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My office is moving to another city and my commute is going to drastically change. For drivers, this move will be fairly trivial. For low-car folks like me, it poses some significant challenges.

I just received an email from Record Bird, a new release tracking app, announcing that they are shutting down due to financial difficulties.

Over time, we witnessed that it became more and more expensive for us, but also for artists to get fans to download an app. Yet scale was the only way to create a sustainable and economically profitable model.

Source: email newsletter from Record Bird not published online

As most web developers do, I sit in an office chair for a significant portion of my day. As most web developers don’t, I take regular breaks where I walk briskly around town, or cycle across it. Ergonomics are not my primary concern, but comfort certainly is. Is their a chair for me?

In episode 7 of The Menu Bar podcast, Zac Cichy and Federico Viticci go deep on streaming music services. They talk specifically about how streaming services have not only changed the way we listen to music, but the music itself that artists create. It was an inspired and extremely enlightening discussion—as is par for the course on The Menu Bar (consider supporting their Patreon). I have a counterpoint, though.

Martin unveiled their new line of premium ukulele strings this week at NAMM 2018. They appear to be Aquila Lavas.

How about we break out of the new release holiday slump with a new Daniel Romano record! No? How about two!

As has been my tradition for the past few years, I’ve shared with you my most listened-to music. This year, however; I also wanted to share the music I was most excited about—the music that gets lost in the data when you don’t adjust for Misophonia, or listening to music with friends, or just life and music happening around you in general.

Misophonia is king as I discover the soothing powers of north-western grindcore, and new records by Daniel Romano and Thy Art Is Murder make an impression.

A few months ago, I put gut strings on my main ukulele. I ran into some big intonation problems after a while, though. I had to switch back.

I joined Facebook back in 2006 when it first opened to the general public. I did this mostly because I was involved in building a social network platform to help artists, record labels, and management companies take their web presence back from MySpace. Fast-forward 11 years: I’m focusing more on my own music, Facebook is the new MySpace, and here I am trying to take back ownership of my web presence from them.