by Suw on September 11, 2003
An interesting post about this whole RIAA thing from Jonathan over at The Final Analysis, who links to a Wired article about how the music industry is benefiting from data gathered by a company called BigChampagne which monitors P2P downloads.
In a nutshell, BigChampagne tracks downloads then sells – yes, that’s right, sells for actual money – the data to the record companies so that they can see exactly how popular a given single is with downloaders in a given area and push it to the relevant radio stations if they feel it’s not getting the plays it obviously deserves.
Hm, might there possibly be a touch of hypocrisy here, considering that the RIAA are suing the pants of a bunch of downloaders (from MSN news) and that the individual record companies are positively apoplectic with rage over downloading ?pirates?? Yes, I think I do smell that rank, bottom-feeding pond-scum smell. But hell, who cares about hypocrisy when the scent of litigation in the air masks the normal day-to-day stench of industry bullshit?
Personally, I think BigChampagne are on to something. If they can provide a legitimate use for download data which benefits the record industry as a whole and helps to increase record sales, then maybe, just maybe the industry will start to recognise that this new technology could be good for them. Maybe then they’ll embrace it, instead of trying to smother it.
Or maybe pigs might become aerodynamically enhanced.
by Suw on September 11, 2003
I'm all for transparency in drug education. Honesty. Telling people the truth about drugs (warning: coke turns you into a twat!), rather than horror stories designed to scare them (warning: e will kill you!). Thus I'm happy to see real scientific studies into drugs to see what they really do, as opposed to people spouting off about what they think they do.
It doesn't really help the situation, though, when the scientist publish potentially scary results only to have to retract those results because they used the wrong drug in their study.
I'm really not sure how you can mix up speed with ecstasy, or why there were no checks in place to ensure that the drug they thought they were experimenting with actually was the drug they were experimenting with. I am even less sure about the morals of injecting either speed or e into squirrel monkeys and baboons, particularly when you consider that injection is a completely different delivery method than pills, which is how most people take e.
Good science is very good. Bad science is at best useless, at worst very damaging.
by Suw on September 11, 2003
I still can't get over Gary Jules' verison of Tears for Fears' Mad World, used on the Donnie Darko soundtrack. It's strangely and hauntingly beautiful. How on earth anyone could then speed it up and put a dance beat behind it, and still be able to live with themselves afterwards, is beyond me.
There's a very, very good reason why I don't listen to Radio 1 unless forced, and it's because they play abominations like that and seem to think it's good.
by Suw on September 11, 2003
For a limited period only, the new national sport has become Blaine Baiting. Seeing as the pompous idiot has suspended himself in a perspex box within firing range of a bunch of Londoners, it’s really only to be expected that someone at some point should start launching projectiles at him. As far as I know, so far he has had eggs, bananas, fruit, chips and at least one full English breakfast hefted through the air in his general direction.
People have also been shining laser pens at him in order to freak him out a bit. Although to be honest, I think the prize for most pathetic attempt at Blaine baiting goes to the two guys that stood and pointed at him whilst chanting ?om?.
Coincidentally, I’m going up to London next week with my brother and his family, so we’re going to swing past on the way through and barbecue a few sausages within nose-shot. The guy will have been up there for 12 days so we reckon he’ll be a bit peckish by then.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Personally, I would like to see him up there in a thunderstorm like the one we had here the other day. If he sat that out in a small box suspended from a crane, I’d be a little bit more impressed.
Possibly.
Actually, probably not.
by Suw on September 11, 2003
Via Neil Gaiman comes an index of phobias.
It seems that my fear of driving, which could I suppose be loosely interpreted as a fear of cars or vehicles and riding in them, is ?amaxophobia?. However, cruel is the only word to describe the person who decided that a fear of long words should be known as ?hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?.
Oh, and btw phobophobia is a fear of phobias. Now wouldn't that be a cruel phobia to have?
