After much badgering by my colleagues and my dad, who is depending on me to explain what the big deal is, last week I finally got round to signing up to Last.fm.
For those of you who have somehow missed word of this social music revolution, Last.fm is an internet radio and community music site founded in 2002. The site exists to help users build up their own online library of music ‘organically’, through proactive user profiles, radio streams and recommendations.
Just as Facebook has altered the way we use the internet and make and maintain social relationships, Last.fm is changing the way we use the internet and listen to music.
“In the same way that Google helps you to find just exactly what you want on the internet, Last.fm’s algorithm can help you to uncover the most amazing gems – old and new – that you’d only have found through sheer chance otherwise,” enthuses Living writer Tamsin H.
“And – better than Google – the more music you and everyone else who is part of the community plays, the cleverer it gets at understanding your taste and how it relates to everyone else’s.”
Sounds good? Familiarise yourself with Last.fm’s favourite functions and get started.
The Scrobbler
The easiest way for Last.fm to get to know your musical tastes is by installing a clever little application called ‘Audioscrobbler‘. Download the system onto the PC you use to sync your iPod or manage your MP3 player, and let it work its magic – transferring details of all your favourite artists and tracks into your Last.fm library. It will even make a note of how many times you’ve listened to each artist and create a chart of your most played tracks – stats that one can become obsessed with.
Radio stations
Now you have your library, you can listen to your own radio stream, which comprises tracks by your favourite artists – some of which you’ll have and some you won’t. While listening, you can add any of the tracks to your library to listen to again and again. You can also listen to other user’s radio streams. The ‘Your Neighbourhood ’stream connects you with users of similar musical persuasions and plays tracks from their libraries. And each artist has their own radio station, streaming music by similar artists. All great ways of discovering new music.
Recommendations
“I like it because it recommends new music to me without making stupid jokes or asking me to phone in – loads better than an ordinary radio station,” said another of my Last.fm-loving friends. Indeed, the beauty of Last.fm is that the more you use it, the better it becomes at recommending new artists for you to explore. It does this based on your library and your most played and most loved tracks, which you can edit. You can also send and receive recommendations to friends.
Artist profiles
Each artist has their own page complete with biog, details of upcoming tour dates and similar artists and top tracks and videos for you to play, add to your library or buy for your iTunes account. A feast of interactive information for music lovers.
And finally…
Learn something new
If you get stuck into Last.fm, you can learn something new every day. Since I signed up, I have become a font of TV theme-tune trivia. Were it not for the user comments on the site I would still be unaware that Gene’s ‘Save Me, I’m Yours’ was used as the soundtrack to a Portuguese soap opera for teenagers. I would also be in the dark over who wrote the opening music to northern Sunday night drama Where the Heart Is – it is a 2000 Prefab Sprout composition.
And don’t just take my word for it – below are a collection of rave reviews from Last.fm converts:
“I like the stats, reading the artists bios and reading peoples comments on songs and albums I love. It’s also great to be able to play your library and get recommendations.” Ben A
“Of all the social media whizzery that’s sprung up in recent years, I think last fm is one of the most immediately satisfying and yet least faddish. Once you’re using it, its intricacies and delights reveal themselves. I’m sure people will be using it in many as-yet-unthought-of ways in years to come.” Charlie P
“I like the stats, but I love that it recommends new music – great exposure for the little guys who might not get the radio play they deserve. Also, it’s one of few sites that provide such a useful service, all for free! Well, mostly free.” Randip D
“It’s about discovering new music for me via the artists radio station option. I also like being able to send and receive recommendations to friends.” Simon M
I like it because it’s simple to use and it even updates your play list when you’re playing music from your computer. A great way to discover new music.” Anouck M
IMAGES by Flickr users
Sister 72,
ooOJasonOoo &
Hryck.
Originally posted 2009-01-17 21:06:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
I’m making one to be less of a dumb consumer. To think twice before believing the rubbish punted at me by big-money marketing campaigns. Here’s my list of stuff that absolutely no-one really needs that was advertised on TV ad-nauseum over the Christmas break.
Can you add any others?
1) Plug-in air fresheners Have you ever smelt any of them? They are cloying, sweet and slightly headache-inducing. You can also set them to squirt out blasts of fragrance at regular intervals (so the canister gets used up REALLY fast.) Has anyone ever had a problem with a bad odour in the house that couldn’t be remedied in less than 5 minutes? A few suggestions: - If you’re frying fish or boiling cabbage shut the kitchen door - If you’ve made an unpleasant in the bathroom, open the window. I know it’s cold outside, but you can close it again in 5 minutes - If the dog’s basket smells, wash the blanket inside it or buy a new basket (or wash the dog)
2) Bio-active yoghurt drinks Apparently these little pots contain forms of ‘friendly bacteria’ that aid digestion. The various companies that push them at us have given them pseudo-scientific names. Ridiculous things like Bacterium Keepuregulum or Bifidus Unblockus or whatever. Of course they’re made-up – they’re often trademarked terms created to cloak these products in scientific-sounding waffle. The c-list celebs endorsing them (always female) tell people that they felt ‘bloated’ before trying this wonder-product. This is clearly a word that has been focus-grouped into the ground as it’s used repetitively. Research has shown that these products might help certain people with particular digestive ailments. But not anyone else. A suggestion: - If you feel ‘bloated’, change your diet. Try eating more fruit and vegetables and fewer Indian take-aways
3) Coffee made with capsules Another big brand company is pushing these hard – with a seriously high profile celebrity actor headlining the ads. In the ads gorgeous women keep distracting his attention by asking him if he really is the celeb they think he is and stealing the last capsule of coffee. But it’s the capsules that are the important bit. Buy one of these machines and you’ll be forever locked into buying the capsules – one for every cup of coffee you drink. According to the brand’s website these capsules cost 25p each – for just the one espresso. I’m not going to do the complex maths right now just make… A suggestion: - Buy a traditional Italian stove-top coffee pot and some top grade arabica. It will save you a fortune.
4) Bottled Water Regular readers will know that I write a lot about travel. Airports and planes are dehydrating places. Back in the old days before airport security became so strict I’d carry a bottle of water with me from home. These days it would get taken away within 20 yards of security. I still carry a bottle now – but it’s empty. I fill it in the loos (or if they provide them from the water fountains) once I’m through security. Would be nice if all airports had water fountains wouldn’t it? Anyway, I just don’t ‘get’ bottled water. It has to be one of the most ridiculously overblown products on the market. The stuff out of the tap is completely safe to drink and it tastes just fine 90% of the time. And think of all those plastic bottles piling up? Ugh. A few uggestions: - If you really can’t bring yourself to drink water straight from the tap, buy a water filter jug. - Take an empty water bottle with you when you travel.
So – what overmarketed stuff are you planning to stop buying in 2009?
IMAGES by Flickr users
procsilas and ralphbjiker
Originally posted 2009-01-07 20:28:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Well, bad plumbing has caught me up, but not in the way I expected. A couple of weeks ago I was unwise enough to tempt the home improvement gods by talking about some plumbing work before it had been successfully completed. The good news is, my plumber turned out to be excellent.
The bad news is that my original plumbing has turned out to be less so, and yesterday evening a central heating pipe under my kitchen floor sprang a leak. After a few attempts to get pressure back into my boiler, my downstairs neighbours started to get rained on, and my plumber had to put in an emergency visit.
At the moment, the leak is stopped and the floor is up while we wait for the ceiling below to dry out. As you can see, it doesn’t make for a spotless kitchen, but I’m hoping that there’s no permanent damage to the floor or my neighbour’s newly-redecorated room below it.
The hardest part is shelving the extravagant dinner parties I would clearly otherwise be having.
Originally posted 2008-08-28 07:01:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Ever poured a kettle full of boiling water on an icy windscreen? It is, if you’ll forgive us, a cracking start to the day.
It’s likely that many who have experienced this special moment – not to mention having to stump up the excess on the car insurance – have reached for a can of spray de-icer ever after.
But in the spirit of sticking all our most cherished habits under the green spotlight, we’ve been wondering: what’s the greenest, wind-screen-friendliest way to clear that wintry crust?
Conventional de-icing spray doesn’t appear to hold too many nasties – ethylene glycol is perhaps the most commonly used antifreeze ingredient and while it is toxic, it’s not regarded as a major pollutant in the small amounts in which it’s used on vehicles. However, some of the most popular brands of de-icer do contain substances deemed harmful to aquatic life – presumably not the ideal thing to be running off your car and into the drains.
So what are the alternatives? Leaving the engine running for ten minutes to get things warmed up seems a little CO2-heavy – not the greenest option.
Salt is a powerful, natural de-icer, but it’s about as good for your car’s paintwork as seagulls unburdening themselves overhead (and again not great when flowing into fresh watercourses) – a big no-no.
A slightly heated discussion (forgive us) at Money Saving Expert includes several comments promoting lukewarm water. Unlikely to crack your windscreen, but if the air temperature is really cold, any added water can refreeze quickly and leave you with more ice. Patches of water freezing around your car parking space may also pose a threat to others, or to you when you get home.
But the (forgive us again) hands-down winner is, it seems, the good old-fashioned ice scraper – no water-heating, manufactured chemicals or icy puddles, just elbow grease required. Worth equipping yourself with a sturdy model though – some of the cheaper ones seem to fall apart as soon as they have to tackle anything more than a frosted mist.
Have we missed anything? Let us know your tips for keeping the car ice-free this winter.
This morning I’ve been lucky enough to be out in a beautiful garden in the company of a good friend. All in the name of work you understand – I’m researching plants for a project, and my friend is a professional gardener. But under a blue sky, with the leaves turning and wagtails busying themselves on the lawns, it felt more like a guilty pleasure.
On days such as these, it’s easy to forget that the climate as we know it is in trouble. Yet as I plunder my friend’s horticultural knowhow for all it’s worth, I’m reminded.
Because as I attempt to fit the names of the plants he recommends into neat seasonal boxes, he mentions that many of the flowering times in the reference books are out of date. He says that the climate has changed so much in the 20 years he’s been gardening that some of the tried-and-tested rules, which held true for generations, no longer seem to apply.
With our infamously unpredictable weather, British gardeners have presumably long been fatalistic about the prospects for their plants from one year to another. But if weather is a game, rapid climate change is the pitch shifting underneath it – making it harder for anyone to predict the result.
For the birds
I’m not much of a gardener – ask my neighbours – so I’m in no position to verify my friend’s observations with personal notes of my own.
However, I have been a fairly obsessive birdwatcher since the age of nine – that’s nearly 25 years ago – and have followed the changing fortunes of the birds over that time. And it’s clear that something’s afoot.
Exhibit A: the Chiffchaff, a small green warbler with a sweet two-tone song, which is usually our first summer-visiting songbird of spring. But while most of our Chiffchaffs still travel up from the wintering grounds around the Med to spend the summer here, more and more don’t seem to migrate at all, or actually arrive from elsewhere in Europe and spend the winter here.
That means in mid-March, when you would traditionally have expected to have heard the first one of the summer, it’s hard to be sure that you’re not listening to a bird that’s actually the last one of the winter – or even the one that never bothered going anywhere.
Similarly some resident birds on the northern edge of their range in the UK – Dartford Warblers, Woodlarks, Cetti’s Warblers – are spreading from former toe-holds in the south of England to colonise further and further north, spurred on it seems by a succession of mild winters.
So far, so what? These are all birds that seem to be doing better, at least on our shores.
But then there’s the bad news: rapidly disappearing summer birds, mainly those with long migration routes, such as Cuckoos, Turtle Doves and Spotted Flycatchers. I remember these birds as common when I was growing up in the 80s – now if see or hear one it’s worthy of a geeky blog post..
The jury’s still out on the exact causes of these phenomena – local problems in the African wintering grounds and the shooting of migrants around the Mediterranean may be more or less responsible . But it seems entirely likely that a change in climate in one or more points along their marathon journeys is making that twice-annual phenomenon even more difficult to complete.
Blog Action Day
Today is Blog Action Day: a movement aiming to make connections about issues that matter. Today I’ve read blog posts from all over the world – some brilliant, some dreary. One that caught my attention was by DFID (now UKAid’s) Martin Leach about the plight of farmers in East Africa, and his worries for how climate change could worsen circumstances already shaped by war, famine and poverty.
But for me, and I suspect for many other people, it’s appreciation of what surrounds us every day that’s most likely to change the way we behave. For some, that might be their garden. For me, it’s the birds that migrate to Africa at this time every year, and return in diminishing numbers the following spring – tied to the fortunes of the land and people along the route their species has chosen for thousands of years.
The question is: can we change our route?
Starting with energy
Climate change is the big driver behind our energy-saving challenges, which we’re undertaking this month and beyond in a bid to find out what really makes a difference to our carbon footprints (and electricity bills). You can follow our progress on the energy section of Living, and via Twitter.
And if you watch one six-minute video this Blog Action Day, watch DECC’s new climate advisor David Mackay explain exactly how big the energy challenge facing the UK is – in light bulbs.
Has there been enough sunshine to justify an end to the summer holidays just yet? Arguably not. Nevertheless, the new school year is almost upon us, and it’s not going to wait to see if the weather improves.
More than ever before, there are some great ideas around the web for injecting this year’s back-to-school routine with some green juice. We’ve been scouting around for the best – here’s what we found.
Ecostreet’s green back-to-school guide is full of organic, recycled and fairly-traded suggestions. Our favourite find is the Laptop Lunch box, which has lots of little compartments for different foods. It should reduce the amount of packaging you send the kids to school with (although you may have to keep tabs on all those plastic boxes).
One of the biggest demands on a parent’s wallet can be school uniform – children do have a habit of growing uneconomically fast. In the Guardian, Matt Gribble (great name) recommends trying ebay and Freecycle- the latter makes particular sense, as groups are arranged geographically. Someone in your area may well want to pass on a barely-used piece of kit discarded by their rapidly-enlarging offspring.
For some, mild September weather could be the right time to turn over a new green leaf when it comes to the school run. A staggering number of children are driven to school, even when they live within easy walking distance, but with increased concern over children’s levels of exercise as well as CO2 emissions, the backlash has started – see the Walk to Schoolsite for inspiration and practical advice.
And if you really want to get stuck into greening the very fabric of your school, there are extensive resources at Sustainable Schools.
IMAGE by Flickr user
dcJohn
Originally posted 2007-08-31 22:08:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Internet music. To my ear, it never sounds quite right. Oxymoronic, even.
But then I’m someone who didn’t even embrace CDs until the mid 1990s, at the point when everyone else had moved on to hurling minidiscs out of skyscrapers to demonstrate the incorruptibility of the future.
So, as a gleeful technological Luddite, not to mention a mean-spirited musical misery-guts, I was a good test subject to try out the wonders of Spotify, the newest way to enjoy music instantly – and legally free – online (no downloads).
It promises “A world of music”, though after watching the introductory video, featuring a user adding a song to a “dinner party” playlist which was headed up by a five track Coldplay blitz, I wasn’t sure it was a world in which I wanted to live. Was I too hasty?
What manner of beast?
So what does Spotify do? Well, as a new user to internet radio sites, I was happy that I was able to get my head around it fairly quickly.
I was lucky enough to get an instant invite from a friend. Early users are granted immediate access – otherwise you may have to register your email with Spotify to wait for a free invitation.
At its core is a user-friendly ‘radio station’ which cranks out music based on your specifications. You select from a range of 18 music genres in decade-long time frames, ranging from pre-1950 to 21st Century.
For instance, if you harbour a particular love of 90s alternative music, you can content yourself with the randomised selection which Spotify will pump forth from those narrow criteria.
However, if you wanted to explore beyond this, you can try expanding the time frame from the 80s to the present day, or throw an interesting counterpoint of country or hip hop into the mix.
And this is where it becomes clever. As well as naturally alerting you to albums and artists you have never heard of within your particular interests, by throwing various genres and time frames into the melting pot you can sit back and experience a genuine musical education.
In addition there is a feature which takes any artist and suggests similar bands, allowing you to play a ‘radio station’ dedicated to the spirit of your favourite singer.
It doesn’t go anything like as far as Last.fm (explored recently by Jo) in terms of the overall package it offers, but for some people this could be part of the attraction. I have a faint horror of an algorithm telling me what I may?
Originally posted 2009-02-11 16:17:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
In the UK, we take for granted the concept of insurance to protect our lifestyles and preserve some of the comfort and certainties we have in our daily lives.
But for many people around the world, that’s not the case.
Historically, many people in developing countries have struggled to access affordable insurance that matched their needs.
But now technology, and the recognition that insurance is increasingly important in the face of climate change, is spurring renewed interest in finding systems that work.
Micro-insurance is cover with low premiums and low coverage limits, designed to be affordable to those who have traditionally been disenfranchised by mainstream products.
Micro-insurance policies often provide cover for life, crop failure, and health – important issues for all of us, but even more crucial for those whose ability to feed themselves and provide for their families can quickly mean the difference between life and death.
One of the main products – credit life – ensures that a policyholder’s death does not mean his family will be left with crippling debts for credit he took out.
The main difficulty is finding the right balance, so affordability still means sufficient protection for the poor.
Prior to this it had been used during the 1990s as an extension of micro-finance – a term which refers to the provision of financial services to people on a low income, offering them access to credit, savings and fund transfers.
Industrial life insurance – low cover life insurance – was being sold and weekly premiums collected door-to-door in the UK and the US towards the end of the 1800s.
And it is still in practice today, generally offering a very low death benefit (less than $1,000). Despite being aimed at people on a low income, industrial life insurance has attracted criticism, as the regular payments can lead to policyholders paying out over a number of years a sum far higher than the end value of the product.
Micro-overheads
To be useful and sustainable for both insurers and the insured, Micro Insurance Network says that a streamlined process is needed. This efficiency is important so the provider can keep down costs, and so the payment and claims process is simple – and affordable – for the policyholder.
Banks have often steered clear of customers with very limited income, as the cost of managing accounts is comparatively high. In a similar way, micro-insurance has struggled to break even.
But with new technologies allowing for increasingly easy and efficient administration of policies, costs are coming down. Some even believe micro-insurance could be profitable – even if that’s not the main reason for providing it.
In the field: the MicroEnsure approach
MicroEnsure, a subsidiary of not-for-profit organisation Opportunity International, claims to be the world’s first insurance broker for the poor. Based in Cheltenham, it works with a range of organisations such as rural banks, charities and those providing micro-finance, and believes the tide is turning.
Peter Lomas, MicroEnsure’s vice president of communications and media relations, says that health insurance is something the poor have not previously had access to.
“They pay one or two dollars a month and we make a very few cents on each policy.
“We are set up as a for-profit organisation, but we try not to make a huge profit – the objective is to be sustainable for our clients.”
While the people who use the service tend to live on very limited amounts of money, they are nevertheless economically active – a situation that micro-insurance seeks to stabilise and safeguard.
One of the more interesting ways in which micro-insurance can do this is through covering the crops farmers produce.
The idea is to see the farmers in the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra through the primary growing season, which runs from June to October. And if this year’s pilot scheme is a success, it could be rolled out to a much larger number of farmers in 2010.
A striking feature of the scheme is its simplicity – instead of the policy-holders having to fill out a claim for their losses, an automated pay-out is triggered by readings at a weather station.
Satellites track the progress of typhoons, and GPS locations are used to automatically make scaled payments to farmers depending on how close they are the centre of damage.
Peter hopes that crop insurance will not just provide farmers with greater security, but will enable them to develop their livelihoods – as insurance is often a pre-requisite for access to finance.
Micro-insurance – big future?
The early schemes are being watched carefully – the UN believes the approach could underpin adaptation to climate change in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
“It helps with diversity of crops and even allows farmers to diversify into other areas, like milling,” says Peter.
“And that helps enable a much more stable rural economy, so people don’t have to leave to go to the city.”
The key is keeping the running costs – and premiums – at a minimum. But with automated systems such as the typhoon alerts, and plans to use mobile phones to upload data direct from policyholders even in remote locations, the future for micro-insurance could be big.
Just for the record I wanted to point out that Christmas is 6 whole weeks away.
Maybe I’m becoming a boring old stick in the mud, but it feels like Christmas starts earlier every year. Is it because of the credit crunch or do the shops always put up the tinsel and baubles in late October?
All rise for DFS! Winner of my prize for most ridiculously early Christmas ad which I saw on TV a full three weeks ago complete with sleigh bell soundtrack. Interestingly one of my friends commented on it on her Facebook status too which made me feel I wasn’t the only one to feel affronted. (I mean seriously. Do you think I’m that sad? Am I going to dash out and buy a new sofa NOW – just so I can have it in time for Christmas?)
Even the town council here has got in on the act – the Christmas lights are swinging above the streets already. We haven’t even done Guy Fawkes yet – poor bloke he must be gutted.
So, I’ve made a decision that this year I am not going to buy any Christmas presents from companies advertising Christmas deals before the end of November. Wonder if there will be any retailers left I can buy from? Hmmm. Maybe that would get me out of buying Christmas presents completely this year? Now there’s an idea…
IMAGE http://www.flickr.com/photos/40221941@N00/2104624897″ onclick=“javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outbound/article/www.flickr.com’);” target=“_self”>by Flickr user krisdecurtis
Originally posted 2008-11-03 18:49:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
For those who have been living in a galaxy far, far away, let’s just recap: the 23-year-old American has won the most gold medals of an Olympic athlete in the modern Olympic era, having already bagged six Golds in Beijing – all in record time of course.
So incredible is his athleticism that some have become suspicious. “Well, his body is shaped like the hull of a boat,” one water-side commentator remarked, in a tone that insinuated Phelps was somehow cheating.
So the question must now be asked is: is Phelps in fact the first of some new aquatic/human species?
He certainly boasts many similarities to some of the sea’s finest swimmers.
The dolphin kick, in which swimmers push off walls and swim underwater without moving their arms, is an important move in professional swimming. Similar to how a dolphin moves through the water, the swimmer raises their hips and bends their knees with extended ankles. Phelps, unsurprisingly, in one of the best in the world at this move.
Some swimmers now wear ’shark skin suits’, which, made from slippery material, make them move faster in the water by reducing friction and drag.
Phelps doesn’t need a suit – his body is made for the water. With ankles that bend 15 degrees more than the average swimmer and huge size 14 feet, he may as well have flippers. And, as has become a common observation, the titanic torso of the world’s best swimmer is indeed boat-like, allowing him to ride the water.
Edward Cussler from the University of Minnesota said good swimmers should have the “body of a snake and the arms of a gorilla.” Phelps has a massive wingspan which is 3 inches wider than his 6 foot 4 height – I’d be scared if he started beating his muscular chest. And with a long and slightly concaved torso and highly flexible joints, I think snake could be added to the list of extraordinary animals Phelps resembles.
If any more evidence was needed that Phelps is some form of superhuman, he has a highly unusual tolerance for pain. With very low levels of lactate – produced when muscle cells use oxygen – after swimming, ‘freaky Phelps’ has a super– quick recovery rate.
“This is the best specimen that nature has come up with in terms of swimming,” said Mel Stewart, swim analyst and former world-record holder.
Is it a bird? Is it a dolphin? No, it’s Michael Phelps.
IMAGE by Flickr user
Fleur-design
Originally posted 2008-08-15 12:38:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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