2904 S Washington St

The downside of Internet/viral distribution

Over the last few days, this article (Is Google Making Us Stupid?) from the latest Atlantic monthly has been linked and reposted in a bunch of places that I read regularly. Slog picked it up this afternoon. Pretty sure I saw it on Slashdot also. And a few other random blogs.

The article is part of a collection of essays in the Atlantic Jul/Aug “Ideas” issue. The editors chose it as the cover article for obvious reasons - the same reasons that have caused it to be forwarded all over the place - it’s got a nice juicy provocative timely topic and title.

Here’s my problem: that article was part of a collection (the “Ideas”) that also included these excellent articles: Hanna Rosin on Section 8 housing and crime, Robert Kaplan on Rumsfeld, and Jonathan Rauch on the Chevy Volt. But unlike the magazine, where these articles trail along behind the cover article, easily discoverable, all the online linking, reposting and forwarding loses that association.

The net effect is that the lesser of the 4 articles (in my opinion) is the one receiving the widest exposure. I don’t know how to fix that, but perhaps someone can generate some ideas in the comments.

Too many video players

Executive summary:

Make VLC media player your default player for all video files on your PC, ignore/uninstall everything else, and stick to web-based players and content directories for everything else.

The fastest-growing group of applications on my PC seems to be video/media players. Currently installed:

• QuickTime Player
• VLC Media Player
• Adobe Media Player
• RealPlayer
• Miro
• Veoh TV
• Joost
• Zoom Player
• Windows Media Player
• Amazon Unbox Video
  

That’s just video players. I also have music players (e.g. iTunes), video editing tools, DVD decryption and burning tools, and a player for a DTV receiver.

Needless to say, this is nuts, and there’s no way I’d ever carry over all these to a new PC.

I am most frustrated with the offerings from Apple (QuickTime), Adobe, Real and Microsoft, because all of these companies easily have the resources to make their players universal like VLC, and yet they choose to support only a subset of formats (and emphasize their proprietary formats, of course).

I’ve also tried a bunch of things like Joost, Veoh TV and Miro that try to bring a TV-like combined directory and viewing experience into one player. Of these, Miro is the one that impressed me most (free, open source, HD quality is great), but none of them are sufficiently impressive to make them worth the download. Veoh is particularly awful in that it features un-fast-forwardable commercials (come on people, we are living in the post-TiVo era here).

Amazon Unbox almost makes the cut for movies, except the selection is so limited that I find myself forced to go back to other sources (DVD, etc.) for most of the movies I want to see. Which I end up playing with VLC, of course.

Let me know if I’m missing something here guys.

7 Songs

This is intimidating. I’m following glenn in this blog chain letter of sorts, which would be fine except that glenn has been writing The War Against Silence (a series of music reviews) since approximately forever:

“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.”

Well, here goes. I’m not sure I’ll even make it to 7. But I want to add a twist to this exercise: I’m going to list how I discovered each of these.

1. Elbow, “Leaders Of The Free World” - title track from the album by the same name

This is really a holdover from the fall/winter, but it’s still in my inner rotation. Nic Harcourt queued up this song one morning to lead off Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW Santa Monica (shout out to Rob Williams for introducing me to this incredible program) and I immediately clicked through their online playlist to buy on iTunes, only to find afterwards that it wouldn’t play on my !$#!@^% iPod. Never mind, I play it from my laptop instead.

This is not the type of music that immediately comes to mind as something to wake up to, but … somehow it works first thing in the morning.

2. The Black Keys, “Psychotic Girl”

I discovered this on Facebook, using the iLike Facebook app - it was listed as one of the “fast moving songs” on the canvas page of the app, and also as a “full song” (i.e. not a clip - I don’t listen to those anymore, only the full songs). Funny thing though is that it was mislabeled on iLike as “Lies” - another song from the same album, which meant I was rather surprised when I clicked through and bought the wrong song on iTunes (fortunately, “Lies” is pretty good too).

Anyway, it’s awesome. Check it out.

3. Britney Spears, “…Baby One More Time”

Yeah, I know, bring on the abuse in the comments. Not sure how this one made it back into the rotation, but I think it had to do with the blast of publicity around her new album, which I know only through its widely distributed video of “Piece of Me”, which is absolutely brilliantly funny (46,627,984 views on YouTube, as of this writing).

And I’m going to blame my kids who have been playing this track from time to time in the playroom - now I can’t get it out of my head. By the way, your Britney Spears education is incomplete unless you’ve read the entire Rolling Stone article (thanks Slog) as well as Shooting Britney (from a recent Atlantic). “Piece of Me” makes all kinds of sense after you read those two.

4. Snoop Dogg, “Sensual Seduction”

If that last one didn’t get the commenters making fun of me, this one surely will. I can lay the blame squarely on the Slog for getting this stuck in my head, with a side serving of blame to Dave Baker for introducing me to Snoop Dogg when we shared an office back in 1993 and he played Doggystyle about 50 times a day (alternating with The Chronic and a heavy rotation of the KLF.)

5. The Israel Sinfonietta, “Duet and Chorus” (opening track) from Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

This discovery dates back to the year that Bonnie and I first met (1988) when we had the soundtrack to the movie Amadeus on a whole lot. The second track of the first disc of the soundtrack is a snippet of the Stabat Mater; I picked up this full version on CD at Tower Records (R.I.P.) some years later.

This portion isn’t the part that appeared on the Amadeus soundtrack. It takes my breath away every time I listen to it.

6. Wax Tailor, “Walk The Line”

At any time during the past year, one or more tracks from either “Hope and Sorrow” or “Tales of the Forgotten Melodies” have been at the top of my iTunes most frequently played list. This is the latest in that long series. I learned about Wax Tailor by overhearing my favorite barista at Caffe Umbria explaining to a customer the weird music that was playing at the cafe that day, and gushing about the genius of J.C. Le Saout, the french D.J./producer behind these two albums.

7. Dixie Chicks, “Cowboy Take Me Away”

Mark has already made fun of me for listening to country music, so you can save yourself the trouble of heaping on further abuse in the comments. I discovered the Dixie Chicks when my brother-in-law James sent us a copy of their documentary film, Shut Up and Sing, a few months back.

I think “Home” is probably the better album of the two I picked up, but this is still my favorite song.

—-

Here’s who I would like to see write up their 7 Songs lists: Scott, Kate, Jason, Mark, Dana, Dave and Robby

Special bonus: would be awesome to get Rob to resurrect his blog and do a 7 Songs post.

Saturday

Clinton, Conceding Little

Clinton did declare it an “honor” to have Obama as an opponent and “to call him my friend,” but she made no acknowledgment of the historic nature of her opponent’s achievement. The Democratic Party, whose ranks once included die-hard advocates of slavery and arch segregationists, had just taken the decisive step toward making Obama the first African American to be a major-party nominee for president.

Rice, Bush congratulate Obama

“President Bush congratulates Senator Obama for clinching the Democratic Party’s 2008 nomination for president,” Perino said. “He knows from personal experience that the presidential nominating process is a grueling one. Senator Obama came a long way in becoming his party’s nominee. And his historic achievement reflects the fact that our country has come a long way, too.”

This Moment

Tonight, he told me, we have come full-circle. Many people, especially the younger generation who supported Obama, will never fully realize the historical import of what happened tonight. But he wanted his grandchildren to know this story that he had never told us, and it was the second time in my 33 years that I have heard my grandpa cry.

And now, a flashback to January 3.