The Tech Blog @ Tokens From The Well

Looking at when technology and life intersect, usually while making and consuming art - this is the tech blog at Tokens From The Well.

Searching for a More Narrow Worldview

July 17, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I was reminded today that the Atlanta Braves are playing the Chicago Cubs. Google Now on my Android phone notified me of this fact in what was probably the first time it has volunteered information that was remotely helpful or interesting.

Previously, I wasn’t convinced that my “intelligent personal assistant” had me pegged right, mainly because I submit a lot of off the wall search queries. Or, so I think. Google Now may or may not know this. Or, maybe it knows me better than I do.

So, there you have it. It took a while, but Google Now finally reached a level of understanding about me that could signal the beginning of its usefulness to me – like a personal assistant that one day surprises you with a resupply of your favorite whiskey.

OK, not quite that great yet.

Building The Perfect Bubble

A recent article at news.com.au entitled “How Google Distorts Your View of the World” has again highlighted a phenomenon referred to as the “filter bubble.” Here’s how it works: Google algorithms determine your search results based not just on your search query but also your search history. While most of the time this yields what we might consider to be more “relevant” or “higher quality” search results, several downsides and their impacts are emerging.

Trust The Algos - #StopInfluenceNow smartphone case on Samsung Galaxy S5.

Algorithms are pervasive. This #StopInfluenceNow smartphone case meme could refer to both the algorithms driving stock market trading and those driving your search results. Go ahead, trust the algos.

It’s one thing to have read only the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, for example, to shape your view of the world. But, in the past when you sought additional information, that process would kick up a lot of stuff that either you didn’t agree with – other viewpoints – as well as some junk information to be disregarded.

Still, exposure to other viewpoints, and even the junk, has its benefits.

Now, a search engine (probably Google) is most likely the vehicle with which additional information is sought. And, guess what? You’re likely to see results – and most importantly for the business model, ads – that its algorithms determine are most in line with your search history and what it has determined are your personal preferences.

Therefore, as our ability to access information has expanded dramatically, we ourselves are also quietly working to limit it.

So What? Just Turn It Off.

You can just turn it off right? Yes and no. You can turn off Google Now or customize it. You can perform searches without signing in to your search engine.

However, this kind of artificial intelligence is becoming so pervasive that it is difficult to know when you’re actually engaged in an act of pure “discovery” or actually “happening along” new information on your own.

Siri. Shopping suggestions. Streaming media suggestions. Newsfeeds in social media. Yep, those are driven by a kind of artifical intelligence as well.

Still interested? You might also like my future blog post on the topic of newsfeeds too. Meanwhile, I have a game to watch soon.

Streaming Is Killing the MP3 Industry

January 6, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Nope. 2014 was not a great year for the MP3 industry. According to reports in The Wall Street Journal, sales of downloaded songs and albums “plummeted” while the use of streaming grew “sharply.”

And, for the icing on the cake: Vinyl sales are up significantly.

The Who and What By Numbers

Streaming is killing the MP3 industry, and hipsters should note the numbers on vinyl.

Let’s briefly review 2014:

Downloaded album sales dropped 9%.
Downloaded song sales dropped 12%.
Streaming grew by a whopping 54%.

Total album consumption was 257 million units. Downloaded albums represent 106.5 million of that total.

Hipsters should note that while vinyl sales are up, it’s only 9.2 million units in all. That’s about 4% of total (“new”) album sales across formats. Despite the saber rattling across posts and shares – as well as my own wishes for our culture – that’s not enough to spill a PBR (or Genessee) over.

To put a face on some of these numbers, Taylor Swift had the biggest album sales of the year with more than 3.66 million copies of her 1989.

So . . .

On the surface, the significant movement of these numbers in such a short period of time is what is most impressive. And, even more importantly, it’s interesting to put these numbers in perspective among broader trending across decades (RIAA offers a lot of data available via subscription). For example, notice how cycles in format adoption have sped up.

What would Rob and Barry think about streaming? High Fidelity is also a book by Nick Hornby that may or may not be available on Kindle.

The assumption that consumers are purchasing and downloading single songs while abandoning whole albums is wrong. The data backs this up. Among us enlightened music consumers, we may not like who they download or how they download it, but they still value the “album” as a collection of songs. In fact, since 2013, single song downloads declined more than album downloads.

The impact to what remains of an always clueless “music industry” is clear. People are listening to more music while they – and the artists – make less money.

. . . And In The End

These numbers tell us more about how our culture’s consumption habits and brains are evolving than they do about our music tastes.

The free market can be a real bitch. Music makers have greater access to instruments, collaboration, and distribution. Consumers have access to more music, more artists, and more formats. Are the sheeple engaging with albums and album tracks in ways that the enlightened would prefer? Who knows? They probably never will anyway.

These shifts in trends raise an interesting question about how artists integrate the distribution format into their work. For example, in 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hears Club Band, The Beatles mixed several seconds of sound for the record’s run-out groove. This was followed by a 15 kilocycle pitch that was included especially for dogs. Interestingly, use of the run-out groove actually dates back to recordings for 78s.

For most, the uncomfortable fact of the matter is that music now – like sales charts – is mostly data. That fact is not inherently good or bad. The real question is, what next?

Two New Things About Art Basel Week in Miami 2014

December 7, 2014 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

This was my fourth straight trip to Art Basel Week in Miami. Every year is different in some way. Still, some things never change. I can say however that there are two noticeable trends now well underway.

There are two noticeable trends now underway for visitors to Art Basel Week in Miami.

1. Traffic Is Worse.

This may go without saying. However, it was even more painfully obvious this year. Uber made it better, even while witnessing a surge rate of 4.8x.

The taxi drivers are still figuring out what it means to have Uber in their town. I was regrettably stuck in a taxi with a driver that was lamenting a) that he wasn’t making any money and b) that people don’t want to walk anymore.

Free(er) markets are harder on some than others.

2. Gallerists (And Especially Gallery Assistants) On Mobile Devices Are Worse. Far Worse.

Yes, business does happen on mobile devices just as much as it does in person. However, the sight of gallery assistants taking selfies is . . . well, satirical.

True, the Art Basel Week attendees aren’t much better with their mobile devices. Whereas, in the past, art glaze would set in after an hour or two at a fair, mobile devices are introducing a complicating factor: Art glaze predominantly affects the brain. Typing while walking predominantly affects the body.

Just Add Alcohol

While leaving The Dutch one evening I witnessed a great example of the compounding effects of these conditions: An attendee talking on the phone coupled with his backup charger and holding a drink . . . this while trying to high five his buddy.

Clearly he wasn’t aware of the artist charging phones from her vagina just up the way. She was charging both iPhones and Androids. And, simultaneously when required.

But now I’m just rambling.

Act Now (Or Later)

November 16, 2014 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

The G.U.L.F protest at the Guggenheim on Nov 5, 2014 as pictured in Hyperallergic’s coverage.

Recent incidents staged by the artist/activist group G.U.L.F. at the Guggenheim in New York have been spectacular in every sense of the word. Along with actions earlier in the year, the sequence of events has brought attention to G.U.L.F.’s cause via new channels quickly and globally. The action itself was eye-opening, but the blow-by-blow of the evening’s events on November 5 – complete with Keystone Cop style museum security – is downright entertaining.

Act Now and Save As

G.U.L.F. is an offshoot of the larger group, Gulf Labor. The “52 Weeks” campaign concluded by Gulf Labor earlier this year featured weekly contributions from artists, writers, and activists focusing on Gulf Labor’s cause.

Available at their blog, the 52nd week’s contribution for example invites viewers “to download, print, or . . . see a higher resolution version of the work.” In order to do so, the site instructs the viewer to “please click here or right click and then click ‘Save As’. ”

Think about that.

Acting Later

Artwork by G.U.L.F. contributor Claire Fontaine.

Screenshot from the Gulf Labor website featuring the 52nd week’s contribution by Claire Fontaine.

The biggest oh shit aspect of this story is reserved for museum institutions. Sure, most museum institutions will focus solely on the security implications, perhaps improving training of security guards or tightening procedures for purses and backpacks.

But, they’re looking in the wrong place. The real story is how this turn of events illustrates the precarious position these institutions inhabit in our connected world.

One of the dirty little secrets of the museum world (although they don’t think it’s dirty) is the lengthy nature of exhibition cycles. Because “outsiders” don’t really think much about it, it’s often surprising to many that exhibitions are planned 2-3 years in advance, and sometimes more.

Why does this matter? The very nature of the exhibition cycle lends itself to a limited number of topics that are safe-but-still-edgy-enough. Gender? That’s an issue that’s going to be around awhile. Race? That topic has still got some life in it. Sexual orientation? Gay marriage court cases won’t get wrapped up for a while. Income inequality? The poor will always be with you. The environment?

How Contemporary – And Relevant – Can You Be?

Twenty years ago, one could say they were interested in – or “followed” – a particular cause. Now, that’s kind of meh. Access to information – even among the developed world’s have-nots – has improved exponentially within an infinitesimal amount of time, historically speaking. News cycles have sped up dramatically in just the last decade. As a result, the culture of the developed world now looks at the big picture issue through the lens of trending.

This isn’t good or bad. It’s just different. Income inequality becomes microfinance. Race becomes Ferguson. Gender becomes gender reassignment as part of health insurance plans in Oregon.

Museum institutions want so badly to be relevant. So how relevant can these museum institutions – steeped in the organizational traditions and processes of the past – be when the issues to which they should be responding are now trending on a monthly and weekly basis? True, collecting institutions have an advantage over non-collecting institutions in their ability to respond to trending events, but bureaucracy will usually be the problem in organizations with those kinds of budgets.

And, speaking of organizations with big budgets, the The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi won’t open for a couple of years in case you were wondering. Meanwhile, Gulf Labor’s new campaign – entitled “Countdown” – launches shortly.

Meanwhile, The Art World Crisis Continues . . .

May 11, 2014 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

They say the sun an-a shines for all,
But-a yin some people world, it never shine at all.
– Bob Marley

In most fields, money and technology are good things. For many in the art world, the one-two punch is staggering.

Ben Davis, in his post “The Crisis in Art and What It Means to Write About It”, wrote:

If you somehow took a poll of critics and writers about the state of contemporary art, “excited” wouldn’t be the first word you’d hear. Pretty much everyone agrees that things are dire. Money is drowning out everything.

To his credit, and if I can sum up the takeaways from the piece, he acknowledges that money and technology are making this an interesting time for interesting conversations.

Destabilizing Forces At Work

The reason critics and writers would not be excited about the contemporary art world right now is that money and technology are destabilizing a field that worked pretty well, for a while, for a small group of people.

Now, any asshole with a smartphone can share and comment on art (some would say review or even curate). To make matters worse, said asshole can actually create images (some would say art).*

To make matters even worser . . . It doesn’t even have to be a smartphone any more. It can be a mildly intelligent phone.

Money and technology caused the collapse of the telephone switchboard operator job market.

Creative Destruction

Speaking of phones, I’m reminded of the telephone operator crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. Never heard of it? If you were a telephone switchboard operator, those twin angels of death – money and technology – were at work then too.

In 1970, there were more than 420,000 switchboard operators. Within years, hundreds of thousands of them had lost their jobs. Meanwhile, more people were making more calls, more cheaply, and making them faster.

Interestingly, today, telephone switching technology isn’t thought of as a job killer.

The Specter of Decentralization

Ben sounds open to the changes we’re watching in the contemporary art world and looking at them honestly. After all, more money usually means more people interested. And, technology means more people getting more things done faster. You may not like all those things being produced, but lucky for guys like Ben, it means more stuff to write about.

Where it sucks for guys not like Ben, is that with a decentralization of influence underway, the power that was once in the hands of the few is in a whole lot of other hands. With mildly intelligent phones.

* The any asshole phrasing is significant for me personally. In a conversation with a DJ once, he told me angrily that “any asshole with a laptop is a DJ now.” He said this while his dual iPod beats were falling out of synch.

Updated February 25, 2016.

The Ten Rules of Juking Off

November 16, 2013 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I am a DJ, I am what I play,
I got believers,
Believing me. – David Bowie

Jukeboxes are wonderful and magical things. And, despite a brief lull in their popularity, they’ve somehow stayed with us.

TouchTunes, for one, have made the jukebox again a lively centerpiece of nightlife.

These TouchTunes jukeboxes are the best machines for what I’ve discovered as an emerging, lively social activity bringing communities, friends, and even enemies together: The Juke Off.

A Brief History of Juking Off

TouchTunes jukeboxes began popping up in restaurants and bars with unrestricted, vast web-enabled song databases. This made it possible to hear “Thick as a Brick” or “What’s He Building?” while at your favorite watering hole.

Patrick Swayze and a jukebox, not engaged in a juke off.

Patrick Swayze has nothing to do with the rise in popularity of the juke off per se. However, somehow, he embodies the spirit of the juke off.

This sparked meaningful conversation as other listeners were unable to press “skip” or “>>.”

It also sparked rivalry and led to aggressive – and sometimes expensive – competition.

Unfortunately, establishments soon began restricting song database access. The reason is unclear. Regardless, it was a sad turn of events that lowered the bar for, well, music while in a . . . bar.

The enthusiasm and hunger for good music whilst drinking – and the healthy competition that ensues – remains. Juking off has largely been casual until recently. Ten rules have emerged to make juking off as productive and engaging as possible.

The Ten Rules of Juking Off

The first rule of a juke off is: You tell everyone about juking off.

The second rule of a juke off is: The juker that plays a song twice immediately loses the juke off and should be shamed accordingly.

3: The first play is determined by challenge. The one who proposed juking off plays first.

4: The challengee has likely already accepted the challenge to juke off. However, after the first play, the challengee may still decline the challenge honorably. However, an audience member may assume the challenge.

5: Jukers rotate until the audience deems a juker no longer worthy of rotation. That juker has lost the juke off.

6: Jukers are free to juke off all night. Jukers should be evaluated throughout the night based on these factors:

Consistency of theme or musical genre.
Accurate reading of – and response to – the audience and atmosphere.
Positive audience response is a plus.

7: If the establishment is preparing for close, an acceptable number of remaining turns is decided upon by the jukers, and the challengee plays the last song. The decision of a winner between jukers is put before the audience. Audience response determines the winner.

8: Wagers and awards in the form of house cash, drinks, and/or soakage are to be encouraged.

9: Freebird, Stairway to Heaven, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Hey Jude, and Thick As a Brick and any edited, live, or cover versions thereof are not allowed. Playing one of these songs results in automatic juke off loss.

10: Audience should be notified that a juke off is underway. Extra credits are likely required to maintain the pace of a juke off. However, audience members who cut into a juke off knowingly may be verbally ridiculed, regardless of the strength of their song choice(s). If they have acted unknowingly, they must at the very least be informed of their error.

Finally, remember: We could all get along, if we could all just juke off.

Death of an iMac Video Card

October 31, 2013 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I am fixing broken things, Everyone could use some help. – David Byrne

My 27 inch iMac – thing of beauty, companion, tormentor, and master – began a rapid descent into insanity about two weeks ago.

If your iMac display looks like this, you probably need a new video card. And, to be safe, go ahead and back up your machine.

The iMac’s behavior became erratic, first displaying colorful (re)arrangements of my desktop. They were seemingly random. Then the pink vertical striping started to occur. Sometimes the stripes were wide, sometimes thin.

About a week later, the real fun began. The screen and desktop would freeze on a whim. Finally, on startup attempts, the machine would only show a solid white screen. Nothing else would happen.

A call to Apple Care yielded a theory – it was probably the video card. Did you back up your data?

Kinda sorta.

How to Take a 27 Inch iMac Into the Apple Store for Repair

If you have to get a repair, definitely make an appointment. On a Tuesday during the day, the store was insane. People were gathered around one table for “Open Training” – which included lessons on dragging and dropping a piece of clip art from one side of the desktop to the other. Another group – there for “Group Training” – didn’t look like much of a group. There was no cohesion, lively debate, or camaraderie. Maybe they weren’t studying technology. Instead, perhaps the training was on how to be a group.

The thought had struck me early on just how I was going to carry a 27 inch desktop through the mall and into the store. The thought of lost grip and a tumbling machine on an escalator led me to the rolling suitcase concept. After three suitcases, a perfect fit. I added a little bubble wrap and was well on my way.

Carting a rolling suitcase through a mall isn’t weird. Unpacking it on the stools at the Genius Bar does generate some weird looks. But, then, the reveal. An “Atta Boy!” look from two or three of the geniusbarflys.

In Death, A Beginning

Through the death of my old video card, comes the birth of this blog. If this entry helps just one person navigate the potentially catastrophic consequences of lost productivity, lost data, and an iMac at the bottom of an escalator, it’s been worth it.