October 2008
The sixtyone - a musical adventure →
At ISMIR, I asked Anthony Volodkin, founder of the Hype Machine what music sites he was excited about. He pointed me to thesixtyone. I’ve been playing with thesixtyone for about a week now and…
Computer Science Research does not care about your... →
Jeff Dalton reports on a presentation by Dave Jensen and David Smith on the Myths of Research in Computer Science. A key insight is that Computer Science Research is not about systems….
September 2008
The rise of the third estate →
No one’s in charge. I didn’t think that’d be worse than having the bozos we had in charge. But it is.
You’d think the one thing our politicians would be competent at is politics. But they …
The building block of journalism is no longer the... →
The old building block of journalism — the article — is proving to be inadequate in the current onslaught of news. I’ll argue here that the new building block is the topic.
The story was all we…
Our geeks are geekier than your geeks! →
One of the new attendees at this year ISMIR (the Music Information Retrieval conference) was Anthony Volodkin, the founder of the music discovery site The Hype Machine. Anthony is part…
Blog hacked again →
My blog was hacked again by spammers. While I tried to be careful last time, they had created false jpg images with PHP content in them. That is how they were able to hack my blog again despite an…
Organ Tossing →
Doug likes to mock me for my taste for Emerson Lake and Palmer - but I challenge him to watch these videos and not be totally convinced … The Flying Piano
Organ Jujitsu
Students want online learning →
Unsurprisingly, almost all students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say they prefer courses with webcasted lectures as opposed to campus-only lectures. What is more interesting is that 60…
Once and for all →
As threatened, in my Guardian column this week, I try to catalogue the yes-but contrariness I hear about the internet’s opportunities–and my responses:
It never fails. I’ll be talking with a…
The Time Tunnel →
I loved this show when I was 7 years old, Now it is on hulu. Watching it again after 40+ years is really fun, and it is actually much better than I was expecting. With all the Irwin Allen shows on…
Pandora saved (for now) →
Looks like the house bill to save internet radio has passed the house … now onto the Senate. Woot! More info at c|net and Pandora’s blog.
Save Pandora Tonight →
From The Twitter
@Tom Conrad Help save @pandora_radio: call 202-225-3121 NOW, ask for your rep, & ask them to support H.R. 7084. Critical vote Saturday AM., so call now! Here’s more on how you…
Radio One Llama →
One Llama has just launched a beta of their online radio search portal. It is a pretty simple service - type in the name of an artist you like and One Llama will point you to online radio…
Muxtape vs. the big labels →
If you are in the music tech business, stop what you are doing and read Justin’s chronicle of his struggle with the labels while building Muxtape. An excerpt:
And so I made one of the…
Access to Google →
When I decided to write my book, What Would Google Do?, I also decided that I did not want access to Google.
I had a few reasons. First, I didn’t want the company line but instead wanted to…
A little brain teaser… →
You are an explorer who arrived on planet Bypolar. The Bypolarians come in two species: the Falsians and the Truans. The Falsians always lie whereas the Truans always tell the truth. Alas, you do…
Marketing to scientists… on YouTube? →
Industry has always advertised to scientists. However, this ad targeting biologists is… peculiar:
Source: Owen Kaser.
Woah! I read a lot of blogs →
Here’s my ”trends” report from the Google Reader. I’m read on average about 100 posts a day!
The ‘time of day’ plot is pretty interesting too.
A little brain teaser… →
You are an explorer who arrived on planet Bypolar. The Bypolarians come in two species: the Falsians and the Truans. The Falsians always lie whereas the Truans always tell the truth. Alas, you do…
Strands Social Recommender to power Web-based... →
We are happy to announce that Strands Social Recommender™ is now powering personalized product recommendations at DollarDays, the online wholesaler and closeout company that hosts a Web-based…
Marketing to scientists… on YouTube? →
Industry has always advertised to scientists. However, this ad targeting biologists is… peculiar:
Source: Owen Kaser.
ReadWriteTalk » Blog Archive » RWW Live: Data... →
Kisten to @chrissaad @danielabarbosa @anguslogan @factoryjoe @marshallk and others discuss DP on ReadWriteTalk
Saved By: Chris Saad | View Details | Give Thanks
Tags: …
The Echo Chamber - Will it replace Pandora? →
At the ISMIR recommendation panel, Brian Whitman mentioned an Echo Nest showcase app called the Echo Chamber that adds the Echo Nest recommendation technology to imeem. This, to me, is a…
Sigh →
What are the objections that are constantly thrown in your face when you try to talk about new opportunities on the internet?
I’m thinking of writing my Guardian column this week responding to…
The Echo Nest Developer's API →
One of the big takeaways from ISMIR this year for many researchers is the release of the Echo Nest developer APIs. This set of webservices solves a whole bunch of problems that typically chew up a…
From freedom to intelligence →
If you want to be smart, you must first learn to be free. Build low energy systems. Lean and mean machines.
To explain why freedom leads to better result, we had Adam Smith—yes, I took…
How the iTunes Genius really works ... →
A couple of folks have sent this link my way in the last week: How the iTunes Genius really works.
Strands, students, and haXe: Taking Web... →
As you might remember, Strands has organized the Strands Summer 2008 haXe Project (also see the announcement post), an opportunity for students to receive funding for open source…
Sponsored power →
Smart: sponsored power at Newark. Thanks Nokia.
In control of health →
After I wrote the chapter in my book on Googlified insurance — thanks to the wisdom of the crowd in the comments here — I tried out the ideas on a couple of insurance executives. “You may be…
ISMIR 2008 Photos →
Here’s a Flickr slide show of photos that were taken at ISMIR 2008. To have your photos added to the slideshow, upload them to Flickr and tag them with ISMIR2008.
Intellectual honesty →
I don’t remember where I heard it first but one replacement for the discredited value of journalistic objectivity is intellectual honesty: reporting that which contradicts one’s own beliefs or…
What $700 billion could buy →
We’re spending $700 billion to bail out the idiots who got us into this mess and we end up with nothing to show for it but the bag we’re left holding and maybe a disaster averted (we hope).
We…
Innovation in the music industry →
In the World According to Rags, Rags suggests that most of the innovation in the music industry is coming from start-ups, naming a few that have new business models or another new way to exploit…
One Web Day dawns →
My book - and disorganization, amplified - put me behind with all kinds of things, among them promoting One Web Day, which comes Monday with lots of events the world around. It’s more important…
MacOS open’s under Linux →
MacOS has a nice “open” command that will open any document with any application from the command line. I hacked my own for Linux for a bash shell:
TEMP=`getopt -o a: -- "$@"`
if [ $? != 0 ] ;...
Why I am sometimes rude →
Got an email a week ago. True story:
Dear prof. X,
I see that you are chair of the certificate program in Computer Science. I want to apply to the certificate program at [insert competing…
The importance of steerability →
At first, I was not excited abut our poster location assignment during the ISMIR late-breaking/demo session. It seemed to be an out of the way corner of the venue - but we did seem to get a…
The Music Explaura Demo →
During the late-breaking/demo session Frank and I demonstrated the Music Explaura - a web application that gives explainable and steerable recommendations. Despite what I said in my previous post,…
ISMIR Day 4 - The Late Breaking and Demo session →
This year at ISMIR they had a special session where researchers could show some of their late-breaking work as well as some demonstrations of their technology. Frank and I were showing off the Music…
Life in the big city is so different from New... →
While in Philadelphia for the ISMIR conference, a group of us went out to dinner to a restaurant that Justin had discovered called the Continental Midtown. It was a pretty funky place, with good…
MacOS open’s under Linux →
MacOS has a nice “open” command that will open any document with any application from the command line. I hacked my own for Linux for a bash shell:
TEMP=`getopt -o a: -- "$@"`
if [ $? != 0 ] ;...
Why I am sometimes rude →
Got an email a week ago. True story:
Dear prof. X,
I see that you are chair of the certificate program in Computer Science. I want to apply to the certificate program at [insert competing…
Two new joint projects with MIT →
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the research institute where I work, started two joint projects with MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, not bad!
1) Sustainable Connected House…
Two new joint projects with MIT →
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the research institute where I work, started two joint projects with MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, not bad!
1) Sustainable Connected House…
Two new joint projects with MIT →
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the research institute where I work, started two joint projects with MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, not bad!
1) Sustainable Connected House…
Two new joint projects with MIT →
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the research institute where I work, started two joint projects with MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, not bad!
1) Sustainable Connected House…
The moral imbalance of bailouts →
When Hurricane Ike hit Texas, the government, acting on our behalf, offered bailouts to the thousands whose homes — built in risk-prone areas — were damaged or destroyed: payment for hotel rooms,…
Stanford offers 10 free online Computer Science... →
Stanford published 10 online Computer Science courses under a Creative Commons license. Each course is made of videos, lecture notres, assignment and homeworks. The University reports that the…
At Web2.0 Expo →
If you’re at Web2.0 Expo, please come to the session I’m running Friday at noon. It will be the first time I talk about my book, What Would Google Do?, in public. I’ll run through the rules and…