Category Archives: Opinion

Attention Data

Posted on by

Nick Bradbury has written about attention data on his blog several times. What I see as an interesting use of attention data (that fortunately costs you some money. Yes, fortunately. You get 10 hours free to try it out.) is the site Pandora.com. While it may sound like you would be opening up a world of trouble by clicking on that link, I challenge you to check it out. You can type in artist names and Pandora will then start selecting songs that might fit your taste. What’s interesting is that you can rate the songs (click on the song in the player and choose from the popup whether or not you like it) and then they are able to take a list of songs that you’ve liked and can then compile a list of songs that you might like based on your attention data. I am amazed at the value of this sort of attention data.

Pandora’s musical evaluation of the songs is based on a complicated grid of characteristics that basically rank each song by each artist that has been rated by their group of music evaluators by various qualities so that if you’re a big fan of certain songs with various characteristics you’ll most likely get other songs with similar characteristics. Other bands with songs that sound similar will be brought in so that you can be introduced to new music. Sure, you could listen to the radio and hope that the record labels happen to be promoting the next thing that isn’t just a cookie cutter cut out of other music but this is quite amazingly good at nailing my musical preferences. As a former music department manager I can attest to the challenge of doing this manually. A database of music is just amazing in this context.

So, you pay them to use your attention data to be exposed to quality (ok, that’s a bit subjective) music, and then they learn from you to help play what you like but also they can take your attention data and discover what various tastes are and can give even better suggestions to other users.

Brilliant.

Thanks to Robin for pointing me to Pandora.

Grilled Cheese+Fruit Preserves

Posted on by

I went to our friends, Aaron and Trish Anderson, house on Saturday. Abby and I ate lunch there whilst the mom, grandmom and Evie spent some time with things quieter at our place. Aaron introduced me to the idea of eating a grilled cheese sandwich with jelly on it. I thought this would be a bad choice given that cheese and fruit are not normally parts of my diet. Well, not together at least.

The grilled cheese sandwich was prepared by my mother-in-law and I later applied the Strawberry Fruit preserves. The first bite was weird for me. Not because it tasted bad but because I was ready for it to taste funky. However, it was OK, and I wouldn’t prevent myself from eating another one. This sandwich is probably so loaded with calories that adding the fruit preserve was not going to help the dietary side of things, but it sure did change the taste of something that I’m used to having.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Horrible Examples of Hypocrisy

Posted on by

So this evening I was watching Scary Movie on NBC and a commercial comes on with Megan Mullally. In the commercial, which is supposed to be a public dis-service announcement, she tells people that its what is on the inside that counts. If you’re not feeling good about yourself on the outside then you need to find who you are on the inside.

Doh! This woman is on a TV show about physical attraction between straight and homosexual people, she’s been touted as one of the more voluptuous women over 40 or some other such label. She has apparently lost some weight to feel more attractive… and yet she needs to tell people that even though they can’t be like her, they should be happy with who they are inside. Lame.

I find public service announcements to be absolutely insulting. Other fine examples of these things are people saying that our public schools are going down the tube due to President Bush’s signing into place the ‘No Child Left Behind’ act and then having someone on the television tell me that I should stay in school to have a fulfilling and meaninful life. We have shows that require actors and actresses to do crazy (and theoretically funny) things because they’re drunk and then those same actors and actresses do public swervice denouncements saying, “Drinking doesn’t make you cool.”

Continuing on with Molly, I think that television has clearly enunciated the fact that sex sells. I have to laugh at the idea that every other commercial seems to have at least one element that involves sexuality and then they put one on that’s suppose to counter that. I think Molly should have been wearing sack cloth and ashes instead of a slender, form fitting outfit to tell people that looks don’t matter. Looks don’t matter on television like being dumb (without speech) works on radio. I think this is going to really impact America’s culture – we’re all going to feel better about ourselves because a television star told us to.

On the upside I feel better about myself because I’m not telling everyone else to feel better about themselves. In fact, I don’t feel good about myself sometimes, and that’s good, it shows that I recognize areas of my life that need improvement. By being content with parts of me that are goofy (and trust me, there are plenty of those) they’ll stay that way. I don’t sit and dread them, but I also am not going to just say, “It doesn’t matter, I’m perfect just the way I am.”

Oh, and by the way, you should feel good about yourself because you’re created in God’s image. Or, maybe you should feel better about yourself because you weren’t watching Scary Movie on NBC 😉

Folgers: Another Word for Blah

Posted on by

I’ve been drinking good coffee for some time now. My buddies Brian, Craig and Josiah have really opened up my eyes to quality coffee. However, while my mother-in-law is here she requested Folgers’ coffee because it is cheaper and less intense on her stomach than the stuff I was buying (Peaberry’s FlatIron blend). I just brewed a pot of Folgers… blah. The flavor is just sad. I can’t recommend this in even the slightest. While I don’t like Starbucks’ burnt beans I just can’t stand this stuff. You buy a tub o’ grounds and lament it if you can handle it. But such is life… its time for me to get back to work.

Grover Levy: Wrestling Angels

Posted on by

There is an album in my collection that I love. I think its one of the best Christian albums from the 90’s. When I first heard it I wasn’t impressed with the musical style because I was looking for Nirvana (the band, not the spiritual place). However, now that I’ve matured and widened my musical tastes I have to say that this album rocks. Sell a kidney, appendix or some of your lesser quality albums and find this one to buy used online. The album is out of print but is worth owning.

This album has lyrics that are so well thought out. There are polemics to encourage you to not fit into the status quo of Christendom, but also one song that stands out: “If You Want to Lead Me To Jesus” is just brilliant. Its about the Christian’s attitude towards evangelism. I have to confess that I often have thought that Christianity has become so generic in popular 1st world culture that there is no compelling reason for people to even look at it as a viable solution to the problem of sin and as a source of eternal purpose. This song is a kick in the shins to get you to think – check out lyrics like this:
(verse)
Your Message is clear
you sound so sincere
your intentions are good:
forgieveness of sin
life without end
I’d believe it if I could
But I’ve watched from afar
and I’ve seen how you are
with the people around
And I don’t see a trace
of the love and the grace
you talk so much about

(chorus)
If you want to lead me to Jesus
you better find a better way
‘Cause your life is speaking so loud
I can’t even hear a word you say

If winning the duel is your golden rul
no matter the cost
then you may win the day
but the price you pay
is the greater war that’s lost
you would not believe
how different it seems
from the outside looking in
but the louder you shout
the more I tune out
and the less I am convinced
(bridge)
I want to believe but I’m gonna need you to work with me here
word with me here, work with me here

Mark Townsend, a brilliant guitarist and musician in his own right, plays guitars on this and added a quality influence to the music. You can’t lose if you pick this album up, its just about my favorite album of the 90’s (in hindsight).  If you like the wit of Steve Taylor… then this album is for you.

News That Doesn’t Matter

Posted on by

One thing that is tough in these, the ‘information age’, days, is filtering out the cruft from the fluff from the actually valuable information. News that makes America or Australia or China or citizens think or react due to its true value. However, news like George W. Bush’s approval rating based on a poll of a small ‘cross-section’ of America is about as useful as a steel toilette seat in an igloo. George is working, vacationing and presidenting through his second and last term. The American people have an opinion about how he’s doing that list of things. So what? Its his second term. If 98% of America didn’t approve of what he was doing, but he was not breaking the law then when his presidency is over – move onto another candidate that we can all love to hate. Saturday Night Live is not going to be changing their mix of jokes any time soon from 60% sexual humor, 35% political humor and 98% stereotypical humor. That means that unless the guy who comes into office next is either
1) Jesus and doesn’t do anything wrong
2) Sleeping with Tina Fey (head writer for Saturday Night Live)
3) Sleeping with Lorn Michaels
4) Actually Dead
They’re going to keep mocking the president. The people will continue to not have a super-duper approval rating for various reasons like not having a chicken in every pot, naving/not having pot in every household, or PETA still in existence. The president’s current approval rating is about as useful for the average news watcher, reader or listener as the Pony Express for Al Gore, who clearly invented the internets for faster communication.

Randy the Recanter

Posted on by

Some time ago I wrote about working from home and one of my reasons for getting things done was ‘fear.’ I’d like to withdraw that publicly as a reason that anyone should do anything. Fear is a bad motivator in most situations (I’m not going to generalize and say ‘all’ because I’m sure we could put our collective minds together and say that, “fear is a good motivator if…”). In fact working from anywhere should be inspired by integrity instead of fear.

If you get things done with integrity then the only fear you have to have is that you won’t get paid or that you won’t get credit for something. However, you don’t have to fear failure because integrity often includes things that preclude failure [again, that’s a generalization and we can come up with exceptions]. Doing things the right way because its the right way will often lead to better quality work because your work ethic is motivated correctly. Motivation, drive or whatever you want to call it: integrity is the way to go. Lets pass on the fear motivator for working. Don’t fear unemployment, don’t fear ‘not enough money,’ don’t fear failure. God may very well be closing one chapter in your life to open another chapter; further, this life is not the end, death is seperation from this body.

Why Fear when you can have integrity?

Review: Switchfoot – Nothing is Sound

Posted on by

If you love rock and roll music, and don’t mind Christian undertones (this is not your overtly Christian album, in case saying Jesus 5 or more times is a criteria for your album purchasing rules) then this album is definitely a contender. I secretly bought the album about a week ago on iTunes, and then got it as a present in the CD form yesterday. I’ve listened to it about 8 times now and can confidently say that this is still Switchfoot, and that they’ve grown some musically. One thing that strikes me about this album is that each new album that Jon Foreman (frontman and one of the guitar players) writes has more emotional passion in it. I can’t think of another lyricist that has grabbed me from album one and held me close to his emotions like Jon. There is great guitar work here but you can tell that the band has been touring hard and learned about playing emotionally edgy, passionate rock and roll.

The song “Stars” is surely one of the songs that will get stuck in your heads, but I like every song on the disc with the exception of the last ‘bonus’ track (this is the Target special edition CD) “Good Night Punk.” Good Night Punk is definitely a demo song and it doesn’t fit the album’s style at all. Happy is a Yuppie word is where the album’s title comes from, its a powerful song about where your priorities and values come from. If you’re looking for happiness in stuff, cultural exceptance or any other place besides God, then you’re looking in the wrong place. “Politicians” is about… politicians and how we may have patriotic notions for our nation but that doesn’t mean that we blindly follow our political leaders or that by not supporting some of them we are not being anti-patriotic. Some politicains are scummy 🙂 All the songs are at least ‘good’ but the ones I pointed out should get (or not get) attention because they’re strong and will most likely get radio airplay.

The CD has Digital Right Management (DRM) software built into it so that on Windows you have to do a dance to get the songs into MP3 format, but on the Mac (yeah Apple!) you just insert the disc and tell it to rip the MP3s. Ironically the bass player and background vocalist, Tim Foreman (brother of Jon), posted on the Sony forums how to get around the DRM stuff on Windows 🙂 This disc is worth owning if you are wondering if DRM should be an issue.

I am not comfortable ranking this album among the other Switchfoot albums yet because frankly, they grow on me as I discover little nuances, harmonies and variation in instrumentation in their albums. Jon is creatively genious and every time I see Switchfoot (3 times so far) I’m impressed by their performance – I’m glad they came around for fifths 🙂

Also, the DRM has been handled by Sony. You’ll need to go to Sony’s site and request a replacement.

JVC – Model GZ-MG30

Posted on by

They’re Here! JVC – Model GZ-MG30 are camcorders that start, and remain digital. They’re hard drive based video recorders and they are going to be ubiquitous in the next 10 years or my name’s not mud Randy Peterman. I have spent hours of computer time recording video onto computers and the editing afterword is time intensive as well. These sort of devices will remove one of those steps and allow for much greater efficiency.