About a week ago, many bloggers were writing about the nightmare scenario of getting locked out of your iCloud account. Indeed, what could terrify a geek more? There was sense of panic at the realization this could occur. Nick Heer writes at _Pixel Envy_: > What I am stunned by is the breadth of impact this lockout has, and what a similar problem would mean for me, personally. I do not blame Buttfield-Addison or anyone else for having so much of their digital life ensconced in an Apple Account. Apple has effectively made it a requirement for using the features of its devices and, thanks to Apple’s policy of only trusting itself, creates limitations to using third-party services. This kind of issue can be devastating. Most of what was written about the impact focused on family photos being erased or rendered inaccessible. I lost early baby photos of my first son to what I believe was an iCloud issue. I’m still trying to locate CD backups that I did of iPhoto years ago to see if I can retrieve them. I also lost music and while this isn’t a type of data that comes up in most of the discussions about the issues with iCloud, it can be very problematic. The music I lost by using iTunes match and then Apple Music included a ton of music I had purchased on Emusic. It also included hypnosis sessions that I had done with a therapist when I was going through a long period with IBS. Those are recordings I can’t get back.1 All that vanished when I canceled my Apple Music account (which was experiencing frequent problems). Getting a NAS has been on my radar for some time. My godfather is offering me a godson discount on some drives to populate such a device. I’ll be adding purchasing something like this UGREEN NASync DH2300 to my new year’s resolutions. I've already busted out SuperDuper to help with those carbon copy clones. **Source:** hey.paris * * * 1. Fortunately, I no longer have IBS and don’t need the benefit that hypnosis provides for that condition. ↩︎

Post short thoughts or long essays, share photos, all on your own blog. Micro.blog makes it easy, and provides a friendly community where you can share and engage with others.

Cyrus Farivar writes for _Ars Technica_ about a startup company that wants to reclaim the Twitter brand from the clutches of Elon Musk. Called Operation Bluebird, the company has filed a formal petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office on the premise that X Corporation has abandoned it. > Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. He eventually changed the company name and brand identity from Twitter to X. That decision, Operation Bluebird says, created an opening for the Twitter name to be formally abandoned. In July 2023, Musk himself tweeted that “we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand, and gradually, all the birds.” As eager as Musk was to shed the old branding, you would think X Corporation would be happy to have it picked up. Not so. X filed suit against Operation Bluebird for trademark infringement. Of course, experts say that X could have just defended the trademark against cancellation, but that wouldn’t be nearly as on-brand as a lawsuit. At this point, I feel like we should all let Twitter go. It was bought and destroyed. There’s no point in resurrecting its decomposed carcas. What disappoints me most is that it seems many who abandoned X at the height of Elon Musk’s folly have now gone back. Just a year ago, I wrote about the exodus of some prominent names, such as Russell Moore of _Christianty Today_. At the time, he was delighted with the atmosphere on Bluesky, so I was surprised to see his recent rebuttal of the president’s reaction to Rob Reiner’s death on X. It seems Moore is not the only one to denounce the service and then go back. I still can’t understand the appeal of X over Bluesky, though, which has reached a level of near feature parity.

Another Substrack writer jettisons the platform.

Damon Krukowski from Galaxie 500 writes about the vitality of live music — not just music experienced in person, but also live albums. > I started collecting live albums— bootlegs in particular — because they helped me hear how musicians actually play their instruments. Growing up in the heyday of 1960s and ’70s studio wizardry — Revolver, Pet Sounds, Dark Side of the Moon — records seemed particularly far removed from performance. No one can play guitar backwards. And few live shows will ever feature the sheer number of instruments and voices routinely stacked together by multitrack recording. > > In the 1980s, bootleg LPs were everywhere, followed in the ’90s by bootleg CDs. All used record stores seemed to have at least a few. I first encountered bootleg live recordings when I moved to Albuquerque, NM, in 11th grade and befriended some guys who spent too much time reading _Goldmine_ magazine.1 Shops that sold these recordings called them “imports,” and in truth they were usually shipped in from other countries. The label, of course, hid the (likely) illicit nature of the albums. That year, I asked for a Dinosaur Jr. live album called _Slop —_ that I had seen behind the counter at a local record store — for Christmas. You won’t find this album in any official discography (_wink, wink_). It cost $46, enough to be my main gift that year, and roughly the price of three standard CDs. It was a big gamble, and ultimately a disappointing one. The sound quality was terrible, and the production values were extremely low. The cover, as you can see in the header images, offers no track listings. The CD itself claims the tracks are listed on the back, but the back simply repeats the same message as the front. I still have the CD, but I never listen to it. The _Slop_ fiasco and other poorly recorded shows turned me off live albums for a long time. Many “official” live albums don’t fare much better. Sticking with Dinosaur Jr., the _Chocomel Daze_ live release from Merge Records (recorded around the same time) doesn’t really sound superior to _Slop_. I came to believe it didn’t make sense to pay for the same songs recorded at lower quality than the studio versions. Over time, though, a few recordings have changed my mind, and I still hold on to some classics. The Cure’s _Entreat_ , for example, is one I frequently revisit, as a reminder of the raw beauty of a true live experience. Via @benjamin@social.lol * * * 1. Goldmine meticulously documented bootleg live recordings. ↩︎

Gives new meaning to the 'internet of shit.'

Listening to “Let Me Take You Out” by Class Actress in 2025 feels like hearing the sound of promise unfulfilled. When the single from their first EP, _Journal of Ardency_ came out in 2010, it seemed like the start of a band destined to make a mark. The song was even used in a car commercial. Though “Let Me Take You Out” was different than the rest of the group’s more synth-pop-oriented songs, it showcased the strength of Elizabeth Harper’s vocals.1 Harper’s voice was compared with Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell. The New Order vibes were strong as well. Ultimately, Elizabeth Harper and her collaborator Mark Richards only released one full-length album under the Class Actress moniker, _Rapprocher_ in 2011. To the casual observer, with only a trickle of smaller releases after the long player, it seemed like Harper disappeared into her own Class Actress persona. Her embrace of glamour and excess as that persona, as well as shedding her primary musical partner, seemed to swallow her creativity. Class Actress - Let Me Take You Out (YouTube) It appears to be difficult to even find the _Journal of Ardency_ EP on a decent-quality digital format at this point. * * * 1. When I saw them live, Harper referred to the track as “the guitar song” to the soundman. It stood on its own. ↩︎

## Sign up for Treasure Hoard Get personal content prepending the linkfest below in the email newsletter. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### And now for the links... Bradley Androos has an interesting take on the recent deprecation of the penny. > In a recent segment on Bill Maher’s Real Time, Maher joked that Spotify will no longer be able to pay artists after the penny has **ceased to be minted**. While the clever remark gained a respectable laugh from the crowd and panel, I am not certain that it shouldn’t have a provoked a groan instead. There is, perhaps, a little too much truth hidden in that little statement. There is absolutely truth in that statement, and I’m not sure it’s all that hidden. Androos goes on to point out that 1 CD sale is worth 1500 streams of on-demand audio. His conclusion: buy physical media or at least pay for downloads. * * * Terrence O’Brien from _The Verge_ interviews Scott Lapatine from long-running music site _Stereogum_. > What prompted the latest revamp of the site, however, wasn’t streaming music platforms, it was largely driven by AI. “Google’s pivot to AI search has cut our ad revenue by 70 percent. Prior to that, Facebook and X’s deprioritization of links hurt too, but I can’t downplay the brutal impact of AI Overview,” Lapatine said in a post announcing the site’s relaunch. Even beyond overviews, though, Lapatine sees AI diminishing these platforms’ usefulness. Every time he logs into Facebook, he says he’s bombarded with videos, “like Ozzie comes back from the dead and hugs a little girl. It’s hard to believe that these platforms are letting themselves be turned into these like slop warehouses.” I’ve been reading Stereogum since it was a Livejournal site with one writer (Lapatine). Its decline came some time before it was challenged by competition from AI. What bothers me most about Stereogum is that it became more about music adjacent celebrity gossip than music. I don’t care about an article like “Drake Claims T.I.’s Friend Never Urinated On Him.” I’m not so sure there is much to distinguish that kind of content from the AI slop that Lapatine derides. * * * Though my mom swears by the show, I’ve never been interested in _Dancing With The Stars_. An article by Will DiGravio in Paste Magazine expressing his appreciation for Andy Richter piqued my interest, though. > For the show’s Halloween special two weeks ago, Richter emerged from a cornfield dressed as a priest to dance the Paso Doble to Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio.” With a fog machine and all, Slater plays some sort of demon witch, who does her best to get the better of the priest, before he performs a brief exorcism, then drags her by the foot across the stage. It rocked. I enjoyed the theme of the dance, though I didn’t realize the performances were so short. Richter is great in such a serious role. Andy Richter's Halloween Night Paso Doble (YouTube) * * * Garrett Martin writes for _Endless Mode_ about the new 8LP Legend of Zelda vinyl box set. > The Legend of Zelda and its hero Link are officially middle-aged. The two are staring down the big 4–0, with ‘26 marking that significant birthday, and so it’s not surprising that they’re picking up one of the more common midlife crisis affectations: an overpriced vinyl collection. As I’ve noted recently, ambitious vinyl projects are still popping up frequently. As long as there’s a market… * * * One of the founders of the Mastodon decentralized social media service and primary leaders of the effort, Eugen Rochko, is stepping down from his position. > Being in charge of a social media project is, turns out, quite the stressful endeavour, and I don’t have the right personality for it. I think I need not elaborate that the passion so many feel for social media does not always manifest in healthy ways. You are to be compared with tech billionaires, with their immense wealth and layered support systems, but with none of the money or resources. It manifests in what people expect of you, and how people talk about you. I remember somebody jokingly suggesting that I challenge Elon Musk to a fight (this was during his and Mark Zuckerberg’s martial arts feud), and quietly thinking to myself, I am literally not paid enough for that. Runninng a social media company is not for the faint of heart. Even hosting a Fediverse instance is not to be taken lightly. Members fight about banning each other, stray remarks are taken as “harm,” and people are just generally too invested. It’s hard to imagine having a healthy life when dealing with such a burden. While I prefer the clean, more deliberate design of Bluesky and have more faith in their vision, I still follow a bunch of good people through the Fediverse, so I’ll be there for the foresseable future (though maybe not with Mastodon if the Ghost ActivyPub integration imroves). * * * Even as an Orthodox Christian, I have mad respect for Pope Leo XIV. I’m not the only one. Evangelical David French writes about how the current Pope is acting as the anti-Trump. > His concern for human dignity extends to the world of technology and commerce as well. On Nov. 7, for example, he posted on social media: “Technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. It carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The Church therefore calls all builders of to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work—to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.” > > The pope’s comment drew an immediate rebuke from Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist and Trump supporter, who posted (and then deleted) a meme mocking the pope’s statement. Of all the major Christian denominations, as of late, I have been the most impressed by the Catholic model of sociopolitical engagement. Theirs has been a consistent ethic of Christian principle and their dedication to the immigrant community will be remembered when (hopefully) the present troubles have past. Thankfully, the Catholic Church is not the only Christian group standing up for the persucuted in this country. Adding the current Pope’s cred is that he’s a cinephile, promoting the power of movies. * * * This Thanksgiving, a reminder that not all heroes wear capes.

Few musicians are as prolific as Jenn Wasner, the creative force behind Flock of Dimes. She has made much critically acclaimed music as both as Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes as well as collaborating with a host of others on their tunes My favorite project of hers is the Dungeonesse S/T album that came out nowhere in 2013 and made a forceful argument that the woman could do anything, even 80s-style hip-hop/R&B. Although Flock of Dimes has been more experimental in the past, on the just-released _The Life You Save_ , Wasner goes for a more straightforward but augmented folk approach that fits her tales of addiction and relationship troubles. Whether gently strumming her worn-out acoustic guitar in her living room while a succession of people strips her domicile bare as in the video for “Long After Midnight” or sitting in her bed in the video for “Keep Me in the Dark,” Wasner is able to emote her struggles beautifully. Her voice has a unique richness that conveys the heaviness of her life. The visuals for “Long After Midnight” illustrate the lyrical theme of loaning money to someone who sounds like a codependent. The song shows Wasner’s ability to mine the depths of relational difficulty for something universal. Flock of Dimes - Long AFter Midnight (YouTube)

Post short thoughts or long essays, share photos, all on your own blog. Micro.blog makes it easy, and provides a friendly community where you can share and engage with others.

I was reading some thoughts on _Walden_ the other day, and I realized I hadn’t engaged with one of my favorite philosophical works in some time. I first encountered Thoreau and the transcendentalists as a teenager. Their emphasis on nonconformity seemed really punk at the time. Wasn’t Jello Biafra singing about the same subject? What could be more punk than building a tiny house in the woods and drinking homemade moonshine with the squirrels and other woodland creatures?1 A few years ago, on a trip to Boston to visit my sister, we made a pilgrimage to Walden Pond and went to the site where Thoreau’s cabin stood. It’s now a scattering of rocks, some stacked in the way you would see in a “zen” stock photo. I realize that some cast doubts on the authenticity of our friend David. Sure, maybe he took his laundry home to have his mom wash it. Still, as his meticulous records about what he lived on and by what means he obtained it show, he really made a go of his little experiment. I’m surprised, with all the emphasis on minimizing digital time, that Walden hasn’t been coming up much recently. There are few examples of a retreat from modernity that capture our popular imagination like Thoreau’s deliberate sojourn into the woods. Of course, in my desire to revisit the transcendentalist’s seminal work, I realized I could always read it on my iPad. * * * 1. There is no evidence this happened (other than the cabin part). ↩︎

Sometimes a slower pace is what we need.

It's difficult to decide whether buying physical media is worthwhile.

I was inspired by this post from Adam Wood to go through my Roon library and remove albums that didn’t necessarily belong as part of my collection. These were albums that were taken in as a result of curiosity and didn’t sustain my interest past an initial listen or two. Streaming makes it all too easy to pick up (but not acquire outright) a lot of media. We’re all new to this kind of abundance but what I’m learning is that quantity may be at least somewhat at odds with appreciation and enjoyment. Knowing my proclivity toward collecting and being a digital packrat, I need some sort of tool to help with discernment. It was with great appreciation that I learned of Roon’s “Listen Later” feature. The feature does just what you would expect from the name — you can save items for later evaluation. This alleviates the need to automatically add anything you want to check out to your main music library. It’s very handy for keeping your collection to a reasonable size and stocked only with albums you know you enjoy. The downside to the “Listen Later” feature is that it adds another aspirational media consumption list. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already got queues on multiple video streaming services, as well items to read later in my Reeder app and Matter. I’ll never get to everything but I’m not one of those people who saves items to those spaces only to let them rot. I switched to a combination of the Roon music management app and the streaming service Qobuz a couple of years ago when Apple Music was giving me headaches with hi-res audio and downloads. The advantage of combining Roon with Qobuz is maintaining a robust solution for music files you have purchased and are storing locally while also getting access to a universe of audio you haven’t (yet) purchased. I use the word “yet” parenthetically because streaming sometimes serves as a preview mechanism to music I want to purchase outright. One of the differentiators for Qobuz is the ability to purchase the music you are streaming. It’s not cheap (unless you are on a higher tier plan), but it’s available in hi-res formats. Since Roon is the price of a respectable streaming service and I have to add Qobuz on top of that, I’m paying more than I would be for Apple Music or Spotify (yuck), but I’m happy with the additional benefits.