potential downtime

We here at F_D are thinking of flipping the switch and giving WordPress a shot. Our growing(?) needs seem to insist upon it.

So if we're blank or otherwise ambiguous in the next 24-72 hours, please excuse the mess.

currently playing: Tears For Fears "Head Over Heels"

forward compatibility

This post is one of those gems that simply needs reiteration:

Not that beer and the future are incompatible, heaven help us if they were, but it's not just cell phones. Clothes, music, a whole generation of young people who, like people who think nothing of heading off to another country for a weekend techno festival and will in the future, no doubt, think nothing of heading to that same country to close a deal in fifteen years.

Screw "east meets west" let's jam on "today is yesterday's tomorrow".

currently playing: Acumen Nation "Dreamheart/Crush'd"

programming serendipity

A comment made by False45th's Flatlander, in addition to some other recent ruminations had me thinking lately about the coming(?) era of programmatic serendipity in our socially aware apps. This is something I keep hearing about in the context of Web 2.0 esp. w/r/t/ apps like Flickr, del.icio.us, and even /shudder/ things like Friendster and MySpace.

What's cool here is the way that the participating community marks things up, creating these powerful opportunities for other participants to explore and discover exciting new content and perhaps even make some connections while they're at it. The possibilities are only a hair shy of limitless in all directions of intriguing, electrifying, and terrifying. Now, mesh this in with commerce (that ol' familiar dialogue) and we enter into some new facets of this gem, many of which are unexplored.

Taking Amazon as an example, there's certainly one place to start. Amazon has no tagging system per se but they've got some robust customer data with which to make some calculated inferences. If you've ever browsed through their recommendations though, it can be pretty hit-or-miss. (On my visit just now, I noted 5 of 30 that I'd be reluctant to examine and another 6 that I'd previously flagged as "I own this" or "not interested.) On the other hand, each item is peppered with user reviews (with varying degrees of coherence), links to (usually) relevant lists of like items, and "In Addition To..." and "Instead of..." recommendations. All of that is useful but unfortunately feels like it lacks the simple elegance of a tagging system a la Flickr.

How do you make it all fit together and work?

How do you draw on a large body of customer data for your calculations and still allow for the kind of elegant serendipity that you see in Flickr-like apps?

Let's take iTunes as the prototype app:

• iTunes itself is already gathering tons of data about your music library. As it stands though, it's a relatively closed system. You've got your playcounts and your ratings and all that other find meta-data but it's not doing much for anyone else.
• Create a feedback loop. By default of course, feedback is turned off; you'd have to opt in to the system. But why not...? They're gathering consumer data on you already if you're purchasing music downloads. Instead of requiring you to log in, write your review, rate the album (the album!?!?), and/or post some weak iMix, their system does the work. But we don't stop there.
• Cross reference the crap out of everything. With all that library data, you can build out better relationships between tracks. Who's rating what tracks on which album what way? What else are they listening to? How have they changed the genre meta-data? How did they group it? What playlists have they dropped it in (and what else is in thay playlist)? Do all that with math.
• Then enter the human element of the equation. Face it, browsing the iTMS right now is tedious and frustrating. Browse by album or artist or whatever, it's hard to get a bead on how it fits with what you already like. Why not tag them? With the math done (above) the system ought to be able to make it's pointed recommendations but the serendipity factor doesn't enter in without the human intervention. Without clicking through in what are otherwise seemingly random ways.

The idea is half-baked, I'll be the first to admit that. And it also involves the willingness to surrender some of this information that you might otherwise think of as "yours" or "private". And it would also involve some serious computing power and narsty statwerks. But hell, it sounded good at the time.

currently playing: Underworld "Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream Of Love"

Sunday music

The "That Was So Last Week" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is greater than 10, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by least recently played.)

1. Odessi "Moments Of Space"
2. Binary Finary "1998 (Original Mix)
3. The Crystal Method "Keep Hope Alive
4. Meat Beat Manifesto "Son Of Sam"
5. Meat Beat Manifesto "Edge Of No Control, Pt. 1"
6. Avalanche "Acid Attack
7. Saints & Sinners "Pushin' Too Hard
8. Chris Connelly "Stowaway"
9. Mortal "Autobahnana"
10. Ween "Voodoo Lady"

Something tells me I'd be wise to trim the trance and house from my diet for a little while...

currently playing: Golden Boy "Autpilot"

Clutch!

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't know until tonight that Clutch had a new-ish album out. Can I get a "hells-mutha-fuckin-yeah" for this band? Maybe you have to be from MD/DC-area to really get it. Maybe not. Clutch r0xx0rs my b0xx0rs. And I'm pissed that my vacation in September missed their Portland appearance by about a week. (And more pissed that I didn't find out until now.)

currently playing: Clutch "Big News II"

dream.20051111: hometown

I'm back in my hometown of Gaithersburg, Maryland. It seems as though A & I have moved into my parents' old Tulip Drive house. (Oddly enough, it's even furnished exactly the same as I remember it.) We're hanging out with Adam and Sue, having a fun old time as the evening starts to settle in and the street lamps pop on one at a time. My brother shows up around the same time that we all start to comment about how hungry we are. He could go for a bite to eat as well. No one really wants anything particularly fancy. We'll just grab some pizza and while we're out, we'll grab a movie, too. Since my brother Joe is blocking us in, he'll need to drive and A & Sue elect for "the boys" to grab the food and the flick. Seems a fair trade since we'll get to pick out the movie. I remark that I know a good place just a couple blocks up 355 where we can grab the pizza from and it's only like another two blocks to the video store from there.

So "the boys" leave and we pile into Joe's vehicle. It's a HUMMER H3 and Adam and I start making fun of him (since this is just the most preposterous thing a person can possibly drive). His defense is that it's just for the tax write-off - - he's got a landscaping company now and this is the company car. (Didn't we see the logo magnetized to the side?) And with that, off we go... (Man does this thing put you up high over traffic or what?)

But things start to get a little weird pretty quick. We can't find the pizza joint. Maybe it moved? It bugs me because I was sure that I remembered where this place was but nothing is really familiar. The signs are going by too fast for me to really get my bearings and before I know it, I'm urging Joe to turn around. I'm not sure of exactly where we are but I know we've gone too far down 355. He pulls a U-turn and we get turned around. Maybe heading back the other way things will be more familiar? Maybe if we spot the video store we'll get a good sense of where we really are?

But we don't find a familiar video store. Nor do we find the pizza joint. We found a video store though and decided to call that "good enough". We ducked in and Adam and Joe started to look around for something. I got out my cell to call A and ask her where this pizza place is. Can she look it up in the phone book? The connection must have been bad because all she said was: "Just get something with artichokes and red peppers, OK!" I flipped the phone shut to find Adam and my brother just shaking their heads. This place doesn't have anything good, it's all weird, really obscure films.

Out the window I spot what I think is the pizza place. Maybe we are in the right place after all. We duck out and peak through the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows. Not really spying anything like an "OPEN" sign. But Adam apparently knows a trick to jimmy open this kind of door. So he does and we walk into what is clearly a cubicle farm business. No pizza to be had here. The alarm starts to wail after about two or three minutes in there and the next thing I know, the three of us are rapelling down the far side of the building which is suddenly a whole lot taller than it was when we jimmied the lock.

linked!

Linkage reciprocation (see sidebar): 802 Online - - the Seven Days blog.

best costume ever?

The pierced one cuts my hair:

50 Greatest Indy Films

Via Boing^2 (via MeFi): Empire's 50 Greatest Independent Films.

It seemed to me like there was an awful lot of blood, horror, and schlock - - but maybe those are some of the hallmarks of great indy cinema? I was surprised to see Slacker in there (well... sort of surprised) and surprised that Primer was not. (Too new, perhaps?) The little blurbs are great, too (from the Buffalo '66 bit):

Get it straight - Vincent Gallo doesn't give a fuck what you think about his movie. It's brilliant, and if you can't see that then it's your own tough luck. He's so fiercely independent he uses Yes on the soundtrack. And you know what? He's absolutely right. This film is a mini masterpiece. Using only a small but highly talented crew and cast, he bombards us with belligerent, unlikeable characters for 100-odd minutes, and manages to make the most saccharine of endings - about the power of love, of all things - appetising. A beautifully balanced debut from a precocious talent - surely what indie is all about?

You think he'll fall for that!? He's SMART!!

(If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about...)

dream.20051110: 42 lb. cheesecake

I'm at this cocktail party. It's OK as far as cocktail parties go. This isn't where I want to be but for whatever reason I'm compelled to be here and am sucking it up for the sake of that motivation. Plus there's an open bar, which helps. Maybe I'm made most uncomfortable by the fact that this is a pretty formal affair. For the most part I'm trying not to make eye contact with anyone. I just don't want to. But this guy won't leave me alone. He just won't let the lack of eye contact ruin his evening. So I look up. And it's Mr. Burns -- owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Translated from cartoon form to flesh exactly - - right down to the nose and the liver spots. He's looking sharp though, with just the finest tuxedo I've seen. He's really excited about the coming dessert. It's a cheesecake. A 42-pound cheesecake. Just as sweet as can be. It's going to be so good. With a graham cracker crust. And the most delightful strawberry compote topping. Forty-two pounds of it! Mr. Burns just won't shut up about it. And he's annoying the shit out of me.