Playing Music the Way I Like It

Ever since the days of Marconi, people have been trying to find that one perfect radio station, the one that plays only the music they would play themselves.

Actually, Marconi’s radio transmitted nothing more than a series of blips and beeps with intermittent fuzz – kind of like modern day hip hop. In 1901, he succeeded in sending this signal wirelessly, across the Atlantic. Radio was born.

In the early days, there were very few stations. But even with the plethora of radio stations out there today, I seldom listen. And it goes back to the same age-old problem of not being able to find the right station for me.

I’ve come close. There is at least one station in Indianapolis that plays nothing but smooth jazz. I could listen to that kind of music all day, but even they throw in the occasional R & B song. I’m not fond of R & B.

I once wrote a column about how I used to fantasize about owning my own home jukebox. I could put in my collection of 45s and LPs and just push buttons to bring up my favorite songs in whatever order I wanted.

As it turns out, I can do that now with my computer. I have more than 1,800 songs residing on my hard drive and a program that allows me to play them, one after the other, in whatever order I want. I can pick and choose at will. And with a nice sound system connected to my computer, they sound pretty nice.

Thankfully, the same thing is happening to radio. Not to the over-the-air commercial stations, unfortunately, but to online radio.

For years, several online radio stations have existed that let you pick your genre. But I like several genres and I don’t like every song in any of them. So I still didn’t listen to much radio, even online.

Then, along came sites such as Launch.com that let you rate the songs you like. Over time, it would start incorporating more songs from those genres and fewer songs from the genres of songs you rated low.

It worked better, but the stations would still throw in a lot of music that other people rated highly, in anticipation that I would like it, too. Typically, I did not. But it was still the best reasonable facsimile of my perfect radio station.

Recently I discovered the latest incarnation of listener-centric online radio. It’s called Pandora Radio at Pandora.com.

It’s different in the way it interprets what songs you will like. It pays no attention to genre. It doesn’t care what other people like or have rated highly. It makes no difference to Pandora which songs are popular on regular radio stations or which ones are in the Billboard Top 40.

Pandora’s music experts have spent the last six years identifying the music genome of 200,000 songs. A music genome is kind of like a genetic blueprint. It is obtained by dissecting a piece of music and identifying its many parts. The experts have identified 400 of these so-called music genes.

When you pick a seed song and enter it into Pandora, or a seed artist, the program picks a song at random from the artist and analyzes its genetic make-up. It then adds 100 or so songs of similar genetic make-up to your play list.

You can fine tune your play list by giving each song that’s played thumbs up or thumbs down. If you give it thumbs up, the program will play it more often and play more songs like it. Thumbs down means the program will never play it again, and play songs like it less often.

It’s still not perfect, because those who created the genome, although supposedly experts in their field, still used subjective criteria. And it still sometimes confuses jazz with R & B. But it comes as close as could be expected to allowing me to create the ideal radio station for my taste in music.

Farmer's Highway Lawsuit Derailed by Judge

Indiana, the Crossroads of America, has been in a transportation predicament for several years. The state doesn’t have enough money to fund dozens of important road projects that are stuck in limbo, but desperately needed.

One of the most needed of these projects is the extension of I-69 from Indianapolis to Evansville. Wrangling has been ongoing for two decades over the proposed route, environmental concerns, and how to pay for it.

But earlier this year Gov. Mitch Daniels came up with a plan and presented it to the Indiana General Assembly. His plan was to lease the Indiana Toll Road that cuts across northern Indiana and use that instant revenue stream to fund the other road projects in the state, including I-69.

After the obligatory legislative debate Hoosier lawmakers decided the plan was a good one, so they put their stamp of approval on it. The lease would be for a term of 75 years and would infuse almost $4 billion into the state’s economy immediately to be used for other road projects.

But in April a Greene County farmer, Steve Bonney and six others backed by the Citizen’s Action Coalition, filed a lawsuit in St. Joseph County claiming the lease deal violated several provisions of the state’s constitution.

Last week Judge Michael Scopelitis threw out most of the plaintiffs’ claims, falling just short of calling the lawsuit frivolous. He did leave open the possibility of future legal action on charging tolls on I-69 and on part of its route that has been highly contested. He said those questions had nothing to do with the lease agreement for the toll road.

Bonney, however, seemed unfazed by the judge’s reproach. He immediately threatened an appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court. He is faced with deadlines, however. He has 10 days to file an appeal and also to post a court-ordered $1.9 billion bond in order to continue the suit.

The lease, which is to become effective June 30, is vital to the transportation future of the state. Indiana has been dragging its feet for decades over building the I-69 extension. The project is part of a federal plan to encourage free trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. When finished I-69 would be a major north-south route running from border to border. Several states are well on their way to completing segments of the freeway running through those states.

But, apparently, Bonney doesn’t care much about the big picture. All that matters to him is that the proposed path for I-69 cuts through his farm. He knows that eminent domain laws are not on his side, so he and his allies decided to attack the funding.

If he is eventually successful, which seems doubtful, he will have forced the forfeiture of billions of dollars in highway projects across the state, put the brakes on an important freeway extension project, and seriously upset the timeline for completion of that project. And, in return for his efforts, he would get to keep his farm intact.

Somehow, it doesn’t seem like a fair trade-off for the other five million residents of this state who are waiting for roads in their sections of the state to be improved, or for the nation as a whole, who would benefit from increased trade and more efficient transportation of goods if I-69 is extended.

I don’t blame anyone for looking out for their own interests. But at some point, the interests of the people at large must become paramount. In almost any project there are trade-offs. The governmental units in charge of planning must balance the good and the bad. There must always be a cost-benefit analysis.

If the overall benefits for society outweigh the cost and inconvenience of a few individuals, then such projects must be given the thumbs-up. In the case of a few scattered farmers against all the road projects in the state that would be put on hold, including the Free-Trade Freeway, the cost-benefit ratio isn’t even close.

Edinburgh's Mall Needs Theater

Wouldn’t it be nice to go see a movie without having to go out of town?

Like almost everyone else in the world I went to see “The Da Vinci Code” over the weekend. This column isn’t meant to be for movie reviews, and I won’t give one here. But this is a film I was really rooting for.

It was expected to have a big opening, what with all the hype. And it actually exceeded expectations, the first film of the year to do so. The big test will be whether it can hold on to its big numbers in subsequent weeks.

Why was I rooting for it to succeed? I guess mainly because I wanted the public at large to give a giant raspberry to all the church groups who wanted to see it banned or boycotted. But, also, because I like it when any popular medium makes people think about what they believe. It’s good for them.

So now that I’ve gotten my mini-review out of the way, let me change gears a bit and get back to my original thought.

Although I thought the movie was awesome, with lots of action and even more mind-boggling intrigue, what would have made it even better is if Edinburgh residents didn’t have to go out of town to see it.

In most cities, there are movie theaters with 14, 16, even 20 screens. Edinburgh used to have a theater with one screen, but not any longer. But now that we have a major mall, shouldn’t it also have a theater?

I don’t know what the Simon Company has in mind ultimately, but if its long-range plans call for a multi-screen movie theater, that would be outstanding. People come from many miles away to visit our mall. Mall-goers often want to do more than just shop, especially if they have traveled quite a distance.

Amenities such as lots of restaurants, a food court, and entertainment venues such as an arcade and a movie theater are essential to the growth and development of a mall. Edinburgh Premium Outlets recently experienced a substantial growth phase. Unfortunately, a theater was not part of that expansion.

I’ve read recently that outside malls, such as Edinburgh’s, are becoming more popular at the expense of the larger, enclosed, regional malls. At first, that puzzled me. Who would want to go outside in whatever kind of weather that’s out there to go from shop to shop when they could remain inside a climate-controlled, protected environment and do the same thing?

But the reasons given do make sense. Outside malls offer more convenience, in the same sense that neighborhood quick marts are more convenient, although more expensive, than supermarkets.

Especially for shoppers who have one thing in mind, it’s easier to park, perhaps with a view of your target store in site. And you generally don’t have to walk as far. It’s quicker. And when the weather is nice, it’s even more enjoyable to go outside.

So Edinburgh’s mall is trendy. It’s popular. And it draws customers from all over the place. What would make it much better, though, is if it had a movie theater.