December 19, 2013
Written by Dave Mark
Pretty impressive group of nominees:
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has officially announced next year’s inductees: Nirvana, Kiss, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Cat Stevens and Linda Ronstadt will all join the class of 2014. The E Street Band will be given the Award for Musical Excellence and Beatles manager Brian Epstein and original Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham will both receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers.
On Nirvana getting nominated this year:
Artists are eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single. Nirvana, whose first single “Love Buzz” came out in 1988, are entering the institution their first year of eligibility. “That’s really no surprise to me,” says Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Joel Peresman. “People see the relevancy of that band. We’re just getting into the creative of the show, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with that performance. They have to figure it out.”
December 18, 2013
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Jim and Dan talk about the new Mac Pro’s, the Universal Audio Apollo, Nokia’s latest commercial, how to get better at guitar without practicing, and more.
Sponsored by Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME1213 for 25% off), Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), and Squarespace (use code DANSENTME12 for 10% off).
Written by Jim Dalrymple
If you’re going to get a lens for your iPhone 5c, it might as well be a cool color. I’ve been meaning to try these lenses out.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
ToneCloud is a sharing platform that allows BIAS users to interact with each other and share their custom amps right inside BIAS. Users can now explore popular and latest custom amp models, and can further search by music genres or keywords. Also, sharing is more intuitive than ever: an upload button is always visible in BIAS no matter in what stage of the amp creation process, this makes sharing much easier and faster.
This company is incredible. Good work.
Written by Dave Mark
Hayao Miyazaki is a genius, no doubt. Spirited Away is one of my all-time favorite films, though Ponyo and Princess Mononoke run a close second.
The Wind Rises looks to be Miyazaki’s final film. Very sad. The English-language cast includes Emily Blunt, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Stanley Tucci, John Krasinski and Mandy Patinkin. Fantastic.
Should hit US theaters about 21 Feb, 2014. Can’t wait.
Written by Dave Mark
Data stickies is a design concept, but not necessarily a pipe dream. There’s some real science here.
dataSTICKIES are conceptualized to be made in graphene, a ground-breaking new material which is a flat mono-layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two dimensional honeycomb lattice with a minimum thickness of one atom. A paper thin sheet of graphene has the capacity to carry huge volumes of data.
The idea would be to have a stack of data stickies behave like a daisy chained set of hard drives. When you stick the sticky on your monitor (or a sticky-ready surface connected to your computer), all the stickies would appear as mounted volumes on your computer.
Love the design, obviously there are many practical hurdles to overcome. But this type of conceptualization is exactly what R&D should be all about. Let the haters hate. I say bravo and keep dreaming and scheming.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Clearly they post production did a great job replacing the igloo with a real house.
Kids, this is why you don’t do drugs while making a TV ad.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Lyve Minds’ answer to the problem is to recreate the cloud in your living room. The company’s apps will let phones, tablets and computers talk to each other and access personal media on each of them. Lyve supports iOS, Android, Windows and Mac OS at launch, with plans to add more platforms down the road. The company’s apps will back up photos from a mobile device to other devices in the network, free up and reallocate space and always keep multiple copies of each file.
It will be interesting to see how Tim Bucher pulls this off.
Written by Dave Mark
I absolutely cannot wait. A powerhouse and a thing of beauty.
The Mac Pro is available with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at $2,999 (US); and with a 3.5 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of VRAM each, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage starting at $3,999 (US). Configure-to-order options include faster 8-core or 12-core Intel Xeon E5 processors, AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of VRAM, up to 64GB of memory, and up to 1TB of PCIe-based flash storage. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at www.apple.com/mac-pro.
Yes please.
Written by Dave Mark
In a rare blog post, John W. Thompson, a member of Microsoft’s board of directors and chair of the board’s search committee, updated the world on the progress of Microsoft’s CEO search.
As the chair of the Board’s search committee, I’m pleased with our progress. The Board has taken the thoughtful approach that our shareholders, customers, partners and employees expect and deserve. After defining our criteria, we initially cast a wide net across a number of different industries and skill sets. We identified over 100 possible candidates, talked with several dozen, and then focused our energy intensely on a group of about 20 individuals, all extremely impressive in their own right. As you would expect, as this group has narrowed, we’ve done deeper research and investigation, including with the full Board. We’re moving ahead well, and I expect we’ll complete our work in the early part of 2014.
Best of luck. A critical choice. Take the time to get it right.
Think about the physics involved in this bike trick. First, he flips the bike over. That pulls him into motion completing his first flip. And this gives him the momentum to complete the second flip. It’s all quite beautiful. Give it a watch.
A lot has been written about the National Radio Quiet Zone.
The United States National Radio Quiet Zone is a large area of land centered between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia and the Sugar Grove Research Facility at Sugar Grove, West Virginia. The Radio Quiet Zone is a rectangle of land approximately 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2) in size that straddles the border area of Virginia and West Virginia. It includes all land with latitudes between 37° 30′ 0.4″ N and 39° 15′ 0.4″ N and longitudes between 78° 29′ 59.0″ W and 80° 29′ 59.2″ W.
Inside the quiet zone, you can’t use a cell phone, can’t use microwave oven. No wireless internet. Nothing that generates radio waves that might interfere with the giant radio telescopes at Green Bank and Sugar Grove.
I found this video charming, especially the part that describes visitors trying to deal with the fact that they can’t use their iPads and iPhones.
December 17, 2013
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Great tip from Gabe Weatherhead. I didn’t know you could do this.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I like Native Instruments’ products, so there is no reason not to give it a try. I downloaded it.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
STOP IT! Pay the money and go away you thieving bastards.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I hate when companies do stuff like this.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Dustin Curtis:
The best way to predict the future is to think about desire. The problem with desire is that it tends to be bounded by what’s actually possible; as we grow older, our imaginations seem to develop artificial caps that limit our ideas to things that are reasonably achievable in the short term. But who cares about what is reasonable? Here’s what I want.
Yes, far fetched, but if you’re going to dream, dream big.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Samsung is said to be planning its own Apple-like retail push across the U.S., as the company recently hired an ex-Apple senior store designer, according to a new report.
Why the fuck not, they copied everything else Apple did.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Steven Aquino:
From a pure design perspective, aesthetically speaking, it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize the new shapes. They are indeed ugly, but the overall importance of this new addition trumps the way in which they’re presented. That is to say, regardless of how the buttons look, the sheer fact that they add a level of desprately-needed contrast makes the buttons a huge usability win, and likely — rightfully — will garner much praise from the visually impaired segment of the accessibility community.
Designers need to remember this when criticizing the new button shapes.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
This looks like a nice stand. It’s inexpensive too.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Anthony Stauffer:
I created the Slight Return lessons to share what I’ve learned from this song over the past 18 years. I’ve taken the major themes that Stevie used when he played it, and distilled it into three different solos – beginner, intermediate, and advanced. These lessons will allow you to start working on this style of soloing, no matter what skill level you’re at.
I really like Anthony’s lessons. This is a paid lesson, but there are plenty of free videos available too.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The Loop Magazine 2.1 was released today with a few significant changes including:
- Push notifications for new issues including background download
- App now remembers your previous location
- Improved sharing
- Cover art will change with each issue on your device
- Bug fixes
The update is free and is available from the App Store.
Written by Shawn King
Looking Up:
There’s something special about the quality of sound when it snows. Those who live in parts of the world that experience snowfall know it well — an eerie, muted stillness that you hear from your bed, which betrays the season’s first snowflakes before you fling open the curtains in excitement.
Thos of us lucky enough to live where it snows are familiar with this phenomenon. Knowing why it happens doesn’t detract from the wonder of it. Thanks to Jeff Carlson for the link.
Written by Shawn King
Buzzfeed:
In early 2014, a series of devastating catastrophes bring about Armageddon. Papers of record like the New York Times soberly report this news.
Utterly hilarious. Thanks to Ian Betteridge for the link.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Apple released its “Best of 2013” list this morning, naming the top apps, music, podcasts, TV shows and movies in the App Store. I’m very proud to say that The Loop Magazine was chosen as one of the top magazines in Newsstand.
Thank you.
Written by Dave Mark
This is a pretty big deal.
“A quarter of a million people traverse Market Street every day, from all walks of life,” Mayor Ed Lee said of the new Wi-Fi service. “Now they can access information, find out when their next bus is coming, or peruse local job listings, all for free. This is a significant first step in my vision of connectivity for our city.”
If San Francisco somehow achieves its goals of free wi-fi for the entire city, cable and phone companies that serve the city will no doubt take a huge hit. I suspect that the rate of cord-cutting (people who drop cable and get the majority of their media-related services from the net) will increase dramatically. Cell phone data plans will become unnecessary. Free alternatives to for-pay cell and land-line phone, TV, and, of course, internet will be available.
I can only imagine the gnashing of teeth going on inside Comcast headquarters as they read this news.
