How Headphones Changed the World – “A short philosophical history of personal music”, at The Atlantic Amanda Palmer And Steve Albini On ‘Piracy’: It Only Helps Musicians – Surprise! (NB: not actually surprising) Steve Albini “rejects the term piracy” and thinks sharing music for free helps musicians, especially those who tour and play lots of live gigs. BTW, if you’ve never read Steve’s rant about where money goes when you sign with a major label (linked from this article) then you definitely should. A respose Continue reading → Ravelry API – Wait, what? How did I miss this. Ravelry has an API now, and they’ve been using it internally since Feb 2012, so it isn’t just an unloved add-on. (You probably can’t follow the link, which is to the Rav API forum, unless you’re a member. But anyone who might be interested in this probably is already, so…) Our real first gay president – Newsweek says Obama’s the US’s “first gay president”, ignoring James Buchanan, who was openly gay in the 19th century. Continue reading → I just realised the other day that it’s been very nearly a whole year since I announced what I called “The Plan”: leaving Google and the tech industry, returning to Australia, and taking up sound engineering as a profession. I’ve spent a lot of the last year offline, sometimes in an intentional effort to get away from it all, and sometimes through happenstance, when other interests and activities have limited me to the small peephole to the Internet provided by my phone. In many ways Continue reading →