2017 Holiday Gift Guide

Jason Tate Dec 6, 2017

I can’t believe it’s already December, but here we are. Like last year, I wanted to steal an idea I’ve seen on other websites and put together a few gift ideas that I think are worthy of your time. I have also updated my recommendations posts for movies, tv shows, books, software, podcasts, headphones, and miscellaneous stuff around the house, so the things on this list will be more focused on stuff not included in those posts and more geared toward things I’ve come across in the past year or so and think would make good gifts. As always, I only recommend things I’ve personally used and loved.

I used my Amazon affiliate link when the product showed up there, which gives our website a slight percentage back if you make a purchase, and therefore helps fund our continued existence. I hope you’ll find something cool, and feel free to drop your own recommendations in the comments.

If you’d like to get me a gift, becoming a supporting member or gifting another user a supporting membership for a year would mean the world to me.

Thanksgiving Week Is the Event College Basketball Needs

Jason Tate Nov 27, 2017

Mark Titus, writing at The Ringer:

The most absurd week ever of regular-season college basketball came to a close Sunday night/early Monday morning when no. 4 Michigan State held no. 9 North Carolina to 45 points, no. 16 Texas A&M blew out no. 10 USC in Los Angeles, and no. 1 Duke erased a 17-point second-half deficit to beat no. 7 Florida. There’s no way of fact-checking whether this was actually the most absurd regular-season week in college basketball history, of course, but I don’t think we need to bother. Shoot, these past seven days have been so wild that the “regular season” qualifier might not even be necessary. Wichita State’s comeback to beat Cal in the first round of the Maui Invitational happened last Monday, yet I could easily be convinced that it took place a decade ago because of all that’s transpired since.

The Voices in Blue America’s Head

Jason Tate Nov 23, 2017

The New York Times:

“Pod Save America” scored its first million-listener episode within its first several weeks, and it now averages 1.5 million listeners per show — about as many people as Anderson Cooper draws on prime-time CNN. Their podcast has come to occupy a singular perch in blue America; where an NPR tote bag once signified a certain political persuasion and mind-set, in the age of Trump, it’s a “Friend of the Pod” T-shirt.

Those numbers are insane. That said, the podcast is one of the few things that I look forward to each week to help navigate this current hellscape. It’s great.

You Vandal – ‘I Just Want to Go Back to Hell’ (Album Premiere)

Jason Tate Nov 16, 2017

Today we’ve got the premiere of You Vandal’s new album, I Just Want to Go Back to Hell, for your listening pleasure. The album is due out tomorrow, November 17th, but you can stream it right now below. If you like what you hear, pick it up over at Jump Start Records.

The album gives me a nice little power-pop/punk throwback sound, not unlike early The Ataris or New Found Glory. Catchy and breezy.

The Fermi Paradox

Jason Tate Nov 14, 2017

Tim Urban, writing for Wait But Why:

Everyone feels something when they’re in a really good starry place on a really good starry night and they look up and see this:
Some people stick with the traditional, feeling struck by the epic beauty or blown away by the insane scale of the universe. Personally, I go for the old “existential meltdown followed by acting weird for the next half hour.” But everyone feels something.
Physicist Enrico Fermi felt something too—”Where is everybody?”

This is one of my favorite post on the internet, but I had never linked it here. Now I have. Highly recommended reading.

SuperDuper 3.0

Jason Tate Nov 13, 2017

SuperDuper 3.0 has been released:

With that last bit of explanation, I’m happy to say that we’ve reached the end of this particular voyage. SuperDuper! 3.0 (release 100!) is done, and you’ll find the download in the normal places, as well as in the built-in updater, for both Beta and Regular users.
SuperDuper! 3.0 has, literally, many hundreds of changes under the hood to support APFS, High Sierra and all version of macOS from 10.9 to the the present.
SuperDuper! 3.0 is the first bootable backup application to support snapshot copying on APFS, which provides an incredible extra level of safety, security and accuracy when backing up. It’s super cool, entirely supported (after all, it’s what Time Machine uses… and it was first overall), and totally transparent to the user.

Fantastic app that I highly recommend. I have a reoccurring task scheduled to make SuperDuper clones of my entire hard drive as part of my back-up strategy.

We’re Building a Dystopia Just to Make People Click on Ads

Jason Tate Nov 1, 2017

TED Talk:

We’re building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines aren’t even the real threat. What we need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us — and what we can do in response.

This is good.

How Do You Go to a Gym, Though?

Jason Tate Oct 31, 2017

Casey Johnston, writing for The Hair Pin:

Kelly—I’m so glad you asked this, because as the Deepak Chopras and Oprahs and etc of the world will tell you, visualization is the key, or at least a key, to success. It’s impossible to prepare for every scenario but you wouldn’t know it to see my exhaustively anxious thought process. I am someone who tends to freeze up, and cannot, as they say, roll with the punches, so having thought through the motions does certainly help me. And Kelly, it can help you too.

This was hilarious.

Review: Julien Baker – Turn Out the Lights

Jason Tate Oct 24, 2017

This first impression was originally posted as a live blog for supporters in our forums on October 20th, 2017. First impressions are meant to be quick, fun, initial impressions on an album or release as I listen to it for the first time. It’s a running commentary written while listening to an album — not a review. More like a diary of thoughts. This post has been lightly edited for structure and flow.

It’s been too long since I’ve done one of these.

It’s been a while since there’s been a really hyped album coming out that felt right for something like this. But, this Julien Baker album seems just about perfect as we move into fall. Her last album, Sprained Ankle, is one of my favorite fall albums and it’s only a matter of time until this one cements itself in my cold weather rotation as well. In many ways it takes what the first album did and expands upon it in every way. It reminds me a little bit of how Manchester Orchestra took ILAVLAC and enhanced a variety of different aspects of that sound, and their songwriting, to take it up another level for METN. That’s the feeling I get from this album. It takes Julien’s songwriting to a new level, maintains the “it” factor that solidifies her as one of the most exciting and talented voices in music right now, and puts her in rarified air. It’s the kind of album I could see us talking about for years.

In a year that’s been filled with so many new albums, it’s hard to pick out the ones that I think will live a life longer than just this year. The ones that we will return to, talk about, and obsess over for years to come. What are the next classics? The next great albums? The ones all of us remember as the year it came out? I’ve heard a few this year that I think are in contention, albums that have knocked me on my ass, brought a huge smile to my face, and left me speechless … and then “Claws in Your Back” finished and I looked down at the hair standing straight up on my arm. Jesus. That’s new.

Fall Albums: Part Deux (Encore Episode 155)

Jason Tate Oct 20, 2017

On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined by special guest Ryan Gardner to talk about one of my favorite times of year and the music that comes along with it. We talk about why we like fall music, what makes something, specifically, a “fall album,” and then we dive into some of our favorite albums and songs that we think fit into this category. I’ve also put a playlist together (Apple Music and Spotify) that includes some of our favorite fall songs from the albums we talk about in the episode.

I’d love to hear other albums people associate with this time of the year, so hit me up on Twitter or in the forum and let me know what kind of music you break out when the leaves begin to change.

Brand New at the Fox Theatre in Detroit

Jason Tate Oct 17, 2017

Joel Faurote shot some photographs for us of Brand New and Nada Surf during their show at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, MI a few nights ago. You’ll find the galleries below.

How to Heal the Left-Liberal Divide

Jason Tate Oct 5, 2017

Pete Davis, writing at Current Affairs:

Roughly speaking, these two sides could be characterized as the “populist wing” and the “establishment wing” of the party, but even the divide’s terminology is a point of controversy between the feuding sides. The party’s left wing, for example, wants to call the conflict the “left-liberal divide.” Loyalist Democrats want to play down the divide, calling for unity on the grounds that Democrats are either (if they are younger, millennial types) all members of the Left, or (if they are older, Clinton-era types) all “liberals.” The Right, meanwhile, does not understand the divide, continuing to believe in a monolithic “radical left” filled with “radical liberals.” This leads to the funny situation, as one commentator noticed, where members of both the Left and the Right reach for the same “I made it through college without becoming a liberal” t-shirt.

This is a good piece.

Accidental Music Podcast (Encore Episode 154)

Jason Tate Sep 22, 2017

On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined by special guest Deanna Chapman. Deanna returns to the show to discuss music and technology. We talk about Brand New’s High & Low set (which Deanna saw in person), new albums from Mutemath, Foo Fighters, The National, PVRIS, and more, and then go deep on the latest Apple event. We talk about the new products, Apple Music, iOS 11, and what we think we want to upgrade and not upgrade.

Add Favicons to Tabs in Safari

Jason Tate Sep 11, 2017

Favicongrapher:

Faviconographer asks Safari.app for a list of all visible tabs (and their positions) in the current window, and for the URLs of those tabs.
It then uses that information to fetch the corresponding icons from Safari’s Favicon cache (WebpageIcons.db), and draws them above the Safari window.
It’s a “hack” — the cleanest solution would be Apple implementing Favicons in Safari — but it works surprisingly well.
Note: Faviconographer does not “hack” your system. It does not inject code into other apps or manipulate system files. In fact, it doesn’t even require Administrator access!

I’ve gotten used to not having favicons in tabs, but I know a lot of people live by them.