Schinckel.net

Blogsome has a Smarty Tag called {is_aside}. This is a test of that.

Apparently, today is iTunesRater’s first birthday. It was a year ago today that I first posted about the program I had created to rate tracks on a 0-100 scale. And it was only a couple of days ago that I realised most of the rating I’ve done has been a bit of a waste of time: iTunes seems to only take into account the actual star rating, not the real value. Except for tracks that are 1/2 star. I’m going to write a post on OmniNerd detailing my experiments and results, when I get a bit of time.

I recently performed an experiment to examine how iTunes handles 0-100 ratings - the result was “Not very well.” Something made me repeat the experiment, but this time with just tracks rated 0,10,20,…,90,100. That is, no stars, half a star, one star, and so on. For those playing at home: I just used a Smart Playlist where name contains 0, and used the procedure in the previous linked post. Here is a graph showing the results. I’ve annotated it in a couple of places. The first thing to notice is that the yellow line shows the relative frequency of tracks played with whole star ratings, excepting no stars. As expected, this is a linear relationship. The interesting thing is that the zero-rated track does not lie on this line. Instead, the half-star track does. This becomes even more interesting, when considering this: one-half star is the only one where the frequency differs from the rounded down full star rating. The moral of this story: rate your songs as 0-5 stars, or ½-star only. Don’t bother about the other values…

From the comments to the hint about how to find out the serial number of the last connected iPod, I came across the following CLI/Terminal command. defaults read com.apple.iPod The program will then provide various information, such as this one: “Use Count” = 143; It also shows the date the iPod(s) was/were last connected. I’d forgotten about the 40Gb iPod I bought from OfficeWorks, before getting it home and finding out it was an older one, still full of music (and in a new box, meaning someone had bought a new one, and returned the old one…). I returned it the next day, but here are it’s details:

000A2700026661B2 = {
            Connected = 2004-10-09 10:42:14 +0930; 
            "Firmware Version" = 307; 
            ID = 000A2700026661B2; 
            "Serial Number" = JQ410859PNU; 
            "Software Version" = 35684352; 
            "Use Count" = 9; 
        };

I didn’t realise it was quite that long ago… September 10th 2004. By the way, a Google of that Serial Number returns no hits. Maybe I should report it stolen…

Split Screen Sadness • [John Mayer][2] • [Heavier Things][3] ★

[2]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22John Mayer%22 [3]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Heavier Things%22

Brandon: As if there weren’t already enough reasons to laugh at Nickelback I started downloading this, just for fun. And then listened to it when there was about 750k downloaded. I could not believe just how similar these two songs are. The drums play the same beat. The guitar riffs are pretty similar too. And then the heavy part starts. And it’s at exactly the same time. Does Nickelback have a formula for creating their songs? I have to finish downloading this, it’s just too good. (And I wonder if the person who originally mashed them up is a fan…?)

Love Generation [Club Mix] • [Bob Sinclair][2] • [Chillout Sessions 8][3] ★★

[2]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Bob Sinclair%22 [3]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Chillout Sessions 8%22

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com, via Boing Boing

The world’s largest restaurant chain said Thursday it had begun trialing a new scheme in Britain whereby two people from the same family who worked at the same branch could cover each other’s shifts without giving any prior notice.

All your family are belong to us. Hey, hang on one second:

McDonald’s said the first users of the new “Family Contract,” which it believes to be unique in Britain, were two sets of twins.

What’s wrong with them just lying as to which one they are? Who needs new contracts for that?

Boing Boing: Drunken gluttons order and eat 100-patty hamburger Man, Boing-Boing gets the best news.

I’m most of the way through the abridged version of the Da Vinci Code, as read by Jeff Harding. I think I’ve come across a Big Plot Flawâ„¢, but be aware that this post contains a plot spoiler.

Now, gazing up at the spires of Rosslyn… • [Dan Brown][1] • [The Da Vinci Code][2]

Apparently, Teabing is The Teacher. He seems to have been the driving force behind the murder of the Grand Master, and the Senechals. However, there are two issues here: how did he get out of the back of the car, and how come Remy did not recognise him at their meetings? Or maybe I’m missing something here? Time to Google this… • Yup. Wikipedia shows that Teabing is the Teacher. But no mention of how he got out of the back of the car, nor how Remy did not recognise him. In fact, it says they are in cahoots. Yet Remy was approached by the Teacher to spy on Teabing. I don’t get this…perhaps this is dealt with better in the full text.

Everybody Hurts • [R.E.M.][3] • [Automatic For The People][4]

[1]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Dan Brown%22 [2]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22The Da Vinci Code%22 [3]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22R.E.M.%22 [4]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Automatic For The People%22

Boing Boing: How actors remember their lines This is quite an interesting one:

According to the researchers, the secret of actors’ memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words’ meaning – the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them – as well as on the physical and emotional dimensions of their performance.

I think this is important because I know when memorising song words, I do exactly the same thing. How do I know this? I often sing the wrong words, that have the same or a similar meaning. For instance, well I can’t think of anything right now, but I do it all of the time.

F e M a l e d i c t i o n s That’s whay I like. Anatomically correct heart-shaped soap. How romantic: