Davey Alba, writing at BuzzFeed:
Since at least 2012, Spotify users like Meghan have been asking the music streaming giant for a block feature for a simple reason: Over the years, harassers and abusers have used the service to stalk and intimidate victims. […] A company representative told BuzzFeed News that Spotify “does not have any timeline on plans for a block feature.”
One of the last interviews with Anthony Bourdain has been published. It’s full of wonderful anecdotes and stories:
I do find that my happiest moments on the road are not standing on the balcony of a really nice hotel. That’s a sort of bittersweet — if not melancholy — alienating experience, at best. My happiest moments on the road are always off-camera, generally with my crew, coming back from shooting a scene and finding ourselves in this sort of absurdly beautiful moment, you know, laying on a flatbed on those things that go on the railroad track, with a putt-putt motor, goin’ across like, the rice paddies in Cambodia with headphones on… this is luxury, because I could never have imagined having the freedom or the ability to find myself in such a place, looking at such things.
To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it’s a story you can’t tell. It’s a story you almost by definition, can’t share. I’ve learned in real time to look at those things and realize: I just had a really good moment.
Film Crit Hulk, writing at The Verge:
One of the most popular solutions that arose in online culture was, again, the mantra of “don’t feed the trolls.” This meant that any time a troll popped up in an online situation making inflammatory remarks, you were supposed to ignore them because responding would derail the thread and give them the attention they wanted. What no one seems to remember is it never worked, practically on any level. There was always someone who wanted to troll back in the opposite direction, someone who genuinely got offended for a personal and valid reason, or someone who wanted to try to be reasonable. Instead of solving anything, “don’t feed the trolls” became a motto for people who want to act above it all or regale us with stories about how much harder it was to troll back in their day when they had to troll uphill, both ways! But most of all, it became the mantra of how to ignore online abuse completely.
Fantastic piece. Definitely worth the read.
Contributor Craig Manning is a madman. He’s written up thoughts on his 100 favorite albums from the 2000’s. One-Fucking-Hundred. There’s some great stuff in here:
The resulting project took me the better part of six months. I chipped away at it every night before bed, taking just 10 or 15 minutes before I turned in for the night to sit down in front of the computer, choose an album, and cast myself back in time to when it captured my world. Slowly, the list took form. Eventually, I realized that the list wasn’t just a catalog of music, but also an autobiographical story, told through albums that I loved in the most formative years of my life. As it turned out, writing about the music I loved between the ages of nine and 18 meant writing a lot about my life. Some of the stories told below are things I’ve revealed before. Some are things I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. All form the backbone for a collection of albums that is completely “me.” I didn’t write these records, but there’s at least a song from every single one of them that feels like it came directly from my heart.
Twitter will begin removing tens of millions of suspicious accounts from users’ followers on Thursday, signaling a major new effort to restore trust on the popular but embattled platform.
The reform takes aim at a pervasive form of social media fraud. Many users have inflated their followers on Twitter or other services with automated or fake accounts, buying the appearance of social influence to bolster their political activism, business endeavors or entertainment careers.
I wrote about this five months back and all I can say is: finally.
Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:
Apple today released iOS 11.4.1, and while most of us are already looking ahead to all the new stuff coming in iOS 12, this small update contains an important new security feature: USB Restricted Mode. Apple has added protections against the USB devices being used by law enforcement and private companies that connect over Lightning to crack an iPhone’s passcode and evade Apple’s usual encryption safeguards.
If you have an iPhone, you should install this when you get the chance.
Starbucks have announced they will be eliminating plastic straws globally by 2020:
Today, Starbucks Coffee Company announced it will eliminate single-use plastic straws from its more than 28,000 company operated and licensed stores by making a strawless lid or alternative-material straw options available, around the world. Starbucks, the largest food and beverage retailer to make such a global commitment, anticipates the move will eliminate more than one billion plastic straws per year from Starbucks stores.
Samba TV is one of the bigger companies that track viewer information to make personalized show recommendations. The company said it collected viewing data from 13.5 million smart TVs in the United States, and it has raised $40 million in venture funding from investors including Time Warner , the cable operator Liberty Global and the billionaire Mark Cuban.
Samba TV has struck deals with roughly a dozen TV brands — including Sony, Sharp, TCL and Philips — to place its software on certain sets. When people set up their TVs, a screen urges them to enable a service called Samba Interactive TV, saying it recommends shows and provides special offers “by cleverly recognizing onscreen content.” But the screen, which contains the enable button, does not detail how much information Samba TV collects to make those recommendations.
Donald Trump’s new tariffs are going to be horrible for synthesizer manufacturers. The company behind the the Moog synthesizer has posted an open letter on their website:
A U.S. tariff (import tax) on Chinese circuit boards and associated components is expected to take effect on July 6, 2018.
These tariffs will immediately and drastically increase the cost of building our instruments, and have the very real potential of forcing us to lay off workers and could (in a worst case scenario) require us to move some, if not all, of our manufacturing overseas.
Miles Teller has nabbed the role of Goose’s son in Top Gun 2.
Teller will star opposite Tom Cruise in the long-in-the works sequel that sees Cruise, reprising his role as the hot-shot pilot with the call sign Maverick.
Josh Constine, writing at TechCrunch:
The right music can make a boring photo or video epic, so Instagram is equipping users with a way to add popular songs to their Stories. […] Thanks to Facebook’s recent deals with record labels, users will be able to choose from thousands of songs from artists including Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris and Guns N’ Roses.
And:
When friends watch a music-equipped Story, the song will post automatically. They’ll also be able to tap on the sticker to see artist and song title info, but for now these stickers won’t link out to a musician’s Instagram page or their presence on streaming services — though that would certainly be helpful. I also suggest that Instagram should create deeplinks that artists can share with their fans that automatically opens the Stories camera with that song’s sticker added.
Good idea.
Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy and Hayley Williams of Paramore sat down with Stereogum:
Well, first of all this album cycle we’ve just been more intentional I think about really having more women around. For me, it’s a little bit of a selfish thing ‘cause for so long I was always the only female performer on tour. Especially when we were younger and we’d get booked onto other tours I was always the only girl. And it actually affected my sense of femininity and that part of my identity for a long time. So it’s sorta just been natural timing and also our collective interest as a band to have female energy around and obviously the music is awesome too.
Lisa Robinson, writing for Variety:
I tell him that Chuck D once told me that in the 1980s, “We was broke, but we wasn’t broken,” and Kendrick says, “I love that. I felt that for sure. Because the times we had to wait for food stamps every month, or we’d run out of food and had to wait for welfare to kick in, or walk to the County building—it wasn’t about the County building; it was about the walk to the building. Because if we didn’t have that County building to walk to, I wouldn’t have built that bond with my mother, or my father, to see that this is a family. What Chuck D says resonates so much with me, because we were broke, but we had us.” I ask him if he wants to start a family and he says, “This is the constant question, because I’m obsessed with my craft and what I’m doing. I know what I’m chasing for my life, even though I don’t know what it is. But it’s an urge that’s in my every day. That urge to make an ultimate connection with words to man. And I don’t feel I’ve done that yet.”
Marc Hogan, writing for Pitchfork:
Kanye West and Tidal can’t dodge a lawsuit that alleges they tricked fans into subscribing to the streaming service by falsely claiming it would be the only place to hear West’s 2016 album The Life of Pablo, a judge has ruled.
In an an 18-page opinion today that was obtained by Pitchfork, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Woods granted parts of Tidal’s motions to dismiss the proposed class-action lawsuit but denied other parts, allowing the case to go forward as it relates to a tweet West made on February 15, 2016.
Chris Payne, writing over at Billboard:
Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance played Warped in ‘04 and after drawing fervent crowds, were signed on for the next year early; by the time June ‘05 rolled around, “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “Helena” were MTV staples, improbably climbing the Hot 100. 700,000 kids came out that summer, more than any Warped before or since (for context, last year pulled 300,000). Individual bands regularly sold over $30,000 of merch per day. Bodyguards were needed for the first time. At summer’s end, the tour’s profits hit seven figures. But Warped’s summer-long slog paid another price; across 48 shows in 59 days, musicians and personnel grappled with oversized egos, volatile — if not occasionally hostile — environments, and a sideshow’s worth of distractions far from home, with a massive mainstream audience suddenly watching.
