Posts from — November 2004

Taking a break from work before taking another break from work..

I think the vast majority of the features for Muse can be done through a web browser, including downloading. The client program would just need to send the manifest of music to the server, handle uploads as needed, and monitor the filesystem for new files. Keeping more of the work on the web site end makes it easier to implement on different platforms.

I need to get out of this week. Like seemingly everyone else, I have way too much to do. Part of me wants to skip next week, too, and just go home, even though next week won’t be all that hard.

Lately many people have been talking a lot about music. Sharing files themselves, but more importantly, discussing our opinions on different artists and albums, broadening our musical horizons (something I’ve been consciously trying to do for about a year now, but it’s getting trendy now).

What I want is a musical community. Real people who know each other, discussing, critiquing, and sharing music (the RIAA doesn’t read my journal, do they?). So here’s my idea, I’m going to call it “Muse” for now.

The application will be centralized, there will be a server to which clients connect. Eventually there could be multiple music communities, but initially there would be just one group. Users need to have accounts on the system, and use that acct to log in with a client application (windows and linux, of course). Users can see a breakdown of all the music possessed by the group, regardless of who is online at the time (a database would be on the server keeping track of this). Users could browse by artist, album, genre, user. Each artist, album, and track could have a comment associated with it. Several comments, actually, for different users. It’s not really meant to be a discussion board, but a place for people to post their thoughts on the item. It should be easy for them to link to other objects in the system, like “you might also like this other song”. It should analyze people’s music collections to do amazon-style “people who listen to Robert Goulet also listen to…”.

Actually, that amazon system could be made more powerful if people rated their music. Granted this would be very time consuming to do for every piece of music, but if it would be more relevant to say that people actually liked things in common instead of just having the same music. For example, I have a large volume of crappy jazz, but that doesn’t mean that I actually like it.

Statistics like newest tracks, most popular, most downloaded, most commented on would be pretty interesting.

Downloading tracks could ideally be done with bittorrent, but that would be tricky to implement for v1, so some sort of rate-limited downloading would need to be done (so it doesn’t max out the upload on DSL lines). The seed to leech ratio for bittorrent downloads would be very high compared to normal, but I think it could still give some benefits.

Groups would ideally be kept small, maybe around a dozen. At the very least everyone should know each other, making moderation largely a non-issue.

An interesting quote I ran into a couple of nights ago: “The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.” -Joe Ancis

A 1960s comic book about the perils of communism

Since running in Manchester during break, my interest in running has been renewed. Now that band is done and I have some more time on my hands, I’ve decided that I should try to run and work out regularly. I’m not going to set a target number of days per week, but I should be able to start with 3 this week without problem, and increase it during finals.

With this in mind, I’m going to start using my journal as a running log, describing my runs, what I see, how I feel, where I go. I doubt it’ll be that interesting to read, but it’ll encourage me to run more and give me something to think about while running.

Today I ran a <=3mile run, generally the shortest run I’ll do. I ran across 378, around the parking garage in north bethlehem, and straight back over the other bridge (whose name I always forget) to vine street. I went at a moderate pace, slow enough that I could talk (not that I had anyone to talk to), but fast enough that I felt tired. The weather was a bit colder than I expected (in the high 40s), but by the end of the run I was feeling pretty comfortable. There was a strong, cold wind from the west. I wore a long sleeve tshirt and shorts, gloves and a hat would have been worth considering but I’m still not sure if they would have gotten too hot.

What’s the name of the muscle on the lower leg on the side opposite the shin? Whatever it is, the one on the left was hurting so I had to stretch it a lot. No shin splints, but I’m going to try getting some arch supports for my shoes to see if that helps.

I need an icon for my running entries.

3/80/60

In case you haven’t seen it: Poor Table Manners Lead to Stabbings.

I picked up a bunch of new clothes for running in the winter today. I know that this week will be busy, but the week after that shouldn’t, I’m looking forward to trying them out.

I don’t remember how old my running shoes are. They look fairly new, I think they were bought last spring, but I’ve started getting shin splints after >3 miles. Not sure if my form has been worse or something, I’ll have to see how it goes. Maybe I’ll need a new pair.

And yes, I bought tights.

Guernica revised for the Pacers/Pistons game

Quick update.. I finished the Manchester Road Race in a little less than 38 minutes, which I think is a personal best (4.75 miles, I believe). The funny thing is that I didn’t train at all. I felt some shin splints and stomach cramps around mile 3.5, but I got through it. I really want to start running regularly during the winter. I qualified to start in the fast people’s area next year, not sure if I’ll do it, though.
Brian stole the “fast gloves” that I used in cross country in high school. I need to get new ones.