Everything is a Remix Part 2 (video).

DataMarket launches with international time series data.

25 Years of Digital Vandalism by William Gibson.

Unsolving the City: An Interview with China Miéville.

European robins may maintain quantum entanglement in their eyes a full 20 microseconds longer than the best laboratory systems and Particles can be quantum entangled through time as well as space.

Sustainism Is the New Black.

Dingsaller is a workspace for creating algorithmic compositions on the iPad.

Americans Have No Idea How Much Welfare They’re Getting

Binaural Beats = Synchronize Brainwaves & Alter Consciousness.

Phil Durrant on Reaktor and the Laptop as Improvisational Instrument.

Are Writers Powerless to Make a Living in the Digital Age?

Useful Resources and Tips for Managing Your Virtual Staff.

This DIY interface (YouTube) is impressive, but it just seems like buttons and sliders replicated on a touchscreen. I’d like to see such devices make use of true multi-touch gestures, such as pinch/expand, twist/rotate, 2/3/4-finger swipes and so on to control sound. Instead of yet another controller app (e.g. a bigger version of TouchOSC or an affordable Lemur-clone), I’ve been wanting to use musicmaking apps optimized for the mobile experience—perhaps a basic version of Live (incl. Impulse, Simpler and Analog instruments with a handful of essential midi and audio effects) or Propellerheads Rebirth for writing tracks. Something that could work as a standalone audio sketch pad, with the ability to transfer projects to the desktop version for further work. I started putting together a mock-up using screen grabs from Live before coming to a realization:

Rather than merely porting existing software to mobile versions, it’s important to examine the mental models that dominate the desktop. Most of the more popular audio suites are based on the recording studio-in-a box model, where the signals (midi info, audio from guitar, voice, synth, drums, whatever) are fed through a virtual mixing desk, using inline and outboard effects and processors, to be recorded in loops or longer segments before being placed in an arrangement to mix-down and master. Apple’s Logic Studio, Propellerhead’s Reason, Steinberg’s Cubase Studio and others are variations on this mental model.

Ableton Suite is my weapon-of-choice because of its flexible, on-the-fly, semi-modular approach that can be adapted to varying needs: looseness vs. precision, improvisation vs. control, performance vs. planning. Plugins and updates bring new instruments and effects, and endless routing and importing options make Live an audio ourobouros. Max for Live builds on this, with new resources for generating, shaping and routing signals, but Live’s clips>tracks>session>arrangement>mixdown>master>render model is still a largely traditional structure (albeit for me the best-of-all-possible-worlds for composing, performing and recording). Max is another side of this spectrum, where building blocks can be created, changed and arranged as needed in a virtual instrument/studio.

Most of the mobile musicmaking apps I’ve used so far (BeatMaker, 8Bitone, technoBox) shrink this virtual studio to the smaller screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch. They use virtual buttons and sliders for controls, sometimes spanning multiple screens. Several apps, though, show promise for emerging mental models, including SynthPond and Brian Eno’s Bloom and Trope. SynthPond’s affecters, reactors and orbits lend themselves to non-linear, interactive compositions. I imagine it would be a lot of fun to use on the iPad’s larger screen, esp. with new objects for generating, reacting, processing and moving sounds. Eno’s dynamic, generative pieces work well as apps, because they change and evolve rather than remain fixed to a certain textural arrangement on CD or MP3. These apps are systems for composing and generating music/sounds/spaces/moods and point the way for the possibilities of the iPad and beyond. Artists/composers/developers/companies/organizations that rethink the mental models with which we create and experience music will lead the way on these new and future devices.

Robert Henke, aka Monolake shares his custom Max for Live devices.

How to dispose of old electronics in a responsible way.

Top 7 Best Green iPhone Apps.

Ira Glass on Storytelling (YouTube): part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Design and Meaning: an interview with Nathan Shedroff.

Self-Destructing Bacteria Could Be the Key to Better Biofuels.

Incredible ‘Garbage City’ Rises Outside of Cairo.

How to protect your ideas in the digital age: Don’t. Build a reputation as someone who creates great ideas, sometimes on demand. Or as someone who can manipulate or build on your ideas better than a copycat can.

The practice of hanging out is consistently demonized by educationally-minded folks as a waste of time. Yet, it is in that space where youth learn to navigate social situations, make sense of impression management, and develop the social skills necessary to be productive adults.

The other extreme: low-alcohol beers.

Deep below New York City’s bustling streets lies a dangerous world inhabited by “sandhogs.”

The Rise and Fall of Design Within Reach.

How Robber Barons hijacked the “Victorian Internet”

Robert Henke talks with Rashad Becker about audio mastering.

Apple’s Mistake: An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the ability to win by doing better work.

Processing T-shirts 2009/2010.

ABC Oddity iPhone app for toddlers.

What design researchers can learn from hostage negotiators.

Christian Swinehart’s visualizations of Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

Reinventing the MBA: 4 reasons to mix business with design thinking.

Report: 237 millionaires in Congress.

Nutrition-style labels reveal companies’ social responsibility.

Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection.

The Botany of Desire: based on the book by Michael Pollan.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party (video).

Why do we often care more about imaginary characters than real people? A new book suggests that fiction is crucial to our survival as a species.

Everything Tracy Jordan Said in Season 3 of 30 Rock.

Danger Mouse to release blank CD after record label EMI reportedly cancelled his new album.

The coming wave of cellphone novels, Twitter fiction, sudden fiction, and flash fiction.

How using gestures can make you smarter.

The duplicability of recordings has had another unexpected effect. The pressure is on to develop content that isn’t easily copyable—so now everything other than the recorded music is becoming the valuable part of what artists sell.

Yudo announces 8Bitone Retro 8-bit Synthesizer + Sequencer for iPhone/iPod Touch.

Mark Bittman On Why Food Matters.

Ableton Live 8 and Studio 8 are finally out, so defrost your plastic! Or, you can download the demo (sans save and export, of course) to get your fix like the rest of us po’ folk.

Facebook, YouTube at Work Make Better Employees, says a recent study.

The next green fuel source: algae.

Herman Miller Replaces the Sample Catalogue With a Smart Web Site; someday we’ll be able to afford such brilliance.

He Charted the Moon Before Galileo, But You’ve Probably Never Heard of Him.

Jenny Holzer’s Protect Protect Show.

The Unreleased Recordings by Hank Williams.

Wrong Tomorrow is a database of provable predictions.

Novation announces SL Mk II; sweetness.

Fantastic design work followed by fantastic increases in newspaper circulation, by Polish newspaper designer Jacek Utko. His advice: “Give power to designers.” Right on!

Get Satisfaction as a Protection Racket.

A 10-month investigation by a team of researchers at the University of Toronto uncovered a broad Chinese espionage scheme that reached into foreign embassies, news services and even the office of the Dalai Lama.

The Top 5 Greenest Laptops.