Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

The folk behind the Music Genome Project are using their database to drive a new service at Pandora.com.

Type in the name of a band or a song, and Pandora (a little box in the middle of your browser) will generate a personalised Internet radio station that plays music related or similar to your request. It's quite fascinating to sit there and click the forward button to see what's next (and occasionally wonder just why that one was chosen...). And of course you get the option to rate or buy the music you've just heard.

An interesting experiment, which has the prospect of hours of fun...

Yes, we could build one. But it wouldn't be what we'd normally think of as a tunnel, and would require more than a billion tons of steel, and cost trillions of dollars.

Still, it would be Main Course in London, Dessert in New York, thanks to 5,000 mph mag-lev trains.

Anyone else reminded of Donald Fagen's song I.G.Y., from that excellent album, The Nightfly

On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.

Mmmm. Wonderful music.