I wish my mom would send me pictures of my cat without me even asking

404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for the Palantir-made tool called ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address. www.404media.co/here-is-the-...

Children screaming and crying can be heard as a possible uprising is underway at the ICE Children's Concentration Camp in Dilley, TX (1/24/26).

Sharing this report of ICE depravity from Facebook at the request of community member. This is from a suburb north of ICE-occupied Minneapolis. The text is from her post on Facebook.

I’ve thought about it and I think we should sabotage Spotify low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/let-s-sabo...

In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties. The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized. Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.

Community radio should be the Internet's center of gravity. Social media sucks because it's literal work and work sucks. You're not living until you're winding through Appalachian mountain roads, listening to a station low on the dial. All this and more in my newest blog post yet.

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

Spotify was archived by Anna's Archive 2 days ago. When the company starts filing lawsuits, remember this bit from the book "Spotify Teardown": Spotify *exists* because of bittorrent, and because it began ... *with an archive of pirated music*.

You give me money I solve all your problems simple jazzstrategies.guru

absolutely cursed property. anything short of returning it to death by audio/285 kent/glasslands (or equivalent) will result in generations of karmic haunt to all future tenants & their parent corporations.

If I could be any cat I’d be my cat.

on the verge of being back in business

Just sent a follow up to God

I’m hungry

An incredible, revelatory intervention by my friend Dr Tarek Loubani. Humane, scathing, courageous. Watch it and share and be enraged.

Why are they calling it GPT-5 and not Cinco AI? youtu.be/x9S2ciB-6jc?...

This is probably the last episode of "Reimagining the Internet", the podcast Mike Sugarman and I have produced for the last five years. Talk about going out on a high note: I interview Alondra Nelson on AI, universities and the Trump administration: publicinfrastructure.org/podcast/117-...

This is the last episode of this show I'll be producing and oh my god is it an incredible one. Absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in the fate of science and technology in America. Shoutout to powerhouse host @ethanz.bsky.social, might not be the last time we do something like this

Why are so many artists struggling in a booming music industry? New for @moreperfectunion.bsky.social youtu.be/I8zBkQFDpsg?...

just released the open source software powering Freq, superFreq, developed during my soon-to-end time at @idpiumass.bsky.social can’t believe I got to build this crazy thing at this job. now it belongs to you, world. github.com/iDPI-Umass/s...

How did one of the 1st attempts to bring the DIY music community online turn into yearly industry summits and a policy push advocating for independent musicians? In part 3 of my Simple Machines history, scrappiness begets savvy and we say hi to Steve Jobs. low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/when-diy-w...

Anti-trans disinfo runs on fossil fuels, and hating on Trans people is the new "climate is a hoax". An independent analysis of 45 right-wing groups advocating against trans rights found that 80% have received donations from fossil fuel companies or billionaires. heated.world/p/fossil-fue...

they should sell some snacks for people at the pet store

Gonna post more about Freq even tho ironically I am not someone who posts a lot in general. But! Just added a feature today that automatically gets metadata from Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and YouTube if you paste a URL to an album or song. I used it to make this post! www.freq.social/posts/sug/no...

I don’t think the headline really lines up with what the interview is saying, but either way, the last thing the Internet needs is a shiny new monopoly www.wired.com/story/big-in...

Gonna use this as an opportunity to plug my buddy @sugzone.bsky.social’s music website Freq, “A place to hang out with your friends and find out about music” Here’s the URL to request an invite freq.social/welcome/invi...

Part 2 of my little old Simple Machines series goes deep on why "underground" meant so much to the music world in the 1990s. The Top Gun soundtrack and Three 6 Mafia Underground Vol 1 are mentioned within 300 words of each other. A music journalism first? low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/the-diy-de...

against all odds I am ready to rock

🚨Introducing Critical Listening, a new podcast from Liz Pelly and Max Alper🚨 Head over to patreon.com/criticallistening to hear episode zero, a short introduction to the show.

Just published the first of a few posts about how DIY worked before the Internet swallowed music culture whole. A little punk history of cyberspace. The *other* cyberpunk if you will. low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/the-mechan...

Two punk goddesses not only made amazing music, but taught the DIY world how to press and distribute their own records. Mike Sugarman on Simple Machines, Tsunami and The Mechanic's Guide to producing your own recordings. low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/the-mechan...

I stopped by @lizpelly.bsky.social's book talk in Providence and ended up with a few words of my own on her debut Mood Machine and the intersection of music and technology — plus, context from @sugzone.bsky.social on establishing a localized streaming server at the venue. motifri.com/breaking-dow...

(And once you're on, add me as a friend: www.freq.social/user/ethanz)

It's Friday. The world is a terrifying place right now. Take a break and try a new online community, where the only goal is shouting out the music you're in love with right now: freq.social, from your friends at the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure.

Freq: out! The new music recommendation/blogging app from iDPI, created by Mike Sugarman, is now in beta release, with invitations available via Mike's wonderful blog post about creating this new platform: low-frequency.beehiiv.com/p/freq-out

Wrote a bit about Freq, a project I've been working for years. Which means writing about my dream to build tools for music community with real music communities, that reality that I'm a musician not a software developer, and the weird personal history that got me here.

the podcast I produce is back with an extremely timely episode

Ok... who wants to try out my social media site for community-centered music discovery? It's a fun place to hang out and talk about music, but it's also a pretty unique attempt to develop software *with* the actual communities who are going to be using it. www.freq.social/welcome/invi...

And kick decent money to both Liz and the venue!! There was even a vegan ‘Fuck Spotify’ cake provided by an audience member???

send me your files!!

The BBC just published an excellent dive into Ryan's (@antisomniac.bsky.social), Kevin's (@ze.vin), and Ethan's (@ethanz.bsky.social) random sampling work on YouTube, with visualizations based on data pulled from from Kevin's fantastic TubeStats project. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

its salid time 😋

Welcome !!! You can get 3 of my earlier films at www.Twisted-Pair-film.com .Scroll down through the site. Thanks for all the great Indie Film support !! Enjoy.

To be slightly blunter than The Atlantic allowed me to be: the tiktok ban is a protectionist subsidy to Meta and Google worth hundreds of billions of dollars: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

taking care of business

men is short for gentlemen

business is good :)

business as usual

back in business