I’ve been blogging a lot (ok, not a lot) on the Rails Machine blog, but work, the Creative Coast and other stuff seems to take up all the time I would otherwise spend writing.

In fact, I have to write a column for the paper that’s due on Monday, so I guess I should go do that instead of writing this drivel.

That’s my talk on learning to think like a hacker from this year’s TEDxCreativeCoast. It was the most nervous I’ve ever been before a talk and the most pressure I’ve ever felt for a talk. I think it turned out OK…

I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

]]> http://lawver.net/2012/06/my-tedxcreativecoast-talk-is-up/feed/ 1 http://lawver.net/2012/03/my-most-played-songs/ http://lawver.net/2012/03/my-most-played-songs/#comments Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:49:04 +0000 Kevin Lawver http://lawver.net/?p=2726 I can’t remember when I did it, but a few years ago I reset all the play counts in iTunes. That was years ago at this point, and since switching to Rdio for most of my music listening, I only use iTunes for things I can’t get on Rdio, live shows from nyctaper or podcasts. I was looking for something new to choose for This is My Jam, and decided I’d just pick the song I’ve played the most in iTunes. And then I decided I might as well share my “historical” top ten songs as shown by what I actually listened to. So, here they are, followed by the number of times I’ve listened to them according to iTunes. Excuse the profanity, that is really the name of the band (and they’re awesome):

1. Lovely Allen by Holy Fuck – 153
2. Pullin Punches by Arkells – 150
3. Fresh Blood by Eels – 137
4. Working Full-Time by The Constantines – 122
5. Happy by The Wrens – 113
6. Your Hand in Mine by Explosions in the Sky – 111
7. Dance Like a Monkey by New York Dolls – 106 (this one’s skewed because I accidentally left it on repeat one day where I had a lot of meetings and I forgot to pause it – still, it’s a great song. The video is killer.)
8. I Play My Kazoo by Grand Analog – 102
9. Soon Enough by The Constantines – 101
10. Violet Light by Raised by Swans – 101

I also went ahead and created a playlist in Rdio with Trnsmit with my top 100 songs (Rdio doesn’t have all of them, so it’ll be less than 100, but whatever).

It’s funny that the bands I consider my all-time favorites don’t show up until farther down the list (*Massive Attack* shows up at number 13 with Paradise Circus and Morphine doesn’t show up until number 26 with Come Along). The Constantines show up a ton in the top 50, but that’s mostly because my “Best of the Constantines” playlist was a constant companion for almost a year when I had to crank out code on a deadline.

Oh well, there you go, my top 10 songs played in iTunes. I wish I could do the same in Rdio. I have a feeling it would be dominated by Library Voices.

And yes, this post is instead of writing one about my time at SxSW this year or my new job at Rails Machine that I start in a few weeks. I might write those blog posts later.

I’ve got a problem right off with Ziggy Sobotka going up against Omar in round one. I love Ziggy, but he’s got no chance against Omar.

• West Baltimore: Omar Little – No doubt.
• Hamsterdam: Jimmy McNulty – Clay Davis would win if it was for “most quotable”.
• The Ports: Bunny Colvin – This one was really close between Bunny and Tommy Carcetti, but I think Bunny is the better character.
• East Baltimore: Lester Freamon – I know people love Stringer, but Lester is deep, complex and a perfect foil to McNulty.

And your picks?

I’ve figured out a workflow for getting through and rating everything using iTunes’ Smart Playlists that I figure might help you if you want to do the same thing:

1. Download the torrent and then put all the songs in a single regular playlist.
2. Create a new Smart Playlist for the songs you haven’t listened to and haven’t skipped. It took a little while to get this set up correctly, but it should be something like this (and then sorted by artist):
   • Playlist – is – Your SxSW Torrent playlist (mine’s called SxSW 2012)
   • Plays – is less than – 1
   • Skips – is less than – 1
   • Rating – is not – 1 star
   • Rating – is not – 2 stars
3. Create another Smart Playlist for things you’ve listened to but haven’t rated:
   • Playlist – is – SxSW 2012
   • Rating – is – no stars
   • Plays – is greater than – 0 (this removes any that you skipped, which you can assume you want to leave 0 stars)
4. I also created one like the unrated, but where the Rating is greater than 3 to find my favorites.

What’s great about the unlistened Smart Playlist is that if I give something a rating of 1 or 2 stars, it automatically skips it and goes on to the next song.

Hopefully this helps you better manage your SxSW torrent listening experience! I’ll try to remember to come back and share my favorites. I’m halfway through the B’s as I write this. Only 686 songs to go (and this is just the “Part 1″ torrent)!

Oh, and if you don’t want to bother with any of that, I made an Rdio playlist with the songs Rdio has out of the list (about 380 out of the 771 songs in Part 1).

The problem with Rdio is that it’s not easy to find the things you’ve added to your collection that were released in the past year, so this list isn’t complete yet. But, if you’re really eager to get the complete list, check back.

And here it is, selections from my favorite albums of 2011. It was a great year for music, and I had a hard time choosing. I think there are about 20 albums represented here, all of them worth picking up or adding to your collection! Enjoy!

• Your manhood too small? // Your wife will be happier // If you take our pill!
• African prince here // Need help to send you dollars // Just fill out this form!
• Replica watches // Built in Ukraine, look like best // (only last a week)
• Russian brides for you! // They’ll love you for your money // Peruse our beauties!
• Not really PayPal // Need your password, or… bad stuff! // I’m, like, official!
• Someone thinks you’re cute! // But, to find out, we need cash // You poor lonely fool.

The great thing about haikus is that they easily fit on twitter too. I’ve posted a couple of these with the hashtag #haikuspam. If you write your own, tag ‘em and share ‘em with the world!

Here’s a quick recap of the last few Halloweens:

2006: Max was both Calvin and Spaceman Spiff. Brian was Hobbes.

2008: Max and Brian from Abe Koford’s awesome web comic, Laugh Out Loud Cats.

2009: This one wasn’t so obscure… Max was Luigi and Brian was Darth Vader. We still had to explain Max’s costume to the neighbors.

2010: Max as Geno from Super Mario RPG and Brian as Link from Legend of Zelda.

And 2011: Brian as a Peashooter from Plants vs. Zombies. Max decided not to dress up this year after failing to manufacture all the pieces he needed to be Gordon Freeman from Half-Life.

We went to my co-worker Juliet’s birthday party on Saturday and my other co-worker, Steven, brought his daughter. Brian also had a project last week at school where he had to take care of a tiny pumpkin like a baby, so we’d been having lots of chats about what it was like to have a baby. Brian told me he couldn’t remember ever holding a baby before. I tried to remind him of the time he held a baby at Uncle Tim’s birthday party in Ohio, but he didn’t remember it.

So, the day before the birthday party, I asked Steven if we could “borrow” Stella at the party. Brian was an absolute champ with her, and Stella was an angel. She’s the coolest and calmest baby I’ve ever seen and had a ball laughing at everyone and being the center of attention. Brian was super gentle and did a good job holding her and keeping her from tumbling onto the lawn.

I think the reason I love that photo so much is that it sort of cements that Jen and I don’t have “little” kids anymore. The boys are growing up and we have entirely new things to deal with – no more dirty diapers, but we get to deal with peer pressure, girls, school projects and trips, parties, etc. I kind of miss having babies around, but I don’t think I’d trade places with Steven. We did the baby thing, and now it’s time to do this.