Archive for August, 2011

Airshow Weekend

Ye gods they are loud machines. A few more photos planespotting from my porch.

Links

  • This American Life has been on a roll lately, and their recent episode with the Plant Money folks covering patents may be the best of the bunch. It focuses on warchests of software patents and subsequent litigation.
  • F1 race car driver Karun Chandhok shares his steering wheel and explains what all the buttons do. I can’t believe they are expected to do all this at 200mph, but I suppose there are rules about not giving the driver assistance and turning the cars into giant remote-controlled vehicles.
  • Music news: You can watch Radiohead remix/refine their last album on Nigel Godrich’s own From the Basement series. Also, The Weeknd released a new mixtape, which is up for grabs here.
  • Music not-so-news: Karlheinz Stockausen, composer and electronic music pioneer, gave a lecture in 1972 on (among other things) sound synthesis. It came at an interesting time, as electronic synthesizers were making the jump from laboratories to recording studios.

NPR’s Tiny Desk

I’ve been working through NPR’s excellent Tiny Desk concert series. Each is a self-contained 15-minute intimate studio show, and the videos are produced with quality sound and minimal editing (they keep rolling between songs). There are performances by Steve Earle, Bill Callahan, Thao Nguyen, The Tallest Man on Earth, and many other artists right in NPR’s wheelhouse.