...is quickly followed by a delightful tangent into the topic of a clever search algorithm employing the Shuffle's randomization feature and a Markov Decision Process to guide it to the solution...complete with code in Python.

http://norvig.com/ipod.html

It is left as an "exercise for the reader" to mentally execute the algorithm therein against your Shuffle in order to find a song while jogging (or cycling) around Town Lake. For maximum stimulation, do not try this until you have already completed your first lap...

As a biographical aside, note that it's really Dr. Norvig's fault, by publishing 'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp' (http://norvig.com/paip.html) during my freshman year of university study, that I'm working at SigmaTel right now.

As such things go, that book led from my intense academic interest at the time in A.I. to Common Lisp along to Programming Languages in general and then the inevitable fascination in Compiler Implementation and Operating Systems (as the software run-time component of programming language implementation) down into Computer Architecture (as the hardware half of the language runtime).

These topics of study and the personalities I met in its pursuit led to role in a research project implementing a Declarative Hardware Description Language Targeting FPGA-based Reconfigurable Computing Platforms (thank you, DARPA).

That project, in addition to circumstance and general good luck, helped launch a career in the Austin high tech community during which I've continually pursued the personal goal of acquiring a skill set spanning all of the programmable facets of the System on Chip paradigm (from application software through firmware down to register transfer logic).

location: with laptop in bed mood: geeky music: cat snores tags: mp3 search algorithm nerd bio

I've summarized below. All of the details are at the following site.

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp


First off, the list of albums this applies to is fairly small (52).

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/titles.html


If the DRM was XCP, you get:

- non-DRM version of album
- MP3 download of same album
- EITHER $7.50 + 1 free album download OR 3 free album downloads

If the DRM was MediaMax 5.0, you get:

- MP3 download of same album
- 1 free album download

If the DRM was MediaMax 3.0, you get:

- MP3 download of same album

location: bedroom mood: hungry music: subtle rhythm of ceiling fan

'If patterns of ones and zeros were "like" patterns of human lives and deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented in a computer record by a long string of ones and zeros, then what kind of creature would be represented by a long string of lives and deaths? It would have to be up one level at least -- an angel, a minor god, something in a UFO. It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character in this being's name -- its complete dossier might take up a considerable piece of the history of the world. We are digits in God's computer...the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God.'

mood: amused music: hum of A/C

For various reasons, I find Paul Graham's two most recent essays quite interesting (http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html & http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html).

My biggest reason for this interest is that the background question I'm asking myself on at least a weekly basis these days is "What next?". Given that I have few permanent ties to the city I live in, Austin, this question immediately implies the subquestion of "Where next?".

In addition to visiting family and friends, part of the subtext of my recent vacation to Seattle was to ask the city that question. I intend to visit a few more cities in the upcoming months. It is telling that the top two cities on my short list are Portland and Boston.

As Graham defines it, the startup centers in the U.S. are Silicon Valley, Boston, and Seattle. His most likely candidates for future centers are Portland and Boulder (I should probably add the latter to my short list).

Sometime within the last few months or so, I read a newspaper article that compared Austin now to Silicon Valley twenty years ago. In the context of Graham's articles (and because I already live here), I have to ask myself, why not Austin?

Most of the necessary qualities to promote a startup-rich environment abound in Austin. So, what elements are deficient in this city that would justify why it wasn't listed with the other two potential candidates?

The biggest reason I can find for why not Austin is the lack of good VC groups. We only have one that I know of, which simply isn't enough, and the majority of opinions I've heard from colleagues express a mildly negative tone towards this firm.

Beyond the relative dearth of venture capital organizations, something which could easily be corrected, I think that Austin also has the disadvantage of being surrounded by Texas and everything that this implies.

location: SGTL office mood: introspective music: 'Amp Fiddler' by 'One Self'

My friend Mary asked about (Ruby on) Rails the other day. In surfing around for best-of-class web apps this evening, I discovered Backpack (http://www.backpackit.com).

Looking deeper, I found out that it was written by the developers of RoR. It (and any of their web apps, honestly) are worth checking out simply for the clean design and worthwhile features.

For example, I can email content into my Backpack page (obvious, simple, and rockin'). Also, I can have it send me reminders via SMS (again, an obviously useful feature...now you're talkin').

Oh, yeah...one more thing, and probably of most value from this group, is their design manifesto: Getting Real (https://gettingreal.37signals.com).

Out...

location: horizontal mood: curious music: Al-Haca tags: organizer, webapp

http://news.zdnet.com/html/z/wb/6035707.html

No, CRAP is not a four-letter word inappropriate for polite conversation, kids; it's an acronym for a piece of ****...err, technology.

Regarding the topic of CRAP, I have an anecdote to share. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to my Shuffle on my way to visit some friends. As I was arriving, a song came on that I really liked, and I decided that I wanted to share it with them.

Not having an 1/8" adapter for their stereo, I tried to insert it in their PC so that I could just play the file directly off of the player. Much to my surprise, iTunes had cleverly obfuscated the names of all of the tracks on the device, making it impossible to easily figure out which randomly named MP3 file was the song I wanted to share.

Well, I thought, since the filenames are hopelessly mangled when I view them on his PC, we can use iTunes on her Mac to get to the tracks since this is a similar system configuration to what I'd loaded the Shuffle from in the first place.

Upon inserting the Shuffle, it asked me if I wanted to associate it with her iTunes libraries and get rid of all of my files. Hmmm, this didn't seem right, so I clicked "No". Unfortunately, at that point, neither iTunes nor the Filer would recognize my Shuffle.

Okay, I thought, maybe if I tell it "Yes" it will let me get to my d**n music so I can play my friends this stupid song. At this point, I was getting pretty embarrased. In my friends eyes, this is the technology that I work with every day, and I should be able to make something as simple as playing them a single song work...right?

So, I reinserted the Shuffle and clicked "Yes". As the wording of the dialog seemed to imply (which is why I originally said "No"), iTunes happily erased all of my music, and I was left looking at an empty player ready to receive its next load of CRAP.

At this point I should note that I make it a point to own all of my music. Every song on that Shuffle was ripped as an unprotected MP3 from my CD collection specifically so I can use them on multiple player devices and between my Mac, Linux, and Windows machines.

Anyway, after all of the time I wasted trying to do the right thing, we went to the LimeWire connection that my friend was pirating music with in order to quickly and simply downloaded the song so that they could hear it. The illegal method took seconds and was painless while my attempts to use a legit way of playing the song wouldn't even work.

There's a moral in this story that the RIAA, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Napster, etcetera need to listen to (actually...eMusic kind of has it figured out, but their catalog is rather weak). Because of all this CRAP, I do not buy music from the online services; instead, I buy CDs that I know I can actually play in any CD player (as well as rip a copy for use in my MP3 player).

location: work mood: annoyed music: '97 Bonnie and Clyde by Tori Amos tags: crap, drm, mp3

אמת

location: Linwood, WA mood: reborn tags: creation, symbol