Song Exploder: Oathbreaker Breaks Down an Epic Two-Part Song
Culture

On the Song Exploder podcast, host Hrishikesh Hirway talks to musicians who take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the stories of how they were made. Listen below. Hardcore band Oathbreaker formed in Ghent, Belgium in 2008; in this episode, group members Caro and Gilles break down the two-part song that opens the band’s third album, Rheia. These two tracks, “10:56” and “Second Son of R.,” were written and performed as a single dyad. Caro and Gilles talk about how and why...

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Friday, 28 October 2016
Apple’s New MacBook Pro Has a ‘Touch Bar’ on the Keyboard
Computers

It’s been over 500 days since Apple updated its MacBook Pro. Now, the wait is over. And while the company’s new line-up of high-end laptops looks awfully similar to the previous version from the outside, there’s a world of difference, starting with what Apple calls the “Touch Bar.” First, the laptop itself, which comes in 13 and 15-inch varieties, and which retains the same basic look that has defined the Retina MacBook Pro for years now. There are some key...

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535
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Thursday, 27 October 2016
Song Exploder: How James Vincent McMorrow Infused ‘Get Low’ With R&B and LA
Culture

On the Song Exploder podcast, host Hrishikesh Hirway talks to musicians who take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the stories of how they were made. Listen below. James Vincent McMorrow is a singer/songwriter whose first albums fell somewhere on the folk music side of things. But his sound has changed over the years, incorporating elements of R&B and electronic music. On the album We Move, James worked with the producer Nineteen85, whose credits include tracks by Drake...

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470
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Friday, 21 October 2016
Razer’s New Laptop Is a Portable Supercomputer That Vapes
Computers

If you want a slim machine you can slip inside your messenger bag, tote to the coffee shop, and peck out a few emails on, there are plenty of those. Go ahead and get an iPad and a keyboard cover. Maybe even a MacBook or a Surface Pro if you can handle the extra ounces. But if you want the kind of high-octane monster that can power a frickin’ Oculus headset, weighs as much as a child’s bowling ball, and...

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1169
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Thursday, 20 October 2016
Nonstop Metropolis’ Stunning Maps Show NYC the Way Locals See It
Books

If you ask any New Yorker, they’ll tell you—their city is the center of the world. And according to the MTA or Google, the Big Apple’s core is somewhere in lower Manhattan. But traditional maps don’t show the locations familiar to the city’s millions of denizens: the corner in Queens where you can overhear Zulu and Jamaican patois, the trucks selling jerk chicken and dirty rice outside Hasidic synagogues in Brooklyn, the Staten Island Ferry that RZA and Ghostface Killah...

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480
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Wednesday, 19 October 2016
KEF’s Gorgeous Wireless Speakers Pack 200 Watts of Bump
Gadget Lab

The futuristic cones staring out from the front of KEF’s LS50W active speakers look like the spinner rims on a Mars rover. With lemon-juicer aluminum domes surrounded by 5.25-inch magnesium and aluminum-alloy moats, the cones are so visually striking it’d be silly to cover them up with a grille. And even though some of the available color combos are just plain gorgeous—red on gray, blue on black, and copper on white—they’re not there for looks. Those handsome driver arrays are...

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463
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Monday, 17 October 2016
Issa Rae on How She Wrote ‘That’ Rap
Culture

If there’s one thing Issa Rae is great at, it’s being a semi-bad MC. It’s not that she can’t write rhymes, or deliver them, it’s that when her character on Insecure raps, she’s supposed to live up to the show’s name. The songs that she writes for the show—usually delivered to the bathroom mirror—are, however, hilarious. Smart, funny, and self-deprecating, they deliver the inner thoughts of her character (also named Issa) in a creative way that’s a fun twist on...

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500
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Sunday, 16 October 2016
Hoefler & Co.’s Handy Web Tool Lets You Try On Different Typefaces—For Free
Design

Fonts are like pants: It’s best to try on a few different styles before making a purchase. Like a pair of jeans that look flattering on one person and unbecoming on the next, a typeface that comes across as elegant in a bit of sample text might look overcrowded when used for your company logo. Just because it looks good on the mannequin doesn’t mean it’ll look good on you. Type foundry Hoefler & Co. wants to make trying on fonts easier, with a new tool...

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565
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Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Song Exploder: Why Phantogram Totally Changed Their Sound for Three
Culture

On the Song Exploder podcast, host Hrishikesh Hirway talks to musicians who take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the stories of how they were made. Listen below. Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter started Phantogram in 2007. And over the last nine years they’ve developed a very distinctive sound and dense production style. But for their new record, Three, things changed. The first single from that record, “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore,” switches up the band’s sound...

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496
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Friday, 07 October 2016
Let’s All Obsess Over This Intricate Map of Alt Music History
alternative

It started with The Sex Pistols. Specifically, with The Sex Pistols’ June 4, 1976 show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. The concert now ranks as one of the most influential performances of all time, up there with Woodstock. But the audience, not the band, made the show famous. Around 30 or 40 people showed up (although thousands would later claim to have attended), and rumor has it that crowd included the guys who would go on...

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613
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Friday, 07 October 2016
Buying Guide: 14 Essentials for Your Next Solo Road Trip
buying guides

Road trip! Vegas or bust! Austin, here we come! Miami’s never going to know what hit ’em! Well, that’s one kind of road trip. And that kind of road trip is a lot of fun. But then there’s the other kind of road trip—the kind you do all on your own. Maybe you have to move somewhere far away, or you need to deliver something across state lines, or you just can’t take one… more… day in the city. The...

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578
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Saturday, 01 October 2016
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