Comments on: satellite radio and other evolutionary possibilities

By: Joachim Klehe

Joachim Klehe — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:32:09 +0000

The Panasonic XM receiver in my truck has a button that enables me to display the channel I’m listening to, the artist, and the song being played. I’ve bought numerous CDs by having this feature available by looking up the artist/song on the All Music Guide (the musical equivalent of the Internet Movie Database). Also, I politely disagree with the other John Hawkins on the quality of the music programming on XM: I listen to the Jazz, American Songbook, Blues, and traditional country channels and I find the selections varied and eminently listenable. Programming that includes my favorite jazz guitarists, Chuck Loeb and Larry Carlton, in frequent rotation is my idea of “can’t miss” radio. Of course, your mileage may vary in finding music that appeals to your personal taste.

By: (the other) John Hawkins

(the other) John Hawkins — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:44:30 +0000

I have XM radio, and while I enjoy the non-music channels quite a bit, I can’t agree that they provide access to “good” music. Most of the music they play is the bottom of the musical gene pool. They have “decade” stations – one that plays 40′s music, one that plays 50′s music, etc. They don’t play the hits so much. More like the misses.

And a morning commute listening to the 60′s or 70′s stations is enough to convince you those decades had really, really poor taste.

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:10:36 +0000

Rob, splendid, thanks, Grant

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:03:21 +0000

Aldo:

Actually, there is some evidence that humans gave up some cranial capacity when we teamed up with dogs. Neanderthal humans had larger brains than modern humans, but they apparently never teamed up with dogs. Modern humans did (and it may have been a looong time ago) and they might very well have leg go of some capacity that was farmed out to dogs.

Interestingly, dogs may have done the same thing. Dog’s brains are smaller than wolves’ brains and the speculation is that they farmed out some of their needs to humans.

This subject is discussed in some length in Temple Grandin’s book Animals in Translation.

If humans and machines become symbiotic for an evolutionary time period, I expect something similar to happen.

By: Ennis

Ennis — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:59:22 +0000

How’s the quality of Satellite Radio? I’m a big fan of novelty – which is why I love radio and why I’m frustrated to see playlists shrink. My worry is that Satellite Radio will be the cable TV of radio – 100 channels with nothing on, each of which are using a fairly narrow definition of consumer taste, none of which are doing anything quirky or experimental. The blanding and dumbing down of consumer offerings. Recently I discovered Radio Paradise on the internet. When in my car I listen to the one college station with eclectic programming. But in general, I’m starved.

By: Ennis

Ennis — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:36:44 +0000

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:33:59 +0000

Not an evolutionary process, but a cultural one.

I can google the information needed to accomplish my job, in most cases far quicker than I can look them up in my own technical document set. This is a force multiplier (to use military cant) – I’m faster and better than if I were to rely on our internal docs only.

This is a good thing, in a dymanic culture like ours.

By: brian

brian — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 11:32:24 +0000

We already are sharing our cookies, table scraps and symbiotic relationships, and now we are farming out our evolution… I wonder if dogs evolve more quicky in Asia because of the selective pressures of dog stew (also known as yon-yang-tang or po-shin-tang). Teach a dog to stew and you feed someone for a day. Teach a dog to surf the Internet and the possibilities are fetchingly endless….

apnews.excite.com/article/20050413/D89EPV580.html
New Cookies Let Dogs Share With Owners

By: Aldo

Aldo — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 10:49:16 +0000

It’s an interesting idea. But humans haven’t had any evolutionary steps for hunderds of thousands of years. Evolution is an exceptionally slow proces and humans haven’t really “evolved” anything since the time they befriended dogs, or the comming of the computer. Still it is an interesting idea indeed.

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 09:58:03 +0000

That is one hell of a good question.

I’m finding myself “farming out” my memory to Google and IMDB a lot more recently; it’s just so much easier to just find out instead of racking my aging brain! As to the overall evolutionary impact of this behavior, I’m uncertain. But I do know it frees me from a lot of thinking that often felt pointless; I mean, after all that, it turns out the name of the movie was “Laura,” just like the song. How much more effective and efficient just go to Google and type in “movie song laura” than to waste hours trying to remember if it really was something else.