Eagerly awaiting Young Echo - Nexus now due June 30.

Also looks like several of the Young Echo collective will be at Glastonbury. Ishan Sound, Dubkasm, Kahn, Gorgon Sound, Peng Sound Mashup
https://soundcloud.com/factmag/fact-mix-386-young-echo-jun-13
http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/10/fact-mix-386-young-echo/

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Today's public service announcement:
- Love the Farm
- Use the loos
- Use the bins
- Take your stuff home
- Leave no trace.
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/information/green-glastonbury/love-the-farm-leave-no-trace

That's just reminded me how crunchy the ground is as you cross the Other or Pyramid fields at 5am on the way back to the tent. See how many working lighters you can find!

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Some Green Fields Tibet - India fun.

Tibetan Monks blowing the horn while wearing some proper festival headgear.
http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/13/dalai-lamas-tibetan-monks-to-perform-at-glastonbury/

A friend of mine is also performing with Shakti Sings - she says: we are the 'green' choir! It is amazing, if somewhat cheesy and a bit mother earthy, but it is a lot of fun 
WEDNESDAY 26TH JUNE
9-11pm SHAKTI SINGS FOR GLASTONBURY
Opening Ceremony in Stone Circle Field (35 min performance at 10pm)

THURSDAY 27TH JUNE
Including 4pm Bandstand at Croissant Neuf & public singing at 5pm 9-10pm SHAKTI SINGS
Live performance at the Inter stage/Backstage Party, 3 songs
( performance at 9.30pm)

FRIDAY 28TH JUNE
All afternoon – small choirs communicating our message to the public across the site including 2pm Greenpeace Field

SATURDAY 29TH JUNE
All afternoon – small choirs communicating our message to the public across the site including 2pm Greenpeace Field

SUNDAY 30TH JUNE
All afternoon – small choirs communicating our message to the public across the site including 5pm TOAD HALL LIVE, Green Futures Field

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For a short while there, years ago, I quite liked Tweetdeck.

So I'm afraid for me, Twitter remains and becomes even more a fairly irrelevant Write-Only-Network.

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Stealth competitor from the UK. ~2Kw, full-sus, downhill bike.

The Voltz is kind of like the Stealth. Curious to know the tech specs, like battery details and motor source. All those wires really need hiding away. And of course, there'll be people up in arms because it doesn't fit anywhere in the legal framework except as a true off-road MX competitor so there's limited places where you can use it.

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2 guys riding electric motorcycles across America in opposite directions. One solo in 5 days, the other as a team in 3.

Terry Hershner used his new Vetter streamlining to make it from California to Florida in 5 days single-handed, (despite having to stop en route for 40 hours), while Team Moto Electra rode an electrified Peter Williams replica JPN Norton to go the other way in only 3 days, with a back up team and two riders.

http://www.plugincars.com/electric-motorcycle-pioneers-blazing-electric-trails-127426
http://craigvetter.com/pages/2013%20Streamliner/2013-vetter-streamliner-Hershner-p65.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Moto-Electra-Racing/110022072362813
https://www.facebook.com/lifeoffthegrid?directed_target_id=0

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iPod Classic Upgrade
After much research, I think I need:-

- An iPod Classic 160Gb 7th Generation (ie the current 160 Classic).

- Sourced from the USA or at least outside the EU to avoid the hard coded EU volume cap.

- Upgraded with a high capacity battery for added life

- Upgraded with a Toshiba MK2431GAH 240Gb hard disk
This should be good for 32K tracks. Unfortunately the shuffle function uses a signed int so is limited to 2^15. Provided you keep down the metadata on each track it will handle >32k tracks in total but won't shuffle all which means breaking it down into multiple playlists of < 32k. The metadata problem is that itunes.db needs to fit in the available 64Mb of RAM. Apparently, gnupod and possibly other utilities can be used to strip the metdata down to essentials and so squeeze the database. I routinely clean unused tags from my MP3s and remove cover images anyway so may not have a problem. There is actually a 320Gb disk coming on line that would fit, but these firmware limits mean it's not really worth trying.

I've seen a few other people asking about Super high capacity PMPs (portable music players) but it doesn't look like anyone has a good solution. The need is still out there but nobody wants to serve it, and especially not Apple.

Apparently my early iPod 160 Classic uses an incompatible twin platter hard disk with an incompatible disk interface. It also won't run the latest Apple Firmware. So rather than being dead it's simply obsolete.

Meanwhile the iPod Touch battery has died and it's a 3g Touch so wont run iOS 6 or 7. So frankly the only thing it's good for is as a permanently plugged in winamp remote!
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Take the following devices and try and work out what they have in common.
1) Nokia "throw away" PAYG phone
2) Apple iPod Touch 3G
3) Apple iPod Classic 160 6g
4) Minirig portable boombox
5) X-mini portable speaker
6) Garmin GPS
And the answer is they all charge from +5v, 500mA. But they almost all use a different charging cable and/or a different sync cable.

In fact in total, I need 2 Sync cables and 4 charging cables to handle all of that. How did it come to this? This is why there is an EU directive that all such devices should be abble to be charged via Micro-USB socket. Except that the only device that has one of those is the Nokia and that can't charge from USB. And Apple only support this directive in their latest phones via a Micro-USB <-> Lightning connector. Even though I hate it, I do kind of understand why Apple does this and why they think they're special. And of course they can get away with trying to get you to spend extra money on genuine Apple accessories. But what's everybody else's excuse? And that's before we start adding in Android phones, iPads, tablets and other devices that charge from 5v but need more current than the standard USB 500mA. Or the new USB 3.0 connectors.

Can we please just sort this all out because I'm sick of it.

1) Nokia throw away PAYG phone
No charging via Micro-USB. USB is only for sync. Charging uses their small tip as opposed to the old 3.5mm large Nokia tip. Their nominal 5v charger is actually 6.5v. They'll happily charge from 5v but then won't report charging complete, battery full. 

2) Apple iPod Touch 3G
Will charge from any old USB charger with an Apple sync cable. But won't charge from a custom charger aimed at supporting Apple's enhanced USB not quite standards aimed at supplying > 500mA

3) Apple iPod Classic 160 6g
Will only charge from an Apple charger with a normal USB sync cable. But will some times charge from other people's chargers depending on the smarts of the charger and of the cable. Won't charge from a Computer or USB hub unless the computers is on.

4) Minirig portable boombox
Requires it's own USB lead as they use a 6mm plug.

5) X-mini portable speaker
Charging and line in/out on a mini-USB. Hooray! Except that the built in audio jack lead always breaks, so you need the combined USB-Jack lead or a jack to jack AND a USB-mini-USB.

6) Garmin GPS
Charging on a mini-USB. Hooray!

This rant is because I've just bought this 4 port USB charger, to discover that while I only need to carry one plug, I still need a pocket full of leads. Grrrr!
http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/portapow-quad-usb-uk-us-eu-mains-charger/

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http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/why-he-no-longer-gives-away-his-music.html
The problem here is that I can't see the connection between music obsessives discovering that you can obtain music for free and exploiting that fact;  and a movement trying to work against the exploitation of interns and freelancers by for-profit organisations.
Follow the links to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/05/digital-economy-work-for-free

Bruce Sterling is fond of saying "what happens to Musicians will happen to everyone". The theory being that Musicians discovering that there is no money in the game for 99.9999% of all players is just the bleeding edge and everyone else will be discovering the same thing about their niche in quick time. But maybe this is just recognising that most art is an activity with no monetary value and always has been. If we still think it has value to our lives and society as a whole, then we need to find some other way of compensating it's creators than simply putting a monetary value on it's content.

As for education loans, endless internships, going the extra mile, free freelancers, and all the other euphemisms, it's economic slavery, no? By all means leverage a bit of free work or barter into a longer term contract, but if you consistently use people's willingness to do this to keep your costs down, then go to hell.

So are you still buying stuff from Amazon? I know, I know, it's just so convenient.
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Is hate too strong a word? Because I'm beginning to hate Dorna.
- The joke that was the 2 year experiment in CRT
- Giving the UK rights to BT Sport. And probably destroying the Eurosport commentary team in the process. While excluding a whole range of potential fans which may even include Virgin cable which is half of the pay per view/subscription audience. 
- And now beginning to destroy WSB in the guise of trying to save it.
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Apparently it's not just car manufacturers who feel the need to re-invent the bicycle when designing a vapourware e-bike concept.

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Yay! Coffee will cure all your ills! And if you wear boot-cut or flares it will make you wear straights.

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No need to worry. Carry on regardless because that's what you will probably do anyway. This is just some parts of your government showing a rare case of realism and planning for an uncertain future. And it ain't looking pretty.

They're talking about 2040. But maybe they really mean 2020. Don't want to worry people too much. And although the paper is from the MOD, the analysis is from a Guardian Doomsayer.

http://www.nafeezahmed.com/2013/06/shock-uk-ministry-of-defence-report.html#more
Energy, environmental crises, imminent peak oil, food, water shortages, and sustained recession through to 2040 will create internal unrest. Says UK MOD.
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A (re-)found cultural object from 1976 and my deep and distant past. The USA's Bi-Centenary should have been a celebration but was also a very confused time for America that was just post Vietnam, Nixon's impeachment, Gas crisis and rationing, Altamont, Hendrix. Jimmy Carter was the counterpoint but most of the USA hated him for that. The president of guilt, not catharsis.

The whole Spirit - Spirit of '76 album has this wistful, stoned, blissed out - smacked out feel to it with loads of echo, reverb and phaser guitar. It feels to me like a lament from the Hippy-Boomers for lost opportunities. A reflection of the times. This opening track combines and merges America's other national anthem with Dylan's iconic "Times They Are A'Changin". Except it's not an angry warning the way it was in 1964 so much as sad and dazed and confused.

Of course 1976 was also the height of Prog Rock, The Eagles, soft-Alt-country-rock and mere minutes before The Sex Pistols and all that BOLLOCKS. And it was only 2 years before Iran blew up, and the Russians invaded Afghanistan. So the times were decadent, ripe for a change and about to be a'changin in totally unexpected ways.

Oh America; what happened to you? In the words of the last stanza of Burroughs' thanksgiving prayer. "Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams."



ps. You gotta love a rock star with a name like "Randy California".

pps. Bonus track. Cover of "Like a Rolling Stone" from the same album and in the same style.

He may have been doing finals but still found time to do a May round up mix.
http://whitenoisereview.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/may-roundup-2013.html

I haven't heard all of these, but there's some bangers in there. The blog is highly recommended by the way.
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Already raining then, 
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/newssite-snaps-portraits
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/data/image/gf033%20-%20JOE%20RUSH%20FROM%20THE%20UNFAIRGROUND.jpg

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Got my tickets for tomorrow night's Akkord - Navigate launch on Houndstooth, Rob Booth's Fabric label. Looking forward to seeing DJRum again as well.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?481944
Akkord, DJRum, Eleven8, Wen. 

Here's Akkord's Boiler Room set
http://basinghouse.co.uk/news/akkord-boiler-room/

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Rather better article than usual about batteries and where battery tech is heading. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/28/hot_lithium_ion_batts/
It makes a refreshing change from the usual breathless hype of the (mainly) US tech blog coverage to see some real science and facts in there.

The downside is that game changing battery tech is probably going to stay a permanent 30 years out. While there are a few more cycles of incremental change to be had, it won't give us the factor of 10 improvement we need. The available 20-30% improvement is still useful, especially if the costs can come down as well.

This in turn means that we need to focus on reducing energy needs in battery powered devices as much as increasing the storage capacity. That's a good thing in itself.

And for E-bicycles, I want the lifespan and relative safety of LiFePo, with the size, weight and high current capability of RC LiPo (LiCo) at about a 1/3 of the price. m'kay? 

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