Blog
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Streaming Music Services
In general, I've never been the kind of guy who likes to listen to music at work. And in most of my previous jobs, I really wouldn't have been able to listen to music, since there were a lot of interruptions and interactions that would have prevented me from getting too far into anything before I'd have to take my headphones off to answer a call, or run over to a user's desk, or whatever. But, in my current job, I'm doing a fair amount of "heads down" programming, with few interruptions. And I'm actually finding that some of the office noise distracts me enough that drowning it out with music allows me to be more productive.
For a while, I tried just listening to Coffeetivity. This was kind of helpful, but also kind of boring. I may give it another try at some point. I also tried focus@will. The idea here is kind of cool, but I'm not convinced it would make me more productive than listening to music of my own choosing. Again, I may give it another try at some point, maybe the next time they run a 50% off sale on a year's subscription to their "premium" service. And, as I've mentioned previously on this blog, I was really in love with turntable.fm. Unfortunately, they shut down a while ago.
After messing around with all this stuff, I settled into a habit of listening to Pandora a lot. I set up some "stations" based on my favorite artists, and that worked out pretty well. About a year ago, I paid $36 to subscribe to Pandora One for a year, so I could get rid of the ads. That didn't seem like a bad price, even though it really doesn't buy you anything other than ad-free listening.
This past weekend, I got a notice that it was time to renew. (Normally, that would have happened automatically, but my credit card got stolen a while back and I had to replace it, so they couldn't put through the charge on my old card.) I really wanted to just renew it for another whole year, but Pandora discontinued the annual plan a while back. So the $36/year (effectively $3/month) plan would become a $4/month plan with no annual billing option. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go forward with that, so I basically just let the subscription lapse. Then, on Monday, when I looked again, I realized that I was no longer eligible for the $4/month "loyalty price," and would have to go on the new $5/month plan. So I decided that was a but much, and I'd look around at other options.
For now, I've settled on Slacker. The ad-free version is $4/month, and it gets you a few things that you don't get with Pandora. The one feature I really like, and I wish Pandora allowed, is the option to download stuff for offline listening. I can't use my employer's wifi to stream music to my phone at work, so I have to rely on my Verizon data connection. This generally works OK, but I can wind up getting pretty close to my data cap sometimes, and I think it drains the battery a lot more than listening from a local cache. So just being able to download a cache of stuff over my home wifi, before leaving for work, is useful.
I'm also finding that Slacker's "curated" stations are interesting. I listened to "The Current" station today, and it was really good. I'm not sure how often the content on that station is refreshed, but I could see myself listening to that one quite a lot. So, overall, I'm finding Slacker to be just as good as Pandora, but with a few more bells and whistles. Over time, I'll see how well it holds up -- whether or not there are any glitches with the app, how often content is refreshed, and stuff like that. But I'm feeling pretty good about it.
For a while, I tried just listening to Coffeetivity. This was kind of helpful, but also kind of boring. I may give it another try at some point. I also tried focus@will. The idea here is kind of cool, but I'm not convinced it would make me more productive than listening to music of my own choosing. Again, I may give it another try at some point, maybe the next time they run a 50% off sale on a year's subscription to their "premium" service. And, as I've mentioned previously on this blog, I was really in love with turntable.fm. Unfortunately, they shut down a while ago.
After messing around with all this stuff, I settled into a habit of listening to Pandora a lot. I set up some "stations" based on my favorite artists, and that worked out pretty well. About a year ago, I paid $36 to subscribe to Pandora One for a year, so I could get rid of the ads. That didn't seem like a bad price, even though it really doesn't buy you anything other than ad-free listening.
This past weekend, I got a notice that it was time to renew. (Normally, that would have happened automatically, but my credit card got stolen a while back and I had to replace it, so they couldn't put through the charge on my old card.) I really wanted to just renew it for another whole year, but Pandora discontinued the annual plan a while back. So the $36/year (effectively $3/month) plan would become a $4/month plan with no annual billing option. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go forward with that, so I basically just let the subscription lapse. Then, on Monday, when I looked again, I realized that I was no longer eligible for the $4/month "loyalty price," and would have to go on the new $5/month plan. So I decided that was a but much, and I'd look around at other options.
For now, I've settled on Slacker. The ad-free version is $4/month, and it gets you a few things that you don't get with Pandora. The one feature I really like, and I wish Pandora allowed, is the option to download stuff for offline listening. I can't use my employer's wifi to stream music to my phone at work, so I have to rely on my Verizon data connection. This generally works OK, but I can wind up getting pretty close to my data cap sometimes, and I think it drains the battery a lot more than listening from a local cache. So just being able to download a cache of stuff over my home wifi, before leaving for work, is useful.
I'm also finding that Slacker's "curated" stations are interesting. I listened to "The Current" station today, and it was really good. I'm not sure how often the content on that station is refreshed, but I could see myself listening to that one quite a lot. So, overall, I'm finding Slacker to be just as good as Pandora, but with a few more bells and whistles. Over time, I'll see how well it holds up -- whether or not there are any glitches with the app, how often content is refreshed, and stuff like that. But I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Friday, April 04, 2014
new Bob Mould
Cool, a new Bob Mould song!
Labels: music
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Motion Sickness of Time Travel
Monday, March 04, 2013
Call Me A Hole
This is great. Funniest mashup I've heard in quite a while!
Labels: music
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Higgs Boson Blues
Labels: music
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Two Man Gentleman Band
I heard these guys on Soundcheck yesterday. They were pretty funny. Worth a listen, if you like funny songs about food and booze and stuff!
Labels: music
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Ghosts
I've only just now figured out that Ted Leo's "Ghosts" is a cover of The Jam's "Ghosts". I've probably listened to Ted's version 100 times in the last few years. I hadn't really listened to The Jam at all recently, until digging out my copy of At the BBC
last week. Listened to the first CD last Saturday, and I'm listening to the second CD today. Good stuff!
last week. Listened to the first CD last Saturday, and I'm listening to the second CD today. Good stuff!Labels: music
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Wilco - Shot In The Arm
Listening to Summerteeth today. I'd forgotten how good it was.
Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm.And searching for "shot in the arm" on Google found an old article about the band's breakup with Reprise Records over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. How wrong was Reprise about *that*?
Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.
...
What you once were isn't what you want to be anymore.
Labels: music
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Motion Sickness of Time Travel
Found this person's music via Warren Ellis' blog. Here's a link to all her stuff that's on SoundCloud. And this is also good. And I might as well embed something:
Labels: music
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Reading and Music
I've been having a bit of a problem at home lately. They play music on Main St. now, for most of the day. They used to just do this around Christmas, but now they're doing it all the time. They've got one set of songs programmed into the thing. It's all basically soft rock, with a little jazz mixed in. Stevie Nicks, Seal, Sting, Sade, that kind of stuff. Lots of artists whose names begin with "S", for some reason.
A few weeks ago, on a Monday night, the timer went wonky on it and it kept playing all night. Even with all the windows closed, and earplugs in my ears, I could still hear the music, and really couldn't sleep at all that night. I (and at least one of my neighbors) called the police, but they didn't know how to turn it off, or have contact info for anyone who could. (Supposedly, that's been fixed if this happens again.)
While the music was bothersome before, this incident has reprogrammed my brain so that the mere hint of "Sweetest Taboo" (for example) starts to make me shiver and feel slightly nauseous.
This isn't much of a bother on weekdays, since I only have to put up with an hour or two of it, between whenever I get home from work, and 8pm, when the timer (hopefully) turns it off. I'm generally watching the previous night's Stewart and Colbert after work, so that drowns it out.
On weekends, though, I often like to sit around and read during the day, so this is a problem. I need to find some music I can listen to that drowns out the Main St muzak, but doesn't distract too much from what I'm reading. I've been reading Zero History
by William Gibson over the last week or so. I'm almost done with it. Yesterday, I used Fugazi's Instrument
soundtrack to down out the muzak. Today, I'm using turntable.fm, specifically the ambient/chillout and coding soundtrack rooms. I've discovered that I can get pretty good sound out of my iPhone by putting it in an old dock that I friend gave me a few years ago, and connecting that to my receiver via a mini-stereo to RCA cable, into the "tape" input. Previously, I'd just been connecting it by inserting the cable into the headphone jack, but the dock makes a big difference, for some reason.
I've really been digging Turntable.fm lately, by the way. This is one of those things that the internet is great for, but that usually goes wrong after a while. Right now, you can fire up turntable.fm, go into the right room, and there will be a few people with impeccable taste playing great songs for a crowd of maybe 50 or 100 people. No advertisements. No jokers coming in and playing Rick Astley. No spambots coming in and DJ'ing ads for boner pills. I'm not sure why it works, but I'm glad it does.
Also, about Zero History: good book! I've found that a number of things in it, sometimes just minor stuff, has sent me off to the internet to do a little research. Node Magazine and the Zero History blog have some good links. I've also found myself looking into Saharan guitar music and other odd stuff like that.
A few weeks ago, on a Monday night, the timer went wonky on it and it kept playing all night. Even with all the windows closed, and earplugs in my ears, I could still hear the music, and really couldn't sleep at all that night. I (and at least one of my neighbors) called the police, but they didn't know how to turn it off, or have contact info for anyone who could. (Supposedly, that's been fixed if this happens again.)
While the music was bothersome before, this incident has reprogrammed my brain so that the mere hint of "Sweetest Taboo" (for example) starts to make me shiver and feel slightly nauseous.
This isn't much of a bother on weekdays, since I only have to put up with an hour or two of it, between whenever I get home from work, and 8pm, when the timer (hopefully) turns it off. I'm generally watching the previous night's Stewart and Colbert after work, so that drowns it out.
On weekends, though, I often like to sit around and read during the day, so this is a problem. I need to find some music I can listen to that drowns out the Main St muzak, but doesn't distract too much from what I'm reading. I've been reading Zero History
by William Gibson over the last week or so. I'm almost done with it. Yesterday, I used Fugazi's Instrument soundtrack to down out the muzak. Today, I'm using turntable.fm, specifically the ambient/chillout and coding soundtrack rooms. I've discovered that I can get pretty good sound out of my iPhone by putting it in an old dock that I friend gave me a few years ago, and connecting that to my receiver via a mini-stereo to RCA cable, into the "tape" input. Previously, I'd just been connecting it by inserting the cable into the headphone jack, but the dock makes a big difference, for some reason.
I've really been digging Turntable.fm lately, by the way. This is one of those things that the internet is great for, but that usually goes wrong after a while. Right now, you can fire up turntable.fm, go into the right room, and there will be a few people with impeccable taste playing great songs for a crowd of maybe 50 or 100 people. No advertisements. No jokers coming in and playing Rick Astley. No spambots coming in and DJ'ing ads for boner pills. I'm not sure why it works, but I'm glad it does.
Also, about Zero History: good book! I've found that a number of things in it, sometimes just minor stuff, has sent me off to the internet to do a little research. Node Magazine and the Zero History blog have some good links. I've also found myself looking into Saharan guitar music and other odd stuff like that.
Labels: books, music, Somerville
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
45th birthday
Yesterday was my 45th birthday. It was a pretty low-key birthday. I strayed from my diet and had a couple of slices of pizza for dinner, and I allowed myself a buttered roll in the morning, but I didn't go overboard with anything. I had the idea today to look back on what I might have been doing on and around my birthday, since I started this blog. So here's a pretty random list of stuff, assembled by looking back at my Blogger archives.
2003
And that's about where I feel like I should end this. I'm feeling weirder than usual about my birthday this year, for various reasons. But I can't complain. I've been able to spend time with several really good friends over the last couple of weeks, and I think I'll likely enjoy this coming weekend too, so that's all I can really ask for.
2003
- I went to Comic-Con that year. (I was making reservations in March. I'm going again this year, after skipping it for a few years.)
- I was reading Sinfest, which I haven't been following lately, but is apparently still around (and still funny).
- I was reading "His Dark Materials", and listening to Rum Diary.
- I had just gotten the 90,000 mile service done on my 97 Civic. (I got my 2008 Accord inspected yesterday. It's got about 45k miles on it.)
- Windows XP was giving me grief.
- I was listening to Warren Ellis' "Superburst Mixtape" podcast. (That's long gone. He has a new one named SPEKTRMODULE now, which I've been listening to recently, and is quite good.)
- I was watching Samurai Champloo on Cartoon Network. (I have it on Blu-Ray now, but I haven't gotten around to re-watching it.)
- I bought "The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases" at WonderCon. (I still haven't finished reading it. It is really funny though.)
- I got my first Kindle. I've since traded that in for a new one, but I still haven't read some of the books I loaded onto that first one (and later transferred to the second).
And that's about where I feel like I should end this. I'm feeling weirder than usual about my birthday this year, for various reasons. But I can't complain. I've been able to spend time with several really good friends over the last couple of weeks, and I think I'll likely enjoy this coming weekend too, so that's all I can really ask for.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
your protector
One more music embed. This is a good one.
Labels: music
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Not Fade Away
Another music embed post. Why not, right?
Not Fade Away > Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away by gratefuldead
Labels: music
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Gingko, by Joss
I really like this song. I forget all about it for a while, then randomly notice it in my iTunes library, hit play, and off I go...
Find more artists like Joss at Myspace Music
Labels: music
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
goodbye, eMusic
I finally went ahead and canceled my eMusic subscription today. Looking back at 2010, I only managed to get on there and download stuff four times, about 12 albums total. Given that I'm paying the monthly fee whether or not I actually download anything, that's a bunch of money down the drain. Sometimes, if you don't download anything for awhile, they credit you with a free month, but that only partially covers you, if you haven't been on in three months.
Their new fee structure was the last straw. It really seems like I can do just as good downloading MP3s from Amazon, and only paying for stuff I actually want to buy. When I first signed up, back in 2001, eMusic was a pretty good deal -- 40 tracks a month for $10. And, back then, I was actually getting on there every month, downloading stuff, and listening to it. At this point, even though I'm not downloading as much, I find that I'm not even listening to a lot of the stuff I do download. Looking at my iTunes library, I see stuff I downloaded in 2008 that I haven't listened to yet.
There's some good articles about eMusic up on PaidContent, if you want to look back at some of the changes they've made over the last couple of years.
Their new fee structure was the last straw. It really seems like I can do just as good downloading MP3s from Amazon, and only paying for stuff I actually want to buy. When I first signed up, back in 2001, eMusic was a pretty good deal -- 40 tracks a month for $10. And, back then, I was actually getting on there every month, downloading stuff, and listening to it. At this point, even though I'm not downloading as much, I find that I'm not even listening to a lot of the stuff I do download. Looking at my iTunes library, I see stuff I downloaded in 2008 that I haven't listened to yet.
There's some good articles about eMusic up on PaidContent, if you want to look back at some of the changes they've made over the last couple of years.
Labels: music
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Time to drop eMusic?
As eMusic Embraces Major Labels, Its Indie Core Is Leaving | Techdirt -- I've been thinking about dropping eMusic. It might be time. I don't get around to downloading stuff every month, so there are a lot of times where I'm paying the fee and not getting anything for it.
Labels: music
Saturday, May 08, 2010
White Stripes
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Scottish people are cool
I just realized that I've been paying a lot of attention to Scottish people lately.
- On TV: Craig Ferguson
- Music: Frightened Rabbit
- Reading: Charlie Stross
Monday, January 12, 2009
bad timing
Don't you hate it when you randomly come across a really good band, and check their web site, only to find out that they played a show in NYC just two days ago, and now probably won't be back any time soon? Yeah.
Labels: music
Sunday, January 11, 2009
more iTunes Plus
Only a few days after upgrading 200+ songs to iTunes Plus, I went back again today, and found another almost 200 songs to upgrade. The biggest chunk there is the complete Led Zeppelin, which I bought for $99 a while ago, and will now cost me about $30 more to upgrade. I've noticed that the songs are downloading pretty quickly, but the bit where it says "processing file" right after the download is taking quite a long time on each song. I have no clue why that is, but whatever it is, it's going to take a long time to get all that Led Zep converted to iTunes Plus.
© 2011 Andrew Huey
