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Donkey King Score Achieved

Nintendo
Jason Tate

Wes Copeland has broken the all-time record high score for Donkey Kong.

It’s how he took the title, though that’s so staggering. Copeland did not lose a single Mario in the game. He took his first life all the way from the first level all the way to the end, cashing in the extra lives to obliterate all comers.

“This will be my last record score,” Copeland wrote on Facebook. “I don’t believe I can put up a game any higher than this.” Copeland had set 1.2 million as his ultimate goal in Donkey Kong, and said he’d retire from competition if he could reach that.

Read More “Donkey King Score Achieved”

Google Announces “Google Home”

Google
Jason Tate

Google has announced their own little device that lives in your home and you speak to and it does things for you, kind of like the Amazon Echo. From, The Verge:

It’s not portable, but the benefit of always being plugged in is that Google can make a more powerful speaker. Quieroz says that it “really fills the room” and that it will have “strong bass and clear highs.” That’s important, because one of the main use cases Google is foreseeing here is listening to music. The Echo isn’t great at that.

I like the idea of these devices being around and helping me with conversions while cooking, or checking basketball scores, or hopefully one day being able to control more home automation — I’m not convinced on them being great music listening devices yet.1

  1. I’ll reserve judgement until I can hear one in person. I do think this is potentially a great podcast speaker.↩

‘Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me’

Jason Tate

Steven Hyden released his new book, Your Favorite Band is Killing Me: What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life, this week.

Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually–what do these endlessly argued-about pop music rivalries say about us?

Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band is Killing Me focuses on a pop music rivalry, from the classic to the very recent, and draws connections to the larger forces surrounding the pairing.

I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve heard really good things and have always enjoyed Steven’s writing.

Kesha’s Billboard Music Awards Performance Blocked

Kesha
Jason Tate

Joe Lynch, writing for Billboard, on how Dr. Luke’s record label, Kemosabe Records, is blocking Kesha from playing the Billboard Music Awards:

“Kesha accepted an invitation to perform on the show and she received written approval from Dr. Luke’s record label, Kemosabe Records,” dick clark productions said in a statement. “Kemosabe subsequently rescinded its approval following a media report on Wednesday May 11 regarding Kesha’s appearance on the BBMAs. Unfortunately, Kesha and Kemosabe have since been unable to come to an agreement for Kesha to perform on the show.”

Utterly ridiculous.

Update: The performance is now back on with the following statement from the label:

Kesha’s performance on the Billboard Music Awards was always approved, in good faith. Approval was only suspended when Kemosabe learned Kesha was to use the performance as a platform to discuss the litigation. Now that Kemosabe has obtained assurances, that it is relying upon, from Kesha, her representatives and Dick Clark Productions that neither Kesha nor her supporters will use the performance as such a platform, the approval has been restored.

I repeat: utterly ridiculous.

Frank Turner on Safe Gigs for Women

Frank Turner
Jason Tate

Frank Turner, writing on his blog:

It’s actually really fucking dumb that I have to spell this out, but if you’re the kind of guy who has ever behaved like that towards a woman in any context, I’d like you to do two things: firstly, just be a fucking human, consider yourself in the other person’s shoes, ask yourself if you could defend your actions if publicly called out in front of your friends, your family, the whole crowd. And secondly, if that first part didn’t work, I’d like you to fuck off and never come to any of my shows again.

Remembering ’90s Swing Music

Stereogum
Jason Tate

Tom Breihan, writing for Stereogum, with a remembrance of the late ’90s swing revival:

Looking back, it’s hard to figure out how all this shit happened, but there are some threads to pick at. After grunge began to pass out of favor, this stuff seemed like its polar opposite: sharp rather than slovenly, crisp and efficient rather than wild and intuitive, knowingly silly rather than deadly self-serious. Within the rapidly atomizing alt-rock universe, there was a hunger for something smooth and sophisticated. A few years before the grunge revival popped off, there was the deeper-underground but just as silly lounge revival, with Combustible Edison releasing music on Sub Pop and a ton of Esquivel reissues coming out. But if you’re looking to blame the swing revival on anyone, blame Hollywood.

Sinéad O’Connor Found Unharmed in Chicago

Sinead O'Connor
Jason Tate

This morning there was a missing-person search for Sinéad O’Connor but thankfully local police tell The Hollywood Reporter that she was found, unharmed, in a Chicago suburb.

On Monday morning, a statement from the Wilmette Police Department said officers are “seeking to check the well-being of Sinead O’Connor. O’Connor reportedly left the Wilmette area for a bicycle ride yesterday at 6:00 a.m. and has not returned. A caller has expressed concern for her well-being, and no other information is available at this time.”

Twitter to Not Count Links and Photos in Character Limit

Twitter
Jason Tate

Sarah Frier, reporting for Bloomberg, that Twitter will no longer be counting images or links in their 140-character limit:

The change could happen in the next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The company declined to comment.

Good, finally, still feels like a half-measure.

Oasis Documentary Coming This Fall

Oasis
Jason Tate

A documentary called Supersonic, detailing the story of Oasis, will be released this fall.

The film is understood to chart the journey from the moment in 1991 when Noel joined his brother Liam’s Manchester-based band. Three years later Oasis would release their first album ‘Definitely Maybe’ – becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British history to date.

A Moon Shaped Pool of Money

Radiohead
Jason Tate

M.G. Siegler, writing on Medium, about the release of Radiohead’s new album and the idea of “up-selling” to your die-hard fans:

But the Radiohead release points to another way forward. One I’m far more excited about as a fan. Distribute broadly, upsell deeply.

That is, put your album out there for all (or most) to hear, but then pull in your truly die-hard fans to buy exclusive content at a premium. That is a natural extension of what Radiohead did in 2007 with In Rainbows. You know, the “pay-what-you-want” album. The clever call out to a soon-to-be-dying model was even more ingenious in hindsight. Now this reality is here.

Why do all old statues have such small penises?

Jason Tate

Ever wonder? How To Talk About Art History has the answer.

Firstly, they’re flaccid. If you compare their size to most flaccid male penises, they are actually not significantly smaller than real-life penises tend to be.

Secondly, cultural values about male beauty were completely different back then. Today, big penises are seen as valuable and manly, but back then, most evidence points to the fact that small penises were considered better than big ones

The More You Know™

Torn Between Two YouTubes

YouTube
Jason Tate

Shira Ovide and Leila Abboud, writing for Bloomberg, on the music industry’s love/hate relationship with YouTube:

More than half of Internet users in the U.S. listen to music on YouTube — by far the most popular access point — but YouTube is responsible for only 4 percent of revenue to the industry, according to a music industry trade group. The biggest record labels say Google should pay more, and they want more control over music that is responsible for what Bernstein Research estimated is one-quarter of all YouTube videos watched.

Safeguard for iTunes Coming Next Week

Jason Tate

Apple has given a statement about that “iTunes deleting your music” bug:

In an extremely small number of cases users have reported that music files saved on their computer were removed without their permission. We’re taking these reports seriously as we know how important music is to our customers and our teams are focused on identifying the cause. We have not been able to reproduce this issue, however, we’re releasing an update to iTunes early next week which includes additional safeguards. If a user experiences this issue they should contact AppleCare.

I’m not sure how they safeguard against a bug they can’t reproduce. Weird. Think they know about the bug that keeps showing me “intro to New Found Glory” in the “for you” section?