Author: smartpeopleiknow

Timbaland, Jay-Z, and the construction of Pop Music

I have always been impressed by the construction of Justin Timberlake’s/Timbaland’s Sexyback. I figure a DJ could spin that song any of a thousand of ways and have people dancing to the same song for an hour. It’s really well made in that sense, which is no surprise, given the involvement of Timbaland.

I was thinking something similar tonight when listening to Rihanna/Jay-Z’s Umbrella and the massive hooks in it. (Think: “ella-ella” and anything else you can’t get out of your head after listening to it.) It too is really well constructed, which is also no surprise, given Jay-Z’s involvement. You could watch the video, but it will distract you from the very taut vocals. Check out Rhianna singing Umbrella.

ok, here’s the (so-so) video of the anything but so-so Rhianna 🙂

and here’s Sexyback

How to stay focused and easily track time while working on your computer

The Web site, The Printable CEO™, has a great tool called the Emergent Task Timer. It

  • allows you to easily capture tasks you have to do as they come up
  • easily track the time you spend on them
  • reminds you when to update your info.

Check it out at: Emergent Task Timer Online (Flash Alpha)

Or go to David Seah’s site for more productivity tips:

David Seah

The apotheosis of the Web and the denegration of TV

TV set

It is easy to justify wasting spending time with your computer (or blackberry) to access the Web compared to watching TV. With the Web, it feels like you are doing something useful: you are researching, or communicating with friends, or learning about new ideas and new technologies. Comparing this to the watching TV, it seems positively virtuous.

In fact, often times I believe people are simply wasting time on the Web. (Put your hand up if you have watched the Diet Coke/Mentos phenomenom or LOLCats). You may be like me: tired, or bored, or procrastinating, or just in the habit of sitting in front of computer. Likewise, you can be learning about things on TV, too. While there may be more opportunities to learn on the Web, there is a false dichotomy between the web and TV. YouTube has shown that, and Joost will push that concept even further. Indeed, television may have been the precursor to the web, just like telephone and telegraph were precursors to TV. It is all a continuuum, with crossovers of ideas between the various media.

Some thoughts on surfing around the Web when I knew I should be doing something better. Now go watch some TV and be a better person. 🙂

recipe for successful blogging

One of the key techniques in creating a successful blog is constant and regular updates. And the key ingredient for that is sources of content. One source can be a handful of web sites or blogs you can refer to and comment on. Another source is people who read and comment on your blog. Either way, if you have good sources of material for your blog, it gets a lot easier to do it.

the structure of parks

One of my favourite parks is the one in Toronto’s Yorkville district. It has a distinctly untraditional layout. I recall a lot of people didn’t like the layout. It didn’t conform to what they thought of as a park. That’s was one of the things I liked about it. It made me think about parks, and how even older parks are contrived. There is nothing natural about most parks: they are quite artificial. This makes them no less beautiful. But they are man made nontheless. And it is this quality, among others, that I like about the Yorkville park.

FB and photos

One thing interesting about FB is that you can start to see interesting patterns and behavoirs. Some of them are just random, but it is interesting. For example, a colleague from work and my mom recently changed their photos:

I think it is interesting that they both chose flowers and at the same time. It could be random, but I believe there is something more to it than that.

Facebook and Time

I was looking up someone on FB today, and by accident I came across someone I hadn’t seen since I worked at the Dalhousie gymnasium in the early 80s. While that is approximately 25 years ago, I still recognize her, and when I saw her photo, I remember what she used to look like, even though we were just acquaintances and I hadn’t thought about her since I left university.

Now this is not a new phenomenon. People used to leave a community and then return much later and recognize people. What is different, though, is the breadth and depth of how this can be done and how it will be done. Breadth: as more and more people join social networking sites like Facebook, you will be able to see MANY more people you haven’t seen in ages. Depth: you will be able to find out much more about them than you could in typical social settings. You can see their friends, their families, what they do, etc.

Old folks (boomers) and young folks (gen Y) at work

The nytimes.com has a story about Gen Y at work. It is obvious that it is sympathetic to the older generation. For example:

Managers tell stories of summer associates who come to meetings with midriffs exposed, baring a belly ring; of interns who walk through the halls engaged with iPods; of new hires who explain they need Fridays off because their boyfriends get Fridays off and they have a share in a beach house. Then there is the tale of the summer hire who sent a text message to a senior partner asking “Are bras required as part of the dress code?”

I am sure the Gen Y crowd could talk of

old managers wearing ties or nylons, having two hour lunches, who work overtime on projects that are irrelevent and who wear clothes that haven’t been in style in 10 years or more

Read the article: it seems to me that the boomer who wrote the article is wrong. See:

When Whippersnappers and Geezers Collide – New York Times

Prince: Genius

There was lots of derogatory comments awhile back about Prince, when his name was a symbol. Nevermind that in a stadium of popular musicians, he would be one of if not the smartest. (Not to mention the best guitar player.)

Proof of how smart he is can be found in this NYtimes.com article:

The Once and Future Prince – New York Times

He and Steve Jobs should hook up: they could decide the near future of music in the 21st Century.

Wonders of the world: a triple sunrise

The site oddee has a great collection of oddities and wonders. I’ll post more later. This one is of an….

event that occurs twice a year. What we see here is a set of ice halos, recorded on a cold winter morning near Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Produced by sunlight shining through common atmospheric ice crystals with hexagonal cross-sections, such halos can actually be seen more often than rainbows. The remarkable sunrise picture captures a beautiful assortment of the types most frequently seen, including a sun pillar (center) just above the rising Sun surrounded by a 22 degree halo arc. Completing a triple sunrise illusion, sundogs appear at the far left and far right edges of the 22 degree arc. An upper tangent arc is also just visible at the very top of the view.

Go see the rest at 10 Most Amazing Illusions

Feminism and Aliens

I remember when I first watched Aliens, I was taken by how the movie flew by, even at 2+ hours. It was thrilling.
I thought about it later and how well it was made. We had already seen the Alien in the first movie, which was a great cross of the genres of science-fiction and horror films. James Cameron made a different movie by crossing the genres of war film and horror film with Aliens. This was interesting in itself. But he also did another interresting thing: he explored the notions of feminism within the film, or at least, the bonds between mother and daughter. (Just like he explored the notion of Father and Son in Terminator 2.) Cameron is not Renoir or Bergman, but Arnold might not have been joking when during the “Titantic” Oscar he joked about starring in Cameron’s “art films”.

The other interesting thing is the juxaposition between maternalism and the action film genre. The contrast gives the films punch. I am sure Camille Paglia would approve. 🙂 See:

As Andrew Sullivan said, one of the best movie lines ever.

Where Karl Lagerfeld Lives

When I first saw this article in the New Yorker, I thought it was going to be about his apartment in Paris! And in a way, it was. But the subtitle, “In the Now”, describes where Lagerfeld really lives.

I used to have a poor opinion of KL, but after reading the article, I was impressed by his energy, drive and imagination.

See the article here: Profiles: In the Now: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker