Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Over the years I've spent a good deal of time with headphones piping music into my cranium or with the radio on in the background.

I normally use the music as an additional stimulant, something to get the blood pumping, even if I am just sitting at the computer typing. However, I remember listening to Green Day and Stone Temple Pilots while mowing the lawn back at my mom's house in Michigan. (Notably on a 'walkman' (portable personal cassette player to anyone too young to remember.)

Last night I spent some time searching for a song that might not even exist. I did a lyric search and what came back was a song by Garbage on their Garbage 2.0 album. I have that album and I don't think it is the song that I was thinking about, I need to find it and listen to it to make sure.

But I digress, the point is I spent time listening to samples of various tracks from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. There were songs that got my blood pumping, even from the 30 second sample. I bought a few of them, I don't remember which ones but I can look them up and post them after I get home later today.

However, as I was listening to some of the samples I sort of remembered the first time I heard them. It made me sort of feel like I was reliving my youth. Sitting up in the journalism room on the 3rd floor after hours doing the desktop publishing for the theatre's programs for the various plays and musicals I assisted (and performed) in over those 4 years.

I remembered, mowing the lawn, jogging or being down in Mexico for that summer before high school. My taste in music is best termed as eclectic. The word eclectic is usually reserved for folks that tend to collect taxidermy fruit or other such general weirdness.

Growing up I listened to pretty much whatever my mom liked, which meant lots of MoTown. However, at some point Bill Joel got inserted into the mix. I am not sure what made me like it, I think it is the piano. But I managed to kill two cassette tapes of his greatest hits. (I have since bought the CD set, which came with about 5 new songs.)

Sometime in 1995 I started driving, this meant that I had control of the radio. I listened almost exclusively to 92.1 the Edge, alternative rock, previously I listened to FM95 (i think that was the name) it ran a Top 40 line up. Sometime in 1995 I got my own CD player, so moving beyond just listening to Alternative on the radio I start buying CDs. (Here in Austin, I listen almost exclusively to 101X, alternative rock.)

I didn't really listen to 80s rock growing up, so when I hear it on the flashback lunch breaks I still occasionally hear a new song. I really like some of it, but not all of it. I bought some 80s alternative rock last night. My reason for mentioning that is because when it came to buying music for the next 10 years or so, I only bought stuff that I had been listening to since 1995. There are a few albums in my collection that date prior to 1995 (ie Billy Joel, and some artists that I liked enough to buy their older stuff).

Back to the title of this post 'Music as a stimulant?'.

As I was saying, I normally listen to music to keep myself motivated. I remember back in the early days of being down here in Texas, Gene used to listen to Metallica all the time. Then as the techno music movement made it's way through Austin, many of the programmers got really into techno music. (Notably some were there before and after the movement.)

I think everyone has music that gets their blood pumping. I think there are a lot of people that listen to music to calm down too.

As they say 'Music soothes the savage beast.'

I know that there are artists that calm me down. Almost all classical music for instance puts me to sleep. I mean that literally, and mean no offense to those that enjoy, compose, or play classical music. I find classical music to be quite relaxing and will normally get relaxed enough to just nod off while listening to it. Particularly if it has cello. I played cell back in middle school and was told at one point during that time 'The cello has the closet equivalent range to the female voice.'

I think this might be true, given that most of the artists that make me relax are women, who tend to have prominent solos or ensemble vocal pieces.

Anyway, I forget entirely why I thought this would be interesting to write about. But I do remember that yesterday my boss told me that I sounded tired. (which I am.)

It has been raining here for the last few days (nice and sunny at the moment). As I have stated in the past 'i am solar powered', so the rain makes me sleepy. He said 'Wow, you must have been really tired back in Michigan.'

I don't remember it raining constantly there, I remember it raining regularly then dissipating. However, I replied 'maybe that is why I formed my caffeine habit, because I was tired all the time in Michigan.'

Which later as I was listening to the various samples last night, maybe that is also why I got hooked on music too.

I think I am addicted to Music (and caffeine).

Back to the grind.

Laterz

At the Web 2.0 Expo I sat through a technical presentation by the Facebook guys, they were talking about their new API, FQL.

It is an interesting take on building a web service. Rather than write a series of primitive API methods or a combination primitives and more advanced task related items. The issue that they were trying to resolve was the idea of returning too much data. This could be resolved by adding additional parameters to the API methods or making specialized methods to limit the return of data.

They took a different course, they looked at solving the issue from a very intriguing perspective. They decided to make an API that resembled SQL. The rationale was that almost all developers know SQL, thus having the syntax of FQL match up with SQL was perfect.

Now, the first thing that popped into my mind was 'OMG, they opened themselves up to injection attacks,' that thought lasted about a split second, basically because with the amount of money these guys have been given I knew they weren't morons. The 'not morons' thought was reassured about 30 seconds later.

However, my next thought revolved around the fact that developers would have to learn the table structure or the structure of the data they are interacting in detail. This thought also lasted a split second. Because, developers would have to learn the data structure of the API returns in detail anyway.

One interesting (and highly logical) bit was that they do not allow any sort of JOINs in FQL. They stated that they are not simply just passing the SQL to the database, they have to manipulate it and what not. However, to ensure speed they can't allow JOINs. It would be just about the same as an injection attack. They would open themselves up to allow people to join against tables in a way that would ultimately thrash the db within an inch of it's digital life. However, then you get into federated data and data segmentation, ie the data is spread across physically separate machines therefore JOINs are not actually possible.

Anyway, I signed up for Facebook so that I will be able to play around with the APIs, including FQL. Jaduka will likely end up doing some sort of mash-up.

In the meantime though, I have managed to catch-up with a few friends from high school. The whole application seems much cleaner than MySpace when it comes to social networking that doesn't directly relate to business. One of the features that I really liked was the fact that you can have Facebook pull RSS feeds from your blogs. This seems like genius, it aggregates the content. Doesn't force you to maintain yet another blog.

I think I would have to give Facebook a 9 out of 10.
(I reserve the right to change that score at a later date.)

I will keep playing around with it and I look forward to messing with their APIs.

Time for bed.

Laterz

I made chili today, with the black strap molasses that I bought the other day. It turned out very, very good. Little spicy but good.

Then I made the vegan peanut butter cookies. These didn't turn out quite right.

I know that baking is more of a science than an art. And I think I got the ratio of the ingredients a bit off.

I did get a compliment from John, that they weren't the worst peanut butter cookies he has ever had.

They could have used some more sugar, I'm thinking another 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Secondly, their consistency wasn't at all what I would have expected. They were kind of grainy. I am not sure if this is because of the organic whole wheat flour I used, but I am guessing that is probably the case. I think a bit more oil would have fixed that.

So the next time I make them I am going to make a half batch and futz with the sugar and oil ratio. I think I will also make a batch using regular flour and see how they turn out.

Uggg, I am about to pass out.

Time for bed.

Laterz