Perfect for fans of John Bonham, Simon Phillips, Alex Van Halen, and Dave Grohl, this is the groove inspiration you’ve been looking for – a powerful source of rock drum loops inspired as much by the classic grooves of rock as much as more contemporary rock styles. Just pure, live rock drums. No beat detective. No sequenced samples. This is live, steaming, sweaty, raw rock and roll – the way it was meant to be.

Sounds perfect.

I stumbled upon this earlier today. This came out a few years ago, but is new to me. Had to share it.

Before they even set foot in the dilapidated L.A. studio where they would record ‘Nevermind,’ Nirvana had already had a tumultuous year. they’d ditched their fifth drummer, broken a contract with indie label sub pop, and signed a new deal with corporate behemoth Geffen. So many compromises: no wonder the album’s now iconic artwork depicts a waterborne baby stretching its arms toward a dollar-bill-baited fishhook.

Everybody knows what happened after the album came out—that Kurt Cobain rejected his celebrity, became addicted to heroin, and married Courtney Love. That he found no freedom in his immense stardom and that three years later he committed suicide.

But in this oral history, we focus on the founding moment of a rock ’n’ roll revolution, when Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic were still innocently floating in a bright, cool world. in interviews with nearly forty people, GQ revisits the recording of ‘Nevermind.’

Before they even set foot in the dilapidated L.A. studio where they would record ‘Nevermind,’ Nirvana had already had a tumultuous year. they’d ditched their fifth drummer, broken a contract with indie label sub pop, and signed a new deal with corporate behemoth Geffen. So many compromises: no wonder the album’s now iconic artwork depicts a waterborne baby stretching its arms toward a dollar-bill-baited fishhook.

Everybody knows what happened after the album came out—that Kurt Cobain rejected his celebrity, became addicted to heroin, and married Courtney Love. That he found no freedom in his immense stardom and that three years later he committed suicide.

But in this oral history, we focus on the founding moment of a rock ’n’ roll revolution, when Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic were still innocently floating in a bright, cool world. in interviews with nearly forty people, GQ revisits the recording of ‘Nevermind.’

A fantastic read.

The Google Glass team posted “The Top 10 Google Glass Myths” trying to stem the tide of bad press. They didn’t mention how creepy the company is—perhaps that’s for another “Top 10” list.

After the book’s release earlier this week, Mr. Cook said in a statement that it was “nonsense.”

He’s right.

That about says it all.

Some fans who bought nosebleed-seat tickets to see the Golden State Warriors received a friendly suggestion from their phones when they stepped off the escalators at Oracle Arena: Wouldn’t they like to spend a few extra bucks for a seat where they could actually distinguish Stephen Curry from Andrew Bogut?

I don’t see a downside to this. This is marketing, as opposed to service (as in, where is the nearest bathroom or cotton candy vendor?), but I see it as all part of the experience, and a marketing/advertising component helps pay for the iBeacon install.

Remember, if you don’t want to be bothered, spend some time in the Notification Center settings, or just turn off Bluetooth.

Familiar with the Streisand effect? Back in 2003, an ariel view of Barbara Streisand’s Malibu mansion was put on the internet, in an innocuous database of 12,000 California coastline properties. The goal was to show the effect of erosion on the coastline. Streisand sued to have the photo removed. Before the lawsuit, the photo was downloaded 6 times. After the $50 million suit went public, the photo was downloaded more than 400,000 times in the next month.

The Streisand effect occurs when an attempt to suppress something has the opposite unintended consequence.

So what does this have to do with Twitter and Turkey?

In an attempt to halt widespread allegations of corruption, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shuttered Twitter – but so ineffectively that the number of tweets sent in the country has remained unaffected.

But in a perfect example of the Streisand effect, Erdogan’s move has only brought more attention to the corruption allegations. At the time of writing, indeed, ‘#TwitterisblockedinTurkey’ is the top trending topic worldwide.

Read the article for details. Bottom line, trying to shut off the internet has, historically, always led to unintended consequences. Now that’s irony.

CNBC:

Apple needs an iWatch sooner rather than later, or the company will risk losing its innovative edge to rivals, analysts say.

“They only have 60 days left to either come up with something or they will disappear,” said Trip Chowdhry, managing director at Global Equities Research.

The single stupidest thing ever written about Apple. When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you’ll know that’s saying something.

Microsoft went through a blogger’s private Hotmail account in order to trace the identity of a source who allegedly leaked trade secrets.

A March 17 court filing by federal prosecutors reveals that Microsoft’s Office of Legal Compliance approved the decision after confirming that the leaked data in question included proprietary Microsoft code.

Wow.

I usually don’t link to concepts, but these ones for the Apple TV and remotes that go along with it are pretty good.

This is really cool. I wish they had some for hockey, I’d get one for the Boston Bruins.

I can’t say I disagree. Tim has done a tremendous job running Apple in the last few years.

I met Pat a number of times during my 10 years working at Macworld. He built an empire with IDG and will be missed.

This is so true. It drives people crazy.

Have an app or icon to design?

Have you ever wondered what the most popular colors are in each category of the iOS store? We did. So we crawled the iOS app store and grabbed the top 5 app icons in each category and ran a histogram analysis on each one to find which colors were used most often. What we found was very interesting.

Before you design you next app icon, take a look at the color palettes below.

Great idea. Pass this along to your dev friends. [Via Joost van der Ree]

To be clear, by book-less I mean an absence of printed books, a completely digital library.

The unlikely visionary in San Antonio was Nelson Wolff, the top county official, who in Texas is known as the county judge.

“It all started with my reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs,” said Wolff, who is in his 70s and was taken with the speed of technology developed by the late co-founder of Apple Inc. as he introduced a succession of products.

So, within about a year, Wolff raised the radical idea of a no-books library in a poor part of San Antonio with limited Internet service, used available space in a county-owned building and had it operating by last September.

This is not the same as an internet cafe, a room filled with computers for general use. There actually is a library of eBooks for loan to library patrons.

“We’ve had a 100 percent return rate,” said Laura Jesse, Bexar County’s public information officer.

Downloaded e-books simply disappear from devices after two weeks, so there are no library late fees.

Heh. I wonder if they will add other media, such as newspapers, magazines, and music. That could be disruptive.

[Via CultOfMac]

Vulfpeck, a small-time funk band with a couple of retro-styled albums under its belt, recently released Sleepify, an album made up of nothing but silence. This isn’t a completely new concept: Anyone with a pompous theory streak will insist that it’s really the silence between the notes that matter—and congratulations if you’re already thinking of John Cage’s 4’33,” a composition performed by sitting there without playing.

OK, that’s cool. John Cage is a highly regarded artist and his 1953 composition 4’33” is a highly regarded work. In fact, there’s a fantastic exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art dedicated to the creation and performance of 4’33”. It runs until June 22nd.

But I digress.

Vulfpeck’s latest album is a business experiment, not a musical one. The idea behind the project is for fans to stream the “songs” constantly, generating royalties for the band in their spare time. Vulfpeck plans to use the proceeds to go on tour. It’s an ingenious publicity stunt and, if you squint hard enough, a commentary on the way music is valued in the digital age.

Um, what? Is this art or is it theft?

At first blush, I immediately went to the latter. But then I thought, what if this music was more traditional. What if Vulfpeck did the traditional thing and pushed their fans to listen to their music via Spotify to help fund their tour. Nothing wrong with that, right? So if the music is composed of silence, does that cross some line?

Interesting.

Take a look at the two videos embedded below. The first one is more of a commercial, showing different aspects of life with a Google watch. The second one is more detailed, a bit more of a mission statement.

The linked blog post lays out four keys to Google wearables:

• Useful information when you need it most. Android Wear shows you info and suggestions you need, right when you need them. The wide variety of Android applications means you’ll receive the latest posts and updates from your favorite social apps, chats from your preferred messaging apps, notifications from shopping, news and photography apps, and more.


• Straight answers to spoken questions. Just say “Ok Google” to ask questions, like how many calories are in an avocado, what time your flight leaves, and the score of the game. Or say “Ok Google” to get stuff done, like calling a taxi, sending a text, making a restaurant reservation or setting an alarm.


• The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.


• Your key to a multiscreen world. Android Wear lets you access and control other devices from your wrist. Just say “Ok Google” to fire up a music playlist on your phone, or cast your favorite movie to your TV. There’s a lot of possibilities here so we’re eager to see what developers build.

It’ll be interesting to see how these devices actually perform once they actually appear in the wild. Some questions:

How is the battery life? How do you recharge them? I assume the answers to these will vary by manufacturer.

Most importantly to me, do I have to have an Android phone in my pocket in order for a Google watch to work?

I assume the answer to this last question is yes. If so, where does this leave Samsung? Has the first giant splintering begun?

Before there were Apple Stores, before big box retailers like Best Buy, there were the mom and pop computer shops. It’s where you’d go to buy your first Apple computer, where you’d get supplies like floppy disks and perforated computer paper (one long sheet of paper, perfed into individual pages, sprocket feed holes on the side). More importantly, it’s where you’d go to get your questions answered, buy your software (or find shareware), and get your computer fixed.

The very first of these shops was FirstTech in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

When Apple first began selling its pioneering personal computers in the late 1970s, its first batch of machines went to Team Electronics in the Twin Cities.

Team Electronics eventually morphed into FirstTech, a Minneapolis tech dealer that has prided itself on being the world’s first Apple reseller — and being symbiotically associated with the Cupertino, Calif.-based personal-technology giant.

Soon, though, FirstTech will be no more.

The independent Uptown purveyor of Macintosh machines and Apple iOS mobile devices said Wednesday it is closing. Its last day is March 29. A going-out-of-business sale begins Thursday.

A sad, sad day.

Big, big fan of Seth MacFarlane. He is one talented individual.

Some favorite questions:

Q: How is it recording an extended scene with yourself, like the episode of family guy where Stewie and Brian get locked in a bank vault? Do you do it all at once? Is there anyone else around? Is it weird?
Seth: Often I’ll record one voice first, leaving pauses for the other character’s lines. I’ll then play back the first character in my headphones while voicing the second character, so it feels like I’m playing opposite another actor.

Q: If we were to discover evidence of alien life in the next 50 years which would you prefer it to be; intelligent life somewhere in our galaxy, or microbial life somewhere in our solar system?
Seth: I’d like to see intelligent life discovered here in Los Angeles. (slowly takes a sip of beverage while never breaking eye contact with you)

Q: What is the one MAIN thing you want viewers to take away from watching Cosmos?
Seth: Always think critically. The more incredible the claim, the more concrete the proof we should demand before accepting it. Oh, and let’s rebuild our space program.

Lots more. Follow the link and enjoy.

I’ve always been a voracious reader. When I was a kid, I spent a good amount of time reading every single Hardy Boys book I could get my hands on.

This piece on the true nature of Franklin W. Dixon, whose name was on the cover of every one of these books, was crushing. Not just because Mr. Dixon was a complete fiction, but because of the appalling treatment of the people who actually did write these books.

There have been moments, as an adult, when I’ve thought about rereading one of the books, perhaps The Tower Treasure, which was the very first one. But after reading the linked article, not so much.

As you’d expect, these are some great pictures. But the national winner, the first one on the page, just blows me away. It looks like a painting. Incredible capture.

From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and Google, many big Internet successes depend on coaxing people into sharing every last bit of information about themselves and their lives.

But a five-week old social app, Secret, is testing the limits of just how much sharing Silicon Valley thinks is a good thing. That’s because the sharing is done anonymously. And, as it turns out, much of the chatter is about Silicon Valley itself — offering a rare, unvarnished look at the ambitions, disappointments, rivalries, jealousies and obsessions of the engineers and entrepreneurs who live and work there.

Interesting writeup on the industry’s reaction to Secret. Personally, I feel like I need to wash my eyeballs after reading some of these posts. Anonymous posting brings out the worst in people. And maybe that’s why they found it so easy to raise $8.6 million.

Good luck with that.

Benjamin Mayo (from 9to5Mac): I am slightly obsessed with the anecdote about Jobs throwing a pen in your face. Is the story true?

Eddy Cue: No it’s not.

‘Nuff said.

No way to verify this (at least not yet) but take extra care if you find yourself heading over to the EA Games site.

The phishing site attempts to trick a victim into submitting his Apple ID and password. It then presents a second form which asks the victim to verify his full name, card number, expiration date, verification code, date of birth, phone number, mother’s maiden name, plus other details that would be useful to a fraudster. After submitting these details, the victim is redirected to the legitimate Apple ID website.

Seems like a pretty obvious phishing attempt, but people still fall for this or they wouldn’t keep doing it.