My Super Bowl Prediction: 44-38, to the team who wins the coin flip in overtime…
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When you explain the concept of “standard deviation” as a measure of “diversity”, students seem to understand it better…
My prediction: England, USA, France, Côte d’Ivoire…Group o’ Death! #worldcupdraw
Listening to my 6-year daughter rant about why Tuesdays are the most boring days at school…
The Joy of Smart Playlists
When I first installed iTunes onto my computer and used it as the main library of my music, I immediately fell in love with two features.
First are the many statistics you can gather for any song in your library. (For example, I have listened “Take On Me” by a-ha 20 times through iTunes, the last time on 8.18.2009 at 3:37 PM…how incredibly awesome!)
Second is the ability to create Smart Playlists—with just a bit of creativity and “stacking”, you can do some pretty awesome things.
For example, I decided some time ago that I wanted to hear every piece of music in my library. It might take years, but if I never listen to a track (or an album, or an artist, or a genre), then why have it in the first place?
However, it’s tricky to figure out how to do this: alphabetically, by album, by song title? And, since it will take me SO long to cycle through, how do I keep on top of doing this, and how do I avoid skipping over tracks in the process?
Lastly, I decided that I wanted to listen to my 5-star songs most often (I have nearly 900 of them), at least once every calendar year. The 4-star songs…every two years, and my 3-star, every three years.
So I made three Smart Playlists, as follows:
By 2009 (5): Rating = 5 stars, Last Played is before 1.1.2009
By 2009 (4): Rating = 4 stars, Last Played is before 1.1.2008
By 2009 (3): Rating = 3 stars, Last Played is before 1.1.2007
On all three, I checked the box marked “Live Updating”.
Finally, I created one “Super Smart Playlist” that I actually copy onto my iPhone…
By 2009: Playlist = By 2009 (5) or By 2009 (4) or By 2009 (3)
I limit this list to 32 items, selected randomly, with Live Updating.
What I get is a short list (about 2 hours) of music that is guaranteed to be “new” by my criteria, either a favorite that I haven’t listened to in 2009, a very good song I haven’t heard since before 2008, and so on. As I listen to music, the Date Played automatically changes, taking songs off the various lists, and cycling new ones into the By 2009 master list. Best of all, I get a few forgettable songs, suddenly interspersed with a great one.
And tonight, as I write this, I am finally completing my By 2009 playlist, and setting up my new Smart Playlist to get a head start on my music I want to listen to by the end of 2010. [Only about 9.5 days worth, by my calculations.]
By the way, the last song playing to close out 2009—the National Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fitting on the day their World Cup qualifying campaign was closed out as well…but that’s another post.
