Another Fiddly Widget
Posted on September 30, 2006 Posted by John Scalzi 26 Comments
Okay, this one plays music:
Yeah, it’s music I put together (except for “I Feel Loved” which is a remix of a Depeche Mode Song).
Let me know if the player presents issues. This is all for figuring out what stuff is useful/interesting on the site, of course.
This is one of my favorite widgets:
http://www.librarything.com/
It’s really: (insert your cultural descriptive of choice)
dope, rad, neat-o, bitchin’, dandy, phat, extraordinary, killer, okey-doke, bad-ass, righteous, blessed, da’ shnizzle, brilliant, thooper!
Man, LibraryThing is too much damn work for me.
Man, LibraryThing is too much damn work for me.
I found it pretty simple, and I have zero patience for techie jive.
One cool function is the ‘shared books’ feature, and you can see who has titles in common with you, but more importantly (as a self-absorbed author) you can see who owns or recommends your books.
They’ve recently improved the ‘blog output’ feature and it works well with Blogspot, which I use. For now, anyway.
(I’ve tried to get WordPress up and running and it inspires vapid, murderous thoughts.)
Perhaps you could give it another shot and then fill the whatever with Scalzi-recommended titles, inclucing Scalzi-recommended, Scalzi-authored titles.
This is pretty badass.
I really enjoyed this. Just set it off to play on Firefox, and flipped through all the sales papers while it played as background music for my picture-ific screen saver.
Great energy with that music. It’s so grey here today, needed that.
I really enjoyed this. Just set it off to play on Firefox, and flipped through all the sales papers while it played as background music for my picture-ific screen saver.
Great energy with that music. It’s so grey here today, needed that.
It works so-so for me: it really slows down the loading of your site, and it takes a while for the music to load. I do have dial-up, however, which slows everything down, but the difference in loading your site is noticeable.
Yeah, that’s actually a concern for me; how much it messes the experience of the site for people on dial-up. I don’t think the Web is going to be dial-up friendly for much longer.
I’m really enjoying “Saturn Speaks”
Cool. The spooky sound in the background is a recording of Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft.
Cool. The spooky sound in the background is a recording of Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft.
Nice remix of the Depeche Mode song. We saw them at the Shoreline Amphitheater on their Exciter show. Great song, great memories.
What do these sorts of things do to your bandwidth usage? It is a nifty way to share music but seems like a better way for smaller bloggers to hit their cap. I’m guessing that there isn’t an easy way to save those songs to my library, but isn’t this the same as internet radio, with the same RIAA or ASCAP fees?
Kero aka Kevin:
I have 1.5 TB of bandwith a month, so I suspect I’ll be fine with the bandwidth, particularly when this article slips off the front page. Re: RIAA/ASCAP — I can’t speak toward anyone else, but with the exception of “I Feel Loved,” all the music is mine, so there’s no copyright problem. I have the ability to see how many times “I Feel Loved” is streamed and I know the statuatory rate for Internet Radio, so I can cut ASCAP a check.
What I would really like is a simple way to pay ASCAP/BMI for streaming songs; I’d happily pay to stream songs of some of my favorite artists off the Whatever if there was a simple way to do it.
Kero aka Kevin:
I have 1.5 TB of bandwith a month, so I suspect I’ll be fine with the bandwidth, particularly when this article slips off the front page. Re: RIAA/ASCAP — I can’t speak toward anyone else, but with the exception of “I Feel Loved,” all the music is mine, so there’s no copyright problem. I have the ability to see how many times “I Feel Loved” is streamed and I know the statuatory rate for Internet Radio, so I can cut ASCAP a check.
What I would really like is a simple way to pay ASCAP/BMI for streaming songs; I’d happily pay to stream songs of some of my favorite artists off the Whatever if there was a simple way to do it.
I hope that didn’t come across too acusitory, that wasn’t my intent. I am more interested in the discussion about how these neat tools make it incredibly easy for someone to break the law without being aware of it until the cease and desist email shows up with a ginourmous bill, or worse they get sued by RIAA. I wonder what the exposure of the tool maker is in all of this?
Very cool. I had no idea you were musically inclined, as well. Of course, I’m a “fairly” new visitor here; pre-Bacon Cat, but only started lurking in the last year or so.
Um…don’t you have to pay ASCAP/BMI for “Don’t Stop,” as well? Or is the use of the main theme not sufficient to constitute the use of copyrighted material? (Not being snarky – I really have no clue, so am seeking information.)
Um…don’t you have to pay ASCAP/BMI for “Don’t Stop,” as well? Or is the use of the main theme not sufficient to constitute the use of copyrighted material? (Not being snarky – I really have no clue, so am seeking information.)
I might, but I suspect the amount I use from the song falls under fair use. I could be wrong, in which case, yes, I’ll pay.
I might, but I suspect the amount I use from the song falls under fair use. I could be wrong, in which case, yes, I’ll pay.
Lawyer’s answer: it depends.
Real answer: The RIAA will disagree with you.
I dont know if you till read this, but I was wondering if there was anyway to save these songc to my computer. If that wasnt your intent with this then disregard this, but im really enjoying Converge to Merge and was wondering if I could put it on a CD or something. Thanks
Waltah, go to this URL:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003148.html
You’ll find direct links to the mp3s. You can download them by saving them to your desktop.
Waltah, go to this URL:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003148.html
You’ll find direct links to the mp3s. You can download them by saving them to your desktop.
Thank you very much, sir.