Aquatic Inference Engine

It is time, after but a brief 13-month siesta, for another CDswap. To whit:
A bunch of folks sign up and are organized into small groups to create and swap mix CDs with one another. If you are reading this, chances are pretty good that you possess both the knowledge and hardware to “burn” a music CD (if not…) in which case you can play along with us (if you’re not so sure but you still want to play, the above link can get you started, and you’ve got at least four weeks to figure it out!). ref.

Here’s how it works:

For people who want a theme, here’s what I will be thinking about while putting my album together. Feel free to use the same or invent your own…I think mixed themes within the groups are fun, but it can make sense to give your album some semblance of unity.

Theme: “Who’s right and who’s wrong?”

• Hi there. You’re presently whirling round a speck of cosmic dust hurtling around a galaxy falling at colossal speed through a universe 25 orders of magnitude larger than the area upon which you currently sit or stand. You share the speck with 6.6 billion other humans who are presumably unknowable at 10²⁴ and essentially homogenous down thru 10⁵. At 10⁴ we start drawing lines: nations, which resolve at 10³ into states, cities. At 10² we have neighborhoods, tribes. At 10¹ homes, families, lovers. And at 10⁰ there’s you and there’s everyone else. In the blink of time we’ve had on this speck, we rapidly ascended the food chain and learned enough to discuss the numbers above, and the ideas they represent, with reasonable confidence. We’ve also killed each other on an astonishing scale and done all sorts of unsavory things in the pursuit of power, glory and economic success. So, what’s your perspective? What scale(s) do you operate at? Are these levels of resolution and the values assigned to them discrete or is it a continuum? (in non-fancytalk: do you live in a black & white or shades-of-grey world?)
• Morality. Ethics. The choices you make everyday. The lies of lovers and the truths of enemies.

After the signup period, people will be put into groups of 4. You will then receive an e-mail from me telling you the names and addresses of the people in your group. You burn 5 identical CDs. Keep one for yourself and send three to the other people in your group, plus one to me.

The rules:

1. You should can have a blog if you want to. This is a fun way to connect people in the blogosphere (and a good way to promote the group!). If you don’t, feel free to go over to WordPress, Xanga or Blogspot or LiveJournal and start one for free.
2. If you’re not going to follow through and make your CDs, please don’t bother signing up. It would be a shame if one or two people ruined this for their group. Also, if you signed up last swap and didn’t send your CDs out, please don’t sign up again.
3. You must live in the US or Canada.
4. If you live in the US, you should be willing to ship to Canada. If you live in Canada, you should be willing to ship to the US. The postage is a teeny bit more, but nothing that’s going to break the bank.
5. Remember that most people can’t play mp3s in their car, so make sure they’re something that will play in a standard car stereo. I tend to use cda or wav files. I have put together a list of Burn It resources for those not familiar with making CDs. (ed. – do your best…I think participation is better than “standards”…seems to me if you’re really into this then you’re going to find a way to hear what’s on that disc)
6. Please send a copy of your cd to me as well as to the group, so that I can arbitrate any “You didn’t mail your CD!” “Yes I did!” disputes. And please remember to put your name, URL, or e-mail on your CD somewhere. I got several last time that I liked, but have no idea who sent them.

Guidlines on creating your CDs:

• Include a track listing. If someone like an artist, they might want to buy more music by them. Let us know who it is.
• Fill up the CD as much as you can. There’s 80 minutes on a blank CD. Don’t half-ass it and make a 30 minute CD.
• You should definitely use a jewel case when sending your CDs to protect it during mailing. You can get them cheap anywhere. (ed. – or reuse an old, empty one)
• I know a lot of some of you people are graphically inclined, so feel free to make your CD a work of art.
• Don’t be afraid to burn “cheesy” music. If you like it, others probably will too.
• Don’t be afraid to put on music that you think no one has probably ever heard before either. Billboard or MTV may never have known this music, but you did, so that’s what counts.

If you’ve gotten this far and you still want to sign up, send an e-mail to me denshi at gmail dot com and make sure you reference the CD swap in the subject line. You must include the following information or you won’t get to play:

• Your name
• Mailing address
• Your blog URL (IF applicable)
• Your e-mail address

Sign-ups start now and continue through Saturday, March 17th. On Sunday, March 18th, I will send e-mails to everyone letting you know who is in your group. You should have all of your CDs burned and in the mail NO LATER THAN Sunday, April 15th (easy, tax day = CDswap day). This gives you a full FOUR weeks to create and ship CDs to your three group partners.

Please spread the word! More people equals more music! Just be sure to link to this post http://arsblog.com/blog/237/burn-it-mixcdswap-4/.

If you have any other questions, you can e-mail me at denshi at gmail dot com. Please put CDswap in the subject line. Cheers!

I’ve posted some thoughts on fostering a better culture for startups and entrepreneurs in NYC on the nextNY blog, click on over if you’d like to read…

Scam alert.

$600-1,200 for 2.5-3.5 hours per week ?

Read and repeat: If it comes from the internet and it sounds to good to be true, it always is.

I admit, I read it through twice and almost replied, the idea of getting up a half-hour earlier each day and getting some “fun money” is pretty seductive. Fortunately, my front-brain regained control of things and a quick Google search revealed it to be yet another variation on check fraud scams. This time preying on job-hunters for added despicability. I reported the email to Monster. Here’s the full text, hopefully this gets some pagerank and keeps the truth (more truth) about these fraudsters easily accessible:

Dear (Full Name)!

We have found your resume at http://www.monster.com.

And We would like to suggest a position at our company to you . The position is “Transfer Manager“.
The task of the Transfer Manager is processing payments between our
clients and our company via bank accounts or checks. The job is related to remote
Internet operations.Every payment order will be accompanied with detailed instructions.
It’s a commission based position. You will get about 8% of each processed payment.

The general requirements are:

• The ability to create good administrative reporting;
• Any expirience in customer service sphere is approved. But it’s not necessary.
• Willingness to work from home, take responsibility set up and achieve goals;
• Honesty, responsibility and promptness in operations;
• Effective interaction with customers;
• You should be familiar with working on-line and have Internet and e-mail skills;

Salary: $600-$1200 per week

This job will allow to you:

• to work efficiently from home;
• to increase available personal time;
• to get financial independence for less time than it’s usually required;
• to develop high self-respect and esteem;The working hours are not flexible. It means that you can perform the work at anytime. Working hours you
  choose yourself. The main requirement is you should spend half an hour every day for the work.
  You just have to check your e-mail daily to see if there is any work for you.

Current Vacancies: 4

(Full Name), If you are interested in this position, please reply to: ilona@summer-exchange-mail.biz

—–
Ilona Matise,
Financial Manager,
Summer-Exchange Inc.

Does anyone remember how a smart, innovative, “revolutionary” PC company released a ground-breaking OS/computer, but made it hard for developers (aka “hackers”) to get at the goods with a deeply recessed, non-standard case screw? While in comparison, the “other company” let “a hundred flowers bloom,” encouraging a modular, easy-access hardware environment and sharing their OS with developers from which to learn, adopt, and/or borg-ify innovative products?

Next, can anyone remember how the “other company” marched across the business and consumer landscape throughout the 80s and 90s, continuing to innovate on the OS front, and swallowing up useful proto-competitors in software, while the “revolutionary company” suffered from an inability to grow business market share outside of graphics design, and witnessed contracting consumer adoption due to a LACK OF APPLICATIONS?

Anyone remember how this “revolutionary company” stood (almost) at death’s door, til the founder returned with a slightly more open OS? And does anyone further remember how this OS lead directly to an uptick in activity within the developer community, adding valuable products such as iTunes to the core software suite?

So has anyone taken a gander at these iPhone OS quotes from said founder/savior?

Coda: does anyone remember what an American-educated Spaniard, who’s best friend from college married a Rockefeller, said about history? Something about learning from it, or being doomed to repeat it?

Yeah, me too.

A search mashup that google-dexes your delicious bookmarks has been unleashed on the blogosphere. You can scroll down to see it in action with my own bookmarks.