Does anyone still read this thing?
Do I care? ;p
I can't get cable internet where we (my girlfriend and I) are moving in a month. OptusNet "does not install into units". They used to but it caused to many arguements ("if they can have it why can't I"). So two years ago we could have got it because our unit is separated and faces the street. But not now.
So, back to dial-up like the rest of the real world. Should save me $50 a month! Awesome! Cable was much too expensive. This is a good excuse to cut free. I think I'll throw it (the $50 saving) all away on Foxtel, who are happy to install their black coaxial.
September should be a big download month...
Means I'll have to change my email again. Should drop the spam level nicely.
It is particularly in reference to new video recording tech out there that makes archiving and stripping of ads easier (digital hard disk recording, network to the PC, strip ads with video editing software, output to DVD) but obviously the question is relevant to the net... or any "free" service.
I'd choose a few ads to watch from a list before I watch a program. Or profiled ads. I'm definitely against obvious product placement. And obviously Video On Demand would rock. How much do commercial networks count each "viewer" anyway (as in, how much do they charge advertisers per viewer?). $2? 50 cents? $10? If it isn't some stupidly huge amount I'd probably pay that to have no ads.
The "big retailers" (ie. HMV) jump into digital downloads. Five pounds a month. Pound pound pound pound pound...
I was thinking the other day... we don't even have a centralised discography database on the web at the moment. So the dream of being able to find rarities by your favourite artist is made even harder by the fact you'd have a lot of fun figuring out where the hell to find the acoustic "on the beach" version of The Sharp's "Alone Like Me"... if it wasn't for fans. A centralised discography webpage, with bootlegs and all, with submissions by fans... mmmm.
But again... maybe that's too much information. Maybe we need these things controlled by the band level, and by fans. Otherwise it'd be too huge. Maybe if we just set a standard XML format for output from these fan pages... maybe. *nerd noise*
Maybe we just need A.I. clever enough to strip this information from the web and organise it the way I want it.
Vygr to exit the rule of the Sun.
Time Travel... I had a theory once when I was about 12 that the universe really was built around me... in fact, it was built around everyone. That every time I nearly died, I mean, came really close like nearly hit by a car, or crash my bike into a tree head first... my conciousness jumped into a different dimension where I didn't die. And that everyone lives to at least 100, maybe more. Maybe forever. That every one of those "amazing man lives to 110" people... it just happens that we're in the dimension that sees them live to the full age. Demented thoughts really. I lived in a country town... I was bored.
As if the record companies didn't already have enough excuses for CD prices being so high, they go and stick smart cards in them. Please... it's all just an attempt to make CD manufacturing so expensive we're all forced to digital downloads. They're trying to make $2 a song look good.
I didn't win part or all of the $17 million dollars in the latest Tattslotto megasuperamazing-draw. It would have been nice. Might go for the $12 million in Powerball. Maybe I won't.
The new colour Palm claims to be able to display 65,536 but actually displays 58,621... that's 11 percent difference. PALM shares droped 11 percent on Friday. Spooky. I'm with PALM. No-body is going to notice. Get over it. Just change the packaging with a sticker. For those five people that actually wanted to used all of the 65,536 colours, give them their money back.
The end of the world wont happen gradually. It'll just happen. One day someone's going to say "hey, whoops, we're out of fresh water" and we'll all die. Joy!
Found one of those links I left at work. They music industry killed itself apparently. No way?!
[The RIAA would like to] blame much of the slide [in CD sales] on Internet music-file swapping. Yet there are many other causes, including the fact that the big five are all units of troubled multinationals AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, BMG, EMI, and Sony that are focused on short-term gain and have no particular interest in the music biz. There's also been a recession, of course, and resistance to CD prices that have grown much faster than the inflation rate. Perhaps the most important factor, however, is the major labels' very success in dominating the market, which has squelched musical innovation.(from Slate via The Register)
Plus other interesting stuff about the last huge slide in music sales being the 80's when the industry had bet everything on disco and the introduction of home recordable cassette tapes. It's exactly the same situation... video games and home video taking away money previously spent on music... And the reasons behind the introduction of 8-Track, and the tape and the CD over vinyl. And how MTV changed the industry forever. And how the industry has driven itself into a hole with the CD because it's pretty much perfect. The arguement is that we're about to move into a new format but the difference is no-one wants one. We have DVD-Audio which costs more and has better quality and some DVD elements including videos and bio etc... but no-one wants it... or do they? Does anyone know?
Do people want product anymore or do they just want the music? I like physical CDs... but I'm moving toward just wanting the music. The only reason I'm not happy to just keep all my music on a CDr or my hard-disc is my distrust of computers and the possibility of losing everying in a computer crash. My CDs arn't going to crash...
Ramble ramble ramble...
... you can keep lots of ideas in your head, and think about them for hours, days, weeks, months, years or decades; and even repeat them and expand on them, and (rarely) change your mind about something. Even great writers like Hemingway repeated themes. People who blog do this even more. It helps fill the space. Every event is an opportunity to "prove" ones' pet theories. I do this a lot. It's okay because everyone else does it too.(Dave of Scripting News)
I repeat myself on this blog more often than I'd like to admit. And I don't like it. But it's a nice indicator to myself what issues still bug me... some two way communication would help to flesh out these issues. This blog is way too one-way at the moment.