This has nothing to do with conservatism, I wouldn't want my Clash Sandinista or John Zorn Naked City compressed so I couldn't hear the dynamics dumbass, neither of these are conservative or tame by any means.
You said: "And no, I don't have "exotic cables", just quality speakers and a hefty power amp with plenty of headroom to spare."
Wow if more people understood that little fact then many people would be hearing much better sound quality and perhaps we'd get less 128 MP3 through 2 dollar ear buds "sounds fine" and less I need two 5,000 dollar Krell monoblocks with a 2,000 dollar "special" power cord for my bedroom "audiophile" dumbasses. Hint the power cord, speaker wire, and patch cables make zero difference in sound, deal. I have a 60.00 dollar Yamaha pre-amp from the late 70s, 90 dollar Yamaha power amp from the mid 80s and 12 dollar Phase tech speakers from a thrift store, and yet I seriously doubt in a decibel matched ABX test most "audiophiles" could tell it from a 20,000 dollar "reference" system. Nor could said audiophiles tell a 320 MP3 from a CD, hint both will sound like crap if the source recordings are heavily compressed. The White Stripes new Cd is unlistenable, not because the music is bad, but because it enough compression to be headache inducing.
Because some music like classical, jazz, and well played rock actually has dynamics that are lost through compression. If you only listen to ganster rap OTH (not saying there isn't good hip-hop BTW) this is no big thang.
Covert to black and white with curves in Photoshop or Lightroom and throw a spanner in the SUPPER BRIGHT SATURATED colors works. BTW digital cameras even moderately expensive DSLR are set way too oversaturated to catch a good dynamic light range to look "good" on cheesy plant macros. Check out my swimming in light group on flickr where I try to fight this trend:
Is it a surprise that living in a barbaric empire that is committing war crimes (U.S. citizen here) that we have lost sensitivity to subtle music and subtle colors? I think not... Rock on dude X-treme to the MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes it's more than a bit college radio d.j. emo pretentious but they also find some real gems among the dreck like Devendra Banhart.
There are a couple of good web sites for world music if you are into that sort of thing, I can't remember the URLs. And some the music blogs preview up and coming bands and allow you to listen to samples of the music, You can even subscribe to RSS feeds.
"...the most recent generations have been subjected to far greater mass marketing, production and exploitation. This certainly translates into the quality of the music, I'm sure."
Those who suffered the 100% made band the Monkees in the 60s might disagree. As well as those listen to teen idols in the late 50s when the radio industry was suffering payola scandals to play certain bands in heavy rotation. Corporate corruption of music has been with us for quite a while now. Brittany Spears is just this generations Fabian.
Please don't stereotype all us geezers (41 here) as not being able to appreciate new music. I for one am a big fan of Andrew Bird, The Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Spoon, Tool, Amy Winehouse, Niko Case, etc. Thanks, sincerely the cranky old geezer defense committee, now git off my lawn.:)
Faith in exponential growth does not equal emperacism in agricultural, it equals faith like religion. Alas I am an atheist and think your faith is not even charmingly naive.
The longer we wait if you are wrong the greater the suffering will be when the crash comes. Hint the the "green revolution" failed in many parts of the third world due to salinization of the soil.
This is just one problem, once fossil fuels get scarcer and scarcer in the next 20 years we are in real trouble for hey are the basis of fertilizers that allow for a temporary increase in agricultural productive of the soil at the expense of it's natural fertility. Once the fossil fuels are gone or are too expensive to use as fertilizers we face the trifecta of increasing population, degraded soil, and no easy way to build soil fertility up above it's natural levels that would be required to support "green revolution" expanded populations. And no we won't be able to eat Eric Drexler's nanotech, brain uploads, or other other inventions imagined by techno optimists.
So sorry I don't share your pie in the sky faith I prefer empirical realism, thanks.
Rather than expanding the economy how about a steady state population? Hint resources do not =infinite. At some point this fancy pyramid scheme is going to crash.
Yeah how dare we have a system that "constrains the economy." Inflation or endless exponential growth is your friend, just ask bacteria in a petri dish.
Wow someone else gets the pyramid scheme nature of banking that can only lead to inflation OR unsustainable exponentially increasing production in a pyramid scheme like fashion. I wish I had mod points to give you and I hope many people read your comment and think about it...
It depends on your situation what you say is perhaps true for a private individual, and if you are talking 10,000 thin clients to a central Linux server for business, not so much. Nonetheless that business is still likely to run Windows at a financial loss because of vendor lock in for example exchanging M$ documents with other businesses and clients.
I thought it was the right wing like the militia and Libertarians/Ron Paul who were most looking out for our constitutional rights (and I say this as a Green lefty while acknowledging the honorable qualities of true conservatives). Did something change when I wasn't looking or do you believe everything corporate funded false conservative (really state centralist) Rush tells you verbatim?
however 99.9999% of movies are entertainment as is true of music, video games. There is nothing wrong with entertainment I have my guilty pleasures in music like the Go Gos from the 80s, very fun but I'd never try to claim it was art just fun music with good memories for geezer aged people like myself. I hope you aren't trying to claim all movies are art, would that include Porkies III, and Ernest Scared Stupid?
Some movies are art, as are perhaps some video games though as I have said I have yet to see the video game that I think will be remembered in 50 years time when computers will offer us fully imersive reality, and Half Life Quake 4 etc will seem tired, quaint and utterly lacking interest. That to me says that 99.9999% of video games are graphic sizzle eye candy without substance much like the 3 d post cards that were produced at the turn of the century:
In a similar fashion 3 d movies from the 60s to early 80s did not leave us any masterpieces, Jaws 3d ring a bell? Just because a technology is new and exciting to us does not guarantee it will lead to the production of great art.
And BTW I do hope I am wrong and something comes of video games but I am not convinced, YET. I am looking forward to Spoor BTW and I am not the cynic about this that Ebert is, I just have high personal standards (which may differ from yours, shrug).
I wouldn't consider James Bond art because it's genre fiction i.e. it relies on troupes of thrill/action fiction. I believe (yes subjective) that true art at least in modernist western terms creates a unique world that doesn't rely on previous forms or story telling conventions.*
For example the painter Miro's worlds are unique to him, Chopin invented new musical forms and public enemy extended and deepened hip-hop to the point where their 17 year old CDs are still being discussed today.
Note that unlike Ebert I am saying games could be art I just haven't seen it yet. The fact that you compare Metal Gear to James Bond doesn't give me great hope that the game has lasting literary or visual qualities. I am however interested in playing that Japanese game about rolling things up if I can find a platform it will run on.:(
Note that this my subjective opinion YMMV, blah, blah, blah...
*Very rarely genre fiction contains transcendent unique forms Philip K.Dick as a science fiction writer I think would be an example.
I sincerely believe video games could be art but I haven't seen one actually cross that threshold yet. 99% of video games are similar to thriller genre fiction, pure crap. The possible candidates I have seen for video game as art would be:
1. Second life, allows people to be creative in a virtual world
2. Myst and it's sequels, original concept beautiful artwork within the game
3. That Japanese game where you roll things up into a big ball Katami something or other? I haven't played it but the screen shots look interesting and I think it's very purposelessness points to it being more art than entertainment.
4. Spoor when it's released?
All other video games I have seen are entertainment not art. The difference is how long they will last in the culture, entertainment games go in the rubbish bin as soon as a new generation of video card comes out, art games will be preserved in some sort of simulator and discussed in classes like Huckleberry Fin and Citizen Cain are. Thus far it hasn't happened yet though I think the above listed games COULD reach that status. Half life, Quake 4, etc? Never... BVTW nothing wrong with entertainment it's just not art that has a hugE impact on our whole culture Mozart, the Beatles, Public Enemy, Shakespear, etc. The jury is out whether any video game will do that but as a slashdot reader I hope it does happen.
p.s. I AM Open to hearing about other games that COULD be considered art they must be able to run on OS X power p.c. G5, P4 Linux notebook, or PIII Win XP with integrated graphics if I am to see them.:)
Bzzzt Linux and other free software is cheaper as in free. Early lock-in and relentless marketing sadly trumps superior cost efficiency, or technical excellence every time and now poor consumers are stuck with Vista that is over priced, bloated, lacks drivers (even fewer drivers than say Ubuntu) and refuses to run software designed for Windows solely because it's all people know about due to lock-in and M$s relentless multi billion dollar marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with conservatism, I wouldn't want my Clash Sandinista or John Zorn Naked City compressed so I couldn't hear the dynamics dumbass, neither of these are conservative or tame by any means.
You said: "And no, I don't have "exotic cables", just quality speakers and a hefty power amp with plenty of headroom to spare."
Wow if more people understood that little fact then many people would be hearing much better sound quality and perhaps we'd get less 128 MP3 through 2 dollar ear buds "sounds fine" and less I need two 5,000 dollar Krell monoblocks with a 2,000 dollar "special" power cord for my bedroom "audiophile" dumbasses. Hint the power cord, speaker wire, and patch cables make zero difference in sound, deal. I have a 60.00 dollar Yamaha pre-amp from the late 70s, 90 dollar Yamaha power amp from the mid 80s and 12 dollar Phase tech speakers from a thrift store, and yet I seriously doubt in a decibel matched ABX test most "audiophiles" could tell it from a 20,000 dollar "reference" system. Nor could said audiophiles tell a 320 MP3 from a CD, hint both will sound like crap if the source recordings are heavily compressed. The White Stripes new Cd is unlistenable, not because the music is bad, but because it enough compression to be headache inducing.
Because some music like classical, jazz, and well played rock actually has dynamics that are lost through compression. If you only listen to ganster rap OTH (not saying there isn't good hip-hop BTW) this is no big thang.
Covert to black and white with curves in Photoshop or Lightroom and throw a spanner in the SUPPER BRIGHT SATURATED colors works. BTW digital cameras even moderately expensive DSLR are set way too oversaturated to catch a good dynamic light range to look "good" on cheesy plant macros. Check out my swimming in light group on flickr where I try to fight this trend:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/swimlight/
Is it a surprise that living in a barbaric empire that is committing war crimes (U.S. citizen here) that we have lost sensitivity to subtle music and subtle colors? I think not... Rock on dude X-treme to the MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...and use it to slice my Swiss cheese for sandwiches. Sorry couldn't resist...
Pitchforkmedia has some pretty good reviews of "indy rock: bands:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/
Yes it's more than a bit college radio d.j. emo pretentious but they also find some real gems among the dreck like Devendra Banhart.
There are a couple of good web sites for world music if you are into that sort of thing, I can't remember the URLs. And some the music blogs preview up and coming bands and allow you to listen to samples of the music, You can even subscribe to RSS feeds.
"...the most recent generations have been subjected to far greater mass marketing, production and exploitation. This certainly translates into the quality of the music, I'm sure."
Those who suffered the 100% made band the Monkees in the 60s might disagree. As well as those listen to teen idols in the late 50s when the radio industry was suffering payola scandals to play certain bands in heavy rotation. Corporate corruption of music has been with us for quite a while now. Brittany Spears is just this generations Fabian.
Please don't stereotype all us geezers (41 here) as not being able to appreciate new music. I for one am a big fan of Andrew Bird, The Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Spoon, Tool, Amy Winehouse, Niko Case, etc. Thanks, sincerely the cranky old geezer defense committee, now git off my lawn. :)
I for one welcome our google overmind metaverse overlords.
If you are driving on a smooth road towards a cliff the past looks A-OK yet projecting that past into the future is foolish, something to think about.
Faith in exponential growth does not equal emperacism in agricultural, it equals faith like religion. Alas I am an atheist and think your faith is not even charmingly naive.
The longer we wait if you are wrong the greater the suffering will be when the crash comes. Hint the the "green revolution" failed in many parts of the third world due to salinization of the soil.
h tm
http://www.montysplantfood.com/docs/salinization.
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb25/articles16.htm
This is just one problem, once fossil fuels get scarcer and scarcer in the next 20 years we are in real trouble for hey are the basis of fertilizers that allow for a temporary increase in agricultural productive of the soil at the expense of it's natural fertility. Once the fossil fuels are gone or are too expensive to use as fertilizers we face the trifecta of increasing population, degraded soil, and no easy way to build soil fertility up above it's natural levels that would be required to support "green revolution" expanded populations. And no we won't be able to eat Eric Drexler's nanotech, brain uploads, or other other inventions imagined by techno optimists.
So sorry I don't share your pie in the sky faith I prefer empirical realism, thanks.
Rather than expanding the economy how about a steady state population? Hint resources do not =infinite. At some point this fancy pyramid scheme is going to crash.
Finally someone who gets it, fractional reserve banking + interest = either inflation or unsustainable growth by simple laws of mathematics.
Yeah how dare we have a system that "constrains the economy." Inflation or endless exponential growth is your friend, just ask bacteria in a petri dish.
Har dee har. And you wonder why many gamers are considered immature.
Wow someone else gets the pyramid scheme nature of banking that can only lead to inflation OR unsustainable exponentially increasing production in a pyramid scheme like fashion. I wish I had mod points to give you and I hope many people read your comment and think about it...
It depends on your situation what you say is perhaps true for a private individual, and if you are talking 10,000 thin clients to a central Linux server for business, not so much. Nonetheless that business is still likely to run Windows at a financial loss because of vendor lock in for example exchanging M$ documents with other businesses and clients.
I thought it was the right wing like the militia and Libertarians/Ron Paul who were most looking out for our constitutional rights (and I say this as a Green lefty while acknowledging the honorable qualities of true conservatives). Did something change when I wasn't looking or do you believe everything corporate funded false conservative (really state centralist) Rush tells you verbatim?
Nyet SOME movies are art Citizen Kane leaps to mind:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/
as well say Ingmar Bergman movies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingmar_Bergman
however 99.9999% of movies are entertainment as is true of music, video games. There is nothing wrong with entertainment I have my guilty pleasures in music like the Go Gos from the 80s, very fun but I'd never try to claim it was art just fun music with good memories for geezer aged people like myself. I hope you aren't trying to claim all movies are art, would that include Porkies III, and Ernest Scared Stupid?
Some movies are art, as are perhaps some video games though as I have said I have yet to see the video game that I think will be remembered in 50 years time when computers will offer us fully imersive reality, and Half Life Quake 4 etc will seem tired, quaint and utterly lacking interest. That to me says that 99.9999% of video games are graphic sizzle eye candy without substance much like the 3 d post cards that were produced at the turn of the century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy
In a similar fashion 3 d movies from the 60s to early 80s did not leave us any masterpieces, Jaws 3d ring a bell? Just because a technology is new and exciting to us does not guarantee it will lead to the production of great art.
And BTW I do hope I am wrong and something comes of video games but I am not convinced, YET. I am looking forward to Spoor BTW and I am not the cynic about this that Ebert is, I just have high personal standards (which may differ from yours, shrug).
Ubik! Google Philip K Dick Ubik if you don't know what I mean.
I wouldn't consider James Bond art because it's genre fiction i.e. it relies on troupes of thrill/action fiction. I believe (yes subjective) that true art at least in modernist western terms creates a unique world that doesn't rely on previous forms or story telling conventions.*
:(
For example the painter Miro's worlds are unique to him, Chopin invented new musical forms and public enemy extended and deepened hip-hop to the point where their 17 year old CDs are still being discussed today.
Note that unlike Ebert I am saying games could be art I just haven't seen it yet. The fact that you compare Metal Gear to James Bond doesn't give me great hope that the game has lasting literary or visual qualities. I am however interested in playing that Japanese game about rolling things up if I can find a platform it will run on.
Note that this my subjective opinion YMMV, blah, blah, blah...
*Very rarely genre fiction contains transcendent unique forms Philip K.Dick as a science fiction writer I think would be an example.
I sincerely believe video games could be art but I haven't seen one actually cross that threshold yet. 99% of video games are similar to thriller genre fiction, pure crap. The possible candidates I have seen for video game as art would be:
:)
1. Second life, allows people to be creative in a virtual world
2. Myst and it's sequels, original concept beautiful artwork within the game
3. That Japanese game where you roll things up into a big ball Katami something or other? I haven't played it but the screen shots look interesting and I think it's very purposelessness points to it being more art than entertainment.
4. Spoor when it's released?
All other video games I have seen are entertainment not art. The difference is how long they will last in the culture, entertainment games go in the rubbish bin as soon as a new generation of video card comes out, art games will be preserved in some sort of simulator and discussed in classes like Huckleberry Fin and Citizen Cain are. Thus far it hasn't happened yet though I think the above listed games COULD reach that status. Half life, Quake 4, etc? Never...
BVTW nothing wrong with entertainment it's just not art that has a hugE impact on our whole culture Mozart, the Beatles, Public Enemy, Shakespear, etc. The jury is out whether any video game will do that but as a slashdot reader I hope it does happen.
p.s. I AM Open to hearing about other games that COULD be considered art they must be able to run on OS X power p.c. G5, P4 Linux notebook, or PIII Win XP with integrated graphics if I am to see them.
Bzzzt Linux and other free software is cheaper as in free. Early lock-in and relentless marketing sadly trumps superior cost efficiency, or technical excellence every time and now poor consumers are stuck with Vista that is over priced, bloated, lacks drivers (even fewer drivers than say Ubuntu) and refuses to run software designed for Windows solely because it's all people know about due to lock-in and M$s relentless multi billion dollar marketing.