song archetypes: the list song

I often think about different kinds of song archetypes -- songs that either in form or content, get written and rewritten constantly. One of these days, I want to do an album of all song archetypes... I suppose one approach would be to make you try to figure out what archetype it is, and the other approach would be to make it incredibly obvious... I'm not sure which strategy I'll take on this nebulous idea (file it under "probably won't ever happen").

Anyway, one archetype that, as a kid, I thought was absolutely hilarious and clever, was what I called the "list song", which basically just begged you to memorize it. Notable list songs: We Didn't Start the Fire, and It's the End of the World As We Know It. I think that American Pie is also one part list song -- it's also one part "mysterious lyrics" song, which is a different archetype I'll talk about some other time.

All three of those also have the distinction of being list songs about historical events... but I'm sure there are lots of these songs out there.

Stay tuned for more song archetypes.

Syndicated 2008-05-10 17:53:49 from (l)andscape: (a)lien

today's soundtrack

So, I'd say 3/5 days I wake up with a song already in my head... I'm not sure where they come from -- maybe they're the song that was playing during my dream, or maybe they are *like* dreams -- I have this idea that if you "had" one of *my* dreams, that it would be something completely different to you, since our brains are different. I have no idea if that idea is scientifically sound or not. So I'm not sure if I actually had this song in my head while I slept, or if that's just the song I come up with when I try to make sense of the random music in my head. Anyway, today's soundtrack is "I'm still alive", by Pearl Jam.

Syndicated 2008-04-26 16:43:58 from (l)andscape: (a)lien

Piled Higher and Deeper

So, I've decided to stay on at UCLA and get a PhD.

Syndicated 2008-04-24 03:12:22 from (l)andscape: (a)lien

speed versus throughput

It occurred to me yesterday that while elevators have higher speed, escalators definitely have a higher throughput. In other words, if you were first in line, the elevator would get you to the ground faster -- but if you were last in line, the escalator would get you to the ground faster.

Imagine a 5 story building and you're on the top floor. There's one standard elevator that holds say, 15 people max and one standard escalator (running all the way to the ground floor). The escalator can hold at least 15 people at a time, probably way more.

You want to get to the ground floor. Assuming there are two even lines for each conveyance and people never change lines, which line would you rather be in?

Syndicated 2008-02-04 14:47:31 from (l)andscape: (a)lien

firefox forwards and backwards navigation

Thinkpad laptops have two special "forward" and "backward" keys above the typical left and right keys that are used for paging in applications like Firefox and other web browsers. Unfortunately, they don't work out of the box in Ubuntu like other buttons (like the volume knobs, suspend, etc.). I hate using Alt-Left/Right -- why make two keystrokes when I should be able to use one?

So I have been looking for a solution, but complicating this issue is that old solutions to this problem don't work in Firefox +v2.0, firefox extensions that advertise this ability are pre 2.0 as well, and Firefox remote tricks assigned to commands don't seem to work either (I think because of a vulnerability in Firefox remote? I'm not sure.)

Anyway, this site has a working howto, and it's really easy. The short version is to edit your ~/.Xmodmap to make back (keycode 234) and forwards (keycode 233) F19 and F20, and then edit browser.xul to use that instead of the Alt-Arrow combos. For Ubuntu anyway one thing different from the howto is that browser.xul is already unzipped in /usr/share/firefox/chrome/ ... etc, not in your homedir or .mozilla, etc. Just edit it and save it; you don't need to re-package chrome or whatever although you do need to restart Firefox. This material should get updated in the ThinkWiki and other sites... but I'm not going to do it.

Incidentally, the "back" and "forward" buttons on the new Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 use the same keycodes, so if you have one attached to your Thinkpad like me, this is a two-for-one deal.

Syndicated 2007-09-22 22:36:03 from (l)andscape: (a)lien