Cherish the [Pandora] joy
A couple years ago I signed up for an account with Pandora Radio-- "the personalized internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites." The concept sounds great-- type in the name of a song or artist that you like, and discover new songs and artists that might also appeal to your tastes.
My Pandora subscription has gone largely unused, though-- the truth is, I just am not as keen to the process of "discovering" new music as I was back in the halcyon days of high school and college, when I'd rummage through BitTorrent for hours finding new stuff.
But! I fell in love with Pandora in earnest for the first time Sunday night, when it dawned on me that there is a place for its technology in my musically unadventurous life. In a moment of clarity, I totally hit the jackpot when I formed a station based on Madonna's 1989 hit Cherish.
Just to jostle your memory: Screenshot from Madonna's Cherish video, shot by Herb Ritts
I mean, I kind of feel like I'm gaming the system by not using Pandora to find cool new fledgling artists and albums-- the Cherish station is 100% old songs that I know every word to but would never think to download. Am I the last person to the Pandora party to use it like this?
Well, seriously: If you haven't already, make your own station based on Cherish and try to tell me it's not the most fantastic thing to happen to your guilty pleasure cortex since Beyonce's Single Ladies video debuted last month.
My Pandora subscription has gone largely unused, though-- the truth is, I just am not as keen to the process of "discovering" new music as I was back in the halcyon days of high school and college, when I'd rummage through BitTorrent for hours finding new stuff.
But! I fell in love with Pandora in earnest for the first time Sunday night, when it dawned on me that there is a place for its technology in my musically unadventurous life. In a moment of clarity, I totally hit the jackpot when I formed a station based on Madonna's 1989 hit Cherish.
Just to jostle your memory: Screenshot from Madonna's Cherish video, shot by Herb Ritts
I mean, I kind of feel like I'm gaming the system by not using Pandora to find cool new fledgling artists and albums-- the Cherish station is 100% old songs that I know every word to but would never think to download. Am I the last person to the Pandora party to use it like this?
Well, seriously: If you haven't already, make your own station based on Cherish and try to tell me it's not the most fantastic thing to happen to your guilty pleasure cortex since Beyonce's Single Ladies video debuted last month.
Zuckerberg vs. Thoreau
Portfolio has an interesting article by Simon Dumenco about Facebook's impact on CEOs. Basically, the main thrust of the piece is a comment by tech CEO Michael Fertick:
This really stood out to me, in large part because it so closely echoes a similar theory my college roommate Katie and I formulated circa 2004:
Granted, we were looking for prospective dates, rather than business partners or employees. And, of course, it's a complete generalization-- I can think of a number of compelling, descriptive, and well-filled-out Facebook profiles of genuinely cool people I know. But most of the time I feel more comfortable keeping my Facebook profile a bit, well, lower profile.
Maybe it all goes back to the first time I read Walden (to this day, one of my favorite books, although it isn't listed on my Facebook profile as such.) Among many of the highlighted, underlined passages in my nearly 10-year-old copy:
Makes you wonder what Thoreau would say about Twitter, no?
“There's almost an inverse relationship between seriousness and how much you participate in social networking."
This really stood out to me, in large part because it so closely echoes a similar theory my college roommate Katie and I formulated circa 2004:
"The length of your Facebook profile is inversely proportional to how cool you are."
Granted, we were looking for prospective dates, rather than business partners or employees. And, of course, it's a complete generalization-- I can think of a number of compelling, descriptive, and well-filled-out Facebook profiles of genuinely cool people I know. But most of the time I feel more comfortable keeping my Facebook profile a bit, well, lower profile.
Maybe it all goes back to the first time I read Walden (to this day, one of my favorite books, although it isn't listed on my Facebook profile as such.) Among many of the highlighted, underlined passages in my nearly 10-year-old copy:
"Society is commonly
too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any
new value for each other... We meet at the post-office,
and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are
in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus
lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for
all important and hearty communications."
Makes you wonder what Thoreau would say about Twitter, no?
Feed me
So after weeks of slaving away, hunched over my laptop poring over code*, you can now add my blog to your RSS readers! The moment you've all been waiting for! Just click on the little purple link at the bottom of this page that says "Subscribe to feed." I personally like using Google Reader.
*AKA occasionally looking over the shoulder of the very brilliant guy who added RSS capabilities to my blog in about 1.5 total hours of work
*AKA occasionally looking over the shoulder of the very brilliant guy who added RSS capabilities to my blog in about 1.5 total hours of work
