5 Random Songs (1/14/13)

Round 3 of "5 Random Songs"

I was in the gym the other day and threw my iPod on full random. All 12,000+ songs randomly jarbled together coming at me like a shit cannon. As someone who's worked in music for a long time I have tons of albums I've never listened to that random people have given me to listen to. At one point I put everything on my iPod. That is until it filled up. It's been a couple years since that happened and my taste has changed dramatically since I started collecting the albums on my iPod (going back to the early 90's).

So I decided to go back and review the first 5 songs that popped up when I hit random. Some might be new(ish) and some might be old. Some might be shitty pop and some might be shitty metal. Who knows? Here we go...

Track 1: "Dead Embryonic Cells" Sepultura, Under Siege (Live In Barcelona)

• When I was a young headbanger Sepultura was my favorite band. I had two BC Rich Warlock guitars because Max Cavalera played one. I had Brazilian soccer jerseys because they were from Brazil and wore them on stage. I vowed to name my first born son, Max. So yes, I liked Sepultura a little. This is one of the best songs from their 80's material. This is the live version, which honestly I didn't even know I had. It's a quality recording for a live track but the original version is better. Sepultura is no longer my favorite band but this is still something I'd listen to, no doubt. 

Track 2: "Lapdance" NERD, In Search Of...

• I dug this track when it came out but it sounds a bit dated. I also just remembered that this track used to bug me because the main riff is the same as Marilyn Manson's "Angel With the Scabbed Wings". I always thought that was a bit sketchy. The white dude rapping on this sucks too, which kills the mood. That said Pharrell is great on this track and the stripped down production is classic early Pharrell, like what he did for Clipse. 

Spokeo: You're All Getting Suckered, Suckers.

For the past several years there have been a bunch sites which aggregate people's public information. Some of the better known sites are Pipl, 123People, PeekYou and Spock. Recently, there's been all types of press and online buzz about Spokeo. They're essentially no different from the other sites I listed except in one simple facet - they're pretty good at social media.

The news of Spokeo sharing your "private" personal info caught on like wildfire on Facebook. You probably saw a few posts about it from one of your friends, you might have even posted it yourself. All of the posts were nearly identical, people were clearly copying and pasting. From there, actual news outlets started picking up on this. Every time I see another article or segment on the news I smash my head against the wall.

Let me ask you something - where do you think the original message came from? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Spokeo started this shit up. Information aggregation is not new, your information being public is not new (and it is your fault, by the way), these sites are not new. Below is a variation of the message being sent around. How do people not see this is viral marketing 101?

There's a site called spokeo.com, a new online USA phone book with your personal info: everything from pics on FB or web, your credit score, home value, income, age, children, etc. Remove yourself by searching for your name, copy the URL of your page, use this new link http://www.spokeo.com/privacy fill in the information. Check your email for the confirmation and follow those instructions.

So why is this news? Because anything you plaster all over Facebook becomes a story. If your business offers a service which is a bit scandalous, make it sound more scandalous! Then take to Facebook and plant a message about how everyone's info is public and they're totally fucked. Now YOU better tell your stupid friends because they're in danger too.

Meanwhile, Spokeo is sitting back watching their traffic skyrocket. Sure, a few people come by and remove themselves from the listings but not many. A small price to pay for making the 10 o'clock news (who are morons). The lesson here is think about what you're copying and pasting before you do it. You might be part of a not-so-elaborate marketing scheme. Don't let shitty aggregator sites work your ass and end up front page news.

Oh, and if you really want to hurt these types of sites how about changing your privacy settings on Facebook and deleting old profiles (Friendster & LiveJournal can go dude)? I tend to think that blocking their source feed makes a lot more sense then sending all of your friends to check out their site. Don't be dumb.

AOL Twitter Request Radio Station

AOL Radio will be launching a Twitter based radio station tomorrow. Starting today you can send a tweet tagged #aolradiorequest along with the song name and then hear it on the station. Apparently they're going to have celebrity Twitter-ers (?) sending in requests. They mention @BarackObama and @Oprah, amongst others - we'll see how that goes.

Want to contribute to AOL Radio's first all-Twitter-request radio station?! AOL Radio is creating a radio station programmed entirely by Twitter users, and we invite all Twitter users to participate!

Today (Wed. June 10th) from 12 pm ET until midnight ET, announce your request by tweeting the artist/band name, song title and hashtagging it with #aolradiorequest

An all request station programmed by snarky Twitter kids? Expect a ton of power ballads and 80's pop - the more ironic the better.

While it's unlikely I would listen to this channel, people have shit taste in music, I think it's a rather interesting use of Twitter.

While we're on the topic, if the Twitter channel isn't your thing you should check out the AOL Radio Classic Punk station. I've been listening to that station for years now and it's pretty much the only radio station I bother with. The song selections are top notch - Ramones, Stranglers, Sham 69, Dead Boys, The Damned, New York Dolls, etc.

Nerd Alert: Wolfram Alpha

I've been hearing about the latest search engine Wolfram for a few weeks now. Today I finally went ahead and checked it out. It's rather fucking awesome!

If you want to find out who Jessica Alba is dating it's worthless but if you want to know the distance from NYC to Budapest then it's amazing. That search will also include the time difference, population, elevation, flight time, etc. You can also do cool shit like look up your birth date which will tell you the day of the week you were born plus the position of the moon that night and other nifty tidbits.

Sure there's a rather small portion of the population that would use something like this but I find it fascinating. It's very powerful from a computational stand point. So to all my nerd brethren, jump on this!

Link:
Wolfram Alpha

Tesla (The Coil Not The Band) Covers Zelda

I'm a big nerd for science shit, especially when it pertains to one of my all-time favorite smart dudes - Nikola Tesla. Then when you tie in Zelda, the greatest video game theme song of all-time (I'll fight anyone who says different) you end up with a perfect union of nerditronics.

This video was shot at SXSW:

SexyBack vs. Legend of Zelda Theme on Two Tesla Coils from Trammell on Vimeo.

Link:
ArcAttack