A while back I wrote about a crazy scheme to generate perfect music. Thinking about it for a while, but never really got anywhere with it. Time to start the "research" phease, if you could call it that. I probably won't make it past here since I don't have a significant background in music theory, so I won't be able to analyze the more important "musical" aspects of these songs.

So here's a summary of the idea. Music is just a series of different tones. When played in succession and continuously, you've got yourself a trippy techno beat, sappy love song or one of those songs Bill O'Reilly regularly complains about. So the idea, inspired by the "perfect face" algorithm, is that universally (95%-99%) pleasing music must have some sort of similarity that makes them pleasing to such a large majority of the population.

For now the experiment will be limited to just one culture - American. Obviously we can't throw in some chart topping Bollywood beats or something. So the description "universally appealing" will indicate a song that is a chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100. Here's some more on that. The chart topping songs are selected by sales and airtime. Initially I thought this would be a problem, as only a particular type of person would call up a radio or buy a CD, but it's probably not a significant demographic group that it would interfere with the results.

So here I've selected some songs that have reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 to compare.

Flo Rida
Right Round

Crank That (Soulja Boy)
Soulja Boy Tell 'Em

Whatever You Like
T.I.

Viva La Vida
Coldplay

Just Dance
Lady GaGa Ft. Colby O'Donis

Low
Flo Rida

There's a lot of hip-hop on the Hot 100, but I drew extra songs from other genres. Here's the game plan, or the aspects of the songs to be compared.

Song Name
Number of weeks on chart
Genre
Theme (Ex. What is the song mostly about?)
Synopsis (Ex. Full blown summary of the lyrics)
Tempo
My opinion of the song (Ex. Obviously the most important variable here. Might as well disregard everything else...)
Syncopation
Chorus (Ex. Yes or no?)
Time Signature
Structure (Ex. ABCDABAB)
Artist 1
- Gender
- Voice Range (Ex. high, medium, low, for lack of better description).
- Digitally augmented?
Artist 2
- Gender
- Voice Range (Ex. high, medium, low, for lack of better description).
- Digitally augmented?
Artist 3 etc
- Gender
- Voice Range (Ex. high, medium, low, for lack of better description).
- Digitally augmented?
Instrument 1
- Digitally augmented?
Instrument 2
- Digitally augmented?
Instrument 3 etc
- Digitally augmented?

I had more features to analyze before. Can't think of any more at the moment.

Wow. The IE Team has taken to advertising Internet Explorer 8 on Google Adwords.

1. Internet Explorer 8-Free

   Download Faster, Easier MSN
   Optimized Internet Explorer - Free!
   IE8.MSN.com

Pretty desperate if you ask me. Plus a good chunk of the websites I visit are just carpet bombed with IE8 ads. Now on the other hand, Mozilla actually leveraged their user base and made it an exciting (or at least tried to) event by aiming for a world record. Their campaign was 100% free, and was probably far more successful.

I randomly remembered my first "encounter" with computers back in preschool today. My experiences were quite telling of things to come.

So in preschool, we had activity sessions where we would rotate between different activities like a workshop, drawing, stuff I don't remember and computers. I remember very clearly the first time I used the computer I was rather "absorbed". We were provided these Macs (I think) that were loaded with educational computer games. It was some sort of alphabet learning game or something. You would type in the right letter, and your character could advance and avoid lava pits and stuff. It's pretty vague at this point.

So each activity session was around 20 minutes, so the computer session would come once a day. The computer session time was determined by a little twisty timer on top of every computer. Seeing that I really liked using the computer, after 10 or so computer sessions, I stumbled upon the ever so brilliant idea of resetting the timer to increase my time. I remember very vividly deciding whether I should do it. The first time I glanced behind my back to make sure nobody was looking, and then turned the timer to the left about 5 minutes. After a while, all the timers went off at about the same time, and while the other kids left, my timer was still running lol. A staff member came and asked me why mine was still running or something, but the guy let me keep playing.

The next time I got a computer session, my intestinal fortitude improved, and I reset it about 10 minutes extra. You can probably see where this is headed. This time the staff were talking and pointing my way, as I was the only one on the computer in a deserted computer center. But I still got to play lol. So then after about the third or fourth time, they got wiser, and even though I reset the timer, which they probably saw, they made me go to a different station.

And that's the beginning of my experience with computers. So today while I am no master thief or master of deception, I am pretty interested in the computers. I also don't need to reset timers to get more time.

That would be spring break.

Just setup an ad campaign on Facebook. Interesting bell curve when targeted based on individual ages.

I just finished The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.

Without a doubt it is the best book I have ever read. The title gives the impression that it is a book about getting rich quick and living a live of leisure while spending stacks of money that magically appear in your bank account, but the title does not do it justice. It is not about material wealth so much as a wealth of life experiences, something that most of the people do not seem to be concerned about. This is not to say money is not an important aspect of the book.

A while back (before I read this book), I would often ask my friends, "What is your life dream?". After all, there are simply countless things I would like to be doing and learning about, and I was rather curious what others were passionate about. Because of school, I really did not have much time then (or now), to pursue these things, and during the school year everybody just loses their personality. I was surprised that nobody had an answer, or perhaps nobody felt it necessary to tell me. Most simply said "no idea" or "WTF?". If you're wondering what I want to do... well... Too many to list.

Most surprising is how well this book distills my outlook on life. My main concern with the idea of make money and retire is that regardless of your job, by the time you retire, the best and healthiest years of your life are gone. From 25 or so and on, everything is decline. It would really suck to have to spend that time in college. It's hard to say whether this is really the right time to be thinking about personal interests, or just obsess over school. Tough stuff.

Kind of late.

1. Windows Live Gallery
Where is this site going? It's not listed on Windows Live anywhere, and it's not getting updated, but all the Windows Live Spaces modules are from here.

2. Web Activities
A really great idea, and yet there's a pitiful amount of activities of add. FriendFeed is wiping the floor with Windows Live. FriendFeed has over 20 different activities. Windows Live has a whopping 8. Where are the updates?

3. Kumo / Windows Live / Live Search Fiasco
So apparently they didn't plan their online approach to well, and now they're going to rebrand Live Search as Kumo. Just when everybody is really familiarized with Live Search.

4. Windows Live Spaces
A service with great potential, and as usual, no updates and a major lack of features.
- Ugly Themes. iGoogle lets users submit their own themes. Since Windows Live obviously doesn't like spending time developing themes, why not let users do it?
- Slow Module Browser.
- Lack of features. Pretty much every other blogging service has more features.

5. Slow
I don't know if this happens to other people, but when I switch between Windows Live services, say, Hotmail and Spaces, I get led to a blank intermediate page, where I frequently have to wait 3 seconds while it redirects or something.

6. Settings Pages Not Intuitive
Editing settings on Windows Live is frequently like navigating a maze. Everything seems to be on a different page, and pretty soon you're lost.

7. Lack of Privacy Settings
Not enough settings. Not organized well.

8. Lack of Modules
I guess they can't do much about this one. But I will probably create a module soon - probably just a blog search module, but less ugly than the current one which has a scroll bar and 50+ different radio buttons

9. Hotmail Is Still Slow
Or at least it feels slower than Gmail, despite the speed increase.

I've just started reading Google Trends. Some really amazing stuff in there on a daily basis. It's also pretty amazing how statistics for certain searches match up with other ones. For example, searches of "lose weight" are clearly higher in states with higher obesity rates. It all matches perfectly.

So the other night I bought a mocha latte at a McDonald's near my house, which was remodeled a while back to include a McCafe, basically McDonald's take on coffee. Anyway, I drank it right before I went to bed, and I had the most extreme caffeine rush ever. I was not able to fall asleep until around 3:00 A.M. It felt like I was taking some sort of brain enhancing drugs. But while my thoughts were racing I came up with quite a few new ideas for websites. Alas, I'm too cowardly at the moment to spend any of my money to expand that production possibilities curve and make even more monies.

But back to the McCafe train of thought. I just now Wikied it and learned that McCafe has actually been around since 1993 outside of the U.S. Not surprisingly, the McDonalds with McCafe earn significantly more than a traditional McDonalds. With stats like these I would have expected McCafe to be introduced to all McDonald's earlier. Basically with the addition of a McCafe, the entire McDonald's gets remodeled, and the stores adds expresso machines and a few extra ingredients. With just the addition of whipped cream and chocolate syrup and various flavorings (simplified to prove a point), they've added 6 entirely new high profit products to their menu.

In addition, McCafe dramatically improves the image and appeal of the restaurant. The one I went to added a few flat screen TVs, free WIFI, some trendy (laminate) wood dividers and it all looked pretty nice for a factory hamburger joint. In fact it looked good enough that I suddenly wanted to eat there more than usual.

The coffee drinks are quite good when considering that it's from the factory that is McDonalds. The only problem with the McCafe is that their "handcrafted" drinks slow down the food manufacturing process.

So basically, McCafe=good idea. And that's all this post was ever about. The end.

On a side note, just saw this on Liveside.net
http://microsofttranslator.com/
http://windowslivetranslator.com/
Extreme management failure.

Business Article from the monthly Microsoft Newsletter
Interesting read.

Ultimate Fate of the Universe
Probably one of the best Wikipedia pages. I gotta read those scifi books mentioned.

 

Old video, but very funny.