Tags: water

Back in July 2023 I went into the studio along with the rest of Salter Cane.

We had been practicing a whole lot of new songs for over a year beforehand. Now we were ready to record them.

We went in with a shared approach. We were going to record everything live. We were going to prioritise the feeling of a particular take over technical accuracy. And we weren’t going to listen back to every take—that can really eat into the available time and energy.

This approach served us really well. We had an incredibly productive couple of days in the studio collaborating with Jake Rousham, who we had worked with on our previous album. We ended up recording eleven songs.

After that burst of activity, we took our time with the next steps. Chris recorded additional vocals for any songs that needed them. Then the process of mixing everything could start.

After that came the mastering. We hired Jon Sevink—fiddler with the Levellers. He did a fantastic job—the difference was quite remarkable!

We decided to keep two songs in reserve to have a nine-song album that feels just the right length.

The album is called Deep Black Water. It’s available now from all the usual digital outlets:

• Bandcamp
• Spotify
• Apple Music UK
• Apple Music US
• Amazon UK
• Amazon US

We decided not to make any CDs. We might make a vinyl version if enough people want it.

I really, really like how the album turned out. These are strong songs and I think we did them justice.

I hope you’ll like it too.

How Certain Algorithms to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed – The Markup

A terrific piece from Aaron Sankin that goes from Waldsterben to software development via firefighting and the RAND corporation.

Bureaucracies use measurements to optimize and rearrange the world around them. For those measurements to be effective, they have to be conducted in units as relevant as possible to the conditions on the ground.

Coldwater.Science

The World Ocean is as close as you can get to outer space without leaving Earth. It’s an entirely different universe, nothing like the life we have on land.

CURRENT FUTURES: A Sci-Fi Ocean Anthology—XPRIZE

A collection of sci-fi short stories about oceans, featuring contributions from Madeline Ashby, Lauren Beukes, Elizabeth Bear, and more.

How the Internet Travels Across Oceans - The New York Times

CABLES!

Acephalic Agile—worse than Waterfall? - Oliver Wyman Labs: Technical

Agile itself provides us with the ability and opportunity to correct course, it allows us to steer, but it does nothing as such to help us steer correctly.

This observation about (some) agile projects is worryingly familiar:

I was suddenly seized by a horrible thought: what if this new-found agility was used, not teleologically to approach the right outcome over the course of a project, but simply to enshrine the right of middle management to change their minds, to provide a methodological license for arbitrary management? At least under a Waterfall regime they had to apologise when they departed from the plan. With Agile they are allowed, in principle, to make as many changes of direction as they like. But what if Agile was used merely as a license to justify keeping the team in the office night after night in a never-ending saga of rapidly accumulating requirements and dizzying changes of direction? And what if the talk of developer ‘agility’ was just a way of softening up developers for a life of methodologically sanctioned pliability? In short, what if Agile turned out to be worse than Waterfall?

I’m staying at the Edgewater hotel in Seattle, an unusual structure that is literally on the water, giving it a nautical atmosphere. The views out on the Puget Sound are quite lovely.

Inside, the hotel has more of a Twin Peaks vibe. It feels less like a hotel and more like a lodge.

The hotel is clearly proud of the many rock stars it has hosted over the years. As you settle into your cosy room, you can imagine what it was like when the Beatles were fishing from their balcony, or Led Zeppelin were doing unspeakable things with mudsharks.

Submarine Cable Map

This year’s TeleGeography map of the undersea network looks beautiful—inspired by old maps. I love the way that latency between countries is shown as inset constellations.

Client/Agency Engagement is F*cked, Waterfall UX Design is a Symptom | disambiguity

Leisa nails it. The real stumbling block with trying to change the waterfall-esque nature of agency work (of which Clearleft has certainly been guilty) can be summed up in two words: sign off.

And from a client’s perspective, this emphasis on sign-off is completely understandable.

It takes a special kind of client to take the risk and develop the level of trust and integration required to work the way that Mr Popoff-Walker any many, many other inhabitants of agency world would like to work.

Authentic Jobs ~ Ethiopia

Cameron’s travelling to Ethopia to help with Charity Water, thanks to the generosity of the users of Authentic Jobs.

Shinichi Maruyama

Black ink meets water.

Twitter / MarsPhoenix: Are you ready to celebrate?...

In the future, all great scientific discoveries will be conveyed in 140 characters.

An Interesting Way of Showing Battery Status

The screen of this mobile phone looks like a glass of water. The amount of water shows the battery life. The phone has a built in motion sensor to keep the water level.