New old friends

Yesterday I asked what happened at last.fm. I think the answer is clear. Someone did delete my account. Which is sad, but let's face it, not all together surprising. When I discovered that the account was deleted, I attempted to sign up again and was successful for about 15 minutes or so before the account was deleted again. I think that the second deletion had more to do with mirrored servers synchronizing but I could be wrong. The difference that I noted between the first time the account was deleted and the second time is that the first time, the iameveryone friend disappeared from other users accounts, but the second time, it didn't. Also, the second time, iameveryone could still scrobble and would show up in the friend's dashboard. Strange. I sent a note to last.fm support but haven't heard anything. Yesterday another iameveryone was registered and is still operating so hopefully we'll be able to keep it open for a while longer anyway.

Today I went through the gmail account and re-added all the old friends that I could find e-mails from there. Surely there were many more. At some point on the old last.fm account the e-mail address had been changed to coco@denver.com. I do not know who that e-mail address belongs to. But, when I tried to send a message there, it bounced back anyway, so I doubt that it matters much.

I subscribed to last.fm again. And I'm sending a message to see if I can get the subscription from the old account applied to the new one.

Right now, I'm listening to doctor_dee's Radio and it is delightful!

I hope that I will continue to post in the blog as my personality changes in the coming days.

Today . . .

What happened to the old account at last.fm? Did someone intentionally delete it?

Here's what I've done. There was no avatar so I did a google image search for "I am everyone" and the first image that came up was the one I've chosen. Came from this here website:

http://www.doukhobordugouthouse.com/events_current.html

Interesting!

I've visited some pages, I've joined a few groups based on randomness. I added a silly name and an old age (that keeps changing) to add to the mystery of being everyone.

I've put in some comments, also rather random. (In efforts to humanize ourselves.)

I chose a member's radio to listen to randomly but loosely based in their eclectic tastes.

Loved a few songs that I thought were just down right good.

Nobody's biting on the friendship. I didn't add anyone but it's clear that people know I'm around and with a statement like "Please add me!", well, they must know I mean them!

Today I am a woman. Middle-aged and a bit silly. I'm doing things randomly, just as anyone new to a community would. But since I am in actuality a subscriber who has been around for awhile I am finding the anonymity rather exhilarating! I happened upon this experiment by chance. I didn't think much of it at first, maybe I thought it was pointless? But I was just sitting there today and thinking, "I wonder about that account!" So I looked it up only to find that someone had deleted the old account. Fortunately there was already a new one up and running. But now everyone must start over, new friends, new groups. Oh well, we can handle it. But like I was saying, I didn't really like the idea in the beginning. But not only is it an experiment in how last.fm works, (I'm not positive about what we're really trying to prove anyway) it's psychological. How we act when we are everyone. There really is something about being everyone! I've been anonymous before, but this is different. Maybe I am crazy but when I am browsing around I really do feel like I could be ANYONE! Very unlike in my own account where everything is based on my personal library. The people that pop up are different, the groups are different! I am moved to listen to things I wouldn't normally try. In my own profile, I really have to work hard to find new interesting people. But with this new frame of mind and complete randomness I am finding much that is of interest. I truly hope I get to come back and do this again. I really wouldn't mind doing it often.

95

Been doing a bit of IAE surfing around last.fm over the past week, leaving a few comments here and there; it seems to have generated a bit of interest. Judging by content and numbers and times, I'd say there are at least three IAEs scrobbling at the moment. Things have picked up in the wake of redhalo's tenure; loads of attention, a slew of new friends and -- quite obviously -- users.

Current stats are as follows. Tracks per day is sitting at 95 (there was a huge bump in stats with redhalo's turn at the wheel and it has been holding steady). Top artists overall as of June 3, 2007 (Weekly Top Artists were not available)...

Ween, The Legendary Pink Dots, Modest Mouse, The Tear Garden, radio trailer, Edward Ka-Spel, Inuit vocalists, Radiohead, Anton Webern, Ami Yoshida, Spoon, Gene Ween, The Gun Club, The Beatles, Bob L. Sturm, Belle and Sebastian, Throbbing Gristle, György Ligeti, Operation Ivy, Naked City, Daphne Oram, Old 97's, Nina Simone, Tod Dockstader, NPR, Cat Power, Wire, Low, Leoš Janáček, The Cure, Darius Milhaud, The Fall, François de Roubaix, Andrew Bird, David Bowie, PJ Harvey, György Kurtág, Calexico, Gerhard Rühm, The Postal Service, The Go-Betweens, Built to Spill, The Shins, Lubos Fiser, Lily Allen, The Smiths, The White Stripes, The Kinks, Counting Crows, The Dandy Warhols...

Logged into and sorted through the bulk of messages at gheemail. Wrote up a number of filters and labels to catagorize and sort content; hope this helps. That done, I logged back into IAEs last.fm and calculated IAEs mainstream percentile. The Mainstream-O-Meter calculates one's mainstream-ness by comparing the listener count of IAEs favorite bands to the average listener count of the five bands who have the most listeners among Last.fm-users. IAE currently sits at 14.90% of mainstream.

Also, added an AEP link in IAEs last.fm sidebar (it appears just under the Journals entry). AEP is a measure of how diverse one's music tastes are, based on the top 50 artists in one's Last.fm profile. AEP is a number, usually below 5. Roughly speaking, if it is greater than 4 you have very diverse taste in music, if it greater than 3 then you have fairly diverse taste in music. At the other end of the scale, if it is less that 0, you are probably an obsessive fan of your top artist. As of this posting, IAEs AEP stood at 0.85 (it will be interesting to watch how the profile changes over the coming weeks and months.

Wrote up this post and logged out of iameveryone's everything. Out to enjoy the first sunny day in a week!

2.79

One month in and I'm averaging 67 tracks a day. Yippee! That's 2.79 tracks an hour! This evening marked the playing of track number 2,000... you guessed it, a Radiohead tune. Track number 1,000 by the way, was a Lily Allen tune.

so long shania

Logged into iameveryone's last.fm account and played Neighbour Radio again. Noted -- just like last.fm -- Radiohead was top of the pops. Weekly top artists were as follows: Nina Simone, Old 97's, Lily Allen, Belle and Sebastian, The Postal Service, Modest Mouse, Shania Twain, Spoon, The Beatles and Controller 7. Any surprises there?

I am wondering if an attempt to befriend the 50 neighbours showing up on IAEs last.fm Overview page has been made now that enough tracks have been played to generate the lists on a weekly basis? Does IAE have time for this?

Ran iameveryone through mainstream on vincentahrend.com and found IAE is 36.26% of mainstream! That's the rolling stat... I think it would be a little more interesting to track this data from week to week. IAE was -- for plays falling between 15th and 22nd of April 2007 -- 30.45% of mainstream! As time passes, and participation hopefully grows, do you think the stats will fall in line with those posted by last.fm or veer off in another direction?

Logged into IAEs blogger account and streamlined the html running the template. With the compressed code, the IAE blogger pages should load 25 to 28% faster (and running a few test loads on various browsers seems to bear this out). It's the little things, eh. (As I doubt casual users of IAE's last.fm are bothering with reading the mail), I posted a couple of last.fm mails I though worth launching into the blogosphere.

Read the 23rd of April 2007 entry concerning IAEs eighteen month parcel wait; sounds -- as the package was in such good condition -- it never left the company's mail/shipping department; went down behind a desk or something. Wrote up this post and signed out of IAE's last.fm account, noticing someone else had slid into the account, playing Def Leppard and Guns 'n Roses and Metallica. So long, Shania.

the greatest gift

From:[a last.fm user]
Subject: Hi
Date: 16 Apr 2007, 17:55
I'm sorry, bot there is no ultimate listener, there will never be! And there is no need for such one. It's the greatest gift that we all can call us individuals. that's what makes EVERY PERSON interesting.
Sorry, I can't join you.
greetings

it's my hat

From: [a last.fm user]
Subject: Friend's request
Date: 14 Apr 2007, 19:43
Hi,

Don't know how you found me... ?
I don't have any french... and you are not really in my neighboor ;)

I think it's my hat on my pic... am i right ? Every girls likes the hat ;)

april 23, 2007

I got a package today that I ordered from a company more than 18 months ago. It was delivered recently to my former office, and passed on to me by a former colleague/friend. I was confused at first, I have ordered from that company recently and everything was delivered to the proper address. When I opened the package, it all became clear ... one of the items was a limited edition item made to benefit the victims of hurricane Katrina. I remember ordering it shortly after the tragedy, and calling the company months later because the package never arrived. The other item is something that I have since reordered because I really wanted it. At the time, the company refunded me for my purchases, but assured me that the money for the victims had already been donated to the charity, so they were the ones taking the hit. This act helped make me a loyal customer.

I studied the package closer ... sure enough, the postmark was for September 12, 2005. The funny thing is, the package was in PRISTINE condition and looked like it had been put in the mail yesterday. I can't help but wonder where it has been hanging out all this time.

and all the other little things

Signed into iameveryone's last.fm account and played Neighbour Radio for half an hour; was surprised to hear a number of tracks that would have looked right at home on my personal Playlist. Edited text in the last.fm Details sidebar -- just the formatting -- so details of the experiment grouped nicely and everything wasn't all smooshed together.

Signed into iameveryone's blogger account -- still listening to iameveryone's Neighbour Radio -- read through the posts and decided, on deliberation, to bring the type pitch up a notch so it jumped off the grey background with a little less effort, changed the colour of the blogger navbar to match the theme and ticked of the notify of new blog posts by email option.

Was just about to sign out and clear off when the idea to link a feed from the last.fm project page hit me. So I posted a Recently Played Tracks feed in a widget panel to tie the projects to one another and decided -- with all the changes wrought in such a sort span of time -- I'd best document it and all the other little things.

last.fm experiment update

The ultimate music listener experiment seems to be going nicely. There are sporadic bouts of exciting activity in which I have no idea who is listening to the music. It's also a really oddly fun experience when I definitely know there are more than 1 person listening to music under the iameveryone account, and the music gets all squished together, and it is hard to tell one person from the next. So apparently it is fine for more than one person to be submitting music under the same user name at a time.

So interesting. Thanks for everyone who is participating. I think it is great fun.

Grindhouse

I watched Grindhouse yesterday. It was really cool, but disgusting. I must have spent half the movie covering my face to avoid the gross parts. The audience was a lot of fun - lots of shrieking and groaning and a great round of applause at the end. I can see how this wouldn't be a lot of people's cup of tea, but if you are at all a fan of either Rodriguez or Tarantino, you will definitely love this movie. There are zombies and car crashes. And lots of explosions.

I think I liked the Planet Terror part more than the Death Proof one, but both had their equally awesome moments.

no mind

Oh God I have no mind!

OH GOD

OH GOD

MorningStar Corn Dogs

Morningstar Corn Dogs come 4 to a box, which means that you can stick two in your mouth, holster one for later, and still have one left over for at least a passable chance at defending yourself in the event of a unicorn attack (or a fake unicorn, aka "soynicorn").

Just finished lunch, going to go watch TMNT again like the master said.

tuesday thoughts

I am currently sitting at my desk drinking "Fierce Grape" Gatorade, and successfully avoiding doing actual work. Well, that's not true, I did tie up some loose ends from a problem yesterday, so I did something before I started doing nothing. The blue play-doh that a friend gave me for creative inspiration is taunting me to play with it, but I think that doing so would make it obvious to my colleagues that I am not doing anything.

My world did get one degree of separation smaller today: a friend/colleague just told me that the girl he has been talking to in Texas is from my home state, and we may end up having mutual friends. I shouldn't be shocked, this happens to me all the time (like the girl who I have sat next to in class for the past few months who grew up 2.5 hours from me, and ended up at the same out-of-state college -- yet we didn't figure this out until last week).

I am looking forward to my Amazon orders arriving today: The Group by Mary McCarthy (my next book club read); Entourage Season 3, Part 1 (since I don't have cable to keep up on it); a K.C. Cole non-fiction book, First You Build a Cloud (science essays for non-scientists I have read all her other books); A Long Way Gone a memoir about a boy growing up during Sierra Leone's civil war; Macy Gray's new album; and a Lightning Seeds album (I have been wanting to hear "Life of Riley" and can't find it on limewire or iTunes). I also pre-ordered the new Harry Potter (I can't help myself) and Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm (a friend who knows that I love memoirs highly recommended it).

Anyway, I guess I should try to get some work done.

last.fm

Hey I'm trying an experiment.
I want to see if I can create the ultimate music listener's profile. I mean, as diverse and eclectic as I'm sure your musical tastes are, there's no way you listen to everything. So let's create this ultimate music listener. It's totally ripping off Rob Cockerham and probably lots of other people, but I haven't seen anyone do it for last.fm yet.

Okay so here goes. The user name for last.fm is iameveryone and the password is 1everyone. Now here's how you can switch your iscrobbler plugin from your own to iameveryone's really quick. Just hit ctrl + T and then click on the browse thing. Then you can change your user name and password. Just change it for like, a few songs. Heck, change it whenever you want to listen to your guilty pleasure songs and then it won't be associated to your own profile!

The tricky thing is, I have no idea what would happen if two or more people are logged in and submitting music under the same profile. I guess we'd find out if that happens! Or, if you wanted to make sure not to break anything, you could just check to see if anything is currently being listened to.

http://www.last.fm/user/iameveryone/

Okay? Cool.

Gum

On the subways lately, there are tons of kids selling candy for a dollar. Last year, the gimmick was that they were selling the candy for a school trip to Rome. This year, most of the kids have given up on that, and are just saying that they are trying to raise money and keep out of trouble.

Now, presuming they get those boxes of candy for a cheap discount, and that they can sell out a box pretty quickly if they hit the trains at rush hour, that's not a bad profit. But that's an awful lot of work all the same.

So I was reminded of my own entrepeneurial days as a kid. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I was in junior high. My parents kept buying these 10 packs of Wrigley's gum, so I pretty much always had a pack on me at school. I started getting sick of people asking me for gum all the time, so jokingly, I started to charge them for it. And the funny thing is, they actually did give me the money. Now admittedly, it literally was for change, because I think I charged maybe 10 cents a pack. A pack had 5 sticks. The 10 packs actually cost my parents $1.29 or maybe $1.39 even. So really, I was pretty wasteful. But I was selling this gum so I could buy different gum - the Red Hots or whatever they were called. Gumballs coated in this viscous red stuff that would stick to your teeth. I didn't even actually like these gumballs, but they were the "cool" gum.

Anyway, I was remembering how I once didn't have any full packs left, and I actually charged someone 2 cents for a stick of gum. I bet my parents would have stopped buying me any candy if they knew I was selling it.

A few years later, I was still finding random packs of gum in the pockets of old clothes and old purses.

Guilty Pleasures

Okay, I listen to a lot of crappy music, sure. But today, something came up on my iPod that made me laugh, because there is no way I want anyone to know I actually listen to this song on purpose. Okay, so I'll tell you. It's Control, by Puddle of Mudd.

I KNOW.

I also have a whole bunch of Don Henley songs. Okay, okay. And Richard Marx. And Michael Damian. Just the one song. Because... really, did he do any other songs besides the blue suede shoes one?

Okay I told you a whole bunch, now what's one of your guilty pleasure songs?
What are the most embarrassing songs you hate to love?

Desktop Defender

Oh my god, this game, Desktop Defender is so damned addictive. I cannot stop playing it. And it's a long game too, so even if I am "good" and just play one game, that's practically half an hour wasted. It's such a simple game. And the first time I played, I was like, okay, this isn't so special. But I kept reading about other people getting addicted so I gave it a second chance to see what was all the fuss. And so it's been maybe 5 days now, and all I can see when I close my eyes are little creeps wiggling around the maze.

Seriously, do not play this game. It is evil.

Spoon

Looking forward to the new album.

This is an experiment

The username is iameveryone@gmail.com and the password is 1everyone. Please feel free to edit and post whatever you wish. The ultimate goal is to craft an identity for this blog, using contributions from a community of people.

This is not meant to be an anonymous blog, or a blog to post secrets. This blog should be a work of fiction, created by people working together to flesh out the identity of "iameveryone". Who is this person? You will decide.

Please feel free to make use of comments to help refine further posts and details.