Membranophonist's Ramblings

Interaction and interface design, technology, politics, music, and random thoughts…

December 19, 2003
2 Comments

Loving America

“They [conservatives] love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking

December 19, 2003
1 Comment

Rummy made a friend that day!

“As with all nations we respect Iraq’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity”

-Donald Rumsfeld to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, 1983 communique to the Secretary of State

There are many declassified memos detailing how the Reagan administration worked at the …

December 19, 2003
2 Comments

I’m an iTunes 4.2 Groupie

blockquotep“Here’s an example classical album: a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=2616866" title="iTMS - James Levine conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Mozart No. 40 & 41"Mozart: Symphonies 40 & 41./abr/br//p
pThe first tracks 1-4 are “Symphony 40″, tracks 5-8 are “Symphony 41″. You could use the Grouping field for the symphony, and you wouldn’t need to have it in the track titles.”/p/blockquote
pI’m using the Grouping field as a sub-genre/influences classification system. My “Jazz” collection encompasses everything from Nat King Cole to Sun Ra, so “Jazz” doesn’t do much to classify these differently. To my “Jazz” genre, I’ve added:/p
ul
liBig Band (Ellington, Basie)/li
liBebop (Parker, Gillespie)/li
liHard Bop (Blakey, 50′s Miles Davis)/li
liPost Bop (Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock)/li
liFree (Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Sam Rivers)/li
liNeo Bop (80′s Marsalis, Redman, Roy Hargrove)/li
/ul
pMiles Davis’ a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=492080" title="iTMS - Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain"“Sketches of Spain/a,” a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=923573" iTMS - Miles Davis: Miles Ahead">“Miles Ahead
,” and “Porgy and Bess” are grouped as “Miles Davis/Gil Evans” to tie these special collaborations with genius arranger Gil Evans together. They aren’t really Big Band albums, they aren’t really Hard Bop, and they definitely aren’t …