I won’t unload all my thoughts on this vast topic, but I’ll take a quick stab at it.
What exactly is Rock & Roll?
Is it a musical arrangement style? No.
Is it a particular instrument or group of instruments?… Read the rest
history
Forgotten Audio Formats: MP3
The year was 1994. Music was as popular as it’s ever been, with rock bands like Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins, popstars such as Ace of Base and Mariah Carey, and even soul artists like Boyz II Men and Janet … Read the rest
Curse Breakers
When something’s wrong in #TheLand, who you gonna call?
Curse Busters!
Just a little update on the details of the Cleveland Curse. I hate how it’s sold as nothing but losing teams for 50 years.
The Curse is that Cleveland … Read the rest
Team Eye vs. Team Ear Part 1 – TV Sets Through History
Recording allows us to store and replay something. It is the first time-shifting. It’s been around for ~ 200 years but it wasn’t until the last 100 that they really started making tangible progress for commercial applications.
Images were first. … Read the rest
The Art Of Foolery
Cool article about various ways the US military attempted to confuse the enemy during WWII using rubber tanks and other fun.
Reminds me of driving the roads in Poland and coming across a metal sign shaped and painted … Read the rest
Language Splits; Music Unifies
Very interesting article here about how humans use music psychologically, and how we have evolved with the help of music.
Language divides us into groups and parses all types of information into specific, tribal code.
Music on the other hand, unites … Read the rest
Another Good Funk Doc
This one is from the BBC, circa 2014. It’s hard to summarize something as huge and outstanding as funk in 1 hour, but they give it a shot. Lots of good footage and interviews here:
Remember WFNK Funk Supersite!
There have been several branding attempts on WFNK.com over the years, including the funk e-griot, the funk supersite, no fake afros, and the not-so-modest center of the online funk universe, whatever that means.
The point was … Read the rest
Loudness Wars Research
I’ve really been exploring my music collection lately* and along with the playback quality of the PonoPlayer, I’ve learned some things about the hated concept of “loudness wars”:
- I can really hear it start up in the early 90’s
Recording Quality Rule Of Thumb
Allow me to speak some truth about the recording arts — the overall quality of music production has been going down since before I started. I’ve done nothing to reverse the trend ;-).
This is due to multiple factors not … Read the rest
Like The Feathers of a Dinosaur
You know they were just big birds, ight?
If they made Jurassic Park nowadays, we might be watching this:
or wait, maybe this?
40 Years of Recorded Music Distribution
Quick history lesson —
Digital audio made it’s public debut with the CD standard known as “RedBook”, started in 1978. A collaboration between Phillips & Sony, the CD standard was originally going to be 14bit/40k with error correction and ship … Read the rest
The First LP… ever
The year was 1948. The funk was about to go mobile.
Colombia debuted the 33 1/3 RPM long playing vinyl disc.
Some serious fiddle by this guy playing this. The breakdown run at 0:34 is amazing.
The audio linked … Read the rest
Library sticks 1 million pics on Flickr and asks for help making them useful
Fun times if you are looking to kill a few hundred hours….
British Library sticks 1 million pics on Flickr, asks for help making them useful | Ars Technica.
… R.I.P. The Father Of The PC
Missed this one over the holiday, but on July 3rd, Douglas Engelbart died at the digital sounding age of 88. He was not a household name, but amongst PC history geeks he’s about as important as they come. By 1968 … Read the rest
The True Story of the Iraq War
Here’s a behind the scenes account of how, why, and who the US ended up in a huge war with Iraq 10 years ago.
Guess what – no surprises here. This guy is telling the truth almost exactly as I … Read the rest
Happy 30th Internet!
Happy belated 30th birthday to the modern internet!
In 1982, Vint Cerf and his team at ARPANET had a problem. They had roughly 1,000 servers spread around america trying to network with each other. The addressing and networking protocols they … Read the rest
World?s Oldest Digital Computer Resurrected
“The Witch” is back.?‘The Witch?: World?s Oldest Digital Computer Resurrected.
I think this video story misses some key historical points. In the late 1930’s you probably know there was some serious war action popping off. Germany and Japan … Read the rest