New October Treasure Hoard newsletter is out.
New October Treasure Hoard newsletter is out.
I was sort of mislead regarding the new Frankie Rose album, HILA. A review stated that there were more hooks than is typical for Rose on this long player. That’s not the case, with one major exception — the second track on the record, “Can’t Be Wrong.”
Most of the album is abstract and filled with dark undertones. This is definitely the same Frankie Rose who lovingly covered The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds. As critic Fred Thomas writes, there are nods to the “doomy baselines of early Cure material.” There’s an eerie atmosphere that hangs over the whole affair. “Can’t Be Wrong” stands out, though, for its accessibility.
If you love pixels as much as I do, you’ll be delighted to learn that Héliographe has released Bitcam 2, which expands the capabilities beyond the original app by Iconfactory. This time around, you can open photos from other apps in the 1-bit camera and editor and use the pixelated filters until your heart’s content. It works in black & white (no grayscale) and color.
I have been marveling at the new Wishy song “Mona Lisa” and the band’s ability to fit musical references to both the Velvet Underground and a Sunday School staple in a single tune. I knew that the VU reference (to the song “Femme Fatale”) was intentional, but I wasn’t totally sure about the music from “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy (Down In My Heart)” Could it have just been a coincidence?
The Ruby on Rails conference, Rails World 2026, has been much discussed, more for what it left out than what it contained (the keynote hardly mentioned the technology the conference was designed around). From Ronan Limon Duparcmeur at 2-45.pm, regarding DHH’s keynote.
Obviously, this was a weird keynote, as I’ve said. It felt off to me. It has to be the first time that the opening keynote of the official event about “the latest features and best practices” of a piece of technology doesn’t mention said piece of technology, tells the participants that their jobs are now obsolete, and ends on the appeal to not “be a loser”.
Duparcmeur remarks about the keynote being more about DHH himself, and his current interests. “Who knows, there may be people who are into DHH himself, like a Temu Elon Musk.”
I have seen a few references to a song called “Choosin’ Texas” by an artist named Ella Langley beating out Mariah Carey for the longest-running No. 1 song of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. The surprise in all this is I’ve never heard of Ella Langley or the song that broke the record. I haven’t been into popular music since I was a kid and married to the radio, but I had an awareness of what people were listening to.
The Atlantic lets you read their articles free through RSS. Nevertheless, I like to share articles, and so I sometimes think about getting a subscription.1 However, when I read pieces like this one from Jonathan Chait defending female Democratic politicians being abusive, it dampens my desire to pay.
Now that the dust is settling from last weekend’s AI freakout, we are hearing from opposing voices. From my vantage point, I think there are good points on both sides and regardless of whether some of the more breathless predictions of doom may be off, we need more oversight and regulation. Our government just isn’t keeping up on this issue.
One of my favorite bands in the early 90s was Nothing Painted Blue, an indie rocker’s indie rock band. Fronted by the hyperliterate Franklin Bruno, Nothing Painted Blue had a clear advantage in the lyrics department. Bruno could be clever, erudite, and wry. Lyrics like, “you say you’ll pray for my soul, you’re more like Senator Dole,” from the song “Vengeful as Hell,” sung in Bruno’s matter-of-fact voice, still makes me chuckle.