Kevin Blake's Blog

RSS recursion is not a toy

… that was syndication for the sake of it.

That’s what I said, word for word. Then a colleague pointed out that I could have twitter automatically update from my blog or Blakepics. And all hell broke loose.

I didn’t like Twitter as another way of updating my blog, or having it throw up all over my Facebook status every time I opened up my Twitter-enabled fridge. But reaching out to new audiences, and the potential to bombard mobile phone networks every time I bounce from one country to the next… Well suddenly it’s become quite cool.

And yes, I admit – I was tempted to install the application to syndicate my Xbox 360 status as well. But I’m not sure I’m ready to spam everyone that much. Yet.

“Kevin has just been killed by a bunny rabbit on Halo 3. Again”

I came across a whole bunch of Last.fm profile scripts on Anthony Lieken’s blog while I was looking for a Scrobbler plugin for Winamp. One of them gave me an eclectic score and made me feel all warm and fuzzy. How do you score?

Take your top 20 artists. For each of these artists, collect the top 5 similar artists. The resulting number of unique artists is your eclectic score. If the score is small (extreme = 5) your musical preferences are very limited, and if it is large (larger than 80, extreme = 100), then you have an eclectic musical preference. You can compute your own score at http://anthony.liekens.net/pub/scripts/last.fm/eclectic.php

My eclectic score is currently

86/100

The 86 related artists for my profile are Ash, Athlete, Audioslave, Better Than Ezra, Big Wreck, Blues Traveler, Breaking Benjamin, Bush, Cobra Starship, Collective Soul, Creed, Crossfade (2), Cute Is What We Aim For, Default, Disturbed, Edwin McCain, Elbow, Embrace, Fair to Midland, Faithless, Fall Out Boy, Finger Eleven, Fort Minor, Frou Frou, Fuel, Gavin DeGraw, Goo Goo Dolls (2), Hawksley Workman, Hoobastank, Hootie & the Blowfish, Hooverphonic, Howie Day, I Am Kloot, Idlewild, Incubus, Ingram Hill, Jack’s Mannequin, Jay-Z and Linkin Park, Jem, Joseph Arthur, Kate Havnevik, Ko?n, Lamb, Lifehouse, Limp Bizkit, Matchbox Twenty (2), Matt Nathanson, Matt Wertz, Moloko, Morcheeba, My Chemical Romance, Neverending White Lights, Nickelback, Nirvana, OneRepublic, P.O.D., Panic! At the Disco (2), Papa Roach, Pilate, Queens of the Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Regina Spektor, Rob Thomas, Saliva, Shinedown (2), Something Corporate, Staind (2), Static-X, Stephen Fretwell, Stereophonics, Switchfoot, System of a Down, Taking Back Sunday (2), The Academy Is… (2), The Calling, The Early November, The Postal Service, The Starting Line, The Used, Third Eye Blind (2), Three Days Grace, Tonic (2), Train (3), Turin Brakes, Vertical Horizon (3), Wintersleep