• December 19th, 2007
• Filed in
  • Music
  • Review

Below are my most listened albums of 2007 (in no particular order). The only requirement for these selections were that they must be solid albums as a whole (no skipping tracks here!). These albums are must-haves for anyone serious about music. I’ll be announcing my top 10 before the end of the year is out so stay tuned.

* under the radar - a true gem

• Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
• The Bees - Octopus
• Interpol - Our Love To Admire
• Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye
• The Thrills - Teenager
• Tegan & Sara - The Con
• Taken By Trees - Open Field
• Stereophonics - Pull The Pin
• Sigur Ros - Hvarf-Heim
• The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
• Rogue Wave - Asleep At Heaven’s Gate
• The Rakes - Ten New Messages
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
• New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom
• LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
• Kings Of Leon - Because Of The Times
• Kanye West - Graduation
• Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob
• The Good, The Bad, & The Queen (Self Titled)
• Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace
• Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
• Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81
• Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin
• Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
• The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
• The Go! Team - Proof Of Youth

Albums from 2006 that had heavy rotation in 2007

• Camera Obscura - Let’s Get Out Of This Country
• The Rifles - No Love Lost
• Koop - Koop Island
• We Are Scientists - With Love And Squalor

Want to see my listening habits? Check out my Last.fm profile.

Of course if you want to give a quick listen to any band mentioned above I recommend Hype Machine.

Did I forget anything? Feel free to comment to add anything I may have missed! (Although I may disagree.)

Popularity: 12% [?]

• December 16th, 2007
• Filed in
  • Google
  • Rants

Remember when Google was a spider that returned relevant search results? Yea, me too. Now Google wants it all. Back in the day, I specifically (in the good old “focused on search results” times) remember Sergey Brin stating that Google’s purpose was to make all the world’s information indexed and available.

Lately, it seems Google isn’t satisfied with just indexing the worlds information, but owning it as well (email, documents, analytics, social networks, online advertising, videos, etc etc ad nauseum).

I can see the discussion amongst Google engineers that sparked Google Knol.

Engineer #1: I’m tired of sending so much of our traffic to Wikipedia, they should come to us instead! Engineer #2: OWN IT!

Google Knol is designed to be a Squidoo, Mahalo, Wikipedia killer - Google Knol is in closed beta presently, but they’re hoping that it does better than Brazilian social network Orkut.

As if the whole internet doesn’t suck off Google’s teet enough already. They’re going after the only major untarnished Interweb destination that’s left: Wikipedia.org.

Is anyone scared yet?

Why did I get flashbacks of Dr. Edward Nygma aka the Riddler from Batman Forever, hooked up to his mind draining super crazy device pilfering all of the knowledge from unsuspecting Gothamites?

Google Knols All

What happens when “Don’t be evil” gets boring? Far in the future when Sergey and Larry are no longer the moral leaders of a powerful company, who becomes Google’s conciousness? What will be the next position posted on the Google job board when that happens, Chief Ethicist?

This Google is super ambitious and I love that - they raise the bar for the rest of us, but no one is safe from the Google machine. If they think they can do something better than you (and often they can), be afraid, be very afraid.

Sidenote: When Google gains it’s own consciousness we are so screwed.

Popularity: 17% [?]