Pandora Makes Me Sad

The Problem

Listening to Pandora tests me. Their algorithm seems to be that whenever they detect that I’m listening to a song I like, they should visually or aurally interfere, thus creating the most agitating experience possible.

This evening, before I logged in, they began playing a song I like, but a version I hadn’t heard before so, to fully appreciate the music, I paused it to grab my headphones. Of course Pandora made it impossible for me to listen to the song by modally forcing me to login (#fail). Unfortunately, their login routine isn’t sensitive to what you were listening to immediately prior to login, so they just start playing something new and different (#fail).

Pandora Makes Me Sad

Solutions

  • Don’t get in the way of the user enjoying the experience.
  • Suggest logging in non-modally.
  • If the user is already listening to a song on Pandora, but not logged in, then immediately after login begin playing the same song.

The Calculus of Friendship

When a close friend sent me a copy of this book, his inscription read, in part

it has always been about the students

In this short video, Dr. Steven Strogatz— a Cornell Mathematician— reminds us that the student-teacher relationship is complex, dynamic, enduring, and often unpredictable; far from the Brave New World-style cold, isolationism espoused by the so-called professionalization of education that the United States has experienced over the past 100 years.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9piYoYqIf3I