Last.fm

So, I recently started using Last.fm because our guest lecturer mentioned it as a way of finding new music, which I'd been wanting to do.

Last.fm is a site and a downloadable program that work together. One of the things I find particularly useful is that the site tracks the popularity of individual songs by particular artists through a downloadable program that does something called "scrobbling." Scrobbling is when the program + site keep track of what songs you are playing on your computer and collects the data so that you can see which artists you are actually listening to the most. It will also, if you browse through other members' profiles, give you a compatibility rating that indicates whether or not you might have similar taste in music. The program also has a streaming radio feature where you can type in a bunch of artists and songs by those artists or similar artists will play.

Last.fm makes recommendations through "scrobbling," but when you search on your own, you get results that are tagged by other users.

This website makes information useful and not overwhelming by organizing results hierarchically in terms of popularity so that it's easy to pick out the artists and songs that seem to be the most popular.

A competing website is Pandora, which is superior in the way that music is recommended to the user. They basically have music "experts" that analyze songs according to specific criteria rather than letting users tag things, which can sometimes get people results they don't expect or want (like the whole Barry Manilow as death metal thing).

The "Thank you" Post

Paul and Sarah -- my blog thanks you for linking it. And I guess I do, too. :)

the table post

So, apparently, my blog has gotten 2 pageviews and vists (I don't know what the difference is!) since we set up the Google analytics thing in lab. Here are the stats:

Date Range	Vists	Pageviews
10/2/2006-10/8/2006	2	2

Really? It's only Wednesday?

It has been a long week.

Very long.

Six Degrees: Verizon to Walt Disney

Robert D. Storey, who sits on the Verizon board of directors, also sits on the Procter & Gamble board, on which W. James McNerney, Jr. sits. McNerney also sits on the Boeing board, on which John E. Bryson sits his powerful self. Bryson is also on the Walt Disney board of directors.

Basically, I wondered what the connection between Verizon and Walt Disney was because they are not really related and... well, that's pretty much it. And I wanted to choose two companies I recognized. :)

Thanks, theyrule, for the info.

Obligatory homework post # 2

So, a couple of bookmarks from our CS103 Ning network that I enjoyed:

• Break.com, mostly because of the video of the little girl flying off her couch. I'm not a terrible person, and usually I don't find slapstick comedy -- even when unintentional -- that funny, but there's just something about it that makes me laugh uncontrollably. But I do hope that little girl is okay.

• Kim Jong Il (the illmatic)'s Journal, because it too makes me laugh.
  

Obligatory homework post

So, I chose my Creative Commons license (which can be found in the sidebar) today. It allows people to take content from my blog as long as they credit me and don't change it.

So here it is! Ain't she perdy?

Also, I am required to change the font twice in this entry, and this is me doing it!

The clickable picture entry!

Well now, who doesn't enjoy a bit of racial tension with their CS 103 lecture?

Why can't we all just get along? I mean, the whole world being full of daisy fields and puppies and all.

I was Google-image-ing, trying to find a picture for this post, and found bulldogs dressed as humans. And I thought it would be selfish to keep it all to myself.