Curiousity-driven work

Jason Fried wrote about what he calls the “Two i’s” – important and interesting:

For a long time I’ve felt like the only thing worth working on is the next most important thing. Why spend time working on something that’s less important if there’s something more important that needs work?

I’ve changed my mind on this. I think it’s always good to be working on two things: The next most important thing, and the next most interesting thing.

Last week, Kinnon and I attended an event at MaRS that featured Bill Buxton and Bill Reeves in conversation. In it, Bill Buxton talked about  “curiosity-driven work.” He lamented that so many technical people at universities are focused on building businesses and commercially viable projects, rather than pursing what truly piques their interest (even if it might not be financially fruitful).

“You can’t predict where the great ideas are going to come from,” Buxton said. “The university needs to cultivate smart people with imagination.”

Rings true to me.

It seems like a lot of what ends up being important starts out as simply interesting.

“The details are not the details. They make the design.”

So the other day, on the walk back from the grocery store, I listened to this past week’s On The Media. It began with a question:

is the Golden Age of content sustainable, or just a supernova, a dying star burning exceptionally bright?

Then, thirty-one minutes and forty-five seconds later, a small bit of instrumental music underneath an extro and sponsor read. The tune sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I’d heard it before.

Then it clicked.

“Champagne Supernova” by Oasis.

A tiny detail, easy to miss. But boy oh boy, that’s craftsmanship.

The CBC’s crummy low-bitrate MP3 streams, and what to do about them

About six weeks ago, without any apparent warning, CBC Radio One’s audio streams switched from MP3 audio to AAC.

This left a number of people unable to listen to streaming audio, namely those with internet radio receivers that don’t support AAC.

Luckily, a commenter named Brian let me know that Radio One MP3 streams still exist:

The trick is to change the “H” to an “L” in the URLs.

Thus,

http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CBC_R1_HFX_H.pls

becomes

http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CBC_R1_HFX_L.pls

and you get an MP3 stream, compatible with your MP3-only internet radio receiver.

But there’s a pretty big caveat here. While the MP3 streams still exist, they sound like garbage. Crunchy, low-bitrate garbage. And indeed, they are low-bitrate. They’re 32kbps MP3s, with a sampling rate of 11025 Hz:

Quick audio lesson: the range of human hearing is approximately 20 to 20,000 Hz. There’s something called the Nyquist theorem that says that to properly reproduce sound, the sampling rate of a digital recording should be twice the highest frequency contained within that sound. If the upper range of human hearing is 20,000 Hz, then you need a sampling rate twice that (this is part of the reason CD audio’s sampling rate is 44.1kHz).

So, yeah. The CBC Radio One MP3 streams have a sampling rate that’s 1/4th that of CD audio. They sound crummy. Understandably, this has some listeners frustrated. And for some reason, these frustrated listeners find their way to my blog.

What to do?

This past week, at the CBC Broadcasting Centre, I ran into two people who should have the power and authority to get the MP3 streams back up to a respectable bitrate. I asked them what frustrated listeners should do. The response: contact CBC Audience Relations and let them know that you aren’t happy with the low-bitrate MP3 streams.

Both of the people I talked to were aware of the lowered bitrate, and are building a case for restoring the previous bitrate.

I can’t pretend to know the myriad reasons why they can’t just flip a switch somewhere immediately, but apparently, measurable audience feedback is an important part of getting these higher-bitrate MP3 streams back.

So again, if you’re frustrated by 32kbps MP3 streams, contact CBC Audience Relations. And tell ’em Dan sent you.

“At every age we’re wrong”

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of laughing at our former selves.

So then, I rather enjoyed John Tierney’s NYT piece about new research into people’s self-perceptions:

“Middle-aged people — like me — often look back on our teenage selves with some mixture of amusement and chagrin,” said one of the authors, Daniel T. Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard. “What we never seem to realize is that our future selves will look back and think the very same thing about us. At every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we’re wrong.”

Though this part hit a little too close to home:

Dr. McAdams was reminded of a conversation with his 4-year-old daughter during the craze for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 1980s. When he told her they might not be her favorite thing one day, she refused to acknowledge the possibility. But later, in her 20s, she confessed to him that some part of her 4-year-old mind had realized he might be right.

Something to keep in mind for the next GRTTWaK.

(via Dave Pell’s NextDraft newsletter)

“Loyalty” ≠ Loyalty

Apparently, CBC management is thinking about a “loyalty” program:

[T]he CBC is considering adding game-like challenges on its websites, offering reward points to keep people engaged with the broadcaster’s programming, an approach known in the retail business as “gamification.”

Setting aside my belief that most “loyalty” programs are creepy, I find this announcement troubling on a deeper level. Personally, I’d prefer that the CBC focus less on “loyalty,” and more on loyalty.

How exactly do you build loyalty? Consistently make quality stuff that people want and use.

I consider myself a loyal listener to lots of programs: On the Media, TAL, a bunch of 5by5 and Mule Radio and indie podcasts, Radiolab, Bullseye, etc.

What do these shows (and their respective distributors and networks) have in common? Certainly not reward points or “gamification.” Quite simply, they make quality stuff I want to listen to.

You can’t earn my loyalty by offering me 10 reward points for every episode of Dragons’ Den I watch (even if I can trade those points in for a DVD box set of Mr. DressUp).

You earn my loyalty by consistently making great stuff that I find relevant and useful.