A student named Peha de Milain has made a movie about Messrs. Levitt and Dubner of Freakonomics fame. It’s titled Les Incroyables Aventures de Steven D. Levitt et Stephen J. Dubner. It’s worth watching. (Videos are embedded at the end of that blog post.)
Day: September 22, 2008
Always Talk to Strangers
On the train home, while in the middle of reading a particularly interesting page of my Wired magazine, I overheard this from the woman on the phone next to me:
I should tell him I can’t go – I’m going to a concert. (pause) It’s this guy who got started on the Internet. He did a new song every week for a year – like one called Code Monkey about a programmer.
“Ah ha!” thought I to myself (after the words “every week”). “I know that guy!” She was, of course, referring to Jonathan Coulton. That particular song, about a software developer who hates his job and has a crush on the woman at the front desk, inspired any number of YouTube videos (including a group project that represents the “genre” well).
How amazingly fortunate that he’ll be in Boston and that I learned of it from someone else’s phone call on the train! Of course, the moment I got home I checked his schedule of upcoming shows for details. He will next be playing on October 24th! At Whelan’s! In Dublin, Ireland! Wait…
Blërg!
I knew I should have interrupted the nice lady’s phone call to ask for details. Maybe she’s just going to Ireland in a month.
A James by Any Other Name
I stumbled on a wikiHow post titled, “How to Deal With Having a Boy’s Name when You’re a Girl.”
I enjoy particularly step four:
- Go back to school with evidence. Bring a page you printed of a name website, stating that your name can be a girl or boys name. Possibly bring a list of female celebrities sharing your name.
I highly doubt that showing up at school with paperwork defending your name is a way to reduce teasing. Admittedly you’ll be teased a lot less about your name, but now you’ll forever be the girl who brought Internet research to school. Naming such a celebrity is a great idea, but bringing supporting documentation really won’t help.
The last step may also be ill-advised:
- Get advice. Ask your parents, or if you’re too shy, ask the school counselor or an older sibling. Ask how you can cope with people treating you this way.
Your parents created the problem by naming their daughter James. They may not have the best advice to give on the subject.
The iTunes Clock
iTunes always shows the number of items in a playlist, how long it will last, and its total size. For small playlists, this is useful to gauge whether it will fit on an iPod, or whether it will last the duration of your upcoming party. For a large playlist (or the overall “Music” view) the duration estimate can be silly:
1942 items, 4.3 days, 6.38 GB
Except… I started playing Eddie from Ohio’s Fly before I left work on Friday, and never stopped it. By Monday morning iTunes was nearing the bottom of the playlist, with The Christmas Song, as sung by Sean Hayes of Will and Grace fame on the album NBC Celebrity Christmas.
They’re not kidding about the 4.3 days.
My favorite part is that my “Last Played” dates are totally meaningless now, since a good 1,000 songs were all played this weekend – including those like Karma Chameleon that I don’t really ever want to hear. My smart playlist of “highly rated songs I haven’t played recently” is going to be useless for a few months.