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by George Ziemann
March 30, 2008 -- Today's highly off-topic gem comes
from Russia, via Australia, which I found on Fark. It's a wonderful
combination of crazy and irony, not to mention a perfect example
of how journalists end up having to tell a story backwards and
leave out the obvious questions. The
original is here.
So here's the deal -- There
is some doomsday cult in Russia that decided the world was going
to end in May. So back in October, 35 of them sealed themselves
in a cave, "refusing to come out until the end of the world,"
which is apparently not going to extend to cave dwellers.
The cult leader isn't down
there with them. The court had already put him in the Russian
version of a psych ward. Then it gets weird...
Spring comes and melting snow
causes part of the cave to collapse. Do the people in the cave
see this as the first rumblings of the end of the world? Hell,
no. They begin "intense negotiations with officials."
How? Have the officials been
hanging around outside the cave for six months? Did the End of
the World devotees take a cell phone with them? One that works
in a cave? What do they need to negotiate?
"Thank you for calling
Penza region KGB. How can we help you be a loyal comrade? Are
you calling to confess to your crime?"
"Not exactly. This is
Dmitri, one of the guys in the cave."
"Yes. What can you do
for us?"
"The cave is starting
to collapse."
"KGB did not cause cave
to collapse. We are not responsible."
"Some of the women would
like to leave."
"KGB did not put you in
cave. Hiding in cave is okay with us. Not hiding in cave is okay,
too."
"We can't just come out."
"You could stand at the
cave entrance for a while to get used to the light."
"No, you don't understand.
The world is still going to end in May."
Anyway, the psycho cult leader
is brought to "negotiate" and convinces seven of the
women to come out of the cave and go hang out at his house. Reportedly,
five more women are thinking about it and one them will bring
her kid out with her. Chocolate may have been involved.
Started out with 35 people.
They're going to be down to 22 and they're running out of women,
which is a very important consideration when hiding from the
end of the world.
So the men are not in the cave
because the women talked them into it. If that were true, they
would have followed them out. They must be in there because they
believed the psycho cult leader when he told them to hide in
the cave. Now he's telling them to come out and they don't believe
him. Now they think he's crazy.
March 5, 2008
-- If you thought the mass acceptance
of mp3s was a giant step backward for the quality of music, this
one's gonna make your frickin' head explode. The question: Pop
stars long ago stopped pretending that they play music. We're
down to dancers that sing. How can pop music possibly get any
worse? When the critics start saying, "The
last thing pop stars need is singing ability."
March 2, 2008
-- I started contributing material
to the Boycott-RIAA site in 2003, before they (the RIAA) started
suing people. It was so long ago that you always had to
explain who the RIAA was. Now everyone understands. Sales have
dropped severely. The fans despise them. The artists are shunning
them. Our job is done. (Read
More)
February
29, 2008 -- Since I
started using the RSS feed, I feel somehow obligated to write
complete articles with meaningful headlines. It has changed the
way I approach the site and I've kind of stopped writing the
single paragraph things. Since people keep looking at this page,
I thought that maybe I'd write something here for a change.
I've been doing my absolute
best to ignore all the political news. But even if you don't
read the stories, it's pretty difficult to avoid seeing the headlines.
So here's my take on that one:
McCain is a Republican (strike
one) who wants the war to continue indefinitely (strike two).
I've voted for McCain several times in the past, but that ended
when he started kissing Jerry Falwell's ass (strike three). McCain
is also endorsed by Bush, which should be the kiss of death.
He promises more of the same, I don't think we want more of the
same.
Hillary's last name is Clinton
(strike one), she's already spent 8 years in the White House
(strike two), and you know Bill comes with her (foul ball). Although
Bill Clinton did a good job domestically (ball one) and balanced
the budget (ball two), he lied about something innocuous (foul
ball). While I have no problem with a female president (ball
four), this particular woman's husband complicates the issue
(foul ball) and gives one the feeling that voting for her would
be some sort of attempt to put things back the way they were.
It feels like moving backwards (strike three, she's outta there).
Ralph Nader, who just jumped
into the race, can be discounted because, well, he's Ralph Nader
(pop foul, catcher snags it, he's outta there).
This leaves us with Barack
Obama. I think a black (or at least half-black) president would
raise our social status a notch in the eyes of the world (ball
one). He is honest enough to admit to inhaling (ball two). Unlike
The Decider, he can speak in complete sentences and actually
express a thought without making up words (ball three). He's
not a Bush, a Clinton or a Republican. His biggest problem so
far seems to have been using "Yes We Can" as a slogan,
which may infringe upon Bob the Builder (foul ball, strike one).
We don't know for sure what he would do. Unlike the other candidates,
we don't know for sure which industry sectors are propping him
up, but we do know it's not Halliburton (ball four).
He's young, he's smart, he's
urban, ethnic, not a rich white guy. He doesn't have a southern
drawl. He went to Columbia and Harvard, not Yale, so he's not
part of the Skull and Bones or the Illuminatae. He could be introduced
by John Cleese, with "And now for something completely different..."
That's exactly what we need
right now. Something completely different. I think the only way
Obama can lose this election is by getting caught doing something
incredibly stupid. Even then, if he offered an honest, human
explanation, it would be a significant improvement over the status
quo. So he'd have to do something incredibly stupid and lie about
it.
Otherwise, it's the first time
in my adult lifetime that there's someone to vote for,
as opposed to the regular choice of the lesser of two weevils.
ATO Records -- A New Beginning?
February 22, 2008
-- Another week has flown past
and nothing worth talking about has happened in the music world,
as far as I know. So let me direct your attention to a movie
you might have missed but need to see, Before
the Music Dies. I haven't even seen it yet myself, but
I found the trailer and I'm eagerly anticipating its next appearance
on IFC.
The film is 2 years old, but
I've never heard of it before. Carl
turned me on to it after seeing it this past weekend.
From what's on the site, this
appears to be a showcase for ATO
Records, which was co-founded by Dave Matthews and seems
to be one of the first labels to demonstrate an interest in artist
development in two decades. They might even try to pay the artists
fairly.
It's way too early to tell,
but it would be nice if this was the beginning of a trend.
Meanwhile, the gang of idiots
at the RIAA successfully convinced the judge to throw out Tanya
Andersen's class action lawsuit, having provided a list of 32
reasons to do so. The judge agreed with two of the reasons, told
Andersen to go fix it and gave her a month to do it. The other
30 seemed to be categorized by the judge as either too little
or too late.
A new site called SeeqPod showed
up that enables you to search the web for mp3 files. Naturally,
the RIAA is suing it. To be specific, Warner Music is suing
it, verifying that all that crap Bronfman was spewing to stockholders
in November about the acknowledgement that they had lost an "inadvertent"
war with consumers was a pack of lies to keep the stock price
up.
The war is still in progress.
Nothing inadvertent about it. They haven't learned anything.
December 4, 2007 -- The song I was working out great until
I got to the vocals and discovered that the entire thing was
just too damn slow. Now I've got to decompose it and start over.
December 1, 2007 -- After I added the rss feed, traffic
jumped, so I felt obligated to keep writing new stories to update
the feed. Plus I spent several long days on the music history
stuff and need to spend a couple more days on 2003.
That's like a real job, so
now I have to go do some recording for a few days.
November 27, 2007 -- Rolling Stone reports
that the High School Musical 2 soundtrack, having sold
2.3 million copies, looks like it will wind up being 2007's biggest
selling album. "That figure means the album is poised to
walk away with a more dubious honor: the record for lowest number
of copies sold by the year's best-selling album since SoundScan
started keeping track of these stats in 1991. The previous Worst-Best
mark was 2006's High School Musical soundtrack, which
sold 3.7 million copies."
Notes on RSS
November 17, 2007 -- (10
p.m.) After several
requests (but not all at the same time or anything) and the absolute
minimum research possible, I've decided to add an RSS feed to
the site for the benefit of those who have a clue what to do
with it. I didn't get to the part that tells you how to read
it yet, much less select an appropriate icon. But I'm working
on it, so check back tomorrow.
Nov. 18 (9:51 p.m.) -- It seemed really simple (hence the
name) but all the titles disappeared the first time I saved it
because an html page only has one title. But these are xml pages,
not html, so I'm doing it wrong anyway. I'm apparently going
to have to use a text editor instead. I'll try again in the morning.
Nov. 19 (9:00 a.m.) -- I got a feed prepared, but now
my website seems to have vanished. It's a server crash!
(9:12 a.m.) -- Web site came back, but I can't
FTP to it yet.
(10:31 a.m.) -- Site is back up, feed uploaded.
If this means anything to you, go ahead, give it a try.
If you don't know what to do
with an RSS feed and are interested in finding out why you would
care about such a thing, Start
Here for an overview. Then go
here to find an RSS reader. After that, you're on your own.
Update (Dec. 1) -- I
like this one so far because I've got an old Mac, using old
(OS9) software and browsers and it still works, except putting
multiple feeds in one widget always fails to work properly. So
I'm using one unpublished html page (on my personal hard drive)
with a bunch of them. Open it in Netscape and I can look through
all of them at the same time.
Nov. 20 (2:42 p.m.) -- Just discovered that the first thing
on the RSS is actually the title of the channel, which apparently
started out as "Columbia House's Debt Scavengers."
(Naturally, I stole the code. Miraculously,
it's still there.)
Pet Peeve -- Anonymous
Sources That Can't Be Trusted
October 15, 2007
-- In a story
about Led Zeppelin entering the digital market, the New
York Times (soul-sucking registration required) offers this
gem: "Under a separate deal the band is to receive blah,
blah, blah, said three people briefed on the agreement, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized
to discuss it."
Rewind... Who said that? --
"...three people briefed on the agreement, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized
to discuss it."
In other words, this news comes
from three people who obviously can't be trusted, which is why
I didn't repeat what they said.
Happy Birthday Barry
Today is Barry McGuire's 70th
birthday, which I didn't know last night when I was finishing
off the mix for Tim Austin Jones' cover of McGuire's song, "Eve
of Destruction." On the Music
Page.
NPR's Series on the RIAA Inquisition
Sept. 21, 2007
-- Earlier this week NPR ran a
three-part series on the RIAA and its legal campaign against
the world. (Part
1, Part
2, Part
3)
It's well worth a listen (or
read). My favorite part is where Mitch Bainwol explains how your
average 10-year-old can tell the difference between the "illegal"
RIAA recordings and the millions of songs
willingly posted by independent artists.
"There are tools, in terms
of, uh, uh, authentication here, and, uh, uh, I'm not a technician
so I'm, I'm, I really can't go into that in great detail. I'd
be happy to get you somebody who can."
MediaDefender's Colossal Screw-up
Sept. 16, 2007
-- One of the RIAA's peer-to-peer
fighters, MediaDefender has run into a small problem, namely
that a ton (700 MB) of internal memos just got leaked. There's
a discussion about it at slashdot,
which will only whet your appetite to read the actual
files, which are being hosted at a site in Norway for public
review.
Now I haven't had a chance
to read much of it, but these documents have the potential to
expose the underhanded and potentially illegal methods of both
MediaDefender and the RIAA member labels. It could also put a
big dent in the "sue 'em all" strategy.
Follow-up -- Ars Technica has been scouring
the contents of the e-mails. Here
is their first report.
P2P Now Legal in Canada -- Michael Geist points out that the
CRIA (Canada's version of the RIAA) has been backed into a corner
and has admitted that the levy on things like hard drives, blank
CDs, etc. that they spent 15 years lobbying for somehow got worded
in such a way that it makes P2P use legal in Canada.
Sept. 2, 2007 -- The New York Times magazine
has a
story about Rick Rubin, who is now an executive at Columbia
Records. It's an interesting article because Rubin is a rather
unusual guy, and not just because he actually likes music and
hates the way the music business does business. Don't expect
to see him in a suit and tie, either.
While there is a discussion
about whether or not what Sony is doing is technically a "rootkit"
or not, consensus seems to be that it has the potential to be
just as destructive and difficult to remove as last year's version.
Fast Times at Universal, Google, AT&T
August 12, 2007 ~~ While the folks at the RIAA are being
educated about routers and IP addresses, Universal Music's
Doug Morris is on a serious campaign to become the new stereotype
for the deranged record industry exec that wants everyone to
think he's tough and unyielding when maybe he's really just being
stubborn and vindictive.
Morris hates Apple for keeping
the standard download price at 99 cents. He would rather see
a $3.49 price tag on each tune. And he loves DRM because he doesn't
trust you. Apparently not having pissed off enough customers
already, this week Universal announced they were going to go
DRM-free and start selling unprotected mp3 files. With audio
watermarks, not actually DRM, but still a way to find out who
the evil pirates are, like it will make any freakin' difference.
They'll be available pretty much everywhere except at
Apple's music store, even though Steve Jobs will let Universal
charge $1.29 for unprotected files.
In the long run, it's going
to cost Universal a lot more not being on iTunes than Apple loses
by not having it there. Plus, Steve Jobs doesn't have to listen
to Morris bitch any more.
Meanwhile, Google Video customers,
as in those who spent money to purchase videos, are discovering
that they
never really bought anything at all because by this time
next week, those vids will be vapor, er, unavailable. Not yours.
One of the hidden benefits of DRM is that when you discontinue
a version, all your customers have to re-purchase what they already
bought. Of course, this trick will only work five or six times
before the public starts to get a clue, even if your motto is
"Do No Evil."
But this week's leader in customer
dissatisfaction has to be AT&T, which got caught censoring
a webcast to remove an Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) rant about Bush.
It wasn't
the first time; probably won't be the last, considering how
AT&T has proven their willingness to sacrifice the privacy
of their customers.
AmieStreet Sounds Like a Good Idea
August 9, 2007
 According
to their recent (August 6) press release, "AmieStreet.com
is the first digital music store propelled by social networking,
where members of the community drive the discovery, promotion
and pricing of music. All songs on AmieStreet.com start at a
price of zero cents. As more people download a song the price
rises, capping at $0.98."
The press release was actually
about how Amazon just shoved a pile of money their way, but I
liked the idea from the start, probably because it is so similar
to what I described in "Building
a Practical Cyber-Jukebox." At least the "every
song starts out at zero" part.
But AmieStreet has a twist
I hadn't considered.
"For recommending their
favorite songs to their friends, members are rewarded by receiving
credit for the purchase of additional music on AmieStreet.com.
The more popular a song becomes after a member has recommended
it, the more credit he or she receives to spend on music."
Anyone can upload their music
to AmieStreet.com, and all songs are downloadable in DRM-free
mp3 format.
Setting up an artist account
and getting your music online is relatively pain-free, which
I verified by creating
an account and uploading the Hayden's Wall CD.
So go listen to the songs and
drive up the price.
Follow-Up -- August 20 -- So far, the CD has earned $3.74 in revenue,
which is exactly $3.74 more than I've earned selling physical
copies off of this site so far this year. Song price is up to
14 cents each, which seems reasonable.
August 2, 2007 ~~ While there has been no big story
in the music biz lately, there have been several smaller items
which add up to a significant enough pile of stupid to talk about.
RIAA Lawsuits -- Since the RIAA started suing people,
P2P use has increased, CD sales have decreased at a faster rate,
and the lawsuits are costing them money. Thousands of people
who didn't know what the RIAA was five or seven years
ago now actively despise them.
So the RIAA is going to keep
that up -- because they can. Besides, it's time for another semester
to start.
Webcasting -- Last I heard on this issue was
that SoundExchange wanted the webcasters to block people from
being able to record audio streams. The RIAA's Mitch Glazier
verified that this was definitely not a problem at this
time, unlike those damn third graders who keep stealing their
stuff.
But SoundExchange still wants
this feature, merely to inconvenience the webcasters as much
as possible and make sure they know whose ass they have to kiss.
Attempted Copyright Infringement -- The RIAA hasn't been able to prove
actual infringement in court, but some yahoo introduced
a bill to create criminal punishments for attempted copyright
infringement. This leads me to imagine multiple silly ways to
run afoul of the law, like:
- a paper jam at Kinko's
- a faulty CD-R
- running out of gas on the
way to buy CD-Rs
- running out of toner
- running out of printer ink
- breaking the lead on your
pencil
- misuse of the Copy and Paste
functions
- actually buying a CD
- buying CD-Rs and having your
credit card declined
Of course, what I suspect is
that the RIAA wants to set up a p2p site with dummy files and
sues anyone that tries to download them.
Eminem Sues Apple -- Eminem has decided that he never
gave Universal the right to sell his songs as downloads, so he's
suing Apple for selling them. Apparently, this is his way of
punishing Universal.
All the industry does is bitch
about Apple, even though it's really the only place able to sell
any damn music. They should start their own record labels and
just sell music by artists signed with them. Universal can build
its own music store and sell their songs for whatever price they
feel is appropriate. All of the labels can.
Okay, "can" was probably
the wrong word to use there. There is nothing stopping the labels
from making their own download sites, as far as I know, other
than their own inability to grasp technology.
Or is there? Maybe there is
some kind of agreement with the RIAA and NARM (National Association
of Retail Merchants) that the labels would not sell direct to
the public. I'll have to go check on that...
July 29, 2007 ~~
An old (Sept, 2005) but fascinating
article about how
the FBI went wrong trying to get a new case-management database
built, spending more than $100 million and ending up with unusable
software.
 IN SEARCH OF COMMON SENSE
Stereotypes and The Simpsons
July 16, 2007 ~~
Happened across an article in
the Guardian about "The
Apu Travesty", further defined as "A promotion
for The Simpsons movie exploits a crude racist stereotype
that insults South Asians living in the United States."
Apu?? But Dr. Nick is okay?
First of all, some of you don't
get the whole idea of cartoons because, well, Apu rocks. And
if you've played the Simpson's games Road Rage or Hit
and Run, so does his TransAm. Sure, he talks funny, but that
really only adds to his appeal.
Besides, every character
on The Simpsons talks funny, every character is
a stereotype and most of them are white. Chief Wiggums, Groundskeeper
Willie, Mr. Burns, Quimby the politician, Moe, the drunk guy
at Moe's, Principal Skinner, the religious zealot that lives
next door, the sea captain, Snake, and the Comic Book Guy, not
to mention Marge, Bart, Lisa and Homer. They all have funny voices
and they all have their own way of mangling the English language.
 So
if one particular character offends you more than another, you're
simply taking it too personally. If anyone should be pissed,
it's working class, Middle America, middle-aged white guys. Who's
representing the average Joe?
Homer Simpson, that's who.
D'oh!
Whereas Apu is a hard-working,
reasonably intelligent guy, who cares deeply about his family,
Homer is a balding, fat guy, living with his wife and 2.5 kids
(Maggie is .5) in a suburban split-level home with a dog and
a white picket fence.
In addition to being a rotten
parent, Homer is not hard-working. He tries to get by each day
doing as little as possible. He doesn't care about his job or
the quality of the work he does, which is just as good because
he's a total moron who spends most of his time thinking about
donuts, beer and the TV set.
Homer is a crude, racist stereotype
of middle-aged white guys everywhere. But do you hear us bitching
about it? Not till the beer runs out, anyway.
July 12, 2007 ~~ Don't know how I missed this, but
apparently there are lesbian
gangs terrorizing the entire country.
Live Earth Viewership Up and/or Down
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One Hand... |
On
the Other Hand... |
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From the New York Times:
The Live Earth concert... wasn't
a big television draw. NBC's Saturday-night highlights show was
seen by 2.75 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research,
or fewer people than watched the soccer match between Argentina
and Peru that night on Univision.
The Live Earth showing is slightly
under the 2.9 million who watched the Live 8 concert on ABC in
2005, Nielsen said.
''I don't think it was the
kind of thing where people were talking like they had to get
home to watch it,'' said Marc Berman, analyst for Media Week
Online.
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From
Tech News:
Last weekend's Live Earth Concerts...
broke the record for live video streams of an event, according
to MSN, which had exclusive Web-broadcasting rights to the shows.
Live Earth -- a series of nine
concerts held in cities across the world and streamed live across
the Internet -- exceeded its founders' most ardent expectations.
The event... drew in more than
10 million video streams, and had the most simultaneous viewers
of any online concert ever, according to MSN.
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