The Devil’s Music

I’m trying a new way of generating playlists on iTunes : just enter a single word into the search window and listen to what pops up …

My search this morning was “devil” and this is what I got :

Shout At The Devil – Motley Crue
(You’re The) Devil In Disguise- Elvis Presley
Devil’s Dance – Metallica
Devil Error Code – Comedy Tech Support
DEVIL WENT DOWN TO & CAME BACK TO GEORGIA

Hmm. What results can you get?

Flu … the recovery

[splutter]

[gets out of bed]

Hi [muffled voice]

Looking for ways to be kept in touch? I’m thinking it would be nice for my computers to produce a personalised radio show for getting up in the mornings. Tools like text to speech software and RSS readers (that are sometimes combined!) could go a long way towards this goal. Then mix in some cheesy DJ-isms and your favourite playlists and Bob is your Auntie’s live in lover.

I found a new tool : http://www.zapptek.com/ispeak-it/ which prompted me to update an old page from 2002 : my text to MP3 page for that software, here is an AppleScript DJ that changes stations for you and throws in snide remarks (all customisable….)

What else do we need? A bit of X-10 – hang on, I’ve been talking about this before. Hmm. I think there is a theme here that needs a bit of exploring.

What do we call this solution?

Flu … the recovery

Sniffle, cough, sneeze, wheeze.

[sigh]

Is this thing on?

Hmm, once again you’ve caught me having a life outside the blogosphere 🙂

News just to hand:
Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries is the most dangerous music you can listen to while driving! What a relief that must be to all the rappers 🙂

Local boy does good:
Australian games developer secures rights to the Stargate franchise games. Maybe he even made a mint – there’s talk of eleven million dollars in there somewhere. Cool.

Big switch to the Mac here in NSW – the RTA is going all Mac for front counter terminals. Sweeeet.

UCLA Geophysicist Warns 6.4 Quake To Hit LA By Sept 5 – hmm, headline kinda says it all, doesn’t it?

We’re watching a documentary (on our TiVo 😉 about Kevin Smith. I used to dress *exactly* like Silent Bob (I even had the beard for a while) which is funny now because until now I never knew who this guy was, nor have I seen any of the movies (yet.)

Since this is the year of living shamelessly and we want to make our first movie this year (for Tropfest) then the whole thing is very funny. Maybe I’ll slip myself in as Silent Bob 😉

Oohh, this says something, but what?

Australians failed to follow the lead of Americans and make Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ a mandated observance on Easter Sunday. “The theory that there would be a Jesus revival at the flicks at the weekend was a myth,” the Sydney Morning Herald observed today (Wednesday). The film came in at No. 6 with just A$805,000, well behind the opening of Starsky & Hutch, which recorded A$3.5 million. The newspaper pointed out that although Passion now ranks as the eighth most successful movie ever, in Australia it is No. 120 on the all-time list.

Follow the money

Floyd Norris: Take lid off inside sales before IPOs [Update: link to Archived version, original is behind paywall]

“The right of investors to know when corporate insiders sell stock – and at what price – is a fundamental part of American securities law. When It turned out that Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of Enron, was using a loophole to sell shares secretly while he urged others to buy, Congress quickly changed the law.
But one loophole still remains, and it is being used by Salesforce.com, a software company that will soon go public…”

These stories just keep on coming. Regulation will never fix these problems, only education can do the job – which is why, if you want to invest in shares, you need to treat it almost as a full-time job of its own.