Pandora music stream

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

I just discovered Pandora. It is a online flash streaming music player that plays the music that you like much like last.fm radio, just simpler and with instant feedback. You simply go to the site and tell them what artist or track do you like and the music starts playing in a Flash applet. Then similar music starts playing and you can say whether you like this particular song or not. There are even keyboard shortcuts, so it is enough to focus the windows with the player and press “+” if you like the song or “-” if you don’t and it immediately adjusts its playlist to your input. Those kinds of services could replace downloading of music via BitTorrent for most of “background noise” kind of use.

Update: now that’s one screwy service. After you listen to a bunch of songs, the player stops and requires you to register. It gets even better - the registration is US only. Just great! Well - back to last.fm radio to me.

Update2: Oh, ok - you can easily register with zipcode of 00000 and no paying for the service is required. And I also have heard some hreat music there, like the Bohemian Rhapsody that fills my earphones now.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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60 rants (2)

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Hospitals overcharging uninsured people

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1362808.shtml

The bulk of the story in not really that hospitals make uninsured people pay more, it is that they make insurers pay less. It looks like it is common practice in US hospitals to charge their patients for work and materials with 300-500% profit margin. Only most of the country does not know it because they have either health insurance or Medicare and those insurers and government programs negotiate for themselves discounts in range of 75-90%. Also noone can find out the prices of specific procedures in different hospitals making going to a hospital look like blind shopping.

In my mind two thing must be done legislatively about this: demand that all price lists of all publicly accessible hospitals also be freely accessible by the public, ban any kind of discounts or bulk prices that hospitals could give to insurers or government programs. That will ignite a price war and bring the prices down considerably. And in the mean while make a court case that any uninsured person receiving medical attention can demand to be charged as much as Medicare would be charged for the same procedure.

Willie Brand and torture in Afghan prisons

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

There is just incredible amount of lies buzzing around the current US administration especially with relation to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know that just from shreds of evidence that leaks out despite military discipline. Now top generals claim that prisoners have never been tortured or hanged from ceilings in Afghan prisons run by US army forces, while guards at those prisons claim that the same generals saw the procedures and did not disprove of them in any way. Now the generals blame everything on the guards themselves and even their direct captain claims that he did not see anything. Bullshit!

It is long time that NATO and ANO should step in and report USA to the Security council and impose sanctions on USA for breaking the Geneva convention. Because, if USA can do that and go unpunished, why should other countries uphold human rights of their prisoners?

The Prince of Pot

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

A Canadian is being charged with drug trafficking by USA for selling marijuana seeds in his shop in Canada. It is formally illegal there, but even if charged, he would only have to pay a fine. However if he is extradited to USA, he would face up to a life sentence. The man is a leader of marijuana legalization movement in Canada.

It may come as a surprise, but I agree with him. Marijuana no more harmful then alcohol or tobacco. Some even argue that marijuana is less harmful to the body and mind then alcohol or tobacco in same doses. If those two substances are allowed, then marijuana should be allowed too, in the same regulated manner as those two. If marijuana is banned then alcohol and tobacco must be banned too - be consequent. By pushing marijuana into the black market governments only make the black economy stronger. Also marijuana acts as a gateway drug just because government says it is as bad as heroin, so people after trying marijuana start thinking “Well marijuana is not that bad, maybe government is lying about heroin too”. And after a few months a new unalive junkie is formed out of what could have been a contributing member of society.

Andy

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/rooney/main1363712.shtml

Andy rants about outsourcing this week. Fear not Andy - it is easy to outsource labor intensive jobs, but outsourcing creative jobs is much harder - no asian guy can replace you (well maybe except for George Takei :)).

Popularity: 10% [?]

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Oscars rant

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Blogging this week seem to be on a high wave for me. Which, as I previously noted, is correlated with my general level of activity. So this blob post is my braindump about 2006 Academy Awards ceremony a.k.a Oscars 2006.

First of all - I love John Steward and watch “The Daily Show” daily.

Opening was just hilarious. Everyone refuses to host and then John awakes from several dreams in bed with Clooney. LOL!

Collage of non-gay westerns - LOL! It is true - I will never will be able to watch old westerns without considering “maybe that guy is gay?”

About Best Animated feature: I really thought that “Howl’s moving castle” was much better then that Wallace and Gromit thing, but they gave it to them because their props burned down.

Talking about howling, who let Dolly Parton in? That was just horrible - no voice, no show, all face pulled back into a bun in the back of her head. “We’re all Gods children”? “Alleluia”? Please, let her die in piece.

March of the Penguins is the best, especially in Linux context :D

Now the second song (the one from “Crash”) was much better in all possible ways - great show, good looking singer and a better voice too. The beginning was kinda shaky, but she calmed down soon after starting to sing. I was fascinated.

They should have given Steward more time to give some impromptu jokes.

I really loved the way they presented the original score from films - giving one man with a fiddle to play all the scores in succession was a brilliant move.

Pimp song - quite strange rap. Still better then the first song, but quite strange anyway. And they won the Oscar. Doh, man.

Best Actor - Philip Seymour Hoffman. Without any doubt. Congrats.

The most important part of the ceremony is also the most boring one for people that are not involved in the process. So I spent the most of the ceremony almost dozing off. As I said earlier, more John Steward could be useful there.

I really did not expect “Crash” to win the best film. Maybe I will have to see that. It is not played in Latvia and there are no plans to show it here. It is believed that it is so USA specific that it will not be interesting to audience here.

In any case, I love the tendency to go for love budget films - that is where the creativity is. Lets hope that one day a film is made in a free software manner that get an Oscar. That would be something.

Popularity: 13% [?]

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