blog.humaneguitarist.org

Before I crawled out of bed yesterday, I checked my email and saw a message from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. The contents of the email are similar to this blog post by him.

I didn't mind the recent price hike referenced in the post – it's easy for consumers to only look at things from their perspective. Offering unlimited streaming is a big freakin' deal. Add on that it works really, really well (thanks Silverlight!) and I really didn't mind it. Hell, I often eat up bandwidth leaving a movie on for streaming while I fall asleep.

But the news that the DVD part of the business will be forked off to Qwikster is another matter. Sure, the name's stupid but more importantly the idea of not being able to simultaneously browse both the physical and streaming collection and to seamlessly manage my queues is really making me think about dropping Netflix or the impending Qwikster. But I probably won't due to two reasons:

1. The enormous selection. I don't watch many new, popular movies and Netflix/Qwikster has a damn good selection of streaming and DVD titles for the kind of stuff I watch. I don't know if there are good alternatives out there – including Amazon, etc. – but I guess I'll now be investigating further.
2. If Qwikster has a similarly cool API as does Netflix – er, at least in it's current form – then it's only a matter of days after Qwikster launches that someone will write an application that will let me manage both accounts from one interface.

I guess what really bugs me is the hasty-ness of Hastings' communications. It's probably not a good idea to serve up a controversial chaser after a glib apology. And I can't help but think they're just trying to separate their DVD business so it can be sold off.

As of this writing there are over 20k comments on the blog post, including this gem by one Bryan Thompson:

This is great news! My dentist just did the same thing. It's so much better. Now when I have cavities on my top row of teeth I go to one dentist, and when I have cavities on the bottom row, I go to the other dentist across town. Sure it's frustrating that sometimes they can't access my dental records that used to all be in one place, and yes I admit that it seems strange that they now charge me almost twice as much for the exact same dental care I received six months ago … but they are innovators!

Anyway, I'm going to wait and see on this one. If Qwikster doesn't have a cool API that allows for item #2 (above), then there might be a serious problem. In fact, whoever writes that app (and I'm sure there will be many variants) could potentially be saving Netflix's rear end – at least in the short term.

When the day comes where there are no DVDs that can't be streamed – along with all special features and language/subtitle options – then Netflix's decision will make sense. But right now, I'm not sure it does.

And yes, I probably don't have the rights to use "thumbs down". Sorry, Roger.

…

Update, October 11, 2011: Well, it looks like Netflix won't be splitting into Netflix/Qwikster after all per their blog post here.

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Good artists borrow, great artist steal.

I've generally heard this quote attributed to Pablo Picasso but also to Igor Stravinsky. It's interesting to think that since they knew each other, one might have stolen it from the other. Related, I glossed over this post on About.com. I didn't read it carefully, but I agree that the quote is misunderstood. I've had discussions in the past with friends who simply invoked the quote to justify lifting parts of someone else's work in the pursuit of trying to create. But as I'd say to them, that isn't stealing, it's only borrowing. If you steal something, you make it yours, making it work so well in your image that it's no longer immediately recognizable as having belonged to another.

Anyway, this post is about digital music notation. Or so says the title.

I've long wondered – even going back to music school in the 1990's – about using a stylus to enter music onto a drawing tablet or what not. And I'm thinking about it more and more. I saw this thread about the possibility of MuseScore on Android tablets, etc. and using the touchscreen interface on a tablet computer as a desktop/mouse replacement, but I keep thinking about the stylus.

Why? Because I hate entering music in score editors. I find it infinitely faster to write music with pencil and paper. I think a large part of this is that there's no translation occurring in my mind between hearing/visualizing what I need to enter and then mapping that into how that gets entered in a score editor. Arguably, some of that irritation would get reduced with practice, but not really in my case because I just don't think that graphical entry via keyboard or a note palette is the way to go.

When I write with pencil, I usually jot down the notes for a small phrase, etc. and then add the stems in afterward. I think that way the part of my brain thinking about notating pitch and duration are slightly separated which for me, at least, makes the process faster. Sometimes I enter each pitch and its duration note-by-note, but it's not conscious and it's still fast. With digital, I find it a royal pain in the ass trying to enter pitches first and then changing their durations. Often, it seems to "break" the measure and cause encoding problems. Going the other route (entering the durations first) doesn't work either. They're both so much more work than the traditional pencil and paper routine. And I end of spending more time thinking about notation entry than Music.

That's what I love about Lilypond. I love how I can just enter into a simple text string just the note names and then go back and add the durations – there's no digital/graphical veil. In terms of computing, it seems a more native and natural approach to use simple text entry than to try and emulate ideas from the pencil and paper world (but do it less efficiently). In fact, Lilypond is the only thing I could use to notate a score as I compose it. That's what I did with this piece for solo guitar. It would be great if MuseScore had something similar to a text-only entry box that rendered as graphical notation after-the-fact, kinda like what happens on weblily.net. I almost want to say Finale does (using some custom text notation syntax) but I can't seem to find a screenshot or anything in the online Finale manual.

I just feel like maybe we're borrowing when we should be thinking about stealing. If we're going to pursue graphical ways of digital notation entry, I think we've got to think about being able to offer users the ability to draw their music with a stylus (more precise than a finger) and having that instantly recognized via OMR. That experience won't be too great on a tablet, but maybe one day with better digital paper and smart pens:

What happens when you have to erase something?

Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but for now I'll stick with pencil and paper and just using a computer to make the music more legible after the fact. There's one enormous advantage to this, too, and it's a musical one: it forces conscious consideration of revision upon me as I "re-notate" the music. Honestly, I doubt I would ever want to not use pencil and paper anyway. Music is the one thing I can do without needing a computer at all.

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I recently got an email from a friend asking if I'd de-friended her on Facebook.

Nevermind that I hate the word "de-friend" – spoken or written but especially when written without the hyphen … alas, she didn't use the hyphen.

I hadn't removed her from anything at all. Indeed, what I removed was myself.

I joined Facebook during library school because a lot of my cohort members were on it and also a lot of my other friends were increasingly less likely to respond to an email of mine, though I knew they actively conversed via text/SMS and social networks.

I've never been big on texting, especially in the days where I had a really basic phone without a keyboard. Even with T9, I hated it. In fact, even on my Android I still kinda hate it. I just find texting horribly inefficient. I only use it when I know my friends don't have consistent online access.

So anyway, social networking seemed like the only choice. Initially it was cool, people actually responding to questions of mine(!), getting "caught up" with old friends and all. But over time, it seemed nothing was happening, as if we were all in a temporal stasis.

And then there's just Facebook itself. I increasingly found it to be obnoxious both in its functionality and its policies – and also how it reminded me of how trivial so much of the e-communication I engage in is. In fact, when I deleted my Facebook account permanently a few weeks ago, I also deleted most of my phone and email contacts.

For sure, I'll miss some people who I may never talk to again. But missing people is part of the human experience for which some aspects of social networking are poor, poor substitutes.

And NO, I won't start using Twitter now.

ps: here's a tremendously interesting post entitled "Federation! (Goodbye, Google Plus)" on social networks, corporations, open-networks, etc.

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I've been using Firefox pretty much from its beginning.

I started using it when I worked at a public library in Charleston, South Carolina. One of our tech guys was really young and into all the new gadgets and technologies. He introduced me to Firefox … and I believe he even gave me my first Gmail invite.

Around that time I also played around with the actual Mozilla Browser and K-Meleon, which ran so well on my old Pentium 3 that I was able to use that computer a year or two longer than had I used another, slower browser.

Initially, FF was so much different – and better – than Internet Explorer that I looked past the relentless crashes. Everything crashed back then, so I couldn't hold it against FF.

But now I can. For the last couple of years, I've become increasingly tired of FF's performance – or lack thereof. Crashes, lockups, slow start-ups, etc, etc.

So, I'm moving on.

I'm going with Chrome even though I think the new IE is great. I don't want to use Safari – 'cause I'd rather not directly support Apple (perhaps more on that one day).

… and then, as far as mainstream browsers, there's Opera. It's always been a great, cutting edge browser. But there's always been one little reason I didn't use it.

If I remember, it initially wasn't completely free. If you didn't pay, you had to see ads. I couldn't deal with that, so I moved on.

Subsequent versions of Opera just didn't look and feel like a native Windows application. That didn't work for me either.

But Opera totally rocks now. So why am I not using it? Because there's currently no Xmarks for Opera. I love Xmarks and if an Opera version comes along, I'll probably move to Opera. Finally.

Back to FF.

I think a lot of us tend to give some applications a free-pass if the program is, er, free. And if it positions itself as the noble, open-source alternative to the big, bad corporate machine … even better. I certainly can be accused of using FF and some other software more for these idiotic, faux ethical reasons than based on actual performance and productivity metrics. But I just don't have a compelling reason to use FF anymore. And I won't.

ps: here's an interesting post entitled "How Mozilla lost the browser wars again".

…

Update, August 13, 2011: After experiencing some issues where Chrome seemed unable to maintain a steady connection with my DSL service and after realizing (after I wrote the post) that I clearly wanted to use Opera, I did make the switch to Opera. While there's no Xmarks for Opera, there is Opera Link. Since I'm not really syncing bookmarks across different types of browsers and just wanted a nice bookmarks backup, Opera Link should be fine. BTW, I did have to refer to this video to get Netflix streaming working on Opera.

A quick Sunday morning rant …

I imagine it would be pretty hard to do business if I owned a small brewery but insisted on selling my beer in spherical beer bottles year round.

That would probably create all kinds of problems in terms of packaging, delivery, and shelf space in a retail setting. Sure, I could do it if I insisted but I imagine the financial consequences for my small brewery would be too great versus just complying with the bottling norm.

Having said that, I sometimes I get a little sick and tired of talks of "standards" in Library Land with respect to digital information. It's as if some people still have a physical-world mental barrier clouding their thinking.

My take is that, standards aside, it's pointless to re-invent the wheel in any walk of life so, yeah, give standards a chance but if the wheel doesn't do what you want then one shouldn't hesitate to "roll their own". Moreover, I'd argue that a great many "standards" are in fact born out of that very kind of dissatisfaction with the status-quo. Reminds me of this great quote by George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

And isn't that the very freedom that digital information provides? Isn't that one of the points of the web – that everyone can contribute with very minimal pre-requisites?

But it seems like some people think metadata formats and ways of doing things always have to be determined by committees.

I just don't get that especially since the device anyone is reading this on exists in large part due to private entrepreneurship and not a bunch of people sitting around a table talking about how great the world would be if we all did things their way. Actually, that's exactly what happened, but it wasn't just a bunch of academics without the resources to transform theory into practice.

The difference in rolling one's own is, of course, that you have to make your data comply to existing standards or practices if you want to reap the benefits of doings things the same way as others like linked data and what not.

Big deal. If the data exists at a granular level it can be "shipped" in spherical AND regular bottles simultaneously.

And if you're a big enough player you can make people go along with your vision and indeed ship a product in round bottles after all …

Too bad those aren't filled with a nice IPA.

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Just shooting from the hip here …

I'm imagining a library in which I couldn't browse the collection physically by walking up and down the aisles.

Where all I can do is approach a reference librarian and have them bring me back items they thought matched my needs based on a short "interview".

Where I'd then assess what's before me, clarify a few things, and have them bring me back more things – only to learn that a few items I sent back are ones I now want back.

What a friggin' mess. It's like shopping for a suit at a men's clothing store. I don't even want to think about having to do this to buy groceries. Oh, the horror …

But isn't that what search is?

And yet, the Kool-Aid tells us search is better than browsing.

Bull poop.

Implementing search and even keyword tags on a website (like this blog!) is easy to implement programmatically – a matter of some simple SQL, assuming SQL is the backend for the site's metadata. Maybe that's the real reason they're so prevalent.

Employing some kind of extensible taxonomy to categorize the information takes more work … and more thought. For sites with a lot of content that will be used over and over for research and referential purposes, it's better if the user has both search and true browsing opportunities, says I.

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A few days ago I was included in a group email on Facebook concerning someone's desire to get some ideas regarding an upcoming interview for a librarianship position. That's fine, I don't mind. But I had no interest nor anything to add. So after a few replies kept coming in to my phone I replied to the group suggesting they move the conversation to an actual FB group or to the originator's wall.

The response I got was, well, pretty telling.

Basically, I was told that since the group discussion was going there wasn't a way to move the discussion to a group or a wall post and that I could remove myself from the thread with a vague reference to "message options" – options I didn't have. So I requested instructions (i.e. more information) specifically for mobile and was given a link which of course referenced options unavailable to me. So I just marked the thread as Spam and maybe that's why I haven't seen any more messages in the thread. Also, I told the person they simply had to copy/paste the replies and paste them into a FB "Note" on their wall. That way all the replies wold be preserved and people could continue to reply and be notified of updates if they participated. In other words, the claim that moving the conversation would be impossible or at least troublesome was incorrect.

One should never force people into a conversation. Of course, sometimes we don't know if people do or don't want to participate. But we should always be prepared for the chance that some people won't want to participate and we should be prepared to make it possible for them to leave with minimal effort. Not doing so seems un-librarian like to me. Nor does it seem to convey an understanding of how to use some of the social media tools out there and the various methods and devices others might use to access social networking sites.

Invite people in, don't show up at their door and expect them to give their time.

The latter's not exactly a way of doing things I'd want in a new hire.

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I'm trying to find out if there are – or will be – any Linux distros aimed specifically at the digital library community.

If anyone out there knows anything about this, please post a comment or drop me a line.

It just seems to me that a couple of things are happening that create major problems:

1. so called "best practices" often seem to be born more out of individualistic grant-receiving concerns than they are of truly getting several institutions on-board with effective, affordable, and shared approaches to workflows

and

2. an industry so concerned with standards and organization seems to have such little concern for organizing a do-able approach to ensure certain standards – and those "best" practices – get met in a relatively easy and affordable way.

So if there isn't already, why isn't there major activity to develop a Linux distro specifically for digital library functions?

If that were the case, couldn't some of these "best" practices actually get built into the very OS people use?

All the scanning, audio-video, metadata, and delivery applications could be integrated within the OS, ensuring compatibility for whatever institutions use it.

Lists of compatible scanners and A/V equipment could get published, ensuring that people will buy equipment that will run on the OS.

Software updates could me made and get implemented in real-time across institutions.

Using all open-source software could standardize technical metadata outputs and save institutions lots of time/money – allowing them to pay for better and more talented employees.

Etc, etc, etc.

You could even call it LibOS* and use an image of Tux making a libary-shushing pose!

Maybe it's time to stop paying lip service to collaboration and really get things moving.

"It's the operating system, Stupid!"

*BTW: MIT appears to have had a late 90's project that used the term LibOS, but it's something totally different.

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Last week I posted a simple Python script and alluded to what I feel is the need for LIS programs to address computer programming.

The LIS field – or industry? – is so immersed in the usage and advocating of technology that it seems logical, per my logic at least, to offer library students an introductory class that allows them to learn about what lies behind the surface.

That said, I think LIS programs that do offer such classes need to really think about what language(s) should be taught to students who will – perhaps more often than not – have virtually no prior programming experience.

And while it would be neither professional – or perhaps even nice – of me to get into specifics, let me just throw out this question:

Why Java?

Sure, it's critically important as a language, but that isn't the point. The point is "is it appropriate for what will likely be a class of beginner programmers majoring in library science?"

Now I'm not a real programmer, an educator, or even a 'librarian' but I'm going to answer the question anyway.

No.

Why?

For starters, library students – who are not computer science majors – need to learn a language that is syntactically simple enough to more or less stay out of their way as they learn to think about design – knowing where you want to go and figuring out how to get there.

For an example of the problems in wading through syntactical issues when you're starting out, here's an excerpt from John M. Zelle's Python as a First Language regarding the ubiquitous "Hello World!" that constitutes many people's first program.

Python supports the use of functions and classes but does not force it. Simple programs really are simple. For example, consider the ubiquitous “Hello World'' program in Python:

print "Hello World!"

C++ requires this program to be wrapped in a function and preceded by a preprocessor directive:

#include <iostream.h>
int main()
{
   cout << "Hello World!";
}

In Java, the situation is even worse, as all code must be inside of a class:

public class helloWorld
{
   public static void main(String [] args)
   {
     System.out.println("Hello World!");
   }
}

Sure you can find plenty of Java advocates too, but keep in mind that Zelle is writing in terms of appropriate first languages for computer science majors, not librarians. That seems to only bolster the notion the Java might not be the best thing for LIS students – at least not for a first programming class.

Secondly, I think one needs to also consider the execution environment. PHP, for instance, can be executed via the command line, but also can so easily be executed in the most widespread GUI we've ever known: the web browser. All one needs is something like XAMPP, an Apache distribution with PHP that installs in minutes if not seconds. From there one can make web forms and database queries to their heart's desire in addition to running backend programs that manipulate files and folders, etc.

Lastly, there's the matter of salability. I'm not saying Java skills aren't salable – that would be ridiculous – but will people really develop salable skills in one semester? PHP is salable, I think, in the library world just because it has, I'd argue, a lot of name brand recognition even amongst administrators who are less familiar with a lot of technologies. I see it on library job descriptions all the time (preferred qualifications).

By the way, here's "Hello World!" in PHP; it's almost as simple as Python.

<?php
echo 'Hello World!';
?>

I guess what I'm saying is that for a beginner what matters isn't the language itself, it's the language behind the language and I'm not sure Java is the best way for LIS students to become conversant in the latter.

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