voluntaryXchange

Joni Mitchell’s Influence

Joni Mitchell’s influence on music can be quantified.

Joni Mitchell has a pretty slick website.

One of the things it does is list how many times a song has been covered by others.

• 737 for “Both Sides Now”
• 291 for “Big Yellow Taxi”
• 229 for “River” †
• 216 for “Woodstock”
• 173 for “A Case of You”
• 169 for “Circle Game”

Those numbers are just absurd if you think about it.

“You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” must have a ton too, but they aren’t documented on the site. Lots of my favorites haven’t been covered that much: “Conversation”, “People’s Parties”, “Dreamland”, “Silky Veils of Ardor”, and a dozen more.

I still remember the first time I heard a whole Joni Mitchell album in the late summer of 1982. It was absolutely mindblowing.

To find this information, go to the site, click “Music”, then click an album, then a song, and scroll through the lyrics to the bottom of the page.

† This one surprised me a bit … such a sad song … about regretting at Christmastime mistreating others who’ve helped you out.

Technorati Tags: joni,mitchell,covers

Windows Tip # 7

Did you know you can cut and paste in the Command Prompt in Windows?

I didn’t. When did they add that bit of functionality?

To get to it, you right click in the title bar of the Command Prompt window, and choose edit.

Technorati Tags: windows,command,prompt,cut,paste,copy

Smoking (Fast and Furious) Gun

FOXNews is reporting there is evidence that the ATF actually sold guns to illegal gun buyers.

This is a big deal: can you imagine if the DEA was caught selling drugs to users?

Me neither …

Like most government scandals, if they don’t wither, there’s a reason.

Technorati Tags: fast,furious,atf,sold,guns

A Nobel Wish/Prediction

I’m hopeful that the alum from my high school that is closest to this honor — novelist Joyce Carol Oates — wins the literature Nobel this year.

Wanna’ read something short and good: go find a book containing “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My Life Over Again”.

Technorati Tags: nobel,prize,literature,joyce,carol,oates

Politicians as Actors

Don Boudreaux (picking on all politicians, but using Obama as an example):

And what of Pres. Obama?  Even if he wins a second term in the White House, he’ll be only 55 years old when he leaves office.  Will he found and run a health-insurance company?  How about a ‘green’ energy firm?  Or will he, perhaps, found and run a firm specializing in offering middle- and low-income Americans better and more fully disclosed access to consumer credit?  Will he create a successful automobile firm?

I’ll bet (seriously) a good deal of money that he’ll do none of these things.  He’ll not even try.  And for good reason: not only does he know nothing about these matters, he knows nothing about finding investors willing to stake their own funds, or about finding skilled workers and managers willing to cooperate together in such upstart enterprises, so that such enterprises become realities with real prospects for success.

He knows no more about the economic matters upon which he pronounces than does a soap-opera actor portraying a physician know about cardiology or obstetrics. [emphasis added]

Why do people listen to these bozos? I’ll tell you why: because we voted to give them the “national car keys”.

Technorati Tags: career,after,office

OMG You Gotta Go Try This

It’s a time waster … but go try Draw a Stickman.

Via bookofjoe.

Technorati Tags: stickman,draw

Bing vs. Google

The differences aren’t big … but Robin Harris did a taste test and switched to Bing.

I use both … but I do have a preference for finding videos with Bing.

Anyway … it’s a bit like Coke and Pepsi. I usually order a Coke and use Google, but that’s a habit that I question routinely without doing anything constructive with my worry.

Technorati Tags: bing,google

Honest-to-God Mind Reading

Check out this video. The panel on the left was shown to a subject, the panel on the right is a reconstruction based on nerve transmissions in the subject’s brain:

They produced this by laying in an fMRI and watching the clips. The fMRI recorded their neural activity and blood flow in minute detail, which was physically mapped and correlated with images on the screen. All this was done non-invasively.

What I’d like to see is the images from people who are praying instead of watching a video.

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: mind,reading

Make Everything OK

What a time saver … usually it is my job to make everything OK.

Please note that you will have to click here to open the site, and click there too to make everything OK.

Via bookofjoe.

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Friday’s Update

Still waiting for UARS to crash and burn … er … um … actually burn and then crash.

And, they’ve gotten much more guarded about when and where.

The when is now saying sometime before Sunday. The best guess is 6 to 16 hours from now … most of the Americas will be dark or getting there at that time, so there may be a show.

The where seems to always be a couple of orbits to the west of the current position — last I saw it was going to be in the Sahara.

Technorati Tags: uars,satellite,crash