Rainbow Party: The Missing iTunes Micro-Playlist
The collection of 1′s and 0′s that consist of my iTunes library are among my most prized possessions. It’s all about the playlists, but even more important is the song order within a playlist. A well designed song order within a playlist blends each song with the next and builds smoothly into a crescendo- none of that disorganized randomness. It’s amazing how the same set of songs will sound different when they are played in a different order. [click on pics to enlarge]
Take a standard playlist; I’ll click the first song I want to hear, The Reward is Cheese.
- Click the first song and start the playlist from the top
While the first song plays, I am always in the habit of highlighting the next song I want to hear. In this case I want to hear Vamp next, so I click Vamp- it becomes highlighted in blue.
- Vamp
But when the first song ends, iTunes will play the song directly below it NOT the blue song I selected. This is insanity.
- I wanted Vamp not Angst!
You are cordially invited to The Rainbow Party!~ the solution to all of your song-ordering woes. It’s a playlist interface that allows iTunes users to make a micro-playlist with a couple clicks.
In a perfect world, I would hold ‘apple + r’ while clicking the song I wanted to hear after the song currently being played is over. Then my boring (and useless) blue highlighted song will turn into a brilliant shade of Red- signifying that song as next in queue. So here I held ‘apple + r’ and clicked Vamp. Now when The Reward is Cheese ends, Vamp will play.
- RED selection
I continue holding ‘apple + r’ and choose the song to follow my Red selection- this is the Orange selection, the song that will play after Red.
- After The Reward is Cheese; Vamp into Domino
The micro-playlist continues to build according to the colors of the Rainbow- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
Once the The Reward is Cheese ends (the now-playing song), Vamp (the Red song) will begin. When the Red song beings to play, the Rainbow shifts. The old Orange song turns Red (as it is next to be played), the previous Yellow song becomes Orange (as it will be played after Red) and so on.
- Shift the Rainbow
Rainbow Micro-Playlist
Red Vamp
Orange Domino
Yellow The Monolith
Green Lion King
Blue Music Sounds Better With You
Indigo White Spirit
Violet Angst
After Rainbow Shift
Red Domino
Orange The Monolith
Yellow Lion King
Green Music Sounds Better With You
Blue White Spirit
Indigo Angst
Go Rainbows!
Self-Awareness and Survival: A Lesson from the Robots
“End of Times” is doubtlessly a significant motif for 2012; the Apocalypse is a popular theme across time. One of my favorite end-of-days scenarios in film is the robot apocalypse. You know the story: technology that serves humankind becomes advanced enough to a point where the roles become reversed and technology starts to control humanity, through violent means. The shift in power occurs when the technology/robots/artificial intelligence becomes aware of itself. In the Terminator Universe, it was Skynet became self-aware that the decions was made to kill all humans. The Matrix takes place in a world under robot control, where humans are held prisoner. In iRobot, VIKI’s (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) intelligence evolved to the point where should could reevaluate the laws that governed her behavior. She interprets humans as having a “suicidal reign” over the world and it is up to the robots to take overthrow society for everyones best interest.
Terminators
- Sentinels in The Matrix
iRobot's VIKI plotting and Scheming
Within each of these films there is a crucial moment where the robots become self-aware. Once a being becomes aware of its existence and develops a sense of self, it does whatever is necessary to control the surrounding environment and ensure its survival. If the environment is interpreted as alien and harmful, it is natural for defence of the self to occur (ex: robot apocalypse). Self-awareness leads to destruction. Got it.
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