In the future, signing with a record label for a few albums is probably going to be looked at the musical equivalent of college. That's like saying "Oh, well, it sure is easy for a Doctor to get a job at a hospital. They've already been to med school!"
Unless bands get really creative with how they promote themselves and distribute their music (and thankfully, a lot of bands are doing this), they're going to have to drop a couple albums through the big corporate machine before they can be successful as independents. Not everyone can be as lucky as Jonathan Coulton.
I think we've entered a time where bands are going to have more and more control over their sales and their success as a musical act. However, their music alone will not let them stand out in the crowd.
I'm particularly enamored with what The Get Out Clausedid with their single. (The Get Out Clause are those gents who recorded a music video using the British equivalent of the FOIA to get footage from CCTVs while they performed in public places.)
NIN, Radiohead, and The Get Out Clause's albums aren't just music, they're collectibles (that in some cases are very much personalized). This is the future of big music, I think.
I'm still waiting on LCARS-style panels in my home - that can be purchased relatively cheaply - so I can control all of my stuff from a panel. Lights, etc., whatnot.
I think it wouldn't be terribly difficult. You'd need a touch screen obviously, and you can sell them in standard sizes. Perhaps some kind of wireless schema where it can communicate with more complex appliances like televisions and heating/cooling systems. Ideally though, it would be able to work with even older homes (i.e. how some dimmer switch boards operate wirelessly via receivers that go in-between a plug and a wall socket).
Then all we need is voice activation and someone to generate a good speech synth of the late Ms. Roddenberry's voice and I will be the coolest person on my whole block!
But aren't these things really less for endurance and more for "Oh hey, I can lift 300 pounds". Like, even if you get tired out, there's no way you could safely lift 300 pounds without assistance so doesn't it ultimately get the job done in that respect?
And this would be fine with me, actually. RIAA and co. get a steady stream of income and can STFU about losing money to piracy, and we can do what we want with our personal copies of music. It'd be nice to be able to rip CDs without being called a "pirate".
To be honest, I'm actually fine with the term music pirates. Pirates are free-spirited, awesome individuals who drink beer and shoot cannons all day. Now if they had called us "music cumdumpsters" that would be an entirely different story...
Speaking of phones, I wish Samsung would tailor their phones to real world text usage. My old Nokias were snappy when it came to texting, but texting on Samsungs (from my budget model to the more expensive models my friends have) equals dropped characters and missed keystrokes.
The first phone I ever used was a Nokia. The standard black-and-white screen, as stylish as a deformed paving stone, and no antenna Nokia phone.
And you know what? I loved the damn thing. I'm not a huge texter, but texting on that phone was snappy. Instant response from the keys. Nowadays I try to text on my shitty Samsung and it drops key presses so "Hey what's up?" comes out something like "Hfyw hat s up!". I don't think it's a good thing that I type faster than my phone could keep up, when a dinky little budget Nokia phone did just fine 5 years ago.
As I understand it, a fire break is basically cutting down vegetation and other flammable stuff so the flames can't spread beyond that fire break.
If the observatory is this important, why haven't they done something like pave a 50m^2 circle around the thing so there's nothing combustable nearby? I'd rather the grounds look a bit ugly than the whole damn thing burn down.
(A tasteful layer of gravel with some spots of trees spread far enough apart would look nice and not be a huge deadly fire trap, IMO.)
If that were true, there would be Jones soda in the fountains at my local pizza parlors. We would have real sugar and not high-fructose high-heart-attack corn syrup in practically everything. Etc.
Yes they do have hard copies. They also have books that the only way to get them is for them to order them from, say, the Biblioth`eque (damn you Slashdot fix your damn encoding already) nationale de France, and even then they just mail out a photocopy of the original. And I can't touch the photocopy.
Google books would have been especially useful for rare books.
RE: recidivism, it doesn't really help that the best place to learn how to commit crimes is jail. You just stick a few hundred criminals in a big courtyard, what the hell else do you think they're gonna talk about?
IANA Constitutional L, but I think the Seventeenth Amendement quite possibly did some of the worst damage ever to our political system.
For the uninformed or for those too lazy to click the link, before the 17th amendment was ratified in 1912 Senators were appointed by the state legislature instead of elected directly by the people.
If a Senator stepped out of line with what the people wanted, they could bitch to the state legislature and the state legislature (which is easier to control by the people than the federal legislature) could go as far as recalling a Senator if need be.
Because of the way things are now, once a Senator is elected there's nothing we can really do to influence them much aside from trying to get a recall vote (which is very difficult), "contributing to their campaign fund", or them getting caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
But the Constitution was written by men. It's still the rule of men, it's just the rule of men from 300 years ago.
I do agree with what you're saying, though. It's something people should read more than a couple times in school and then forget about it. Such a sad state we're in these days...
Slashdot Mirror
All these years, I wondered what the "???" in those lists was for. Now I know!
In the future, signing with a record label for a few albums is probably going to be looked at the musical equivalent of college. That's like saying "Oh, well, it sure is easy for a Doctor to get a job at a hospital. They've already been to med school!"
Unless bands get really creative with how they promote themselves and distribute their music (and thankfully, a lot of bands are doing this), they're going to have to drop a couple albums through the big corporate machine before they can be successful as independents. Not everyone can be as lucky as Jonathan Coulton.
I think we've entered a time where bands are going to have more and more control over their sales and their success as a musical act. However, their music alone will not let them stand out in the crowd.
I'm particularly enamored with what The Get Out Clause did with their single. (The Get Out Clause are those gents who recorded a music video using the British equivalent of the FOIA to get footage from CCTVs while they performed in public places.)
NIN, Radiohead, and The Get Out Clause's albums aren't just music, they're collectibles (that in some cases are very much personalized). This is the future of big music, I think.
I'm still waiting on LCARS-style panels in my home - that can be purchased relatively cheaply - so I can control all of my stuff from a panel. Lights, etc., whatnot.
I think it wouldn't be terribly difficult. You'd need a touch screen obviously, and you can sell them in standard sizes. Perhaps some kind of wireless schema where it can communicate with more complex appliances like televisions and heating/cooling systems. Ideally though, it would be able to work with even older homes (i.e. how some dimmer switch boards operate wirelessly via receivers that go in-between a plug and a wall socket).
Then all we need is voice activation and someone to generate a good speech synth of the late Ms. Roddenberry's voice and I will be the coolest person on my whole block!
On the plus side, there's a secret built-in benchmark. If you can get the newer index to load in under 5 seconds, then your computer can run Crysis!
Merlin's a shareholder? No wonder Spotify is so good. They have all of that Ancient technology running the backend!
Bolag sounds like a Goa'uld though, so that makes me a bit worried.
If you want to be pedantic about it, all those little electron-y bits and whatnot move around in RAM too.
So I guess I have four gigs of tape drives plugged into my motherboard right now.
But aren't these things really less for endurance and more for "Oh hey, I can lift 300 pounds". Like, even if you get tired out, there's no way you could safely lift 300 pounds without assistance so doesn't it ultimately get the job done in that respect?
Not allow violence (i.e. real weapons)? Fort Legorado, 1996. Six shooters, rifles, swords, and cannons.
And this would be fine with me, actually. RIAA and co. get a steady stream of income and can STFU about losing money to piracy, and we can do what we want with our personal copies of music. It'd be nice to be able to rip CDs without being called a "pirate".
To be honest, I'm actually fine with the term music pirates. Pirates are free-spirited, awesome individuals who drink beer and shoot cannons all day. Now if they had called us "music cumdumpsters" that would be an entirely different story...
I live in New Jersey, and I didn't even know we had an Apple Store. I didn't think my state was hip enough.
Speaking of phones, I wish Samsung would tailor their phones to real world text usage. My old Nokias were snappy when it came to texting, but texting on Samsungs (from my budget model to the more expensive models my friends have) equals dropped characters and missed keystrokes.
The first phone I ever used was a Nokia. The standard black-and-white screen, as stylish as a deformed paving stone, and no antenna Nokia phone.
And you know what? I loved the damn thing. I'm not a huge texter, but texting on that phone was snappy. Instant response from the keys. Nowadays I try to text on my shitty Samsung and it drops key presses so "Hey what's up?" comes out something like "Hfyw hat s up!". I don't think it's a good thing that I type faster than my phone could keep up, when a dinky little budget Nokia phone did just fine 5 years ago.
Durr, I was tired when I wrote this. -.-
I meant a 50m perimeter around the outside of the observatory.
fire breaks
As I understand it, a fire break is basically cutting down vegetation and other flammable stuff so the flames can't spread beyond that fire break.
If the observatory is this important, why haven't they done something like pave a 50m^2 circle around the thing so there's nothing combustable nearby? I'd rather the grounds look a bit ugly than the whole damn thing burn down.
(A tasteful layer of gravel with some spots of trees spread far enough apart would look nice and not be a huge deadly fire trap, IMO.)
Are you serious? He's been in prison for over a year. Surely by now he's learned about all kinds of backdoors!
It's humblings that I could be killed by 3.2kbytes
3.2 kbytes should be enough to kill anyone.
With food, quality seems to win over crap
If that were true, there would be Jones soda in the fountains at my local pizza parlors. We would have real sugar and not high-fructose high-heart-attack corn syrup in practically everything. Etc.
Yes they do have hard copies. They also have books that the only way to get them is for them to order them from, say, the Biblioth`eque (damn you Slashdot fix your damn encoding already) nationale de France, and even then they just mail out a photocopy of the original. And I can't touch the photocopy.
Google books would have been especially useful for rare books.
RE: recidivism, it doesn't really help that the best place to learn how to commit crimes is jail. You just stick a few hundred criminals in a big courtyard, what the hell else do you think they're gonna talk about?
Mod parent down, he's being reasonable and making sense. This has no place in an internet forum.
Yeah, I thought that too at first... I imagined Bill Gates in rugby shorts.
Excuse me while I wash out my mind's eye with bleach.
IANA Constitutional L, but I think the Seventeenth Amendement quite possibly did some of the worst damage ever to our political system.
For the uninformed or for those too lazy to click the link, before the 17th amendment was ratified in 1912 Senators were appointed by the state legislature instead of elected directly by the people.
If a Senator stepped out of line with what the people wanted, they could bitch to the state legislature and the state legislature (which is easier to control by the people than the federal legislature) could go as far as recalling a Senator if need be.
Because of the way things are now, once a Senator is elected there's nothing we can really do to influence them much aside from trying to get a recall vote (which is very difficult), "contributing to their campaign fund", or them getting caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
But the Constitution was written by men. It's still the rule of men, it's just the rule of men from 300 years ago.
I do agree with what you're saying, though. It's something people should read more than a couple times in school and then forget about it. Such a sad state we're in these days...
I smell an AVN Award!