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I was working today on something similar to boombox. Mostly as a side project to understand some concepts better, but also as a proof of concept. Anywho… I have been investigating discovery techniques.

The first is simply scanning directory structures and building data from that (ie. folder name at artist level gets read as artist name). The second is to use the metainfo from the file itself (ID3 for mp3s, Field Keys for MP4, etc.).

Both have pros and cons. Scanning doesn’t require tags (duh) and is slightly more forgiving. Tags otoh allow for far more information to be processed. Case in point, the compilation flag.

in iTunes, there is a nifty little checkbox on the Get Info dialog that allows you to indicate that a track is part of a compilation. This has the benefit of allowing you to capture the true artists name in the appropriate field, but have it be grouped by the album. Otherwise, each artist in the compilation would have their own album entry with one song in it.

Funny thing about that checkbox… its not a standard ID3 tag. Apple creates a new tag (TCMP) and sets the value to 1 for comps. If its not present, or value is 0, then its not part of a comp.

This is all “legal” - the standard allows for custom tags to be created and used. But Apple gets even tricksier.

The format of this tag requires that the tag be version 2.3 or higher, as the previous versions had different encoding schemes. If the tag isnt at the right level, apple stores the information in the xml dump of your track info instead of upgrading your tag.

All well and good when you are just using itunes. But makes for crappy data retrieval when trying to scan the items themselves.

Moral of this story? Be good netizens with your music tracks. Make sure to upgrade tag versions before transferring files. Also, my pet peeves, use the Of fields ( i.e  Track 1 of 17 not just Track 1 ), use the Compilation checkbox. If its mostly one Artist but one track has a “Featuring Another Person” use the Album Artist field to group them all together as the main artist.

Writing prose for Whitman’s Samplers:

Dark Chocolate Fudge

Dark! All-encompassing, eternal darkness! Human eyes cannot penetrate the stygian blackness of this unholy confection!

more at McSweeney’s

So, today was the day our merry band of miscreants rode the BridgePedal. Every year in Portland, the majority of our bridges across the Willamette river close to motorized traffic and let bikes take over the road. Most of the bridges can be crossed during a normal commute, but others such as the Marquam, are freeway bridges and generally off-limits.

With a few routes to choose from, we opted for the 8 bridge / 24 mile route. Chris, Colin, Bryan, April, and myself met up at Stumptown at 7am, then headed over to Salmon and Front for our 7:30am start. Which we got to around 8am.

After a quick pass through some city streets, we hit our first bridge, the Hawthorne. This was then quickly followed by the Ross Island bridge. So far so good. I cross these bridges all the time as part of my short waterfront loops, so nothing extraordinary yet.

Then came the loop onto I-405 and up the Marquam. These were our first big hills of the day. The onramp to the freeway gave us a good opportunity to pick up speed as we cruised to the top of the double decker freeway span.

The course wound its way through SE, past Branx/Rotture, and then back to downtown across the Burnside. Things got a little bunched up here, but soon enough we made our way to the Broadway bridge. Again, these two bridges are bike commuter bridges (and drunken walks, but thats another story), so nothing exciting.

We then had to make our way to the Fremont bridge, the second car only bridge we got to cross. There is a fair elevation difference between the Broadway and the Fremont, so by the time we got to mid span of this double decker, a quick water break was in order.

After the Fremont, we had a long trek through industrial NW Portland out to the St. Johns Bridge. Again, another decent elevation climb right at the end to get on the bridge, which nearly kicked my ass.

At this point we had crossed all but the last bridge back in town to get back to the Waterfront, and were probably 3/4 of the way done with ride. It was just before 10am, so pints were in order. Well, actually, a couple of pitchers. We ran into our friends Anne and Carly there, and after a nice 45 minute pit stop got back on the road.

The route had us head back to the Broadway bridge, loop through the North end of the Pearl District, down to the waterfront and to the finish line.

Except, thats about two blocks from Bridgeport Brewpub. So with the finish line in sight (basically), we stopped for another pitcher and some snacks. Feeling refueled, we headed down and finished the ride.

Futzed around the Bite for a minute, headed off to Voleur for some lunch, then back home.

Weather was amazing. A little cool and gray to start, then breaking open to sunshine later on.

The ride was all sorts of fun, our crew stayed fairly close together, no mechanical mishaps (at least during the ride), lots of people having a good time, pitchers, biking… Phew!

(rest of the pics on the Flickr)

John K of Ren and Stimpy fame designed these 2008 campaign hopeful toys. Pretty sweet!

xposted from mailing lists and other blog posts:

It’s Not the Most Important Match Ever….

…it’s bigger than that.

The final USL match between the Portland Timbers and the Scum from Seattle.

And it’s Thirsday Thursday.

And a late start.

And it’s on Fox Soccer Channel.

We shall bring the noise and the pain and make them simper back to their moldy, fish-stank home.

The match will be preceded by a funeral parade. (Yes, we have an actual human-sized coffin.)

Be at the Bitter End at 6pm or at the Bullpen about an hour later.

Bagpipes; pallbearers; trumpets; booze.