Tracking Online Music

The world of online music has been evolving and expanding for a long time now. As more people listen and discover more music online, all of our listening, viewing, 'liking', and tweeting creates a mass of data ripe for aggregation and analysis. The volume is staggering. 

Next Big Sound published a 2011 State of Online Music report that estimated there were more than 64 billion plays tracks played online. A counter on their website shows more than 52 million plays today. NBS is a startup that tracks the popularity of music across more than a dozen digital music services and social media websites. There are some notable absences in their list of services, especially Spotify that launched recently in the United States. One site I visit frequently when I'm looking for new music is Bandcamp, which is not yet on their list. 

A great way to hear new music is to stream on Spinner, NPR, and 3voor12 the week prior to their release but those plays are not counted here. I can understand why they don't track those plays as they are just a sampling of the music that you may not suit your musical palate. And there are other streaming sites that are of questionable legality when it comes to copyright that makes sense not track. It's an incomplete picture of trends in online music but gives you a sense of the scale of our online engagement with music.  BP

Culture Icon | Misty Copeland

In the summer of 2007, American ballet dancer Misty Copeland became the first African American female soloist at the American Ballet Theatre in two decades. Copeland had her first ballet lesson at the San Pedro Boys & Girls Club at 13, won first place in the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards at 15, and joined ABT at 19...all while maintaining a 3.8 GPA through her junior year of high school. Since that time Copeland has performed in dozens of ballets as well as many other dance and artistic projects. She inspires many young ballerinas but is a role model particularly to African-American and other minority girls who face challenges in reaching their dreams. Copeland will be inducted into the Boys & Girls Club of America Alumni Hall of Fame in 2012.

Book Club | The Earth Knows My Name

Future-ish is very excited to announce the first book in our Future-ish Book Club, The Earth Knows my Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans by Patricia Klindienst, Winner of an American Book Award for 2007.

Purchase the book from: Beacon Press | Amazon | Powells | Your Indie Book Store

From the book:

"Inspired by her own family's immigrant history, master gardener Patrica Klindienst traveled the country, gathering stories of urban, suburban, and rural gardens created by people rarely presented in American gardening books: Native Americans, immigrants from across Asia and Europe, and ethnic peoples whose ancestors were here long before oru national boundaries were drawn. In The Earth knows my Name, Klindienst writes about the beautiful yards and fields she discovered, each one an island of hope, offering us a model - on a sustainable scale- of a truly resotrative ecology."

Patricia Klindienst is a master gardener and an award-winning writing teacher. She lives and gardens in Guilford, Connecticut. This is her first book.

Future-ish Book Club

Our readers asked for it and we delivered...Welcome to the Future-ish Book Club!

Each month, we select a book from the world of science, design, and/or culture for our book club followers to read and invite them, and you, to discuss the book virtually on our site.

Have a book suggestion? Send us an email at studiof/at/future-ish/dot/com.

2012 Booklist
March | The Earth Knows My Name by Patricia Klindienst

SAM Remix | February 24, 2012

Future-ish is pleased to once again co-host Seattle Art Museum's SAM Remix, an opportunity to Experience SAM's new exhibit Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise during a special evening of performances, talks, dancing and more at this late-night creative explosion. Event ticket includes time ticketed entry to Gauguin & Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise.

Join the party with fellow co-hosts: 911 Media, AIA Seattle. The American Association of Museum’s Seattle Emerging Professionals Group, Canoe Social Club, French-American Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest, Frye Art Museum, Gage Academy of Art, Langston Hughes African American Film Festival, Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival, Longhouse Media/Native Lens, NOMA NW—National Organization of Minority Architects, Out for Sustainability, Rat City Rollergirls, Seattle Chamber Young Professionals Network, Voices Rising, and the World Affairs Council’s Young Professionals International Network.

Follow the link above for more details on the evening's events and tickets.

Members: $12.00
Adults: $25.00
Students: $20.00

**As a co-host, we have our own special discount promo code so contact us if you are planning to attend and we'll get you the code ASAP.

Gastronomy Geek | Jared Levan

The worlds of science and food have been colliding for years in the field of molecular gastronomy. Finding chefs that get into the science of food isn't too difficult but finding scientist foodies is like finding a lone sprig of rosemary in a four feet wide pan of Valencian paella.

We recently stumbled across one of those rare individuals in NYC-based scientist, food stylist, and writer, Jared Levan. His degree in microbiology is from Cornell but his sense of style and passion for food are all his own. These days Levan applies his scientific curiosity to the kitchen creating new dishes on his own and styling food for others, including the Food Network, the Cooking Channel, ABC, and Chef Rocco DiSpirito. Lucky for us, Levan's food-science insights aren't gathering dust in some university library, you can read all of his Food Scientist and other posts on his blog, In Food We Trust.

Cocktail Astronomy | Eta Carinae

Excerpt from Stanbridge's 1848 article found in Hamacher and Frew article below.
Here at Future-ish, we love astronomy and we love cocktails. So to prep our fans (and ourselves) for those stellar weekend cocktail conversations, we are pleased to offer our Cocktail Astronomy post each Friday.

In this week's Cocktail Astronomy we bring culture into our cosmic equation...the culture and traditions of the Boorong aboriginal people of northwestern Victoria, Australia to be exact. In a post on Indian Country Today Media Network, New Echoes of Eta Carinae Explosion Seen by Aborigines 150 Years Ago, we learn that the star that became a very well known present day nebula, Eta (η) Carinae (also known as the Homunculus Nebula), was known and documented by 19th century astronomer William Edward Stanbridge and in the dreamtime and oral traditions of the Boorong people.

According to Stanbridges 1858 paper in which he refers to the star using La Caille's 1763 star catalog, the Boorong knew Eta Carinae as Collowgullouric War, a female crow, the wife of War (Canopus). Details on the connection can be found in an article from the November 2010 issue of Journal for Astronomical History & Heritage, An Aboriginal Australian Record of the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae by Duane W. Hamacher and David J. Frew.

Image Credit: Nathan Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and NASA
Eta Carinae is getting a lot of attention these days as it could go supernova any day now according to an article in Nature in which researchers are using light echoes to learn more about the 19th cenetury "great explosion" of Eta Carinae. The pending supernova was also covered in Time.

Queen of the Smart Set

Queen of the Smart Set 2012, Mayim Bialik
Future-ish is pleased to announce our selection for Queen of the Smart Set 2012: actress, scientist, author, spokesperson, and Mom, Mayim Bialik.

Here at Future-ish, we love highlighting individuals that are passionate about the science, design, and culture shaping our future. We have collected many such individuals and showcase this posse of polygeeks in our sidebar feature, The Smart Set, as Scelebs, Design Idols, and Culture Icons.

In 2011, self-proclaimed history and science geek Alyssa Campanella was crowned Miss USA and we were so inspired that we 'joined the procession' of well wishers and congratulations by having a little fun and naming her our first ever 'Queen of the Smart Set'. With Campanella talking about the future of NASA, fashion and cooking, and her favorite history and culture books, we realized that a whole new generation of young women were now, themselves, being inspired to learn more about the science, design, and culture shaping the future.

Our Queen of the Smart Set accolade was so popular that we decided to continue naming a Queen of the Smart Set each year in February. What makes the Queen of the Smart Set honorees so special is that they are women that have accrued outstanding achievements in all three future-shaping spheres of science, design, and culture. They are true inspirations to us all, but they are particularly important and valuable role models for young women.

We humbly offer a string of virtual bows and curtsies in congratulations to our growing list of regal geeks and smart sovereigns.

Titleholders
Queen of the Smart Set 2012 - Mayim Bialik
Queen of the Smart Set 2011 - Alyssa Campanella