Disquiet

• RIP, Jimmy Savile (b. 1926), original Top of the Pops host and Britain's "first pop disk jockey" http://t.co/lKen0kYy #
• Nice if @goodreads made API babies with movie/food/app services. Got enough books. Like to know what DeLillo fans are drinking. #
• RT gregdavismusic: @disquiet my eventide harmonizer is broken and I can't fix it #fourthworldproblems #
• Fans of Jon Hassell should reclaim the #fourthworldproblems hashtag from the science-fiction gags. #
• Thought passing siren was part of this drone I was listening to. #fourthworldproblems #noiselife #
• Pro tip: to increase volume of barber shop, close eyes. #
• Remix contests are great because it's great to focus on the individual stems that are provided. Sometimes the submissions are good, too. #
• Thanks to SFNTF (San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation) for securing support for (my local) Balboa Movie Theater (dates from 1926). #
• When Safari causes hassles in iOS 5, I think back to the Pleistocene-era "Microsoft is embedding IE in Windows!" debacle. #
• It's not just a metronome. It's a nanotech Steve Reich generator. #
• Unintentional aficionado of x.0.1 software updates. #
• "Your tracks are inspiring me to do some field recording I've been meaning to do." A good day. #
• Buying a new laptop isn't as fun as it used to be. Built-in obsolescence feels more institutionalized, cynical. OS culture wars, uglier. #
• The account of the fine artist, Scott Gilbert, who drew my Twitter background is @scottapeshot. It's the 19th in my Sketches of Sound series #
• Wondering if @cakemusic will commission a remix of its song "Arco Arena" and title it "Power Balance Pavilion." #
• Morning ambience: anxious, pulsing drone of "You've Got Less Time Than You Think" by @markrushtoncom http://t.co/wE6PtMK0 via @soundcloud #
• I know my iPad is charging because it says "Not Charging" #experience #
• The new, iPad-adapted update of the @soundcloud iOS app is splendid. I don't see a volume control or download option, but otherwise great. #
• Sonic armistice. #
• RIP, Charles Hamm (b. 1925), scholar of popular music ("traced pop’s history … [to] colonial-era compositions") http://t.co/hb8RYT4J #
• Sonic weapons. RT @sfmnemonic: copters make it hard for people to talk. … Helicopter drone raises tensions, doesn't quell or disperse. #
• Many thanks to Scott Faulkner, aka @vinylsaurus, for my Twitter background this past month. My new image is by Scott Gilbert. #
• Midway through Neal Stephenson's Reamde, standing in comic-book store, laughing at apostrophes. #
• Disappointed that Shazam failed to recognize string quartet that was serving as phone hold music. #
• Mournful foghorns clearly in sympathy with #occupyoakland #
• Nearby high school's drum corps practice (all stop and start, restart, solos, pauses, pattern repetition) is like martial broken beat music. #
• I love getting mail addressed to the "resident" at my POB. It is like a Fluxus script for a Quay Brothers film. #
• The overall impression is that time doesn't pass; it accrues. #
• From an Oct 12 blog post at 33 1/3: "Talking Heads' Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem – this will publish in March/April 2012." #
• Doorbell rings. No one is there. Just a package with the new book of finger paintings by @thejorgecolombo. There should be more such rings. #
• Apparently there is a life-size model of Moondog at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in Manhattan. We live in excellent times. #
• RIP, Walter Müller (b. 1927), inventor of "futuristic harmonica," the MIDI wind controller Millioniser http://t.co/uriwqfGu via @cdmblogs #
• Tags that start with hyphens now appear to be functioning in @delicious. Whew. #
• If my @goodreads were accurate it would evidence that I read Zoomer Builds a Racing Car 17 times today and One Little Puppy 19. #
• Gap between quitting majoring in comp-sci freshman year & discovering Alan Moore during junior were my "non-recursive years." #
• RIP, John McCarthy (b. 1927), creator of the Lisp programming language, which always looked like an e.e. cummings poem (via @defjaf) #
• Note to self: that music you were listening to didn't descend into nearly subaudial psychedelic quiet. It ended. That was your laptop fan. #
• Pro tip: if you think your laptop's speaker isn't powerful enough, just work next to a sleeping baby. #
• Spent time confirming siren I was heard was in background of recent @io9 interview with Neal Stephenson (at 21:15) http://t.co/jcgpHtkJ #
• As always, listening in slow motion over weeks and months as my one-year-old's babbles become recognizable words ("apple," for example). #
• Ice cream store score: squeaking of stools spun by kids, milk shake machine rumble, refrigeration drone, straws rubbing on plastic tops. #
• People dialing rotary phones had additional time to mentally prepare what to say. #
• "Picture books are a form, not a genre." A children's-books manifesto: http://t.co/Ngf6aawy #
• Weird disconnect that MIT Technology Review's sci fi issue may not be readily available digitally. #

By Marc Weidenbaum