Torley Lives

I recently got a Nokia N800 "Internet tablet" from a nice chap on eBay. Rewind a bit: I was mulling over getting an iPod Touch (in a freakish coincidence, my brother reveals he got one a coupla days ago and he had no idea I acquired this N800), but as fantastically stylish as it is, it didn't do everything I wanted. But what did I want?

I needed a useful machine to capture ideas on. Both vocal and written. I also wanted to read ebooks when on the go, and surfing/poking the Net would be a plus. So's playing music… and movies (like TED talks).

My research led me to the cheap availability of Nokia N770s (earlier sibling) on the market, and gosh darnit, I missed a US$156 sale on the N800s. After much digging, it became clear that instead of the iPod Touch (which lacks a mic), the N800 would be right device for me. It was difficult to find a bargain since they're being discontinued at various places, but like I said, eventually eBayed it for US$200 — which is still a great deal compared to its street price at introduction, and the US$400-something N810, which has somewhat more features but isn't worth twice the price, I feel.
 

The good great stuff off the top of my head (without bullet points):

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I have a couple tales to share of my experiences with other companies' support. One awesome, one sucky.

Let's start with teh suck, YouTube:

• YT support (ir)regularly takes 3 weeks or months to get back to me. To be fair: Nikhil Chandhok (who like me is not support, but has worked in product management) has been sending me blazing fast responses.
   
• They deny the existence of buttons that are clearly visible on their website. These aren't hard to find controls. (See below.)
   
• They have an nonsensically hard time following up on simple, solid bug repros (specifically, an audio distortion issue I've reported several times which affects their "high-quality" streams, but I've also noticed clipping on regular videos too. Yucky. (And yes, I'm not closed to alternatives like blip.tv; it's just that YouTube has such a big viewership and is supported to embed in far more places.)
   
• All in all, YouTube has wasted a lot of my time chasing around problems that glaringly exist, and squandered even more of their resources in the process.

Here's part of the ordeal I went through:

Proof that this control exists:

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Photo by wonker. 

I've made strong points before about drum 'n' bass lacking a wealth of really good artist albums — tragically, a non-trend that continues to this day. Like most dance music genres but even sparser, drum 'n' bass has grown a tree of notable singles over the years, but whole albums (which don't just dabble in the style on a couple tracks) which embrace the form and substantially shape, deform, warp it forward are frustratingly rare.

That's why I'm so happy to share that Pendulum's new album, In Silico, their first since 2005's Hold Your Colour, starts things off with the headbanging stomp of "Showdown", and ends powerfully with the live-action-anime-thrust of "The Tempest" too. Shy of 58 min., not as long a work as their 80-min. debut and hardly as collaborative. However, the tracks are, for the most part, tighter-produced and rich in melody while sacrificing none of the literally earthquaking DRUM and BASS heaviness which made them such a field success in the first place. Let's put it this way: Pendulum take what's essentially good about DnB, chop the slop and let it drop, and add special ingredients to the stew you've never tasted together before.

In Silico will definitely appall and provoke lots of guttertalk from technosnobs, and it already has. Wise words from lead singer Rob Swire about the DnB "echo chamber" aka "ideological incest":

my only real problem with dnb (which i also tried to point out with my other post but fucked it up)… is the insular thinking that sometimes pollutes every electronic scene. when people don't look outside their given genre / scene for musical inspiration, things tend to get boring and tired very quickly. the music goes in circles, repeating itself…the amount of fans never changes, new people aren't attracted to the scene to give it fresh input and shit gets stale very quickly. all the drum n bass i have really liked since i got into it sounded like it took inspiration from different places…

Well, all that spew in response can only result in more things being said about Pendulum — you know what they say about publicity — and if we were to rattle off a list of comparative features for In Silico like most tech products on the market today, it might go something like this:

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I often get asked to suggest music I enjoy. The following is some of what I've been listening to recently. It's mostly electronic, but if you're not into "that techno stuff", don't worry, don't be scared off: I love melody meshed with a memorable momentum of production, and it isn't boring robot music. (And hey, even Kraftwerk had a sense of humor.) My point being: listen, and if you like and want me to suggest more, let me know in the comments, 'kay?
 

Aril Brikha - "Winter" and "Bergain"


This guy's been known for "making techno that sounds like trance". Hmmm. What does that even mean? Heck if I know, labeling evils are near-meaningless to me, but what you should care about is he's got bouncy beats + bass underpinning a sparse weave of echoey chords and a lovely sensibility that makes you go, "If I was in the 80s in a Ferrari driving to the beach with mirrorshades attached to my face, I'd totally be bangin' my head to this!" Only not so obtrusively. A fine choice to photograph models to.

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