and “minor key harmonic tonalities”. (They call this the “Music Genome Project.”) The player uses these traits and builds a playlist of other songs or artists that share the same properties.

I’m sure that the system works well, but for some reason, I just don’t like most of the stuff it plays. I give it some of my favourites like Radiohead and Björk, and it just starts playing absolute crap. The common traits are definitely there, but I end up not really enjoying the playlist it generates.

It could be that I’m just picky, but I think the whole concept is fundamentally flawed. It’s very difficult to quantify the elements that make you like or dislike music. For example, you might like a particular song for its repetitive beat, but another song with a repetitive beat might drive you nuts. Pandora is a noble effort, and I’m sure many people will like it, but unfortunately it just doesn’t work for me.

Roger Ebert speaks for the masses

I was catching up on some Ebert & Roeper shows via their podcast… A couple weeks ago, they reviewed Into the Blue. Richard Roeper gave it a thumbs down for all the expected reasons: ridiculous plot, mindless action scenes, etc. Ebert, on the other hand, gave it a thumbs up, to Roeper’s astonishment. He began his justification of his recommendation thusly (I’m paraphrasing here):

“Jessica Alba is a pretty girl. She’s pretty in this movie. So that’s a thumbs up.”

Can’t argue with that, Roger Ebert. Of course, he tried to give other reasons for liking the movie, but it was altogether unconvincing. I propose that Ebert & Roeper introduce a “thumb down, penis up” rating for just this purpose.

iiiiiiii.....

I’ve going to have this stuck in my head for at least 3 days.

Fuckiiiiiiin Iiiiiiinternet…

Disturbing classic rock sexual innuendo lyrics of the day

The song: “Squeeze Box”
The artist: The Who

Ahem…

• “Mama’s got a squeeze box / She wears on her chest / And when Daddy comes home / He never gets no rest”
• “Mama’s got a squeeze box / Daddy never sleeps at night”
• “She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out”
• “She goes, squeeze me, come on and squeeze me”

And, once again:

• “Mama’s got a squeeze box / Daddy never sleeps at night”

Yes, I know it’s an accordian, but still… ew.

Apple slave #655321

I have never been a big fan of Apple. Their philosophy of computer-as-appliance has always struck me as a bit repulsive. It's easy to dislike Microsoft (and I do) for keeping everything closed and proprietary, but in some ways Apple is even worse. At least with a Windows PC, you can open the thing up and add and remove parts yourself.

Just look at the iPod, for example. The fact that it uses a non-standard connector to interface with the PC means that there are a whole bunch of products (e.g. USB cables) that you can't use with the iPod, and also that there are a whole bunch of iPod-specific products that don't work with anything else.

Yeah, but that means the good Apple engineers can optimize for the hardware and make it work really fast...

Uh... but it's harmful to consumers when these incompatibilities arise... it takes away their choices...

That's okay, if everybody uses an iPod, then there won't be any incompatibilities... and it'll be really easy to find iPod-compatible products because all the manufacturers will be on the iPod bandwagon...

But... but... Apple is an evil corporation... they're trying to take over the world!

Just look at this iPod... it's so shiny and pretty... and cute..

NOOOOO!!!!!

Apple rulzzzzz!!!

Public service announcement to parents of young children

When you are going bumper bowling and your kid unleashes a weak shot that stops in the middle of the lane, do not try to walk on the lane to get the ball. The lanes are waxed and thus very slippery, and you will fall, perhaps causing your glasses to fly comically through the air. When you get up and try to act like nothing happened, please be aware that everybody saw that and is laughing at you.

On second thought... don't take your kids bowling at all, because they obviously cannot really bowl and will only hurt themselves trying to do so. Thank you.

Chickens are for eating

This is exactly why asian people have no business, uh.... doing science?

http://mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/MEDIA/all%20videos/PI/PI(web).mov

This can best be described as a remote control human-chicken interface. Apparently, there is demand for pet chicken owners to be able to pet their chickens while they're at work. I wonder if there's a ROAST function.

New Yorke not shitty, despite tempting pun

A few days ago, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed a song called "Arpeggi" at something called the Ether Festival. The song has a simple melody sung by Thom, and it's backed by a sequence of repeated tones played by Jonny on the ondes martenot. At the end, they're joined by an orchestra, which sounds great. There's a very ethereal feeling to the whole thing. The song is probably in the early stages of development, so it might not even end up being a song, but as an idea, it's very promising. Apparently, the band have been spending some time in the studio recently, working on some new music. I look forward to hearing more.

MP3 of Arpeggi

(By the way, I wish I could claim credit for the joke in the heading, but I actually saw it on some website back when the Hail to the Thief stuff was first being revealed. I'm not that clever.)

Homage

I saw this site today. I thought it was pretty funny. Therefore, I decided to make a post about it. Having done this, I got back to work.

Battle of the audio players, conclusion

As promised, I did a bit of research to find out what it would take to get LongPlayer to work together with amaroK. It turns out that amaroK supports a DCOP interface. DCOP is a protocol shared by KDE applications that allows you to control them via the command line. For example, you can add songs to the amaroK playlist by executing the following shell command:


dcop amarok playlist addMedia <path-to-media-file>


It's definitely possible to modify LongPlayer to use these DCOP commands to control amaroK, instead of performing the equivalent operations with XMMS. And it's probably not even difficult.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), while I was looking into this, I realized that everything I liked about amaroK were just gimmicks (e.g. lyrics lookup, album cover images). After initially being impressed with all these bells and whistles, I came to see that there's ultimately no real usefulness to any of it. On the other hand, LongPlayer really does perform a useful function, and changes the user's experience.

Therefore, I declare the LongPlayer/XMMS combination to be the winner of this little competition. Somewhat anti-climactic, but I'm glad it turned out this way... saves me the trouble of actually going through with modifying LongPlayer code.

(Aside: I think I learned a bit about myself through this little "ordeal." I may at first be impressed by superficial things, but I eventually tend to gravitate towards a more practical ideal. In general, this probably does describe my general outlook on things. So, there you go: self-discovery through software.)

God agrees with my review of The Da Vinci Code

Looks like Dan Brown, with his book The Da Vinci Code, has incurred the wrath of God. Apparently, the Vatican is very displeased with the novel, and has sent a Cardinal on a mission to urge Catholics to shun it. Choice quote from Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone: "Don't buy this. Don't read this because this is rotten food... A lot of novels do good but this book is rotten food ... it does harm, not good."

Nice to know I have the Vatican on my side.

(All kidding aside though, I actually found the theories about Christ, as presented in The Da Vinci Code, pretty interesting... I just thought it was poorly written and poorly plotted.)

Battle of the audio players

I've arrived at a bit of a crossroads concerning audio player software, and which one to use. I have a moderately large collection of music on my computer, and dumping everything onto a playlist and shuffling isn't quite good enough for me.

I've narrowed it down to two candidates:

XMMS + LongPlayer

XMMS is pretty much the standard audio player on Linux (it's basically a clone of Winamp). However, its shuffle functionality (as with most audio players) is pretty rudimentary. In particular, it is susceptible to the so-called birthday paradox. I have no desire to start explaining probability theory here, but essentially, this means that it does not take long for the same song to be played twice, which quickly becomes annoying.

LongPlayer is a program that runs alongside XMMS (it also works with Winamp on Windows, and iTunes on MacOS), which basically continually populates your playlist queue with "random" songs. It is not completely random, because that would lead to the birthday paradox; instead, it tries to play the songs in such a way as to maximize the average time between playing the same song twice. Also, it supports a rating system which causes the higher-rated songs to be played more often.

The combination of XMMS and LongPlayer does a very good job of randomizing my playlist. On average, it takes about 4 weeks for a song to be played again (according to LongPlayer's statistics).

amaroK

amaroK takes a completely different approach. This is the most full-featured music player I've seen. It places a strong emphasis on organizing a collection of music, and can group your tracks based on genre, artist, year, etc. It also uses this information to make suggestions as you're playing something; for example, it gives you a list of albums by the same artist, and other artists of a similar genre.

I also like the fact that amaroK downloads album covers from Amazon.com and displays them as you're playing tracks. It even displays lyrics for the currently playing song. (How this works, I don't know--I should take a look at the source code.) Yes, I know that these are kind of frivolous features, but it gives the app a professional, polished feel.

So, here's the dilemma. I really like the full-featuredness of amaroK, but its shuffling mechanism is pretty basic. There is a rating mechanism, but it doesn't seem to obviously affect the selection of tracks. Now, amaroK is a larger project than LongPlayer, so it is likely that future updates will have an improved shuffling function. In fact, many people have requested a smarter shuffle on the amaroK forums.

The "best-of-both-worlds" solution would be if LongPlayer could interface with amaroK and feed songs into the amaroK playlist. I believe that this should be possible, because both apps are open-source. If I have time, I'll try to find out more about this... (to be continued...)

Weekend Wishes

This is one of my favourite passages from George Carlin's newest book, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?:

If someone says, "Have a nice weekend," I never say, "You too." Because I never know if, perhaps, by the time the weekend rolls around, I will have other plans for that person. Come Friday, I may wish to have then slain.

A lot of Carlin's humour has to do with language, and in particular, the stuff that people say so much that it becomes automatic and loses meaning. I know I've had the "Have a nice weekend"/"You too" exchange many times, and every time it happens, I kick myself for being so conformist. The next time someone says to me, "Have a nice weekend," I will reply, "Fuck that, I plan to wallow in misery and self-loathing all weekend." Thank you, George Carlin.

Everything minty is good, part II

So there's this new "flavour" of Tylenol called Tylenol "Cool Burst". You know what it is? It's minty Tylenol. Minty! Tylenol!!

Why is this even necessary? The ideas of pills is that you swallow them. Do they really want people to pop in a couple of Tylenols and start sucking on them like candy? "Mmm... minty... refreshing... maybe I'll have 10 more."

I'm getting pretty tired of this notion that everything has to be minty. The only things that should be minty are mouthwash, breath drops, toothpaste and other oral hygiene products. I don't want to eat it, I don't want to drink it, I don't want to wash my hair with it. Just take your mint and keep it to yourself, thank you.

(This is a sequel to another post)

The Weatherman Trinity

This series of clips basically sum up the essence of the human condition through one of the most trusted and respected professions in the world: the weatherman. Every human being can be categorized into these three groups.



The Extrovert



Notice how the anchors kind of egg him on, but you can hear the exasperation and displeasure in their voices.



The Introvert



This is a university broadcast, and it's probably his first time on air, so you kind of feel for him.... but it's still pretty funny. Especially his futile attempts to point at the projected image, which I'm sure is a very difficult weatherman skill.



The Just Plain Nuts



No explanation needed.



(Original links found on Boing Boing)