• GitHub’s image compare view is awesome
• Premature generalization is part of the root of all evil.
• “Squash it, Push it, Merge, Deploy it“

• Lemur, the legendary multi-touch controller, is back on iOS
• A map of guitar stores in Berlin

• PressPausePlay is a great free movie reflecting on the current shift in creative industries.
• Oxt Weekend: The new way to say, “Not this weekend by the weekend after.”
• This Is Why I’m Broke

• “Stylometry” is a great word
• Stepping sideways might also just be moving forward in a different direction
• I donated 50 € to Wikipedia. Because it’s among the best things ever!
• I’m working on making Music Hack Day Reykjavík happening in October 2012. Excitement!

Greg Wilson – What We Actually Know About Software Development, and Why We Believe It’s True from CUSEC on Vimeo.

• Apply now for Music Hack Day at Midem/Cannes in January
• In-browser phone calls via Twilios JavaScript API

• Want a job in Berlin? Check berlinstartupjobs.com
• CCO – Chief Cat Officer
• Search and Deploy

• Tim Exile and Alex Ljung talking about ‘sound’ for Wired
• Play guitar in your browser
• You should donate to Wikipedia now!

• Being on top of Fernsehturm in Berlin at night is beautiful
• Dense, my favorite record store in Berlin, closed
• Sleeping before going to a club is the gentlemans choice
• Interesting blog featuring a desertion on intimacy in nightclubs
• Listen to Horse The Band talking about the meaning of life
• “The biggest favor you can do for yourself when deciding what to bring is to buy a very small travel bag” from Vagabonding

This Thursday, August 18th at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2, Tim Exile will play the first official gig on his new Online Stage at www.timexile.tv … and I’m super excited about it, because Roel and me build that site for him (with the design help of Sheikh). You have to tune in! You can watch an explanation video on the site now already.

So on Thursday, Tim will plug in his laptop, midi controllers and webcam in his studio in London. When the gig starts, the website will reveal a live video stream and a chat. Tim will make music and people can watch, listen and write fancy comments. So far a normal online performance.

The thing that is really interesting is the “REC” button under the stream. All viewers can record audio in the browser and send this audio via SoundCloud to Tim. Within seconds, the new sound will turn up on Tim’s Launchpad. Tim can instantly use it, manipulated, jam with it. Also, all sent sounds can be seen and listened to on the website via the play buttons under the stream. You can literally see the new sounds dropping in. And Tim will use the sound, that you just recorded on your little island in India or wherever, instantly in his live gig. Wicked!

So how did we build the site? The stream is done via Livestream and we also use the chat widget from there. The recording functionality is largely based on recorder.js. Playback of audio is done via Soundmanager 2. Everything is glued together with jQuery. The DOM and styles are plain HTML/CSS.

To get the newest tracks from SoundCloud we use a reverse proxy. This is needed since we do the requests to Tim’s activities with a never-expiring OAuth2 token and we can’t reveal that token in the frontend. The first version we wrote used Sinatra and Thin, but this performed very badly with concurrent users. When a request hit the reverse proxy and was relayed to the SoundCloud API, the server was blocked until this request returned. Such a request can take seconds. To solve this, we switched to Goliath, which doesn’t block on I/O, but instead suspends the request using Ruby’s Fibres, until the HTTP call returns.

The whole site is deployed to Heroku on the cedar stack.

To get the samples from SoundCloud to Tim, we use a simple ruby script that polls the activities of his SoundCloud account. Whenever a new sound comes in, it is played with mplayer to a sound card. The sound card’s output is connected with a cable (!) to the input of a Reaktor patch that records incoming sounds and maps maps then to the Launchpad.

Yes, this approach appears strange but it works surprisingly well. The two problems it has tho are 1) it needs the duration of the sound to load it in Reaktor and 2) we loose the mapping between the track on SoundCloud and the audio in Reaktor. This mapping could enable awesome stuff like a back channel for displaying which samples Tim currently uses. But for now we will leave this to future iterations.

I’m super excited about the launch. I hope you will be there to see it.

• Get your IP address, in JSON
• The Revolution Will Not Be Properly Licensed
• What are Social Objects?
• Disk Inventory X is an awesome tool to clear disk space on a Mac
• The Rule of Least Power
• Fighting traffic jams by driving like a zen warrior
• You have to watch Horse The Band Earth Tour. It will change your life!
• My friend Dickon started this blog for his latest art project

• If I ever work in an R&D Department, I’d refer to it as “Research and Destroy”
• The decision to always try to remember the names of people I meet has played out nicely so far …
• “What the FAQ?”
• “The Test Suite Is Too Damn Slow“
• Everyday I’m Hustlin
• “serious about excess”
• “Partying is: forgetting who you are while remembering what you are” from the Party Manifesto
• #workhard #partyhard #sleepwell
• I’ve been watching a lot of sunsets lately. It’s a good habit.

• SoundCloud was down but we fixed it.
• This video from SoundCloud Local Sydney is touching
• Watch Alex Ljung at This Week in Startups
• Henrik Berggren gave an awesome talk about fundraising
• I organized Music Hack Day Berlin, but that will be dealt with in another blog post …

• Robag Wruhme – Thora Vukk is amazing
• Ja, Panik – DMD KIU LIDT is great
• SBTRKT – Sbtrkt is nice

• Onion: PR Firm Kills Innocent Child
• TAZ: Interessante Videoserie über Menschen in Berlin

I published two tracks as Disko DNA:

In three weeks on May 28/29th Music Hack Day Berlin is going to happen. I’m super psyched about it, because it’s Roel and me organizing it. MTV is giving us their awesome venue right at the Spree and we also lined-up some kick-ass sponsors like Ableton and Spotify to pay for food and other comforts.

If you want to come as well, be quick and sign-up.

This weekend I will be at Midem in Cannes to build awesomeness at the Midem Hack Day. Mid-Feburary I’ll give New York a spin at Music Hack Day NYC and stay a bit longer afterwards to eat big apples. Come and say “Hi!”.