Do I have enough potential content to fill a rambling tonight? Yes, I do. Rage appears to be quite dead at the moment, so I don't know how long until this reaches the masses.

Stayed at work late tonight. Deadlines approaching. You know the story. I got a free dinner from Amici's out of it. Spaghetti, meatball, salad, garlic bread. Yum yum yum.

I'm sorry, I can't resist. I have to take a lyric break. Go ahead and smack me with the "-2 (I'd rather hear a dog puke!)". Please. It gives me great pleasure.

It brings me great sadness to realize that the beloved jukebox which everyone has been enjoying so much, especially during the past week, is going to disappear soon. Like it or not, we now live in a police state. When confronted with such a climate, people act accordingly, and with good reason. Someday, I hope the laws and attitudes which govern our nation will change for the better. In the mean time, I'm not holding my breath.

Yes, I intend the presence of these quotes with no small degree of irony.

[What did he just say?]

Depeding on how you look at it, the timing on this was especially bad/good. Last week, I stayed late at work several evenings bringing to life an idea that had been germinating around in my mind for a while. With much help from he who is known as Zan Lynx, the implementation came to full fruition one week ago. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that it proved to be a phenominal success. Perhaps too much of a success.

Since I've never really explained it here before, perhaps a bit of background would be in order. (My historical code of semi-silence here with regard to the jukebox has been motivated because it was theoretically supposed to be somewhat "undergound." But any semblence of secrecy has been blown to hell over the past few days. Since it's going to disappear shortly anyway, I say to hell with it.)

The jukebox. A marvellous repository of everyone's legally purchased music, transferred onto a giant hard drive for the purpose of easy space and time shifting. It also allowed everyone to share their (lack of) musical tastes with the rest of the department. A cultural micro-reservoir of musical wonder. Over the past year, I have gone to the store and bought at least 2 cds after having heard them on the jukebox.

As time passed, it also came to feature a rating system, by which each individual could attach a value to any given album, and thereby share their wonder (or displeasure) with the audio contained therein. "The best, Jerry! The best."

Not too many weeks ago, I had the brilliant idea to make use of the wealth of information contained in the ratings database to automatically assemble individual random playlists for people based on their preferences, as expressed in the numbers. Like listening to the radio, except only the songs you like get played, and the ones you like the most get played even more.

At work, we have a test lab, where drone^H^H^H^H^H engineers spend many hours before each release running... well... tests. It ain't glamorous work, but it's part of the job. This labor is made slightly less dreary when there is some music to listen to in the background. So, many months ago, speakers were gathered and spread around the lab in an acoustically pleasing manner (well, sort of; I think we did pretty good with what we had).

Up until about a week ago, whenever people in the lab wanted to listen to something, someone would have to manually choose an album (or albums) at the console (ain't no X servers running on this machine), queue things up, and then let it play for an hour or so. Rinse and repeat. People could either taking semi-unofficial turns, or whoever has the initiative could get up, press the buttons, and make the decisions.

Enter jbradio.pl. This script, initially composed during the evening hours of the first week of April 2002, would loop in while(1) fashion. Each iteration would pick a few random numbers, run a nice big pile of sql, and choose a song to play. Assuming it had correct information about who was currently in the lab, everyone would get to hear something they liked, sooner or later, and nobody would have to suffer through something they hated. (Well, under my original implementation, almost nobody. Several "I like it" votes could outweigh a single "I'd rather hear a dog vomit" in the first version. Zan Lynx modified it to never play anything anyone present really didn't like. Initially, I was hesitent to agree with this change, but after running it a few days, I think it worked very well.)

Basically, this script was the same idea as the individual random playlist, scaled to multiple users, where the list of users present could be updated in real time (via web interface), providing an endless stream of non-stop musical goodness to keep all lab occupants happy.

And all were joyous, and the fame of the jukebox spread far and wide throughout the land. Too far and wide.

This time around, it wasn't just us engineers working in the test lab. We got a bevy of help from across the building, and were joined by a bunch from tech support and manufacturing. Natually, these visitors to our habitat became curious about the source of the nonstop audio, and understandably wanted to take part in it themselves. So they too, were granted logins for the web-controlled contraption. These votes were exercised aplenty, and the jukebox rating system was greatly enriched by the influx of new names.

Right at the height of the fun, the story hit slashdot. In the wake of this news, the founding members of the jukebox council decided it would be best to preemptively shut the beast down. Too many people were learning about it. Too much potential for a leak to find its way to the wrong place. Better to act now, so that in the unfortunate event that someone does tattle, and the RIAA goons make a raid, they will find nothing. No evidence with which to cripple the livelihood of an entire building full of people. Better for everyone that way.

Is this action overly paranoid? Maybe. I happen to think so. But I'm not the only one involved in making the decision. In the unfortunate event that worst case does happen, it would be devastating to all. So perhaps this is the right thing to do.

Maybe someday, this country's legislators and judges will wise up, and slap those greedy lawyer basterds back to kingdom come where they belong. For chrissake, when did listening to music become such a crime?

I realize I've been pouring money into their dirty pockets for years. To what end? So they can sue, extort, and bribe the world into some dystopian vision of DRM hell? I dunno.

I think I've been up too long. And I really didn't mean to focus quite so exclusively on the jukebox issue. That thing has been a lot of fun. It goes out with a bang, not a whimper.

BOOM!

[Insert some silly comment about the Rebel Fleet, Darth Vader, blah blah blah.]

I think I had a few other things to say on other topics, but I'm too tired to say them now, so that will have to wait for another day. Besides, I'm having trouble remembering.

Oh yeah! This article! (Oh boy, here comes that can of worms again. But this page is long due for a re-visiting on that topic. Another rambling, in the near future. Don't let me forget.)

Here's hoping rage returns soon.