Dead badgers, music, and computers
A new technique for resuscitating animals that have been dead up to three hours -- sensationally blogged there as "zombie dogs" -- brings new meaning to a guide a friend recently sent me: Linux on a dead badger.
My brother, a burgeoning composer, might be interested in Video Games Live, a live concert of video game music, including more advanced recent efforts such as Halo. It's in Cleveland on August 24th -- tickets from $20 up via Ticketmaster.
Speaking of music in the tech industry, Microsoft has patented a system for training people to objectively rate the fundamental, subjective aspects of a piece of popular music according to three fundamental properties: Rhythm, Zing, and Mood. The patent pretty much states that it's not designed to cover classical music -- Microsoft apparently thinks we've got objective ratings nailed down there, which is fine by me since it presumably means they won't be trying to fix it -- but it is kind of funny to picture Beethoven posting a poll at ludwigv.com to ask fans if they think the 6th Symphony should have a "throbbing" vibe, or if he should go for "groovy." If you want to read more about how Microsoft thinks music can be rated without any of that loosy-goosy subjective judgmentalism stuff, the patent is here. They've designed this system, apparently, because they think that they can objectively score a certain kind of music against certain scales, thus coming up with a better system for recommendations than Amazon.com's statistical algorithms based on user ratings and purchasing tendencies. And they may be right, though given the music I suspect they're really going to market with this thing, their system looks a little too complex, with remnants of subjective judgment, to me. They might have stuck to a simple one-dimensional scale with "Gwen Stefani" at one end and "Britney Spears" at the other. I won't say what the dimension should be labeled. (Bonus cheap shot: Imagine Bill Gates trying to demonstrate the difference between a throbbing vibe and a groovy one.)
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