Itunes Playlists

I've been playing around with itunes... way too much. One of the cool features they have are "smart playlists". Smart playlists let you create a list of songs dynamically based on things like when it was last played, or what type of song it is etc... Here are some of the settings I'm using to make smart playlists:

• High Playcount
  1. Last Skipped is not in the last 180 days
  2. Last Played is not in the last last 30 days
  3. Rating is 1
     
  4. Play Count is greater than 4
  5. Randomly select 250 MB
     
• High Rating
  1. Rating greater than 1 star
  2. Last Played is not in the last 30 days
  3. Last Skipped in not in the last 60 days
  4. playlist is not "High Playcount"
  5. Randomly Select 250 MB
     
• Random
  1. Bit Rate is greater than 130kpbs
  2. Skip Count is 0
  3. Last Played is not in the last 90 days
  4. Unrated
  5. Randomly select 600 MB
     
• Recently Added / Unplayed
  1. Artist/Album not blank
  2. Play Count & Skip Count are 0
  3. Bit Rate is greater than 127 kbs
  4. Podcast is false
  5. Kind does not contain video
  6. Rating is not 1 star
  7. Select 500 MB by most recently added
     
• Played but unrated
  
  1. Play Count is between 1 and 5
  2. Skip Count is less than 3
  3. LastPlayed is not in the last 30 days
  4. Last Skipped is not in the last 120 days
  5. Unrated
  6. Bit Rate is greater than 120kpbs
  7. Select 400MB randomly
     

I have around 250GB/55000 songs. It's enough to play straight for 260 hours. I like to explore it by using the "random" playlist. As you can see most of these playlists drop any music that isn't at least 130kps. This is the bottom limit because I find some audiobooks encoded to that rate and I'd like to exclude them. Also the lower the bit rate the worse the music sounds. I've found some songs that I dislike at a low bit rate but like at a higher one. If I'm exploring around there's a chance of getting a negative impression of an artist I've never heard before just because I heard them at a low bit rate.

If a song gets "skipped" it gets kicked out of most of these playlists for 30 days. That mostly works, but I may bump that up to several months.

For Ratings I mark songs I never want to hear again with 1 star. 2 or more stars and it gets picked up more frequently by my "High Rating playlist". One problem I have with the high rating playlist is that I haven't rated enough songs so it tend to have the same stuff all the time.

Posting from iphone

It's 97 here in redwood city

I am Ironman

I raced an Ironman today and completed the distance. Without any permanent damage I believe.

At 16:03 Im a pretty slow Ironman. Really I made a lot of newbie mistake.. damn I could have don e it much faster.

• First off I switched flavors on my sports drink. No big deal yo might think, but I think this new flavor upset my stomach and I didn't figure it out until halfway through the ride. This caused me to under eat making me slower.
• On the run I didn't clean my water bottle, so it had something else in it with my sports drink. I just dmped it out and figured there would be little residue.. stupid me I think this also bother my stomach
• Worst of all I overdrank. Too much water. I stopped at every bathroom on the bike course. By the time I got to the run I was rushing to the bathrooms because I couldn't hold it back. I drank my usual amount.. why was it too much? This killed my run. I tried just sipping and realy reducing what I drank.. no real help. The only thing that worked was that I finally stopped drinking altogether.

More on the Alcatraz swim

Here is a map of my swim from Alcatraz: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http:%2F%2Fbbs.keyhole.com%2Fubb%2Fdownload.php%3FNumber%3D1184825&t=k&om=1&ie=UTF8&z=14

I have to say the swim was a lot of fun. It's a real privilege to be able to do something like this. You jump off the boat in a rush, trying not to jump on top of someone and then try to get away from the boat as quickly as possible. It is a bit crowded and hectic at the start with people swimming over you. After a while you relax and it's just you and the currents and the cold water.

People swim at crazy angles, if you look at my gps track closely you can see that it wiggles a lot. I tried to keep the Sutro TV towers at 1 O'Clock or so as I neared shore. This worked OK, but often I would sigh take a few strokes and then look up to see the towers at 11 O'Clock. The waves and current tended to turn me around some. Sometimes another swimmer comes next to you and rather than swimming over them you have to speed up/slow down/change angles.

At Some point I realized I was moving to the right edge of the swim course so I started swimming directly toward the towers. This landed me in a perfect position on the beach.

The GPS did not get as many data points as it could have. It kept on flipping underneath me as I swam. I stopped a couple times to put it on my back but it eventually went back under me so what can you do?

I did this swim with a wetsuit. Next time I think I'll try without one.

My brother interviewed on NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90889674

2 weeks till ironman

well I'm only 2 weeks away now. I haven't held together well... During training I injured my shoulder/neck, my low back, my toe, and now my latest dehabilition: bum knees.

Clearly the bum knees are related to my new bike.. At first I had a little bit of pain when riding, then I had a lot of pain and my ride distances started coming down. Right now it's a challenge to do an easy spin for an hour.

So even though I planned on doing Escape from Alcatraz this weekend I will only do the swim so that my knees have time to rest. I've been told by people in the know that I will still be able to do the IM, but I need to take things easy.

Oh well the swim for alcatraz should be fun.

Build and Destory

In the build phase of IM training. distances are increasing. Today I went for an 18 mile run and was pleased that I could hold a 8:15 pace for most of it. Around mile 13 the infit I was drinking became so bubbly I couldn't drink it anymore. I refilled (duh! with more infit.. I thought that stuff was water) Quickly I couldn't drink it, by mile 14 I was cramped up so hard from dehydration I had to take many walk breaks. Mile 15 I finally got more water, but the damage was done. I had lost the guys I was running with and couldn't return to form until Mile 17 or so.

Yesterday I went out for a 105 mile ride. I started in San Gregorio, and rode to pescadero. In pescadero I realised I had dropped my hat, so I went back over the hills to San Gregorio looking for it. No Luck. Then I rode back to pescadero and on to Santa Cruz. Leaving Pescadero a motorcyclist says to me "I gotta hand it to you, you really know how to ride". I'm still not sure if it was a genuine compliment or if he was being sarcastic. The area I was in was flat and straight and I was in tri position riding along at 20mph, so I don't think I did anything to deserve comment. A truck had just passed me, so maybe it was something related to that. I asked him for directions to Santa Cruz and he said "You sure you want to do that? It's a long way". I said that I'll be fine, but later I cursed myself for not heading his warning.

The wind was with me in some points. I hardly had to pedal to be at 20+ mph. but it was not continuous.

Just outside of Santa Cruz I got a flat. damn it. I changed it but couldn't find the source of the problem. I decided to go into Santa Cruz, find a bike shop and get a new tube. While there I got a couple slices of pizza from next door, then headed back.

Oh My God, what was I thinking! the wind against me was so fierce I could barely keep moving forward. It was a struggle to go 10mph. I had forgotten how bad this was! A quick look at the clock told me it was 5:30 and I had a little under 40 miles or so left to ride. I might not be back at my car until 9pm! damn what was I thinking? I've got no lights on this thing and I'm riding in farmland. Even on steep downhills I can't go faster than 15mph because of the wind. This is the stupidest thing I've done in quite a while. I'm terrified I will not get back before nightfall, when I will not even be able to see the road in front of me, let alone cars be able to see me.

I struggle against the wind for a while.. it's futile.. I knew it would be. I can get up to 13mph or so but that's with me working very hard in the tri position. 6pm, 6:30. Now I can no longer see the sun it's too foggy. I have no idea when sunset will be. 7pm, 7:30 and I notice my speed is back up. Apparently the bad wind is not continuous on the way back either. I made it back to the car with about 10 minutes or so to spare before nightfall. I need to start these rides earlier.