The Poverty Jet Set

Allow me to say a few words about grouping music by genre: it’s a stupid concept. I wish the world would banish it to the annals of mid-20th century mega-rcrdlbl company dinasaurs. There is no use for such vague labels as genre. What the hell do they even mean? Look, for example, at the image above - just a small segment of the, oh, 200+ ‘genres’ I have in my iTunes library. I think maybe 10% of them make any sense at all.

Okay, now, many of you probably noticed that iTunes launched a new version of it’s software this past week. Cool, if you use it a lot. But for some ridiculous reason, they decided to disable the ability to get rid of the ‘genre’ column while browsing in the old (and my preferred) boring, spreadsheet style layout. Luckily, I found a quick and painless solution for us Macheads on MacOSXHints.com.

Quit iTunes, launch Terminal, and enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-genre-when-browsing -bool FALSE

Relaunch iTunes, open the browser, and you’ll notice the Genre column has vanished. You can reverse this by quitting iTunes and repeating the above command, but with TRUE instead of FALSE.

Bing. No genres.

This does get me thinking about the ways in which people initiate their music listening sessions is changing. People once touched, held and looked at at the records on a shelf and pulled out something cool and fresh and in-the-moment. Now, iTunes looks more like a spreadsheet than anything else. And oddly, even with their fancy new CoverFlow layouts, I still use the spreadsheet look. Because I’m used to it? I’m not sure. When I want to listen to something, often times it’s specific and browsing by title is the easiest way to get there. CoverFlow kinda works when I have absolutely no idea of what to listen to, but that’s usually when I default to shuffle. Or ditch iTunes all together and hit up Last.fm or the Hype Machine.

What’s the solution here? How do we recreate the analog, physical experience of listening to records in an immediate digital world when memory is no longer based on a physical object like a record, but rather a name of a band, or how recently I bought something?

Go buy a record player, I guess.

For my friends who aren’t as crazy obsessed with blogs and tech news as I am, there’s been a pretty weird turn of events in ye olde social networking. Turns out Facebook launched a new project called Beacon which automatically tells all your friends what you’re buying on the web. Not so cool. They started reading the cookies in your browser and reposted information on your Facebook page. Without your permission. But now you can op-out. Head over to your Privacy Setting page here and check the box, then click save. Voila. You’re out. Spread the word.

I am a huge fan of thrift shopping. The beauty of the search. The elation of a mighty find. The mystery of the evolution of one’s wardrobe. You can’t go wrong. Since high school I have made my regular pilgramages to the wild and exciting lands of mothball smells and 99-cent supermagik t-shirts. My sister Rebecca and I have gone thrift shopping together for as long as we can remember, and now, she’s an amazing fashion designer with her own line (check it out y’all, I’m very proud of her!).

Today, I found one of the best shows I have ever seen on my beloved sport of thrifting. I’m now a huge fan of the awesome, amazing and fabulous ThreadBangers Show! See for yourself how these kids are doing it oh-so-right:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about bike safety in the city lately. Recently, a bicyclist in my neighborhood, George Gonzalez, got crushed by a bus just two blocks from my house at a spot that I bike past dozens of times a month. And this morning, I’m reading about a popular blogger named Adam Finley of TV Squad who was killed last week by a bus in Minneapolis. What a bummer. Hearing about this just makes me so mad. Didn’t the bus see him? Wasn’t he riding safely? Even rock stars aren’t immune. Remember Mary Hanson of Stereolab?

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I like to post about bikes and biking. I love my bike, it’s a sturdy ride. An old steel-framed Schwinn with a single speed on a freewheel hub. It’s got a weird LiveWrong sticker on the downtube that a previous owner slapped on the frame. He told me it was to raise awareness about bicyclists being hit by cars, but when I google it, all I get were stupid tounge-in-cheek references to another campaign.

I was thinking about covering the sticker over, but instead I am going to declare a new meaning. I want it to be about fighting the senseless carnage of road rage, careless driving and unsafe habits when bikes and cars collide. Literally. Those of us who ride around big cities on a daily basis make our best efforts to be safe (usually). I sure do. Let’s all remember to keep an extra eye out for those two wheelers while driving cars, okay? And I guess I’ll be making sure not to casually cruise through red lights anymore.
Lastly, I hate news like this because it discourages some people from getting in the saddle. We need more bikers, not less. Here are some resources and tips to help your make urban bike riding safer:

BikeSafe.com
Bike Safety Tips on Treehugger.com
Paul Dorn’s Bike Commuting Tips
Urban Cycling Resource Guide

Technorati Tags: Philly, adventure, bikes, cars, love, biking, NorthernLiberties, city life, death

So for those of you who haven’t already, go check out CouchSurfing.com immediately. You won’t be disappointed.

Last week they had a major server crash, but have risen as a phoenix from the ashes to form their 2.0 version… and it’s great.

The idea is awesome, and their hearts are totally in the right place. First of all, they’re a non-profit social networking site that wants to stay tight knit with good people. Secondly, they’re a collective of travelers and high-minded idealists trying to foster positive interactions with people from all over the globe. All valuable things.

But most importantly, friends, they are an amazing and cheap way to travel. I’ve couch-surfed for years before the “Inter-Web” weaseled it’s way into every facet of our daily lives. It has done so, admittedly in many super annoying ways. CouchSurfing.com, though, embodies all that is good and wonderful about instant inter-global communications.

Do if for yourself. Do it because a network of like-minded souls is probably the most powerful tool any Poverty Jet Setter could ever wish for.

If you do join, come friend me up at my profile.

Technorati Tags: advice, community, couchsurfing, dollaraday, magdalenus, povertyjetset, travel

It doesn’t get better than this, folks:

Technorati Tags: produce, freeganism, creative, povertyjetset, freeganism, sustainability, trends, supermarket, wisdom, waste

Recently, Audrey and I went up to State College to visit a couple of my old friends, Catie and Nathaniel. While we were up at their house, they had perfect batch of Kombucha tea ready for our drinking. Supposedly the elixir of life, Kombucha is an amazing drink that has been made for centuries by peoples all over the world. It is somewhat mis-named “mushroom tea”, though it’s not made with mushrooms at all, but rather a gelatinous culture of mush that looks like a mushroom. The culture is actually a symbiotic relationship between yeast, bacteria and other micro-organisms, and the drink itself is said to have deep healing properties.

The greatest thing about the Kombucha is that once you make a batch, it continues to grow a new culture on top of the mix which you can share with someone else.

We here at The Poverty Jet Set truly believe in sharing the love. So, in light of that, and because Catie shared one of her cultures with us and our batch is just about finished, we’re going to include the HowTo on Kombucha Tea. Have fun! (And if you need a starter culture, drop me a line!)

Technorati Tags: diy, homebrew, howto, kombucha, magdalenus, povertyjetset, tea

WIRED Magazine just covered another genius idea. Selling designer jeans rip-offs made in Thailand being sold by backpackers on eBay. This plot, is, of course brilliant. Why didn’t I think of it first? Walking around Kao San Road looking at all the amazing knock off products is definitely an experience any entrepreneurial traveler can benefit from.

Technorati Tags: advice, fashion, jeans, money, dollaraday, travel