Recently updated blogs

The thing I worked on the longest, in my Echo Nest / Spotify time, was calculating artist similarity. In the Echo Nest days, when we didn't have direct listening data, we derived scores for pairs of artists based on patterns of shared descriptive words found in web pages about each of them. Or, more accurately, web pages maybe about them, because figuring out whether any given blob of text that …

The obsession with how my monitors fit my workflow (what workflow?) continues. Yesterday I went from a side-by-side horizontal setup to a vertical display on the left and a horizontal display in the center. Not sure what to put on the vertical display in the absence of documents that need the height, but for now I threw Apple Music and Dash over there. Using macOS’s new window tiling feature to …

[1989]Here's an old school Rage classic I'd forgotten about. Roddy was a mysterious minor cult celebrity in my house at the time. Here was a guy who'd been in The Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus, The Johnnys, The James Baker Experience, The Dubrovniks etc. but he always seemed to leave these bands after their first single, just before they became successful. I never knew if he was just a loose cannon so …

Shoot Many Robots Developer: Magic Pockets (music and sound engine are credited to Shin’en) Publisher: Atari Europe Release Date: September 24th, 2004 (EU only) Available On: Game Boy Advance Genre(s): Action (duh), Run & Gun, Beat ‘Em Up, 2D Platformer Going into this, I had no idea what Action Man was. The sound of it reminded me of G.I. Joe, which is something that was way, way before my time …

Barshasketh - Antinomian Asceticism (New Zealand, World Terror Committee): The album starts very potently but starts losing its direction towards the middle / ending part. Still quite enjoyable, well-written stuff. [3.25 / 5]Harvst - Mahlstrom (Germany, Onism Productions): I would prefer not to. [2.25 / 5]Infernal Cross - Blood Red Triumph (Sweden, Self-released): Devilish black / thrash metal with everything at the right place. [3.25 / 5]Luring - Malevolent Lycanthropic …

Perhaps, even though they are not themselves explainable, AIs can help us engineer explainable systems. But I’m not optimistic. It feels like we’re on a path to keep making systems harder for humans to configure, and we keep expanding our reliance on superhuman intelligence to do that for us. The Configuration Crisis and Developer Dependency on AI LLM series at The New Stack

I was already dreaming of starting my own business before I ever got my first job. My very first job was at a movie theatre in the late twentieth century. In my breaks I would brainstorm ideas for starting a web design business. I would fantasize about proposing to redesign the movie theatre's website. When the boss wasn't looking, I would sketch out my web site and my pricing on …

I’ve continued to lean into my shmup era lately, focusing mostly on Touhou 10 and Blue Revolver: Double Action (a brand new remaster of an acclaimed 2016 game). I started playing Blue Revolver some time after making that last post, and it is a proper jewel of a game. Actually: it’s the very next shmup I would recommend to a newcomer after ZeroRanger. ZR taught me why I should care …

Let’s review this year’s progress by looking east to west. The post Think the clean energy revolution moved fast last year? Just wait. appeared first on Canadian Climate Institute.

The post Artistic exchange in Footnote appeared first on STACK magazines.

Yesterday, the Mastodon team announced it would be handing over control of its project to a new non-profit organization. The timing of this announcement is perfect given everything that’s happening with WordPress, Meta, and… well, everything else. To date, I think Eugen Rochko has done an excellent job stewarding Mastodon, but I also might have said the same thing about Matt Mullenweg a few years back. Why gamble when you …

Ambitious literature and public policy each seek to shape reality. Few places embody the power of artists and policymakers to arrange space and time more persuasively than Washington, D.C. Read on Places Journal

The Guildhall Art Gallery, situated right next to the Guildhall itself, was built in 1999 to house the art collection of the City of London, which had been put into storage during World War II and essentially never taken out. The building was designed in postmodern style by the architect Richard Gilbert Scott, grandson of the Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott. Echoes of the gothic and neoclassical styles that …

His Majesty King Kevin Yakum, President of North West House of Kings, and Colleagues Receive Dr Nsah Mala and SOIF MD Cat Tully in Yaoundé, 11 September 2024. LR: Dr Nsah Mala, His Majesty King Gilbert Njong III (Mbessa), SOIF MD Cat Tully, His Majesty King Kevin Yakum (Bambalang), His Majesty King Wilson Ayo (Modele), and His Majesty King Mbah Yangsi (Akeh) Dr Nsah Mala, a Next Generation Foresight Practitioner, …

02024 Daily News This is the third year we’ve collected headlines daily. The original idea behind this was that news stories don’t last a day, but we ready them in a serialized daily format. We wanted a way to look at trends and breadth of a story. These headlines are completely biased to both personal tastes, presumed historic value and news corporations publication interest. Every year a new smart phone …