Music Tagging App Search Update

Update:
Based on Rob's comments and the comments in the Lifehacker thread he pointed out, I'm going to try out SVanKruistum's iTunes Tagger (beta).

Advantages:

• Does most of what I want out of the box, and is free.


• Auto-tags selected songs in iTunes with top tags from last.fm, thereby taking advantage of that existing folksonomy (and its problems, too - see Disadvantages).


• Allows me to create my own smart playlists based on the tags it populates into the comment field.


• I don't use the Genre field very much, but this'll update that too


• It's possible I will discover new/better ways of classifying or tagging tracks


• Similar Songs playlist maker with slider bars! Initial tests look promising!

Disadvantages:

• No tag-based navigation, such as a tag cloud, to help me discover subpopulations of my music. - nevermind, there is a tag cloud feature but it isn't fast across a large library (but that's no surprise, how could it be?)


• Using the comments field means I can't select a bunch of songs in a playlist and just add a tag to them all without screwing up existing tags.


• Grabbing the most-popular tags from last.fm means I'll end up with almost all songs containing at least one of the following tags: rock, alternative, indie, or pop. These are not useful tags from my perspective.


• Automated tagging brings the disadvantages of folksonomy too, meaning I will get weird, non-useful tags on some songs (but that's still potentially better than having to do every song myself).


• I would have preferred open-source, in case I felt the need to tinker.


• Flow of tags is unidirectional; any custom tagging in the comments field I do won't automatically make the app better for everyone by uploading those tags to last.fm - I'd have to do that in a separate step, which means I almost never will. Update: this may not be true - He claims to have added a way of making doing what tweet does and allowing the tags to flow back to last.fm via a tagger in the system tray, but I haven't figured out yet how to access this feature.


• I've already come across several states that will crash the app, but these are feasibly avoidable once known, like the dangers of the Fireswamp.

I may also try out Tweet, a tagger that will sit in the system tray and allow me to easily edit tags as I listen (not clear at this point if Tweet is comma or space separated, which may or may not matter for interconnectivity with SVanKruistum's stuff, which uses comma separation).

Now what I need is an army of outsourced workers in India or somewhere who understand my musical classification scheme (no small feat), and who can tag the untagged songs and prepare the library for me to sweep in and make excellent Smart Playlists! After they're done with all the other data-entry and classification work I have in mind for them.

Really, has nobody done this yet?

OK, internet people, here's a challenge.

I want a way to attach arbitrary text tags to songs in my music library, and then retrieve all songs with a particular tag. Either simple one-word/string tags in the way that del.icio.us and flickr work, or more complex name-value pairs, as long as the name-value pairs are not required to have a unique-key name. For example, instrument:trumpets and instrument:banjo.

Unfortunately "tagging" with respect to .mp3s has the common connotation of populating the ID3 tags such as Artist, Genre, etc., and that's not what I'm talking about (although I would also want a way to auto-tag songs in my tagging scheme based on the information held in ID3 tags). This makes searching the internet for this capability quite difficult.

Last.fm does part of this, and would theoretically allow me to arbitrarily tag songs, but that information isn't integrated back into a music player/playlist editor to allow me to quickly find or play songs by tag, unless I want to use last.fm's limited internet-based player, which I do not. On the other hand, they do have the capability to tell me how other people have tagged a song, making it potentially useful as a way of harnessing aggregate social data to make tagging easier.

The ideal software would be a plug-in to either iTunes or winamp, as those are my favored music players.

Suggestions? Ideas? Questions?

PUSH THE BUTTON

What this blog really needs, though, is more sharks:



Maybe we need a few more. Push it a few more times. If your site needs sharks, too, go here

Theme change

Sunset in Koh Lanta, Uploaded by Sanako* on 20 May 06, 9.34PM PST.

For the first time in this blog's history, I've changed the theme. Probably, you read this in Google Reader or some other aggregator, so it won't make any difference to you. But on the off chance you read on-site, I hope you like our new brownishness. I may not be entirely through tweaking, as there are still some vestiges of the old colors here and there. The new colors are based on the All the Tea in China theme from the Adobe 'kuler' site (my favorite online palette picker). To get a new background pic for the title, I used the Multicolr Search Lab from Idée Inc. to find some Creative Commons flickr pics in several shades of brown. I settled on Sunset in Koh Lanta by Sanako*, which I excerpted to make the new title background. Anyway, I hope you like it.

Try the Veal: Bonus Tracks

Basking briefly in Kari's praise, I remembered that I had a few more such tracks squirreled away, and went looking for them - I'm glad I did. Here's three more tracks I would have included if I had found them a couple of days ago:

Okano Kaori - Town Called Malice (The Jam)


Pyeng Threadgill - Close to Me (The Cure) - at first I wasn't sure this one was "lounge" enough, but then I was like: "Oh wait! Xylophones! Oboe!"


Trash Pour 4 - Take on Me (Ah-ha)

Enjoy! (right-click & "Save Link As" to save)

DGY: the font

Although it's of dubious use to any of you, here's the download. (Install instructions). That weirdness with the lower-case 'h' taking up too much space is because I gave it that "hat", but when I write that goes out over other letters and here they took its furthest right point and then all the space below it. Otherwise, it looks pretty close.

Yourfonts
Fontifier

Try the Veal.

Lounge Party!

Richard Cheese tux
Originally uploaded by DiscourseMarker

As a birthday gift for Kari, a set of 60s Lounge/Swing/Bossa Nova covers:

01 - Richard Cheese - Fight for Your Right (Beastie Boys)
02 - Paul Anka - Eye of the Tiger (Survivor)
03 - Nouvelle Vague - Just Can't Get Enough (Depeche Mode)
04 - The Beautiful South - Dont Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)
05 - Pastel Vespa - Living On A Prayer (Bon Jovi)
06 - Ragnar Bjarnason - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
07 - Richard Cheese - Bust a Move (Young MC)
08 - Prozak for Lovers - London Calling (The Clash)
09 - Nouvelle Vague - I'll Melt With You (Modern English)
10 - Eldissa - Gimme Gimme Gimme (Abba)
11 - Richard Cheese - Rock the Casbah (The Clash)
12 - Groove da Praia - Used to Love Her (GNR)
13 - Ben Folds Five - She Dont Use Jelly (The Flaming Lips)
14 - Nouvelle Vague - Making Plans for Nigel (XTC)
15 - Prozak for Lovers - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
16 - Divine Comedy - There is a light that never goes out (The Smiths)
17 - Richard Cheese - Come Out and Play (The Offspring)
18 - Pastel Vespa - White wedding (Billy Idol)
19 - Eldissa - Stayin' Alive (Bee-Gees)
20 - Quincy Jones and his Orchestra - Soul Bossa Nova



Lounge Party.zip

Sometimes when I think of her name, and its only a game, and I need you...

I happened to mention in another internet medium that I was listening to covers of old Yaz/Yazoo songs. One of my sisters perked up and wanted copies. Here's a few versions of Only You:

Yazoo - Only You - the original, in case you were too young, too old, or didn't have older sisters whose music you could borrow.

Slut - Only You Unfortunately named band, great cover. Usually my favorite (see below)

Even in Blackouts - Only You Sometimes this one is my favorite. I like the female vocals, and the slightly folksy sound, and upbeat tempo.

Good Books - Only You - Brilliant, slow, almost goth-synth interpretation. Imagine an awesome 80s video made in Berlin in the rain with big hair and vinyl trenchcoats, and you're halfway there. My favorite if I'm in a certain 80s mood.

Freezepop - Only You - Not quite on the same level as the others, but worth including. The slight harmonization on the vocals is nice, though. Also, nice synth bridge, if you're into that sort of thing. And I know you are.

No guarantee on how long I'll keep these up, so get while the gettin's good.

The 16 things post

Normally I stay away from memes. But there's one going around on Facebook where you post 16 things people probably don't know about you (or maybe it had some other purpose originally; that reflects what it's become). Anyway, I've learned some pretty interesting things about friends I haven't seen in forever, and decided maybe I could come up with a few things to write about myself. It took far longer than I anticipated; I don't do very well at things like this, it turns out. If these are interesting to you, maybe you'll post 16 or so things about yourself in turn. I'll enjoy reading them if you do.

1) I do all my brainstorming on either index cards or on graph paper; irrespective of whether anything might need to be graphed or kept in a portable form. This was done on an index card.
2) I prefer to know a great deal about a situation; as much as can possibly be known in advance, and yet I still like to decide and act in the moment.
3) I am a connoisseur of fizzy drinks - I look for new ones to try, and keep a collection of syrups to mix my own concoctions, some of which are quite good.
4) I am more empathic than I usually prefer to let on.
5) My eyes water when it is windy. When I come inside on a blustery day I often appear to have been weeping uncontrollably.
6) I am almost never reading only one book at a time, even when I go days or weeks without sitting down to read.
7) Although physical disorganization in my workspace doesn't bother me, I am a near-compulsive information manager. Part of being a Briggs-Meyer INTP.
8) I have always viewed sports and sporting events as both arbitrary and boring, but I do enjoy a good stadium hot dog, so I don't mind attending them from time to time.
9) I prefer toilet paper to be on the roll-holder such that it is 'overhand'. I didn't ever notice the difference until I read a friend's blog post where he mentioned his preference for this, and then I started noticing and then preferring it. Maybe reading this will do the same to you?
10) I believe there is meaning in dreams, and I write them down when I can and usually call my father after a particularly vivid dream to talk it over with him.
11) #11 is classified.
12) I have no form of musical talent whatsoever except perhaps taste.
13) I keep phone numbers and other important information in a small notebook (graph paper, naturally). It turns out in this particular function I prefer analog to digital.
14) Mint toothpaste triggers my gag reflex.
15) After each of my children was born I took them in my arms and sang to them to calm them down while the doctors attended to their mother.
16) I do not like monkeys. I have had nightmares about baboons.

New piccies.

Christmas 2008
Originally uploaded by Foucalt

Lots of new pics up on ye olde Flickr.

Goodreads: Outliers

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Even better than Blink and The Tipping Point, and a totally addictive read for me - I've been laboring through 3 or 4 books without finishing one for a couple of months now, and I finished this book (~280 pages) within 24 hours of cracking it open. Not everything here is relevant to decisions I'll need to make, but as a parent, a great deal of it actually is quite on-topic. Goes to the top of my recommended books list.


View all my reviews.

The Old Firm and the Napier Test

An interesting thing about being a clueless American living in England is that online news sites (this one came from a CNN link within Gmail) offer dastardly-sounding headlines like:

Celtic seven clear after Old Firm revenge

Sometimes I click on them, thinking (in this case) "Who are the Celtic seven?", "What were they on trial for?", "The Old Firm got its revenge? Is that the mafia or something?" etc. And then, almost inevitably, its about a sports team. The other day there was a really interesting sounding one that didn't even make any sense to me: Gayle hits 197 as Napier Test ends in draw - I thought (probably subconsciously thrown off by "Gayle") it might somehow be about a hurricane - 197 could be a wind speed, but what the devil is a Napier Test? I must know! Oh, right. Cricket. That most incomprehensible of British sports.

Bonus: Crew injured as speed yacht flips off France -those French are very sensitive to gestures made by passing yachts.

I love wikipedia.

So I gave them some money. Maybe you should too, if you're looking for a place to be charitable this years-end.

A Perrenial Christmas Classic!

Oh yeah, I should mention, some parts possibly Not Safe for Work, but not in a lewd way. In kind of a Schindler's List way.

Let's clear things up...

_MG_7433.jpg
Originally uploaded by jason hamacher

"You see, I, Jeff Wills, cannot possibly be the Batman, as so many of you have supposed, because as you can plainly see, here we are, appearing together for the first time. Let all these rumours be put to rest, once and for all..."