Now.in

Now.in was shut down by the The Bureau of Investigation, Ministry of Justice last Friday. There has been many discussions on copyright issues and online start-ups in the cyberspace.

Initially, I felt that Victor, the founder of Now.in, is the martyr for the freedom of music. I had no clue of the complexities of the copyright laws in Taiwan. Now that I've had some idea, my impression of record companies being money-grubbing monsters is strengthened.

I'm truly grateful for Now.in, which has been an ideal platform for hosting our radio station. Its built-in chatroom sparked numerous fun interactions with listeners. Having hosted the show on Monday for over a year, the anniversary special show is the most memorable one for me, and I'm so happy that its recording still lies safely in my hard drive.

Now I'm in a dilemma--should we carry on the show? If so, we must believe in our mission of sharing good music and reiterate our stance on the Now.in dispute.

The Early Years

The Early Years - 'Fallen Star' from The Early Years on Vimeo.

This is old news. The Early Years' eponymous debut is one of my favorite shoegaze albums of all time. After four-year hiatus, the band published new music late last year.

Jutting down some quick notes on the new R.E.M. series I'll start on my main blog

The news that R.E.M. broke up stunned me much more than the Stone Roses' reunion. Perhaps R.E.M. lost its relevance a decade ago, but their existence meant everything. Besides, tons of bands have been inactive for years without officially calling it quits. R.E.M. announced their breakup without launching a money-grubbing tour, and that proves that they are something special. There's something mysterious about Michael Stipe that has kept me hooked to this day. In one interview, he remarked that the band already hinted that Collapse into Now was their final album on its album cover, where the band members appear for the first time in their career, and Michael waves goodbye to the listeners. I will also make a playlist with the songs that should have appeared in their greatest hits Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage 1982-2011. Stay tuned!

Kindle

After months of wavering, I finally purchased a Kindle last week. I'm still familiarizing myself with its features. To my surprise, it doesn't have a touchscreen and is mainly controlled by a navigation button and other keys on a keyboard. I've never been a fan of touchscreens, so I don't mind. There's this nice website--DailyLit--which sends a portion of a literary work to one's mailbox every day. I've tried reading books through their service, but I just can't stand reading from a computer screen. Let's see how much time I can set aside for reading on Kindle from now on... Kindle Fire has been released today. Will it beat iPad? I don't think so, but I hope it will.

Cognitive fluency

I love Lifehacker even though I don't read every article on it. What attracted me to the website in the first place was its coverage of geeky tools, but its dub on psychology is equally interesting.

An article on "cognitive fluency" caught by eye today. More information on this topic can be found on the Boston Globe. To be precise, "cognitive fluency" refers to "a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out that people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard." Owing to this human tendency, people fell victim to the manipulations of the media, for how information is presented and how it is titled affect our perception of it. Luckily, there are tips to trick our own minds so that we may accomplish more.

Eric Chenaux

I saw Eric Chenaux with my boyfriend last Sunday and totally enjoyed the show. There were only about 30 people, only a slightly bigger crowd than the Secret Machines show last year. Eric Chenaux's style resembles that of Mark Kozelek, but he's more experimental. It was the first time that I saw an artist plugging an acoustic guitar to an electronic pad (not sure what it should be called). The song "Worm and Gear" moved me particularly. Somehow I found the line "I lay down all my years in your arms" very touching.

Worm And Gear by Constellation Records

Unfortunately, the show only lasted for about 40 minutes and there was no encore. Perhaps Chenaux was unwilling to play to such a small audience. He did provide some interesting anecdotes and describe some of his videos. I wonder what they look like, but few can be found on the Internet.