OStatic

Recently I've come to really like Pandora, the free, automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. If you haven't tried it, it does an uncanny job of serving up artists and songs you may not have heard of, based on similarities to artists and songs that it already knows you like. Pandora's skill at this is based on how the Music Genome Project indexes over 400 attributes of songs in its database, relying on analyses from human musicians and on algorithms. Now, Livio has a $150 Linux-based Internet radio (shown) that plays back both personalized streams from Pandora, and streams from over 11,000 other stations. Especially for those who like Pandora, this radio looks appealing.

I blame the souls at Ars Technica just as much as the diabolical (though creative) minds at Miro for the ear-drum shattering, make-your-teeth-ache squeal I just unleashed upon the world. Miro's new fundraising campaign -- where for $4 a month, one can adopt a line of code -- has got to be one of the most innovative, creative, and inviting fundraising efforts an open source software project could ever dream up.

While I still take stock in the notion that perhaps open source projects could benefit from spinning their requests for monetary contributions as investments rather than donations, the Miro team has hit on (figuratively, anyway) real gold with this effort. Adopting a line of code (as if it were a whale, or, even, say, a penguin) and giving a little to the adoptee in return -- a blog widget, an adoption certificate, and a picture of your fostered line -- has a low impact on the project's resources, can garner some great returns, and is just fun.

I'm betting it'll turn out to be effective in other ways, as well.