25 Skills Every Man Should Have

My title is the more correct version of Popular Mechanics’ recently published list of 25 Skills Every Man Should Know. Last time I checked, you don’t know skills, you possess them. Another, perhaps more accurate rewording of the title would be 25 Pretty Stupid And Altogether Caveman-like Things You Should Know So You Can Avoid Doing Them At All Costs.

Here’s what I think about these Skills I should Know, taken one at a time. Follow along and keep score. And read the original article only if you want to wade through 25 worthless and banner-ad-riddled pages with hundreds of comments from guys saying, “Yeah, I can totally do number fourteen! Aren’t I super macho?”

1. Patch a radiator hose: Which one’s the radiator hose? And how do I know it needs patching? And now that I think about it, I’m not sure if this is a car part or has something to do with heating your home.
   
2. Protect your computer: Yes, it’s called “Getting a Mac.” But seriously, get some free virus software (don’t waste your money on Norton), some anti-spyware stuff, and stop visiting beast-porn websites and clicking on funny-looking links in emails from banks you don’t even use.
   
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized: My question here is, was I in another boat? Or did I capsize, too? Because I know how to rescue myself. Swimming. And wearing a lifejacket. And not tipping the boat in the first place.
   
4. Frame a wall: I actually do know how to do this. I can also put shingles on a roof. Both of these skills will come in handy exactly zero more times in my life. As far as I know, apartments in New York City don’t have shingles, nor would you ever want to make a room any smaller than it already is by dividing it in two.
   
5. Retouch digital photos: Oh yeah. I have this one covered. My fully-legal copy of Photoshop is put to great use. You can, as a matter of fact, hire me to do this very thing.
   
6. Back up a trailer: No way. Never. No how. Nope.
   
7. Build a campfire: I was an Eagle Scout, which basically means that I’m in the top 1% of the American population when it comes to campfire-building.
   
8. Fix a dead outlet: In theory, yes. In practice, not likely.
   
9. Navigate with a map and compass: See number 7. Eagle Scouts are awesome.
   
10. Use a torque wrench: What in God’s name is a torque wrench, and why would I need one?
    
11. Sharpen a knife: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
    
12. Perform CPR: Yeah, sure. Just don’t be mad at me if I can’t save you. It’s harder than it looks.
    
13. Fillet a fish: Why?
    
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid: This would come in handy if I had any desire to drive whatsoever. Also, if I decided to risk my life by driving like a fucking dipshit.
    
15. Get a car unstuck: I laugh at my friends.
    
16. Back up data: Yes. While I don’t have a super-awesome network backup with RAID and stuff, I do regular bootable backups of my MacBook Pro, maintain two more external drives with important files, and back up some of the most critical stuff (design projects, etc.) to my various web hosting accounts.
    
17. Paint a room: Simple. Buy paint. Open paint. Dip brush. Paint on wall. Repeat.
    
18. Mix concrete: Another critical life skill I have in fact learned to do. Comes in handy when I’m considering guerrilla public art projects like attaching a three-foot high concrete phallus to a sidewalk.
    
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle: Nah. I like my firearms dirty and dangerous.
    
20. Change oil and filter: If there’s one more freaking thing about driving...
    
21. Hook up an HDTV: Pie. Easy as pie. Even easier if you know how to read.
    
22. Bleed brakes: The people who wrote this list would be the ones bleeding if I had anything to say about it.
    
23. Paddle a canoe: Oh yes. I can paddle a canoe. And I can yak a kayak. And pee on a fire. Thanks, Boy Scouts of America!
    
24. Fix a bike flat: Sure. Seems easy enough.
    
25. Extend your wireless network: Is this Viagra spam? I don’t know wtf Popular Mechanics is talking about here. Their tip? Buy better equipment. Well, no shit Sherlock. Isn’t that the answer to the mystery of life itself? Buy stuff. I’m sure they must’ve had some advertisement stuck in there, too.
    

In all, it looks like I got 100% (at least of the ones that are actually useful or important). I must say that it’s pretty obvious this list was put out by Popular Mechanics, not GQ or Wired or Maxim, otherwise we’d see more “buy stuff”, “torrent movies and buy stuff”, “objectify your neighbor and buy stuff” on the list, respectively.

How’d you fare? Ladies, how mannish are you according to this list (in other words, how sexist was it)?

Comments: Go!

Blogging Tip: Use Real Quotes

What’s one thing that separates a great site from merely good sites?

Great sites use real quotes.

No, I’m not saying that other sites make things up (though I’m sure some do). This article is about the other kind of quotes.

Quotation Marks.

Okay, so what the heck am I talking about? Quotation marks are quotation marks are quotation marks, right? Just press Shift+apostrophe and you’ll get some.

Well, no, not exactly.

If you’re typing anywhere but in Microsoft Word (or another word processing program with Smart Quotes turned on), what you’ll get is not a set of quotation marks. Instead, you’ll be greeted with some of what I like to call Stupid Quotes (more commonly known as Dumb Quotes, straight quotes, or - somewhat incorrectly - a double prime, though this is another mark altogether, used for measurements and usually slanted).

What separates Stupid Quotes from Smart Quotes?

Here’s a comparison in some well-known typefaces:


The easy way to tell the two apart is that Stupid Quotes look like a Dunce Cap turned upside-down, and Smart Quotes look, well, nice. Like they were designed by a font-designer, not some grunt with a hammer and chisel.

Now you know the difference. How do you start rocking the intelligent use of this rather basic but supremely important typographical concept? Easy. Well, it takes a bit more effort than what you’re used to, but it’s worth it.

You can specify Smart Quotes by typing special codes known as HTML entities (don’t worry what this means, just go with me) where the quotes are supposed to go.

Here’s a handy table for reference:

How To Make A Smart Quote
Name	Secret Code	Voila
Left Double Quote	“ or “	“
Right Double Quote	” or ”	”
Left Single Quote	‘ or ‘	‘
Right Single Quote	’ or ’	’

Now, it takes some getting used to, but when you get the hang of it and start seeing the difference, there’s no turning back.

Don’t be a dummy. Do what the pros do and use Real Quotes. Real Smart Quotes.

It’s the cool thing to do.

Quick Photoshop Trick: Use Layer Masks

Next time you’re trying to remove a background from an image using Photoshop (and you haven’t heeded my other advice), you’ll be doing yourself a huge, huge favor by using a Layer Mask.

It’s really quite simple.

With the layer you want to remove the background from selected (Mine is empty. How’s that for a Zen puzzle? Remove a background from an empty layer, and you shall find peace.), click the layer mask icon in the Layers palette (see below).


It’ll add something that looks like this:


Then all you have to do is use a black, soft-edged paintbrush to paint away what you don’t want (or use the pen tool, if you’re feeling like a pro). Anytime you mess up, you can simply press X to switch the brush color to white, and wherever you paint, the stuff you just got rid of will come back, because it was never actually erased - it was only “masked.” Resize your brush, zoom in, zoom out, wash, rinse, and repeat. You know, the usual trial and error stuff. At least this time you won’t actually lose your original photo because you forgot to save it as a new file before you started working on it.

This is what’s known as non-destructive editing. Lord knows you could probably use a little bit more of that in your life.

iPhone Google Search Trends

People seem to really be grasping for reasons not to buy an iPhone.

Take a look at my referring keywords from Google Search this morning:

Notice any trends?

The only surprise for me is that someone is still considering purchasing a Zune (when is the next generation due, by the way?). Luckily Frivolous Motion has a handful of classic posts that will quickly convince her otherwise.

Bonus Google Search Tip!
If you want to search for something like above, but aren’t sure how many reasons there are, type in the following: “* reasons not to buy iphone” (don’t forget the asterisk, which acts as a wild card and tells Google to find something appropriate for that space). Also great for words within a phrase that you might have forgotten.

Undress To De-Stress

or Shed Your Clothes Along With Your Burdens

It’s a surefire way to feel a little better. Just go into your room, lock the door, turn out the lights, and take it all off. Then watch TV or read or surf the web (no, please, not like that) or do something else productive or relaxing or mindless.

Just be.

Naked. Safe. Free.

Breathe deeply. Again.

Relax into yourself. Get used to the lightness. Notice the difference in your step compared to when you are clothed. What is it like to move? How do everyday things become new and interesting when done without pants and a shirt and underwear and socks? Try making a phone call. Try folding your clothes. Making your bed. Organizing your closet. Setting your alarm clock. Sitting. Standing. Walking. Pretend that you know Tai Chi. Crank up some awesome tunes. Sing. Dance. Exercise. Nap. Draw. Write.

Even the simple act of picking up a pen might change your life.

Tutorial: How To Remove A Background In Photoshop

Everyone asks me how to remove a background from a photo using (usually a pirated copy of) Adobe Photoshop. I start to talk, “Layers palette blah blah, duplicate blah, add a layer mask blah blah, pen tool blah blah lasso blah soft-edged brush blah blah levels blah blah curves blah clone stamp blah burn dodge blah high-contrast photo blah blah blah blah blah...” and the eyes glaze over (which I can see even over the phone, believe me). So I’ve done a ton of thinking and completely honed a simple, fast, and ultra-high-quality method of removing the background from a photo so you can replace it with something awesome.

Three simple steps:

1. Send the photo as an attachment to kevin@frivolousmotion.com


2. Mail a $25 check to the address contained in my reply email.


3. Receive a .PSD file with the background removed (and new one added for extra) in your email inbox (usually within a week).

See? Easy as pie! Tell your friends.

I’m serious. Don’t attempt this on your own.

5 Simple Steps To Privacy Online

I will go very slowly for those of you who might be new to this.

1. Buy a computer.


2. Don’t sign up for Internet service.


3. Oh, I guess there are just two steps.
   

How To Make An Awesome Tag Cloud!

I get a lot of emails asking me about the giant tag cloud hanging out at the top of my site. So many, in fact, that I thought it’d be a great idea to make a post out of it, as a bit of a mini-tutorial. So, without further ado, here’s how to get an awesome tag cloud in the New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta).

(UPDATE 24/08/2007: Obviously there’s no tag cloud up there anymore, since I redesigned the site. I’ve posted a screenshot below of what it used to look like. Click it for a larger version.)



Okay, back to the regularly scheduled tutorial.

First start a new blog in Blogger. Got one? Cool.

Now, navigate in Blogger to Template > Page Elements (clicking Layout from the Dashboard will get you there, too). You’re looking for the screen that says “Add and Arrange Page Elements.” Now, in the sidebar of this representation of your blog, click “Add a Page Element.” You’ll get a nice pop-up with a ton of options. Click Labels, cause that’s what you want to add, after all. Keep it alphabetical, change the name if you feel like it, and click “Save Changes.”

Save your template.

Now click over to “Edit HTML.” Definitely a good idea to “Download Full Template” here, to be safe, before you start editing the code. I’ll wait.

Backed up? Good. Moving on.

Search through your code for a line that looks exactly like this:

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'/>

The “title” attribute might be different if you changed it in the step above. Otherwise, this is the line you’re looking for.

Copy all of this code below.

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>

<div class='widget-content'>
<div id='LabelDisplay'>
</div>
</div>

<script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'>
function zoomStyle() {
var max = 0;
var min = 10000;
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
if (<data:label.count/> &gt; max)
  max = <data:label.count/>;
if (<data:label.count/> &lt; min)
min = <data:label.count/>;
</b:loop>
var display = &quot;";
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
var delta = <data:label.count/> - min;
var size = 80 + (delta * 100) / (max - min);
display = display + &quot;<span style='font-size:" + size + "%'><a expr:href='data:label.url + "?max-results=100"' style='text-decoration:none;'><data:label.name/></a></span> &quot;;
</b:loop>

obj = document.getElementById(&#39;LabelDisplay&#39;);
obj.innerHTML = display;
}


zoomStyle();
</script>

<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>

And paste it over (on top of, instead of, replacing!) the line you found. Be very careful not to overwrite the </b:section> that will most likely follow it in your template code.

Click preview, and if you’ve done everything properly, you’ll have a sweet tag cloud with links of various sizes based on frequency of occurrence (if your blog is brand new, you’ll need to post in it first to see the code at work).

If you don’t want it in your sidebar, go back to the Page Elements page, and move the widget around to wherever you like (different templates set different limits on this, which can be subverted, but that’s beyond the scope of this tutorial - email me if you want to get hardcore).

Enjoy! Get tagging! Post your results in the comments for all to see!

(Note: The code up there is a modified version of the Multi-style labels widget written up on Hackosphere. Credit where it’s due.)

How To Organize Your Music - Part 2

Last month there were a couple mammoth-sized posts about iTunes and how to get started organizing and optimizing your Library for the utmost listening and iPodding experience. The first was philosophical-ish, and the second more practical. You may want to check them out first and then come back to this one later, but they aren’t exactly prerequisites, so you won’t be lost if you don’t.

Here they are:

• How Much Music Is Enough?
• How To Organize Your Music - Part 1
• How To Organize Your Music - Part 3
  

The newest addition to this series is called,

How To Deal With Genre

If you’re at all like me, you get your music from a ton of different sources, and your genre column in iTunes is really messed up. There might be twenty different variants of Alternative (even misspellings!), a ton of empty tags, along with some crazy stuff that has nothing to do with genre whatsoever.

My advice? Simplify.

Rather than tag each album with an ultra-specific genre, go through your library, select a ton of tracks at once, right-click and use Get Info to tag them all “Rock.” Then do the same for Classical, Jazz, Country, R&B, Hip-Hop/Rap, Soundtrack, and Other. You can modify these a bit depending on the contents of your library (for example, if you have mostly Electronic music, you can pick some big sub-categories like Ambient, House, and Trance to use as your main genres). The important thing is to keep it simple. Really simple. If you have more than ten, you might be overdoing it unless you have a pretty diverse library.

Another good way to get started (which I use personally, because I do have diverse interests) is to grab the list of twelve categories used on EMusic (this adds a couple like Spiritual, International, and New Age). The benefit here is it forces you to discipline yourself, which is really important, and you don’t have to think about it because they’ve already done the work for you.

Now, you’re thinking, “But Math Rock is nothing at all like Indie Pop, and they’re all together in my Alternative genre. I don’t want to hear Mogwai right after Puffy AmiYumi!” Of course you don’t, and you shouldn’t have to.

The way to fix this isn’t what you think, but it works really well.

Make playlists.

Trust me. First, you’ll want to make Smart Playlists for each of your major genres. Do that by clicking File > New Smart Playlist and then setting it to “Genre is ________.” Make sure the checkmark for Live Updating is checked.

Bam! You’ve got convenient lists of your major genres. Cool.

Now for the fun part:

Make a ton of playlists. A ton.

Name them as specifically as you want. Go crazy with it. Make one for Art Pop, one for Avant Garde Experimental Pop, One for Alt-Country, and one for Hollywood Country. Whatever you think an album is, make a playlist for it. The benefit to this method is you can easily (really easily) drag a whole album or a whole bunch of albums, or even a single track within an album to any and all of the playlists that are appropriate.

Why is this cool? Well, just because Boston is a classic rock band, it doesn’t mean all of their songs are loud and heavy and blues-influenced. Wouldn’t it be nice to have “Amanda” or “More Than A Feeling” in a Power Ballads list, too? Or the Guitar Hero playlist, even, because you know you need to keep those tracks together so you can bust out your awesome air guitar-controller moves when you’re alone. Dragging and dropping tracks is a lot easier than typing or selecting a genre for each one, and it lets you mimic the functionality of “Tagging,” popularized by Flickr and Del.icio.us, and in use on this site, and tons of blogs, too.

Clean things up a bit with folders.

So you’ve got tons of playlists now, but it’s making the sidebar look like a toddler on speed blasted through? Well, make some folders. How about one for each of the big genres you picked earlier? And then drag the specific playlists into the correct folders. If you want to get really specific, you can also dual-list your sub-playlists under multiple genres. It’s not as easy, but very doable. Say you want to have your Alt-Country list under both Alternative and, well, Country. Just make a new playlist called Alt-Country 2, select all the tracks in the original list, and drag them to the new one. Then move each to its rightful place and feel the Zen kick in.

EDIT: An anonymous comment has a better way of doing this:

Or, you can only drag tracks into the Alt-Country list and place a Smart Playlist in the Alternative folder. Name that "Alt-Country 2." For the criteria, use: Playlist = "Alt-Country." Make sure that Live Updating is checked, then feel the Zen kick in.

Ah Zen. We like that here at FrivMo.

By far the best part about this method is how simple it is to manage new additions to your library. Don’t have a ton of time to sort everything specifically? You can give it a general category for now, and get more specific about it when you’ve had a chance to listen through the album. Like rating your tracks, getting the genre just right takes time, and is more an art than a science. The more you live with your music, the more you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t. This playlist method makes it easy as pie to change your mind. Which you inevitably will.

Extra credit for overachievers:

Once you’ve rated a bunch of stuff and made some genre playlists, try making Smart Playlists for each major genre or for multiple related subgenres that include only your four- or five- star tunes. Major control over your listening experience is now becoming a reality. Sweet.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

How To Organize Your Music - Part 1

As promised in my post on Tuesday, “How Much Music Is Enough?,” this is the first part of a multi-part series called “How To Organize Your Music.” I have a ton of thoughts about this, and hope you can take away some great tips for taking control of your iTunes library and using it to its full potential.

This first segment is subtitled “How To Rate EVERYTHING.” Check it out below.

How to Rate Everything

The first super-important step to getting your music under control (whether your library contains 150, 1500, or even [like mine] 15,000+ songs) is to, you guessed it, rate everything.

Every last song.

First, recognize that this is going to take some time and a lot of effort, but it is so worth it. The feeling of scrolling through your library and seeing a ton of stars is awesome. Once you’ve done it - once you’ve rated every last track - adding new music is a breeze. Rating and categorizing becomes automatic. It’s part of your routine. But getting caught up is the hard part.

What Makes A 5-Star Song?

The single most important thing is to know what your ratings mean. If you waffle on this, you are finished. Decide what each star means, and stick to it. Trust me - this can be a deal-breaker.

Here, for reference and reflection, is what my ratings mean:

1 Star
I award a single star to every song that needs to be deleted or re-downloaded. I award it to duplicates, sound effects, holiday music (which also gets tagged with an identical genre), television theme songs, and related tracks that I only want played when I ask specifically for them. Since you can’t remove songs from your library by deleting them within playlists, giving them a 1-star rating lets you easily find them in your main library and kick them out for good. EDIT: Actually, you can do this. On a Mac, just hold down Option and press Delete. I figured this out several months back, but commenter Richard brought it to my attention as it pertained to this post. In any case, everything else I said is still relevant.

2 Stars
This is my least-used rating, but it does come in handy. For the most part, songs with two stars are the very short filler tracks that seem to pop up on a ton of albums these days. Naturally, these tracks are distracting on most occassions, but have their place, for example, if I want to listen to the entire album. I also use two stars for bad music. Why not delete these tracks, then? Well, because it’s not worth my time or energy, for one. It’s also cheaper, in the long run, to keep things than to delete them, as digital space gets less and less pricy. There’s also the off chance that I might need these awful tracks - for sharing with a friend, playing at an “awful music” party, or creating a mix for an evil ex, to mention a few possibilities. Better to have them all in one place so they don’t pop up unexpectedly, but can be used as a weapon if necessary. (And oh yes, Musical Theatre gets two stars.)

3 Stars
These songs make up the meat of my collection, but are closely rivaled in quantity by the 4-star tracks. I give out the 3-star rating to the mediocre tracks, the vast majority of my classical collection (except the great ones that receive more stars), and many of the “weird-but-important” tunes that make up my library. Three-star songs are songs that might deserve another listen-through and could potentially be boosted a level from time to time. Where a 4-star rating all but guarantees placement on my iPod, I’ll occassionally let some of these guys through for the hell of it, but almost never include them in party mixes. Additionally, I give 3-stars to some good tunes that just happen to be way too long (like 15 minutes or more), because they’re typically deadly for parties, and even deadlier in terms of filesize when filling your mp3 player.

4 Stars
If a track gets four stars, that means it is a winner, a song that I like to listen to. As simple as that - these are the tracks that I would keep if someone were to hold a gun to my head and force me to delete 10,000 tracks. The 4-star rating is pretty much the top rating I award (except as mentioned below). If I like it, it gets 4. These songs are the ones I use to make smart playlists for my iPod and for general listening. Not 4 stars - no deal. This is definitely the easiest category to populate. You know which tracks deserve this.

5 Stars
If four stars is the best, what about five stars? Well, five star songs can’t really be described, but everyone knows what they are. These are songs that, the minute they come on, get you excited. Like really excited. The songs you have strong feelings for because they remind you of moments in your life. Five-star songs are four-star songs that have transcended. They’re just special, and you would never think of going anywhere without them. Five-star songs make you cry, make you sing out loud, make you do generally crazy shit. These songs rock (even if they can be a little embarrassing from time to time). I typically shy away from using these songs in party mixes because sometimes things can get a little complicated and personal.

So that’s my system. Feel free to modify it for your uses, or tell me about your own system in the comments. As long as you have some relatively strict way to rate, you’re set.

Moving on, at last.

Rate Those Tunes Now

Now that you have your system set up, immediately check out your “Top 25 Most Played” playlist and rate all of them. Unless you mistakenly left iTunes on single-track repeat while you were gone for the weekend, you already know all of these songs very well, and know what they deserve. If a song on this list doesn’t get at least 4 stars, that would be weird.

Done? Good.

Now, take an hour (or half-hour, or three hours) and scroll through your library and rate things that jump out at you. Don’t stop to think for a second. Just breeze through, catching the albums that you catch, and give the tracks quick ratings. Again, the stuff you see will most likely be stuff you like, so don’t worry if you feel like you’re giving out a ton of stars.

The point is to find the good stuff, after all.

What I find helpful, after this once over, is to sort your library by date added, and make a new playlist with a ton of the most recent albums you’ve added (this works best with full albums, rather than individual tracks). I then stick this entire list on my iPod. The goal is to listen album by album, and rate every single track in that album. I do this on my morning and evening commute, and it has worked really well. You don’t have to listen to each song in its entirety (I sure don’t, but you’re welcome to), but just enough of it to give it a rating, depending on the amount of time you have and your degree of interest. The important thing is to stick with the album - no switching in the middle! And every time you sync your iPod, delete all the albums that have been rated from this playlist, and keep it up until your iPod is totally empty. Then rinse, refill, and repeat.

One super-quick tip if you have a Mac (sorry Windows-users): Get Quicksilver. Install the iTunes plugin. Set up keyboard shortcuts for, minimally, Play/Pause, Next Track, Previous Track, and 1-star, 2-stars, 3-stars, 4-stars, and 5-stars (I use Option+Command+# to rate). This way you can control your tunes and rate tracks without leaving your current application. Don’t hesitate - do it. You’ll be glad you did.

Okay, Stop Reading and Get Rating

I think this about does it for now. I don’t want to bog you down with too much all at once. Hopefully this is enough to get started. I would love to hear your feedback in the comments, and any tips you might have for the other readers as well. What works for you? What doesn’t?

In my next post in this series, I’ll get more into specifics of playlist construction and other things that will help you continue to rate and sort your library effectively.

Remember, the ratings you award (and life itself, after all) are impermanent. You’ll want to change things over time, but give yourself this time. Don’t get too hung up on details initially. Just get it done. And enjoy the music.

UPDATE: Added Part 2 here!
And Part 3 here.

How Much Music Is Enough?

Marginal Revolution wrote again this morning about the Bach box (which I really want to get), but also pointed me to a great question: “How much music is enough?”

Jane Galt writes:

Currently, I've got about 1100 songs, which is fine, but not enough for me to achieve that sense of security that comes from knowing that you'll have something you want to listen to every single time you fire up your iPod.

...

But how many is enough? 1,100 is, as I can personally attest, well short of enough; every time I open iTunes there is something missing. So how far am I from achieving my goal of musical nirvana? 3,000? 5,000? More? I'm not asking when I'll stop needing new music; presumably, there will always be room in the inn. But when will I stop feeling that empty, yearning sensation every time I open a music player?

Definitely check out the rest of her post and the comments, for some interesting and funny insights.

But here are my thoughts, since you asked:
After losing some of my music when my iBook died (not all of it - I do back up!), I was actually blessed by being able to start over with my iTunes library. All the songs I had accumulated over the last several years were now on equal footing - zero plays, zero stars. Once I had restored what I backed up, I took to ripping albums I hadn’t ever ripped because of space constraints - now I had a much larger hard drive on my notebook, and two really huge LaCie external drives on which I decided I would now be storing my music. Why the external drives? Well I reasoned that there were two times I could be listening to music: in my room with my computer at my desk, or somewhere else where I would have my iPod. There’s nothing really between those two situations - no time where I would want to listen to music on my laptop while, say, in front of the TV. So I had a plan to rebuild and finally optimize my iTunes library to my listening habits. Later this week, I intend to post more about the system I use, and some tips for rating and organizing your music, but for now, we’re talking about size.

Just how big is my library?
Well, between my old CDs and mp3s, stuff from EMusic, and other sources, I managed to increase my library to its current size of 15,597 songs (Very nearly 80GB). That’s music from over 2,000 albums, spanning from Hayden and Bach and Bulgarian folk songs to Horse the Band, Bauhaus, and Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs. It is a lot of music, and no, I haven’t yet listened to every track (not even in part). However, in less than three months (and really only one diligent month with the system I came up with), I have over 7,000 of these songs rated and will have the entire library rated by May, I’m sure. Is it enough music, though?

No. Here’s why:
For me, music is - always has been - about discovery. It’s what used to be amazing about listening to the radio (before it became choked with ads and regurgitated the same 20 tunes) - a random song you’ve never heard before comes on and is just perfect, hits just the right chord, at that singular moment in time. The joy in subsequently figuring out the artist, buying the album, and then popping it in your CD player was unbeatable. Being the first, telling your friends, sharing the experience of listening to something new and life-changing - being surprised by something you didn’t know even existed - that is totally what music is about. Was about.

Was about?
Yeah, like it or not, our listening patterns have changed. With the introduction of mp3 players (more honestly, the iPod) we were all given incredible levels of control over what we listened to at any moment. It’s simply next in the progression from LP (moving the needle from track to track), to cassette (pressing FF and guessing), to CD (pressing next, but still limited to one album). Now, at your fingertips, there is the power to pick any song, play it for any length of time, and skip to another song, and keep skipping until you find what it is you want to listen to.

While there is great, great joy to be had in simply shuffling at random (the wild success of the iPod Shuffle definitely illustrates this), I think all will agree that it is not enough. Now that you have control, how can you resist the temptation to take control? I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s set my iPod to shuffle during my morning commute, only to be aurally assaulted when a song by Melt Banana follows a song by Air. Likewise, who can deny the embarrassment and awkwardness when, in the midst of a tender, romantic, passionate make-out session, a Daniel Johnston tune pops up to destroy the moment entirely? (Note: I’m sure there are people in this world who love to make out to Daniel Johnston. That’s cool for them. Not for me.). Shuffling just isn’t practical, all the time. Part of the reason that radio used to work is that the playlists were hand-picked so that there could be surprises, but none like this:

A: Hey, guess what?
B: What?
A: Herpes! Are you surprised?
B: ...

Blind shuffling can actually be detrimental to your music listening habits, causing you to have unfortunate and negative reactions to music that, under some other circumstances, could be your favorite tune of the moment. Hating music is not cool. That’s why it is important to gain control over your library and use it to your advantage.

Zen and the Art of Exercising Control
It is only by exercising this control that one can begin to reduce (and this is the ultimate, Zen-like goal of all this). I don’t mean to reduce the overall size of the library - but to reduce it to little, digestible nuggets of relatedness. You can do this in a number of ways, and I’ll detail some of mine in a later post, but once you find a good system, and get your entire back catalog aligned with it, future additions to your library can be added easily and effectively. The important thing to keep in mind is this: you don’t have to listen to every single song all the way through to decide where it needs to go. Initially, the rating/sorting should be based on your immediate reaction to the song. As you live and grow with your music, you will find things that need to change. You will continue to be surprised, in a good way, by things that you own.

There’s an important balance to achieve in sorting your library. The level of detail radio stations and DJs pay to arranging their playlists is more than you ought to, typically. You will end up knowing too well what’s on each list, and could easily become bored. The point is to craft these lists to encourage moments of serendipity, moments of accidental harmony with life. To take control is not to control, but to guide. To create paths of flow.

How much music is enough music?
This is like asking “How much air is enough air?”

You can only breathe one breath at a time. But you can breathe every single moment of every single day for your entire life.

How much music is enough music? I don’t know...I haven’t made it there yet.

Nice Touch On The NYTimes Site

Ever read an article on the New York Times website, only to encounter words (especially names and places) that you don’t recognize? Or ones that you kind of get, but need more information to really understand? Now, if you’re at all like me, the last thing you want to do is open a new window or tab and do a Google/Dictionary/Wikipedia search for the word. As a result, I know I’m missing out on a lot of knowledge and stuff, but sadly I am too lazy to care that much.

Coming to the rescue is a feature included on the NYTimes site that I stumbled upon this weekend. I happened to be rhythmically tapping my trackpad button on my MacBook Pro (I sometimes do this while reading) and all of a sudden, a window popped up! At first I had no idea what I had just done and was peeved that a window was popping up on my Mac. “Stupid ads,” I thought, until I saw what had just appeared.

And what does appear?

It was, in fact, something incredibly useful: A page with a definition and description of, apparently, the word I had been clicking. Turns out, any time you are reading an article, you need only double-click a word - any word at all - and a page pops up with the appropriate information. Easy as pie, and helpful as Omega-3 fatty acids.

Here is a screenshot of the window:


Check it out for yourself and you will never feel stupid again. It is pitifully easy to get the information. Awesomeness like this is precisely the benefit of content located online, and it is great to see this being taken advantage of by such a major institution in the print world. This is a beautiful illustration of the NYTimes’ devotion to moving from print to internet publishing, captured by this statement from chairman Arthur Sulzberger:

I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either ... The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we're leading there.

Very refreshing, Mr. Sulzberger. Very refreshing.

Question of the Day 001

from Melissa A.

How can I get more creativity into (or out of) my everyday life?

This is an awesome question, and I am really going to try to answer it comprehensively and honestly. It is a tough question to tackle without getting into my personal struggle with finding creativity in life, so I’ll sprinkle some anecdotal evidence in what will mostly be thoughts and observations, as well as a few exercises that I think (hope!) will be useful. EDIT: I think I am going to make this subject an ongoing theme, as well. Thinking more about it, there is just so much to talk about.

To start this off, though, here is a list of things to stimulate creativity.

1. Look at everything upside-down. I guarantee that if you walk around the city half-bent-over, arms waving at your side, you will be seeing things you’ve never seen, and thinking of things you’ve never thought. Or at least the people walking by you will. And their reactions should be just unique enough, just passionate enough to deserve a painting, or a few choice poetic words on paper. I guess more generally this tip could be called “Provoke.” Create situations in your life that cause unusual, novel reactions, and you’ll never fail to find delight in the world, even if the reactions are negative.
2. Close your eyes for ten minutes every day. I like to do this while watching television, or on the subway. This is not a nap. You should be alert, attentive, and attuned to all the sounds, smells, and feelings around you. Don’t time yourself. Guess. If you do it enough, eventually you will know exactly how long ten minutes is, and that is impressive. Then increase it to 20 minutes. There are no other rules. Just keep your eyes closed, and listen. Every day.
3. Do something impossible. Genetically engineer a Unicorn, run 50,000 miles in under 4 minutes, eat the whole thing, build a time machine (and really work to make it functional!). Attempt something you think can’t be done. And really, truly, work on it. Do research, make prototypes - whatever it is, just keep trying to create it.
4. Cook something super-fancy. Pretend Bobby Flay or Rachael Ray or whoever your favority celebrity chef might be is coming over for dinner. Make something that will cause their eyes to light up (in a good way). The only catch - no recipe allowed. And you have to eat it once it is done. No exceptions.
   
5. Get a pencil. Sharpen it. Don’t stop writing until you need to sharpen it again. Keep doing this until it is just an eraser. Push yourself. Far. Physically, mentally - keep pushing.
6. Teach yourself something new. Find a book, or a website, and keep reading and actually do what is taught. Learn something you’ve always wanted to know how to do. Or brush up on something you haven’t done in ages.
7. Force yourself to just do it. Just create. No excuses. Make something. Now.

More coming, another day. But hope this gets you started. Let me know if you try any of these, and whether or not they worked for you.

And have you got a question for the Question of the Day? Leave a comment with it, or email me (if you want to remain anonymous) at kevinmichaelkeating at gmail dot com.