The Best Smart Playlists for Automatically Organizing Your Music Library

Smart playlists in iTunes have been around for a long time, but they're pretty easy to forget about if you don't use them on a regular basis. With that in mind, here are a few of our favorites for whipping your music library into shape.

The last time we visited smart playlists we walked you through some of the basics. Those are still fantastic and useful, but here are a few more uses for smart playlists you might not have thought of.

Automatically Create the Perfect Workout Mix

As we've pointed out before, the best music for exercise tends to be between 120-140 beats per minute. You can automatically generate playlists that fit that criteria. First things first, you need to get the BPM added because iTunes doesn't do it automatically. While it's pretty old software, we like Mixmeister BPM Analyzer as a free way to add BPM to your iTunes library automatically. Just drop your music library folder into BPM Analyzer and wait for it to do the work.

Once you're done, you can generate workout playlists easily. Make a new smart playlist (hit the big "+" in the bottom left corner and select "New Smart Playlist") with this rule: BPM is in the range of 120-140. It won't be a perfect list (some not-particularly energetic songs still fall in the 120-140 BPM rule), but it's a quick way to make a near perfect workout mix with no work.

Clean Out Old Podcasts

If you're anything like me, you're a podcast hoarder. These days, I just use Downcast to listen to podcasts, but at one point they all filtered through iTunes. How many? Well, in my case I had 1,239 podcasts?that's 27.28 GB of podcasts just sitting on my hard drive wasting space.

If you want to clear out all those old podcasts, just make a smart playlist with this rule: Media Kind is Podcast. Then hit the + sign and add this rule: Plays is 1. This means you're shown the podcasts you've already heard so you can quickly delete them without futzing about in the podcasts tab.

Reassess Your Ratings

This is an old one from 43 Folders, but it's especially helpful if you're the type to rate songs higher than you really mean. It checks your five star ratings against how many plays the track has to see if you were a little overzealous with the rating. Just set the smart playlist rules as: Skips is greater than 1. Then add a second rule: Rating is greater than three (or four) stars. You'll get a playlist of all your top rated tracks that you still skipped so you can better rate them. If nothing else, you might find a few hidden gems you forgot about.

Review for Deletion

If you're the type who downloads a ton of music, but doesn't end up actually liking half of it then you know how easy it is to end up with a bloated music collection. The best way to filter out that junk you don't really like is with a smart playlist.

You actually have a few ways to do this. Personally, I like the simple rules: Last played is [one year ago]. If you rate music a lot, you can also do: Rating is less than two stars. Or, if you really want to get into the songs you ended up hating: Skips is greater than three.

Keep You Music Library Fresh

Whether you sync iTunes to your smartphone, or you just want to make sure you actually listen to all that new music you're buying, then keeping a running list of your newest additions is an easy way to listen to the music you buy.

The rule here is really simple: Date added is after [whatever date you want]. If you check the "Live updating" box, this playlist will keep up to date with everything new you add. If you just want all that new music, reader Sudhir Khanger suggests just doing something like: Year is 2013.

Reveal Missing Metadata

Want to finally clean up your library and whip your metadata into shape? A smart playlist can help. Just make a new playlist with the missing data you want to clean up and leave the text box empty. For example: Genre is [blank]. You can do this with artists, albums, and pretty much everything else.

Automatically Make Topical Playlists

While you can't sort your songs by lyrics for some reason, you can at least do it by keywords in the song. This one's easy to do, just set the rule as: Name contains [whatever topical thing you want]. You can instantly make smart playlists of goofy love songs, seasonal mixes, and plenty more. While you're at it, you can also make specific mixes for people. Say, for Mother's Day, you could make a mix with the rules: Year is in the range 1960-1975 (or whatever years you were terrorizing your mother for).

Use Smart Playlists to Exclude Holiday Tracks from Genius Playlists

It's not all about making great smart playlists to organize, it's also about making it so other playlists work better. For example, if you want to keep holiday songs out of your genius playlists you simply need to make a smart playlist with this rule: Genre contains holiday. Then, hold down the command key and click a checkbox next to those songs to uncheck them all. This will keep them out of your genius playlists moving forward.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/kaFZ0I3Uhng/the-best-smart-playlists-for-automatically-organizing-y-476510080

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U.S. soldier pleads guilty to murdering fellow servicemen in Iraq

By Eric M. Johnson

TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty on Monday to murder for shooting dead five fellow servicemen at a military counseling center in Iraq, a plea made in a deal with military prosecutors to avoid the death penalty.

U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell was accused of killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers at Camp Liberty, adjacent to the Baghdad airport, in a 2009 shooting the military said at the time could have been triggered by combat stress.

Russell pleaded guilty to five counts of intentional murder, one count of attempted murder, and one count of assault. The hearing was held at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

The presiding judge, Army Colonel David Conn, accepted the plea after a hearing that lasted several hours. Conn said Russell would still face a bench trial - replete with opening and closing statements, witnesses and evidence.

That trial will determine the degree of his guilt and, crucially, whether he acted on impulse, as his defense attorneys argue, or with malice of forethought, as alleged by military prosecutors.

"Your plea of guilty is provident, and I do accept it," Conn said, adding that a trial was slated for May 6.

The choice would then be between a verdict of premeditated murder or the lesser offense of intentional murder to which Russell pleaded guilty. But the death penalty will be off the table under the terms of the deal explained by Russell's lawyer.

Russell told Conn he understood that he was waving his right to a trial by jury and to confront and cross-examine witnesses who may be called against him.

MENTAL AILMENTS

Defense attorneys have said that Russell, who was attached to the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, suffered a host of mental ailments after several combat tours and was suicidal prior to the attack.

An independent forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Sadoff, has concluded that Russell suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis at the time of the shootings. Sadoff suggested Russell was provoked to violence by maltreatment at the hands of mental health personnel he sought for treatment at Camp Liberty.

Wearing a green military dress uniform, Russell listed a history of health problems he has faced - such as sleep deprivation, depression, and brain trauma - and spoke in calm low tones as he chronicled the chilling events on the day of his shooting spree.

Russell repeatedly said he was suicidal prior to the attacks and acted "out of rage" when he returned to the clinic where he "intended to kill" the two medical staff officers and three soldiers who happened to be there.

Russell's memory was patchy at times but he said evidence he has been presented with convinced him of his guilt, such as the deadly placement of bullets he fired, among other findings from the investigation.

"It's never right to kill somebody, sir," Russell told Conn.

"You knew you had no lawful reason to kill them?" Conn said.

"Yes, sir," Russell said.

Family members of Russell's victims were in court, too. Shawna Van Blargan, the mother of Private First Class Michael Yates, broke down as Russell calmly told the court how he ran after and shot him.

Russell's sentence will be determined by the presiding judge, who said he could receive a sentence of life in confinement without the possibility of parole, as well as forfeiters of pay and a dishonorable discharge.

Conn called Russell's plea "momentous" and asked if he pleaded guilty to receive a lighter sentence and whether he believes in his own guilt. Russell replied: "Yes, sir."

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Tim Dobbyn, Grant McCool and David Gregorio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-soldier-accused-iraq-killings-expected-plead-guilty-111633578.html

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Iran says election will not affect nuclear stance

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? An Iranian nuclear negotiator is saying that Iran's coming presidential election will not affect its stance in nuclear talks with world powers.

The Sunday report by the official IRNA news agency quotes Abbas Araghchi as saying "changes in domestic politics in Iran will not affect the trend in nuclear talks."

Araghchi, a deputy foreign minister, also said Iran is ready for further talks.

The remark is seen a message to permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany to return to talks after the last round in April made no breakthrough.

No date has been decided for further talks.

The West is trying to curb Iran's nuclear program since it suspects it has a military dimension. Iran is insisting its program is for peaceful purposes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-election-not-affect-nuclear-stance-171346879.html

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First 2000-year-long temperature reconstructions for individual continents

Apr. 19, 2013 ? Past climate change varied remarkably between regions. This is demonstrated in a new study coordinated by the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, which reconstructed temperature over the past 1000 to 2000 years.

It is the first comprehensive temperature reconstruction on a continental scale. One of its main findings is that a general cooling trend, caused by different factors (e.g. orbital-driven insolation and changes in solar and volcanic activity), was ubiquitous across all continental-scale regions and was reversed by a distinct warm trend beginning at the end of the 19th century.

The scale of this project is impressive. Some 80 researchers from all over the world collaborated on the study, which has just been published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. In one of the widest-ranging efforts yet undertaken to reconstruct climate across the globe, the international author team evaluated data from all continents to track the evolution of temperatures over the past one to two millennia.

This major project was initiated and coordinated by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) organization. PAGES was established in 1991 to facilitate international research into understanding climatic and environmental dynamics by studying the past. The program receives funding mainly from the Swiss and US national science foundations. In 2006, ambitious scientists in the PAGES network decided to organize an initiative to reconstruct the climate of the last 2000 years in unprecedented quality.

The first results of the collective effort have now been published. "A key aspect of the consortium effort was to engage regional experts who are intimately familiar with the evidence for past climate changes within their regions," says Heinz Wanner, emeritus professor at the University of Bern and one of the original architects of the PAGES 2k Network.

"Several mathematical procedures were applied to reconstruct the continental temperature time series and they were compared to assess the extent to which the main conclusions of the study stood up to the different analytical approaches." Previous attempts to reconstruct temperature changes focused on hemispheric or global-scale averages, which are important, but overlook the pronounced regional-scale differences that occur along with global changes, he points out.

Natural climate archives and documentary sources

For the present study, "Continental-scale temperature variability during the last two millennia," the researchers drew up temperature curves for large regions at seven continents, using 511 local temperature records. These were based on the analysis of tree rings, pollen, corals, lake and marine sediments, ice cores and stalagmites as well as historical documents.

In most cases the data used were highly resolved, attesting to short-term variations over decades or less, rather than smoothing over centuries. In Africa, there were too few records to accurately determine long-term temperature changes for that continent. Nevertheless, the expansive new dataset will undoubtedly be used in future studies, including for comparisons with the output of climate models used to help project future climate change.

The evolution of temperature across all the continents was noticeably more similar within the hemispheres than between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. "Distinctive periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age stand out, but do not show a globally uniform pattern," says professor Heinz Wanner.

By around 1500 AD temperatures did indeed fall below the long-term mean everywhere. However, in the Arctic, Europe and Asia this temperature drop occurred several decades earlier than in North America and the Southern Hemisphere. These new findings will certainly stimulate vibrant discussions within the research community, Wanner believes.

Long-term cooling trend reversed

The most consistent feature across the regions over the last 2000 years was a long-term cooling trend, which was likely caused by a combination of factors such as an overall increase in volcanic activity, a decrease in solar irradiance, changes in land cover, and slow changes in earth's orbit. This cooling only came to an end toward the end of the 19^th century.

The warming during the last century has reversed this long-term cooling, the study found. It remained cold only in Antarctica. An analysis of the average temperatures over 30-year periods indicates that interval from 1971-2000 was probably warmer than any other 30-year period in the last 1400 years.

Cooler 30-year periods between the years 830 and 1910 AD were particularly pronounced during weak solar activity and strong tropical volcanic eruptions. Both phenomena often occurred simultaneously and led to a drop in the average temperature during five distinct 30- to 90-year intervals between 1251 and 1820.

Warming in the 20^th century was on average twice as large in the northern continents as it was in the Southern Hemisphere. During the past 2000 years, some regions experienced warmer 30-year intervals than during the late 20^th century. For example, in Europe the years between 21 and 80 AD were possibly warmer than the period 1971-2000.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bern.

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Journal Reference:

1. Moinuddin Ahmed, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Asfawossen Asrat, Hemant P. Borgaonkar, Martina Braida, Brendan M. Buckley, Ulf B?ntgen, Brian M. Chase, Duncan A. Christie, Edward R. Cook, Mark A. J. Curran, Henry F. Diaz, Jan Esper, Ze-Xin Fan, Narayan P. Gaire, Quansheng Ge, Jo?lle Gergis, J Fidel Gonz?lez-Rouco, Hugues Goosse, Stefan W. Grab, Nicholas Graham, Rochelle Graham, Martin Grosjean, Sami T. Hanhij?rvi, Darrell S. Kaufman, Thorsten Kiefer, Katsuhiko Kimura, Atte A. Korhola, Paul J. Krusic, Antonio Lara, Anne-Marie L?zine, Fredrik C. Ljungqvist, Andrew M. Lorrey, J?rg Luterbacher, Val?rie Masson-Delmotte, Danny McCarroll, Joseph R. McConnell, Nicholas P. McKay, Mariano S. Morales, Andrew D. Moy, Robert Mulvaney, Ignacio A. Mundo, Takeshi Nakatsuka, David J. Nash, Raphael Neukom, Sharon E. Nicholson, Hans Oerter, Jonathan G. Palmer, Steven J. Phipps, Maria R. Prieto, Andres Rivera, Masaki Sano, Mirko Severi, Timothy M. Shanahan, Xuemei Shao, Feng Shi, Michael Sigl, Jason E. Smerdon, Olga N. Solomina, Eric J. Steig, Barbara Stenni, Meloth Thamban, Valerie Trouet, Chris S.M. Turney, Mohammed Umer, Tas van Ommen, Dirk Verschuren, Andre E. Viau, Ricardo Villalba, Bo M. Vinther, Lucien von Gunten, Sebastian Wagner, Eugene R. Wahl, Heinz Wanner, Johannes P. Werner, James W.C. White, Koh Yasue, Eduardo Zorita. Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1797

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/fzlybpPOjQw/130421152401.htm

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Google's new Places for Business app lets you verify and update listings on your iPhone

When you run your own business, time is money and sometimes you don't have the excess minutes to return to your PC and tweak your Google Place Google+ Local listing, right? Fortunately, if you're carrying an iPhone in your pocket and have Google's new Places for Business app, you can adjust those opening times, verify your establishment (and more) on the go. Other features include web traffic tracking, plus the ability to beautify your Google+ listing with fresh images and handle multiple branches from one place. Google's latest business-facing software is available to US-based business owners on iTunes -- it's Apple-only for now.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Google

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Via: 9to5Mac

Source: Google Places for Business (iTunes)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/22/google-places-for-business-app-iphone/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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(Video) UG must open itself to society -VC - Stabroek News ...

The University of Guyana (UG) must open up itself to the wider society to help students become rounded, if it is to become the university it aspires to be, Vice Chancellor (VC) Professor Jacob Opadeyi said yesterday at an interfaith service that was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the university?s ordinance.

Professor Opadeyi made the comment as he spoke about ways to move the university in the direction it needs to go.
He said that in order for stakeholders to make UG how they want it to be, they must not depend on government alone but encourage the international community to come on board and teach students how to sing, debate and swim, among other things, to make them rounded. The rest, he said, will be left to them.

??If we are to make UG the university we want it to be, we need happy staff, happy students and good infrastructure.??..To continue reading, login or subscribe now.

Source: http://www.stabroeknews.com/2013/news/stories/04/20/ug-must-open-itself-to-society-vc/

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Watch a space walk streamed live from the International Space Station

MADRID, April 20 (Reuters) - Real Madrid ran out 3-1 winners at home to Real Betis in La Liga on Saturday but injuries to Marcelo and Luka Modric took the sheen off a relatively straightforward victory. Mesut Ozil scored twice, and Karim Benzema netted the other, as the second-placed champions moved on to 71 points with six games left to play, 10 behind leaders Barcelona who were playing at home to Levante later on Saturday. Jose Mourinho fielded a weakened side with Wednesday's Champions League semi-final first leg at Borussia Dortmund in mind. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/watch-space-walk-streamed-live-international-space-station-164445638.html

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