Uncut Gems

As is my tradition, I made a playlist of songs that stayed with me in 2019.

This year, I focused on songs that mostly flew below the radar and aren’t likely to be heard on everyone else’s top tracks playlists.

I’ve named it Uncut Gems and I hope you like it.

#My Music

Comments (Archived):

  1. Bruce Warila

    Every year (numerous years running), I mine at least one great song from this list. Thanks! Even years later, when one of these “gems” pops up, I say to myself “Fred Wilson song”. Of course, I have other song imprinting experiences that are even more memorable than AVC…

  2. DJL

    Very cool. I cannot wait for the day when I can walk into a place and it will recognize my preferences and start mixing songs for me – not just the standard elevator music.

    1. sigmaalgebra

      https://uploads.disquscdn.c…Art recommendation is challenging. Music recommendation is an example and challenging.Essentially what you want is the artistic meaning, and that can change hourly.Since characterizing artistic meaning in a few key words/phrases is apparently impossible, key word/phrase searches or just simple categories can’t work well.More generally in recommendation, discovery, and search, maybe call all of it just search, the real goal is meaning.Yes, if (i) know what want, (ii) know that it exists, and (iii) have key words/phrases that fairly accurately characterize that content, then can do okay. IMHO, that’s about 1/3rd of the content on the Internet, searches people want to do, and results they want to find — still get the desired meaning but only incidentally, e.g., like finding a book via its ISBN, works great but has nothing to do with meaning and, instead, need already to know (i) – (iii). Otherwise, e.g., for discovery or recommendation, are, in the terms of Groucho Marx, “stuck-o”.So, the 2/3rds is left to do. Yup.A challenge: How to do that, that is, the 2/3rds?A first answer, just look individually at all the content, some billions of Web pages, etc. That would be like finding a book in a unorganized pile of books. And, sure, it’s like looking for a CD or DVD in a big pile in a big bin at Walmart!So, for the 2/3rds, want something faster than looking at all the content, one instance at a time!How to do that? Can there be a way? Well, not key words/phrases! And not music or art categories. And since what want can change hourly, e.g., different when waking up, writing software, cooking or laundry, relaxing before/after a meeting, a romantic dinner, frustrated, tired, introspective, etc., can’t make much use of history of browsing, listening, likes, etc.Well there’s some advanced pure math, solid stuff. The US pure math community does not emphasize that math, and only a small fraction of pure mathematicians know it. Then in that math there are some results that even pure mathematicians who know something about that math don’t notice. Then there is seeing the connection with the 2/3rds. Then need some original applied math. Then to make it real need an entrepreneur.The entrepreneur has to be a sole, solo founder who (a) knows the relevant pure math AND sees its application to the 2/3rds, (b) is able to do the additional original applied math, (c) is good at software, especially for some pure and applied math, (d) is an entrepreneur, and (e) is self-funded, all of (a)–(e) because no way would anyone else have even 1 1/2 pennies of faith in any of such project!Ah, queue up the somewhat related and apparently the latest Paul Graham essay Fashionable Problems, “December 2019”, athttp://paulgraham.com/fp.htmlAlpha test to be announced!Today? Converting some old Fortran code I wrote (profusely documented!!!) for converting from day, month, and year to number of days since the start of the Gregorian calendar to KEXX/REXX. Also have Fortran code for converting in the other direction, the inverse function. Gee, so have some software that forms an algebraic group with just three elements! The third element? Sure, do nothing! Might we be able to write software for that?Ah, for a niece in the 2nd grade, for Christmas am giving her the DVD of The Secret of NIMH. Some people will love it, but not all. At least for the main character, the mouse Mrs. Brisby, maybe they (i) wrote the dialog, (ii) had the actress, Elizabeth Hartman, read it with full expression, carefully recording on film both the audio and video, and, then, (iii) doing the animation, concentrating on Mrs. Brisby. The resulting Brisby character is astounding but maybe came with high cost.

  3. sigmaalgebra

    Wait! Stop the presses! From long ago, it finally dawned on me: It’s the House Democrats Charlie Brown, Lucy Pelosi, and the football!!https://media.giphy.com/med…Merry Christmas! Anyone got a lump of coal for the stocking of a naughty child?

  4. bfeld

    Have you seen the Adam Sandler movie yet? Worth it?

  5. Girish Mehta

    Nice.

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