Web Simplicity

A couple of posts from independent bloggers have struck a chord with me in the last few days. I’ve spent some time over the holiday break moving my site back to Blot (my favorite blogging service) after support returned. After doing some redesign work, I hit a point where I started to question the value of diminishing returns with respect to over engineering the UI. Khaled Abou Alfa, who is a much better site designer than I will ever be, has some words of wisdom on the subject.

Over the last 20 years of playing around with websites I have wondered to myself why I bother spending time tweaking and fixing and sweating the pixel details. I’m not alone in this space as clearly many, many others have the same tinkering itch. It’s an itch that you can’t help but scratching away at. Leave it alone and it will be fine.

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The Compact Disc Value Add

One of the Christmas presents from my wife was the latest Mo Dotti release, Opaque, on CD. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the compact disc version of the album comes with 4 bonus tracks (one of which is the oft-covered “She’s My Best Friend” by the Velvet Underground). These tracks are not on the Bandcamp site for the album or the version that appear on the streaming services. I read musicians complaining about the meager compensation opportunities that the streaming landscape affords and I can’t help but think this is the way to (somewhat) manage that.

Giving your fans a little something extra for buying a physical release that will actually put money in your pocket seems like a no-brainer. Whether it’s a booklet with lyrics and proper liner notes, bonus tracks or exquisite packaging, you should incentivize music lovers to invest a little bit extra to get a better experience.

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Tim Burton’s Enchantment

Nicholas McDonald writes for The Bard Owl about a Christian interpretation of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Jack is captivated by the aesthetics of Christmastown. He’s spellbound by the values of the transcendent framework: love, beauty, purpose, etc. (at the center of which is our Christ-figure, Santa Clause, more on that in a moment). In the same way, those of us living in modernity may still feel the pull of the enchanted world we’ve left behind, where the Christian story provided the framework for the kind of transcendent truth, beauty and love we all desire “deep inside of our bones”. 

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Qobuz A Year Later

My sister’s boyfriend recently asked me if I was still using Qobuz, a year after we first talked about the streaming music service. I answered in the affirmative, having just renewed my subscription a couple of months ago, at which point he told me that he had switched back after giving Tidal a try. The biggest issue he mentioned running into with Qobuz was slow downloads.

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Analogue Grand Diary

Maybe it’s a bit early to be making New Year’s resolutions. Though this used to be a popular practice, many now don’t even believe in setting stretch goals just because the calendar changes. I confess that I have waxed and waned in my observance of making annual resolutions. This year, though, I have something lined up that I think will actually improve my life in meaningful ways.

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Post Dreams

Not too long ago, I posted about a shoegaze cover of a music charts staple from decades ago and, well, I was sorely tempted to do it again. 

I came across a YouTube channel for a service called Musora which is billed as “the ultimate music lessons experience.” Musora offers a subscription which will help you learn to play an instrument and your favorite songs. For $20/month (with an annual subscription), you gain access to a suite of interactive practice tools and a community of like-minded students. 

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The Man Who Would Be King

Michael Caine and Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

One of my all-time favorite films is John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King. I was first introduced to the movie adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling short story from 1888 by my English teacher in my senior year of high school. Kipling’s novel encapsulates some of the folly and hubris of the British adventures in Afghanistan in the 19th century by infusing its characters with the attitudes of empire. In the film, Michael Caine and Sean Connery play British ex-military who dream much and doubt their abilities little. They set their sites on bringing the martial prowess learned in their earlier days to a remote area of Afghanistan known as Kafiristan to form their own kingdom.

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Like A Virgin

Madonna’s most well-known album, Like A Virgin just celebrated its 40th anniversary.

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OPRA

Roon Audio has a new feature that should delight headphone lovers — OPRA (Open Profiles for Revealing Audio). OPRA is an open-source repository hosted on GitHub that contains precisely crafted headphone curves for different headphone models (and you get an equalizer, and you get an equalizer…).

I love Roon, although I’ve had my share of technical challenges — today I need to bring up two issues on the Roon Community forum. The ability of the platform to continuously innovate ways to give audio enthusiasts a better experience is impressive.

I’m a bit surprised, but pleased, that Target carries Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble’s Memento Mori gift set.