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Jun 13

Lesson Five in Using iTunes: Polishing The Tags

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 0 comments
One of the things I appreciate about iTunes is the fields you can use to add extra tags to your songs. As we discussed earlier most people use Genre as their default sorting system, but that is just tapping the surface of what you could get out of your music collection. If you have an extensive library, it would be worth your while to ‘polish’ these song tags so that you can create some great play-lists. Here are some essential tags you might want to consider using: Date – Should be the date of the song’s release, not the date of the album release. This is especially important when it comes to greatest hit compilations. Having the correct date allows you to listen to an artist’s evolution as a musician. Location – I put this in the Grouping header. I put the city, state/province, and country that the artists/band was born/formed in. Having a location can allow me to listen to bands from California or from Scotland. Other Info such as Member of XXX Band – I put this in the Comments header. When I do a search for the Police, I will also see my albums by Sting, Andy […]

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May 03

Are Most People Good?

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
I attended an ethical workshop recently and the presenter stated she thought that most people are good. This worldview allowed her to approach people she met in a warm and open fashion which made for a rewarding and pleasant work experience. Benefits aside of such a worldview, is she right? Are most people good? I never asked her, but I am sure the presenter thought that all of the evil acts of the world are committed by a small number of bad or misunderstood people. She saw people themselves being valued as good or bad. For her, the world is made up mostly of good people whose lives get ruined by a small number of bad people. The value is placed on the person, not on the behavior. My experience tells me otherwise. Instead of seeing human nature being inherently good or bad, I would instead that it being imbued with potential for both. Across time and place people have struggled to avoid suffering and find happiness in life. It is the limitless ways of finding happiness that makes human nature appear so complex. Yet this complexity does not mean that we have to leave our ability to judge at […]

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Apr 21

The Forgotten Question

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
Most journalists talk about the five W’s as a method to get a story. These are: WHO? Every topic needs a subject. WHAT? Every subject needs an event. WHEN? Every event needs a time. WHERE? Every event needs a place. WHY? The existentialist question. There is a reason behind the subject experiencing the event, at the time and place it happened. That’s five W’s… but there is actually a sixth, forgotten one. I will argue that the sixth W is found at the end of the question and word: “HOW?”. HOW is the most forgotten and subtle question. It is the only future-looking or solution-focused question. After we have answers to the first five questions, we need to ask HOW so we can re-frame the entire situation to consider change and solutions. HOW do we create peace? HOW do we reduce suffering? HOW do we find happiness? Perhaps problems remain unsolved because we stop short of asking the forgotten ‘W’ question of HOW.

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Apr 16

Book Review: The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge

by Chris Billows in Business Beller 0 comments
The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea is an apt title for this book. It is a short history, but a very interesting one. And its interesting because the subject matter is treated with enthusiasm which becomes a source of entertainment. This is a book written for the non-academic, acting almost like a Reader’s Digest version of a business history course. The book enthuses how the revolutionary idea known as the Company is one of the single greatest contributions to civilization’s development. This enthusiasm does not mean that they ignore the negative aspects of the Company, namely the grotesque pursuit of profit and company goals over human needs such as in the Belgian Congo, but the tone of the book is fan-boyish. Tone aside, the authors do accomplish what they set out to do. They illustrate how the idea of the Company is pretty revolutionary. Basically a government body grants a charter for a collective of disperse individuals to work together by pooling their capital and resources for the purpose of wealth accumulation. The book talks how the different national governments dealt with the rise of the Company (limited-liability joint-share corporations), and how in places like Britain they […]

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Mar 20

Book Review: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 1 comments
In many ways The Clash of Civilizations is a rebuttal against Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History. Instead of arguing that the liberal democratic values endorsed in the West are the natural pinnacle of human civilization, Huntington says that The West’s values will be attacked by competing civilizations. Huntington does not believe that nation states are the basic building blocks of human society. He argues that it is Civilizations, which represent a shared human experience influenced by culture, religion, language, and philosophy which are now the most important players on the human stage. Huntington says that at present (1990s to now) there exists at least nine different Civilizations, each possessing different values that puts them in potential and actual conflict with each other. It is not about nations fighting over land or resources, but about the fundamental clash of values between Civilizations. Huntington’s use of Civilizations does provide a fresh way to look at historical and current events. His paradigm of human development and conflict becomes epic which inspired the imagination of his most ardent supporters who see Huntington as nothing less than a prophet. He is seen as accurately foretelling the current conflict that is taking place between the […]

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Mar 03

Lesson Four in Using iTunes: Categorizing with Music Genres

by Chris Billows in Hobby Heedings 6 comments
Okay, we have imported, rated, and ran statistics on iTunes. But as your library gets bigger, it becomes more and more difficult to find artists and songs. Thankfully, iTunes uses the Music Genre as its basic sorting system which makes it easier to find the style of music you want to listen to. Default Music Genres include: Classical, R&B, Rock, Jazz, etc. These are fine if you have 40-50 artists from diverse musical backgrounds, but what happens if you listen primarily to one genre of music? What do you do if you are a serious collector and listener of music and are frustrated with the standard labels? What do you do when you have over 100 artists and 10,000 songs? This blog post is meant to address that challenge. To start with there are have been three approaches to what a Music Genre is: 1) People Ignore It. Some people say that Musical Genres are too presumptuous of a field to use. They are indignant that the label ‘pigeon holes’ artists unfairly. That is partially true. Led Zeppelin is considered to be the earliest hard rock/metal band even though they played some folk inspired music. Are they British-Blues? Hard Rock? […]
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