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If you're not subscribed to Ben's Bites - a daily AI newsletter - you should go subscribe now. Always a morning treat.
They recently linked up this Dan Shipper piece Can a Startup Kill ChatGPT? It's a nice read with plenty of insights worth considering. However, what I really enjoyed about it was the plain and simple reminder of the definition of disruption. These three paragraphs are a nice clip but it really works well within the larger piece. Go read it.
They recently linked up this Dan Shipper piece Can a Startup Kill ChatGPT? It's a nice read with plenty of insights worth considering. However, what I really enjoyed about it was the plain and simple reminder of the definition of disruption. These three paragraphs are a nice clip but it really works well within the larger piece. Go read it.
The word “disruption” is used colloquially to mean any instance where a startup beats an incumbent, but in its original formulation, it meant something specific.
Disruption, as theorized by Clayton Christensen in the early 1990s, is a process by which a startup offers a lower-cost product that performs worse along standard dimensions of performance for a small subset of customers outside of the mainstream. The product gets adoption, though, because it performs better on a new dimension of performance that is important to its niche customer set. Over time, the disruptor improves on standard performance metrics so that it can move up-market to higher-value customers, while maintaining its other advantages.
The startup is able to displace a larger, well-managed incumbent because the latter sees that the startup’s original product is lower cost and lower margin, and generally performs worse. So it looks like a bad business. Therefore, the incumbent fails to react until it’s too late.
The boys over at The Horror Fried Podcast recently covered the 1981 film debut of Eric Weston, Evilspeak. It's brand new to me but take 2 minutes to watch the trailer and I think you'll be as intrigued as I am... Clint Howard conjures a demon from his Tandy TRS-80 to seek revenge on his bullying classmates. If you wanna spoil a bit of it for yourself (like I did), you can watch the conjuring scene. It's like a prophetic, satanic, ChatGPT run through a terminal emulator.. and it's good.
The Wikipedia entry for it reveals that it was banned in the UK (TIL "video nasty") and praised by Anton LaVey. Amusing facts all around.
The Wikipedia entry for it reveals that it was banned in the UK (TIL "video nasty") and praised by Anton LaVey. Amusing facts all around.
I was recently introduced to Venjent, a DJ / musician / drum-n-bass enthusiast. I suggest an Instagram deep dive but anywhere you start is a good place.
Picotron by Lexaloffle
an entire operating system made with PICO-8. helluva aesthetic.
Drams: Framer components inspired by Dieter Rams' principles
somehow I feel both incredibly impressed and entirely turned off. worth a gander tho!
Take 9 minutes and watch the Aidy Bryant Opening Monologue from the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. It is delightfully funny.
I've nothing particularly interesting to add here, sometimes you just need a nice, amusing, break.
I've nothing particularly interesting to add here, sometimes you just need a nice, amusing, break.
Sable on Steam
saw this back in 2018 and was impressed by the Moebius vibes. Here again in 2024, still impressed.Midjourney debuts consistent characters
the headline is more intriguing than the results but it is a helluva big step in the right direction.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman recently sponsored and officially introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act, aka Artist Compensation Royalty Fund (fka H.Con.Res.102). The legalese of the resolution may be hard to parse through but accompany announcement summarizes it fairly well:
There's lots of lively discourse on Reddit of course - which I recommend reading. For the most part, they feel the bill is misguided at best and total trash at worst. They don't propose alternatives but, hey, Reddit gonna Reddit.
Of course, if this passes and the tax is applied to DSPs, they will simply pass that cost along to consumers, increasing the cost of subscriptions. Personally, I don't think $15/mo (or more!) is too expensive for access to the wealth of music that is available but I can understand how others would disagree.
It's not a simple topic and I'm sure the resolution has its flaws. However, it's more than anyone else has done recently and I'm glad to see the conversation moving forward. You can help by signing the petition of support and then contacting your representative to tell them you support it. The UMAW site makes both extremely simple, please go for it.
The Living Wage for Musicians Act would create a new streaming royalty, with the aim to compensate artists and musicians more fairly at a penny per stream when their music plays on streaming services. Currently, musicians make tiny fractions of a penny per stream, while streaming has grown to represent 84% of recorded music industry revenue in the U.S. Spotify, the world’s largest streaming service, pays rights-holders an average per-stream royalty of $0.003, which means it takes artists more than 800,000 monthly streams to equal a full-time $15/hour job.A bit more discretely put, it collects money from music platforms and then has a third party service pay out those funds, bypassing labels. The intent is to ensure that streaming services are paying musicians a fair wage, which public sentiment all agrees they are not. The resolution does include a payout cap per artist per month to ensure the funds are spread out more equally and the payouts are based on actual streams played, not just having music available on a DSP.
There's lots of lively discourse on Reddit of course - which I recommend reading. For the most part, they feel the bill is misguided at best and total trash at worst. They don't propose alternatives but, hey, Reddit gonna Reddit.
Of course, if this passes and the tax is applied to DSPs, they will simply pass that cost along to consumers, increasing the cost of subscriptions. Personally, I don't think $15/mo (or more!) is too expensive for access to the wealth of music that is available but I can understand how others would disagree.
It's not a simple topic and I'm sure the resolution has its flaws. However, it's more than anyone else has done recently and I'm glad to see the conversation moving forward. You can help by signing the petition of support and then contacting your representative to tell them you support it. The UMAW site makes both extremely simple, please go for it.
Excellent read on the history of Kickstarter and, more specifically, the pivot to crypto that came with an investment from a16z. The article gives plenty of reasons to wince at their growth pains but, quite frankly, running a successful business is very hard. I've known a handful of folks that have worked there and I've always respected it as an outsider looking in, even when it was disappointing to see them not keep up with competitors.
No shade from my end being thrown towards them, it's just a fascinating read.
No shade from my end being thrown towards them, it's just a fascinating read.
I have been absolutely cranking out the episodes of my local Nashville music podcast We Own This Town: Music. By and large, I'm trying to catch up on a huge backlog of releases from 2023 that I just missed because of work obligations. However, this episode is a little different, as it's 100% cover songs.
Tune in to hear covers of: The Breeders, Joy Division, The Cure, Nilsson, The Replacements, Sheryl Crow, ABBA, Capt Beefheart, Flaming Lips, Wet Leg, Devo, Sad Baxter, Hall & Oates, Iggy Pop, The Ventures, Brenda Lee, Tim McGraw, Arthur Russell, The Smiths, Townes van Zandt and Sondheim. All the details are here and the show is streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, et al.
I always enjoy a cover song and this episode is really brimming with them.
Tune in to hear covers of: The Breeders, Joy Division, The Cure, Nilsson, The Replacements, Sheryl Crow, ABBA, Capt Beefheart, Flaming Lips, Wet Leg, Devo, Sad Baxter, Hall & Oates, Iggy Pop, The Ventures, Brenda Lee, Tim McGraw, Arthur Russell, The Smiths, Townes van Zandt and Sondheim. All the details are here and the show is streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, et al.
I always enjoy a cover song and this episode is really brimming with them.
Future Sounds Of Kraut Vol. 1
gave this a recent listen and rather enjoyed. There is a Vol 2 that looks v worthwhile as well
Introducing the Claude AI 3 family
the benchmark battles are really heating up!
I can't recall if I have ever heard this Failure on KCRW performance before (from 1996!) but, either way, it feels new to me. I still stand by Fantastic Planet as one of the finest albums of the entirety of the 90's.
You know Eurovision, right? Well, Windows95man is Finland's representation in the 2024 song contest and it is... something else! Eurovision generally brings some absurdity but this one ticks all the boxes. Make sure you stay for at least 2 minutes. Please.
via Chris
via Chris
Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age
the headline says it all but the full read is a v good one.
In recent years I've become a hat guy. Previously in life I couldn't imagine such a thing but the rise of the Dad Hat just clicked with me. There's also no shortage of creative designs to indulge in.
Case in point, a buddy of mine launched Abandonware, a hat collection inspired by shareware and abandonware of the 80s and 90s. This Rodent's Revenge hat was an instant buy and I've got the DOS prompt waiting in the shopping cart. If those don't do it for ya, there's plenty more that probably will.
Case in point, a buddy of mine launched Abandonware, a hat collection inspired by shareware and abandonware of the 80s and 90s. This Rodent's Revenge hat was an instant buy and I've got the DOS prompt waiting in the shopping cart. If those don't do it for ya, there's plenty more that probably will.
YouTube decided that I needed to see this music video for "Summon the Fire" by The Comet Is Coming, a London based band that incorporates synth, drums and sax. YouTube was quite correct in the recommendation.
Beyond the music tho, the video is spectacular. An absolutely overwhelming onslaught of textures, illustrations and painterly vibes. It was released in 2019 but it looks like the sort of thing AI would try to generate now - only with a loose precision that is impossible to capture. The director is RUFFMERCY, an animator and fine artist that I assume everyone has already heard of a million times over except for me but I'm overjoyed to have found it. The official portfolio has works for Nirvana, Thom Yorke, Run the Jewels, Lakeith Stanfield, Basquiat, the Sydney Opera House and a smattering of unofficial works & doodles that are incredibly impressive each on their own.
That's all to say, I'm late to the party but there's so much to enjoy.
Beyond the music tho, the video is spectacular. An absolutely overwhelming onslaught of textures, illustrations and painterly vibes. It was released in 2019 but it looks like the sort of thing AI would try to generate now - only with a loose precision that is impossible to capture. The director is RUFFMERCY, an animator and fine artist that I assume everyone has already heard of a million times over except for me but I'm overjoyed to have found it. The official portfolio has works for Nirvana, Thom Yorke, Run the Jewels, Lakeith Stanfield, Basquiat, the Sydney Opera House and a smattering of unofficial works & doodles that are incredibly impressive each on their own.
That's all to say, I'm late to the party but there's so much to enjoy.
As an Internet user, you have inevitably viewed The Windows 95 Launch video - an unbelievably awkward gathering of Microsoft C Suite employees working to get the crowd hype about the latest version of the operating system. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in particular define the stilted nerd and aggro tech bro perfectly.
Write and Director KK Apple was inspired by this clip and created The Launch, a short film depicting the backstage prep for that exact event. The cast does an impeccable job of portraying the nervous, awkward developers - particularly Katie Sisk as Ballmer and Alyssa Limperis as Gates.
You can watch it on YouTube or Vimeo right now. It's just under 10 minutes, so you've no excuse.
Write and Director KK Apple was inspired by this clip and created The Launch, a short film depicting the backstage prep for that exact event. The cast does an impeccable job of portraying the nervous, awkward developers - particularly Katie Sisk as Ballmer and Alyssa Limperis as Gates.
You can watch it on YouTube or Vimeo right now. It's just under 10 minutes, so you've no excuse.
Zotify
download any song, podcast or playlist from Spotify up to 320kbps. I am always amazed when tools like this exist out in the open.
It's right there on the tin - Typeset in the Future is a film blog investigating the usage of various typography in futuristic settings. Even if you're familiar with such exercises looking at Alien or Blade Runner, you haven't read this take on it. I've never seen a breakdown on Wall-E or Moon before, so there's plenty for every body.
I don't consider myself a typography nerd by any stretch of the imagination but I am always appreciative of an investigation into world building. It's remarkable how typography (and iconography) helps to influences this.
I don't consider myself a typography nerd by any stretch of the imagination but I am always appreciative of an investigation into world building. It's remarkable how typography (and iconography) helps to influences this.
Absolutely smitten with this animation of Shai-Hulud the Colossal - a giant sandworm that is part of a larger body of work from mazinflow.eth. I believe this is actually NFT related but that's only meaningful if you're looking to "own" the piece. Just go browse - really remarkable work; lo-fi, glitchy and immersively surreal.
This trailer for Hundreds of Beavers is captivatingly unique. There's a pull quote in there that says "Exists at the crossroads of Looney Tunes, Benny Hill, Cannibal: The Musical, Blazing Saddles and Adult Swim." That's a helluva intersection but you can see all of it in just the 1:20 of the trailer. I'd even toss in a pepper of Guy Maddin.
There's an extended trailer if you're curious to see a bit more of the action. My hope is that it never crosses over into gory but I'll just have to watch it to find out.
HT Pootify
There's an extended trailer if you're curious to see a bit more of the action. My hope is that it never crosses over into gory but I'll just have to watch it to find out.
HT Pootify
I know zilch about Philadelphia band full body 2 but I do know that their 2023 album infinity signature is checking all the right boxes for me. It's steeped in shoegaze (so play it loud) but there's also a great deal of electronic music influences flowing through as well. Excellent blend start to finish. Dive into "wonder limit" - enjoy!
I will rant and rave all day long about how I think nostalgia holds people back from appreciating new things - a prison of the past that restricts you from being open to new experiences. But when I look at this Old Windows Icons repository, I can't help but be overjoyed.
I love a modern icon but there's something charming about the artistry of a tiny cassette, animated rose or some connected computers that I can not deny.
I love a modern icon but there's something charming about the artistry of a tiny cassette, animated rose or some connected computers that I can not deny.
Recently encountered this upcoming Syne project, a 12" x 15" display that connects with your Spotify account to show what is currently playing. The pitch is that it's kind of like a vinyl record cover but it's powered by your streaming choices.
All told, not a bad idea! Giving a bit more real world presence to streaming music would be nice - especially in a public space. That said, there are a lot of questions to be answered that hopefully the early March 1st launch will answer. Does the "Syne" logo have to be visible at all times? What happens to it when I'm not listening to music? What's the price?
That last one is a real clincher. If it's even vaguely expensive, it's going to be tough to convince folks this is worth purchasing. I'm curious to find out how it all goes.
All told, not a bad idea! Giving a bit more real world presence to streaming music would be nice - especially in a public space. That said, there are a lot of questions to be answered that hopefully the early March 1st launch will answer. Does the "Syne" logo have to be visible at all times? What happens to it when I'm not listening to music? What's the price?
That last one is a real clincher. If it's even vaguely expensive, it's going to be tough to convince folks this is worth purchasing. I'm curious to find out how it all goes.
For the majority of 2023 I was under water. Vimeo let a bunch of people go which resulted in a lot of increased responsibilities for myself and, eventually, a new job at Mosaic. Then that went away in early 2024 and I found myself with a small window of free time. In between job hunting, I've been making up for lost time by posting lots of episodes of my We Own This Town: Music podcast.
If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a radio show - approximately an hour of music from Nashville area bands with a focus on indie rock, hip-hop, noise, ambient, electronic, et al. Things outside the city stereotype and incredibly enjoyable. Episode 366 focuses on a niche collective of artists that are swimming in shoegaze styles (that's an oversimplification but a good place to start). It's actually one of the lengthier episodes of late because I really like what they are doing. Specifically, the artists are - Total Wife, Zook, Thomas Luminoso, Rowen Merrill, Celltower, Rig B, Melaina Kol, Make Yourself at Home, Fresh Air 4 and Rube Oh, and they've got a new record label going called Second Floor Recording Co.. Follow all that.
I've got many more episodes queued up, I just need to edit them and get them into the world. If you're looking for some old school music discovery, consider subscribing.
If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a radio show - approximately an hour of music from Nashville area bands with a focus on indie rock, hip-hop, noise, ambient, electronic, et al. Things outside the city stereotype and incredibly enjoyable. Episode 366 focuses on a niche collective of artists that are swimming in shoegaze styles (that's an oversimplification but a good place to start). It's actually one of the lengthier episodes of late because I really like what they are doing. Specifically, the artists are - Total Wife, Zook, Thomas Luminoso, Rowen Merrill, Celltower, Rig B, Melaina Kol, Make Yourself at Home, Fresh Air 4 and Rube Oh, and they've got a new record label going called Second Floor Recording Co.. Follow all that.
I've got many more episodes queued up, I just need to edit them and get them into the world. If you're looking for some old school music discovery, consider subscribing.
Brand new podcast from Jed Sundwall that features conversations with "technologists about the literature that has influenced them." First up is Time O'Reilly talking about Dune. That's a helluva first episode if you ask me.
The animated logo is real charming but the title is even better - Techs on Texts. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, RSS or, if you're not yet convinced it is worthy of your subscription, read up on why the podcast should exist. Jed's doing a great job and it's just getting started.
The animated logo is real charming but the title is even better - Techs on Texts. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, RSS or, if you're not yet convinced it is worthy of your subscription, read up on why the podcast should exist. Jed's doing a great job and it's just getting started.
