A recent music Discovery

A few Saturdays back, I was perusing the new releases rack at Princeton Record Exchange (PREX) and found an album with some beautiful artwork that had “Vampire Weekend” scribbled across the price tag (VW isn’t due for a new album for a while). I was excited, but resisted the impulse buy and went home empty-handed. With some research, I found that I'd just seen the debut album entitled LP from the group Discovery, made up of dynamic duo Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend and Wes Miles from Ra Ra Riot. I got my hands on the music, and the tracks kept me coming back for more as I tried to figure out what was going on in my headphones: pop, synths, electronic, catchy, groovy, and colorful; that’s what I heard. My roommate came back from work with the mp3’s on his iPod, and we rocked out to it for the next three days. For serious.

Call me crazy (people have) but I enjoy buying music. It’s the physicality of a real CD, popping it into a really loud stereo for the whole album experience. Or just putting it on a shelf and looking at it. The music’s is half the package, and the CD and artwork seal the deal. If the artist can convince me it’s worth paying for their music, I will, like a “thank you, I’m really digging this.”

A week of listening to Discovery convinced me it was time to buy. I called PREX and asked, “Do you have any copies of Discovery’s album left?”

“Do you want on vinyl or CD?”

I was startled. “Um, either.”

“Ya, we’ve got a bunch of copies here,” he answered.

Vinyl? They had it on vinyl? As in a record? When was I?

Then I’m standing in PREX, CD in my left hand and vinyl in my right. Why would I even consider buying an album if I don’t have a record player? But why would I buy the CD if I have the mp3’s already? Why am I even considering paying for this music if it's already on my iPod?

I bought LP on a vinyl LP, and I couldn’t be happier.

* * *

This music purchase was different than most. I stumbled across the album while browsing at a music store on the day before it was supposed to be officially released, had it on my iPod that night without paying for it, and grew to love it with friends. But after I had listened and decided it was worth buying, I had to consider what I would be spending my money on. It’s definitely not the music, because I’ve already got that. Maybe it was the visuals; records are big, and record sleeves have lots of visual real estate; 144 square inches, to be exact. They're also beautiful, and in the case of Discovery’s LP, records are really big and beautiful. The album artwork is amazing, and the backside plays right into my [not-so] secret love for colorful transit maps.

I opened the record when I got home to find a foldout wall poster with lyrics and visuals, as well as a piece of paper with a link to download the album in mp3 format. It was suddenly clear this piece of vinyl wasn’t supposed to replace the music on my iPod or compete with the CD sales, but exist completely independently. The album looks gorgeous, and the fold-out poster unravels the music’s lyrical conundrums. The whole package releases the musical experience from the virtual, intangible world of the iPod, Hype Machine and YouTube, and adds physical legitimacy that you can see and touch, show off and admire.

I’m being over-romantic, but I can’t help but smile when I look over and see that Discovery album on my wall. Sure, I’ll spin it and listen a precious few times, but it will mostly stand as a friendly reminder of a musical discovery that helped me remember why music isn’t just for the ears. Music is something we can see and share with others, pumping us up, making us dance, slowing us down, or letting us unwind. Bands and artists better realize that while people love to listen, people also love if you've got more to offer than just a bunch of mp3's. Since getting music for free is officially “no big deal,” bands have a new responsibility, something that maybe existed in some stint of glory days in the past. If they want to survive—financially, artistically, however—they’ve got to expand their act. It's no secret that it's the concerts that pull in the big bucks, not the CD and vinyl sales. But if you give people a reason to buy some CD's or vinyl’s or something else...well, then I’m interested.

The direction of the music industry is a hot topic right now, and it wouldn’t be out of line to say that the future of music depends on how the music industry deals with change. For incredibly insightful further reading, check out Bob Lefsetz’s blog, The Lefsetz Letter. It’s all good, but maybe start with these posts: Michael Jackson Turning Points, Keith Urban at Staples, and Social Networking.

And be sure to keep listening.
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Links:

• Princeton Record Exchange

• For Discovery audio and visuals, check out their page at http://dscvry.net/
  

Smiles Captured: A new photo album

My digital camera is very real proof that Japanese engineers are a very crafty bunch. There is a shooting mode called "Smile Detector." Here's what happens: you click the shutter button, and it goes into what I like to call "Smile Capturing Mode." When the camera's face detector detects a face with a little box, it waits until the person is smiling and SNAP! it automatically takes a picture. The "Smile Counter" on the screen increases by one, giving you an exact count of how many smiles you've captured. The amazing thing is that you don't take the picture, it just waits until it seems a smile and captures the moment.

When people hear about this, a short smile/no-smile photo session undoubtedly ensues. A large number of my digital photos are of people with a big, exaggerated, excited, toothy grins on their faces, sometimes with thumbs up, sometimes with eyes closed as they strain to smile, and sometimes with an unenthusiastic look across the rest of their face as they wonder the eff I was talking about when I said my camera could tell they were smiling.

In the camera's settings, you can adjust the "Smile Detection Level" to low, medium or high. I just think of this as setting the "Judgmental Camera Mode" to "open-minded, relatively picky, and severely harsh critic." In all honesty, the Smile Detector is pretty much a gag. Sometimes you don't want people smiling, or you're getting them from the side. For that, you really can't rely on the smile detector.

I have been reorganizing my digital photos on my new computer, and have discovered whole treasure trove of these smile detector photos. To commemorate this discovery, I'll be making a photo album just for these moments of fabricated joy.

Please don't judge the people in the photos too harshly; that's the camera's job.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!

Today's a big day in our nation's history: ERIC IS 23!

Happy Birthday big guy, hope you can blow out all the candles!

Dumpster Diving 2.0 and "What is New York City?"

Today, the NYTimes came out with an article talking about something I came across last week. It re-sparked some thoughts.

First written about here at Ready Made, some designers have started turning old dumpsters into pools, hidden away in the cracks of the city for a small, select group of people.

The New York Times ran the story today, citing Ready Made's original story about the dumpsters. I love this part:

After Mr. Weyland gave an interview to ReadyMade, the D.I.Y. design magazine, two weeks ago, breathless coverage and links began appearing all over the blogosphere. Soon the location was decoded. One post led to people standing on the roofs of cars in a nearby lot, snapping photos, Mr. Weyland said with an eye roll.

Who wouldn't want to get in on the action?!

Living in Princeton, I've been able to spend a bunch of my weekends in the city with friends. I've never lived in the city, but NYC's glamour as tourist destination wore off years ago, and now I go in for a more "legit" thrill. In my mind, New York is very much two different cities: one for the tourists who can see the sites, eat at the restaurants, drink at the bars, sit in the parks. The other is for people that live there. Life in the city when you're visiting friends exists off the streets and in the air, in apartment buildings, behind the scenes, getting buzzed-in or greeting a doorman.

It's the second kind of city that I prefer, where you fade into the woodwork and rely on each other for entertainment, rather than searching for a shallow thrill in the city-scene. Bars and restaurants become a backdrop for gatherings of friends and family, rather than a novel experience of fun seats and fancy drinks.

When the night is over, you don't head back to a sterile hotel or squeeze into an outgoing train. You go back home, back up into the city where the night continues in the privacy of your own place in the skyline.

These dumpster pools are neat because they're tucked away for a few people to enjoy. It's exclusive, but that's not really the draw for me. It's the private, personal space; it's an urban oasis off above the streets.

But seriously, how can I get in on the action?

Everyone is probably kicking themselves over this one.

This little invention has been floating around for a bit I've seen it mentioned on a bunch of different places already, but I think it's certainly worth a shout-out. In an act of brilliance, someone has come up with a key/ring combo:



I know, why didn't *I* think of that?!

I'm amazed at how much attention this little guy has gotten. Just goes to show how simple a solution can be, and how excited people can get about it once they've seen it.

via Wired and Thrillist

Their site: Amron Exptl.

Two photos on a sunny day

If you don't believe we landed on the moon, you'll love this.

...for the rest of us that don't think it was a huge cover-up, this is just devastating. Apparently all of the original video footage of the first moon landing was accidentally erased to use the tapes for later satellite missions. Irresponsible, frustrating, and a great loss? Yes, yes and yes. Hopefully they'll be able to recover footage from older TV broadcasts, as they propose to do.

Check out the story here: Houston, We Erased the Apoll 11 Tapes

Via NPR

New NYC Subway iPhone app let's you streamline your trip

To keep myself interested during my 1.5 hour commute into NYC last summer, I started trying to figure out how to streamline the trip. I realized that waiting at the front of the train as it arrived in Grand Central but me closer to the station, standing by the 3rd door of the second car in the S-train would give me the fastest exit, and then the 6th car on the downtown 1-line put me right next to the turnstiles to get up to the street.

Turns out I'm not the only person that was thinking like this. A new iPhone app, Exit Strategy, gives you the information in the palm of your hand so there's no trial and error involved. Apparently, people like the idea but are disappointed that there are so many subway lines and stops missing. Hopefully future versions will provide more complete coverage.

Check it out here: Exit Strategy

via Thrillist

Three interesting points on Princeton architecture

The bumps and shapes on top of the free-standing arcade outside of Frist Campus Center are not just random pieces of architectural flair, but are actually the tops of the letters of the words "FRIST CAMPUS CENTER." Due to disputes between the town, university and the architects, the signage was reduced to what we see now.

Frist Campus Center


Revealing the Letters


(Images courtesy of me.)
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In theoretical computer science, "P=NP" is an unverified identity that has kept computer scientists scratching their heads for a number of years. To make up for my severe lack of expertise in this field, my friend Dan O'Shea did a quick write up of the significance of P=NP:

Dan explains: "P=NP is widely considered the most important, unsolved question in computer science today. The question essentially asks whether a large class of problems labeled NP currently considered mathematically intractable are indeed tractable. The labels P and NP essentially describe how quickly the amount of time and memory required to solve a particular problem (say, sorting a list of N numbers) grows with the size of the problem (here, N). While P problems aren't necessarily easy, they tend to be significantly more manageable than NP problems. Many fields and applications, including the encryption that protects your personal information on the internet, rely on how impossibly time-consuming some NP problems are to solve. If P indeed equals NP, then many problems currently considered intractable could be solved efficiently. Consequently, the question has enormous real-world significance, and the Clay Mathematics Institute has offered a $1 million Millennium Prize to anyone who answers the question with proof."

To honor this seemingly insurmountable, theoretical obstacle, the Computer Science Building has a pattern of bricks on the side that reads "P=NP?" in 7-bit ASCII values:

x 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 x
x 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 x
x 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 x
x 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 x
x 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 x

Here are the images:

Computer Science Building


Close up of the brick pattern


Apparently, if the question is ever answered, the question mark can be removed.

Thanks to Dan O'Shea over at djoshea.com for filling the blanks with his computer science expertise.

This information courtesy of Princeton's Department of Computer Science, photos courtesy of me.

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(Note: looks like some of these images aren't available if you're not on the Princeton network. I'll look into it and hopefully have the links fixed soon.

When it was constructed in 1951, Corwin Hall stood near the corner of Washington Road and Prospect Ave. To make way for the construction of Roberston Hall, which would be the new Woodrow Wilson School, Corwin Hall was moved to its current location at the back of Skudder Plaza, behind the fountain. Mudd Manuscript Library's blog has an interesting post with the following video of the move in action:



From the air


From the side (that's Frick Lab in the background)


These photos and facts can be found in links on this page: Corwin Hall Buildling Highlights

(part of An Interactive Campus History)

There's a probably an official psychological term for this

We bought toilet paper for the house a few grocery trips ago. As we were unpacking the groceries, I walked over to the stairs with the package of toilet paper and tossed it up.

About a week later, still sitting at the top of the stairs was this:



If you're wondering what that is, it's an almost empty bag of toilet paper rolls. What that means is that whenever one of us needed to replace the toilet paper, we would just go to the plastic bag at the top of the stairs, take a roll, and walk away. None of us bothered to move the package as we passed it in our everyday routine, probably assuming that someone else would eventually take care of it.

A few grocery trips later, we bought more toilet paper. Again, I threw this to the top of the stairs assuming it would be moved and taken care of by one of us. A few days later I captured this image:



Yes, that's another opened bag of toilet paper rolls, and at least one has already been removed. Once again, none of us bothered to move the bag to the bathroom and put it under the sink, where it belongs. Instead, we just left it there and ignored it until we needed it.

Isn't there some kind of term for assuming everyone else will take care of it? What about selective attention? Maybe I've discovered a new phenomenon?

Toilet paper avoidance syndrome (TPAS)?