William S. Burroughs on Rock Concerts (Crawdaddy June '75)

I summarized my impressions after the (Led Zeppelin) concert in a few notes to serve as the basis of my talk with JImmy Page: “The essential ingredient for any successful rock group is energy—the ability to give out energy, to receive energy from the audience and to give it back to the audience. A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy. Rock stars may be compared to priests, a theme that was treated in Peter Watkin’s film Privilege. In that film, a rock star was manipulated by reactionary forces to set up a state religion; this scenario seems unlikely. I think a rock group singing political slogans would leave its audience at the door.”
jamtoday: Fumblarity The Tumblr community is aghast over Tumblarity, an analytics and ranking system feature for Tumblr blogs. Why are people so upset? While Tumblarity does inherit Tumblr’s boutique-chic style, the Tumblarity featureset is a familiar one to anyone who’s published a website before, as most Tumblr users have. I just have a feeling, just a nagging hunch, that all of the hurt feelings might have something to do with this: The above screenshots are taken from my Activity page. That’s objectively what it looks like, at least. When I’m looking at a page that appears to belittle my online activity over the last couple years, I actually see something a little more like this: Why does Tumblr not like me? I thought it liked me! Maybe I should finally get around to checking out Posterous. Quality, Not Quantity Tumblarity attempts to quantify blogs - and their owners by extension. Some numbers for your posts, likes, and reblogs, and a mysterious number that for all too many of us seems mysteriously low. Maybe my score is low because Tumblarity is calculated on a prescriptive measure of how people are supposed to use Tumblr - very frequent postings of a variety of media types, right? From the iPhone I don’t own, I suppose? My disability is that I use my Twitter account for all of my reblogging and I use Tumblr for thought out, organized posts that often read like mini-essays. This post, for example. Does this mean that I’m doing it wrong, and deserve a low Tumblarity score? Maybe it does, but I’m starting to suspect that all the discussion about how “PeopleRank” will be the next PageRank glosses over the mammoth differences between websites and people. While ranking people surely involves some algorithmic ingenuity, people - especially your average mainstream internet users - will simply not put up with being belittled by audacious, prescriptive social rankings. Social Intelligence For its upcoming social directory, I hope Tumblr will be coding a more qualitative social intelligence into the system, rather than quantitative mathematic intelligence. An example would be Dopplr’s clever assignment of a sort of “spirit animal” to its users based on their habits: Please Tumblr, make sure your rankings don’t hurt my feelings. Tell me why I’m great, even if I’m not a celebrity or a firehose. If you can’t think of reasons my blog is wonderful, at the very least suggest ways I can improve it .

jamtoday:

Fumblarity

The Tumblr community is aghast over Tumblarity, an analytics and ranking system feature for Tumblr blogs.

Why are people so upset? While Tumblarity does inherit Tumblr’s boutique-chic style, the Tumblarity featureset is a familiar one to anyone who’s published a website before, as most Tumblr users have.

I just have a feeling, just a nagging hunch, that all of the hurt feelings might have something to do with this:

The above screenshots are taken from my Activity page. That’s objectively what it looks like, at least. When I’m looking at a page that appears to belittle my online activity over the last couple years, I actually see something a little more like this:

Why does Tumblr not like me? I thought it liked me! Maybe I should finally get around to checking out Posterous.

Quality, Not Quantity

Tumblarity attempts to quantify blogs - and their owners by extension. Some numbers for your posts, likes, and reblogs, and a mysterious number that for all too many of us seems mysteriously low.

Maybe my score is low because Tumblarity is calculated on a prescriptive measure of how people are supposed to use Tumblr - very frequent postings of a variety of media types, right?

From the iPhone I don’t own, I suppose? My disability is that I use my Twitter account for all of my reblogging and I use Tumblr for thought out, organized posts that often read like mini-essays. This post, for example.

Does this mean that I’m doing it wrong, and deserve a low Tumblarity score? Maybe it does, but I’m starting to suspect that all the discussion about how “PeopleRank” will be the next PageRank glosses over the mammoth differences between websites and people. While ranking people surely involves some algorithmic ingenuity, people - especially your average mainstream internet users - will simply not put up with being belittled by audacious, prescriptive social rankings.

Social Intelligence

For its upcoming social directory, I hope Tumblr will be coding a more qualitative social intelligence into the system, rather than quantitative mathematic intelligence. An example would be Dopplr’s clever assignment of a sort of “spirit animal” to its users based on their habits:

Please Tumblr, make sure your rankings don’t hurt my feelings. Tell me why I’m great, even if I’m not a celebrity or a firehose. If you can’t think of reasons my blog is wonderful, at the very least suggest ways I can improve it .

teendrama :: hello my name is dennis.

MBV Live in Amsterdam '89

Guide To Indie Rock Hair Styles.

(via semisetadrift)
Baa Baa…
grunge recording qualities
mild rhythmic syncopation
repetitive melodic phrasing
major key tonality
a vocal-centric aesthetic
electric rhythm guitars
an aggressive male vocalist
an unintelligible vocal delivery
Hear the Zep…