Too Epic

Life’s swell.

[listenrapp]

Listenr: Tumblr Music Player

Get Listenr: Tumblr Music Player on the App Store. See screenshots and ratings, and read customer reviews.

LISTENR 2.0 IS NOW AVAILABLE IN THE APP STORE!

Woohoo. TELL YOUR FRIENDS! REBLOG THIS!

Would especially appreciate help getting the word out if you have a popular music tumblr. Shoot me a message and I can get you some promo codes exclusively for your followers! Also hoping to feature some prominent music blogs in the app in an upcoming release, so definitely ping me if that sounds interesting.

To celebrate the release, here are 25 promo codes. They expire 4 weeks from today (July 15), so get them while they’re hot:

MWXLYW7NR6PL

ARWP3R37XRK3

TN6AFLRWLYMF

FY3JNYAWTYL4

XH4MPL4MW9TY

HNKLX9ARATX6

YRM7NMRAFEN6

9KTR73FYK7LE

WYPHXA66R3JK

W3TN6W36FXW9

KP4LRWLLNYR6

3L3HL36RMNK3

T3EP6WAHJXNA

FTAHJHYHKT97

4X4KKKALLWKL

7LK7HWJMXHFX

JMHP9ALRPHWL

MPMRTXPJXEPE

4R6YWWXEEAW6

7ETYEA73AH7X

NYYP439A3RWT

XT4WTRX79TKJ

XJFX9K37LRJ6

EPNHTRLMT7Y9

KTME67H3LK3T

Obligatory terms sheet for promo code distribution.

[tooepic]

Yay, this has been a spare time project over the past couple months. Also my first foray into React Native. Tons more to do, and some performance issues, but very excited to have an initial update out there. This has been a long time coming for users of the app!

[spokesamerica]

My name is Ethan Sherbondy. I’m a junior studying Computer Science at MIT. I love plants, honeybees, and writing software. When Turner approached me about the possibility of doing this bike trip, I immediately said yes. Over the next few weeks, Manny and I will be weaving together a proper...

[tooepic]

This summer, I'll be biking across the country with a few friends from school. As we go, we're going to try and learn more about our nation's public education system to gain insight into how we can improve K-12 schooling. We'll also be teaching fun classes/workshops in the towns that we visit along the way. Mine is going to be about simulating plants!

We're calling ourselves Spokes. If you want to stay up-to-date with what I'm doing over the next few months, follow the Spokes blog! Above I've linked to my first entry.

[tooepic]

Chris Granger has decided to spearhead the effort of making parts of Bret Victor's dream a reality. Clojure and JavaScript will be flying first class, but all other languages are welcome aboard.

[tooepic]

John McCarthy (inventor of Lisp, one of the fathers of AI) wrote a science fiction short story back in 2001. It's a fun read, and it even features an excerpt from the robot's thoughts (written in Lisp, naturally).

[tooepic]

Please watch this.

I've spent a solid chunk of my life floundering against creative tools to breathe life into ideas. Bret Victor had the perspective to step back and reevaluate the very foundations of those tools. And start building better ones.

He reminds us how young and brutish the art of software design is. And circuit design.  And animation.

Now I have a better idea of what it must have felt like to visit Xerox PARC in the 70s.

Now that I'm a little less blind, I feel obliged to help.

More thoughts forthcoming.

While you wait, why not explore his Kill Math series?

[tooepic]

Soup & Bread off of Prashanth's, ahem, Day Job's new EP. Best music video of 2012. Best way to spend half a winter break.

[prshnth]

[tooepic]

Listen to this instead of Christmas music.

[mrgan]

A week ago I tweeted a quick idea for iOS apps that let the user select a photo from the device:

Today, a new version of Tapbots’ popular twitter client Tweetbot added this very option. You have to hand it to them for just going with a good idea. And yes, they let me know before they...

[tooepic]

I hope Tumblr adds this to their app next. Wonderful, simple idea.

[tooepic]

I love my dormitory and all of the writing on its walls.

[staff]

[tooepic]

staff:

Introducing the new and very improved way to customize your blog.

With themes organized by category, realtime previews, and an advanced code editor, it’s never been faster or easier to make your blog yours.

Internet Explorer users will still see the old Customize interface while we wrap up IE testing.

Nice. Big nod to iOS. Goes above and beyond sixteen-year-old Ethan's suggestions. Looks like they're using Ace editor behind the scenes to power the new syntax-aware code highlighting. Seems to be the definitive choice for HTML editing in the browser.

One thing: I never quite understood why Tumblr pulls content from demo to preview themes instead of my actual blog. I guess the premise is you get to quickly see an assortment of post types?

[tuneage]

Saturday treat: Mumford & Sons

Almost two years ago, I wrote my first guest post for tuneage. It was on Mumford & Sons. The band has since exploded - being nominated for a grammy, featured on major movie soundtracks and playing shows across the world.

A new (fairly high quality) Mumford & Sons track is making the rounds online. It comes from a live session the band did for a Colorado radio station.

The song is currently Untitled but I couldn’t help my excitement in sharing this beautiful track - Marcus Mumford’s crooning voice, heartbreaking lyrics and those fantastic harmonies have me hooked.

[tooepic]

Big fan of Mumford & Sons.

[prshnth]

Visit Original Link

[tooepic]

prshnth:

Track I made over the course of this weekend on a Cool Kids beat. Free downloads for anyone who clicks this link (!!!!)

First reblog in the history of Listenr. One small tap for man. One of the many new features to come. Expect 1.4 within the next two weeks.

[listenrapp]

[tooepic]

listenrapp:

That’s right. I’ve decided to make the app free for the time being. The plan is to add some super awesome paid features in upcoming releases, but the core functionality of Listenr will remain available pro bono. Much thanks to everyone who supported me by purchasing the app over the last few months. Now on to the new features:

The two big ones this time are Last.fm Scrobbling and Search. Also, all avatars and post metadata is stored locally on your phone, so this should result in a snappier experience.

To enable Last.fm scrobbling, just head on over to the Settings App, and under Listenr, flip the switch to ON. The next time you open the app, you’ll be asked once for your credentials. Rest assured, Listenr never stores your Last.fm password.

Enjoy! Leave a nice review if you dig the app. And if not, pop me an email or a Tumblr message. I’m always open to suggestions.

Huzzah! And I'm working on reblog support, among other things, as I type this.

[tooepic]

Bow down to our new telepresence robot overlords.

Today, Bump received a special delivery. It's an Anybot. Above is a photo of our robot in collapsed mode, taunting the office dog. Pretty incredible and a bit absurd. You pilot the robots via the AnyBots website. They have head-mounted displays and speakers, so you can actually talk face-to-face with coworkers around the office while you're controlling the robot. I recommend checking out their website during the work week to test-pilot an Anybot around the company's office in Mountain View. The experience is very reminiscent of a video game. WASD to drive, click to shoot... your laser... pointer.

This is just the beginning. Imagine all the possibilities once these guys are dextrous.

I think we're going to have a ton of fun hacking Bump capabilities into this guy.

[listenrapp]

[tooepic]

listenrapp:

Grab it. Tell your friends. Give me your feedback.

And if you think 1.2 is nice, just wait a week or two. Did somebody say last.fm scrobbling?

Edit: Almost forgot, promotional codes to celebrate the release:

9RKW496KMRLE

JAN6XTX7RAWE

WJT76JRFNY34

7RMAN7HNEHJ9

EWX7A4LX4NF4

X9MJ3TT74K33

XTYKFF9Y6A63

FXKN7T9MJT7F

63J9J6PMPLXF

TN79PKKN7FNR

[tooepic]

What are your favorite music tumblrs?

I'm a big fan of Tuneage, Jukebox, and yvynyl.

And I always love when my buddy Prashanth posts new tracks.

If you have your own set of favorites, I'd love to hear what they are.

[listenrapp]

[tooepic]

listenrapp:

Now that summer’s upon us, I’m trying to increment the app more rapidly. I didn’t announce the arrival of Listenr 1.1 because, frankly, it was a bit of an embarrassment. Soon after its approval, I discovered a nasty bug that caused the application to crash consistently on specific blog pages....

This is what I've been spending a fair chunk of my evening time on this past week.

On the note of catching bugs, I'd like to extend an invitation to you, dear reader, to beta test upcoming versions of Listenr. Sign up here. Testflight is pretty magical. I'm looking for thoughtful, specific feedback and reproducible bug reports.