Synesthetech

Two really interesting articles on Ars Technica yesterday:

• Beauty: it’s in the sex of the beholder
  David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, wrote that beauty “exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.” Scientists have found some truth in that quote and can add that the sex of the mind also matters a great deal.
• Is your skull the best speaker? Audio Bone headphones say no
  The Audio Bone headphones are supposed to use the bones in your head to transmit sound, leaving your ears open to hear what’s going on around you. In practice, however, the volume and clarity are substandard. For $190, this is an utter disappointment.

Awhile back, I was invited to fill out a questionnaire as part of a research project on netlabels due to my curation of Stasisfield. The results of that research have now been posted in a report over at Phlow Magazine. While the results are somewhat predictably lopsided (most netlabels characterize their music as electronic - no big shock there), they are nonetheless still fascinating to wade through. Patryk Galuszka, the Max Planck Researcher who conducted the surveys, has done an incredibly thorough job in this first phase of research on the topic, and if you’re at all interested in the free music movement you should check out his results.

• Netlabel Research Report from Max Planck Researcher Patryk Galuszka [Phlow Magazine]