Last.fm lets you see your 'neighbours,' people whose music tastes are similar to yours. I've been fascinated by this list for a long time, and have taken to reading through the favored artists of each 'neighbour' to see if they already knew of artists or groups that I should be listening to.

It's actually worked. I first encountered Snow Patrol through a neighbour, and Adam's recommendation clinched it. (Though that's perhaps a misleading statement, because Adam and I trade music recommendations so often that he's been a regular on my neighbours list for some time now.)

It hit me, though: for the most part, neighbours were always slice-of-life snapshots of similarity. Single notes, if you will. If you picture a person's music taste as a chord of notes, then can we all agree to beat this metaphor into the ground and say that most of the people on the neighbours list had musical tastes that matched only a note or two in my chord.

I've decided that never again will I question my abilities on this front if I see this request on a job description. It always seems to show up on jobs like mine: "must be a motivated self-starter."

What this has actually meant is "must be able to work in isolation for at least eighteen months on a project that one's co-workers do not understand and cannot assist with, but know that they wanted to have access to at least nine months ago."

I've got two people willing to play along with the book swap, and haven't asked at work yet. Anyone else? I need to either tag up or bow out in the next couple of days. See http://domesticat.net/node/1494 for info.