An Age of Wonders

Scanning through my blogroll this morning I picked up on Pandora from a post in Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day.

Pandora uses the Music Genome Project .

Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.
You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it more and it will get better for you.

As anyone who knows me might guess I have created and am listening to Prince Radio. (Try it.)The Isley Brothers' 'Caravan of Love' is on at the moment and life is good.

My five year old was watching BAMZOOKi before school yesterday morning. On the show, contestants compete with three Zooks (virtual creatures) which they have created in a series of challenges.

In the evening I downloaded the the Bamzooki Zook kit, and we played at creating 3D moving beasties. If we come up with something good enough, Ben could submit it to take part in the show.

As Eamonn observes:

We take such astonishing innovations for granted now, but we shouldn't. These may be troubled times but this is an age of wonders.