This was a very well put together conversation recorded at WWDC. John Gruber's interviewing chops are top notch and I especially like how he can ask the hardball questions with respect and candor. Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi provide excellent insight on the thinking of Apple's latest software improvements.
Great new features! Coming! Feels and Looks like a new Apple Watch! Love the music app as a complication! 9 to 5 Mac delivering another great video.
The last 10 years or so have felt depressing because avenues are shutting down. Little shrines to music lovers -- record shops -- are disappearing... And every time there’s a new innovation, the musician is the one that didn’t have a voice at the table about how it’s presented. I thought, if I could make a place where there could be more opportunities, and it comes with more fertile ground, and music is treated with a bit more with respect, that interests me. -Trent Reznor
One of my favorite things about Apple Music and the reason I am a believer in it, is because of Trent...this fucking guy just gets it.
The Recording Academy announced a series of amendments to the Grammy Awards this morning, a set of changes highlighted by the announcement that streaming-only releases are now eligible for consideration. (Under the old rules, albums and singles needed to receive a physical or digital release to attain eligibility.) The change is taking effect immediately, meaning streaming-only releases between October 1st, 2015 and September 30th, 2016 will be considered for the 59th Grammy Awards on February 12th, 2017.
About time. Guess they got afraid of being left in the past like the MTV Music/Movie Awards
I think there is a third way here, that preserves independence but starts to solve the monetization and measurement problem: publishers should offer podcasts through their own app that measures listens, and either sell ads themselves if they have the scale or outsource it to a company like Midroll. Midroll, for their part, should leverage their new player technology to offer skinnable apps for publishers who can’t build their own. The end result would be a much smoother path for publishers to convert their readers to listeners — and to effectively cross-promote — along with the measurement and scale needed to grow advertising meaningfully (or even offer subscriptions).
Excellent insightful yet complex read from Ben at Stratechery He goes in depth as to how Podcasting will become like Blogs of the 2010's if we do not step in now to shift its future.
Often, though, a solution that works for power users is actually prohibitive for normal users, and the other solution — a Facebook of podcasts — would be worse for everyone. Just look at what happened to RSS readers: yes, Google killed them, but it was only ever used by a fraction of readers before then because they were too difficult; Facebook, on the other hand, was easy. Fortunately for publishers, the challenges of podcast discovery and distribution actually make apps the easiest choice of all.
The new update is bright and simplistic, getting rid of the clutter found in the last version, something that should make it much more delightful to use. Instead of shoving a million songs in your face, the new version steps into the background, letting you actually interact with your music. The redesign actually feels like the old iPad app – simple and inviting.
It reminded me very much of the Microsoft Zune Typography which looking back now, was ahead of its time. Love the font Apple chose very futuristic and the layout seems very streamlined, really interested to give this go when the beta comes out.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for what South by Southwest Interactive Director Hugh Forrest calls "a growing tide" of locally based music tech start-ups. Sorting through a stack of business cards and emails filtered by "music tech," more than 30 new Austin businesses emerge, many still in beta phase. Here are a few interesting ones:
• OffTop: a mobile app where users record, share, and discover raps over beats.
• Being There Records: Recording live shows of emerging bands, crowdfunding the cost, and pressing them on vinyl.
• TheWave: a VR creation program where users create electronic music using their hands in a virtual space.
^Best of the Best: These guys are based in Austin and they are doing some very interesting things with a glove.
Have a strange feeling this is going to be a really special WWDC this year.
Currently in the process of starting on the next album for Sunsets and Hearts its very possible this could be a full album but I'm hoping I can cut it down to an EP.
Currently have a few songs recorded and a title but very still in the early stages of editing and creating these songs.
Sunsets and Hearts
Letters to the Ether or Heartbroken Songs from a Failed Musician
"The damage has already been done. People have already moved out and communities displaced. It's over, and now you want to have a conversation about it? This conversation is 10 or 15 years too late. That's not to say that good things can't come out of it, but waiting on the city, I'm just not really part of that game."
The sad truth is most musicians have moved so far south where the price for rent is not as big of a hit. The cool Hispanic rich culture of the East Side is really gone...most of my homeboys and musician friends I have in the neighborhood have moved south...far away from the yuppies that have moved in.
I have come to terms with this and enjoy my South Austin life these days its very much feels like old Austin. Me and my wife are going to be South Austinites for years to come but we are very aware of the increase on our yearly taxes pushing us even further South or into San Antonio in the future.
I am not worried about shit like that though these days I am still trying to work on creating new interesting music and let the real estate condo's build where they want, it's usually in central Austin. I say let them have it...the rich local music scene is mostly gone from there anyway.
The article mentions Stay Gold a struggling music venue on East Cesar Chavez but what they fail to mention is that used to be a tejano bar named El Leon where I, along with my homeboys used to have a blast drinking cheap beer all night listening to Tejano music.
That's the thing about Austin...the people complaining about it are the main reasons this city is the way it is.
Welcome to the Slow Death.
It’s a Pebble, of course you can hack it! In its essence, Core is a tiny, hackable Android™ computer that fits on your keychain to become your magic button for anything.
Call an Uber* with a click. Track your pet from across the world. Stream data from your car’s ODB port. Pilot a drone from the web. Or, … you get the picture.
Get early access to the Core SDK. All starting at $69
The Pebble Core looks very interesting...the other two pebbles look more of the same.
I will start off by saying out right, X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of my favorite comic book movies ever. I personally think it is one of the greatest comic book movies of all time. So to say expectations were pretty high for this movie would be an understatement. Now onto the Review.
Bryan Singer has out did his first series of X-Men movies he made in the early 2000's and its not even close. To say he did a bad job on those drama induced X-Men movies is not fair to Singer. Those movies (X2, Last Stand) were made post 9/11, amid the cringe worthy Iraq War, a George Bush era where he signed off on shooting missile's and bombs onto Iraq all being shown on Live TV. To say war & death was everywhere is an understatement. There is absolutely no way Singer could have made a action driven end of days X-Men movie at that time. It had to be either campy and light like the Sam Rami Spiderman movies or a boring drama driven live action set movie with few explosions (which they were.)
But those days are over...and now Singer can make the movie he always intended.
X-Men: Apocalypse is his final installment in this Trilogy of X-Men movies and X-Men: Apocalypse is less (The Dark Knight Rises) to his masterful X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Dark Knight) but he ends up with just as great of a film as X-Men: First Class.
X-Men: Apocalypse has a young strong cast led by Jennifer Lawrence, who I must say has really come into her own with the character of Raven. Oliva Munn is even in this movie and she performs just as well. The character of Jean Grey played by Sophie Turner is a genuine surprise who is remarkable as a surprise lead in this movie, she has enough talent to lead this franchise forward (easily).
By far the standout performance is Michael Fassbender his Magneto performance in every single one of these X-Men movies gets better and better with every scene. He is so great at capturing something honest and vulnerable, this internal struggle Magneto fights within himself with...*sigh* Its just marvelous to see. Fassbender is the best part of this movie and he proves it in every scene he is in.
X-Men: Apocalypse starts off rocky very rocky the first 20 minutes of this movie had me really scared its starts off eerily similar to The Mummy (with Brendan Frasier yes that horrible movie.) I was very scared and the make up job for Apocalypse played by Oscar Isaac did not help either, what saves this though time and time again is Apocalypse's voice its haunting and creepy as hell.
The movie sets a lot of ground work in the first half of this film but it quickly picks up pace and corrects itself with some very interesting scenes with new but old reboot...wait re-imagined (yea that's it) X-Men characters which is cool to see. (<--not sarcasm)
There is also another very funny and interesting Quicksilver scene played by Evan Peters (why is this guy not in everything) that just takes you out of the movie...which I love even if it is just for a few minutes. Like I said the cast in this film is amazing Singer knew exactly what to lean on in this movie and this is definitely what sets it apart from the first two X-Men movies. (2010's X-Men movies)
There is some bad but not entirely bad...like I said the first 20 minutes is borderline not good (but I can see a Sony Exec saying hey Singer can we get Ancient Egypt tied into this story somehow we have Gods of Egypt coming out later this year.) The CGI in this film is pretty bad and very noticeable in some very crucial scenes, also the need to cut to a secret Military Bunker every time catastrophe strikes earth is painful and too on the nose these days. (please stop doing this movie studios, we get it...shits bad but we do not need to see Generals with their heads down to portray civilian casualty loss) The fact that it was set in the 1980's did not bother me but the lack of continuity in the film in keeping with the 1980's annoyed the crap out of me. Sadly James McAvoy still hasn't convinced me he was the right choice to play Professor Xavier but that is probably just a personal bias. (I can accept that)
What I took away from this movie was plain and simple. Just like the Marvel Movies and Superman/Batman movies that are getting released these days.
They are not aimed at me, I am not the target audience.
They are aimed at teenagers of this decade...I say this because most of my theater was filled with teens really excited to see this group of X-Men particular this X-Men movie. Maybe its the age of the cast that brought them in or a 5 sec trailer before every Youtube video played...I'm not sure.
But I could feel a sense of wondrous joy and humor. Which is exactly what I felt in 2000 when I saw the original X-Men movie. Then the rest of that trilogy in the 2000's and boy was it fun seeing these kids get terrified when Hugh Jackman made a horror slash cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Go see X-Men: Apocalypse.its worth every cent and did I mention it doesn't take itself to seriously especially with all the easter eggs this movie has. That is why it is a near miss. Repeat viewings.
Subscription-based music streaming, on the other hand, has yet to prove itself to be a viable model, even after hundreds of millions of investment dollars raised and spent. For our part, we are committed to offering an alternative that we know works. As long as there are fans who care about the welfare of their favorite artists and want to help them keep making music, we will continue to provide that direct connection. And as long as there are fans who want to own, not rent, their music, that is a service we will continue to provide, and that is a model whose benefits we will continue to champion. We have been here since 2008 and we mean to be here in 2028.
Bandcamp is like that exceptional older sibling that everyone regards as exceptionally smart and talented just not eager to please like his younger siblings.
The fact of the matter is I have never made much money from Bandcamp. I have already tripled what I made with Apple Music since its release last year. (But to be honest I was never into music to make money. That just never got me.)
So what do I think?
I think Bandcamp needs to up its streaming game and create a better app then they have now to compete. As soon as one of these company's like Apple or Spotify figure out how to let Artists and Bands release music directly to there streaming platform its over for Bandcamp in the unsigned artists/band demographic they currently control now. I could think of a million different ways bandcamp could make its platform better.
Do not get me wrong Bandcamp is great on the Web and I hope they succeed I just wish they had more urgency and were more eager to please.
Dan Lyons is an American writer and was an editor at Forbes, Newsweek, ReadWrite. He's also the author of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble. He also wrote Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody fictional biography.
Disrupted: My Year in Startup Hell is what he should have named the book because it is factually true and everything Dan Lyons refers to in the book actually happened to him. But the sad fact is this type of behavior "Bro Culture" is actually happening everywhere even at the place I work at now. (Which I will not say where/who for fear of losing my job)
But Dan is exactly right and a lot of the stupid office politics that he describes in his book actually goes on in my job as well. Not to mention the stupid nerf guns and the free food and the wasteful spending in order to keep a lot of us at a lower wage but comfortable and fed so we won't leave. He is right and this gets old and annoying very quickly.
I found the book to be a major bummer read but this was the truth I needed to hear to remind myself just like Dan does in his book to get the hell out of here as soon as I can before I become like these people. The sad truth is I am not even 50 or close to it but I can relate to a lot of what Dan says about the Culture in Tech Company's these days.
He did a recent interview on Leo Laporte's Twit Network I highly suggest checking it out Dan is a hilarious person with great insight. Oh I forgot to mention he wrote for HBO's Silcon Valley that is how most people my age will know of him. Sorry Dan.
The revolution is far from over. Prepare for what's to come. season_2.0 Official Trailer.
This looks so great!!! So stoked!!!
It doesn’t happen with every Apple product, but every so often the company creates a product that comes with a point of view so strong, it’s like a statement of personal belief—if a technology product from a many-billion-dollar corporation could ever be that.
It’s impossible not to look at the MacBook and see its idiosyncrasies. Size and weight have been prioritized over everything else. It’s as narrow a laptop as can exist while still having a full-sized keyboard; it’s so thin that the key travel on the keyboard is minuscule. This is the laptop designed like an iPad, fanless and thin and with a single USB-C port.
I really enjoy reading Jason Snell's website Six Colors and it has increasingly become a must read on a daily basis he just reviewed the new 2016 Macbook and he couldn't have summed up Apple's stance on this particular laptop any better.
Made a few changes around the site today. Finally updated the Biography page with past, current and future projects. Also added a nice graphic.
Also got around to finally doing something I have been wanting to do for awhile Release a Monthly Newsletter for Fans of the site that are not subscribers but would love to stay informed with all things sunsetsandhearts.com Really looking forward to this! Will start releasing at the beginning of each month.
Kubrick & The Illuminati is name of this documentary which brings to light a lot of coincidences that are too overwhelming to set aside to say the least. I am an avid listener to Coast to Coast AM and keep an open mind about everything, that is how I came to find this documentary.
I had know idea Kubrick was having personal problems while making this film which I feel now after re-watching makes a lot more sense. This film deals with the struggle Kubrick had with his daughter Vivian Kubrick, who I had no idea existed until watching this documentary.
Kubrick has inspired so many artists, people and he has legions of fans, his films are taught and dissected in schools and universities. It goes without saying Kubrick will have a lasting impact on generations to come. He truly was a Auteur. If you have never heard of him I recommend checking his films out.
While “Kubrick & The Illuminati” begins with a shot of Michel Ciment, the editor of the journal Positif, it’s Laurent Vachaud’s voice that is heard in most of the film. But Vachaud told ARTINFO that he had nothing to do with the choice of film clips or editing the documentary, and that its directors alone were responsible for it. In fact, he described himself as “opposed to systematically illustrating the idea with the image,” which gives “the impression that everything is put on the same level,” causing the structured argument of his original article to vanish. Vachaud also spoke of the astonishing cinematographic power of “Eyes Wide Shut,” which he sees as “almost as cosmic a film as ‘2001, A Space Odyssey.’”
I recently just purchased a Lenovo Flex 3 11 inch from Best Buy over the weekend. Well of course I managed to erase everything on the laptop including the Windows 10 Partition and Boot Loader.
So i installed a version on Fedora Release 23 and the machine is better for it. But now I am quickly thinking about taking this machine back and getting a Dell. Though the situation I am in, there is no way in hell Best Buy will take this back in the state that it is in. No way.
So I have to reinstall Windows 10 back on this machine and low and behold someone has created a fix for this:
Windows 10 is able to run on all modern Mac hardware in a dual boot environment thanks to Boot Camp. If you’re aiming to run Windows alongside OS X on the same Mac, you’ll want to create a bootable Windows 10 installer drive out of a USB drive, which can be done quickly from OS X and the Boot Camp Assistant tool. For the less familiar, using Boot Camp essentially means Windows 10 will run directly on the hardware as if the Mac were a PC, rather than in a virtual machine which runs Windows atop OS X, that translates to much better performance and a completely native experience – you boot the Mac, and you can choose to start Windows, or to start OS X. Here, we’re going to focus on making a USB installer drive using a Windows 10 ISO.
Thank you OSX Daily
This was eye opening to watch. The older I get the more I feel like I am becoming more self aware of how much everything I was taught in public school was just plain lies and a rewritten form of history were all just supposed to believe. The sad truth is were supposed to fight through this knowing were playing a fixed hand.