Pandora vs. LAUNCHcast

In the last few days, I have been addicted to Pandora, a free music streaming application that takes advantage of the data collected in the Music Genome Project. Musicians and technologists got together and analyzed the musical qualities of many recordings, taking note of their physical qualities such as melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and vocal qualities. You tell Pandora some artists or songs you like, and it uses this data to find other songs it thinks you will like and then plays them for you. You then can indicate for each song it plays whether or not you like it or not. It uses the feedback to fine-tune the songs it chooses next. Pretty interesting project. The sound quality of the songs is great. You can create multiple stations each with their own set of inputs (artists, songs, and ratings on which to base the playlist) and you can email those stations to friends so they can listen to what you've created.

Pandora reminds me of Yahoo's LAUNCHcast, another music streaming application that also lets you rate the music. LAUNCHcast, though, chooses music based on the ratings of other LAUNCHcast listeners instead of on the music's physical qualities. It is similar to the way Amazon.com recommends books and music to you. This approach is a little more interesting to me because it can be full of pleasant surprises. For example, if there are many people out there that like John Coltrane and also like Tribe Called Quest, LAUNCHcast might play Tribe Called Quest for me if I rate John Coltrane highly even though the two artists' music don't have a lot in common physically. There just may be some unexplainable reason that people who like Coltrane also like Tribe. Pandora would never be able to make that association. Instead it would keep playing saxophone-centric jazz from the 60's.

The major drawback for LAUNCHcast is that it only works on Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. This means I can't use my favorite Firefox browser and, even worse, I can't listen to it on Linux, which I use at work. Pandora, on the other hand, is a Flash application so it works in Firefox and on Linux!

Now Collecting Statistics

I have been posting to this blog now for several months and I've assumed that it's only being read by a few friends and family members. After all, my blog posts are not about any particular subject, so this blog isn't likely to attract the attention of strangers or float to the top of a Google search.

Just to satisfy my curiosity though, I signed up for eXTReMe Tracking which lets me gather some basic statistics about the visitors to this blog. For example, it shows me what web sites referred someone, what search engine queries resulted in someone finding the blog, and also some rough geographical and technical information like what countries visitors are from and which browsers and operating systems they use. All I had to do was put a little JavaScript snippet in my blog side bar that results in an image which you can see to the right of this post - it is a small square with a globe in it. If you click on the globe, you, too can see my stats. They are public.

Now I'll sit back and see if I'm any more popular than I expect (and deserve) to be...

Oh, by the way, if you know of any better free web stats trackers, please comment and let me know about them.

Urban Container Gardens

If you have an old kiddie wading pool or car tire laying around, consider using it to start a garden. This article, Urban Agriculture: A Guide to Container Gardens, tells you how to do it.

I heard that the city of Santa Monica is considering devoting part of the top level of some parking garages into urban gardens. This Cycle Santa Monica blog post has more details.

$40/month less on DSL

For the last 10 years, I've had DSL provided by MMInternet, a small DSL service provider from Long Beach. They gave me one static IP address for $56/month. When I first started with them, %56/month was about the going rate if you wanted to have a static IP. I wanted a static IP because I thought that one day I'd run web servers from my home - something I never ended up doing.

Over the past 10 years, the price of DSL has been dropping, but MMInternet never lowered my rate. I even asked them once to lower it, and they said they wouldn't, claiming that their excellent customer service made them worth the money. Being kind of lazy and wanting to avoid a service delay, I stayed with MMInternet all this time.

When I saw some recent advertising by Verizon that they were offering DSL for only $14.95/month, I decided that I couldn't hold out any longer. I couldn't justify paying $40/month more for almost the same thing. Granted, this was for a dynamic, not static, IP address, but still, since I'm not running any servers, I don't really need a static IP. So I cancelled my MMInternet subscription and ordered Verizon about a month ago.

The switchover has been quite a hassle. Verizon first game me a start date and then left me a voice mail saying that there was a problem and I needed to call them. When I called, they told me that the DSL speed I specified in my order was not available in my area, and I had to consent to a lower speed. I agreed and they told me to hold. Then the call got cut off. When I called back, I was transferred from department to department, and I had to explain why I was calling to every person I talked to. Finally I got to the right person, gave my consent again, and thought all was okay. Verizon ended up calling back again the next day saying that there was a problem with my account. I called them back again and again, I was transferred from department to department. Finally someone told me that the speed I ordered was okay and the previous people didn't know what they were talking about. The next day, I got another voice mail from Verizon saying there was a problem. This time when I called back, I decided to just cancel my order and sign up again, requesting the lower rate. So that's what I did.

This next round went smoother. They assigned me a new start date, sent me a starter pack with filters, cables, and a modem, and an email on the start date telling me to give the service a try. That night I gave it a try. No signal. I called tech support and they said they'd open a trouble ticket so a technician could run some tests. The next day I got a voice mail saying that I needed to call them. When I called, the tech support guy said that for some weird reason, they closed the ticket indicating that my line tested out okay. Still no signal. The guy opened another ticket requesting that someone come to my house this morning. No one showed up. I called back and they said someone could only come this afternoon, and I wasn't able to be home at that time. He said I'd need to reschedule for another weekday from 9 AM to 5 PM. I couldn't do that since I have to go to work each weekday. I told him to just keep running the tests. A few minutes later, another Verizon person called. He said that he thought that they sent me the wrong modem. Apparently it didn't match the equipment they have in my central office. I told him that I still had an old modem from my previous MMInternet service. He got excited and suggested that I try it. So I tried the other modem, and sure enough, I got a signal. Now why couldn't any of the other tech support people have known this? Each one of them asked me what modem was sent to me.

According to Verizon, I'm supposed to install some software on my computer that sets me up and establishes an account with them. I just ignored all that, plugged in my router, and got an IP address assigned to me. I don't plan on installing anything. So now I'm back online and happy to be saving the $40/month. The whole bad customer service thing from Verizon didn't piss me off too much. I think I expected it.

Street Wars Comes to LA

I came across this interesting game called Street Wars which is coming to Los Angeles in March. It's a 3 week long watergun assasination tournament. It has taken place previously in New York City, Vancouver, Vienna, and San Francisco. If you play, you or your team receives an envelope containing information about your intended target. You get your target's name, contact info, home address, and work address. It is then your mission to track down and assasinate (shoot with a water gun) your target away from their home and work place. There are cash prizes.

Sounds interesting, but not for me. I wouldn't feel comfortable stalking someone, even if it was for the game. I also wouldn't want some stranger to get so much personal information about me. I guess it could be a fun way to meet people though.