It’s getting towards the end of the year so it is time to assemble a list of my favourite albums released in 2023. I have sporadically posted lists in the past e.g. here.

Niche tech tips are the cornerstone of this website, and here is another. How to upgrade an iTunes/Music library whilst maintaining the database. I know everyone streams music these days – hence this is likely a very niche tech tip – but I still maintain a large music database on a server. The data in my library is precious (to me) since it tracks my listening habits over 17 years.

In early December, Spotify users received a list, known as Spotify Wrapped, of the tracks they listened to most in 2021. As a committed non-streamer, I was a bit envious of these lists; so I decided to assemble my own list using my Music database. This was possible by comparing two snapshots of my Music database in xml format* that were taken in 2020 and yesterday.

Every publication is assembling year-end lists of their selection of the best albums of the year. Well, quantixed did not want to miss out on the fun, so I came up with a list of my favourite 20 albums released in 2021.

I’ve been following the tweets from an account called Albums You Must Hear @Albums2Hear. Each tweet is an album recommended by the account owner. I’m a sucker for lists of Albums That I Must Hear Before I Die since I’m always interested in new (or not so new) music recommendations.

I thought I’d compile a list of songs related to biomedical science. These were all found in my iTunes library. I’ve missed off multiple entries for the same kind of thing, as indicated.

What is the best music to listen to while writing a manuscript or grant proposal? OK, I know that some people prefer silence and certainly most people hate radio chatter while trying to concentrate. However, if you like listening to music, setting an iPod on shuffle is no good since a track by Napalm Death can jump from the speakers and affect your concentration.

Cloud-Speicherdienste ermöglichen es, Dateien jeder Art – also auch Musik-Files – im Netz zu speichern. Auch zum Teilen von Musik sind sie geeignet, weil man anderen den Zugriff auf seinen Webspace oder seine Online-Ordner ermöglichen kann. All diese Handlungen werfen jedoch urheberrechtliche Fragen auf, wenn man nicht nur selbst komponierte und eingespielte Musikstücke speichern und teilen will.

Bit late, but I stumbled across DeepDyve, which provides rental access to scientific papers for as little as $0.99. The pitch to publishers is: Renting a paper means you get to read it online, but you can't print or download it, and access is time limited (unless you purchase the article outright). You can also purchase monthly plans (think Spotify for papers). It's an interesting model, and the interface looks nice.

Continuing on this theme of embedded metadata, this is one reason why DNA barcodingis so appealing. A DNA barcode is rather like embedded metadata -- once we extract it we can look up the sequence and determine the organism's identity (or, at least whether we've seen it before). It's very like identifying a CD based on a hash computed from the track lengths.