So the RIAA is going after music pirates (they call them thieves). Our company produces original content and we get pissed when people rip us off. We’ve even gone to court a few times. What I don’t understand is why the tech world can’t beat this (forget right or wrong for a minute). When the CEO of one of the big record companies gets around to embezzling a few million bucks, he or she will have no problem tucking them away in some off-shore bank. Why doesn’t some Arab country set up secure severs for music swapping? I guess what I’m asking is, is this technically possible? I guess the RIAA would go after the ISP (and everyone else) that makes it possible us to connect to servers in other countries. I just don’t like thinking that Big Business can beat down the Internet.
Visions of the Prairie Garden
is a collection of photographs by Henry Domke featuring images celebrating the Prairie Garden Trust, a nature restoration project in central Missouri. I attended a reception for the exhibit today. I didn’t think I’d much care for “nature” photos but these jump right past that. Art might be as simple as showing us things we look at but never see.
You’re going to pay me?!
You’ve heard people say they love their jobs so much they can’t believe they get paid to do it. If you are fortunate enough to be one of those people –as I am– you understand. If not, it just sounds like bullshit. But here’s what I’m wondering… does enjoying your work to that degree change how you feel about money? I can’t remember ever saying to myself, “Hey, I worked too damned hard for that money to (fill in the blank).” I mean, if the money is less important than the satisfaction you get from the job, it’s just less…valuable. For a few weeks one college summer I worked on the assembly line of an auto plant in St. Louis. I think 62 cars an hour passed my station. Would I do that job for 5 years at $100K per? I don’t think so. There’d have to be child that needed an operation or something. I’m not really going anywhere with this. For me, it wouldn’t be enough to just “not hate” my job. If –like me– you love what you do, all of this makes perfect sense. If not, well, I’m not going to tell you to find a job you love. You’ve got a million reasons why you can’t and I don’t have one why you can.
Let’s leave it in
It’s probably been 30 years since I watched the original Frankenstein (1931). When a movie has been so often parodied, it’s easy to forget how good the original really was. I watched it tonight on TCM. If I could know only one thing about the making of that movie, it would be the story behind the scene (hell, it wasn’t a scene…it was just a moment), early in the film, when Fritz (played by Dwight Frye) went to see who was pounding on the castle door just before the creation of the monster. As he turned to go backup the stairs, he stops…to pull up his sock. It was…perfect.
WordPress adds audio playlists
Music Radio
The following thoughts on radio are by Bob Lefsetz. I searched –unsuccessfully– for the article or a website to which I could link.
“The only people who still believe in music radio are the conglomerates with monopolies and the major record labels. All the LISTENERS, the POTENTIAL listeners, think it’s a JOKE! If you’re listening to music radio, you’re the lowest common denominator. You don’t have a CD player in your car. Like everybody with any MONEY! And, unlike the sixties, almost NO ONE listens to music on the radio at home. Really. Pay attention. When do people listen to the radio at home. In the morning. It’s PERFECT. While you’re walking around the house, getting your shit together. And, is there any MUSIC in the morning? Almost none. Because the music being purveyed SUCKS! Music radio is a giant sinkhole. I can understand the majors wanting to reduce indie promo costs, but what I CAN’T understand is their reluctance to explore new avenues of exploitation. Look at the statistics. Music radio listenership keeps going DOWN! Kids especially don’t listen.”
Corporate blogs
From an article by Hiawatha Bray in the Business Section (The Boston Globe) on the Weblogs Business Strategy conference last week:
“Consider: Every business needs to know what its employees know. Companies are crammed with experts on various topics whose knowledge goes to waste — because nobody knows what they know. Now give these workers an internal corporate blog, and encourage them to use it. Let them natter away on every topic that intrigues them. Harvest and index the results. You’ve mapped your workers’ brains. The company’s hidden experts will cheerfully reveal themselves, and the firm’s institutional memory gets an upgrade.” [By way of JOHO]
Freaking. Fricking. But no fucking.
The censors (does anyone think of themselves as a “censor”?) at FX went through Good Will Hunting, carefully replacing each “fucking” with “freaking” or “fricking” (what the fuck is fricking?). That just seems so…dishonest to me. I don’t care what anybody says, it’s not the same same movie when you start cutting scenes and replacing words. Fuck it.
Markets as conversations
I found this on Denise Howell’s weblog (Bag and Baggage). I’m unclear on whether these are her thoughts or David Weinberger but it doesn’t matter.
“The Bubble was never what the Internet was about. The Web is not primarily a commercial space, not even primarily an information space. The interest is not there because 800 million people woke up and suddenly decided they wanted to be research librarians. The bubble went away, but the Web absolutely didn’t. The Web remains interesting and important. Nobody would have said a few years ago we’d have 20 billion pages on the Web. It’s not just markets that are conversations, it’s businesses themselves.”
If lawyers are disbarred…
“If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed (and eventually disfigured) and dry cleaners depressed? Laundry workers could decrease, eventually becoming depressed and depleted! Even more, bedmakers will be debunked, baseball players will be debased, landscapers will be deflowered, bulldozer operators will be degraded, organ donors will be delivered, the BVD company will be debriefed, and even musical composers will eventually decompose. As a student, I spent all my time wishing to be detested and degraded.”
— 3Bruces