href weekly | May 19 – May 25 2025

Bits

“Users were granted a somewhat awkward email address of username@davidbowie.com, along with 5MB of personal web hosting.” https://hackaday.com/2025/05/19/remembering-the-isp-that-david-bowie-ran-for-eight-years/

“Jazz must swing – musicians agree on that. However, even a century after the beginnings of jazz, there is still no general agreement what exactly constitutes the swing feel. With a dedicated experiment and data analyses on more than 450 well-known jazz solos, we have tried to unravel some secrets of swing.” https://www.ds.mpg.de/swing

Music & Sound

It ain’t the banks
And it ain’t the taxes
It ain’t the pay day loans and the high rent homes
And predatory fees and practices
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vjaimSK4E

Fascist Discotheque https://soundcloud.com/desdemonas/fascist-discotheque

“a triumphant return for echoing past glories while remaining analytical, steadfast, and inquisitive.” https://daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/stereolab-instant-holograms-on-metal-film-review

“Over the last four decades, McCaughey has been the Mad Hatter at an eternally rocking tea party where pals from Wilco, The Decemberists, The Bangles, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, NRBQ, The Dream Syndicate, The Posies, and others help bring his slightly skewed visions to life.” https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/scott-mccaughey-album-guide

Comics

“Those who see journalistic neutrality as an aspirational myth will value the narrative and moral force of the work and appreciate how openly the artist journalists reveal their own values and conflicted perceptions.” https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2025/05/22/Comics-Power-Moral-Horror-Spiegelman-Sacco-Gaza/

Politics & Economics

“Get in the room with other people (more D.I.Y. and I.R.L.). Embrace the analog, which can’t be surveilled by artificial intelligence. Reach out to unexpected, even problematic (I prefer “problemagic”), allies, with different but compatible definitions of justice.” https://archive.ph/85QND

“Psychedelics have been swept up into the well-rehearsed capitalist playbook where private players are fabricating exclusionary rights over what are ultimately the products of collective human struggle and intellectual achievement.” https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/05/22/Rise-Psychedelic-Capitalism/

href weekly | May 12 – May 18 2025

Bits

“Since last year, the app hasn’t been able to upload non-media files like documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, etc., due to Google’s restriction on file access permissions. Following widespread complaints from users, Nextcloud raised many appeals with Google, seeking a resolution to the issues. However, despite these efforts, they received no meaningful responses or solutions from them.” https://news.itsfoss.com/google-gatekeeping-nextcloud/

Photography

Light fantastic: the road trip that inspired Paris, Texas – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/jan/30/wim-wenders-paris-texas-road-trip-in-pictures

Music & Audio

A Goldmine for Beat Diggers in the ’90s, Folk Funk Makes A Comeback https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/paul-hillery-folk-funk-feature

It’s wicked fine, fine, fine
They say while they’re whalin’ on short line
And vanish right out of my sight ..
https://kimdeal.bandcamp.com/track/coast-1

Politics & Economics

“At the end of the day, any progressive government should see steady improvement of the quality of life of working people as its lodestar of legitimacy and political strength. Redistribution is part of that, but so is organizing for growth. Leaving coddled corporate class to steer our economy in partnership with a government unable to resist giving it virtually everything it wants is no longer tenable.” https://thewalrus.ca/corporate-welfare-is-canadas-most-expensive-addiction/

“..this effort to separate the price of one family’s home from the broader price of a home on the market is nonsensical. If you want to drive down the cost of purchasing a home, you have to also reduce the price of existing homes. If you don’t want to reduce the value of these homes, then you are in fact committing to having demand exceed supply — the very issue that led us to the crisis in the first place.” https://archive.ph/NeOnF