Site worthy of a visit...

Every once in a while, you come across a website that blows your mind away. If you haven't ever visited Pandora, you've been seriously missing out.

It really is one of the cleverest uses of technology and music (my two big passions) that I have ever seen. Basically, the guys at Pandora have been working on something called the "Music Genome Project" for the past few years. They've taken thousands of songs, and stripped them down into what they sound like - not who they are sung by or what genre they belong to - but the actual sound of the song. They've then tagged these songs with the categories that they have defined, and provided a tool that allows you to listen to a song, say whether you like it or not, and then based on your decision, they will recommend another song, and another, and another...

The whole point of the project, is to allow the user to build up a "station" of the type of music they like, and then go out and buy the albums (or buy them online if you want). Pure genius.

This site...as a graph!

This image represents the structure of the blog that you are reading (well, technically it has changed since uploading this image, and this blog entry). Confused...? Let me explain. Some guy has written an algorithm that reads the source code of your website, and translates it into an image (check out the site here). The image depicted (click image to enlarge), represents the source code of our blog. In terms of a key, this is what the colours mean:

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Lightning Crashes...

Came across this photograph, taken by some guy whilst on holiday in Moscow, and thought it quite appropriate seeing as we're having a bit of an electrical storm at the moment. Woke up this morning and it was windy and rainy, and here we sit this evening whilst the rain lashes down in intermittent waves, and the sky is alive with currents of lightning.

From one rainy, cloudy city to another!

Went to CT yesterday for another round of meetings. Got up at 4:30am to make sure that I made the flight at 6:00am.
Trip wasn't too bad actually - bit of turbulence out of Jhb, and some more into CT.
Didn't get to see the mountain this time, as it was covered in clouds.
Three quick meetings, an even quicker lunch, and then back to the airport to make the 4pm flight back to Jhb.

Apart from the early rise (after an evening out celebrating my 30th birthday), it was a pretty good day.

Over that hill...

Yup - hit the magical Three O this week.
As far as birthdays go, it was a pretty average day to be honest - although I was treated to a cooked breakfast by K, and showered in gifts, which was really special. There is so much hype around reaching 30, and you see it coming for months, with big expectations. Next thing you know, you've been so busy and wrapped up in other things that it springs upon you and you're not quite prepared. At least thats how I felt.
Went to work, had a 4 hour meeting...took some cakes and ordered pizza for the office, another set of meetings in the afternoon...rush home for dinner with the family...and next thing you know, its all over.

Having said that, I was spoilt, and we did have a great dinner. Went to a place called Jungle Sushi and Tepanyaki. Sat around the Tepanyaki bar with the family...and had some great food. I had some Salmon Nigiri, a salmon hand roll, and a beef fillet tepanyaki - delicious.

Still intending on having a bit of a celebration - but because of other commitments, friends away, other friends only arriving - it'll only take place in September sometime.

How does it feel? Not too shabby...I'm at the beginning of my next decade in life, with another 10 years of thirties to look forward too. I'm told that this is the decade in which things 'really' happen in life. I guess one can justify anything really.

The Epic Cycle...

Managed to get out on Sunday afternoon, for what turned out to be quite an epic cycle as far as K and I are concerned. We headed off towards the Klipriviersburg Nature Reserve, with Brett (the neighbour), to meet up with Frank. Getting there was tough, but not too bad in the end. Anyway, we met up with Frank, and cycled through the reserve, and back in about 90 minutes. Frank had the luxury of getting back into his beetle, and not having to tackle what must be classified as a Category 1 climb (I know there are no Cat.1 climbs in SA, but whoever made that claim has clearly never cycled back up Columbine road in Winchester Hills). It was a pretty intense climb at that point (which marked about 3 hours in the saddle), but nothing that an Mp3 player belting out the consistent beat of the Foo Fighters could'nt sort out. K and I made it to the top of Columbine, and back onto the long downhill of Klipriver - whilst Brett had to be rescued by Frank, and driven home.

43km round trip, 4 hours in the saddle, and a whole lot of energy burnt up. My idea of a great Sunday afternoon.