Tyler Cowen, an economist and , recently published an eBook entitled ““, which charts the gradual decline in innovation in the United States and its effect on the global economy. Here he is discussing the book and its hypothesis at a TED event:
His argument is certainly a persuasive one. One has to believe, though, that the stagnation he’s identified will only be temporary. The Internet, plus forthcoming changes in energy generation and use (new , hydrogen fuel, etc.) seem to portend a new wave of innovation that will society.
It’s been a decade and a half, but the NHL is in Winnipeg. This is huge for the city; imagine if the Red Sox left Boston or the Lakers left LA and you’ll get a sense of how integral the Jets franchise was to Winnipeg.
True North Sports and Entertainment, the group relocating the Atlanta Thrasher to the ‘Peg, have announced a season ticket drive that may determine whether the deal gets final approval from the league.
But in the meantime, it’s time to celebrate. And what could be more appropriate than the Jets’ unofficial theme song:
for helping publicize this idea, and to user over at AudioKarma for the original post. It”s fascinating to thin that someone along the line figured out that it was a good idea to put something so foreign and crazy on something you normally want to take very careful care of. But the basic principle is that:
In short wood glue and the material LP albums are so chemically similar that the wood glue can’t bind to the record. It can however bind to everything else on the record which includes oil, dust, dirt, fungus, the crayon your nephew rubbed on it, and so on. You’re essentially giving your record a spa wax and ripping all the impurities off of it with the glue.
Google recently launched a new tool called , which charts the frequency that a word or phrase appears in a corpus of books (e.g., “British English”, “English Fiction”, “French”) over a selected time period. The tool has access to around 11.5% of all the books ever written, thanks to Google’s ongoing .
The tool is amazing, with probably enormous potential for future academic study. It’s already driving a new type of social science research, called (“the application of high-throughput data collection and analysis to the study of human culture.”)
It’s also a great way to kill a few hours, if you’re looking for a time filler. Here’s one chart I randomly created a few minutes ago:
It charts the phrases “hip hop” (red) and “rap music” (blue) from 1950 to 2008.* As you may be able to see, “rap music” was the more common term during the ’90s, but declined after 2000 as “hip hop” took over.
What does this mean? Who knows. Maybe it speaks to the increasing legitimacy of hip hop among book writers (“rap music” has a more derogatory connotation, at least in my mind), or maybe it’s the result of some other trend. Either way, it’s intriguing, and one example of the potential of this new tool. Well played, Google, well played.
*I had to add “music” after “rap” because the latter is also a common verb.
Once again, about ?uestlove’s plan to write a book. They noted that ?uest is famous for his stories of celebrity encounters, and actually has a website designed to showcase some of them. I went over, and poked through a few here and there, and finally read the one about .
Now I realize that most of the hip hop world knows this already, but the Badu story really tripped me out.
He writes:
me being the kang of snoring and all this hair has prompted erykah and james “im in!” poyser to tell the engineer to press record whilst i lay near my drumset and these two fools sing songs of my snoring and my bed head. most of which was for yalls amusement on her “afro” a real time in between songs mess around banter (most of which heavily edited to my happiness) during that week.
And in my head, all I could think about was that little intro on Baduizm that just goes
“Pick your afro daddy…because it’s flat on one side…” and whether or not that applied to ?uestlove (or someone quite like him).
I get the timelines may not match up, but it really got me wondering who these little tidbits are about. How many artists I’ve listened to are linked in some way that I just honestly haven’t really thought about.
In the real world (yes, internet, there’s a life outside of 4080Records), the world can be a tiny place. People are way more connected than I imagined. So why can’t it be the same way in the hip hop world?
Anyways, Pitchfork says this about the book:
The tome is titled Mommy, What’s a Questlove? and will be published by . It isn’t due out until at least 2012, though (books take time, people). According to Okayplayer, What’s a Questlove? will feature “music factoids with real life stories, celebrity encounters, and thoughts on life written in his signature stream-of-consciousness style.”
There’s a documentary going around the internet (legitimately and legally) about the , two of the biggest hip hop stars this mortal realm has ever known. Many of the links are US only, so
Here’s the description:
Biggie and Tupac is a no holds barred investigation into the still unsolved murders of two of the biggest superstars rap has ever produced; Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, and Tupac Shakur. Answering the crusading calls for justice from Biggie’s mother Voletta, Broomfield hits the streets from East Coast to West Coast, putting his own life at risk as he uncovers sensational new evidence that points directly to the involvement of the LAPD and imprisoned Death Row records co-founder Marion ‘Suge’ Knight in the violent slayings that shocked the hip hop world
I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can’t comment. But I’m stoked that people haven’t forgotten. In a world where there’s so much technology and resources, it’s still surprising that no one was ever able to solve these decades-old murders.
Apparently Hova and the Oracle had a meal together and to talk about their success and the need to give back. It’s a fascinating read, and worth checking out.
They focus a lot on how the two of them got their respective starts in business, and what they learned along the way. Considering how different their lives were, it’s interesting to see how similar their business acumen and philosophies have become.
So it’s been a LA minute since I’ve posted anything (yeah, it’s a phrase I just invented), but this was a little too good not to post. I think over the years, my opinion towards Timberlake has softened a lot. I’ve been a big backer of Fallon for a while though. I may have doubted him a little when I heard the Roots were moving to become a talk show backup band, but I stand corrected. Fallon’s been a bastion of hip hop on TV, and has had some of the best music acts perform live regardless of genre. So the other night, Fallon had Justin Timberlake on to talk about JT’s role in The Social Network. While on, they got chatting about JT’s love for hip hop. And, apparently, Sugar Hill Gang opened for N’Sync back in the day. Who knew? The two of them decided to bust out in what was actually a pretty awesome "evolution of hip hop" type video. Check it out.
