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Domain: bitworksmusic.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to bitworksmusic.com.
Comments · 43
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(virtual) death to superstars!
I think it's inevitable that the internet replaces traditional media but it means the death of the super star. We'll go back to more regional artists with few cross region cross overs if there is a lack of a artificial national hype machine like the labels.
I don't think this implies regional artists, but a LOT more self-promoting, small label, indy artists. In the end, we can only hope, artists with interesting, creative, innovative music will grow their own following and end up doing a lot of their own distribution, with small download distributors like, oh I dunno, http://www.bitworksmusic.com/, helping them to do it themselves.
The cool thing is, download distribution is still in its infancy. Artists need to evolve their notion of the download medium. They're selling software now, not just music. -
Re:True, however ...
Well, of course, to rid yourself of iTunes you will most likely have to rid yourself of your iPod. For now, I'm a 3-iPod family, so I'm stuck with it for now. Of course, I don't have to buy my tunes there, but if Apple has its way they would probably like to force me to.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
the point of GWT"I'm not really sure I see the point of GWT"
(Disclaimer: I evaluated GWT and decided that it was cool for larger web apps, but for a smallish website I think it is overkill. So.. I'm not a GWT user, sorry.)
When I was developing my site (which you will visit now and purchase lots of album downloads), I had to deal with the fact that browsers do not implement things consistently. In particular, IE seems to do things differently than every other browser. The idea of GWT is to do all the hard browser bug workarounds and compatibility work for you, so that you write some code in Java and poof! Your web app will look and behave the same across all browsers everywhere. Among the downsides, you have to learn GWT of course, and your resulting code is almost guaranteed to be less efficient and slower to load than if you just code directly in Javascript/HTML/etc.
In the end, I ditched GWT in favor of simplicity, dealing with IE issues as they arose (my native development platform is Firefox). Then again, my site has very limited functionality. YMMV.
david
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Carrboro, NC -- "it works"
Carrboro, North Carolina has public WiFi downtown. It's a fairly small area, less than 1 sq. mi. I'm guessing. The service is "adequate", not super fast for media surfing, but for basic email, non-critical web surfing it has worked fine for me the few times I have tried it.
They have a few things going for them. First, Carrboro is a smallish town, so the bandwidth load isn't too high. Second, a lot of local cafes offer their own (usually free) WiFi, so that reduces the load even more.
Any other locals out there with more concrete data than my lame ass non-analysis?
And no, don't even think of moving here. We're all full! Go away!
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Re:and the obvious question is...
This is a huge question in management in general. Do you stick with your "peeps" or do you clean house? If there is still a good working relationship in the company, keeping him in the company can be a great move. If your company will back you up even if/when you screw up, you will be willing to take risks. If the axe always hangs over your head, you may want to do the "safe" thing, which may work out OK in the short run, but generally means the company is headed for mediocracy.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Re:My plan
I will write a mod for your game that pops up a dialog that says: "I could play that! Like, if I wanted to.."
(insert air guitar flail here)
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Discount Web Design!
When in doubt:
- add more popups
- blinky lights are exciting
- if your page loads in less then 10 seconds, it must not be very interesting
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Re:Compatability still a big problem?I wrote my code using alleged "web standards". I used Firefox as my development browser. I'll give you 1 guess as to which browser was not compatible with my code. (Hint: starts with the letter 'I' and ends with the letter 'E')
To be fair, it is more accurate to say that IE was not as resilient to my bugs as Firefox and the other browsers (Safari and Opera were also tested). It's still not completely compatible, but I bludgeoned it into submission so that IE is functional. I'm really looking forward to checking it out on Mom's Win98 machine. Ugh.
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don't forget... it must be brown! Maybe they'll make one shaped like a turd to deter theft. I'll sure be a chick magnet with pickup lines like: "Hey honey, want to listen to some tunes on my new turdPod? Hey, where ya goin?"
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Re:dont blame Google.
Well of course it's a bit primitive, having been built by the Pilgrims.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Mime Hero
All the fun of Guitar Hero, without the hassle of you know, playing actual music.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Re:Anyone knowI can SO see this "death ray" malfunctioning and frying some baggage cart guys.
"Oh shit! I KNEW I should have used lint!" -
fear and surprise!Well, in "real life"(tm), martial artists "scream" (or rather, "kiai" or "kiap" depending on the language/style of martial art) to throw off an attacker, generate inner power, cause fear in the opponents, and all that good stuff.
So.. this isn't farfetched at all or novel. Now, screaming "like a woman" OTOH, I imagine many martial artists would say they kiai in a rather manly fashion. heh heh
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Re:a contrary view?
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition... not just saying 'No it isn't.'
Yes it is!
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
OK, I suppose I must get back to work... -
a contrary view?
This is just some jackass trolling for page hits by taking up the contrary view.
No he isn't!
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
DONE!
It's very short. Exceptionally short.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
"In the future..."
".. women will have breasts all over."
- David Byrne
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
Re:100 Billion
and billions of chances to win win win the lottery!
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
resistance is futile!I'm thinking the "brain" should be distributed in a neural net-like fashion. While there could be a centralized control programmatically, perhaps one node or set of nodes acting as a supervisor at a given time, the system state could be stored redundantly across several nodes. This way, when you break it into a few pieces, each piece would be able to perform independently and thereby neutralize your pitiful human efforts of defense.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to catch my noon space elevator flight...
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not so fastIIRC, over the objections of the military, Rumsfeld went ahead with the Iraqi invasion with a force much smaller than what was needed to secure the country. There were plenty of troops to drive out Iraqi troops, but not enough to also guard the HUGE explosives cache, 380 tons of goodies, not to mention to secure cities from looting and wanton destruction. Also, much if not most success should be attributed to the rest of the military, not the guy responsible for setting policy at the top.
Your mileage may vary.
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Re:GreatWord.
Why not predict the end of stupid web dev? There is nothing inherent in either (well, Javascript anyway) that mandates poor performance. Less is most definitely more. I think we are about at the peak of "let's cram everything into the site and more" development, but I guess predicting the end of stupid development is like predicting the end of M$.
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search for hotties still in development...This just in: IBM engineers are still perfecting the "hottie search" feature. However, they have had no luck so far implementing the "find me a date" feature. Go figure.
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Re:Suuuuuure it's complicatedWe have a name for Republicans like you. We call them... Democrats. Come on in! The water's fine! Sure, we might not have the best scandals or beer at our parties, but hell, somebody's got to govern this place.
I never thought I would look back at the Reagan era with nostalgia.
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savescummer in chiefYes, I know it's frowned upon, but hey, when you suck otherwise, what's a nethacker to do? Please don't call the authorities! They will repeatedly type jjjjjjj in my general direction!
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Re:My best character meets her demiseYou DID copy the saved game file didn't you?? I wasted many an hour on nethack in my day. I have intentionally not learned to play any of the "modern" RPGs, lest I become a WoW statistic. Now I just waste my days reading
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OTOH..I have the opposite question: what could CD's achieve that cannot be downloaded? Scratch-n-sniff?
Prediction: DRM will be dead too in 5 years.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
P.S. Download my music.. for free. -
Re:There's a limit....there are fewer artists that actuall make good *albums*
I don't think this is true. "The industry" has gotten very good at squeezing the lifeblood out of music, so it is, as it always has been, very hard to make good music and make a living. A lot more people, including myself, are finding it so easy to record and produce their own music that there are thousands of bands making decent music that few will ever hear. I think the industry has become more and more tone deaf over the years, but there is still great music being made that never gets any airplay or exposure.
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don't forget those other necessities...... the hookers and the bar tab could have easily been the explanation for $3k of expenses. Google's interview procedures don't reimburse for that yet, though I hear you can get it for free once you're hired.
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My Kingdom For An Earbud!I don't know about "most people", but I find the iPod ear buds to be really uncomfortable. Do I have to pay $$$ for those gel-like earbuds? I hope Apple (Steve, listen up dude!) has the sense to work on a better ergonomic design.
Right now my phones of choice (read: cheap but acceptable) are the cheapo GE headphones with mic attachment. Decent bass response and I don't feel like I have sticks in my ears.
Hey, what are you waiting for? Download my new mp3, War Song At High Noon, because it wouldn't be war without a war protest song.
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My Kingdom For An Earbud!I don't know about "most people", but I find the iPod ear buds to be really uncomfortable. Do I have to pay $$$ for those gel-like earbuds? I hope Apple (Steve, listen up dude!) has the sense to work on a better ergonomic design.
Right now my phones of choice (read: cheap but acceptable) are the cheapo GE headphones with mic attachment. Decent bass response and I don't feel like I have sticks in my ears.
Hey, what are you waiting for? Download my new mp3, War Song At High Noon, because it wouldn't be war without a war protest song.
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Support artists, not thieves
What you should understand, in case you don't already, is that allofmp3 does NOT pay royalties to the artists, depsite claims to the contrary. DRM is going to eventually lose the audio war, but in the meantime we have to deal with this shit. As a musician, people claiming that "media belongs to the people" or whatever is just ignorance on parade. The artist (or whomever they have signed away their ownership rights to..) is the owner of the music. The whole system is fucked, so people justify ripping off the corporation, which in turn rips off the artist (who is already being ripped off by the corporation). The future will be better for the artists. http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
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Re:Lies, Damn lies? It's all about the bots...I take my web stats with a grain of salt. Since I have a music download site, I generally can count the number of humanoids by the number of downloads of my free mp3 or counts of some of the other page accesses. Even those numbers are suspect, as some of the bots seem to traverse more of the site than others.
So whaddayou lookin at? Go download your free mp3...
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Re:Uh ohP.S. All your base are belong to us!
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What's that smell?What is the smell of a gas giant farting? (red sulphur, mmm)
Who needs a wimpy planet like Pluto when you have Jupiter? Jupiter kicks extraterrestrial ass!
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Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased saleTo quote Happy Bunny: "I can't help it if your music sucks!"
However, what is happening (my opinion, worth what you're paying) is that we are seeing the gradual decline of the major labels, as more and more bands go indie and take control of their own distribution.
Now repeat after me: I want to hear how bad your music sucks at bitworksmusic.com. I sense a new marketing campaign: "not quite as sucky as you'd think". Right. http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
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Re:Easy..You want tactile? For a small fee I'll send you a free blowup doll with every download!
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SOS RadioHere in central North Carolina I haven't heard anything about HD radio (yet), not that I'm interested. The only real radio stations around here are the 3+ excellent college stations I listen to daily (WXYC, WKNC, WXDU). I had the opportunity to rent a car with Sirius for a weekend, and while the selections were pretty good, my local dudes kicked their collective satellite asses! (Subliminal message: support college radio).
Have a random day,
david -
iBaaa...... and iLazy therefore iBuy iPod.
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one more...
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
Check out the podcast at:
http://www.krimson-news.com/ -
Get a Good TeacherThere is no substitute for a good teacher, and lots of practice, and more practice. Even if you can't find an ideal teacher, even a "good enough" teacher can help you get to the next level in your playing, if only to point out what you need to work on.
Also, I have learned a lot by playing with great musicians, especially about improv. That's something you just have to feel.
All that said, I currently use Cubase SE.
Rock on,
david
BitWorks Music - odd tunes for odd times -
Re:lossless encoding whinersOK, how do you define quality? With CD's we're already digitizing down to 44.1 Khz. Remember the audiophiles who swear that vinyl is much better than digital?
So the "same quality" is a perceptual judgement. Now, from asking people who know more than I, 128 Kbps is audibly poorer quality than CD. I haven't done tests myself, but it is said that 192 Kbps is "pretty damn good" for mp3 encoding.
As for middle men, you're still paying them. Instead of paying a CD store for their shelf space, you're paying for the download server infrastructure, the support guys, the programmers, the mp3, aac, or other royalties, and the Apple shareholders if you're using iTunes for example. So you're paying for the distribution channel. OTOH, the download model is much more efficient than printing CDs and artwork, so things should cost less, and they do, but you are still paying for infrastructure, not to mention executive salaries!
Now, the rub is that there is nothing really technically complicated about the distribution channel. Sure, they add all sorts of complicated stuff to track your preferences, manage your account and so on (did I forget to mention DRM?), but none of this is essential to the download business, and for me this represents a weakness in the business model. That plus the fact that most of the music sucks.
Take care,
david
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/ -
lossless encoding whinersPardon the troll subject line, but I think lossless encoding is way overrated. MP3 and AAC are fine standards, but the "powers" have decided we don't deserve decent bitrates.
What I decided to do was to offer MP3's at around 260-270 kbps. If you can tell the difference between that and lossless,
david
BTW, have you bought my compilation yet? It'll cost ya 1 lousy buck.
http://www.bitworksmusic.com/
odd tunes for odd times -
Our Counter Goes Up To 11Well sure, iTunes may be up to their billionth download, but my streams are louder.
The interesting thing is that people don't realize how bad they have it. iTunes has opened the door for independent musicians to finally market their streams online, but iTunes suffers the problem of serving the mass market. In short, they suck, because the industry sucks. They have to offer DRM to appease the suits. They force people to install their crappy software for the privilege of being told what they want to listen to. They have started the revolution, so thanks for that, but we'll take it from here..
david
odd tunes for odd times