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Archive for December 22, 2006
December 22, 2006 at 6:40 pm · Filed under digital life
Nearly three years ago, I was introduced to a neat iTunes plug-in called Audioscrobbler that sat in my MacOSX toolbar and quietly listened in to my musical tastes. It didn’t pass judgement, which was pleasing.
I’d forgotten that it was still installed until, quite by chance, I stumbled across an RSS feed that someone had set up on a wordpress blog. Great thinking thought I and tried to set up a copy. Sadly though, it appeared that audioscrobbler had stopped listening in September, recording a rather melancholy week in which Johnny Cash was my top musical artist.
last.fm is the successor although quite when it changed, I can’t tell. The program itself invites users to tag the music they’re listening so building an excellent database of what we’re all listening to and, importantly, what we all describe it as. With such tagging, personalised radio stations can be built using the last.fm software.
All I need to do now is to get the RSS feed to work properly. Clever – another excellent application of a folksonomy.
December 22, 2006 at 5:40 pm · Filed under life
I got my hair cut today. It’s a 6-8 week event that I truthfully really look forward to. It’s not the thought of getting a smart haircut that excites, oddly, it’s the small talk.
Sure, there’s a smattering of “going anywhere nice on your holidays” and “what are you doing for Christmas” – after all, it is a hairdressers, but it’s the neat dovetailing from the banal to the inflamatorily dangerous which I love. Today’s conversation combined skiing in Canada (“great nightlife in Banff you know”), to how rude the French are (“they even dare speak French”). Well, it doesn’t get ruder than deigning to speak their own language in their own capital city, n’est pas? My fingers cannot type the stream of conscious filth that spewed forth, children might be reading.
Reminded me of this news story, describing a condition called Paris Syndrome, often caught by 30-something Japanese women visiting the French capital. So shocked are they by the bustle of Paris and their lack of manners (when compared with Japan), that they go into shock, retreat at once to the Japanese embassy and seek immediate repatriation.
It appears my hairdresser might be a sufferer.
December 22, 2006 at 10:03 am · Filed under life
I’ve left it late and have no one to blame but myself. The consequences are clear, unavoidable and painful; I have to go shopping with all the other poor procrastinating souls.
We’ll all be like fish on bicycles in shops that are just not designed for men. But I have a plan. It involves been ruthlessly organised which is a state somewhat contrary to the one that got me here in the first place. It involves writing a list of items and detailing a shop name against each one. Next, a route between the shops needs arranging, that way, you minimise the time needed. Efficient, clean shopping, no blood spilled. At least, not mine.
And what if an item is not available in a given shop? It’s never bought and never ticked off the list. Dangerous activities such as “browsing” and “window shopping” are absolutely out of the question. It does mean that each name on my shopping list has more than one item against it, just-in-case somethings not available. That requires more thinking or detective work for sure, that’s just my tough luck.
Wish me luck, I’m about to go out there.
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