cityofsound

Autotag vs. Applescript

Been trying out Autotag ... not too bad, as reported by others earlier. Still a bit unsatisfying (the data look-up on FreeDB still sucks; UI is clunky), and the tags don't include those of iTunes3 (e.g. 'Composer' - essential for classical music). And certainly nothing interesting along the lines of 'location', 'utility' etc. - although that's maybe where the ID3 tag stops and user-based organisation starts - say, playlists etc.

[See also Ben's recent tracking of such issues at Magnetbox]

Anyway, this article on O'Reilly has a few more AppleScript-based options for cleaning up tags - and a little on the history of those increasingly important ID3 tags themselves.

O'Reilly Network: Cleaning iTunes

Birds, Cities, Song

Can't remember if I posted this before, as it's almost a year old (long time on the Internet, that). But, having spent much of the weekend tidying up, searching for bank statements and salary slips to accompany the looming tax return, I found a scuffed print-out of this fabulous piece over at the consistently, well, fabulous ftrain.com. What with Liverpool barely managing to draw nil-nil with Palace, it brightened what was otherwise a rather gloomy day:

"He is, in addition to being a musician, a strident progressive, and has persistently encouraged the other birds to be more accepting of the pigeons, among whom he ranks many of his closest friends."

Ftrain: A Musical, and Political, Bird

Venetians ensnared

Witold Rybczynski writes an interesting and useful article in this weekend's FT, but sadly conflates the reinvention of post-industrial cities with tourism only. Whilst rightly observing the importance of cultural reinvention as a tourist attraction, Rybczynski shortchanges the whole subject area by suggesting that a) certain types of industrial building are re-used as they are somehow redolent of past lives (ignoring the notion that those buildings are re-usable as they're supremely adaptive, as noted by Stewart Brand and others), and more importantly, b) in essence ignoring the city's new possibilities as nodes in global knowledge networks, generators in informational and cultural industries - producing well beyond the tourism dollar, in an economy of signs and space (as Lash & Urry would have it).

FT.com: Why we are all Venetians now

Streetsensation.co.uk

"London's favourite streets. Entire streetscapes showing over 2,750 shops, bars and restaurants in the liveliest areas of London - Oxford Street and Regent Street; Portobello Road and Notting Hill; the King's Road in Chelsea; Carnaby Street; Covent Garden, Bond Street; Knightsbridge; Soho and Chinatown; Islington and Camden"

Streetsensation.co.uk

Flippin' Music Business

Two excellent new pieces on the changing landscape around music and digital media.

First up, Tom Coates with recent thoughts on music:

"If music companies can weather the intermediate period between the limited, cable-utilising bandwidth of today and the potential multiple-computer + networked appliance households of the future (indeed if they can help facilitate such a world) then they could still survive and develop brand-new channels which could facilitate a faster and more immersive use of music generally."

Tom then goes on to outline a potential model, concluding:

"What I am attempting to outline is a way in which record companies might be able to approach making money by giving people real incentives to buy from them by improving the functionality, accessibility and utility of the music-listening experience rather than by trying to shut down technology that they don't approve of."

Plasticbag.org: Observations and Speculations on Music

Well worth a read. But the model described by Tom still provides for money to frequently change hands around music. Clay Shirky's latest piece, building on his 'mass amateurisation of publishing' ideas and applying to music, suggests that the efficiences of the Internet effectively undermine much of the economics around music. As with most things Shirky writes, he gets right to the crux of it.

"Digital changes in music have given us amateur production and distribution, but left intact professional control of fame. It used to be hard to record music, but no longer. It used to be hard to reproduce and distribute music, but no longer. It is still hard to find and publicize good new music. We have created a number of tools that make filtering and publicizing both easy and effective in other domains. The application of those tools to new music could change the musical landscape."

Shirky.com: The Music Business and the Big Flip

Oh, and rather more concisely, Matt Interconnected with a few salient observations on the industry's current position.

Silicon Alley

The latest re-hash of the old "Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Alley" thing?

"Analysts believe New York is ripe for the high-tech revolution since it already has key ingredients to thrive: Top academic institutions such as the University of Rochester and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and existing high-tech companies including IBM and Corning."

USA Today: Can high-tech boom make New York the next Silicon Valley?

Adaptive Design For Weblog Software

Great, really constructive, post by Matt Webb over at Interconnected:

"How to design software to itself be evolvable, and be open to other possibilities in the greater software ecology?"

Interconnected: Adaptive Design for Weblog Software

The Earliest Map?

"The oldest city plan discovered until now appears to be that of Çatal Höyük in Anatolia (Turkey), one of the oldest cities of the Neolithic. The map, painted onto a wall appears to represent the town itself."

Here's the map, simplified. Astonishing ... circa 6,200BC! More about early maps in general at this excellent history of information visualisation, and about this map in particular at turkeyinmaps.com.

Do The Right Thing about ID cards

"Lord Falconer says that in one of the widest ranging consultations conducted by a government, they've been fair swamped with positive endorsements of the Government's Entitlement Card plans. With just a few days to go before the end of the consultation, the Home Office is saying that overall the public's reaction is hugely positive."

NTK begs to differ, and here's where you get your chance to represent, via stand.org.uk. A Cynic's Guide To Entitlement (*cough* ID *cough*) Cards

The Wilhelm Scream

"A series of short painful screams performed by an actor were recorded in 1951 for the Warner Brother's film "Distant Drums." They were used for a scene where a man is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The recording was archived into the studio's sound effects library -- and it was used in many of their films since. "Star Wars" Sound Designer Ben Burtt tracked down the scream recording - which he named "Wilhelm" after a character who let out the same scream in the film "Charge at Feather River." Ben has adopted the scream as sort of a personal sound signature, and has included it in many of the films he has worked on. He and a small circle of sound effects people, including Richard Anderson and Steve Lee, continue the crusade to keep Wilhelm alive. The Wilhelm Scream continues to be heard in new films every year."

The Legend of the Wilhelm Scream (includes list of appearances)
The scream itself (.wav)
WNYC On The Media about the Wilhelm scream
[via Peter Marsh - thanks!]