I’m a bit late with this year’s list, but here goes:

1. Amon Tobin - Foley Room
2. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?: Darker and better than their previous work.
3. M.I.A. - Kala: Despite a few outright bad tracks, an excellent, diverse hip-hop album.
4. El-P - I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead: Dense, dystopian hip-hop.
5. Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!: I was surprised how well this mix of hip-hop and industrial music works. Trent Reznor had a great year.
6. The National - Boxer: A great, straightforward rock album. Fans of Interpol should definitely check it out.
7. !!! - Myth Takes: Better than LCD SoundSystem’s album.
8. Justice - Cross
9. Klaxons - Myths of Near Future
10. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

Honorable mentions:

• The Besnard Lakes - Are the Dark Horse
• The Field - From Here We Go Sublime: Low-key electronic music.
• Radiohead - In Rainbows: Hyped, but still good.
• Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare: Loud and fast, exhausting to listen to the entire album though.
• Burial - Untrue
• Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English

Overall, this was a 2007 wasn’t as good for music as 2006. Lots of artists I like released mediocre albums (Kanye West, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Beastie Boys, LCD SoundSystem, etc).

Previous years: 2006, 2005, and 2004.

Addendum 1/25: Some more notable albums that I only got to listen to after I posted this:

• Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
• Holy Fuck - LP
• Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams

Three years ago, two economists at the University of Zurich, Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer, released a study called “Stress That Doesn’t Pay: The Commuting Paradox.” They found that, if your trip is an hour each way, you’d have to make forty per cent more in salary to be as “satisfied” with life as a noncommuter is … The commuting paradox reflects the notion that many people, who are supposedly rational (according to classical economic theory, at least), commute even though it makes them miserable. They are not, in the final accounting, adequately compensated.

“People with long journeys to and from work are systematically worse off and report significantly lower subjective well-being,” Stutzer told me. According to the economic concept of equilibrium, people will move or change jobs to make up for imbalances in compensation. Commute time should be offset by higher pay or lower living costs, or a better standard of living. It is this last category that people apparently have trouble measuring. They tend to overvalue the material fruits of their commute—money, house, prestige—and to undervalue what they’re giving up: sleep, exercise, fun.

I was spoiled by growing up in a small town — I found my daily commute from downtown Seattle to Redmond to be dreadful. It’s a little under 15 miles, but a one-way journey can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half at peak hours (the median is about 45 minutes, but travel times are unpredictable). Honestly, this was a big reason I ended up leaving Microsoft.

The article brings up an interesting way to decide where to live:

Putnam likes to imagine that there is a triangle, its points comprising where you sleep, where you work, and where you shop. In a canonical English village, or in a university town, the sides of that triangle are very short: a five-minute walk from one point to the next. In many American cities, you can spend an hour or two travelling each side. “You live in Pasadena, work in North Hollywood, shop in the Valley,” Putnam said. “Where is your community?” The smaller the triangle, the happier the human, as long as there is social interaction to be had. In that kind of life, you have a small refrigerator, because you can get to the store quickly and often. By this logic, the bigger the refrigerator, the lonelier the soul.

I would add another important location: where you see your friends.

I sold my car just before leaving for China last year, and I’ve stayed car-free since. Seattle isn’t an English village, but the points of my triangle/rectangle are all within walking distance of where I live — and I love it that way.

Round One, before the wine

I took a wine and cheese pairing class last night, and learned a few things I’ll pass on to my millions of readers:

• All Cheese Rind is Edible: Even the wax and foil (!) ones. Cheese makers spend time crafting the rinds to add to the flavor. Not all of the rinds taste great, but they’re edible.
• Brie, and other soft cheeses, have less fat than hard cheeses: This is obvious in hindsight, but it’s because hard cheeses have less moisture, and therefore a higher percentage of fat.
• The mold in blue cheeses is a penicillium: This was interesting for me because I’m allergic to the antibiotic version of Penicillin — but I have no symptoms when eating blue cheese (or my current favorite, soft Italian gorgonzola).
• Non-pasteurized cheeses are legal in the US as long as they’re more than 60 days old: The libertarian in me tries not to imagine how much federal legislation exists around cheese.
• Lactose intolerance is typically cow-milk intolerance: Most people are just fine with goat or sheep’s milk, as the intolerance stands from some cow-specific enzymes.
• Traditional mozzarella (mozzarella di bufala) is made from water buffalo milk: I thought it was just a name, but it’s not. Apparently, there are some big water buffalo farms in California.
• Goats have the highest proportional milk production of any farm animal

They also handed out the following chart, which shows the composition of various milks, by percent weight (the totals don’t add to 100 because I removed the Minerals column, do the math yourself if you’re curious):

I’ve had Cow, Water Buffalo, Yak, Goat, and Sheep’s milk. I’m definitely curious about Reindeer and Fin Whale (how do they milk it?).

This is the latest in a series of running-specific mixes commissioned by Nike. When I started running, I often listened to LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33, which was my first exposure to the series. Although I like LCD Soundsytem, I’m not in love with this mix — it’s a bit too repetitive. In the liner notes for his mix, Aesop Rock writes about the requirements Nike gave:

There had to be a new element every 30 seconds or so (a new riff, a new layer, a new drum pattern) as other elements faded into the distance. Basically, I had to keep the scenery shifting while maintaining the “push.”

It turned out well. I like having a consistent mix to listen to, because it gives me a good idea of how long I’ve been running (without actually looking at the time). Plus, it’s nice to have Aesop Rock telling you “No Surrender” when you’re getting tired.

You can hear a sample of the mix on Aesop Rock’s MySpace.

Amon Tobin - Foley Room

I’ve always been a big fan of Amon Tobin’s dense instrumental music, and his latest doesn’t disappoint. It may be a bit dark for some, but somehow I find it to be a great soundtrack while working. The album’s nothing new or groundbreaking for Tobin, but it’s still quite good.

As of right now, it seems like Amon Tobin’s MySpace is the best place for samples (the official website has an annoying flash interface) — although two of his songs will start playing at the same time (scroll down, there’s a video that autoplays).

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse

The Besnard Lakes play long rock songs with country tinges — their style reminds me of 2005’s excellent Z by My Morning Jacket. Although the songs are longer, there are only eight tracks so the album is only about 45 minutes long. As with My Morning Jacket, the lack of filler works to the band’s advantage.

Somehow, the MySpace page wins the usability contest for audio samples again. These artist websites are terrible.

Other Releases

A lot of artists I really like are releasing new albums. Sadly, I’ve been mostly disappointed.

• The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible: Not as strong as their great first album, but a solid second album.
• Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha: Good, but doesn’t compare to the Mysterious Production of Eggs.
• Menomena - Friend and Foe: More melodic than their debut; good, but not great.
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - Some Loud Thunder: A few great tracks, but falls flat overall. Theirs was a tough debut to follow.
• Air - Pocket Symphony: Nothing new from these guys, which would be fine if it was as good as their previous stuff. The no longer sound better than the bands that knock them off (ahem, Zero 7).
• LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver: A disappointment. I’ve liked so much of their albums and DFA production that it’s surprising there’s not a single track that stands out for me on this album.

Have I missed anything good?

This week, I will use the internet for no more than thirty minutes a day. This is use it or lose it, and must be continuous (i.e. I can’t do six five-minute intervals). I can use the computer otherwise, but my wireless card is off at all times.

I actually started this yesterday (and went a bit over trying to take care of some things before going offline). Initial results: I can definitely sense a bit of an addiction. Also: it’s unclear whether I should use my half hour in the beginning or end of the day. I originally planned on waiting until the end of day today, but had to look something up online.

Update 2/27: This was a stupid idea, I’m cutting the experiment short. I’m far too dependent upon online references to be able to get things done. Kind of sad.

The lineup includes Björk, the Arcade Fire, the Beastie Boys, Interpol, M.I.A., Spoon, the Hold Steady, Grizzly Bear, Neko Case, the Thermals, the Blow, Loney, Dear, the Black Angels, Electrelane, Manu Chao, Mirah, and Bad Brains.

It looks like Ozomatli are also slated to play. I’m looking forward to it. This will be my fourth year in a row attending.

As the Web gets vaster and more complex, and as consumers must work with a growing array of content and services, productivity is seriously being threatened — not only in search, but also in every other area of our digital lives. Most of us who work intensively with knowledge and information already have a direct and intuitive experience of how information overload has grown, even in the last decade. Clearly something must be done about this or in another few years we will all be buried in our own information.

The Semantic Web provides the best (and really the only) long-term solution to information overload and complexity. By starting to add richer semantics to data, and by enabling applications to start leveraging this, it will make it possible to help people regain more of their productivity and to make software smarter — without having to attempt to create super-duper science fiction artificial intelligence.

I completely agree with Nova that Information Overload is a serious (and obvious) problem — my love of information has led me down a dark, dark path that keeps my laptop within close range at all times. The technologist in me likes to think that this is a solvable problem — when we finally get around to doing X, Y, and possible Z we’ll look back and laugh about information overload, Y2K, and other crises of yore.

Then reality — or perhaps it’s cynicism — sets in and I realize the only solution to this problem is willpower*.

When I first started using the Internet (in 1995, I’m a huge nerd), my surfing habits were targeted. I would look for something specific, like a technical reference or song lyrics. As time went on, I started adding a set of sites that I visited daily or weekly such as magazines, message boards, and the proto-blogs.

A few years later, I had somewhere between ten and twenty sites that I visited on a daily basis. If it was a slow day, I might conjure up a few other sites to tackle. Time spent visiting these sites was certainly over fifty percent of my time spent on the web — I still used the web for targeted search, more each year, but the daily surfing grew more rapidly.

Fast forward a few years to 2001, when I first started using an RSS aggregator. Suddenly, I was able to get through my daily sites much quicker. So much so, that I found myself with “extra” time. I had developed a habit of web reading, and that thirst wasn’t feeling quenched by the briefer reading sessions.

So I subscribed to a few more sites.

What happens next will surprise no one — my subscription list grew until I was spending as much time reading as I used to, and then increased some more. Unlike my “manual” surfing, the aggregator made sure that I never missed a thing. I thought this was wonderful. I was able to read more than ever, and I nothing got past me!

As I upgraded to newer, better news aggregators, I found myself adding more and more feeds. I was spending more time reading each day, but think of the time I was saving! Eventually, I was subscribed to about 200 feeds, and had over 4,000 unread items — and I completely intended to get to those unread items (in fact, I believe I still have them all shared somewhere …).

At some point, I finally broke, realizing how unsustainable it was trying to keep up with that much news. I switched aggregators, and scrapped my old subscriptions, starting fresh. I’ve done this a few times, and I currently have under 50 feeds — most of which are infrequently updated.

The dream is half right — technology can improve efficiency. It’s just that, at least in my case, I the savings got reinvested back into consumption. This is a risk for all information gluttons, no matter what the technology (blogs, email, etc).

There are many parallels with food consumption — you have to watch what you eat, lest you get fat.

Winner of Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal: My Humps - The Black Eyed Peas

Enough said.

1. Girl Talk - Night Ripper: Skillfull mashups of popular music, with an extremely short attention span. Songs go bye at a dizzying pace, as do the waves of nostalgia.

2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale / More Fish: I’m cheating here by taking both albums, removing all the skits, the R&B tracks, and the other weaker tracks. What you’re left with is an incredibly consitent, and hard hitting album (some assembly required). Impressive nonetheless, given Ghostface pretty much hates hip-hop.

3. Lily Allen - Alright, Still: Cheery pop with dark lyrics. Highly recommended.

4. The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
5. Tapes n’ Tapes - The Loon

6. Hot Chip - The Warning: What the Postal Service would sound like if they weren’t whiny and didn’t suck.

7. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere: Don’t expect an album full of Crazy, most of the album is much darker.

8. The Roots - Game Theory
9. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
10. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
11. Peter Bjorn & John - Writer’s Block
12. Decemberists - The Crane Wife
13. The Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards
14. Mr. Lif - Mo’ Mega: His most consistent release to-date.

15. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor / Touch the Sky Mixtape: This would go higher if I had bothered to do a Ghostface-style mix and match. Aside from the standard DJ shoutouts and promos, the mixtape is surprisingly good.

16. Black Keys - Magic Potion
17. CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy: Initially annoying, the silly charm took a little while to grow on me.
18. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
19. P.O.S. - Audition
20. Rhymefest - Blue Collar

For those unfamiliar with the issue, you can read about the Darfur Conflict on Wikipedia.

I have a different question: Are people flying less because of all the extra hassle? If not, how much more can be tacked on before they do?

Yesterday, I arrived at the airport one hour and fifteen minutes before my domestic flight — and I barely made it to the gate in time! Because I didn’t check any bags, I had to fly without deodorant, toothpaste, and other threatening non-solids. At what point do these negatives start to outweigh the time savings? For any drive under four or five hours, I believe the it’s already quicker and more convenient to drive or take the train.

Clearly, for cross-country trips such as mine, driving isn’t an option — but going on fewer cross-country trips is an option.

• Edan - Beauty and the Beat: Diverse and succinct. Best hip-hop album this year.
• My Morning Jacket - Z: Beautiful, country-tinged rock. Much like Edan’s album, elegant and brief with no filler.
• Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs: Consistent, excellent album that reminds me of the best parts of Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, and Jon Brion.
• Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary: People compare them to the Arcade Fire for a reason — although I liked Funeral better, this comes close.
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: I avoided this album for a while because of the hype, and then listened to it for a week non-stop. Upbeat, melodic, and consistently strong.
• Cloud Cult - Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus: A brilliant, sprawling, diverse album. I’m surprised this band remains so obscure.
• M.I.A. - Arular
• Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic: Slightly better than The Campfire Headphase
• Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
• DangerDoom - DangerDoom: Has surprising staying power given its gimmicky nature. Got me to watch Adult Swim a few times.

Also notable:

• Kanye West - Late Registration: Maddeningly inconsistent and full of filler, but the few high points make it worth while.
• Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike: Fun and eclectic, but gets old quickly.
• Clor -Clor: Quirky and fun.
• Other “almost-great-but-not-quite” albums of this year: LCD Soundsystem, Run the Road, Franz Ferdinand, Boards of Canada, the White Stripes, Gorillaz, Beck, Spoon …

Once again, there are many albums I haven’t had a chance to listen to: Weareamonster, I Am A Bird Now, and Feels to name just a few. There’s too much good music out there to hear it all.