Interesting low-key announcement that Last.fm is back to being independently run. Who has more details? support.last.fm/t/last-fm-is...

It will also include links to playlist mirrors on the streaming services when we have them from sync. If you want to time-travel back to my freshman year of college - this is what it would sound like if you walked down the hall of the basement of Newman Hall at Virginia Tech a thousand years ago.

My polyglotal Classics/Literary Studies double major son's professors when meeting me this weekend and realizing I can barely string together a complete thought.

I was skeptical, but now I'm in deep.

Wednesday: drive due north 3 hours, load Kid B and her stuff into car, drive home and unload piles into corner Friday: drive due north 6 hours load Kid A and his stuff into car, come home a couple days later and unload piles into different corners Rest of summer: try not to live like hoarders

Hot take: this will turn into nothing. Most people don't want to do this and even fewer want to listen to it.

Nothing quite like getting a 4GB OS update to get 8 new emoji.

In a previous life I worked at Analog Devices and - fun fact - people used to repeatedly come by the corporate office park and steal the "O" and "G" from the sign.

Been working on making Achordion feel a bit more socially alive... parachord.com/blog/2026/05...

Any time there is an Ebola outbreak I tell anyone who will listen about how there was one in my hometown of Reston, VA when I was a teenager (without anyone telling anyone afaik) and kids would break into the "abandoned monkey lab" for years afterwards because it was creepy. 😬

Song of the Day: achordion.xyz/recording/ae...

I've been making seasonal (roughly) playlists - mostly for myself - for the past 15 years or so. I even recreated some of my mixtapes from my college years. I just uploaded some of my favorites to my Achordion profile.

So if you have a @listenbrainz.org account and a @bsky.app account and link them on Achordion - you will get a notification when your Bluesky community does the same so you can connect with their music tastes. (At least in theory, I haven't been able to test it yet. Help?) achordion.xyz

Worked on a new feature today and educated myself that I've been scrobbling listening data for 20 years now. Happy anniversary to me.

As a longtime last.fm subscriber, I agree achordion.xyz/user/cxy > www.last.fm/user/cxyl

Also just pushed a pretty big Android beta update - including full Achordion support, basic Android Auto functions and the refactor that will enable much easier iOS builds. github.com/Parachord/pa...

Achordion now lets you link your @bsky.app handle to your @listenbrainz.org profile. Avatar, display name, and bio show up inline so people can find you across services. Completely optional, single field, deletable, no auth, no permissions — just a two-way bio handshake.

Exactly one week later and I have to say I think it's pretty eff'ing good - especially when combined with @parachord.bsky.social - a far better experience than Last.fm. If I do say so my damn self. achordion.xyz/user/jhersko...

One of my favorite things is listening along to what other people are listening to. Many of whom don't know and don't even know who they are beyond an anonymous user name. That said, I do want to add some cool feedback loops.

Achordion album pages now display critical response summaries - with links to editorial album reviews as well as user reviews (via new CritiqueBrainz integration). Power to the people.🫧📌

BRB, gotta help my kid with her homework.

Remember the good old days when people used to connect with each on LastFM and share their music tastes and recommendations? Let's bring that back - but in a more open, non-corporate, way. Here's me: achordion.xyz/user/jhersko...

You know how when couples get engaged they often get a puppy before they start a family to practice on? Well my neighborhood is full of those people 15 years later - and I gotta to say that a lot of the dogs aren't looking so good lately.

What's it called when you get obsessively focused on a thing - then in a brief moment of rest you get distracted and obsessively focused on a new thing, and then once you're done you move back to the first thing? Because, I think I've got that. Anyway, maybe check out my new, new thing?

How it started (yesterday). How it's going (this morning). cc @listenbrainz.org @musicbrainz.org

I wish someone would build a nicer front-end for ListenBrainz so that I don't start thinking about doing it.

This was a bit of a slog tbh, but now back to the fun stuff.

Dammit, I just relic'ed my Taylor. 😢

Sirius XMU hasn't updated their Spotify and Apple Music playlists for years - so they have now been added to Spinbin (jherskowitz.github.io/spinbin/) so you can now get yesterday's station Rewind in Parachord.

I'm not sure I've fully wrapped my head around all of the use cases when you are syncing Parachord desktop and Android through *both* Apple Music and Spotify (as well as subscribing to dynamic .xspf playlists on each) - but if you're game to help me sort it out...

The fact that - for some unexplained reason - I'm ineligible to renew my passport online makes we question whether my government is hunting me.

I was just *deep* in the weeds working through a use case where I imported a .xspf playlist from Spinbin to Parachord on Android, it synced to Spotify, Parachord on Mac pulled the updates from Spotify and then pushed them to Apple Music... then the xspf refreshed. 😵‍💫 I *think* it's working now.

Me, in Jan.: "Oh, this will be fun to see if I can get a Mac music app working just for me again!" 😋 Me, today, solo-supporting Mac (Intel & Apple), Windows, Linux, & Android apps - plus Android Auto, Chrome & Raycast extensions, a couple of complementary web apps - and about to start an iOS app: 🤪

My 6 hour drive yesterday motivated me to wake up early and add Android Auto support to Parachord this morning. 🙌

I decided to write a bit deeper than just about the specifics of my latest project Spinbin, and more into the core concepts behind empowering the open web for music. parachord.com/blog/2026/04...

Tim Apple is dead. Long live John Apple.

Finishing up my two week upstate getaway by fulfilling my promise of shipping a beta of the Parachord Android app to more people than just myself.

Sorry to the engineering team at Apple Music that is getting my support ticket escalated to them - but you really need a way to delete playlists in bulk from the cloud library.

This is a nice eulogy for Rob and a call for someone to take up the mantle and continue to push the Metabrainz (parent org of Musicbrainz) mission forward. Is it you? compassmapandkey.com/2026/04/18/m...

Just pushed 0.9.0-beta.10 which includes a bunch of playlist sync improvements and improved support for the new prototype feature, Radio Station Rewinds (directory at jherskowitz.github.io/spinbin/). github.com/Parachord/pa...

Now have the beginnings of a directory of radio station/show "rewinds" - playlists of the songs they played over the past 24 hours.

I'm working on something new (actually old) but it should be fun.

Nice. Now break them up. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/a...

As a bit of a copyright nerd I've been obsessed with the monkey selfie case for 15 years. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

First time hiking Letchworth State Park in upstate NY. It's legit.

Also I've been focused on promoting my new single and trying to get some down time in...

My sweetheart looking particularly fetching in the morning sun.

Chrome has vertical tabs now? It may be time to switch back from Dia (rip Arc).

Example of Parachord smartlinks in action (of yours truly)... go.parachord.com/77adfad1

What is Ackman's position on generative AI in music? I don't know, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not artist-forward. share.google/O8YRPotHrQ6a...