We did it. I told you when I was 8 years old. | | | | LL Cool J can't live without his radio. Circa 1986.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “We did it. I told you when I was 8 years old.”
| - | Kevin Durant, to his Mom after winning the NBA championship |
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| | rantnrave:// While I was in STOCKHOLM I saw a new product demo that blew me away. The company is called ROLI, "a multidisciplinary team of makers who are creating the musical instruments of the future." Their devices are remarkable. They're called BLOCKS. Watch videos here. The CEO explained that while gaming popularity and sales are hockey stick-like, in contrast, musical instrument sales are flat to down over the last few years. Could device-like and game-like new tech musical instruments get kids and others back into the fray? Musicians I admire like JOHN MAYER and DAVE GROHL have been very vocal over the years about the importance of learning to play the old fashioned way. Mayer wasn't a fan of ROCK BAND being an entry point to playing as it created a false sense of ease. And playing isn't easy, it takes years of work. In a great interview (at 12m 33s) with CHARLIE ROSE earlier this year he discusses first learning and also cautioned against immediate lessons. His point, and I agree, is that kids should learn to get a feel for their instrument on their own. They begin to develop their own style before they learn the techniques that everyone will learn. That individuality and accompanying prowess and imperfection make you, well, you. "Let them discover their own nebulous take on things." GROHL agrees. I get it. I believe in conduits. You never know what the entry point is for any particular interest. I don't like policing entry points. I once debated the concept with WYNTON MARSALIS when I was doing some pro bono work for JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER. Wynton is a purest. I mean, he's THE Wynton Marsalis! I got interested in jazz by listening to HIP-HOP. Sampling. From NAS to DE LA SOUL to TRIBE CALLED QUEST. That was my entry point to MACEO, COLTRANE, MILES. Thousands of years ago, the instrument could have been banging on animal pelts. Even what we consider "traditional" instruments are technology. As MusicREDEF's MATTY KARAS points out: so many different ways to make music nowadays. Piano. Cello. Seaboard Block. Apple Logic. Woodblocks and garbage cans. All valid! Something like Roli absolutely can be a conduit to "traditional" instruments. Even if that's not the goal. U2's EDGE is a great guitar player. Totally unique. His use of technology as an instrument has lent to a one-of-a-kind sound. That tech and the studio are instruments to him. I'm going to follow this company and its device. The demos were that cool. The look on my face as I watched and listened were akin to my niece AMELIE witnessing BENIHANA for the first time . Pure wonder. These are new instruments. They don't replace the old. But they are instruments... My yearly post for music lovers. The best deleted scene from HI FIDELITY. JOHN CUSACK for the win... I want to apologize publicly. I totally forgot when I had a mani and pedi with the Russian ambassador... Anytime I see a Mom with their kid who just won some event, like KEVIN DURANT last night. I get choked up. All those sacrifices, encouragement, worry, weekends. It's their win too (and dads)... Happy Birthday RIO CARAEFF, DAN PORTER, KEN SISKIND, JAMES D. ROBINSON, and PETER GRIFFIN. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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 | recode |
| Uber released the findings of an external investigation to its staff at an all-hands meeting today. | | |
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 | BuzzMachine |
| "Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." - Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928) "Fake news" is merely a symptom of greater social ills. Our real problems: trust and manipulation. Our untrusted - and untrustworthy - institutions are vulnerable to manipulation by a slough of bad guys, from trolls and ideologues to Russians and terrorists, all operating under varying motives but similar methods. | | |
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 | Vanity Fair |
| Our use of the Internet not only affects our politics, but it’s soon to likely become a subject of policy debates itself. The question is whether we can slow down long enough to figure out what to do. | | |
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 | Vestoj |
| Mike Pagano left his father’s Brooklyn watermelon business to partner with his brother-in-law Lou Vieni in their own business. In 1989 the pair became the new owners of Jerri’s Cleaners, at 444 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Established by the eponymous Jerri in 1964, the dry cleaner remains a beloved neighbourhood business. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The rock climber Alex Honnold is a peerless outdoor performance artist. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| When a 12-year-old boy lost his life as a result of an untreated tooth abscess in Maryland in 2007, his story revealed how hard it can be for people on low incomes to get the dental care they are entitled to. | | |
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 | Vice Sports |
| The betting industry is now "at the beating heart of the beautiful game," but a raft of recent incidents have raised serious questions about the relationship between football and gambling. | | |
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 | Science of Us |
| No more excuses for bad apologies. | | |
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 | espnW |
| The powerful story of Paula Blanco, a running back with the Orlando Anarchy women's football team, who was with teammates at Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016, when 49 people were killed during the worst act of terrorism on American soil since 9/11. | | |
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 | London Review of Books |
| My last visit to Gaza had been in May 2014, just before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, an assault that resulted in the deaths of more than two thousand Gazans – combatants and civilians – and the destruction of eighteen thousand homes. When I went back less than three years later the changes were evident everywhere. | | |
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 | C-SPAN |
| Walt Mossberg talked about the top technology gadgets and issues that he’s seen in the 26 years he’s been writing about technology. He began watching personal technology in 1991. He’s written about this sector of the tech market for the Wall Street Journal and then for Recode and The Verge. He described his first column as a tech journalist and talked about how the web got started. | | |
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 | Men's Journal |
| The hit man had only one task: take out two El Chapo soldiers deep in L.A. Gangland and do it without leaving a trace. A first-person account of a cartel assassination. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| Hackers said to take measure of voting systems, databases A 'red phone' warning to the Kremlin from Obama White House Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. | | |
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 | Thump |
| We spent a few nights at Sandbox festival, surveying the scene in a country wracked by political upheaval. | | |
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 | PSFK |
| We interviewed ConBody CEO Coss Marte on how he went from selling drugs on a street corner to running a company on 5th Avenue. | | |
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| Bloomberg |
| The switch to the cloud was risky, but revenue is way up. | | |
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 | Andrew Chen |
| Have you ever wondered why people are bouncing from your nearly-frictionless onboarding flow? Why the same change can result in a lift on one page and cause drop-off on another? Or why people who find you via search bounce away after a few moments? | | |
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 | TIME |
| Diversity experts hope the crisis will be a big teaching moment | | |
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 | Vice |
| Christine Schierano has been documenting the world of drug-fuelled sex parties for the past six years. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Mikal Gilmore chronicles Gregg Allman's epic, tragic life, from the Allman Brothers' glory days through his lost years and late-career redemption. | | |
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 | Medium |
| It is a wonderful accident of history that the internet and web were created as open platforms that anyone - users, developers, organizations - could access equally. Among other things, this allowed independent developers to build products that quickly gained widespread adoption. Google started in a Menlo Park garage and Facebook started in a Harvard dorm room. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Fifty years ago, homosexuality was decriminalised -- and pop was never the same again. From Dusty and Motown to Mick Jagger and the Kinks, here are the songs, clubs and clothes that liberated Britain. | | |
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 | Forbes |
| Blockchain-based startup 21Million, which has just launched a crowdfund through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to the public, asserts that it is seeking to secure a far better deal for artists in film and entertainment industries that the Hollywood system fails to properly and fairly reward. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | "I put in work." - Kevin Durant after NBA championship win. |
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