An Overview Of Present, Future of Music Technology

prostoalex writes "IEEE Spectrum magazine is running a feature article on the state of music and current digital formats. They point to an interesting phenomenon in the digital music world that Steve Jobs emphasized as well: for the first time in music history, the next big format was not about better quality (SACD and such) but about better portability (MP3). 'It was only five years ago that the music industry was facing a civil war over the next-generation disc-based music format -- the successor to the wildly successful CD. At that time, hardly anybody doubted that the music would be encoded optically on a round plastic disc the size of a CD.'"

Comments

first!

[Anonymous Coward]

and more portable to boot!

ARMED INSURRECTION AND OUR TACTICS

[Anonymous Coward]

The revolutionary movement "has already brought about the necessity for an armed uprising" -- this idea, expressed by the Third Congress of our Party, finds increasing confirmation day after day. The flames of revolution are flaring up with ever-increasing intensity, now here and now there calling forth local uprisings. The three days' barricade and street fighting in Lodz, the strike of many tens of thousands of workers in Ivanovo-Voznesensk with the inevitable bloody collisions with the troops, the uprising in Odessa, the "mutiny" in the Black Sea Fleet and in the Libau naval depot, and the "week" in Tiflis -- are all harbingers of the approaching storm. It is approaching, approaching irresistibly, it will break over Russia any day and, in a mighty, cleansing flood, sweep away all that is antiquated and rotten; it will wipe out the disgrace called the autocracy, under which the Russian people have suffered for ages. The last convulsive efforts of tsarism -- the intensification of repression of every kind, the proclamation of martial law over half the country and the multiplication of gallows, all accompanied by alluring speeches addressed to the liberals and by false promises of reform -- these things will not save it from the fate history has in store for it. The days of the autocracy are numbered; the storm is inevitable. A new social order is already being born, welcomed by the entire people, who are expecting renovation and regeneration from it.

What new questions is this approaching storm raising before our Party? How must we adjust our organisation and tactics to the new requirements of life so that we may take a more active and organised part in the uprising, which is the only necessary beginning of the revolution? To guide the uprising, should we -- the advanced detachment of the class which is not only the vanguard, but also the main driving force of the revolution -- set up special bodies, or is the existing Party machinery enough?

These questions have been confronting the Party and demanding immediate solution for several months already. For those who worship "spontaneity," who degrade the Party's objects to the level of simply following in the wake of life, who drag at the tail and do not march at the head as the advanced class-conscious detachment should do, such questions do not exist. Insurrection is spontaneous, they say, it is impossible to organise and prepare it, every prearranged plan of action is a utopia (they are opposed to any sort of "plan" -- why, that is "consciousness" and not a "spontaneous phenomenon"!), a waste of effort -- social life follows its own, unknown paths and will shatter all our projects. Hence, they say, we must confine ourselves to conducting propaganda and agitation in favour of the idea of insurrection, the idea of the "self-arming" of the masses; we must only exercise "political guidance"; as regards "technical" guidance of the insurgent people, let anybody who likes undertake that.

But we have always exercised such guidance up to now! -- the opponents of the "khvostist policy" reply. Wide agitation and propaganda, political guidance of the proletariat, are absolutely essential. That goes without saying. But to confine ourselves to such general tasks means either evading an answer to the question which life bluntly puts to us, or revealing utter inability to adjust our tactics to the requirements of the rapidly growing revolutionary struggle. We must, of course, now intensify political agitation tenfold, we must try to establish our influence not only over the proletariat, but also over those numerous strata of the "people" who are gradually joining the revolution; we must try to popularise among all classes of the population the idea that an uprising is necessary. But we cannot confine our selves solely to this! To enable the proletariat to utilise the impending revolution for the purposes of its own class struggle, to enable it to establish a democratic system that will provide the great