Nostalgia: just found a bunch of old Hyperpublic decks from last summer.
Few things are as personal as music. It defines moments and becomes wrapped up in our memories. People’s music streams are a window into their lives. I can look at a friend’s Spotify stream and infer so much about him: his mood, his location, the weather, his plans for the evening, who he’s with or planning to be with, and more.
Given how personal music is, the music listening experience after Spotify feels incomplete without a social interaction of some kind. Months ago I critiqued Spotify’s iPhone app and claimed I would switch back to the iPod app if Spotify didn’t improve its mobile UI, but I haven’t been able to make the switch. The app still stinks, but I underestimated how well Spotify fills music’s social layer. It feels great to have someone like my favorite album on Facebook or subscribe to my new playlist; it even feels good just knowing that people are seeing what I’m listening to if I want them to. So this morning, when I opened up the iPod app to listen to an album that’s not yet on Spotify, I only made it two songs before switching to Spotify and listening to something that my friends could see.
“I think the secret is really observation. If you observe what’s going on, try to figure out how people are thinking and determine the times of your day, I think you can always write something that people will understand.” — Sam Cooke on success in music.
I stumbled upon a frustrating Dropbox quirk yesterday when I couldn’t find a shared folder created by a friend. The filename of the folder ended with a period, which is a no go for Windows files. This meant that the folder was visible in the Dropbox web app but not in the desktop app.
Web App
Desktop App
Dropbox has helpful instructions and a bad files check script for diagnosing synching issues like this one, but I hadn’t seen them before.
Results of bad files check
Problem solved. (This is obviously not a problem on Macs; Windows stinks.)
*Thanks to Josh for the sanity check.
One of my favorite professors from Williams passed away last week. He was brilliant, intense, and charismatic. I still have my papers and exams from his class on jazz history and spent a few hours re-reading them over the weekend. I tend to look back at previous work and minimize it with thoughts of “wish I had tried harder” or “should have spent more time on it,” but with him I don’t feel that way at all. I worked hard because I wanted to impress him, and in the process learned the material, got a good grade, and became a better writer and critic.
True charisma is invaluable, especially in the hands of a professor who spent 20+ years at the front of a classroom. Professor Brown will be missed by many, especially those who had the privilege to know and admire him.
Here’s a playlist of the music we studied in class.
“I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea.” — Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz
Walked west on 10th Street this morning and caught lots of beautiful little NYC moments:
Hip NYU kids with no shoes on sitting outside their dining hall looking rebellious but decidedly well-off enough to afford shoes.
Laborers in faded white merchant vans inching past parked cars and moving trucks on their way from one job to another.
Turning the corner and heading north on 6th Ave and catching a glimpse of the dim skyline through gaps in the buildings, wondering what New York would look like without all the steel and glass and whether we’d even notice the skyline then.
A daydreaming commuter brought back to reality by three or four short muted beeps from a taxi driver.
A stranger eyeing me warily when I hold open for her the door to the blue mailbox on the corner, waiting until the last possible minute to grace me with a smile.
Turning the corner again and simultaneously taking in the Hudson, New Jersey, the High Line, and all the old packing plants south of 14th street.
I like NYC a lot more when I keep my head up.
Happy holidays from @hyperpublic. We celebrated last night…no lights allowed today.
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