Don't get me wrong, I think it's outrageous how much is charged for e-books...but if the readers themselves were cheap (say around $100), I would see the too-high prices of the e-books simply as a convenience charge.
As it is now though, with expensive ebooks AND expensive readers, it's more like a middle finger than a convenience charge.
I have plans to, but I don't think I have enough music to do that yet. I've been putting together music for nearly 5 years now, but I only recently started actually making it...most of it was me just screwing around, and will likely never reach a wider audience than myself. As far as "releasable" music, I only have three additional tracks completed other than what you see on my Music page. I'm working on a lot of new stuff, but I just don't have the volume of content yet.
Still, your suggestion is something I want to eventually do. How big of a collection do you recommend I create before I move to something like last.fm?
consumers are thirsty for something much more affordable than the Kindle.
I know I sure as hell am. The price of entry is the only thing that has stopped me from getting an eReader. I would love to not go over $100 for a good-quality eReader, but $150 would be my firm limit. I realize that e-ink screens are the primary thing driving the prices up for now, but hopefully with things like this new chip combined with new processes of putting together e-ink screens will bring the price down.
Despite how much I complain about it around here, I would be willing to pay the same if not slightly higher for ebooks as I would for dead tree books if only the eReader itself wasn't so damn expensive.
I'm totally going to make it into a Dubstep/Drum n Bass hybrid. It's going to be AWESOME. I'll let you know when it's finished, probably won't take me more than a night or two:-)
If a non-organic system produced exactly the same sound wave as one of your compositions, would it have the same capacity to evoke emotion in the listener?
Absolutely it would. The listener is fed the emotions that I put into my music THROUGH my music, not through me. Therefore, it stands to reason that the music would affect the individual identically whether I created it or a non-organic system created it.
That being said, a non-organic system could try to replicate what I do, but it wouldn't be right. It would sound the same, but it definitely wouldn't feel the same. Sorry to spam the link, but if you browse through the music I currently have made available, you will see that those tracks share a similar genre but have very little in common with regards to structure (except Lotwotl, which is part of a different project than the others). Audibly, you can tell they were all made by the same person...but structurally, they are all very different.
Until we can create non-organic systems with naturally occurring emotions and are able to react the same way a human would react, it just wouldn't turn out proper.
so the thought of a composer producing worthwhile music without human-like experiences raises the disturbing question of whether music is really something "wrung from the depths of the soul" or something more formulaic and simplistic.
I think it's both. As an example, take a look at the Blues genre. Here we have guitar picks and wails that "feel" forlorn, and lyrics that bring out specific emotional responses. Except...all of the truly great Blues songs and artists are the same. Sure, their voices and the way they play their respective instrument may vary, but the structure of the songs themselves remains mostly the same.
That being said, someone can tell when the cake doesn't have enough love in it, just like they can tell when a Blues song doesn't have enough blues in it. The way a guitar twangs, the slightly-off slow deliberate pacing...playstyle has a MAJOR role in what makes a Blues song great.
Humans feed off the emotional response that goes in to performing the Blues, especially in regards to voice and playstyle. Their response isn't just based on those two things, however; they are also reacting to formulaic and similar musical phrases common to ALL Blues...
That's why you don't buy them for storage, you buy them for performance
I know. I have all of my archives sitting on a Western Digital Green drive (a WD15EADS to be exact) backed up on to two hard drives (1.25 TB total) sitting in a Kingwin DK-32U-S.
Who cares about the access time of their movie collection, when the OS suddenly runs like it's supposed to in the 21st century?
In this instance, I care because upgrading the mini PCIe SSD in my Dell Mini 9 is going to cost more than 1/3rd of what I paid for the laptop. Considering I only want to upgrade it so I can hold more games on there and it is used as a "while watching movies" laptop, I would rather not buy 33%+ of the whole laptop again.
Hmm...good point. I'm sure they have some plot device that gets him back in there and explains why he looks young again. I guess we'll just have to wait for it to come out -_-;;
I know, but think about it from a narrative point of view...would it make sense for a guy to grow old if he doesn't actually have a body that can get old? "Computer" Flynn is nothing more than a program...he wouldn't age. It would make no sense for him to suddenly appear bald with white hair...
I certainly do it for the art (and because it's really fun)...all my music is free. No DRM and no charge. I'll eventually get all my tracks up for free once I get my new music page finished, but for now that's what is available.
This article reminded me of the "robotic" intergalactic megastar singer in Macross Plus. Still, I think humans will always have a place when it comes to music. Even music that is entirely electronic (such as my own) still requires a human touch...in my case, each of my tracks is supposed to evoke certain imagry and emotional responses...something that a non-organic system simply can't replicate.
Until we are able to emulate not only the way organics process sounds but the emotion those sounds bring about, humans will always have a place in the creation of music.
Considering it's been what...6 years since Half Life 2, and 2+ years since episode 2, I'd say it's about freakin' time for 3 to get released. Hurry it up, Valve!
but I can't really justify spending more on a hard drive than I spent on the entire computer!
That too is a problem. A 32 gig SSD for my Mini 9 would run me right around $100 or so...considering I only paid $250 for it, that's an ass of a deal. I may end up going with a 16 gig, which can be had for around $50...the only problem is that I only want the bigger hard drive for gaming (the Mini 9 is AWESOME if you plan on playing anything pre-2002), but most of the games from a ways back are fairly small, especially the older ones like Wasteland (which is somewhere around 700k).
Meh, I don't know...all I know is that SSDs are still way too expensive for how much space you get.
I really wish prices dropped on these things. I know they have come a long way since they were first released, but still... my Dell Mini 9 hungers for a storage upgrade, but the price per GB is still insane.
While I agree with you, previnting inside government information from reaching the public is one thing...blocking people from viewing a website like wikipedia is entirely fucking different.
...are Novell products still well thought of in the enterprise sector? I know Norton became a bloated piece of crapware a while ago (just like most of their products), but I haven't really paid attention to them in...shit, almost 5 years.
Are they still producing bloated piles of crap, or have the leaned their products down and made them worthwhile again?
Believing in freedom is exactly why we are pestering the Chinese. This has nothing to do with telling a country what to do and everything with preventing oppression. Our own country (The United States) is far from perfect, and we do some pretty fucked up things...but we still don't prevent our own citizens from information, ESPECIALLY information critical of our own government.
In fact, criticizing our government openly and publicly is one of the greatest freedoms we have. Good luck finding a version of Lil' Bush that's called Lil' Mao.
Plus, McDonalds is one of the few places you can start out at the bottom and work your way practically to the top.
It's funny you mention this, because it was actually the reason why I stopped working there. After a year or so, they wanted to put me through management training. The money would have been awesome, and I easily could have made a career out of it...but I didn't really want to stay with McDonalds for the rest of my professional life.
You are absolutely right though, they hardly ever look to external hiring for the big positions...they try to promote internal people as much as they can.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get me wrong, I think it's outrageous how much is charged for e-books...but if the readers themselves were cheap (say around $100), I would see the too-high prices of the e-books simply as a convenience charge.
As it is now though, with expensive ebooks AND expensive readers, it's more like a middle finger than a convenience charge.
I have plans to, but I don't think I have enough music to do that yet. I've been putting together music for nearly 5 years now, but I only recently started actually making it...most of it was me just screwing around, and will likely never reach a wider audience than myself. As far as "releasable" music, I only have three additional tracks completed other than what you see on my Music page. I'm working on a lot of new stuff, but I just don't have the volume of content yet.
Still, your suggestion is something I want to eventually do. How big of a collection do you recommend I create before I move to something like last.fm?
consumers are thirsty for something much more affordable than the Kindle.
I know I sure as hell am. The price of entry is the only thing that has stopped me from getting an eReader. I would love to not go over $100 for a good-quality eReader, but $150 would be my firm limit. I realize that e-ink screens are the primary thing driving the prices up for now, but hopefully with things like this new chip combined with new processes of putting together e-ink screens will bring the price down.
Despite how much I complain about it around here, I would be willing to pay the same if not slightly higher for ebooks as I would for dead tree books if only the eReader itself wasn't so damn expensive.
Google just the name and click on the first link.
I'm totally going to make it into a Dubstep/Drum n Bass hybrid. It's going to be AWESOME. I'll let you know when it's finished, probably won't take me more than a night or two :-)
If a non-organic system produced exactly the same sound wave as one of your compositions, would it have the same capacity to evoke emotion in the listener?
Absolutely it would. The listener is fed the emotions that I put into my music THROUGH my music, not through me. Therefore, it stands to reason that the music would affect the individual identically whether I created it or a non-organic system created it.
That being said, a non-organic system could try to replicate what I do, but it wouldn't be right. It would sound the same, but it definitely wouldn't feel the same. Sorry to spam the link, but if you browse through the music I currently have made available, you will see that those tracks share a similar genre but have very little in common with regards to structure (except Lotwotl, which is part of a different project than the others). Audibly, you can tell they were all made by the same person...but structurally, they are all very different.
Until we can create non-organic systems with naturally occurring emotions and are able to react the same way a human would react, it just wouldn't turn out proper.
so the thought of a composer producing worthwhile music without human-like experiences raises the disturbing question of whether music is really something "wrung from the depths of the soul" or something more formulaic and simplistic.
I think it's both. As an example, take a look at the Blues genre. Here we have guitar picks and wails that "feel" forlorn, and lyrics that bring out specific emotional responses. Except...all of the truly great Blues songs and artists are the same. Sure, their voices and the way they play their respective instrument may vary, but the structure of the songs themselves remains mostly the same.
That being said, someone can tell when the cake doesn't have enough love in it, just like they can tell when a Blues song doesn't have enough blues in it. The way a guitar twangs, the slightly-off slow deliberate pacing...playstyle has a MAJOR role in what makes a Blues song great.
Humans feed off the emotional response that goes in to performing the Blues, especially in regards to voice and playstyle. Their response isn't just based on those two things, however; they are also reacting to formulaic and similar musical phrases common to ALL Blues...
That's why you don't buy them for storage, you buy them for performance
I know. I have all of my archives sitting on a Western Digital Green drive (a WD15EADS to be exact) backed up on to two hard drives (1.25 TB total) sitting in a Kingwin DK-32U-S.
Who cares about the access time of their movie collection, when the OS suddenly runs like it's supposed to in the 21st century?
In this instance, I care because upgrading the mini PCIe SSD in my Dell Mini 9 is going to cost more than 1/3rd of what I paid for the laptop. Considering I only want to upgrade it so I can hold more games on there and it is used as a "while watching movies" laptop, I would rather not buy 33%+ of the whole laptop again.
Thanks :-) Lol, I could give it a try! I'll let you know if I'm successful
Hendrix already did a cover of Bob Dylan. Considering Hendrix's version was (and is) WAY more popular...
Hmm...good point. I'm sure they have some plot device that gets him back in there and explains why he looks young again. I guess we'll just have to wait for it to come out -_-;;
I know, but think about it from a narrative point of view...would it make sense for a guy to grow old if he doesn't actually have a body that can get old? "Computer" Flynn is nothing more than a program...he wouldn't age. It would make no sense for him to suddenly appear bald with white hair...
Not quite, Guy. "Old" Flynn will be present in the real world, but when entering the computer world what you see will be "young" Flynn.
I certainly do it for the art (and because it's really fun)...all my music is free. No DRM and no charge. I'll eventually get all my tracks up for free once I get my new music page finished, but for now that's what is available.
This article reminded me of the "robotic" intergalactic megastar singer in Macross Plus. Still, I think humans will always have a place when it comes to music. Even music that is entirely electronic (such as my own) still requires a human touch...in my case, each of my tracks is supposed to evoke certain imagry and emotional responses...something that a non-organic system simply can't replicate.
Until we are able to emulate not only the way organics process sounds but the emotion those sounds bring about, humans will always have a place in the creation of music.
Considering it's been what...6 years since Half Life 2, and 2+ years since episode 2, I'd say it's about freakin' time for 3 to get released. Hurry it up, Valve!
but I can't really justify spending more on a hard drive than I spent on the entire computer!
That too is a problem. A 32 gig SSD for my Mini 9 would run me right around $100 or so...considering I only paid $250 for it, that's an ass of a deal. I may end up going with a 16 gig, which can be had for around $50...the only problem is that I only want the bigger hard drive for gaming (the Mini 9 is AWESOME if you plan on playing anything pre-2002), but most of the games from a ways back are fairly small, especially the older ones like Wasteland (which is somewhere around 700k).
Meh, I don't know...all I know is that SSDs are still way too expensive for how much space you get.
I really wish prices dropped on these things. I know they have come a long way since they were first released, but still... my Dell Mini 9 hungers for a storage upgrade, but the price per GB is still insane.
While I agree with you, previnting inside government information from reaching the public is one thing...blocking people from viewing a website like wikipedia is entirely fucking different.
OMFG I'm stupid. Got confused with Symantec :-/
...are Novell products still well thought of in the enterprise sector? I know Norton became a bloated piece of crapware a while ago (just like most of their products), but I haven't really paid attention to them in...shit, almost 5 years.
Are they still producing bloated piles of crap, or have the leaned their products down and made them worthwhile again?
Believing in freedom is exactly why we are pestering the Chinese. This has nothing to do with telling a country what to do and everything with preventing oppression. Our own country (The United States) is far from perfect, and we do some pretty fucked up things...but we still don't prevent our own citizens from information, ESPECIALLY information critical of our own government.
In fact, criticizing our government openly and publicly is one of the greatest freedoms we have. Good luck finding a version of Lil' Bush that's called Lil' Mao.
"The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." -George Bernard Shaw
At the end the Zombie comes back, because you can't kill something that is already dead!
"How do you kill that which has no life...?"
Plus, McDonalds is one of the few places you can start out at the bottom and work your way practically to the top.
It's funny you mention this, because it was actually the reason why I stopped working there. After a year or so, they wanted to put me through management training. The money would have been awesome, and I easily could have made a career out of it...but I didn't really want to stay with McDonalds for the rest of my professional life.
You are absolutely right though, they hardly ever look to external hiring for the big positions...they try to promote internal people as much as they can.
Despite the occasional snobbish answer, this was a good Q and A. Thanks Slashdot! You guys aren't just Microsoft bashing and astro turfing after all!