There are several tools to help people discover new music. Two off the top of my head are iTune’s Genius and Beatport’s BeatBot. I have not tried Genius, but I have tried BeatBot. It is a hit or miss feature, with greater emphasis on the miss. Understandably advising on something as complex as musical tastes is no easy task – and probably dangerous.

Genres in particular are very fluid. Even though we have hundreds of genres and sub-genres, it is not uncommon for there to be ambiguities and mixes of several types of genres. It took me a while to discover the difference between trance and house music, and even today it puzzles me. A lot of the blame is due to mislabelling or generalizing of artists and albums but that is another topic.

Musical preferences is also very different between people who like even the same genre of music, because the genre itself has changed and evolved. If you listen to early dubstep (Girl from Codeine City by L-Wiz) and more recent dubstep (Game Time by Zomboy) tracks, they are two different sounds. Though, I’m fairly sure each classifies as their own sub-genre by now.

When you try to mix these two algorithmically, the results do not hold great promise. At least, in my case. If you ever listen to tsubaki, his sound is pretty unique. Beatbot will return some reggae (getting warmer), hip hop (colder), and dubstep (colder). Nothing of which sounds comparable.

Recently though, I found tsubaki on soundcloud. More importantly, soundcloud lets you see what other artists that artist is following. And I now found another artist that makes similar music – dubsalon. So here we have the artist recommending (or at least, listening) to another artist.

This is something that I think we should take advantage of, if not already (which I think we do not). This information is a bit more difficult to harvest, but might be more useful.

I recently had a problem with my WIND account. I was being charged data that I could not figure out where it was coming from. I had a social blackberry which allows unlimited Facebook/BBM/twitter which I use. When I try to access a website, my blackberry will stop me saying that I do not have a data plan.

I went to the WIND store and complained. They offered a solution where all data that was not covered under the plan would be disabled. That was an ideal solution, so I accepted it. I had to call customer service if I wanted to dispute the data charges.

A week later and I was still being charged data. I called them up to dispute the charges. After talking to a representative (two actually. The first one I lost connection with), it turns out that I was accessing data on a WIND away zone. The horseshit term they use when you are outside their network coverage.

I live/work/play in downtown Toronto…

The last data charge was around 8pm. That was about the time I was exiting the YMCA… in downtown Toronto.

If you check their coverage map, downtown Toronto saturated as a WIND Home zone. I was apparently hitting a WIND Away zone.

This isn’t unheard of, nor unique to WIND. A friend complained that Fido once charged him an obscene amount because he was hitting a US tower while in Victoria BC. Oh yes, that will be quite a bit of roaming.

I was refunded $2 as a one time good gesture. Because I switched numbers when I went to the WIND store, they could not refund me the amount from my previous number. It was a net loss of $14 on WIND’s crappy network coverage. The only solution they offer is to call WIND and have them remove any WIND away coverage. This is not ideal in the situation that I am in one of WIND’s away zone and I will need to use my phone in an (non-911) emergency. So I would have to remember to call and re-enable it. Very inconvenient. In fact, the correct solution is for WIND to deliver the coverage they promise. Maybe they should learn a thing or two from Verizon:

http://youtu.be/OPwPo-IAQ-E

I hope that network coverage improves. The offer really good rates, but at a major cost of reliability and coverage. I will be with them for at least the next few months until I can get my phone unlocked. Let’s see if I stick with them in the long run.

It happened a few days ago, and it was bound to happen sooner or later. My sister could no longer log into her account on her Windows XP machine. When you tried, it went to a black screen with only the mouse cursor shown. The common symptoms of a broken computer, like one caused by a virus infection.

Normally, this sort of thing would be a geeks nightmare. One would have to spend time to fix it or reinstall Windows XP. There are supposedly tools to fix this (System restore and such) but past experience has shown this rarely fixes the problem.

But I was prepared this time. When I first set-up my sister’s machine, I made her a limited user. And it was one of the better decisions I made. I simply created her a new account, and everything worked and she was happy to have her computer back with AIM and MSN and iTunes (though not the music, though that can easily be copied over).

This has some pitfalls. I have to log in to do random stupid stuff like change the clock time, install new software, and update Firefox. But these hassles, even when combined, have paid off for themselves by not having me sit in front of a broken computer.

Managing her account from Regina is gonna be hard though. And I don’t have much time to resolve this problem.

Please, please, please stop defending Phelps on this pot thing. You’re not only really bad at defending him (and really, he can defend himself. He’s an adult), but you might be actively hurting the pot movement you are so obviously championing for. You are well intentioned, but please keep thought-deprived comments and headlines to yourself.

If you want to learn more about the movement, both for and against. You can read more about it at the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Either of these do a much, much, much better job.