Stuff

02023-02-11 | Internet

Meet Carol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits:

Carol Kaye: you may not recognize her name but chances are you’re familiar with her work.
Now 81, the lady has laid down some deeply iconic bass tracks in a career spanning 55 years and something in the neighborhood of 10,000 recording sessions.
Meet Carol Kaye, the Unsung Bassist Behind Your Favorite 60s Hits | Open Culture

Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older:

We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around. Maybe the younger self finds it difficult to inhabit its true potential because it has no idea what that potential is. It is a kind of unformed thing running scared most of the time, frantically trying to build its sense of self — This is me! Here I am! — in any way that it can. But then time and life come along, and smash that sense of self into a million pieces.
Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older – The Marginalian

How to stand up to a dictator:

There is a moment, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa recounts in her new book, when she goes from being an early supporter of the Facebook social media phenomenon as a force for global good to viewing the Internet-based platform as a threat to her media company, her country and the planet.
Resisting Democracy’s Death by a Thousand Cuts | Kyoto Journal

The Oatmeal: You are not going to believe what I’m about to tell you:
Regular
Clean

Huge Empty Cities

02023-01-19 | Internet

Naturally grown communities have existed online for as long as people have had access to the internet, and adapting existing frameworks for our own purposes and communities is a very human expression of the desire for a variety of interactions and connections. In contrast, the metaverses being promised appear to be the digital equivalent of huge empty cities being clumsily built without character or community in mind, and inviting people in to spend their money.
“Metaverses will be the digital equivalent of huge empty cities”

The article ends with:

How sad but entirely predictable it is to see these visions of the future have privatisation of digital space and an obsession with ownership running through them, mirroring the problems of our real-world spaces. The companies spouting promises about the metaverse are right in that there is value to shared online spaces, but of course they naturally bypass the human value and go straight for perceived monetary value.

I have zero interest in the Metaverse, as it is imagined by the corporations. I do, however, think that once these merchants fall on their faces, the people may make something very worthwhile of it.

Social Media Alternative

02023-01-17 | Internet

Our Pledge for a Healthy Internet describes our hopes for the Internet, and what it can become: a powerful tool for promoting civil discourse and human dignity. One that elevates critical thinking and reasoned argument, that honors shared experience and individual expression and brings together diverse and global communities to work together for the common good. Today we see the rising tide of the Fediverse, through Mastodon, Matrix, Pixelfed, and many others as a promising next step in that direction. Together we have an opportunity to apply the lessons of the past to build a social experience for humanity that is healthy, sustainable, and sheltered from the centralized control of any one entity.
Mozilla to explore healthy social media alternative

Mozilla is working on a Mastodon Instance, mozilla.social.

Now is the time, as we’re living through the consequences of 20 years of centralized, corporate-controlled social media, with a small oligopoly of large tech firms tightening their grip on the public square. In private hands our choice is limited, toxicity is rewarded, rage is called engagement, public trust is corroded, and basic human decency is often an afterthought. Getting from the internet we have to the internet we want will be a heavy lift, requiring significant investment in scalable, human-centred solutions for user and community safety, product experience, and sustainability. These are all big challenges, and there’s a lot we need to learn on the road ahead.

It all sounds good…

Little Things

02022-11-25 | Internet

There is a Mastodon instance (server), called Dolphin Town where members may only use the letter “e”. Things like that make me smile large.

Of course there has to be another instance where one can write anything as long as one does not use the letter “e”. Vice wrote an article about it. I get it, I get it, restraint can be a major inspiration in any artistic field.

Found on Mastodon: music is just really loud math

I also read a post about Key Changes in the Billboard Hot 100 Number One Hits, called The Death of the Key Change. Here is the entire post and here is the graph that shows that key changes have been flat lining since 2010.