picklesman's comments

I totally agree. I feel like the audio editor is having fun for their own sake, and it takes away from the show for me. It makes the listening experience super irritating, despite the fact that I often find the content interesting.

Notational Velocity (Mac only, open source) http://notational.net

It allows you to very quickly do a full text search, it saves the files as plain text, it supports external editors (I use MacVim) and it syncs with simplenote.com so I can see my notes on NV on my various macs and the simplenote app on my phone. It's very minimal and I like it a lot.

Seconded. I especially recommend his teardown of the Juicero, in which he displays his insights into design for manufacture, plastics, metallurgy, electrical engineering, etc, peppered with hilarious and insightful jabs at VC culture. For me, it's his masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ

My wife recently watched all 45 minutes and was entertained throughout, despite her not being technical at all.

Speaking of which, I also share a distaste for his "engineering boys club" sense of humour. I think his heart is in the right place (though who knows?), but it's definitely from another era, one that I won't be sad to see fade off into the distance. That being said, the rest of the components of his humour (obscure Canadianisms, etc) are great and I enjoy the particularity of it.

EDIT: added link

I first heard Yanny and now I can only hear Laurel.

This one is even more interesting for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pRY3wlKwm8

If I think "Brainstorm" I hear that, but if I think "Green Needle" I hear that.

I’ve taken 3 college level courses on linear algebra and only really got an intuition for eigenvectors/eigenvalues when watching his video series. Super great!

How is he a tool? I didn't get that impression based on his demos and interviews I've heard

About 4 years ago I was scanning my twitter timeline and I noticed someone posted a picture from a Leonard Cohen concert that night in Montreal. What?!? I hadn't heard anything about it and my heart sank. After a frantic search I found out he was playing the next night and I bought myself a ticket.

I went by myself, which is unusual for me when it comes to concerts. He played for 3 hours and needless to say, it was incredible.

During "Suzanne", the room (a hockey arena) was completely dark except for a spotlight shining up from below casting a giant shadow behind him. Combined with such a haunting song it made for one of the most beautiful musical experiences of my life.

Here's a recording of that performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3pcPK4eXHQ

That turned out to be the last time he played here and I'm so thankful to have gotten a chance to hear him play his songs.

Way too many great lines to quote, but these ones comfort me: "But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song"

EDIT: I found a video from a different concert that gives a better idea of what it looked like, though the link above is a better performance imo, + much better audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgt62vls3o

(also love the single comment, which I ran through google translate: "What is still the magic of this man? I am not a sentimental dragon, but it goes straight to the heart.")

LogoWriter was my entry into programming. I started with the turtle in elementary school, and in early high school my mind was blown when I leaned about the "flip side", where you could use functions and script things.

In grade 7 I used it to make an elaborate multi screen Sierra inspired game that took the better part of the year to make. What I would give to have a copy of it now...

RIP. Thanks for Logo and everything else.

Yes this.

I was also uncomfortably aware of the transparent appeals to the engineer's sensibility ("open source", modularity, geeking out on youtube, using adverbs like "exquisitely", "lego-blocks" etc). I found it somewhat sneaky, and in no way whatsoever did it translate to need.

We are not talking about a car or a musical instrument, we are talking about an instrument of death. Necessary for certain tasks? yes. Something all civilians should have access to? no.

As a musician, "gear-head"ism always struck me as kind of sad, a rabbit hole that has almost nothing to do with where music comes from. Ultimately harmless, though. This kind of fetishization, on the other hand, frankly disgusts me.

Well, I've seen some cases of developers keeping things complex for their own self-interest, e.g. "Job Security".

You could make a similar analogy here...

Great list.

Stars of the Lid makes some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. It's ambient, made with strings and heavily processed guitar. The songs develop into these breathing like rhythms that just push some sort of button in me.

I can listen to it while working, or just on its own really loud to make the details come out.

Stars Of The Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_lDyRymrw

The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaSi7Gut7xM

I'm reminded of this piece from a year ago. Called "Everything is problematic" it's written from the perspective of someone heavily involved with the radical left/queer scene and how they increasingly noticed a certain brand of anti-intellectualism that has taken hold. somewhat long, but well written http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2014/11/everything-problematic/

I think I now understand why the last line is repeated twice. Seems so obvious in retrospect... (once literally, once metaphorically for his life)