John Borwick’s blog

iTunes’s “smart playlists” let you create dynamic playlists based on certain rules. The problem is, you can only tell it to “OR” all of your rules, or “AND” all of your rules. You can’t say X and (Y or Z) in a single playlist.

I have a playlist I call “Old but not Horrible.” The 250 songs “least recently heard,” if they have zero stars or more than two stars (aka I haven’t rated them, or they are “not horrible”), get put in the playlist.

Unfortunately, for a long time I’ve used the same playlist for ALL my tracks, including classical music and spoken word. I have been rating lots of songs 2 stars because their genre is not one I want to hear in this particular playlist.

NOW I have found the solution. I have another list called “ONH but music”, that’s the “Old, but not Horrible” list’s songs, only if the genre is not “Spoken Word” or “Classical.”

The only problem is that eventually my “Old, but not Horrible” list will have 250 spoken word/classical entries, and so “ONH but music” will be empty.

The term “phattacular,” which I’ve taken to using frequently, is totally googlable (also search for phat-tacular with the hyphen). I can’t believe other people have independently used the word!!

To their credit, BellSouth can provide us internet service (via DSL).

However: they pay Technion Communications–telemarketers–to call us every other day. (You may recognize Technion Communications from your caller ID: 954 443 9404.) The Technion message (because such a successful telemarketing company can’t be bothered to use humans) says to call BellSouth’s support number, 866 819 5368. All the people there told me to do was to add our number to the do not call registry, by calling 888 382 1222.

Also: BellSouth gave us a “deal” of some kind, where our DSL was a little cheaper. However, the first time I call support they tell me there is some kind of mistake with our plan, and that the support person CANNOT prevent us from being charged an extra $8 a month. (I called because I wanted caller ID.) So, we agreed to pay an extra $10 a month, which gives us a $5 discount on DSL.

I used this caller ID to find out that half of our missed calls in the last month were from Technion Communications.

I then found out that I was given three “features” for this $10/month, which I did not choose (besides caller ID): anonymous call blocking (ugh), three-way calling, and something else. I know this only because I called back about Technion communications and wanted some way to block them. The operator told me that I couldn’t change the three features I “chose,” but if I wanted to pay an extra $5 a month I could get number blocking–or for only $10 a month I could get all 500 features that BellSouth hawks.

This Is Not How To Do Business. Especially when competing vendors are providing VoIP and even home phone service, why does BellSouth insist on using confusing billing systems that rely on charging me $0.40/minute for calling High Point?

As soon as July comes around, we will own our DSL modem. It will then be time to shop around for better deals.

You have to be a pretty badass software developer to get in the headlines because you switched from one company to another.

(Translation thanks to babelfish.)

Lauren and I have been watching a lot of Sex and the City… I’d say an average of five episodes per day. We have been checking the episodes out from Blockbuster and Wake Forest’s library. Lauren’s blogged about it on her “books/media” page.

It’s curious how seasons one through four have six episodes per DVD, yet seasons five and “six part one” and “six part two” each have four episodes per DVD… probably right around when they realized that people would pay good money for them.

I don’t use iTunes near the way Rob does, but when I do I guess I buy quite a bit.

Albums:

Such Great Heights EP: The Postal Service, the Shins, and Iron & Wine
Bryter Layter: Nick Drake
Give Up: The Postal Service

Songs:

Let Go, Frou Frou
Lebanese Blonde, Thievery Corporation
Fair, Remy Zero
In the Waiting Line, Zero 7
University Microfilms International, Stereolab

Basically, I bought the Garden State soundtrack, only I went exploring rather than just buying the album.

Other interests I’ve found: Serge Gainsbourg, Antonio Carlos Jobim, more of The Postal Service, Underworld (maybe), and the other albums by Beck, The Bad Plus, and Stereolab.

I got to deliver a pulpit editorial today at the Unitarian Universalist fellowship. They were looking for a speech from a new member that would encourage people to give money

I half-heartedly followed the guile tutorial yesterday to learn more about the language that Wingo has gone on about. At least from the tutorial, guile looks like a glue language, just like Perl!

I would love to write some system administration routines that use guile:

(while #t (fix-problem (find-problem)))

or the less theoretical (keeping in mind that I know NO guile and am therefore making things up):

(while (define str (read-line))
 (if (define pid (regex str '[(d+)]'))
  (print pid)))

You know, normal system administration things.

I’ve been thinking about the simplest valuable difference between conservatives and liberals. My best shot so far is “most conservatives trust authority, but most liberals do not.” One corollary is “exposed deceitful conservatives make people liberal.”

I think “trust” explains why democrats tend to be counter-culture, want unions, and appreciate the separation of powers. It explains why conservatives tend to like the military, Boy Scouts, and other establishments that rely on hierarchy. If it’s accurate, then the easiest way to make society more liberal is to make people distrust authority. Perhaps this is why the “uranium cake” statement could have been powerful: it would have illustrated that Bush is a liar–an authority figure not to be trusted.