meta-roj

a while ago, i left a footnote (of all things) on here about hit-picking technology, and since then i’ve had a couple questions about it.

here’s one example that will get some of you up to speed: hit song science.

i guess their claim to fame is norah jones – their math said something like 8 of the tracks on her first album could be hits. while it only really takes one, norah managed to sell 8 million+ copies of that disc. that’s only really interesting when you compare how different “don’t know why” was compared to the rest of the noise on the pop charts.

does it work? can you reduce music to math?

pepsi is giving away 100 million itunes songs… some people can’t use them, but there’s the power of the internet to save the music…

tunerecycler.

behold, the bits are saved before they hit the trash…

i threw this at joi via irc long ago, and it made slashdot too, but i thought it was worth putting on the record here anyway…

eis brecher

including a bonus DVD with 2 blank CD-Rs which have the same label as the CD itself. Alexx Wesselsky (singer and head of the group): ‘We are of the opinion that the music buyers are criminalized enough and have been made responsible for the wretched state in the music industry. We are giving them the chance to make 2 legal copies for private use with “official blanks”

roxio had high hopes for napster, but things aren’t as simple in the new world with a new online music store cropping up every week…

Net imperative

Napster had revenue of $3.6m and a pre-tax loss of $15.1m

there’s a lot of front-loading in that number, what with the expenses of relaunching the site and implementing the new drm and writing the new terms documents – i was going to build the meta-roj music store for a cool million, so that’s only off by a factor of 18.

so i got clued in to a little tempest about blogs and such…. and i’ve been meaning to ask questions about the ability to engineer emergence, but for now, i’ll just poke my fingers in a few obvious eyes 🙂

there’s a broadcast in bottom-up clothing rant, and the thing that started it (or at least this round of it)… and a few other things out there…

well, fear not, here at meta-roj we’ve been on this case for a long, long [internet] time… way way ahead of the curve.

in the meantime, i’ll just ponder the thought that we’re all little experiments to lots of things (people, companies, governments, whatever…).

just a tiny little blip in the news machine, but apparently 5 people were convicted recently of violating the crawford texas protest ordinance that requires a 7 (was 15) day waiting period and $25 fee to get a permit.

Peace activists promise to appeal Crawford verdict

“It’s an overall picture of the complacency of our nation and how the president has this sort of no-protest zone around him at all times, ” said Amanda Jack, 23, of Austin, one of the quintet. “It’s completely absurd that you can’t even get near the people’s president. You can’t even petition your own government representative.”

briefly covered by a national wire service: 5 Convicted of Violating Protest Ordinance [ap wire via waco tribune]

teacher

if you’ve been with me a while, you know it’s all about the polyphenyls – so you know that chocolate and red wine will save your life. those polyphenyls are just amazing. really.

but wait. maybe it’s the flavanols! the seattle times has the details.

flavanols or polyphenyls, tj knew chocolate was it. and when it comes to chocolate, i know that valrhona is it.

jeff hancock tells us that people lie less in email.

new scientist

Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14 per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and a whopping 37 per cent of phone calls.