dominicalhambra-blog

[dominicalhambra-blog]

That it has strayed so far from its original meaning? Nobody I spoke with seemed to care, Jameson included, and the phrase has always had a certain malleability anyway. Sombart’s late capitalism differed from Mandel’s differed from Adorno’s differed from Jameson’s. “Late capitalism” often seems more like “the latest in capitalism,” Konczal quipped.

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere

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Over time, the semantics of the phrase shifted a bit. “Late capitalism” became a catchall for incidents that capture the tragicomic inanity and inequity of contemporary capitalism. Nordstrom selling jeans with fake mud on them for $425. Prisoners’ phone calls costing $14 a minute. Starbucks forcing baristas to write “Come Together” on cups due to the fiscal-cliff showdown.

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere

[dominicalhambra-blog]

It took the emergence of a new, tenacious left to jailbreak it from the ivory tower and push it into wider use. In the wake of the Great Recession, the protestors of the Occupy movement occupied; the Sanders campaign found real, unexpected traction; the Fight for $15 helped convince 19 states and cities to boost their minimum wages up to $15 an hour. Editors and writers on the left founded or expanded publications like Jacobin, The New Inquiry, and n+1.

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere

[dominicalhambra-blog]

In his canonical 1984 essay and 1991 book, both titled Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Jameson argued that the globalized, post-industrial economy had given rise to postmodernist culture and art. Everything, everywhere, became commodified and consumable. High and low culture collapsed, with art becoming more self-referential and superficial. He told me he saw late capitalism as kicking into gear in the Thatcher and Reagan years, and persisting until today. “It has come out much more fully to the surface of things,” he said, citing the flash crash, derivatives, and “all this consumption by mail.”

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere

[dominicalhambra-blog]

Roberts said that the term’s current usage departs somewhat from its original meaning. “It’s not this sense that things are getting so bad that the revolution is going to come,” he told me, “but rather that we see the ligaments of the international system that socialists will be able to seize and use.”

Why the Phrase 'Late Capitalism' Is Suddenly Everywhere

[dominicalhambra-blog]

You don’t have an operating system designed for mobile devices and adopting someone else’s OS doesn’t make business or technical sense.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

You’ll have to solve a very long list of vexing technical problems for mobile devices including power management, radio efficiency, miniaturization, storage, display, CPU utilization, multi-tasking, cloud computing, advanced graphics, data/sensory input, etc.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

While you’re beginning to appreciate logistic and component pricing advantages on volume-based products like the iPod, you won’t have similar advantages with this device especially at the start and against players like Nokia that sells hundreds of millions of units around the world each year.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

You may think Jonathan Ive can easily design the hardware, but you’ll have to invent a stunning UI and a truly innovative interaction paradigm so that it’ll give you at least a two-to-three year competitive cushion against other players, as you will surely need it.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

This device will likely require a bunch of proprietary service and content components (maps, email, media, games, etc) beyond your core competency, requiring lengthy negotiations and strategic partnerships.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

In order to create a sufficiently large and attractive platform you’ll have to entice developers with an array of inexpensive development tools and create a highly-lubricated marketplace unlike any other.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

If you want to achieve iPod-scale (and you must) you’ll have to implement and operate a different, dedicated and larger sales and support network on a global basis.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

In order not to be quickly marginalized, you’ll have to distribute the device in most countries around the world, even where you have little or no Mac or iPod penetration.

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline

[dominicalhambra-blog]

Are you familiar with the sense of relief that sometimes comes when we stop listening to music and indulge in peace and silence? It happens even to people who can't get enough of their music, and it's associated with a phenomenon called "listener fatigue" (or ear fatigue). "The effects of [listener] fatigue are well known, although people do not always link these effects with the term fatigue," said Dr. Tanit Ganz Sanchez, an associate professor at the School of Medicine at the University of São Paulo (FMUSP) and founder of the Ganz Sanches Institute, a facility that specializes in hearing treatment.

Why Spotify Lowered the Volume of Songs and Ended Hegemonic Loudness

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By

Why Spotify Lowered the Volume of Songs and Ended Hegemonic Loudness

[dominicalhambra-blog]

You see the problem, right? A song is made of quieter and more agitated moments. In real life, a guitar alone doesn't have the same intensity as when the drums join in. When compression occurs in an exaggerated way, it makes everything louder, which ends up stealing the dynamics away from the music itself. It's like listening to that one loud friend of yours who always yells when they're drunk. In addition to being bothersome, it also becomes monotonous after awhile.

Why Spotify Lowered the Volume of Songs and Ended Hegemonic Loudness

[dominicalhambra-blog]

The Before movies are often called “talky,” with good reason, but that tag gives short shrift to the sheer delicacy and precision of the actors’ body language, the degree to which these films are rooted in a subtle interplay of minute gestures and split-second glances. One sweetly telling moment happens aboard a tramcar early in Sunrise when Jesse impulsively reaches out, as if to brush a lock of Celine’s hair from her face, but just as quickly loses his nerve and withdraws his hand. And not a single word is exchanged in perhaps the film’s most heart-stopping sequence: squeezed into a record-store listening booth while a folk song by Kath Bloom plays, Celine and Jesse steal glances at each other, avoiding direct eye contact, smiling to themselves, fully aware the other is looking. The critic Robin Wood once proclaimed the scene resistant to analysis, calling it “the cinema’s most perfect depiction . . . at once concrete and intangible, of two people beginning to realize that they are falling in love.”

The Before Trilogy: Time Regained

Some highlights of some of the more "affective" moments I had with Before Sunset and Sunrise. The visual parts are lessened in Midnight, left to compositional prowess over the actions of the characters themselves.