Media

Eddie Van Halen talks about building the Frankenstein, crash testing an amp

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From the interview, starting when EVH was a kid:

When I first started playing guitar, I was at the local music store, which wasn’t even a music store, it was kind of like a Radio Shack that also sold musical instruments, it was called Lafayette Music.

I fell in love with this hollowbody 12-string because of the neck, and the first thing I did was I took six strings off, because it was a 12-string, and I didn’t want 12! They didn’t have what I wanted in the store, so it had already started there!

And:

I saved the money from delivering papers for two and a half to three years, and bought my first real guitar, which was a ’68 Goldtop Les Paul with single-coil P-90 pickups.

So what do I do? I take the chisel to it right away! Because I wanted a humbucking pickup! But in Pasadena, there were no Les Pauls with a humbucker in them. There was one store in northern Pasadena – a Les Paul came in and they called me right away ‘Hey, we’ve got a Les Paul!’ I walk in and I go, ‘Ah, shit! It ain’t the kind Clapton plays!’ It didn’t have humbuckers.

So, of course, I hunted down a humbucker, took a chisel and made the hole bigger and crammed it in there. I was lucky enough to solder it back properly, then I painted it black and added binding. I did all kinds of crazy shit to it.

So much more. This is a great read.

Mars Explorers Wanted

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Nasa’s Mars site:

Mars needs YOU! In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers . . . but most of all YOU! Join us on the Journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day. Download a Mars poster that speaks to you. Be an explorer!

And:

Night owls welcome! If you lived on Mars’ moon Phobos, you’d have an office with a view, mining for resources with Mars in the night sky. Settlers below on Mars would see Phobos rise and set not once, but twice in one day!

This is some compelling prose, feels like part of a beloved sci-fi set. The accompanying posters were originally developed for the Kennedy Space Flight Center’s visitors complex. Now they can be yours, free.

Barbra Streisand calls Tim Cook with Siri complaint. A fix is in the works.

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Barbra Streisand was doing a guest spot on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday when the host, Scott Simon, brought out his iPhone, asked Siri a question:

Scott: Siri, who’s the only female vocalist who’s had hit records for six straight decades?

Siri: Barbra Streisand

Barbra: (laughs) She pronounces my name wrong. Streisand with a soft “s”, like sand.

Streisand then goes on to tell the story of her phone call to Tim Cook to complain, and Tim’s personal response.

Click on the main post to listen to the audio.

Amazing falling burger shot, all captured with a handmade video rig

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[VIDEO] The first 10 second of this video are the end result. The rest of the video shows how it was done. I love the mechanics behind this shot, the fact that some of it was hand designed and 3D printed, and the obvious care that went into this. Bravo!

Deal with Cash Money (Drake’s label) expands Apple’s effort to develop TV programming

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Bloomberg:

Apple Inc., the world’s richest company, is making a documentary with Cash Money Records, one of the world’s most successful hip-hop labels.

Cash Money is home to Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Drake, with whom Apple already has an exclusive deal. Co-founder Bryan Williams, who performs under the stage name Birdman, posted a picture to his Instagram account on Tuesday alongside Larry Jackson, the head of Apple’s original music content, with both executives holding their chins pensively. The photo celebrated Apple agreeing to fund a documentary for the label, according to people familiar with the deal. It is not, as many had speculated after the photo, an agreement to secure all of Cash Money’s new albums exclusively, the people said.

This is Apple continuing to dip their toes in the water.

Microsoft: What’s a computer? Just ask Cortana.

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[VIDEO] A few weeks ago, Apple put out this iPad Pro commercial, notably asking the question, “What’s a Computer?”

Microsoft has an answer, a new commercial (shown in the main post) that reminds me of the “I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” ads of a decade ago, though this time with the roles reversed.

Castro 2 and quick podcast-episode triage

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Jason Snell, writing for Six Colors:

The thing that makes Castro 2 stand out is its approach to curating your podcast playlist. New episodes of subscribed podcasts appear in the app’s Inbox tab, in chronological order with the most recent item at the top. You tap on an episode to reveal a horizontal toolbar of action buttons, which let you quickly play the episode, add it to the bottom or top of your podcast queue, or banish it to the archive.

The net effect of this is quick podcast-episode triage, all focused around a single playlist.

As always, solid writing by Jason.

On a related note, I think there’s room in the podcast player space for better discovery, for more, “if you like this, you’ll like that” or for tools that let you walk the tree of podcasts to make your way into an area of interest, whether that be startup mechanics, sports, or interviews with celebrities.

Startup

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I’ve been listening to a podcast called Startup, now in its third season. Head to the main post for a link to the website and a link to the iTunes preview page.

Startup tells the story of itself, the startup of a podcast and media empire, from back of the napkin idea, through the pursuit of funding, and onward, with all the warts and blemishes shared for all the world to see.

The host is Alex Blumberg, longtime producer for This American Life. He’s also the founder and CEO of the startup at the center of this podcast.

If you are interested in the mechanics of building a startup, or a fan of podcasting, this is a brilliant show, well worth your time. I won’t spoil it with details about Alex’s journey, but suffice it to say that the journey is both fascinating and extremely well told.

If you want to give this a try, start at the very beginning, with season 1, episode 1. Order matters here.

Stinging commercial for iOS Google Photos app

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[VIDEO] This one hits close to home. Though releasing a 16 GB base model makes this “Storage Full” message much more likely, this message is always a possibility in any scenario, unless your photos live in the cloud and you can guarantee constant internet access and unlimited cloud storage.

Harley Quinn’s back story

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This weekend, the movie Suicide Squad goes into wide release. Early buzz is, the movie is terrific. I can’t wait to see it.

The New York Times, on one of the main characters, Harley Quinn:

How did Harley become one of the most popular female characters in the DC Universe? In part, by cleaning up her act, or what passes for clean in her world. In several incarnations — most notably, her foray into video games — Harley has been a true supervillain, maiming and killing with unbridled glee. Now she’s more of an antihero, as in “Suicide Squad,” where she and a team of bad guys take on even worse guys in “Dirty Dozen”-style missions.

If you are a fan of the character, the movie, or the genre, this article is worth the read, chock-full of Harley Quinn background.

New dinosaur novel coming from Michael Crichton

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The Verge:

When Michael Crichton passed away in 2008, he left behind a massive collection of papers: outlines, notes, and several incomplete novels. In the years since his death, Crichton’s widow Sherri has been combing through those files, and recently discovered a new manuscript called Dragon Teeth, which is now set to be published by HarperCollins in 2017.

I’m a huge fan of Michael Crichton’s writing, from The Andromeda Strain, up through Jurassic Park and beyond, to project like the E.R. TV series. His books fueled my imagination. I hope that Dragon Teeth is up to the standard.

Skydiver plans jump tomorrow from plane, no parachute, into a net, on TV

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AP News:

He’s made 18,000 parachute jumps, helped train some of the world’s most elite skydivers, done some of the stunts for “Ironman 3.” But the plunge Luke Aikins knows he’ll be remembered for is the one he’s making without a parachute. Or a wingsuit.

Or anything, really, other than the clothes he’ll be wearing when he jumps out of an airplane at 25,000 feet this weekend, attempting to become the first person to land safely on the ground in a net.

The Fox network will broadcast the two-minute jump live at 8 p.m. EDT (5 p.m. PDT) Saturday as part of an hour-long TV special called “Heaven Sent.”

Way back when, Evil Knievel did these sorts of televised, death-defying stunts on a regular basis.

More recently, we had Felix Baumgartner jumping from a balloon on the edge of space, albeit with a parachute.

Godspeed, Luke.

Ridable luggage

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[VIDEO] Fascinating. Seemingly well constructed, practical, ridable luggage. Not sure of the audience for this, but I would love to give this a try, just to get a sense of how practical this is. Amazing to me that they fit the battery and motor inside, with plenty of packing room left over, yet all within the confines of a bag that fits the standards for an on-flight bag.

This is an IndieGogo campaign, not quite fully funded with a month left to go. At $995, this is an expensive gadget, but clearly they’ve found more than $40K worth of takers so far.

Financial Times starts blanking out scattered words in articles for users with ad-blockers

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Ad Age:

On Wednesday, the newspaper began blanking out, for some users, a percentage of words in articles symbolizing the percentage of the company’s revenue that comes from advertising.

The proportion of words blocked isn’t scientific, and the Financial Times doesn’t break out the exact chunk of revenue that comes from ads, said global advertising sales director Dominic Good. “It’s more illustrative than specific,” he said.

The test group comprises registered desktop computer visitors who don’t pay for a subscription, about .075% of the company’s desktop traffic. Some ad-blocking members of this group won’t see any new messaging, some will be asked to whitelist the website’s ads but can still read regardless, some will see articles with many words blanked out if they won’t whitelist the site, and some will be blocked outright if they don’t whitelist the site.

The company will evaulate the results after three or four weeks.

I wonder if this is a potential move to open up the gates, allow visitors through the paywall who agree to accept advertising. Interesting to see how this plays out.

The greatest resume I’ve ever seen

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This sounds like an exaggeration, I know, but take a look at this resume. Not effective in a traditional sense, since it can’t be printed and won’t fit in with most job search engines, but still, great job.

Garry Marshall, Pretty Woman director and creator of Happy Days, dies at 81

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Variety:

Garry Marshall, who created some of the 1970s’ most iconic sitcoms including “Happy Days,” “The Odd Couple,” “Laverne and Shirley” and “Mork and Mindy” and went on to direct hit movies including “Pretty Woman” and “The Princess Diaries,” died Tuesday in Burbank, Calif. of complications from pneumonia following a stroke. He was 81.

Marshall went from being TV writer to creating sitcoms that touched the funny bones of the 1970s generation and directing films that were watched over and over: “Happy Days” helped start a nostalgia craze that has arguably never abated, while “Mork and Mindy” had a psychedelically goofy quality that catapulted Robin Williams to fame and made rainbow suspenders an icon of their era. “Pretty Woman” likewise cemented Julia Roberts’ stardom, while “The Princess Diaries” made Anne Hathaway a teen favorite.

“Happy Days” star Henry Winkler credited him for launching his career, tweeting “Thank you for my professional life.”

Garry Marshall was a huge influence, sending out waves far beyond the specific content he created.

Netflix to carry new CBS “Star Trek” series in 188 countries around the world

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From the Netflix press release:

Netflix and CBS Studios International today announced a landmark international licensing agreement for the new “Star Trek” television series. Netflix will be the exclusive premiere home of “Star Trek” in 188 countries (excluding the US and Canada). Each episode of the new series will be available globally within 24 hours of its U.S. premiere.

Additionally, all 727 existing episodes of the iconic “Star Trek” television library – including “Star Trek: The Original Series,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Star Trek: Enterprise” will be available on Netflix around the world by the end of 2016.

The all-new “Star Trek” will begin production in Toronto in September for its January 2017 premiere.

Interesting move by Netflix to lock up this show for streaming at such an early stage. Also notable that they will stream the show globally within 24 hours of its US premiere. Will this become the new norm?

Marvel’s new Iron Man is a black woman

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Time:

There’s a new Iron Man. Well, Iron Man for now. She’s still working on the name. The events at the end of the comic-book event series Civil War II will result in Tony Stark stepping out of the Iron Man suit and a new character, Riri Williams, taking over, Marvel tells TIME.

Read on for my thoughts on this.

Apple partners with NASA to produce “Visions of Harmony”

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From this USA Today article:

The maker of the iconic iPhone has partnered with NASA on the eve of the Juno mission, which is expected to enter Jupiter’s orbit Monday, in a highly publicized July 4th orbital insertion. The mission launched five years ago.

NASA will send back sounds of space for artists to make music with, to be featured on Apple’s iTunes and the Apple Music subscription service.

Watch the video in the main post. Beautifully done.

Beats 1: Year 1

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Great fast edit through the first year of Beats 1. That music? It’s Charles Bradley, with Ain’t It a Sin. Love the video, love this entire album.

Episode of French TV show shot on iPhones after studio power outage

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[VIDEO] Fantastic moment. Watch the video in the original post. I’d love a captioned version so I could follow along, but you’ll get the basics even if you don’t speak French.

From the 9to5Mac article:

The incident was reported by Pure Médias, which says that power was lost for three hours. Emergency lighting kicked in, but the TV cameras were still not able to function, so the decision was made to continue recording using iPhones.

This is reportedly the first time a broadcast TV show has ever been shot on iPhone in the country, though we have of course seen ads, documentaries and even movies shot entirely with iPhones – as well as Apple showing what amateurs can do with the iPhone through its Shot on iPhone campaign.

New Photos app detects 4,432 kinds of objects and 7 facial expressions

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MacRumors:

Over the weekend, a Reddit user discovered a few lines of code within the framework of Apple’s beta of the macOS Sierra Photos app, possibly detailing both the specific facial expressions that the app recognizes and every single searchable object users can find in both Sierra and iOS 10.

The secret anti-counterfeit symbol

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[VIDEO] I knew it was illegal to copy money. I just had no idea there was a special symbol built into money that told photocopiers not to copy it. And, apparently, there’s a newer secret device that makes copying even harder.

The mind-blowing Sensus Smart Guitar

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[VIDEO] This is some incredible technology. Just watch the video embedded in the main post. I’d love to get my mitts on one of these.

The future of podcasting

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Since its inception, podcasting has largely been an indie game. Though there are larger players in this space, almost all are independent companies. Ben Thompson digs into the current model, and the difficulties of making money with this model. He details a major threat to the independent podcast universe and offers some thoughts on alternatives.

Good read.