March 2015
Who Who
via @jasonthielke on Ello
Interplanetary tourism
via Reddit
A year of steps
My FitBit stats show that I have taken more than 3.5 million steps in the past year.
The world needs a House of Cards / 24 crossover
Like many others, I’ve been bingeing on the latest season of House of Cards over the past several days. This morning I woke up with an idea for a crossover between House of Cards and another show I’ve been guilty of bingeing on–24. The idea wasn’t for a full series or episode–just for a single scene.
The scene opens at the top of the back stairwell in the White House with Jack Bauer interrogating President Frank Underwood.
Albums in the age of the algorithmic playlist
Today I listened to the Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness from beginning to end. The two-disc album has more than two hours of music spread across 28 tracks. This album was one of the musical staples of my college years. I bought a second-hand copy of it on my way freshman orientation and listened to it throughout my undergrad. The album has some amazing hits, some strange lyrics, some hidden gems, some bad songs, and even one that can only be described as musical malpractice. When you listen to the full album you get everything the band had to offer at one particular moment in its history.
Listening to a band’s playlist or radio station on services like Pandora and Spotify will get you the hits from throughout their career. However, you will miss out on the many songs that make a band what they are. I don’t listen to many to albums from beginning to end anymore, and I don’t know many people who do. In this age of Spotify’s smart playlists, themed radio stations, and algorithmic DJs, you can listen to hours of back-to-back hits. But I think I’m missing out on something important when I listen that way. There is a lot of value in hearing a full album in the order the artist chose.
