I went to see a play last night. It was a performance of Romeo and Juliet performed by an all-female cast of six. It was really good and really cleverly done. Each cast member played several characters (apart from Juliet who was played by the same actor the whole time), often swapping who played which role - the character they were playing was represented by an article of clothing rather than a particular actor. I felt it worked well and was effective and entertaining, only once did I think it compromised the performance (removal of the few lines near the end when Juliet kisses Romeo’s lips longing for some remains of the poison due to Romeo at this stage being just a flannelette shirt). I came away thinking I should see theatre performances more often.

However, this post is not a review. Aside from the fact that nothing I write could really adequately describe  the play last night, the mere act of trying to describe it somehow cheapens it. It seems to me that to write a review is to have some motive - the reviewer is either wanting to convince people to go to the movie/performance/art or dissuade them from going (or perhaps have even more sinister motives such as wanting to portray the creators in a bad light). Rarely is the tone of a review such that its intention is just to inform (although I think Roger Ebert’s reviews come close to this ideal). They are also a very personal thing - it’s absurd to read a review without knowing the reviewer. This is why At the Movies works so well - it’s clear that different people like different things and see things in different ways - without knowing the author of the review it’s impossible to give the review any credence.

Additionally, many reviews are hogwash and not at all true reports of a performance or piece of media. Only this morning on my twitter Graham Linehan has retweeted a link by Roger Ebert to a story describing how Variety will remove anything bad said about a film so long as they are paid enough money. There are notable occurrences of this happening in the video game industry too. “So what?” One might ask - surely this sort of thing happens all the time and must have been happening for as long as there have been performances and art to review. Probably, but reviews are the sort of thing which must be honest in order to be relevant otherwise it’s just PR.

His talk is very much about eating meat in the US and nearly all the statistics he mentions are concerning US meat farming practices. I think in Australia the statistics are a little better but the facts are remain the same regardless of where you live, just some of the numbers might be slightly different. But the talk is not so much about the raw statistics (although apparently the book is - he has 70 pages of foot notes and had two independant fact checkers go over his references) as it is a personal story.

The best part is that the way he speaks is very conversational - it isn’t preachy, he’s not telling you you’re a bad person if you eat meat. This is the achievement of the talk (and probably the book) - he isn’t proselytising, his tone isn’t pompous.

One part of this talk in particular struck a chord with me. Mr Foer said that in the US the free range/cage free eggs are the fastest growing sectors in the whole food industry (~36mins in the video). In Australia free range eggs have also become increasingly popular. Free Range is not a legal definition in the US or Australia so some producers mis-label their eggs as free range when they’re not, to take advantage of the increasing popularity of free range and the higher price they command. Anyway, I bring this up only to share a related anecdote: I used to work at a salad bar near where I live and some of the salads you could buy contain eggs. One day a customer asked the girl serving them if the eggs were free range. The serving girl didn’t know the answer so she asked the manager (and sister of the salad bar’s owner) who replied “they’re not but just say they are… As if it makes a difference. People are so stupid about these things aren’t they?” At the time I wasn’t vegetarian (it would be another ~6 months or so before I stopped eating meat) but I was really shocked and often since then I’ve wished I had said something at the time about it eventhough it would have cost me the job. (Incidentally, the manager and owner are both Jewish and I’ve often wondered how they would feel if they found out they had been lied to about having pig meat in something they ate - I’m pretty sure they would be disgusted.)

Anyway, I highly recommend everyone watch this talk. He covers nearly all the points (albeit very briefly) I care about in vegetarianism but much more eloquently than I ever could. Also be sure to watch all the questions he answers from the audience too, he provides excellent answers to some aspects of eating animals in a bit more detail.

I like Twitter, I’m logged into it whenever I’m at home, and love following lots of different people with whom I wouldn’t otherwise be able to communicate. One of the people I follow is Jeph Jacques the author and artist for my favourite webcomic Questionable Content. I like to follow Jeph on twitter as well as most of the characters from his webcomic (yes he’s created twitter accounts for them and they post to each other and stuff, it’s totally awesome). But that isn’t what this post is about. Jeph a couple of days ago posted a few tweets about an incident that started over at Penny Arcade with one of their comics. I only heard about the rage from Jeph’s tweets about it but apparently it was all because PA had used the word “faggot” in a comic in a derogatory context (no they weren’t talking about bundles of sticks).

Jeph went on to say how he didn’t consider the way they used the word to be offensive, but understood that some people thought that usage of the word was intrinsically offensive. Okay, with you so far Jeph. Then he tweeted “Honestly, I think the PA strip is meant to show how awful and idiotic it is to call ANYONE that word. But I still get why it bothered people”. And that’s where I start to disagree. I use the word faggot in a derogatory sense all the time both in text (usually shorted to “fgt” in IRC or WoW) and spoken. I don’t think it is “awful and idiotic” to call people that word, atleast not the way I use it. I think language is more complex than that. Language evolves and changes and the meanings of words and how they’re used changes. The way I (and some of my other friends) have come to use the word a lot is not really malicious at all, but it is still used as an insult. It’s mostly ironic, used purely as an insult and completely disassociated from any connection the word has from homosexuals or bundles of sticks, and I seriously think it’s fine. Queer is another word which I think used to be an insult towards homosexuals but is now used all the time (and I don’t even think it’s taboo any more, unlike nigger, which is a word I still hesitate to use eventhough it appears in heaps and heaps of rap music). Maybe it’s one of those things where it’s okay for the insulted party to use the word, but not anyone else. Fuck that I’m not going to play by those rules, that’s descrimination too. I think sometimes the insulted parties in those cases like to argue that the word has taken on a different meaning to the original (derogatory) meaning rendering it fine for use. Well then it should be fine for everyone. This taboo word business is bullshit, you’re always going to offend someone with what you do, no matter what it is. I get offended with all the biblebashers (collective term for people of any faith who come around looking to convert - bible here is not inherently Christian, “holy book” doesn’t provide the same alliteration and doesn’t have the same ring to it) who come around asking me to be saved and using words which are inherently filled with the judgements of their biblebash-y values - no one is exempt from causing offense. To communicate effectively you cannot help but cause offense sometimes. There was a a great debate about whether it’s fine to cause offense in communication I saw last year on ABC Fora but I can’t find it because the search function on their website is crap :P

When and why was faggot ever used as a derogatory term for homosexuals anyway? What is the origin of the insultory meaning? Surely the bundles of sticks meaning came first? So then it became corrupted into a derogatory term? My point is that language changes and there are no hard and fast rules about how you should use words.

One of the reasons I’m blogging about this is that I’m completely sick of all the political correctness that gets attached to everything these days and all the really vague and fluffy language that goes along with trying not to offend anyone. You can’t communicate effectively like that. Have you ever heard Tony Abbott speak? It’s disgraceful, he never actually says anything (I’m not kidding) and he especially never answers the question. Sure, you might argue that there are other factors going on here like Abbott trying not to say anything that might amount to less people voting for him, or maybe trying not to give away whatever non-existant policies/positions they take to the government to latch onto and criticise. But those are just variations on censoring his own language for political (correctness) purposes. Here’s a really good talk about modern fluffy language I saw recently on ABC Fora (such a good site). All this fluffy language people think is communicating is really just obfuscation.

The title of this post from a WoW guild on US-Blackrock called <sup fresh our turn baby>. I have no idea what this means, but it contains the word fresh so I thought I’d borrow it to indicate my first new blog post in a while :P

There have been many Star Wars games over the years, most of which I have played. However, the odd thing about the games is that almost none of them actually let you feel like you’re a Jedi or Sith, which is something that I think all Star Wars fans have wanted. You’ve been able to play as a Jedi or Sith but none of the games have really captured the essence of the role, as portrayed by the films. The game mechanics might not have been good enough or maybe the artwork wasn’t right, but for whatever reason the games have left you wanting.

However, The Old Republic might just break the mould of less than satisfying Star Wars game experiences. It’s being developed by BioWare, the same guys who made Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR), which was excellent (even though the combat was turn based and therefore spoiled the Jedi experience). They have a reputation for making really great story driven games. It is my hope that BioWare is able to rise above the mediocrity that has plagued Star Wars games and craft a game that can live up to the brilliance of the original trilogy.

I thought I’d take a look at some of the things in the trailer which may give us an insight into some of the things we can expect from the game. The Old Republic takes place 300 years after the events which transpired in the KotOR game. This means it’s still at least 3000 years before the the prequels.

"ah the jedi temple, so lovely and peaceful"

The trailer starts with a characteristic Star Wars panning shot of a spacecraft flying towards a planet (Coruscant). We see a Sith Lord and a Twi’lek walking up the steps towards the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

It didn’t occur to me initially but it seems likely that the Twi’lek is a companion character that it’s been mentioned will be one of the features of the game. The Twi’lek is clearly armed and we see her take part in some combat later in the trailer. Whether companion characters are of a particular class is unknown (in KotOR party members were of a particular class). From what I’ve read/heard in interviews the key motivation for the companion characters was to provide an additional vehicle to tell the game’s story. I wonder if companion characters will take part in PvP. If they do take part in PvP with the player’s character it seems to make sense for them to be of a particular class.

The Sith and Twi’lek are being observed by an attractive bounty hunter who, after seeing the Sith successfully dispatch the temple’s token security (with a forcepush and obligatory lightsaber throw), jetpacks up to infiltrate the temple from a higher level.

Mr Sith Lord and his companion enter the temple and meet up with some less-than-friendly-looking Jedi, headed by Mr Master Jedi. All the Jedi seems to be wearing some form of body armour under their cloaks, in contrast to the Jedi we see in the films who wear cotton tunics/trousers under their cloaks. Later in the trailer there’s even a (very brief) shot of a Jedi wearing a mask covering the entire face.

HAI GUIZ

Just as we think a fight is about to break out between the Jedi and Mr Sith Lord a spaceship crashes through the entrance to the temple, distracting the Jedi. After screeching to a halt, and completely ruining the beautiful stonework in the temple lobby, a hatch opens in the spaceship to reveal that Mr Sith Lord has brought some of his Sith pals and some troopers to play! The Sith seem to be attired very similarly to the Jedi, except of course with more black. The armor being worn under the cloaks suggests itemization and armor choices for Jedi/Sith in the game will not just be restricted to light armor and there will likely be some kind of tradeoff between wearing heavier armor and light armor.

The Jedi and Sith then have a big battle (as opposed to a tea party). This is very cool, hopefully the game will feature some large-scale battles like this as part of the PvP. During the course of the fight we see a bunch of cool stuff:

1. Deflecting blaster fire with lightsabers - this was pretty much guaranteed to be in the game and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
2. Force grab by Mr Sith Lord - this seems like it could be a different ability than a force push. He uses the force to grab a Jedi, lift him into the air and throw him against a pillar. It’s hard to tell, but it also looks as though the Jedi might be under the effects of a force choke at the same time.
3. Bounty hunter flying around with jetpacks and shooting missiles to destroy a bridge - will there be destructable terrain? I haven’t really seen many MMOs implement this before. I think WoW has some destructable terrain now in one of the battlegrounds. Also, I wonder how long bounty hunters can stay flying? It seems like the sort of thing that could be pretty powerful if they were able to their jetpacks for as long as they wanted.
4. Force lightning by Mr Sith Lord - This is an ability that’s appeared in many SW games before and some of the films. It’s usually only seen as a Sith ability and it’s not clear whether this ability will be available to the Jedi (although apparently it has been used by Jedi in the Expanded Universe books).
   

   "you wish you were as creepy as me"

5. Flame throwers by the bounty hunter - definitely in the game, on the SWTOR site you can see a (very) short clip of a bounty hunter using flame throwers.
6. Force jump - another common Jedi/Sith ability seen in pretty much every movie and game.
7. Force smash - seen at roughly 2:25 in the trailer, a Sith performs a force jump and as he lands smashes the ground underneath him with waves of energy apparently knocking over the nearby temple security forces. I haven’t seen this ability in previous SW games, perhaps it’s one that will be available to the Sith and maybe Jedi.
8. Mr Master Jedi receiving a message from a droid - I wouldn’t be surprised if droids were available as companion characters in the game. Obviously they’re seen many times in the films and other games in companion-like roles.

As battle continues we see Mr Sith Lord meet up with Mr Master Jedi in a pretty epic fight scene. It’s interesting to note the difference in fighting style between the two. I haven’t heard anything about whether Lightsaber Forms will make it into the game, indeed there’s been very little info about the combat so far, but they were present in KotOR and would make a cool addition and add extra depth to the combat. Mr Master Jedi appears to be using Form IV (lots of spinning and jumping with wide strikes with the lightsaber, physically avoid blows rather than blocking) whereas Mr Sith Lord is probably using Form V (very powerful strikes, not especially mobile, preferring to parry/block strikes rather than try and avoid them). The fight also features another lightsaber throw by Mr Sith Lord - this ability will doubtless make it into the game.

"I believe I can fly..."

Mr Master Jedi is defeated by Mr Sith Lord. We see the Jedi drop his lightsaber and fall to his knees, staring out at Coruscant which is now burning and under attack from the Empire. We see some starfighters which look quite similar to TIE-fighters, we see some starships that look suspiciously like Imperial Cruisers, and also some walkers similar to AT-STs. Very cheeky.

Mr Sith Lord pulls on his hood and strolls away from the Jedi temple, the sacking of Coruscant well under way, pleased with a job well done.

the background in this shot is actually the stage from an old KISS concert

The release of the trailer at E3 generated a lot of positive hype. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a short review of the trailer. They made an interesting comment: “This cinematic, then, may not be explaining all that much about how the game plays, but it is saying one thing loud and clear - “we’re going to fix Star Wars.””  That’s definitely the vibe I got from the trailer as well. I was speaking to a bunch of friends after seeing the recent Star Trek film and it became apparent that for many people the Star Wars prequels have really tarnished the Star Wars name as a whole (the Rock, Paper, Shotgun review touches on this as well). This is a huge shame. While I didn’t really like the prequels I feel the original trilogy is so awesome that it still deserves to be thought of as an epic film series which has really enriched our culture.

Please comment and tell me what you think of trailer and game and if I’ve missed anything from the trailer :)

I’m going to list the reasons I’m a pescetarian. This isn’t going to be a self-righteous rant. The reason I’m writing this is so I can summarise it for myself and others when I’m asked about it (as I often am by my friends :P ). In no particular order, the reasons why I don’t eat meat:

1. Meat production is bad for the environment. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation published a report in 2006, that went into some depth about the affect of meat production on the environment. I haven’t read the whole report, just snippets of it, but it was enough to convince me that eating meat is not always a good thing, no matter how delicious. Clearly others agree.
2. Most animals bred for their meat are fed grain which is much better served feeding people. This gets a bit complicated. Basically, 7kg of grain produces 1kg of beef, with similar conversion factors for other types of meat (including fish). Huge numbers of people around the world go hungry  everyday, it doesn’t make sense to use grain to feed livestock so rich people can eat meat. There’s a report here which goes into the specifics of the impact of meat production on grain and water supplies around the world. The article is a little old, but the situation remains the same (or worse) as when it was written.
3. To eat meat (and indeed to subject animals to any treatment to which we would not subject humans) is speciesist. This is the primary focus of Animal Liberation. Peter Singer has written a short essay on this and animal liberation, which you may read if you don’t feel like reading the entire book. After reading the Wikipedia article on speciesism while writing this post, I realised that the Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead touches on this a little.

I’ve always regarded pescetarianism as a stepping stone to eventually being vegan. After re-reading some of these articles while writing this post I’ve realised how bad it is to still be eating fish, and now I feel the day I become vegan (or atleast give up eating fish) will be sooner rather than later.

The title of this post is a quote from a friend of mine who once joked that my being vegetarian explained everything I did. Even though I’ve been pescetarian for a year now, I’m still often quizzed about it by friends. Now I’ll be able to point them to this post to explain the details :)

This (bad phone photo - don’t have a flash) was taken after walking back towards the city from the Watchmen premiere screening at IMAX. This little guy was just chillin’ out on the garbage bin getting some food and didn’t seem to mind us taking a couple of pictures. The funny thing is that a lot of the trees in this park have metal sheets wrapped around them to stop possums from getting into them, however there’s a couple of much larger trees which don’t have the metal around them and the possums clearly just climb those and then jump into the other trees, haha :)

A lifesize R2D2 made from Lego in Myer, coolest thing ever.

ROBOTS IN DISGUISE!

I can’t remember where I saw this graffiti but I really like it.

This solar powered electric bike doesn’t look like it would be very practical but that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome :D I wonder how much mileage it achieves.

This poster is similar to the other Obama poster in the previous around town post, but the purpose completely different. I guess it was only a matter of time before people started cashing in on the icon Obama has become.

This was taken up near uni. My mum used to own a 2CV when she lived in England. She used to call it the “sewing machine” because that’s apparently how it sounded. I just think they’re cute.

Cool samurai prints on the door to the bathroom of Section8 in the city :)

Another picture from a bathroom, this time of a bar/restaurant. It didn’t occur to me that they were all quite phallic until I saw the vegetable on the far right of the second picture. Very subtle :P

Apparently manufacturers of digital watches and calculators are now cool enough to be used as graffiti tags. This was taken near the bowls club where some friends and I go lawn bowling :)

I accidentally trod on this poor guy when he was pecking around under my coffee table one day, so I thought I would immortalise him on the interwebs to partly say sorry (obviously I apologised at the time too :P )

I’m not claiming to be a cafe expert or anything, but I have spent a fair amount of time in them over the years ;) This list isn’t in any particular order, I think each of these things is equally important in establishing a nice atmosphere and cafe experience.

1) Make sure there’s enough space. Space for customers, space for decent tables. Customers waiting for take away coffees should have enough space to stand without the customers at tables getting someone’s bum in their face :P

2) Employ competent staff. I don’t care if your auntie’s brother’s sister’s boyfriend’s niece can make coffee, you shouldn’t employ them if they’re not able to interact with people without scowling at them. Also, there’s a big difference between being able to make coffee and being able to make good coffee

3) Make sure there’s atleast two staff at all times. A customer shouldn’t have to wait 2mins to be served when there’s only 5 people in the cafe and only one staff member making coffees and taking orders.

4) Do not have a bell/beeper on the door. It is so annoying.

5) If you’re going to provide your patrons with newspapers to read while they drink their coffee (and I highly recommend it), make sure the tables are big enough. There are few things more frustrating than trying to read a broadsheet on a tiny table.

6) Do not play pop rock or the radio. Music is fine but it should be low key stuff that isn’t likely to offend. People don’t go to cafes to listen to songs they would hear in a nightclub.

7) Use a decent brand (and grade) of coffee. I don’t go to places that advertise as selling Vittoria/Lavazza/Grinders/Dimattina/etc any more. A decent brand in Melbourne is Veneziano. I went on a tour of the place they roast their beans and they really know their stuff.

8) Provide water for your customers. Even if aren’t providing table service you should have a couple of jugs of cold water and glasses in a convenient place for your customers to drink.

9) Sell carrot cake. Seriously. Carrot cake + coffee = bliss, they are perfect together.

The cafe I was at today did none of the above things. None. It was awful. I guarantee that if you do all of the above simple things you will have people flocking to your cafe, and they will leave happy, and come back again.

Other good but not obligatory things:

1) Open at 7am and stay open until atleast 8pm everyday.

2) Do a good range of juice. Not just orange and apple. Cranberry, pineapple, grapefruit and tomato are good as well.

3) Provide newspapers for the customers to read, and not just the Herald Sun.

4) Outdoor seating can be really good, depending on location (not too close to a busy road otherwise the customers will be breathing fumes).

What other things contribute to a good cafe experience?

Alarmingly the news (I think it was ABC, can’t be sure) also reported that the hot weather has meant hugely increased demand/usage of electricity (presumably from people turning on their airconditioning systems) on such a scale that demand is outstripping supply. Some homes around Victoria have been without power for three days. I find this a bit scary because to me it seems to imply a vicious circle: hot weather results in increased power usage, which means more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, resulting in an increasing rate of global warming, in turn resulting in hotter weather, meaning more demand for power, meaning increased power usage etc. Of course one (long term) solution would be to invest in nuclear power plants for the future, but with such strong opposition to nuclear energy in Australia I can’t see anything like this happening within Kevin Rudd’s first term. For more info about nuclear power and other cool science-y topics from an Australian perspective see Physical Insights, a blog run by a friend of mine.

Similarly, the heat has resulted in people far exceeding the recommended daily water usage of 155litres per person per day. The news reported average water consumption per person had risen to 290litres per day. This was all to be expected of course. With everyone sweating buckets people are going to want to drink more. Oddly enough, last Saturday The Age ran an article about how the Opposition’s water spokesperson Louise Asher felt the target 155litres per person per day was too severe, claiming that forcing people to choose between having a shower and watering their garden was “demonstrably unfair”. Erm, what? Does she seriously not understand how this works? The amount of water in the dams can be treated as finite so long as water is being taken from the dams faster than the dams are filled (which is a fair assumption given The Age’s daily figures dam levels are consistently lower than dam levels last year). So using more water now will just mean we run out sooner and even more stringent targets must be put in place so that we have time to sort out some viable alternative water sources. If the daily per capita target was raised a few years from now people won’t be forced to choose between a shower and watering their garden, they’ll be choosing whether they or their garden will be able to have a drink (see the update below).

Today I asked the question on Twitter “does anyone else feel slightly guilty for leaving the airconditioning on most of the day?” One of my friends replied “was working (and sweating) all day - aircon on now and don’t feel guilty!” This is illustrative of how I think many people feel that they’re “entitled” to certain things, no matter the cost. This same attitude is surely evident by people who buy sports cars and other luxury items which have a negative impact on the world. They have worked hard each day and earned themselves a big pile of cash and paid the taxman and now they feel entitled to a slice of the good life, with no thought to the environmental impact. I’m not saying you’re an evil person if you have the aircon on during 40+degree heat (I know I had my aircon on), I’m just concerned about the disregard many people show towards the environment. I think there will come a time when all of these environmental effects will come to a head and people will be forced to pay attention because drastic action will need to be taken. As it is I don’t think the humanity is taking things seriously enough.

**UPDATE**

I decided to check out the Melbourne Water Website weekly report to get some solid numbers on water usage. Melbourne’s water storage facilities are currently at 33.1%, which is 4.2% less than the same time last year. This 33.1% water storage equates to 586.86 billion litres of water. Last week total water consumption averaged 1268 million litres per day. Keeping in mind that last week was one of the hottest weeks on record, if water consumption continued at the rate of 1268ML per day and without any replenishment, we would have 462.8 days until the water was entirely used up.

Now, given that the average residential water usage over last week was 207 litres per person per day, and assuming that the population of Melbourne is 3,806,092 (this is based on a 2007 figure, it’s probably closer to 3.9million now) that equates to a total residential water consumption of 787.86ML per day. This means that there’s 480.14ML of water per day used for non-residential purposes. Using the same population and non-residential water figures, if the residential population of Melbourne was to adhere to the 155L per person per day target, the total daily consumption for Melbourne would be 1070.08ML. If water consumption continued at the rate of 1070.08ML per day and without any replenishment, we would have 548.4 days until the water was entirely used up. Or to put it another way, for every 1L Melburnians save per day (ie. not consumed for residential purposes) the stored water will last another 9.46days.

Now, I wouldn’t take these figures as gospel, they are ballpark figures at best. Obviously I’m not taking into account the replenishment of the water storage facilities by rain/stream flow (according to the website, the rate at which Melbourne’s water is being replenished is well below average), and the non-residential water usage figure is slightly fudged because it’s based on the data from last week’s heatwave (so it’s probably safe to assume the non-residential water use is usually less than the figure I’ve used), and population figure used by the website would be different from the figure I used above (probably more recent).

However, I think the figures are enough to show that increasing the target per person per day water usage (which is presumably what Opposition water spokesperson Louise Asher would do because she feels it’s “demonstrably unfair” to force people to choose between showering and watering their garden) would have a profound effect on Melbourne’s water supply. To increase the target per person per day water usage would be irresponsible especially given the much lower than average rainfall and stream flow into Melbourne’s reservoirs and catchments.

People make playlists which satisfy their listening habits. People make playlists to suit their mood, playlists which play all their favourite tracks of an artist (akin to the “best of” albums that artists release), playlists for dancing, playlists for working, or playlists of background music. Playlist creation is an art. DJs (those who arrange music in clubs, not those who write original music) are essentially professional dance playlist creators. There’s been times when I’ve spent hours putting together playlists which perfectly reflect how I feel when I’m happy, or when I’ve wanted a playlist to play while gaming, or when I’ve heard a song and thought “hey, that would sound awesome right after <some other song>”. However, creating a good playlist is made harder by large music collections. Sometimes you want a playlist to suit a mood and know you have some songs which would work perfectly but you can’t remember which ones and you spend half an hour listening to song before you find the right one. Or maybe that’s just my OCD :P

As good as playlists are at organising your music in such a way that it’s more accessible, creating a good playlist can take an inconveniently long time. There must be a better way of organising music, or atleast a more time efficient way. Well, there’s certainly been attempts to create better systems for organising music. The three main ones I know of are:

• iTunes Genius
• Winamp Playlist Generator
• last.fm

iTunes Genius was introduced with iTunes version 8. To use it you select a song and then click the Genius button (in the bottom right hand corner). It will then generate a playlist of songs which “go great together”. I’m not so sure. After testing it out a bit it somehow thinks “Jenny was a Friend of Mine” by The Killers “goes great” with “Vicarious” by Tool. Oddly, when I select “Jenny was a Friend of Mine” and click the Genius button it doesn’t come up with Tool on the generated playlist. Being iTunes, it also features a Genius Sidebar which makes recommendations for tracks on the iTunes store which it thinks will go great with the currently selected track. To even get Genius to work you need an iTunes account and for Genius to send “anonymous” information about the user’s song library the Apple database. I remain unconvinced.

The Winamp Playlist Generator works the same way as iTunes Genius.  It actually uses a Gracenote service called Playlist (or perhaps Playlist Plus) to generate a playlist of songs which supposedly “may cross genres and eras to create a playlist of similar music based on the user’s mood”. Interesting that this one deliberately says it tries to match the user’s mood based on the selected “seed” song. When I gave it try again using “Jenny was a Friend of Mine” as the seed song, it gave me a kind of eclectic mix of stuff from my library, including a Handel Oboe Concerto. It seemed to do a bit better when I used “Vicarious” as the seed (see the pictures below). I think this service does produce better results than Genius, although Genius also supposedly “becomes smarter” by compiling the info submitted by its users. However, with the Winamp Playlist Generator you don’t need to submit any info at all to some corporate overlord in the cloud, nor does it bother you with trying to get you to buy other music.

last.fm is a bit different from the other two playlist generators in that it’s more of a music community. There are a few different things it does but one most relevant is that you can go to the site and type in an artist name and it will play a track of that artist and then tracks by similar artists. And it’s actually really really good. Not only are the artists similar but the individual tracks are similar too. There’s a plugin for Songbird called Music Recommender which uses the last.fm similar artist info to suggest artists similar to the one you’re currently listening to (see pic below). However, it’s no where near as good as typing in an artist name to the website and it automatically playing similar tunes by similar artists. There’s a last.fm app you can download which provides this same functionality, but it’s still streamed so the quality isn’t necessarily that good. It would be cool if you could set it to just play local files, alas.

It’s worth mentioning that there are also facilities within most music apps (certainly iTunes and Winamp) that automatically generate lists of ’80s/’90s/whatever music based on the track metadata, but it isn’t really as good as trying to find songs which are similar based on some deeper information than just what is known from the metadata.

Also, there’s a project called the Music Genome Project (implemented at a site called Pandora), which tries to define music in terms of its base attributes (’genes’). If you go to the site you can type in a song or artist and it will play songs which are similar based on their attributes. Apparently each song is defined by up to 400 or so attributes. Unfortunately I was unable to test it due to living in Australia (apparently due to licensing restrictions they can only offer the service to people living in the US), and even after going through a US proxy there appeared some problem with the service: “We are having unexpected technical difficulties. Our engineers are scrambling to fix things”. I might edit this post if I manage to get to use the service another day. However, as part of the process for determining the ‘genes’ of a song the song must be “analyzed by a musician in a process that takes 20 to 30 minutes per song“. So it seems that even if the Pandora service works really well it has problems with scalability. ie. your favourite songs may not even be available.

For me the disappointing thing about the last.fm and Pandora services is that they both require the internet. Sure, most people are connected to the internet alot of the time either at home or via their phones, but there are plenty of times when this would be a restriction. Neither service has a mode where you can just have it work exclusively for your local music library. This is a shame, last.fm works really well and I’m curious to try out Pandora. It seems like there would be great demand for an app that would just work locally on your music collection to make recommendations and automatically play similar songs based on a seed song. It would be like listening to music on shuffle but you actually hear songs you really want to listen to based on your mood. And unlike traditional playlists, it would actually work better the larger the music collection.

However, I wonder if it’s even possible to write an app which can fulfil this description without using the internet. I wasn’t able to test Pandora so I can’t tell how similar the song selections were, but I know last.fm works really well. Perhaps it’s only possible to create an app that can provide accurate similar song selections by using the internet and analyzing the data provided by millions of users each with distinct tastes. Is it possible to create an app which could do something similar to the Music Genome Project but without requiring each song to be listened to by a musician, thus overcoming the problem of scalability? How are music attributes like timbre captured by a digital signal? I don’t know but it would be cool to find out ;)

Here’s a couple of photos showing the finished item:

It took me about an hour or so to make, and it’s a bit rough. This was my first attempt at some gaffertape craft, obviously with more practice the result would be better  and take less time to make. The cool thing is once you understand how it fits together it’s easy to make modifications and add different colours (providing you have the tape).

In any case I’ve decided to use it over my old leather wallet. Gaffer tape > dead animal guilt.