Sorry to hear about Needle, but thrilled to hear you're now at Echo Nest. In case it's useful in the new gig, "writing it in the first place with an inherent expressive gravity towards truth" - what a great phrase! - is what we tried to do with MusicXML.

I was just starting to get into The Discordance too. Liked that I could see and sort all incoming new releases by genre (and perhaps group by country). Maybe it was out of my league at the moment or in general otherwise, but I have no doubts that it held the simmering unrealized potential to rock the world, and I am therefore triply sad for you, for me, and for the world. All the best at your new job regardless!

Yup. Tried to change the world. Keep trying! The world needs a-changing.

A knowledge revolution tried to occur. It was temporarily put down. Sometimes that happens. But this is the thing about revolutions: nobody's grandkids ever flock around to hear you tell the story again of how you stalled progress for a little while. What are you going to tell them about what you did while the Age was young? "I helped advertisers optimize their dynamic inventory"? "I planned how to integrate technologies with a portfolio"?  

Or "I tried to change the world"?

In your post Needless, you wrote of Needle: "maybe nobody will really miss it very much." On June 1, 2012, I'll be wearing black and keeping strict silence in mourning for Needlebase shutting down on that day. It was a awesome tool. It could have revived the brains of legions of spreadsheet donkey tenders.