MusicBrainz

Asides

I remember reading about MusicBrainz forever ago but I’ve really started using it in earnest today and it’s totally blowing me away. Running a little slow though, this might be the application that gets me to upgrade my computer. Why don’t these guys have every music site and VCs pounding down their door? Fantastic, moderated metadata plus collection management? That’s hot.

First American in 1924

Asides

Apparently Robert Cronk was the first American born in 1924 and is very proud of that fact. I got an email from him, presumably because of the genealogy site I admin: “In a cursory examination of your website, I notice, in addition to all the others born on January 1st, there are five specified as being born on January 1, 1924. I would like you to pass along my greetings to these five persons, because I, too, was born on January 1, 1924. I know it is premature, but January 1, 2004, is fast approaching, so I would like to say to everyone who shares that date as a birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY and HAPPY NEW YEAR from the FIRST AMERICAN BORN IN 1924.” Browse around the site a bit, it’s certainly one of the less traversed corners of the internet. (Yes, I am just now getting to email from 10/2003. I said I was catching up.)

Welcome 2005

Personal

At midnight I hope to be no where close to a computer, so I’ll post this now because I’m sure it’s 2005 someplace already. Thank you, everyone, for such a wonderful year and I wish you all the very best for the coming one.

Here are my resolutions for 2005:

  • Build up my piano chops — On some level I always wondered how things would be different if I stuck with piano instead of switching to sax. I’d like to learn a lot more piano.
  • Read more — I got some great books for Christmas and I think more offline reading would be good for me.
  • Release more — I let releases build up too long, I think most things I’m doing would benefit from a shorter development cycle. I also still have a lot of code I still need to clean up and GPL, more for the *Press family perhaps.
  • Write more — I’ve been happy with my code output lately, but my regular writing has suffered and I haven’t composed or arranged any significant music in about two years now.
  • No more mental roadblocks — For any of the above it would be easy to say “it would be easy to do X if I had Z” but this year I’ve learned that Z is just holding me back. Physical or habitual crutches may be more comfortable, but comfort is a terrible thing when you’re trying to push the envelope.