Glen Campbell

My brother Ted and I have been playing GarageBand Ping-Pong, and I’m pleased to announce that we’ve reached the conclusion of our first match. Ted started with a simple melody and accompaniment using the Scots hymn tune, “Candler.”

Click to download or listen to the final composition.

You can download all of the intermediate versions (in both GarageBand and MP3 format) here.

Ted and I have finished the first two volleys of GarageBand Ping-Pong. If you’re interested, you can download the GarageBand files here. I’ve also uploaded MP3 versions of each stage, and I’ll keep updating this post with the newest versions as we go through.

1. Ted’s original track (harp)
2. My response (strings)
3. Ted’s second return (more strings)
4. My response to that (brass)
5. Ted comes back with a minor-key variation!
6. Glen adds a transition, then turns it into a fugue! A fugue, I tell you!
7. Ted blithely ignores the fugue, choosing instead to write a brief introduction.
8. I think we’re getting close to wrapping this puppy up. I closed out the fugue and added a finalé.
9. Ted adds a few minor tweaks and a dash of surprise to the ending.

Ted has chosen as his serve the ancient hymn named “Candler.” Not very original, I know, but I assume the arrangement is his own.

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My brother has accepted my challenge to play GarageBand ping-pong, and we’ve now completed the first volley. If you’re interested and don’t mind a bit of a wait, you can download the files here as we go along.

And, Dan, don’t worry—you’re up next.

GarageBand Ping-Pong is an experiment in collaborative musical composition involving two players and (somewhat obviously) GarageBand. In the following rules, players are referred to as Player A and Player B. Intellectual rights to the song in play shall mutually vest in both players, except as indicated under Rule 7.

OFFICIAL RULES

Rule 1. Player A is selected by some random means and is designated to go first.

Rule 2. Player A initiates the game by creating a GarageBand song containing one track. The initial track can be of any form (i.e., recorded music, MIDI, etc.)

Rule 3. Once the initial track is created, the Garageband file (and any associated assets) are packaged securely and transmitted to Player B.

Rule 4. Player B creates a new track in the file and returns it to player A.

Rule 5. At any point after the song contains at least four tracks, a player, at his or her discretion, may choose to either extend a previously-submitted track or add a new track.

Rule 6. In addition to creating a new track or extending a previously-submitted track, a player may alter or delete a track submitted at least three turns previously. For example, Player A creates track 1; B creates track 2; A creates track 3; B creates track 4. At this point, Player A can either extend any existing track or add a new track; in addition, player A could alter or delete Track 1, since it was created more than three turns previously.

Rule 7. The game ends when a player says “Ok, I’m done” and returns the file to the other player without making any changes. The remaining player has the option to make one last change, or can let it stand. Failure to return changes to the opposing player within 5 days of receipt of the song is considered the same as saying “Ok, I’m done”. A play who fails to respond within 5 days will, in addition, lose all intellectual property rights in the song.

Rule 8. The game will also end if any of the following conditions are met: (a) the song is adopted as the theme of a television sitcom; (b) the song is nominated for a Grammy or Dove award; (c) the song is intercepted by an evil outsider, who uses it to encode instructions for a secret terrorist cell; (d) on any other condition mutually agreed-upon by both players.

Having recently launched Yahoo! Shine (see previous post), I’ve decided to take a new position within the Yahoo! Media Group as the manager of the core backend team for Yahoo! News. The transition won’t be official for a few weeks, but I’ll be working partially on both teams for a while to come.

I think that Y! Shine is a very cool property, and I especially like the concept of featuring user-generated content alongside professional writings. However, Yahoo! News is the world leader in Internet news, and leading that team is a great opportunity for me. In addition, News has a certain appeal for me, since I was originally hired at Yahoo! as part of the News engineering team, and I’m looking forward to moving back.

My biggest regret is losing a team of really superb engineers with whom I have worked for the last six months to get Shine out the door (not to mention the product managers, designers, and other great staff members). But I’m excited about the new opportunity that awaits me.

Oh, one more thing—I’m hiring. Do you know of any really top-notch PHP/Perl/Apache/BSD/Linux engineers? If so, send’em my way.

While it’s always rewarding to launch a new site, it takes a helluva lot of work. Late nights, intense conference calls, last-minute changes: it’s all part of the process of working out the final wrinkles and pushing it out the door. Last Sunday, we launched Yahoo! Shine, a site targeted at women aged 25-54.

Shine is almost purely a blog; there’s a large editorial staff (one editor per category, or “channel”) and a smattering of high-quality partners, but the key feature is that any registered Yahoo! user can create blog posts alongside the professionally-written material. It’s really Yahoo!’s first large scale attempt to merge user-generated content with professional content, and it’s exciting to see it come together.

As might be expected, much of the user-generated stuff is pure drivel (the same could be said of some of the professional content, I might add), but there’s some really high-quality material there, too. From a design and engineering perspective, the site is very, very simple, and I think that is part of its appeal; Apart from the home page (which is editorial content) and the “My Stuff” page (which aggregates material from multiple sources), nearly everything is either a blog post or a list of blog posts. This simplicity makes the site easy to navigate, easy to understand, and very inviting for users to contribute to.

While there are some “social” features (commenting, “subscribing” to another user’s blog), the content is the centerpiece of the site. More social features will be added in the future, but that’s for another blog post.

In the meantime, I’d be interested to hear any comments you have about Yahoo! Shine.

When you first start a software project (like building a new website), nothing works.

That’s ok; you don’t really expect it to. The first time you get some teeny little bit of functionality to actually work is cause for celebration. As you reach more and more milestones, the product grows more stable and more functional. At a certain point, you stop being thrilled that something merely works, and at a later point, you take that functionality for granted.

Then comes a day where you get surprised when something doesn’t work. You realize that you’ve passed that mid-point where suddenly the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and you’ve built a functional system, not just a bunch of code and assets thrown together.

Unfortunately, you don’t usually notice until later. I was working on my particular project today, and realized that nearly everything I tried to do worked; in fact, had probably been working for a week or so. So that’s a good thing, and I’ll tell you all about it when the suits give the go-ahead.

hecticity is a highly scientific measurement of how hectic your life is. It’s computed by counting the number of simultaneous Instant Messenger conversations that you are involved with (i.e., the number of tabs or open windows in Yahoo! Messenger). So far, the highest hecticity value I’ve personally encountered was 14; today is a fairly moderate 9 (so far—these things can change at any moment).

Do you have a way of measuring this that works better?

We took a trip to Yosemite this weekend, ending this morning with a fun, if somewhat bumpy, sleigh ride through the back country. I took a video of the trip but, unfortunately, my camera was set on “time-elapse,” taking a frame every second, instead of the 30 frames per second required for real video. Still, it’s somewhat interesting.

I also took a bunch of regular photographs; they’re available on my SmugMug page.

I sincerely hope you enjoy your retirement. Please, don’t bother showing up at Cooperstown.

“According to Clemens, this was just one big conspiracy, apparently. But he looked like a guy who’s been surrounded by yes men for decades, someone so removed from reality he figured he could come to Capitol Hill, talk loud, and everyone would nod and leave him alone.”

It’s a sad day for everyone.