Move Pandora Favorites To Spotify

OK, so I’ve been using the free version of Spotify on my desktop since I got my invitation and have been impressed by the service…especially the playlist sharing and the overall social element of the service. However, I have not yet taken the plunge and forked over the $10/mo ($120/yr) for the upgraded/unlimited plan.

My logic has been that using a service like Pandora satisfies my music need to discover new albums, artists, and songs since I can listen to songs I’m familiar with and it also enables me to discover new music similar to what I’m familiar with. Plus, when I look at my music purchase history these days, I generally buy 8-10 MP3 albums a year which is roughly equivalent to the Spotify annual cost plus I already have several thousand songs already in my personal music library.  In essence, its been:

MP3′s I Purchased/Owned + Pandora = Musically Happy Steve

However, my music world has now been thrown for a tizzy as I have just discovered via Buzzfeed an insanely cool plug in for the Chrome browser that may have tipped the scales towards Spotify.  The plug in basically enables you to take all the songs you have “thumbed up” on your Pandora stations and import them into a Spotify playlist (click through to original post to see the details).

So for example, on Pandora, I have a Say Hi (To Your Mom) Pandora station (based on the awesome Seattle band of the same name) and, as with my other stations, regularly “Thumbs Up” several songs per session.  Now, this plug in takes that curated list that has been compiled over time and puts it in your own Spotify playlist.

For those of you Spotify users, here is the link to the aforementioned playlist – Say Hi Favorites

I can now pump all the songs I’ve ever “liked” via Pandora into Spotify.  I can discover new songs, albums and artists by discovering shared and public playlists.  No decisions have been made yet, but Spotify is moving to the head of the class really really quickly.

Plug-in discovery via Buzzfeed

Car Chargers Hitting England

Example of a charging station that will be installed in England

Over the next few months, electric car chargers will be installed in service areas owned by the Welcome Break chain and located along British motorways

Within 18 months all 27 service areas in the country that are owned by the Welcome Break chain will boast a spot for electric vehicle owners to top up or fully recharge using either the fast charge (32A supply), or the slower supply (13A) for an overnight charge if staying at the nearby hotel. Dale Vince, CEO of Ecotricity, argued that this is a major step toward more widespread acceptance:

Via TreeHugger

Old Spice Guy Is Back

Yes, the Old Spice Guy is back in all his buff, towel covered glory for a series of quick video clips in a similar fashion to last year. Only this time, he’s taking on Fabio in a “Mano A Mano in El Bano” steel cage video match to the death (or, until one of them gets more votes online).

A handful of the Fabio videos are kinda funny. But more striking to me is the clear awkwardness of Fabio while recording these videos. I don’t know if that is part of the act or not, but looking at the Fabio videos head to head against the Old Spice Guy (Isiah Mustafa) makes you really appreciate the Old Spice Guy’s skill and talent.

Red Sox vs The World

Earlier, I was over at Flip Flop Fly In, the awesome site by Craig Robinson that has all sorts of baseball infographics.  I was intrigued by one that compared the all time records of the White Sox and the Red Sox (a vernable battle of the, er, Soxes), and it got me thinking about how the Red Sox have done against other teams.  So as Craig does, I headed over to Baseball Reference to check out the details and channel my inner Cliff Clavin.

Since 1901, the Red Sox have won a total of 8,877 games, while losing 8,270 (across AL and NL teams, although the vast majority of the games have obviously come against AL teams), giving them an all time winning percentage of .518. For comparison, that ranks the Sox 4th all time behind the Yankees (.568), the NY/SF Giants (.538), and the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers (.524) and basically tied with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Red Sox have had the most success against the Baltimore Orioles, winning 1,148 games against 930 losses, for a .552 winning percentage. Sadly, the Sox have had the least success against the Yankees, with 950 wins against 1,127 losses, or 177 games below .500.

What’s worse, the Yankees are one of only two AL teams who have scored more runs than the Sox in head to head competition.  The Yanks are averaging 8% (0.39 more runs per game) more runs per game when playing the Sox.

On a relative basis, the Red Sox have had the most success against the Tampa Bay Rays, winning 60% of the game against them (139-92).

Surprisingly, the other AL team that has given the Red Sox trouble is the Cleveland Indians.  The Indians are averaging 3% (0.14 RPG) more runs per game vs the Red Sox, and have beaten the Sox 1,019 times (vs. 956 wins by Boston).  The only other AL team that the Red Sox have a losing record against is, of all teams, the Kansas City Royals.  The Royals hold a 2 game advantage over the Red Sox as of today, however the Red Sox have outscored them by about 5% on a per game basis.

The Red Sox have the most absolute wins against the Orioles, the Oakland A’s (1,053), and the Detroit Tigers (1,018).  They are the only three teams who the Sox have won over 1,000 game against.  The next closest team to the 1,000 win plateau is the aforementioned Indians.

So there you go, a quick synopsis of what the Red Sox have done against the American League since 1901.  You can see the full grid of stats against all MLB teams here.  I didn’t include NL teams as there are just not enough games played against that league, leaving the data a bit unstable since there were so few games to draw from.  One item that was interesting within the set of NL teams was that the Sox have only played the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds 6 times each during the regular season.

Illegal Dumping

Hey, lets get rid of the evidence by going to the local car park and dump the computer, papers, and a phone in the trash bin. No one will find it, really…trust me.

Detectives are examining a computer, paperwork and a phone found in a bin near the riverside London home of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International.

The Guardian has learned that a bag containing the items was found in an underground car park in the Design Centre at the exclusive Chelsea Harbour development on Monday afternoon.

The car park, under a shopping centre, is yards from the gated apartment block where Brooks lives with her husband, a former racehorse trainer and close friend of David Cameron.

It is understood the bag was handed in to security at around 3pm, and that shortly afterwards Brooks’s husband, Charlie, arrived and tried to reclaim it. He was unable to prove the bag was his and the security guard refused to release it.

Via The Guardian

Google Is Seeking Alpha

Google is taking a sliver of its vast wealth ($33 Billion in cash on hand, I read recently) to search high and low for the “next big thing” out there. And at no surprise to this author, it is using algorithms and data sets to help it guide where it invests.

Google says the algorithms have taught it valuable lessons, from obvious ones (entrepreneurs who have started successful companies are more likely to do it again) to less obvious ones (start-ups located far from the venture capitalist’s office are more likely to be successful, probably because the firm has to go out of its way to finance the start-up.)

If I were them, I’d look at ways to improve battery life, remove our dependence on wireless carriers and cable companies, and develop a legitimate flux capacitor to promote time travel (ok, one of those is a joke).

Via NYTimes.com

Hangout With Customer Service

Michael Dell posted that he was intrigued and interested in having Dell try to use Google+ Hangouts for customer service.

The reaction to his post was overwhelmingly positive, with hundreds of comments agreeing that this would be a good idea for Dell. And the idea is indeed intriguing: Some customer service needs are very similar, so having a service representative talk to a small group of customers at the same time could be more economical than the traditional one-on-one call. Using video could also humanize tech support, and group settings could even initiate self-help between customers.

I think the service that could be delivered by features like Google Hangouts is very interesting, however I’m really not sure if I’m prepared to see a video of the service rep staring at me from my desktop. I don’t mind them taking over my desktop (a la GoToMyPC) to solve the problem but video seems a little too personal in this situation/user experience.