Tag Archives: audio

href weekly | August 11–17, 2025

Bits

“In practice, the scaling laws worked until they didn’t. The whole enterprise of teaching computers to think remains mysterious. We should proceed with less hubris and more care.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/what-if-ai-doesnt-get-much-better-than-this

“For the Torment Nexus to get built it needs to convince you that your only option for survival is to build the Torment Nexus, much like an AI company telling us that the only path to solving the climate crisis is to use what’s left of Earth’s resources to power its AI in the hope that it will come up with a solution to the climate crisis.” https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-not-build-the-torment-nexus

“Bellingcat’s Auto Archiver is a tool aimed at preserving online digital content before it can be modified, deleted or taken down.” https://github.com/bellingcat/auto-archiver

Sound & Music

A platform for synthesis and algorithmic composition, used by musicians, artists and researchers working with sound. #synth https://supercollider.github.io

“a friendly yet powerful creative coding platform that lets you and your friends and even AI agents jam together in real time by writing code that drives sound, visuals and a wide variety of connected devices such as MIDI synths – all staying perfectly in sync.” https://tau5.live/

href weekly | May 19 – May 25 2025

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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/