Last.fm events list

A few years ago I started using Audioscrobbler, a plugin that keeps track of every audio file I play and uploads the information to a central database. I guess some would consider that to be a Big-Brother-esque invasion of privacy, but it's voluntary (and you can delete particular tracks you don't want it to know about) so it's no big deal. It's nice to keep track of my listening trends, although it's annoying that since they transformed into Last.fm there's no apparent way to download your full history, only the charts that they choose to compile, which give a somewhat skewed view of my music tastes. For example, their artists chart ranks artists by total number of track plays, which doesn't take into account track lengths: it thinks I've listened to the Futureheads and Kinski about the same amount, but the average track length of the latter is probably twice the former. And the albums chart is practically useless: it simply adds together all the track counts for each track on the album, so not surprisingly an album with 22 tracks is at the top of my list. (I'm also noticing that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doesn't even show up on my list, even though they're all over my tracks chart. Not sure what happened there.)

Anyway, up to now all this record-keeping was purely for my own curiosity, but now they've added a new feature that's actually really useful: Recommended Events (that link only works if you're logged in). That's a display of upcoming local concerts featuring artists that it knows you like, thinks you might like, or that your friends have said they're attending (here's my list, though I'm being kind of conservative about adding to it). I used to check the WMBR concert report page pretty regularly to find out about shows, but lately I've fallen out of the habit. But this list is more narrowly targeted to shows I'd like, so I'm more likely to check it, and consequently more likely to actually go to shows.

Customer service sucks

Still no word from Google about the Gmail bouncing problem, but Yahoo's blog mentions it. It also points to an article about other customer service problems:

Since June, he was told, Earthlink's mail system has been so overloaded that some users have been missing up to 90 percent of their incoming e-mail. It isn't bounced back to senders; it just disappears. And Earthlink hasn't mentioned the problem to these affected customers unless they complain.
[...]
One thing I learned from this experience was that Megapath, seeking good customer service stats, times out its trouble tickets WHETHER THE PROBLEM IS ACTUALLY FIXED OR NOT. If you want them to keep working on the problem you have to keep opening new trouble tickets. And one important measure for them of customer satisfaction is the percentage of trouble tickets that are closed which, of course, has to be nearly 100 percent.

Yesterday, Scott Adams wrote: "Experts say that the most loyal customers are not the ones who had a flawless experience, but the ones who had a problem that was resolved." For all I know, he pulled these "experts" from his butt, but it does ring true. But at this point, even after Gmail fixes the problem, my loyalty is shaken.

Hats without men

Devo's basement:

How sausages are made

Here's a sad insight into how our government works (or doesn't work): Sen. Arlen Spector sponsored a provision that was added to the PATRIOT Act (which was used to justify the recent attorney firing scandal). But this provision came from one of his staff members, and Specter didn't even bother to read it let alone think about its implications: "The first I found out about the change in the PATRIOT Act occurred a few weeks ago when Senator Feinstein approached me on the floor..." Feinstein says "I don’t believe that anyone on this committee knew it was in the law... no Republican, no Democrat." Don't ask them, they just work there.