Parallelle Lijnen

Parallelle Lijnen is a blog by Xander Roozen. During daytime I'm designing for a good user experience, putting the web together so people can find and use things. By moonlight, I proudly make unfashionable webradio since 1998. More about this blog.

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Happy maps

According to social data scientist Daniele Quercia the mapping technology we currently use on our smart phones is prehistoric. They are efficient, but just show you the shortest way from A to B.

While living in Boston and taking his bicycle to the university in Cambridge every day, Quercia wondered if the shortest way was also the best way for him. So after a month he changed the daily route: a different route now with trees, instead of the car packed Massachusetts Avenue.

It took Quercia a minute longer to get from the city to the university, but he felt connected to nature once again, which was more important for him. It felt much better. So he not only changed his daily biking route, he also changed his research topic in order to understand how people experience the city, or even a street.

Based on his research he now creates maps that show you not just the shortest, but also the most enjoyable way from A to B. Maps weighted by human emotion, by quietness, beauty, happiness. And also smell - they created a urban smellwheel that connects the smells in a city with words - extracted from social media - that describe them used by people.

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Different routes from A to B in London, weighted by human emotions  + + + +

In this short presentation Daniele tells about his ideas - using social media data to map the smells capes of entire cities. And the danger of the single path.

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Empty head

Tufte aphorism

A photo posted by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on May 18, 2015 at 12:02pm PDT

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In the pocket

Like a party in your pocket. But not in a weird way.

[ h/t Krystian Kujda ]

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Social Network of Jazz in 1920s New York City

Screenshot from the book Jazz: New York in the Roaring Twenties.

For each of the 24 leading jazz musicians, pictured above, working in New York in 1920s, the size of the silhouette depicts the number of recording sessions by that musician during his or her lifetime. The connecting lines show joint recording sessions — a sort of sociogram of Gotham's jazz scene. A subtle mix of information about the artists, geographical locations and their intertwined activities.

Idea, research, illustration and design by Robert Nippoldt; additional design by Christine Goppel and Tobias Glasmacher; research by the Bavarian Jazz Institute's Sylke Mehrbold.

h/t to Maria Popova aka Miss Brain Pickings

[beatnikdaddio]

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Music Nation about UK Garage

Fantastic first episode of a five-part documentary about the rise and fall of the musical genre UK Garage: 22 minutes of what is referred to as the heartbeat of the UK Garage sound in South Londen. Nice footage about subs, antennas on rooftops and pirating the air of Londen.

Hat tip to Laid Back.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

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The Mayhems of Spotify

I am not a big heavy metal fan. Okay, I had my share of Suicidal Tendencies and Biohazard when I was younger but I guess that’s more on the hardcore side of the metal spectrum. However, I have always been fascinated by the Norwegian musical subculture called black metal.

Black metal started as a bizarre mix of corpse paint make-up, extreme heavy metal music and pentagrams, and ended up in a complete rejection of mainstream society. Which was beautifully photographed by Peter Beste and gets my attention whenever I stumble upon something interesting late at night.

Once Upon A Time in Norway

Recently I stumbled upon the documentary ‘Once Upon A Time In Norway - The History Of Mayhem’.

Now for those of you who don’t know, Mayhem is one of the better known and darker acts in the so-called second wave of black metal. Heavy stuff, for several reasons.

Now what do you do after watching a documentary about a band? Listen to their music on Spotify. The reason why I use Spotify and not Youtube for example, is the lack of noise Spotify usually has. On YouTube I’ll have to find my way through amateur guitarists that are playing Mayhem riffs, fans that upload music including their own cover art and ads you have to skip. Spotify is just less hassle.

So I searched for Mayhem on Spotify, expecting to hear some doom metal. But when the most popular track by Mayhem, according to Spotify, was called “Whoops!” I started to get suspicious. Based on what I just saw in the documentary Whoops! did not make much sense. Turns out there is a rapper called Mayhem who ended up in the wrong list.

Oops.

The Devil Is In The Detail

Question is, can you blame Spotify for small mistakes like this? And is it a problem anyway? Well, yes and yes.

It’s not easy to keep track of all the things that are going on in the world of music, artists and their releases, with thousands of releases every day. And in addition to that, bands have different names in different countries, artists have nicknames and/or aliases and listeners generate their own content by uploading their personal stuff to Spotify - or whatever platform - with sometimes completely messed up metadata.

So, no walk in the park.

But, if you really want to make the difference, if you really want to be the first choice for listeners in order to listen to the right stuff, discover new music and be a trustworthy platform, the devil is in the detail.

In the end, your platform is delivering the building blocks for the city of rock ‘n’ roll.

message on the Spotify homepage

Six Degrees of Black Sabbath

Last week The Echo Nest announced they will be joining Spotify.

The Echo Nest is a music intelligence company that has build an open API that people can use to create music discovery apps.

By joining the club The Echo Nest will hopefully use their understanding of music to give Spotify listeners the best possible personalized music listening experience. And give me the real Mayhem when I need it.

The Echo Nest knows that, in order to create brilliant things like Six Degrees Of Black Sabbath - and please try it if haven’t yet, it’s absolutely fan-tas-tic -, your fundamental information about all the music has to be right. Nothing else matters.

I really hope these brilliant minds can contribute to the development of an even better Spotify.

May the force with hem.

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Eddie on sound

"If it sounds good, it is good."

Noted philosopher of sound Eddie van Halen, as heard in the Spark podcast on CBS Radio.

[ picture by gq ]

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Leg Godt Music

The LEGO Movie is now probably playing in a theater near you, and celebrating the 80th birthday of the Danish play material manufacturer.

Time for some assembling context.

LEGO - formed from the Danish words leg godt, meaning play well, and ironically, in Latin I put together - has always been populair among computer specialists and designers. In his novel Microserfs (1995) Douglas Coupland explained why:

First, Lego is ontologically not unlike computers. This is to say that a computer by itself is, well…nothing. Computers only become something when given a specific application. Ditto Lego. To use an Excel spreadsheet or to build a racing car - this is why we have computers and Lego. A PC or a Lego brick by itself is inert and pointless: a doorstop; litter. Made of acrylonitrile butadiene stryrene (ABS plastic), Lego’s discrete modular bricks are indestructible and fully intended to be nothing except themselves.

Second, Lego is binary - a yes/no structure; that is to say, the little bubblies atop any given Lego block are either connected to another uit of Lego or they are not. Analog relationships do not exist. Third, Lego anticipates a future of pixelated ideas. It is digital. The charm and fun of Lego derives from reducing the organic to the modular: a zebra of little cubes; Cape God houses digitized through the Hard Copy TV lens that pixelates the victim’s face into little squares of color.

As illustrated by XKCD, LEGO can be perfectly used to sort and arrange data in order present ideas in a tangible manner.

LEGO can be rendered into anything, but I especially like the dusty world of music, vinyl and all its cultural references captured by these plastic modular bricks, in a sterilized LEGO-clean way.

So here I present some things I found recently: a LEGO DJ, a LEGO version of Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark Studio, LEGO turntable decks and last but not least, a LEGO record store.

LEGO DJ wearing a LA Lakers nr. 34 shirt, source unknown

A LEGO version of Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark Studio - source

LEGO turntable decks - source

Record store by Ryan Eldeeem Howerter

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Eno on Music For Airports

Aeroplanes, airports or flying away in general have always been populair topics in pop music. But the music that is actually played on airports is not always that good.

While being stuck for several hours at Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany in the mid-1970s, English musician Brian Eno was extremely annoyed by the awful music and uninspired sound atmosphere. Eno thought it was wrong to not think about music in such places.

The three basic rules for the music, Eno explains, are:

It must not interfere with human communication, so it has to be either higher of lower than voice sounds

It should last a very long time - you don’t want changes all the time

It should be possible to be interrupted, by announcements for example

In the liner notes of the album Music For Airports Eno explains that the concept of music designed specifically as a background feature in the environment was pioneered by Muzak Inc. in the fifties, and has since come to be known generically by the term Muzak. Familiar tunes arranged and orchestrated in a lightweight and derivative manner.

But Eno started working on music as ambience. While conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities and is intended to induce calm and a space to think. And last but not least; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Music for Airports was released in 1978 and is the first of four albums released in Eno's so-called Ambient series.

The three rules Eno defined in the video definitely apply to his album. That's no surprise. And the album, at least for me, has a perfect mood to work with, also outside airports.

Curious if it works for you too? You can listen to the entire album:

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Not your average dull Queen track, but music created with a bicycle. Composer Johnnyrandom creates musical compositions made exclusively from everyday objects, like bicycles. Through music he wants to change the way people perceive their surroundings. And he hopes that it will inspire others to look at everyday objects with more curiosity and wonder. The video gives a glimpse into the creative process behind this unique composition.

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Still working

After the presentation I did last September there has been exactly one blogpost. The dip in writing was caused by a combination of a lack of energy, work that had to be done, and working on other things.

But it's a new year and every new year comes with its resolutions.

I've lots of ideas - and renewed energy - and I will start writing again on a regular base. With a strong and exclusive focus on music and technology.

Resolutions often don't last long unless they are grounded in some deeper context. My deeper context is this. When I was preparing my presentation I wrote down many ideas. I want to do something with those ideas and that's why I'll start writing on my own Rough Guide To Better Music In Public Space. I think it's going to be a very useful book.

Speaking of books. I'm currently reading one.

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The Social Sound Of The Airport Lounge

This is the slidecast - slides + audio - of the presentation I did on the EuroIA 2013 in Edinburgh. It's the annual congress for information architects, somewhere in Europe.

My talk was about the use of music in public spaces, like coffee bars of airport lounges. The selection of music is often problematic, both for the selecter and the listener. I believe that information architects can help improving the so-called listening experience in public spaces and discuss that in my talk.

The Social Sound of the Airport Lounge from Xander Roozen

[timburrellsawardjournal]

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Chris Noessel: lessons of science fiction computer interfaces

[retrogirly]

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Music in public spaces, the old skool way.

via honey-rider

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I just signed up for http://seevl.fm, a new music app coming soon. It's free, you should join too!

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Musical guidance please

There are many guides - like The Belgium and Netherlands Coffee Guide, pictured above,  - and websites - think Yelp - that score local businesses to help people find those great places, like coffee bars and restaurants.

Some criteria in these guides are food or beverage related - Soya milk available? Check! - others are focussing on a convenience level like wifi and being baby friendly.

Never specified in these guides, except in the user reviews - and often in a negative way - is the kind of music that's been played in the venue. I would like to have at least some kind of indication what I might hear while having my caffè macchiato. Bossa nova and Big Band Jazz? Check!

  [ picture by Xander ]