(r) = rhapsody playlists, (v) = video, (lv) = "bloody portal wanabes", launch video (ies) = "Internet Exploder sucks, but its required", (M) = 3.x+ Rhapsody Musician Reference, (A) = 3.x+ Rhapsody Musician/Album References, otherwise.. (____) = ____ is what it is.
This site is managed with GVIM, Filezilla and PHP, yeah I code my own stuff..
Due to the nature of this blog, archives have to be provided in seperate locations, to
get back to the most recent blog, simply click on the default link. The site will always
link to the most recent one.
Blog Archives: [Current, 2007], [2006], [2005].
For You Lazy YouTubers: YouTubeify It Bookmarklet + FREEDB = Easy YouTube music searches.
For Those Who Haven't Patience To Use YouTube: CHANN3L Z - What If YouTube was TV. (NEW!!!, 2/07) Quicktime (30MB), YouTube One and Two, Tutes.
Cheapest way to podify yourself: Buy this mp3 player  (I own two of these with 1 gig SD cards  ) (--> DEMOSTRATION VIDEO)
Cheapest way to listen to audio:Dell A215, Get Some Clip On Headphones, Sound Blaster Live!
Best way to veggitate:
| |
| www.chann3lz.com | Youtube + Me = Chann3lz, a completely random music video playing jukebox of content, managed by the audience, no registration necessary, all mechanism, no policy.. |
| www.youtube.com | Videos, Videos, Videos and more Videos, and you don't have to download anything, you don't even really need a Video Codec. It's all FLASH!! |
| Tubeify Everyhit | Take YouTube, Combine with Everyhit.com, What Do you get? |
| iTunes | How-to-install iTunes (v) here is a downloadable tutorial (v) if you have a slow line. |
If you want your own netcast (netcast = podcast, Apple is trademarking podcast), but are not sure how to set one up, get my drop-it-in netcast generator script. Script is provided as-is, use at your own risk, thus I'm not liable if somehow you don't get it to work or it eats your cattle and causes you to lose a bunch of money.
My tutorials require Real Video not because I'm a Real-Rhapsody fan, but because RealVideo happens to be the best format for low-bandwidth tutorials
|
Rhapsify Everyhit.com looks for albums of a date range precise to a month, providing links to rhapsody-online (and YouTube).
YouTubeify Everyhit.com is much better for tracking down music videos to precise songs on "YouTube.com".
BEST WAY TO PERUSE YOUTUBIFIED LINKS
- go to url "about:config" in address bar of firefox browser.
- toggle 'browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs' to true (pre 1.5; post v1.5, search Advanced Options )
- then middle mouse click on each youtubified search link
- click on the videos, bookmark, make into playlists, enjoy..
My Channel(s) on YouTube: rofthorax and riseofthethorax (hey try this one).
How Fast Is Your, Connection, Really!! a script I wrote that computes data connection uproute/downroute rates (here is mine, Comcast).
Where to Find Quicktime Pro Forums (and many disgruntled owners): Quicktime for Windows Forum.
Best way to secure your computer: Grisoft AVG (free), ZoneAlarm (free*!) {flash demo}, TCPView (free) {for semi-advanced users}.
Best way to discover music besides this one: Coverville.com
Best way to access your computer remotely: VNC, in particular TightVNC (stay away from www.gotomypc.com)
Best way to obtain/distribute huge files (bit-torrent clients): Azureus
Best way to make backups: Knoppix (Linux/DVD*R), Audiograbber (CD2mp3), DVD Shrink (FreeDVDBackup)
Free Knowledge: UC Berkeley Courses (no credit)
Interesting netcasts for programmers: Software Engineering Radio
How to painlessly publish/purchase a book: LULU.COM
Best of the Best (non-obnoxious): 46 freeware utils
Best webhosting: Geocities (free, commercially scaleable), phpwebhosting (commercial with ssh/sftp-access), Find Hosting.
Best information resources: Google (no brainer), Wikipedia (def)
Best place to lust for synthesizers: Vintage Synth Explorer
Best way to convert wikipedia articles to sound TextAloud, the Eddie voice, and my custom UserTranslations.chl file (put in install directory). TA also comes with a firefox/IE plugin that will read web pages for you, making it easier.. I use it when I hate reading web pages..
Alternative Content Discovery: Blogdigger, WebJay
Trouble Viewing Videos? You need some Codecs: Matroska Pack (good), free-codecs (works, but it may have a Trojan)
Need to convert Media format X to media format Y? Use Mediacoder its a freeware media swiss army knife, that is supposedly open source (its on sourceforge, huh?).
Need to convert video formats that Mediacoder doesn't? Use AVS Convert , I own a copy myself, and it lets me do stuff with Quicktimes and WMV's that neither Microsoft nor Apple will permit me (note the site looks kinda cheap, but the program isn't.
My most favorite rhapsody playlist: Smooth And Punchy Playlist
My most favorite bands (and most played): Level 42 (r), Nik Kershaw, Cock Robin, Double (not played, on my wishlist), etc.
My most favorite years (musically):1978 (r), pretty much any year from 1976 to 1989
My most favorite movie (note: works, and could be made on a low budget):Brainstorm
Most Favorite Music Video (5/12/07):Brinsley Schwarz - Surrender to The Rhythm..
Why is this page so huge: Google can cache it all, audience is broadband users, I use less than 50% of my quota per month.
Your most favorite rhapsody playlist: The Brian Eno Playlist
Big application wish: SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! PRESET EXPORT, so I can share with you some of my killer rooms.
Say No To Software Patents
Thanks to: JESUS (CHRIST) *, Richard Stallman (AVI, RM, RM2-SP), and the respective creators of these packages and places.
Bag 'O' Tricks Directory lists tips/tricks and reminders and other stuff I would love to clog my header with.
* - Wikipedia is edited by anarchy, don't use for christian inspiration. Christian Bahai is a oxymoron BTW.
*! - I use Zonealarm Pro, which is what that flash demo is demonstrating, ZoneAlarm costs about fifty dollars a
year with updates, but is well worth it, it also comes with spyware weeding software, so there is no need for an application like "Ad-Aware",
"Spybot Search & Destroy" or "Spyware Doctor".
|
Companies/Organizations I Currently Consider Evil or Stupid:
|
|---|
 Why?: Claims to save time and accelerate processing but Wastes Hours of Time Submitting Rebate Offers no Recourse if Rebate Fails!! DELIBERATE THIEVES
|
(06/01/06 1:14 AM): I added a data rate calculator script, that should make it easier to figure out how fast a connection is in
realworld terms. I made it so people can bookmark a link to the results, so as to be able to blog about their data rates.. It's too
late, tonight, to set the script to be downloadable, but I would like to a see a service on the web that gives enough data rate
comparative information to make data rates easier to read. I'll make one for data storage comparisons, like how much storage space
is required to store certain kinds of data.
Here are some examples:
- Comcast (6Mbps/600Kbps)
- QWest DSL (1.5Mbps/200Kbps) (I'm assuming an
uproute of 200Kbps).
- Best Fiber-Optic Line Speed,Verizon, in Roanoke,TX (15Mbps/5Mbps) (I found out my mom
downgraded to something slower, but this is just 20 dollars more than hers).
(05/31/06 6:26 PM): I cannot believe that someone is coming up with another way to confuse people, in terms of units sizes given to
computer jargon for data rates and data storage. Read up on wikipedia about MB(w) _ _ and MiB(w) _ _. This
BS, the term Kilobyte has always referred to Kilobytes in terms of units 1024 bytes, from the beginning of the computing industry.
I suggested on the Talk page for IEC
60027(w) _ _
that:
|
Since computers calculate and manage data in base two, of which there are two states for each bit (often represented 0 and 1).
It makes no sense to discuss information in base ten. A Kilobit thus must be counted in units that are aligned with byte
quantitites.
- One Kilobit = 1024 bits.
- One Megabit = 1024 Kilobits.
- One Gigabit = 1024 Megabits.
- One Terabit = 1024 Gigabits.
This would make the conversion from bits to bytes easier:
- 1/8 Kilobyte = One Kilobit.
- 1/8 Megabyte = One Megabit.
- 1/8 Gigabyte = One Gigabit.
- 1/8 Terabyte = One Terabit.
When data rates are discussed in base ten, those data rates should be given a seperate unit of quantity and something impossible
to confuse with the above.
Like
- 1000 bits = Decabit = Deca-bit
- 1000000 bits = DecaDecabit = BiDeca-bit
- 1000000000 = DecaDecaDecabit = TriDeca-bit
- 1000000000000 = DecaDecaDecaDecabit = Quad-Deca-bit
- 1000000000000000 = DecaDecaDecaDecaDecabit = Penta-Deca-bit
Make the unit names different for base 10 measurement versus base 2 measurement. Since in the use of bits and bytes, base 2 was
the preference, documentation shouldn't have to be changed to make discussion relevant to base-10 measurements as it would
over-complicate existing documentation on existing systems.
Choose a human-friendly unit name for base-10 unit sizes, and a computer-friendly unit name for base-2 unit sizes.
BTW Sales/Advertising people use Mbps, MBps interchangeably, the purpose for this is to cheat/confuse consumers when discussing
storage capacities and data rates, this topic is more political than practical.
|
Some may not consider this to be a big deal, but it makes the language sound funny and it forces the computing industry to change
it's documents and not
those of the communications and marketing/advertising industry. There was never a time when bits were used without reference to
bytes. If a Kilobit should be 1000 bits,
tell me how you intend to count that in bits, as 1000 bits represented with in binary is "1111101000", or in hexadecimal "2E8".
1024 in binary is represented as "10000000000", in Hexidecimal it is "400".
Okay so which is more concise? To represent bit quantities in base 10 or in base 2?
This makes me think that the IEC(w) _ _'s
administration is computer-illiterate.
(05/31/06 4:04 PM): Google
Calender(w) _ _
is pretty cool, but it's basically a rip-off of a commercial perl script called calcium. Still it's a bit cooler than calcium.
(05/31/06 4:00 PM): Vytorin(w) _ _'s
commercials ignore the fact that high cholesterol only comes from parents, not relatives in general. I like the commercials but
they don't make sense.
(05/31/06 10:24 AM): This Troggs(w) _ _ video looks like something from the early 80s, but this
predates the 80s by a decade..
(05/29/06 5:42 PM): Went to Grapevine Lake and had a fun time with my girlfriend, a good way to end the vacation at my moms. I made
a little commercial after promotional distributors of "Monster" energy drink showed up to save the day.
I just tried uploading the video to the website, and my connection hit a uproute speed of 2000Kbps, that's bits, but still that's
about 200 Kilobytes per second, fast enough for a 20 to 32 player BF2 server. Anyhow, the downroute didn't seem too fast.. I'm
bushed (tired) after walking up and down grapevine lake. It was a fairly inexpensive way to spend time on the beach. I'm going
to do the wikipedia music-cast on Laura Branigan, given that she passed away in 2004.
(05/28/06 9:46 PM): Wow look at Michael
Sembello(w) _ _
with his long blonde hair, now I know why he got Cornrows(w) _ _.
Check out this Stevie Wonder video Higher Ground.
(05/27/06 11:27 PM): This is the real
STYX. My most favorite
Elvis Costello song. This music
video is so cool. This is the video that turned me on to Cock Robin, yeah it's that cute girl, but the sound too., In particular the
clip from 1:45 to 1:50, I love that shot of her. I just love the look of the desert, but it's not somewhere you would want to
live.. It reminds me of New Mexico.. But I prefer the mountains.. By the way, I think this mouth open/chutting technique that their
drummer uses is some kind of time keeping technique that drummers use, because the Go-Go's(w) _ _
drummer did the same thing in the "Head over heels" video. Jane Wiedlin(w) _ _
reminds me of Diane Franklin(w)
_ _,
and both were in Bill
And Ted's Excellent Adventure(w) _ _,
Brunettes seemed to rule the 80s.. I like the Spark's Cool Places.. Just watch the movie
"The Little
Prince(w) _ _"
and you will figure out where Michael Jackson got all his moves.. Bob Fosse(w) _ _..
I figured that out, I don't know if that is true, but it seems to be the case.. Anyhow, it's quite funny to see this video, then watch this video. Ah it's good to see someone also thinks the
same thing. Which brings us back to the desert. Oh yeah, if you ever go to Fort Worth, two names to remember "Los Posadas(w) _ _"
(restraunt), get the "Pedro", and "Cowgirl
Musuem(w) _ _",
the best designed museum, beats the Van
Gogh Museum(w) _
_..
(05/27/06 7:58 AM): I'm in Fort
Worth(w) _ _,
precisely in Roanoke, Texas(w)
_ _..
I got it wrong that my mom's house was near Tom
Landry(w) _ _,
it was Terry Bradshaw(w) _ _..
Oh yeah.. Well there is a ton of mansions out here to.. Now I know why this area is the testbed for Verizon(w) _ _'s
15Mbps fiber-optic(w) _ _
Internet connections. I'll test it out and see if I can download stuff faster.. I should just set up a BF2 server just to see if it
works.. But a BF2(w) _ _ server
running on a Thinkpad(w) _ _
600X?.. Oh well.. I added a rhapsody playlist of some recent Country additions.. I asked my stepfather to name somebody to find on
YouTube.. He said "Hank
Williams(w) _ _",
and he turned to my mother and said, what do you think? She said "Ray Price(w) _ _".
Of course they were there.. But I don't know if I'm going to do that for the musical netcast.. But I have to do someone.. Oh well..
I'm here in Texas, and I might as well.. Even though I'm not so big on Country/Western.. But I do like the sound of the
slide-guitar. I'll play some from Prefab Sprout's "Cowboy Dreams".
(05/24/06 11:45 AM): Ah the 80s, Malls, and
Designer Glasses..
(05/24/06 9:54 AM): Def
Leppard (M) _
released an album named "Yeah!" on rhapsody that reminds me a little bit of Styx (M) _'s
and Toto (M) _'s
recent albums, doing covers of other peoples songs. In this case they did a few covers of ELO (M) _
songs. Have they been reading my priv_stats or something? They also do
a cover of Roxy Music's (M) _
"Street Life". I guess they've gotten rid of
their bad boy image.. Well that was the 80s anyhow.. Time for fun.. Ah, I saw "Hanging on the Telephone Line", and thought it was
ELO's "Telephone", but that is Blondie (M) _..
And they have a cover of David
Essex (M) _'s
"Rock On". Ah Hank Williams
Jr. (M) _
Doing a Cover of a ZZ Top (M) _
Song, La
Grange (yt), on one of his recent releases on Rhapsody.. Welll.. "Huey Lewis and the News (M) _"
released their Greatest Hits album on Rhapsody. Well Greatest Hits Albums are easy to come by on Rhapsody, just take all the
other LP's and extract the best songs, it's obvious, but its like a sign of life when you see the Greatest Hits albums pop up. Well
it's uaully a sign of life that the record company is still trying to cash in on some albums they own licensing on.. Things get
pathetic when you see tribute covers of contemporaries, like Flock of Seagulls (M) _
doing a tribute to Madonna (M) _.
Yeah there is an album on Rhapsody called "Virgin
Voices: A Tribute To Madonna Volume Two (M) _"
which has a lot of just that, I wonder if Madonna funded this or these contemporaries of hers are trying to cash in on her hits. It
includes Dale Bozzio(w) _ _
(of Missing Persons (M) _)
doing "Into the Groove". Well it's not so pathetic, if just to hear another tune from Dale, I like her voice. Well I put
together the rhapsody playlist of the best of
(r) what was just added within the last week.
(05/23/06 7:22 AM): Reverted Netcasts back to original feeds, that Fruitcast site seemed like it was flakey.. I think I'm going to
roll my own anyhow.. Why do you think I'm reading the MP3 format anyhow? I'm half-way to integrating it in.. But I still have yet
to figure out how to get the ads in.. I have an idea, but I'm determining how to flag the mp3's..
(05/23/06 5:24 AM): Wow look at the Wilson Sisters back in the early 70s, quite a different sight. And
in the late 70s.. Wow I had no idea the Sparks were big
in the mid-70s.. Kraftwerk in 1970, my birthyear.
Wow and Bryan Ferry too.
(05/23/06 4:56 AM): Paul
McCartney (M) _,
Paul Simon (M) _
and Eric Clapton (M) _,
are all single (methinks, not sure about eric, but Paul just got a divorce). Paul simon has been divorced for a while, from Edie Brickel (M) _.
I believe somewhere, in all those senior bachelor musicians, there is a Lonely Hearts Club Band.. Of some sort.. I guess Ringo (M) _
is doing that kind of thing.. But wouldn't it be great to have all the bachelors in one spot!! BTW, go search google for "zap plugins bookmarklet
_ _",
youtube has some of the most annoying ads..
(05/23/06 4:18 AM): Yow, why so early in the morning, or late at night Kiernan?
I'm reading through the mp3 file format, trying
to determine how to cut them up, slice and dice them, as well as rip teh id3 tags off the end. Yeah in PHP!! Well I found enough
Information on the net to be dangerous.. Anyhow.. Oh yea, if you want to check out a really good 3D movie, there is one for
download on the net called "Elephants Dream". I purchased into it early on, I purchased the DVD from blender.org, and got my name
in the credits along with 400+ other bleender enthusiasts. BTW, Karsten is cool.. However I'm kind of the jerk of the blender clan,
I had a bit of a falling out.. But I think it's more related to my desire to be understood, so I have a tendency to flame in forums,
that's part of the reason I don't have a comments section on my blog.. The last thing I want to be doing is arguing with my
readers.. I figure, if you want to comment on my blog, comment about my blog from your blog.. If I really knew what people thought,
I probably wouldn't blog about anything.. Oh, anyhow, I try to stay away from blender forums, because the users care a lot more
about blender than I do.. I've been frustrated by the slowness of development, and how things tend to get left out, ruined, etc..
It's best just not to even be there expressing my opinion, because I know the developers will implement whatever they want.. But I
think somehow my ideas might have sunk in somehow.. I think this "Elephant's Dream" movie encouraged them to fix things in blender
and make it right for making a movie. The best way to learn animation is to do a movie.. The best way to develop a package is to
use it.. And so you can probably figure out why Ton and the guys went to the trouble of making a 11 minute movie with blender.
There is this tendency for me to want to compare it to Maya(w) _ _ and XSI(w) _ _, but
it's really growing into it's own, it will become whatever anyone really needs and not what they don't.. That's mainly what
seperates open source developement from closed source development.. In closed source development, stuff gets developed assuming a
use. In open source, stuff gets developed for whatever reason: assumed use, experiment, or need. But there isn't a likely chance
someone will become selfish and sellout midway. There are too many sellouts, and executives make money off the sellouts in this
industry. The idea, drive all the business people out of the industry so all that are left are geeks.. Let the business people
make money off the external parts, like Internet hardware, Internet lines, selling T-shirts, DVD's, tangible stuff.. Stay out of the
software business, at least the non-enterprise development end). See, the minute you mix money with anything, you introduce
politics, and that just screws up everything.. How to eliminate politics? Eliminate the money-making prt of the equation! Blender
is made for fun, not for money.. Sure you need money to live, and buy stuff, but it becomes evil when one says "I want to be Bill
Gates".. Bill Gates has that covered.. He'll see you coming.. But open source, he can't sense.. That's why Google swooped up on him
so fast.. He couldn't see it coming.. Anyhow.. Here is a link to
"Elephants Dream"
(05/22/06 1:00 AM): Found this with that YouTubeify script.. I'm sure Nathan would love this
video.. When
the heck was this? There guys were far ahead of their
time. True Geek Wave.. The Cure before they were goth. And this is what Kate Bush was doing
about the same time. Now you tell me who were weirder. I saw a Siouxie/Banshees video earlier on, and they weren't even goth
really, in early 1980.. Hey the undertones, I remember
these guys, well from earlier this year or last when I was constructing a playlist. To tell you the truth, this is what I was going ga ga
over in those days. Let me explain, the reason why Paul is playing all the parts on stage is that in the recording he played
all the parts, this is, I guess, the first album he produced in his home studio.. Okay Gary Numan was weirder than
Kate Bush. A a tribute to video games of the
80s, at least defender(w) _ _
seems to have been a major influence. Ah Queen must have also been tempted by the video game craze too (I think Pac-Man(w) _ _ came
out in 1979, or 1980). . A music video that might as well be
about mp3's. The british version of Laura Branigan(w) _ _
and Sheena Easton(w) _ _
combined. (I think Sheena was Australian, well.. ).. I'm going to bed, you can see what I got here.
(05/20/06 3:01 AM): What is really kind interesting is to run "Jan 01 1980, through February 30 1980" on that "Tubeify Everyhit.. I
got quite a few good videos, but the great thing about this engine is you can see what was out around the same time, just to see
where everyone was.. It puts things into a more realistic perspective..
(05/20/06 2:40 AM): I added a search script that uses EveryHit.com to search for songs of a particular date, then runs the links by
YouTube and Rhapsody.. I checked by stats, and barring my huge binaries, I get about 100 hits, with about 30 page watches per hour,
which is not bad.. About 4000 hits a day, or something like that.. No I think I'm exagerating, maybe more like 300 hits a day.. I
may have to switch hosts, but I think I'm okay for now.. 30 pages an hour is not really a big deal.. If it was more like 3000, I
would have to write scripts to deny any mis-use, which wouldn't be too hard, just drop all IP addresses that over-shoot.. But that
would require a database.. Not a problem, I can do it, but I haven't seen any misuse yet..
(05/20/06 2:04 AM): Why does this
sound (yt) like Macarena
(yt) to me? Oh it's that "That's Right" thing.. However all the while I have Weird Al Yankovic (M) _'s
"Gotta Boogie" going through my head.
(05/20/06 1:15 AM): Sometimes I lose and entry, you'd think it couldn't happen, as I edit and upload via ftp(w) _ _, I don't
know why, but for some reason the file gets uploaded with something appended to the end, and my original edit lost.. Anyhow, I wrote
an entry about Johnny Cash (M) _,
June Carter (M) _,
and mentioned something about Roseanne
Cash (M) _'s
hit in the 80s, then I made a rhapsody playlist with Roseanne, Carlene Carter (M) _,
Their Folks, and Roseanne's new album "Black Cadillac(w) _ _".
I saw the Johnny Cash movie.. I also said something about the fact that I didn't know Johnny died after June, by 4 months.
Tieing Johnny's passing to Ray Charles passing, I located (by accident), that Johnny and June sang in a 1967 album of theirs
"What'd I Say" which is a song I associate with Ray Charles (M) _.
So If you check my rhapsody playlist directory, you will find them in there.. Oh what the heck, here is the links: Roseanne/Carlene/Johnny&June/Roseanne (r) and What'd I Say (r). Wow there was a video of Dave Edmunds (M) _
and Carlene Carter singing, cool.. I think Dave and Elvis Costello (M) _
collaborated (r) on a Squeeze (M) _
Album.
(05/19/06 5:25 PM): Roger Miller is turning in his grave.
No, he probably would have dug this. Trivia, my Uncle played in Roger Miller (M) _'s
band when Roger was starting out in Oklahoma.
(05/17/06 11:41 PM): A very interesting recent video
interview with Human League (yt).. I think "You Tube(w) _ _" is
the new and better MTV(w) _ _.
(05/17/06 11:32 PM): Mark King (M) _,
I think I recall, from a Keyboard
Magazine(w) _ _
interview, or some magazine, maybe it was Electronic Musician(w) _ _,
anyhow, he said the worst gig they ever had was, I guess in America, say somewhere like Las Vegas(w) _ _,
and only a couple showed up in the night-club, and not knowing the band, requested that they play "Stairway to Heaven(w) _ _".
The gall!!
(05/17/06 3:31 AM): Plone _ _
is like the Mac of Content Management systems, I am a PHP _ _
hacker but I really wonder about plone, or should I refer to zope _ _, I
mean I really don't know why anyone would use something that doesn't have all the cool stuff in PHP builtin. Ah
this brings back memories of my youth (yt).
(05/17/06 2:52 AM): I discovered Emperor
Penguin (M) _
while perusing what existed of Gary
Wright on You Tube (yt), here's the rhapsody
playlist (r). I just noticed something, Liam Lynch(w) _ _
is Elvis
Costello (yt) with a sense
of humor (yt).
(05/17/06 1:47 AM): I didn't think anything could top seeing Jeff Lynne without sunglasses until I saw Robin Williams(w) _ _
playing Will
Wright's Spore Video Game (yt). Man
this is more addictive than TV, um I mean (yt), well better than Michael Moore(w) _ _
at least.. I think part of why YouTube works is, well it forces you to watch the movie while it's downloading, because there is
no other way, but also because you are forced to watch the video at least half-way through before you can really use the slider..
I wonder if anyone told Stevie
Wonder that he'd be dancing with the brady bunch (yt).
(05/17/06 12:59 AM): Wow, a
rare opportunity (yt) to see Jeff
Lynne (M) _
(also
check out 4 (yt)), and a young Jeff Lynne at that, talk.. And the rare opportunity to see Jeff
Lynne without his glasses (yt).
(05/17/06 12:41 AM): I updated the netcast generator script that I wrote, called "Drop it In" netcast generator, and re-uploaded
the updates to the site.. You can obtain the script here. The other links I gave earlier will also have
the updated script.. Thank God for Winmerge _
_!!
(05/16/06 10:39 PM): Boy I went to check Juno for email, for my father, and Juno it seems is getting hammered by a Worm, because
it's slower than snails. Note, Worm's and Denial of Service attacks have about the same effect on a service, they both slow things
down, but this may just be all the spammers taking advantage of Juno's disregard for its users, by designing Juno Email such that
Email filters are not effective against Spam, note that there is no an option in Juno email to junk any email that is not from
someone in your address book, nor to direct it to an alternate mailbox, this is so Juno can spam it's own customers (now you know
why I don't have Juno anymore).. Anyhow, that sucks.. Well I hope Juno gets more Denial of Service attacks and worms in the future
because they suck for a Email service and should learn well why they suck. Also another thing that sucks are these companies
that send me letters that look like bills to get me to purchase a domain that I have, but I haven't renewed. In this case
"grannybee.com", which was for great aunt who is one of the last remaining relatives to my grand mother who passed away in the 90s.
I am not renewing the site because I am not doing anything with it and I'm sure there are others out there that would like the web
address for their Granny Bee's. Anyhow, the renew is up, I'm not renewing, but I get this mail that looks like a
electric/telephone/water bill, something important anyhow, its white/blue/black.. Basic bill color.. It doesn't say in any apparent
way that this mail is "not a bill" or "this mail is a solicitation". But it does, you just have to read about it a bit.. Let me
explain these letters.. Imagine if you were going to purchase a web site, and for a website you need a domain name and a web
server. The web server or web service is a service that aanswers the calls for the web page, and delivers the data and interacts
with the user, just as you are interacting with my website right now. The domain name is how you get to my website, you go to the
address bar and you pop in the domain name "www.bl3nder.com", your web browser then goes to a domain name service like ICANN, and
they query all the common ICANN services, godaddy.com and such, asking if they know "www.bl3nder.com", then "godaddy.com" pops up
and says "yeah I know Kiernan, his IP address is 123.231.113.50", so then your browser goes to the IP address directly and gets my
web page.. Now the domain name service is a service that you pay for every year, to just refer to your website.. When calls come in
for the domain name, and no local DNS services (like the ones on your corporate network, or the ones at Earthlink, or such, if they
don't know the domain name you are requesting, they redirect the request to the general DNS service, and then it goes to godaddy,
and then you get the IP address, and thus the web page).. This happens everytime you request a website, and it happens so quickly..
But I'm paying Godaddy to utilize 200 bytes of memory (or less) to handle my domain name and redirrect domain name requests to my IP
address where my web service sits.. I pay godaddy.com about 10 dollars a year for this wonderful (and overpriced) service (but
someone has got to do it). Anyhow, when the domain name service is up for renewal, there are all these jerks that will send you a
letter like this promotion that looks like a electric bill, claiming "domain name 'grannybee.com' is up for renewal" or "please
renew this domain or you will lose it", or anything that will put fear into the owner of the domain. Anyhow what I was going to
say was if you get a website, you will want to own the domain name and the website, but the domain name service will have to deal
with you seperately from your website service. The domain name service, since it is regulated by law, is required to make a
"whois" account for each purchaser of the domain service. These jerks that latch onto the renewals literally scan the "whois"
information for your mailing address and check to see if your website is within 90 days or renewing. Okay
Kiernan what is the point? When people purchase web services, they think that the domain name service is the same as the
website, so anything that reads "renewal of www.yoursite.com" with the words "or you will lose", strikes fear in every ignorant web
service owner in the world, everyone, but the go-between (if there is one) of the web administrator (me) is familiar with the scam.
It's often the case that the web site owner and the web administrator are not the same.. It's a sign of a good administrator to make
website purchasers the owners of the domains and not the administrators themselves.. Crooked web administrators will often hold the
domain names for ransome if the website owner is short on the bills or will not pay their fees.. Anyhow, this respectful service of
the administrator to the client, comes at a cost, the client will be hounded by these "renewal letters" circumventing the trust the
owner has in the administrator, and causing the client to pay for the new domain name registrant, which might also be so crooked as
to not actually renew the domain name.. It's a scam that preys on the ignorance of the website purchasers. It flourishes because
most website administrators are not paid enough to care about dimwitted clients that think they can get good webservice for beans..
They can, but they can't be so ignorant. Good web administrators should cost more money than what they demand.. Just because web
administration is so easy, doesn't mean that it should come at no cost.. When will the web administrators who undercut everyone
realize that they will need high fees with 1-900 numbers to support the clients that fall for these schemes.. Well I guess if you
pay beans for the web administration and the domain name service and website, you deserve to be attacked.. But so do administrators
that are ignorant enough not to privatize their "WHOIS" information. But I think the standard that requires the publishing of
renewal information of domains, should be revised to eliminate these companies that prey on people ignorant of how to setup a
domain name, web service, and such to get a website. Anyhow, if you want to get a look at the letters I received in the mail, they are here (pictures).. IF you see anything like this, ignore it, it's crap.
(05/16/06 2:10 AM): This is why music these days suck, too damn much focus on how the artists look, look at these guys.. This
(yt) video is pretty impressive considering all they had at the time was analog compositing techniques (this was quite a
bit before Raster compositing like Adobe Premiere was possible, think about how you would do this video in a live environment with
just a Chromakey(w) _ _
and five cameras).
(05/15/06 8:31 PM): Trackmania is a nice game though it does contain malware, take for example
this demo (yt).
(05/15/06 8:05 PM): Making
of Xanadu Documentary (yt) (a search on youtube.com)
(05/15/06 3:27 AM): I will need to find a job that will support this lifestyle of mine.. Well, this is my favorite song to blast on my Car stereo
(v), turn it up full blast on bass, it's fantastic speeding music.. Yeah I'm a little dangerous.. Man You Tube is better
than Night Flight, it's basically, make your own Night Flight.. It can't last, the RIAA will be beating it down before long, but
it's a godsend for those of us that have no memory of the videos or have the songs on CD but haven't a video to place with the
song.. Fantastic!! Even more so was to see Early Split Enz Videos(w) _ _
<-- hey click on that underscore and you will see what I mean.. I'm in Heaven!! , I'm going crazy!!, what is this thing? Okay I'm easy. Oh yeah, hit me!!, I want you
to know I was 3 years old when this Steve Miller Band video was made, that was the
first "Fly Like An Eagle", wow, what a difference.. This is just too corny.. I wonder what Boz Scaggs(w) _ _
would think of this.. Note, what
do the last two videos have in common, as well as the songs.. Both had Boz Scaggs in them, but they are both pretty corny.. Just
kidding.. This was a good
movie, Johnny Dangerously (v). I
know what to put with this (v). Oh yeah, I remember this one.. I serriously doubt they were
playing that on stage, more like they had MIDI(w) _ _ piped
into all the synthesizers and they had it pre-sequenced, leaving them to foof-off.. But it was entertaining to look at
nevertheless. What color (v).. I love this song
(v)..
(05/15/06 2:18 AM): I'm hooked on this "You Tube", this has to be about the best "Donald Fagan" song, and video (v)..
(05/15/06 1:45 AM): You know, Todd
Rundgren(w) _ _
looks younger when he moves..
(05/15/06 1:15 AM): That "You Tube" is so effective as a video search engine that I just wired it directly into my linking system,
it may slow things down a bit, but you get an extra reference you can click on and get video satisfaction instantly.. BTW, it's the
last Underscore on every link that uses the linking system, if you click on that underscore, you will get you-tube's results for
that search term. I expect that there will be a modification of this system in the future where it will be a bit more intuitive,
like letting you right-click on a link and choose the search engine you want to use for the term. Anyhow.. A quick fix..
(05/15/06 12:17 AM): It looks like You Tube has a quite a few music videos, including Bobby McFerrin (M) _'s
Don't Worry Be Happy (v). Although the song is pretty stupid, the music
video is worth watching, if just to see Robin Williams (M) _.
(05/14/06 1:48 AM): The only problem I have with Annalee Newitz(w) _ _
looks is she looks like a modernized version of Joan Baez with way too many ear-rings, I think if she had longer hair and maybe one
less tatoo, she'd probably have less guys making fun of her looks, but maybe why she looks the way she does is that she can look so
hot that she doesn't want that kind of attention, so she goes for the geeko look to make people see her for who she is and not for
how she looks.. I think if she really didn't care how she looked, she'd just not bother having a style at all, but I guess that is
unaccetpable in journalism, people probably make assumptions about one's professionalism.. Okay, so somewhere between geek, guys
and still being obviously attractive enough not to be ugly.. Yeah.. I don't really know who she is anyhow.. They show up on Cranky
Geeks and have something to say, and Devorak claims they are popular, but I guess they are in Journalistic circles.. But in the
blog world Journalism is a dieing art.. Hence the purpose for these Video netcasts, to turn journalists into TV personalities..
Pretty soon Annalee will have her own TV show.. Of course Annalee, must understand that all anyone watching TV talks about is the
news anchor's looks, it doesn't really matter if they have a brain or a life. Ain't it sad what is happening to the media world?
But to make it in the Video netcast world you have to be entertaining or attractive, or offer up something that gets people
thinking, oe all three.. I'm past the point of watching something just to see Charlize Theron(w) _ _..
But I think it wouldn't be too hard for Annalee to look like either Angelina Jolie(w) _ _
or Charlize Theron, just the question is "what does she really want", people talking about her hair or people talking about her
ideas.. The more people discuss women's looks, the uglier they will get, depending on how strong they are at resisting the urge to
satisfy the inverse-vanity needs of the audience.. Hey I have an Idea, get a picture of Annalee Newitz, get a number of
photoshopers, and have a contest to see who can do the most with her looks without modifying the shape of her face.. I bet you
would be amazed what could be done.. She just chooses this look to get people to look at her and not at her hair.. Or maybe people
do get distracted.. Her earrings are what distract me most.. I don't like multiple ear-rings, it's like isn't one enough? What is
the point to keep adding ear-rings.. BTW, She watches Wonderwoman(w) _ _
and Star Trek(w) _ _, I
watched the same shows when I was young, we are about a years difference in Age.. I preferred the Incredible Hulk(w) _ _
(boy would I just love to see that in reruns, I was a big Bill Bixby(w) _ _
fan) to Wonder Woman.. And the Six
Million Dollar Man(w) _ _..
However I have to admit I watched a lot of Wonder Woman, but when Mork and Mindy(w) _ _
kicked in, forget it.. Robin Williams was just too funny.
(05/14/06 1:17 AM): It seems that ITIVA has found a way to send movies over
the Internet that are the quality of DVD's.. Well I guess that's not so impressive, let me see.. I have 6Mbps downrate.. That's
about 600Kbps, and if given an hour and 30 minutes, we have about ~3100 megabytes transfered for a movie about 90 minutes long..
It's a video streaming technology but it's close to DVD resolution, it seems like DVD, but I noticed that on one trailer there is
some obvious banding, it's probably using some kind of logarithmic compression of color detail as trade-off to detail.. It requires
".Net" to install it's plugin, so it must be reaching deep into Windows to allow for different forms of video encoding.. I doubt
serriously that it's doing anything special with data caching with quantum http-based messages, but it might be using HTTP to get
through some network firewalls.. You can tunnel anything through port 80 on a firewall.. BTW, if you want to spot the banding, look
at the Video Trailer for "Over the Headge", look at the starry sky, you will see the banding, that's a sign of color compression, or
color quantization.. It happens say when you try to video 24-bit quality video over a 21-bit video adapter, because 2 to the 7th is
128, if you try to create a gradient of 128 colors diagonally across screen that is greater tha 128 pixels, then you will see
banding. You will see it on a 8-bit grey scale, if the diagonal resolution is greater than 256 pixels.. However 10-bit grey scale
(30 bit color) will only show banding if the resolution diagonally is greater than 2^10 or 1024. But what if you use a logarithmic
scale for your color resolution, say if dark colors were given less variation and light colors more variation, or vice versa.. You
could probably cut the data bandwidth in half, or maybe even less.. Well maybe it is a fancy caching algorithm that makes their
video faster, but I have a feeling it's more than just that.. Anyhow go check out the movie trailer demos with Itiva installed.. I
have it installed on a non-critical machine.. But still a machine with access to my FTP site, I guess I should make backups of my
website in case it should mysteriously come down.
(05/14/06 12:30 AM): I disagree with John C. Devorak about the Samsung Origami, I think the best price for it would be 250 dollars,
that's just about right, it's around twice what the hardware costs but it's cheaper than a video iPod which is three times the cost
of its hardware. I don't think it would be bad if it were a little bit thinner, Maybe foldable, so you could put it in a breast
pocket of a leather jacket or a blazer. It wouldn't matter to me if the screen had a seam running through it, you could put touch
sensitivity on one end of the screen, or do a deal with wacom and add a pressure sensitive pen.. That would sell really well at 250
dollars, even at 350 dollars.. But 1000 dollars, forget it.. That's a dud if I ever saw one.. What I need now is a device about
that size that I can use to store the photographs I take and show them to me. I also could use a device that shows video, music
videos.. DVD's.. My girlfriend and I were in the mountains today, walking around about 10,000 feet up looking over Santa Fe(w) _ _ and
Albuquerque(w) _ _
in the distance, and we came down, had some pancakes and sat around for a little while, and then she said, you think we can watch
movies at your house.. Okay, yeah, but are you going to come back up here (she camps out in the mountains), and she said yes.. So
we watched a movie.. But then, it's so late, she doesn't want to make the trip up the mountain.. My point is, that if I had a
movies to go samsung device, we could watch movies in the mountains, furthermore if there was enough battery juice, she could
probably get a cellphone link to here Email and check that, with a device like that.. I know, there is not a major market for
people who go hiking, but it would really make the CEO's that like to go to some far-off place to be able to tote at least
something that looks this minimal, with a battery life and get back to the technical world just briefly, or to watch a movie,
without having to tote a laptop, power cord, and such.. IT would make the device cool. BTW, it's possible that there could be a
device like that that is more efficient on battery life by running an LCD screen that fits in an eye piece.. I'm imagining my
camera's eye-piece, on a monocal that can be strapped to ones eye, then a device to write and control information on the monitor..
I guess running an LCD screen doesn't require a lot of power, but there would be a definate value in increasing the battery life
and making it so that it can be used in various situations, maybe it would be a step toward computer aided sensory augmentation,
without the painful surgery.. I can imagine someone who fishes, might use one of these devices to see heat dissipation off a lake,
based on a satelite image, to determine where a majority of the fish might be (that's a shot in the dark, but just an example).. Or
using two of these scope monocals, someone could see imagery in stereo, like spotting where one is on a trail tracked by two web
cams from two equidistant locations. Just an example.
(05/13/06 11:40 PM): Liam Lynch (M) _'s
Lynchland Episode 7 has Dave
Grohl (M) _
of Foo Fighters (M) _,
and Nirvana (M) _..
Of course Dave was in Tenacious
D (M) _'s
(Jack Black(w) _ _,
I wonder if he is the son of Karen
Black(w) _ _)
last video (???).. I think Liam is trying to find some kind of format, but I would really wish he didn't, that can get boring after
awhile..
(05/12/06 2:25 AM): I bought the A-data 1GB SD card from Tiger Direct, and it seems to be a piece of crap.. It was on sale for 25
dollars last month.. However I'm going to return it.. I returned a similar XD card, for my camera, which also was delivered at the
same time.. On the topic of consumer stuff, we replaced the Eureka Bagless sweeper with a baggy heavy duty Eureka _ _
sweeper, it was selling at Sams "Big Box" Club for 129 dollars, I found someone trying to sell it on Amazon for 200 dollars. It's
very cool and works well, it doesn't look fantastic, but it is!! Basically it is a metal version of their Eureka "Boss".. I haven't
seen all the bagless sweepers, but the one we had kept clogging up every 15 minutes and it was more messy than it claimed to be..
Maybe if we had a garage, it would be a different matter, but I was constantly have to dump the dust bin after 20-30 minutes of
sweeping.. Dumping it into bags anyhow.. I can only determine that either there is a really good bagless sweeper, or the lot of
them are a awful attempt to augment sweepers, and people who purchase them think they are being efficient and politically-correct,
even improving the environment.. But if I need to recycle my dust bag I could probably throw it into a stove and use it like
firewood.. Also the baggy sweepers have natural hepa filtration, the bag acts as a hepa filter.. This is nothing new.. The Sweeper
companies, I believe, just want to profit on the accessories and accessory replacements.. Anyhow, one of the Eureka bagless sweepers
is not worth purchasing..
(05/11/06 2:32 PM): Everyone comes to Albuquerque(w) _ _
at some point or another.. Bill
Gates(w) _ _
founded Microsoft(w) _ _
there back when the Altair(w) _ _
(first personal computer) was being fabricated there.. It's said that Beavis and Butthead(w) _ _
was inspired by highland school in Albuquerque. And it's where Austin Powers(w) _ _'
Jay Roach
grew up. And it's where Brad
Carvey(w) _ _,
creator of the Video Toaster(w) _ _,
(Dana Carvey(w) _ _'s
brother, lives, but they have a big family, Dana's the youngest).. Note, Todd Rundgren (M) _
was the first person to purchase a Video Toaster (and probably knows Brad), but we'll get to that later.. even Prefab Sprout (M) _
and Weird Al Yankovic (M) _
have songs about Albuquerque, even if prefab sprout's song ("King of Rock'n'Roll") is abstract and meaningless.. What's the big
deal Kiernan? I read in the newspaper about Rex Rundgren(w) _ _,
ya, that's Todd's son.. I didn't know he had a son, but I recall that Todd likes to keep his family life private. His goddaughter is
Liv Tyler(w) _ _
(Todd was involved with her mother, and when Steve Tyler (M) _
was not around to care for her, Todd acted for a while as a step-in dad, I guess still does, according to the Journal's story). Rex
on the other hand, is blood.. And he doesn't really need the press, he's not following in his fathers footsteps, or anything like
that, he came to play baseball in Albuquerque, for the Isotopes(w) _ _ (a
team so named after the Mythical team from The Simpsons (M) _,
which was also based in Albuquerque). Note, I think there is an Albuquerque in the USSR(w) _ _, so
maybe I'm getting confused which one it referred to.. I don't know how much experience Todd has with Baseball but he was
involved in production of Meat
Loaf (M) _'s
album Bat out of Hell(w) _ _,
and probably was involved in the production of the song "Paradise by the Dashboard
Light(w) _ _"
which features commentary from a radio announcer, sounding something like a baseball game.. Okay, maybe, there is something they
both have in common, aside from the obvious... Anyhow, Rex is in the Isotopes for a short period to fill in for someone else, I
think.. It sounded like he was offered a short opportunity to play.. I'm sure if he got a permanent position (based on his merit
as a good player and not his relationship to Todd), then it might be the case that the Isotopes management could use a full song
between innings for once, it almost would invariably be "Bang on the Drum" as it has been played before at the field.. Yeah go
ahead, play that "old cliche". I would vote for "Hodja" myself (from A capella), I guess it would only be relevant to Rex if he
was pitching excellent, and gave the ball a bit of a "spin".. They, and I guess all those baseball parks, replaced the
cheer-organ with 15 seconds of some popular song.. That just bugs me no end.. BTW, if you do attend the Isotopes game in
Albuquerque, and are looking for a great deal on food, I suggest a slice of Dion's pizza and a bottle of water.. The bottle of water you can refill, and the pizza is
about 3.50 and is roughly equivalent to new york slice, though about 5 times thicker (I'd rather have it than a new york slice,
maybe I'm just biased). It's a nice field with a view of the Sandias. Also its across from the "Pit" (stadium for Inline Hockey,
Basketball games) and UNM's Football stadium. Well you can read more about Rex from the Albuquerque Journal's article. But given that much of
Albuquerque's citizens are over the age of 50, and can be termed as "8-track toting hippies", I'm sure Rex's relationship to Todd
will be played up a lot for days after he left, maybe they will build a monument to the baseball he used and sell lots of T-shirts
saying I saw "Rex Rungdren, Todd's Son, play at the Isotopes Baseball Diamond, on ______". Hey I bet Todd would buy the
T-shirt!!
(05/10/06 12:36 AM): I followed Neil Finn's inspirations to John Lennon, and noticing there is nothing on John Lennon's profile at
Rhapsody I watched the music video "Woman".. Man that's just a heart-breaker, even though Yoko Ono hasn't much good music, I'm sure
it was her only source of income, it's tough to be ripped apart, going into your forties, and some idiot comes along and shoots a
hole in your life.. Just watching Yoko smoke for 10 seconds, followed with John and Yoko holding hands, that's just heart
breaking. I mean, I think this is the first time I've identified with what happened, not at losing John Lennon, but losing that,
that expectation of a life long love with someone.. I guess it didn't make much sense to me until now, because I never really had a
girlfriend until now.. I was thinking about offeringing links to the music videos on Paul McCartney and John Lennons profile, but I'll just put up that
one here (v).. Stop thinking about Yoko's singing, or about the family, think a man and a woman, with lots of plans into
retirement, ripped apart... That's just a heart breaker..
(05/09/06 11:40 PM): I released a netcast devoted to Split Enz (M) _,
about Split Enz.. It's the longest I've had for a musician.. It seems the material proably was summarized from a book that has been
scanned and placed online, I guess by Split Enz themselves.. Anyhow, here is a link to that book, you should find it just by looking for large images of "Split Enz" on
google. I've modified the code to the netcast rss feeds such that anyone with a RSS reader can obtain links to the mp3 files, but
if you haven't a RSS reader, here is a link to the mp3 file. I also setup
a playlist with a selection of the GOOD stuff, and some Crowded House and an album of the Brothers Finn (M) _..
I learned from the entry in Wikipedia that Tim (M) _
and Neil (M) _
released their album before "Paul Hester", committed
suicide in 2005. Not knowing Paul, I suspect he was a member of Crowded House (M) _,
not an original member of Split Enz, but still must have shaken up the Finns. Hey, I probably should make a script to convert an
RSS feed into a set of links, at least for this page.. I guess code like that already exists, but it would just be fun to do it..
Anyhow..
(05/09/06 7:29 PM):  | Wow, the top half of a fifty foot pine tree outside the front of our
house blew off, from the strong winds. I guess it finally got too tall.. I'll have pictures on it later, I don't feel safe outside
right now, I will wait until the wind dies down, and I'm on the eastern side of the house for good measure, the tree is on the west
side up a 20 foot hill. Boy I never thought that tree would rip apart like that, glad I wasn't standing there, but then again would
I be standing there? I'm more glad that it missed the house, one of my computers is within 10 feet of the limbs that feel off. I'm
over-reacting, the limbs are not more than about 100 lbs apiece, it would probably just scuff me up or brake a window, but not
capable of killing anyone, I don't suppose.. Maybe we should invite the survivalist down the street to come down and make firewood
of the tree.. |
(05/09/06 10:08 AM): Godaddy is getting me back for all those sales and
promotional offers. AHHHHhhhh.. I just love Diggnation and SlashdotReview netcast, not for the promotional godaddy codes, but for
getting me to think twice before pressing "checkout", I did a search on google for "godaddy coupon codes" and came up with this site, and then I applied the codes,
knocked off 20% on my domain registration and a 80 cents on some hosting plan for 2 months (5 GB with 250GB transfer, MySQL and
PHP, 7.19 for two months).. If it is any good I may be able to redirrect my oldcliche account to there.. I'm paying fatcow 8.99
per month for 1GB and 250GB transfer, or something like that.. Ah the lowering price of hard drives and Internet connectivity, may
it continue..
(05/08/06 10:23 PM): I was wondering why there was not another TWiT show, Leo_Laporte(w) _ _
failed to re-register the website address, but there is probably other
reasons.. Maybe it's just the video netcast that hasn't been updated.. I really enjoyed watching 's Lynchland _ _,
recently, with the Street Bison.. The animation lacks some bump maps, but aside from that it's impressive for a netcast. I like the
jab at Diggnation toward the end of Lynchland episode 6, I suppose he's releasing one of these every month.
(05/08/06 2:29 PM): Since dates are hand coded in, I can make date entry errors and that may throw some people.. I could probably
fix that, but it would then have to be automated somehow.. I was just looking at the "Just Added" bin at Rhapsody and there is an
artist named "usr/sbin", I kid you not! If anyone works with shell scripts on UNIX, that's one of the location for programs, it's
more familiar to me because the old SGI workstations used usr/sbin as a storage place for most, I guess, statically compiled
application.. Well now there is a band with that name.. If I had a heavy metal band I would call them 'rm -rf /' or 'sudo "kill -9
-1'. First will erase everything on the computer and the second kills every process on a unix machine, sudo allows someone to login
as the super user, thus killing all processes.
(05/07/06 1:50 AM): Before I go to bed.. Some random thoughts: Have you ever noticed that Missing Persons (M) _
and No Doubt (M) _
are a lot alike? Also ZDnet has a netcast (rss) that is not related to TWiT(w) _ _. Lots
of useful information on wikipedias entry for Aggregator(w) _ _.
Gerard Depardieu(w) _ _
(from Man in The Iron
Mask(w) _ _)
looks like Joe Walsh(w) _ _,
at least in my mind. Compare Gerard to Joe (I don't know why Joe doesn't wear more facial hair, he looks pretty
good with a moustache). Boy this picture is so wrong
that's only Don Henly and Glen Frey, no Joe Walsh in that top photo. If anyone needs good logos for their video netcast, I
have a lot of 3D graphics animation experience, I can make them for 300 dollars a logo, email me.. If you are not satisfied, we can
work on it.. PS - The TWiT logo is very basic, I could do that in blender in five hours or less. Kiernan..
(05/06/06 11:40 PM):
I was watching "Computer Geeks", and they got to talking about Web 2.0, IE and Firefox and the idea of owning access to say
Microsoft's Office suite online, probably for a monthly rental fee versus having to purchase and install the applications.. Here is
the pros and cons of this no form of commerce in software first the PROS:
Never have to download and install an application.
No need to upgrade the software to read a newer file format as the conversion will be managed online by creators of the
service..
Capability of sharing files with people without cluttering their email with the file.
Capability of allowing someone to come in and edit changes to a file without requiring them to purchase and install the
application (this is possible, yes, but whether someone like Microsoft will let you do this depends on the competition).
End of file formats, files in the net space can become objects. When a file is loaded into the space, it becomes an object
can therefore be simplified to basic types such as "movie", "image", "sound", "music", etc..
technical support people can perceive the environment and problems you are having directly as their interface to your
environment is the same as yours, no need to have "shared desktop" mode enabled on your computer, no need to use programs like VNC,
PC-Anywhere, and so forth..
Did I say that multiple people could collaborate on a document, speak over it, share the document in a conference online and
such..
Now the Cons:
Only works with low-bandwidth applications, like spreadsheets, documents, vector graphics (flash, powerpoint), and content
that doesn't require a whole lot of data to change or exchange.. It won't work for applications such as video applications, you may
be able to collaborate on a video, but it will require a fast Internet line to upload content into the environment.
The creators of the software may design it to allow them to eavesdrop on peoples workspaces. It may require certain
government regulation on procedures and certification, fines, for hidden access ports.
If online services are not well written, it's much easier to corrupt the services than it is to corrupt applications sitting
on a computer behind a firewall. Imagine if everyone purchased into a Microsoft Office environment, and suddenly the servers
should come down, be erased, or have all online content downloaded to the perpetraitors system (this is possible if the system is
very badly written, but it can be avoid.)
Access to the application is dependent on your connectivity, this is not an issue if the application in on your machine.
What you know is possible with such software and what the company will implement may, and usually will be, different, in
interest of the vendors business intent, you have less power over the way things work.. For instance, if someone has gained access
to your account with Microsoft Office, they could perform some mischeavous acts causing the service managers, in this case
Microsoft, to revoke your license or access to the service until the matter is taken care of. Do you really want to be
micromanaged to this level?
There will need to be fines in place, set by the government, on how such services are designed, but this will not be aparent
early on and the companies using the services will profit on yours and the governments ignorance of their service and what
constitutes fair use.
If I think of anymore I will place them here.. I think it's a good thing, but you can't confuse on-line web/application
services with the services of an application sitting on your hard drive.. There will be limitations that can't be overcomed as the
nature of the service, but for office work, it should prove to be a good way to collaborate with others. These services already
pretty much exist, such as with Wiki's and Forums and shared-desktop applications, and VOIP applications, and web services like
Google's calendar software, but the major difference between a web application and an online application, is the level of
interactivity and transparency.. You should not have to learn a new set of skills to use the online environment versus the local
environment, and it should be easy enough to share documents on the online environment, that it will make Email/Forum/Wiki
collaborations look complex to work with. The way web applications work now is not ideal, but it's useable.. Web 2.0 applications
allow the client to make hidden calls to the server using a special client API, utilizing XML and Javascript, this is what is known
as AJAX.. It makes up for some of the problems with web applications, but it will be limited by what Javascript can do (which is not
a whole lot really). Microsoft's advantage is that the services they implement in their web servers, they implement in Internet
Explorer, their web client.. It's just a matter of time before the makers of Firefox and Apache are collaborating and determining
the future design of web applications, toward the design of more transparent environments, where people can interact without
limitations.. It will have to happen as Microsoft will continue to pursue a tighter integration of client side applications and
server side applications. Imagine IIS becoming the operating system and IE becoming a window on the Operating system.. This is what
capability Firefox and Apache must have, eventually.. Or Microsoft will leverage people away from firefox and apache.. IT's
completely possible.
Microsoft's Moto should be "We want you to depend on us!" (translation: we want you to be enslaved to us).
(05/05/06 10:20 PM): Elvis Costello removed his Spike album from Rhapsody, Awwwwww!! First the Eagles take everything off Rhapsody
now he takes off a good album. If he wants to put up a sucky album, that nobody will ever buy, he could put up the Live "El
Mocambo"(w) _ _
album, it's the only one I never play of his.. It's too fast and too noisy..
(05/05/06 3:42 PM): There is a 1GB Secure Digital (SD)
card selling at Tiger Direct without a rebate, for 25 dollars.
(05/05/06 1:53 PM): Found that Los Alamos has a
Radio station, but its not on the air.. Then technically it isn't.. Well someone is trying to make us believe there is.. It's a
Live 365 station.. Argh, that doesn't count!!
The heartbreak is over the loss of KRSN(w) _ _,
which was the oldies station here in Los Alamos, it's no longer on the air, but I have some friends that are striving for a local
public radio station.. Thanks to Rupert_Murdoch(w) _ _'s
destruction of Americas Local Radio stations, replacing it with Clear_Channel(w) _ _,
which is like the USA_Today(w) _ _ or
radio stations. It's the Eunuch _ of
radio broadcasting.
(05/05/06 1:01 PM): Here is a listing of the players that "Rhapsody ToGo"
supports:
- Audiovox SMT5600(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Portable Media Center(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Micro (firmware 2.10.05 and higher)(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Micro Photo(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Vision(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Vision:M(E)(C)(T)
- Creative Zen Sleek(E)(C)(T)
- Dell Axim X50(E)(C)(T)
- Dell Axim X51v(E)(C)(T)
- Dell DJ 20 (version 2)(E)(C)(T)
- Dell DJ 30 (version 2)(E)(C)(T)
- Dell Pocket DJ 5GB(E)(C)(T)
- Dell Ditty(E)(C)(T)
- Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver H10 (firmware higher than 2.02)(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver H320(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver H340(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver PMC-120(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver T10(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver T30(E)(C)(T)
- iRiver U10(E)(C)(T)
- JVC XA-HD500(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne LifeDrive **All PalmOne devices REQUIRE Pocket Tunes Deluxe installed**(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten C(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten E2(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten T(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten T2(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten T3(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten T5(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Tungsten TX(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Zire 31(E)(C)(T)
- palmOne Zire 72(E)(C)(T)
- Philips HDD1630(E)(C)(T)
- Philips HDD6330(E)(C)(T)
- Philips PSA232(E)(C)(T)
- Philips PSA242(E)(C)(T)
- Philips PSA612(E)(C)(T)
- RCA RD2765(E)(C)(T)
- Rio Carbon(E)(C)(T)
- Rio Carbon Pearl(E)(C)(T)
- Rio CE 2100(E)(C)(T)
- Samsung YH-J70(E)(C)(T)
- Samsung YP-Z5AB (typically referred to as the Samsung Z5)(E)(C)(T)
- SanDisk Sansa C100(E)(C)(T)
- Sandisk Sansa E200 Series (E250, E260, E270) MP3 players(E)(C)(T)
- Sandisk Sansa M200 Series (M230, M240, M250, M260) MP3 players(E)(C)(T)
(05/05/06 12:22 PM): This is probably what my friend Nathan was wondering about, in relation to being able to download songs from
Rhapsody and play them on his portable player. There is a service from Real (owners of
Rhapsody) to download unlimited songs and play them remotely, however I've heard people have been having troubles with the license
synchronizations.
(05/05/06 11:42 AM): I'm not going to tell you how, but there is a way to have two concurrent rhapsodys with one account, I may
just be the special case this works on.. It probably won't work on any of the newer accounts. Hint..
(05/03/06 9:43 PM): Okay, has anyone actually seen this "RED ONE _ _"
camera? I say they are blowing smoke, it feels like they are looking for investors, but they haven't a prototype, or what they are
claiming. The major problem with high resolution CCD's is that as you increase the size of the area of the surface of the CCD, you
have to increase the speed at which the bus can collect data from the chip.. It can't be several dies, it has to be one, otherwise
you will get inconsistency between the dies, meaning that you will have lines through your image. So it must be one die, at 12
million (approximately).. So 12 million, times 24-bit, times 60 fps, which is 2.16 gigabytes per second.. Maybe it can be
compressed down, but still they are designing it to be modular, this is a sign of their "exit strategy".. But I think they are
bluffing and really want someone like Sony to buy up their company, but I don't think they have anything here..
(05/03/06 3:30 PM): I found a conservative grassroots netcast, finally.. Something conservative on the netcasts.. It's called grassfire netcast, drag this link onto your
iTunes netcast client to get the feed. (RSS). I'm personally against giving rights to illegal American citizens, period..
Canada, Mexico, Sweden, anywhere.. It's totally stupid to turn this into a race issue, it's about knowing the English language,
it's about knowing the laws, some of these illegals don't even know the laws, some of them are criminals, some of them are
completely innocent, but how do you know? You can't, because they haven't taken any tests, they haven't been filtered.. We do not
know what kind of people are coming in and working in our cities. There needs to be a process that selects who and who can't come
into the United States, and it has to be fair to those who already live here. See people here pay taxes, they pay taxes to build
schools, to build roads, and so forth. I would think at the very least, if these illegals want to be counted as citizens they must
also pay taxes, and they should earn the minimum wage, they should be screened for psychotic behaviour, they should be given a
couple of years probation to check in with an officer every 3 months to track their progress. I'm not against people coming and
having citizenship in this country, I'm against people coming in who are not familiar with the system, nor respect the laws, that
see this country as a free handout. The real problem is that in Mexico there is no standards for how to treat people, there is no
standards of healthcare, there is corruption and such.. The problem is not poverty, it's how the country of Mexico is run, and
needs to be changed.. We need to set down rules for our companies that go there and setup shop, determining how they treat people
in Mexico, determine how they hospitalize people there.. Come up with legal bodies that determine the quality fo the food. And so
forth, basically make Mexico like America, by allowing them to inform themselves, and helping them to govern themselves.. But I
think it's totally wrong to let them come into America and stay herem and turn America into Mexico by increasing the densities of
people in cities to unsafe and uninforceable levels, to increase the poverty level by making the job market more competitive and
lowering the competitive wage. If you want America in Mexico, you can do that, by creating communities with safe densities,
self-governing, powered with nuclear energy, farming, mining, building roads, and so forth. There are lots of people in Mexico with
lots of money, they are the ones that need to be giving into this structure and influencing how their country his run and
maintaining the rights that people have.. It's about self-respect and respecting others.. You see America as a solution, but the
solution must come from within.. It's what you people, in Mexico, in Canada, and elsewhere do with yourselves, how people treat
each other, how you solve problems.. And we Americans will be glad to help you learn how to and transfer the knowledge necessary to
change give rights to your people, to understand better how things need to work.. Coming here may seem to help but it could help,
but it could overload our systems and create an unjust system like there is in your country. You need to have the kinds of
organizations we have here in your country, that's the solution.. What we are doing with IRAQ, we should be doing with Canada and
Mexico. And Canada and Mexico need to be doing with their neighbors, and so forth..
(05/02/06 11:24 PM): How did I let this pass me by? Jim Croce (M) _
has a Live Album on Rhapsody (r) (those with the Rhapsody Plugin
can go here: Have Your Heard Jim Croce
Live), Ya Hooo!! Not only that it's got commentary!! So you can hear what "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" was about, for
instance. BTW, he had a son.. I only found out now.. A.J. Croce (M) _.
Here is three of his albums (r) that were on Rhapsody. Reminds me a
little bit of Billy Joel. However, I would get rid of the "cool" cat singing style, it's too cliche.. But the song writing is
pretty good. The singing style reminds me too much of the Goo Goo Dolls (M) _
or Glenn Tilbrook (M) _
of Squeeze (M) _
(listen to this playlist comparing AJ to Glenn(r), Glenn has a
little bit of roughness to his voice that AJ doesn't have, also a bit of character, some turns here and there, I prefer Glenn
though). I guess if that is how he sings, that's how he sings, but I think if he could thicken it a bit, I mean use a bit more of
his throat, imagine a tennis ball is in your throat, rather than singing from the back of your throat, I think it could be good..
I'm listening to "Maybe I'm Amazed", that really sounds like Paul_McCartney (M) _!!
Maybe, I've only listened to a few of his songs.. Okay.. I don't like to over-sugar the children of famous musicians, because it
doesn't always work.. But I'm just glad he's not trying to sound like his father.. He's got a sound all his own.. That might
inspire me to make a playlist of really good children of famous musicians.. I'm still deciding on AJ.. But Wilson Phillips (M) _
is closer to my heart. Hey I'm not a rock star either, I just listen to the stuff, this is how I sound. (mp3) That with a cheap computer Mic and a 30 dollar "Sound_Blaster(w) _ _
live!" and a "Audacity(w) _ _".
(05/02/06 6:52 PM): I thought I was reading an original article in the recent Albuquerque Journal's Youth Express, but I had found
it was an article that has popped up all over
the net.. It's just an example, of what pirating will get you, but I don't think pirating contributed to the loss of sales in
the industry.. I think what did it was the sheer increase in choices people have.. If you want someone to blame, blame Sony and
Phillips for pirating the creation of the MPEG movie format and video/audio compression, to make it cheaper to mass produce and
distribute movies on CD's. Blame the government for puting money into ARPA to come up with a network that could survive a nuclear
attack.. Come on, technology is to blame.. Business people, investors, dread change.. Change is bad, when it occurs, it changes
the control hiearchies.. It bankrupts companies, it distributes the wealth, its a awful nameless representationless entity that
steals from the pockets of the rich and give to the poor.. Well it's easier when the blame can be directed at someone, and here
they direct it at a student in college who uploaded CD's to a music lovers group.. Where was the music industry when this happened?
Twiddling their thumbs thrying to figure out what to do next.. Let's blame someone and make a big deal of it!!!
(05/02/06 5:37 PM): The major problem with the new Rhapsody service is that on the firefox web browser, it keeps having to re-open
the player that loads in a web window. I have special options set on firefox to open a new web browser as a tab in the browser,
rather than as a popup.. But it still manages to get by that, but somehow it forgets about the player and requests a new player.
Also the music downloaded through the player cuts-up really bad!! It's worse than the old Rhapsody because of that.. It would be
better for Real just to make a standalone player that gets called by the web browser, or a player-plugin that loads into the
browser, rather than using some javascript majic.. I guess it's a flash animation.. Whatever it is, it doesn't work.. Also it's
tough to control where songs go in the playlist, you can't very easily save out the songs to a real playlist file.. And from the
time one clicks on the album or musician to the time it takes to hear the musician, its anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute. It's
a slug on salt, basically.. I'd rather use the old Rhapsody.. Why don't they just make it a part of real player, and have the
playlists and such tagged as a form of Real player file, then upon download, the playlist would spawn the real player, and real
player would play the rhapsody files.. Anyhow, maybe they've already done this and I haven't caught on.. I like the features of the
new service, especially being able to call up a band or album.. It would be nice to extend this to songs as well.. I think it's just
a matter of time before they will.. Hopefully the offerings from Napster will motivate them to do something other than worry how
people will make use of their service.. I believe the reason they are delaying, has nothing to do with technical ability, it has
more to do with the services designers and there ways of determining how the service's listeners can be used to collect marketing
information.. Hey, just screw it!! Go for the audience.. Make the player and the servers so that information like rating of songs,
and such can be collected when someone asks to play a song.. See they want to know about their subscribers, they want people to
link from blogs so they will know who is talking about them, and so they can collect statistics.. My highest statistics come from
people looking at my site statistics, which are publicly-viewable, I'm thinking about changing that.. But if you have a soul,
people will read.. I don't believe in marketing.. It's never really very accurate, it's just the skid mark that society leaves..
It's something that shows to the investors what is hot and what is not.. See they want to be able to see what musicians people
think are hot, and are blogging about, so they can see who to invest in.. They want to see "the artists coming" before they've
come.. This is the reason why I think that Microsoft was trying to get people onto their electronic wallet, Passport, it was so
they could see the consumers trends before the trends occured.. Rich people trying to become richer without having to think..
At least, rich people becoming richer off people who buy marketing info thinking they will become rich off the prediction. Galileo(w) _ _ made
the telescope, I may have this wrong, to foresee the market before it was in the port, this is just another form of telescoping.
(05/02/06 4:49 PM): I was running through a netcast and working on a playlist I was doing on Blue_Oyster_Cult (M) _(r), after looking up that Blotto (M) _
song, and while looking through Blue Oyster Cult's band members, I came across a familiar name. Kasim Sulton. Kassey Baby!! Yeah, he played for Utopia (M) _!!
I guess before he played for Joan
Jett (M) _..
I have a DVD of Utopia with a photo shoot featuring Kasim, acting like a clown, and the rest of the group pretending to be hip.
Utopia being a Equal-Opportunity Singer-Employer has one song where he sings, besides others, "Set Me Free"(r).. He reminds me of kids I went to school with, No I'm not
talking about you, Todd Hassan.. Some guy named "Trey" from my old school, who has a really cool analog synthesizer with a
builti-sequencer.. Well, Kasim looks like a lot of guys from the 80s I knew.. I guess I just like people who look like other
people I'm familiar with.. Anyhow.. I'm sure Kasim is pretty mature now and doesn't deal with the kiddy Utopia stuff he used to..
But Todd Rundgren knows how to have fun, you have to admit.. But I loved that Utopian song "Set Me Free"(r). The Todd_Rundgren (M) _
produced Music Video was especially interesting. Looks like something that would be shown on Night_Flight_(TV_series)(w) _ _.
I want My M... Umm.. That's Too Cliche.. I want my Night Flight re-runs!! In fact RealNetworks(w) _ _-Starz!(w) _ _
would do better to re-show Night Flight 24/7 on a seperate channel. That's my next dream, to playing music from the radio from any
time in history, being able to watch TV from any time in history.. In Particular Night Flight and every episode of the Laurie_Anderson (M) _
hosted PBS(w) _ _ series
"Alive_from_Off_Center(w)
_ _"
in the 80s. That show, BTW, was the punk/new-wave equivalent to Austin City Limits, except with experimental videos as a focus.
(05/02/06 2:16 PM): I was browsing through the classifieds and came around a job posting for a lifeguard, and felt compelled to locate this song, and found it (mp3). It used to be played on MTV for
years.. Blotto has a good Paul McCartney Spoof. Hey, I know I
blogged about this before.. But.. I was getting bored looking through the classifieds.. I have this to say about most of the jocks and mechanical engineers (aka boots,stomps) in New Mexico. Ah Buck_Dharma (M) _
of Blue_Oyster_Cult (M) _
(The band the SNL(w) _ _ "More_Cowbell(w) _ _"
Spoof Was About), had a sense of humor.
(05/02/06 12:08 AM): Wow I just realized that Real's Rhaspody is a seperate accounting system from Listen's Rhapsody, which I'm
currently signed in on. So I probably will just continue making rpl's, I guess until the two account systems merge.. I guess this
organization gives them the freedom to re-brand..
(05/01/06 8:26 PM): I installed the new Rhapsody player on my firefox browser, and I still have the 2.11 Rhapsody working side by
side with it, great!! I hope that the two don't interfere when I'm logged into one or the other, the new player is set up with an
anonymous account.. I guess you could keep getting free tunes if you could find the registry entry or key that identifies your
install.. But anyhow.. I'm a registered user, so I'm not going to try that, they could still be using either one to spy on my
setup, we'll see what happens. I have copies of the install for 2.11 on CDROM's, so I'm not worried. Just wanted to try out my new
script to check out the Hit Albums in the UK on my girlfriend's birthdate. The sad thing is that Gary_Glitter (M) _
has a #2 hit album "Touch Me", I think he's incarcerated in Singapore for child mollestation. I gave her "Paul_Simon (M) _"
instead, it was at #4.. I was listening to this musician "Pat_Buchanan (M) _",
just because he had a album up, and named after a popular politician, I was curious. His music is pretty good, but he could use some
creamy centers in his chocolates, he's got chocolate, but not much else.. He'd do good to listen to some of Billy_Joel (M) _'s
albums. But as for style, he has it... He has it.. But this is my suggestions for a lot of the musicians out there, and I find it
hard myself too, but find something to put in the song besides a fancy repetition. It seems like some musicians find something
that sounds interesting, and stick with it without going anywhere else with it.. It's like as if you have 500 random monkeys
playing around on a keyboard and you recorded them, I'm sure you could find something interesting, and reapeat it over and over and
make a song out of it, but there is this fear of going back to the monkeys and getting some more ideas about what to embellish the
song with.. Billy Joel was so successful because he had a formula, and was determined, I think to change the key at least once in
the song.. Billy Joel's chocolates have something in the middle, but if you hear his for the first time, you don't know where he'll
go with it.. Just as the chocolates, you don't know what you are eating half the time, its a suprise to see what you will get. Get
away from the 1-4-5's and Minor Chords guys, ever tried following a Steely_Dan (M) _
song on the piano, trying to figure out the chording progressions? Try it.. What I like about Pat's music is he sounds like a cross
between the beatles, XTC and Squeeze. It's tough to have a unique sound these days.. Listen to Gary_Wright (M) _
on the two earliest albums of his before "Dreamweaver". Listen to Billy Joel's albums before Piano Man, see if you can pick up his
one with "'Attila' with
Billy Joel _ _".
Note that early Dennis_DeYoung (M) _
(Umm I Mean Styx take for instance Styx II, but his
playing/voice) and Billy_Joel (M) _,
sounds roughly the same, there wasn't much clue in the early 70s and late 60s on what was really good musically and I guess they
were trying to do "Jethro_Tull (M) _".
Listen to Andy_Partridge (M) _'s
home tapes from XTC (M) _'s
Homegrown, then listen to Wasp_Star_(Apple_Venus_Vol._2), see how he reworks
things but works it out first on guitar. Or listen to Elvis_Costello (M) _,
he had such limited studio time in the early days, he probably could only afford about 10 minutes of studio time a month, that's why
his songs were so short and even with just a guitar, his songs are sellable, he didn't need drums, bass, nothing.. Get "This Years
Model" and "Get Happy" on CD, and listen to the extras at the end, they are all accoustic guitar, and they sound about as good as
the fully orchestrated studio versions. I think now that people have so much flexibility, they want to do everything, and what they
lose is focus. What is true of all these musicians? 2 to three minutes, and it has to sound interesting in the first 10 seconds, and
after that I expect gradual changes, some suprises.. Look even Kraftwerk, though their sound is minimalistic, they change something
every bit of the way, to keep the sound from being dead.. Just because techno has a beat, doesn't make it alive, it's got to move
around and do something creative.. Good examples for techno: Kraftwerk (M) _,
Paul_Van_Dyk (M) _,
Daft_Punk (M) _,
(I'm not big on techno, but I do have particular tastes for techno, I can tell between those who are just trying to fill the CD and
those that really have something they want to express and want it to be heard). Oh yeah, don't let the monkeys run the show..
I'm only good at listening to the music, but don't be satisfied with random monkey banging. BTW, the only reason Gorillaz is
popular is that its not realy a group but a mish mash of artists.. It's not much different than the experiment that the "The_Monkees (M) _".
Gorillaz (M) _
is more about production than it is about the musicians, at least that is what it seems to be to me.. It's like in the 70's, the
glamour rock, the stage persona.. But in this case a cartoon persona, with anonymous musicians on the backend.. It could be that
the musicians of the past may just use cartoon personas to get their music published, without having to worry about the performance
art and identity. That is the beauty of Gorillaz, but the problem is that it's a ownable persona, it's like mickey mouse, it can be
trademarked, the musicians take back seat to the persona, its like the cartoon can continue forever, gain popularity, acceptance
(like Menudo), then combine the talents of several musicians together to generate the best music.. Gorillaz probably has three-four
musicians for each song on the album, rather than 3 good songs and 7 mediocre ones, to fill up the space on the CD. You might notice
a change in the quality of music when there was a switch from the LP to the CD, more space, less focus.Anyhow, I don't want to bore
you anymore.
(05/01/06 4:52 PM): Just updating the blog with the new month.. Since I am not using a database to back my blog, I have to do a
little bit of file juggling to get things moving.
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