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‘In the moments immediately following the MegaUpload shutdown, global internet traffic dipped an astounding 2-3 percent. Unfortunately for the feds, that didn't last for long. According to an assessment recently published by DeepField Networks, file-trading volumes basically returned to 'normal' as rival services started picking up the slack. So, same volumes, less snappiness and cost-efficient delivery, at least in the short term. Or, maybe the long-term, depending on how over-the-top this anti-piracy enforcement campaign grows. But does that mean the shutdown was essentially useless? Outside of file-trading volumes and routing details, the 'ripple-effect' of policy changes and shutdowns is getting a lot of attention. Most recently, the shut-and-run list includes BitTorrent tracking giant BTjunkie, with others likely to follow.’

‘Pity the poor rock fan? Well, no: Rock fans have launched enough snobby, pernicious bits of language at other genres that they could afford to do some penance resurrecting their own.’

‘Sleigh Bells' music has always been about overwhelming your senses, making things so loud and so blurred that you don't know where one thing stops and another ends, how fast the day is passing. Slow things run at double-time, fast things run at half-time; the world runs backwards, slows down, speeds up.’

‘The coal companies are lying to you. Coal energy is not clean energy. It is the dirtiest form of energy generation we have. The coal companies are spending millions of dollars hoping you’ll forget this. A slick ad campaign doesn’t change the truth.’

‘Being ruthless to yourself is having the discipline to become a better developer - not letting yourself get away with the easy or convenient.’

‘The vast majority of this record is given over to rhapsodizing over some hunky, dangerous fella, and none of the alterations — sonic, biographical, cosmetic — allegedly made to the real-life Lana/Lizzy could distort the truth as thoroughly as her unrelenting Ooh He's a Bad, Bad, Sexy Man routine. It's instructive to picture what this guy would actually look like IRL, some clown with a real emotional haircut, Crocs hanging off his feet, Urban Outfitters leather jacket hung over his IKEA futon, remnants of that Taco Bell burrito with the Fritos in it congregating at the corners of his mouth as he binges on Skyrim, blasts "Pumped Up Kicks" on infinite repeat, and gargles dozens of shots of, like, Goldschläger.’

‘So, you want to make a contact microphone? Whether you want create noise music by banging on scrap metal, cheaply and easily amplify your acoustic instrument, or just play with wires, you’re in the right place.’

‘When it comes to IVF, in-vitro fertilization, nothing is normal. Your world is upside-down. Your doctor compliments your wife on her monkeys. Then, when every dollar and exertion has gone toward a single hour of hope, it begins to snow.’

‘In terms of its America-sized grandeur and its fixation with the emptiness of dreams, Born to Die attempts to serve as Del Rey's own beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, but there's no spark and nothing at stake.’

‘1. Go through your piece and flip the gender of your descriptive phrases' subjects. Are there any that sound ludicrous as a result? 2. Are you essentially making shit up about the artist in order to sexualize her? 3. Are you comparing the artist you're writing about to other female artists only? If so, why? 4. Are you writing about a moment where your subject flirts with you and you respond in kind?’

‘Structured to mimic real library browsing, participants would search the card catalog, apply for a library card, and then check out one of the 35 books as they became available. The book titles, chosen by the “books” themselves, included “Custodian,” “Evangelical Christian,” “Fat Woman,” “Feminist,” “Iraq War Veteran,” “LDS Missionaries (Mormon),” “Olympic Athlete,” “Orphanage Boy,” “Psychiatrist,” and “Queer,” among others. Readers and books engaged in one-on-one conversations that lasted 30 minutes.’

Comparing the discussion around Lana Del Rey to those around Paris Hilton's 2006 album.

On Rihanna possibly working with Chris Brown. ‘Human feelings are much more complicated than the narratives we try to fit them into. If we’re willing to allow pop stars to thrill us with unpredictable art, we have to grant them the right to make their own artistic decisions—provided they don’t directly hurt anyone else, of course—and react accordingly. We have to understand that though they are public figures who may figure into the aspirations of countless others, they are also human beings, and the most important response to their actions is careful deliberation about the issues raised, not instantaneous (and condescending) condemnation that eliminates their perspective altogether.’

‘I don't want to come across as rockist, but this matters. And to pretend otherwise, and try to cover it up with dance steps and glow sticks and an uncomfortable, kind-of-almost-but-not-really mash-up between Deadmau5 and Foo Fighters, is to treat dance music as just another fad to be chewed up by Big Entertainment and bottled up like a noxious pot of 5-Hour Energy.’

‘Once upon a time, dance pop was about self-affirmation, and the thing being affirmed was usually some sort of identity—ethnicity, gender, sometimes class, and maybe even sexuality. The Nicki generation seizes a whole new subject for pop: not who you are and how you made it, but the meaning and experience of celebrity once you have it. In place of identity, these prima donnas are performing fame. And doing it with what you might even call “taste”: an idiosyncratic aesthetic vision for everyday life, one that has nothing to do with where they’ve been and everything to do with synthetic aspiration. Minaj isn’t being inauthentic about celebrity—celebrity is the most authentic thing about her.’

‘Woman-beating rage-broccoli Chris Brown lip-synced his single “Turn Up the Music” (without being threatened by Sir Elton John) and danced roughly as well as a third-rate Chicago footwork dancer. He ended his performance by back-flipping off the stage, though sadly not off the earth.’

‘The Grammys. Think. That they. Were the victim. Of Chris Brown. Hitting. Rihanna. In the face.’

‘There was such intense (online) media coverage of Chris Brown’s horrible deed, plus indexical evidence of its effects on Rihanna’s face, that it quickly outpaced his musical identity. Now, he’s just tagged as a violent shithead, and arguably the Grammys’ ignorance of this fact only heightened this feeling.’

‘Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet access in the hope that competition among providers would protect consumers. The result? We now have neither a functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet access nor government oversight.’

The Hum. ‘For some time now there appears to be certain people who have sensitive hearing that can hear a low frequency humming noise late at night or in the early hours of the morning. The problem appears to be all over the North Shore of Auckland. We don't know the origin of the generic hum which appears to be world-wide.’

By Alexander Swenson. ‘A dog realizes the lack of resolution inherent in living.’

A portrait of Manoj Bhargava, the man behind 5-Hour Energy.

‘The world is full of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40. The number of projects that are truly impossible unless you put in 80 or 120 hours per week are vanishingly small by comparison.’

‘Once granted, all of these services are issued a token that gives unlimited access to your complete Gmail history. And that's where the danger lies.’

‘Why would VEVO pirate content? Because it was easier than getting it legally. This is the actual root cause of piracy online. It’s not shady, masked individuals at swanky events commandeering computers to pirate for the hell of it. It’s VEVO employees. It’s everyone.’

‘Songs are always already their own advertisements; that’s what makes them such a compelling commodity. But my main problem with BTD is that it steps beyond the necessary function of pop song-as-ad and embodies the form of advertising as well. It doesn’t mean that LDR critiques thus can’t be (unconsciously) gendered (even this one), but to me it’s impossible to get past. We can both embrace the multiple pleasures of pop artifice while simultaneously critiquing its most craven examples.’

‘Why is pop music the only art form that still inspires such arrantly stupid discussion? The debates that surround authenticity have no relationship to popular music as it’s been practiced for more than a century. Artists write material, alone or with assistance, revise it, and then present a final work created with the help of professionals who are trained for specific and relevant production tasks. This makes popular music similar to film, television, visual art, books, dance, and related areas like food and fashion. And yet no movie review begins, “Meryl Streep, despite not being a Prime Minister, is reasonably convincing in ‘The Iron Lady.’”‘

‘So, here’s where this experiment fails. This is the point where I concede that it’s impossible to talk about Lana Del Rey without delving into the reams of criticism that attack, defend, or otherwise analyze her existence. It’s the lyrics to her songs themselves that prove there’s no way to think about her on her own terms — she doesn’t have her own terms. What she wants so desperately is to know what we — that is, the default heterosexual male listener — make of her.’

‘Exploring “what a woman should be” is boring and cliche in the 21st century, and perhaps that is why Lana Del Rey seems to many to be so bored and sad on stage. So let’s take Lana Del Rey for what she is—a pop star playing a role, a woman whose real life we know nothing about—and learn from what she’s taught us about our own insufferable addiction to a vapid version of femininity. In the future, I’m hoping we’ll accept more female artists who are interested in mining the depths of who they really are.’