June 11th, 2008

Peter Gabriel's The Filter has more Holes than Necessary


Music week staggers forward. The other day BuzzFeed pointed out that Peter Gabriel has become involved with The Filter.

‘What is The Filter?’ you ask.

Well you could risk being bored to death by Gabriel’s Tech Crunch’d explanation on why we need sites like The Filter:

… or I can take a stab at the general tagline. What it aims to do is collect data on your likes and dislikes, be them music or movies or TV shows(currently unavailable), and from this data it offers up new things that might be up your alley.

First off, the navigation is clunky as hell. It feels like I’m in an 80s video rental store trying not to knock down random other merchandise off the shelves as I make my selections. I browse the music section and randomly gave the CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY soundtrack a 70% good rating. The Filter, in turn, recommends Ennio Morricone‘s SQUARE DANCE. I’ve never heard of Morricone’s SQUARE DANCE but I know of his work via oh, so many, spaghetti western scores. So on some level I think The Filter is on to something.

But the movies need work. After toggling the necessary genres to get the ball rolling on movie rating I found that ball landed squarely in the 1930s era. There nothing wrong with a good old movie. I’m just not as versed in those flicks as I would be in the last few decades or so. Pinpoint searching and rating to tweak the movie finder didn’t help as most of the movies I liked denied me rating access. So here I am, stuck in the 1930s viewing pleasures.

I understand that The Filter is still in beta and because of this I’ll come back in a month or two to see if they’ve worked out the kinks. Otherwise, I’ll stick to Pandora to recommend my new music. I have hope for The Filter because just a few years ago Pandora was in the same place.

6 Comments | In: Linked, Music, Quizworld | tags: , , , , . | #



June 9th, 2008

Signal to Noise to Music


You’ll have to forgive the weak emptiness of this end of The Nation. I’ve either not had the time and not made the time needed to throw together words of woe, wisdom or otherwise. Short bursts is all I can mange these days.

We will try for themes though. This week will be music. My searches will refine to anything audio or visual. Anything worth a damn on the listening scale.

Ectomo’s Noise Du Jour kicks the week off with the tried but true “noise from random electronic objects that somehow makes a listenable sound experience.” Radiohead ran a mix contest for their song “Nude” and this is one of what they got: Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)

The orchestra assembled?

  • Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
  • Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
  • HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
  • Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX

No Comments | In: Music | tags: , , , . | #



May 27th, 2008

A Time To Watch a Lot of Fictional People Die


Internet,

Stop trying to please me.

These lists you insist on making in order to fill content on your sites and evoke some kind of reaction(see insane Nerd Wars), at first I found them distasteful. At worse they were lazy and unimaginative. But now you’re showing me things, wonderful things that I can actually agree with. It’s becoming very disturbing. Are you becoming more like me or am I becoming like you?

Please don’t answer this.

I’ll sit back and try not to drown in either possibilty. Instead, I’ll reflect on this list of cinematic death you’ve placed in front of me.

And I’ll call it, ‘good.’

Groonk

Top 5: Pre-Death Monologues in Film

PS. It was a tough decision but I believe you can figure out my favorite choice from the list. Although, that Dennis Hopper bit is a damn close second.

Now that you’re done dying, have a little hope.

No Comments | In: Movies | tags: , . | #