Re:History of techno (uh, way offtopic)
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Linux And Hip Hop
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I'm not talking about "electronic music", I'm talking about techno.
I'm not talking about electronic music either.
While kraftwerk, brian eno, john cage, and many others were making music with electronic instruments for a long time (Autobahn was out in '73 I believe), they shouldn't be considered the source of today's techno scene. While the instruments, and even the sounds, may be similar, there is no straight progression from the experimental electronic artists of the 70s (and other funk oriented bands).
To many on the east coast of the U.S., "techno" back then, was defined not just by the sound or use of certain instruments like synthesizers or drum machines, but by the subject matter or "themes" of the music and lyrics - eg., "computer or technology oriented" (like Kraftwerk became) or "space oriented", such as the music created by Parliment Funkadelic and their "Mothership" and "Sir Nose Devoidofunk" series of albums and songs...
The later artists may have been influenced (although that's always hard to say), but the fact is that techno has always been associated with dance music, which is very different from what groups like Y.M.O., and Kraftwerk played.
I don't know about what you experienced, but every club (and party in college) that I went to played (and mixed) songs (for 45 minutes at a pop at times) by groups like Kraftwerk - FOR *dancing*, eg., songs like "Numbers" and "Electric Cafe".   We used to call these parties "sweatbox affairs" and you'd often here songs by YES, et al...;-)
Prior to the drum machine, as you point out, rappers used the proverbial "two turntables and a microphone". However, this inherently limited the rappers to whatever records they could get their hands on. The advent of the drum machine meant that, rather than having to use someone else's records, they could lay their own beats down. Drum machines didn't create rap music, but they allowed it to grow much faster than it might have otherwise.
I don't know what part of the country you live in (although you mention Detroit a number of times, but that may not be your origin) but on the east coast, records, including the "imports" (ie., from Europe), were NOT hard to come by - especially by those who lived in or near New York City (the home of the 99cent "second hands").   The increased use of a drum machine occurred after the Sugar Hill Gang were sued by Chic for blatantly re-using Chic's song "Good Times", in its entirety, in their song "Rapper's Delight" - all without prior permission or even offering up their proceeds to Chic from their record sales.   That resulted in the enforcement of the current law that says something like up to 8 notes of a copyrighted song can be sampled before permission must be sought, etc.   Among the DJ culture, scratching and mixing (without extra instruments) were top priority (even by the newcomers) and in fact, the groups expanded during the early 80s with the so-called "human beat boxes" (basically the a cappella equivalent to creating instrument-less music) - all in avoidance of real instruments.   In fact, since you mention "drum machines", I recall entire collections (because I still have some) of RECORDS that were created SPECIFICALLY of "Beats", ie., the "song titles" were "120 bpm", "70 bpm", etc.   Thus the DJ had no need for a drum machine - he pulled out his 12" "Beats" record, picked a cut similar in speed to the current playing song, adjusted the turntable pitch, and away he went.
The thing here with DJing and rapping in general, was ego.   Any idiot can program a drum machine, but to be able to cut and scratch, on the fly, is what brought fame and fortune.   Basically, the move to add instruments to the mix had to do with COPYRIGHT infringment and lawsuits and had NOTHING to do with the so-called "expansion of rap".
Note that I'm talking about progression of music development, and not about where it was being played. The big difference is that, in the early 80s, most techno producers were located in the US (and most of them in Detroit), but after a few years most producers were located across the atlantic. While the American clubs were still playing the music, the source of the records had changed.
Note what happened in the early 80s too?   That's right.   CDs.   And within about 5 years, vinyl disappeared from the shelves of the record stores, which put many DJs in a bind.   There were still some places (as there are today) who produced 12" singles on vinyl, but basically, the CD drove the entire scene underground - at least for a little while.   Which resulted in a shift to tape (which I have done in the past), ie., mixing records and CD, with some quick edits, to tape, and then playing THAT at a club.
The progression of the music continued but was obscured by the brief but major resurgence of dance-pop and R&B in the U.S. (eg., Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Prince, EW&F, Madonna, George Michael, et. al) - whereby as you indicate, techno and music formally known as Disco began to reinvent itself as "club" and "house" and were generally instrumental - with some "world music" type vocals and other stuff mixed in.
Of course at the end of the 80s and into the 90s, this so-called "gansta rap" began to take center stage, and since the new rap stuff was often not "dance-to-able" (unlike the older rap), "house" and eventually "techno" (in its modern form) became the mainstay of those clubs still open (alot of clubs had closed! Believe me, I watched it happen!).
Anyway, I'm just speaking from experience and having been a DJ during the late 70s - early 80s and having worked with east coast DJs, I'll just say that it doesn't make me any kind of expert by any means, but I was there. -)
Earth, Wind and Fire without a horn section? You are unwell.
Heeeeeheeeheeeheeeeheee...   Not unwell - that was posted late at night... -)   And I guess I wasn't thinking about EW&F (cause almost their entire complement of instruments are horns...).   Thinking mainly of KC.   heh heh.
The U.S. Postal Service? C'mon, couldn't you have gone and picked an organization held in higher regard than the USPS? Like, say, oh I dunno, ValuJet, CyberPromotions, or maybe Juggs Magazine?:)
Wow.   The Zico!   As much as I've seen your many posts, I finally get to respond to you...;-)   I bow down in humble admiration.  :-)
Okay... how about Accuweather and Linux (from some article I saw that I'm surprised didn't get posted on/. since it's along the lines of this confusing article about cash registers and Linux).   And don't say it...   "that's why the weather forecasting is so fscked up". -)
Okay, here's one - Burlington Coat Factory.   This example relates directly to the article as this company uses Linux for their POS boxes.
'Nuff said. -)
Cheers, ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Cheers to you too... heh heh.
Re:No, Linux is more like techno/rave
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In the early days, there was electro, and breakbeat, disco, and soul. Hardcore, House, and straight techno emerged from this soup.
Don't forget "funk", the genre (and I mean the George Clinton and friends of the "Tear the roof off the mutha" and "Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadooloop" variety) which pre-dated all of this and used synthesizers throughout.   You could probably add the techno-rock-funk style of a then young Prince (from the late 70s) in that mix too...;-)
Re:History of techno (uh, way offtopic)
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Actually, techno is American, invented in the early '80s. And actually, it evolved from Disco. When disco "died", it actually just disappeared from the mainstream culture, but didn't actually die completely. There were many places where disco was still popular, namely gay clubs.
Whoooo boy.   Not correct.   You can technically take Techno back to the invention of the electric keyboard/synthesizer in the 50s (does Sun Ra and his Arkestra ring a bell.... nahhhh, guess not... although Sun was doin' big band and be bop as his main paying job), but I digress.   Let's just say it's been out for awhile (eg. 70s groups like Parliment & its various iterations used the "funk" version of it in the early-mid 70s).
During this time, a few DJs/producers began to play around with the dance-music feel of disco, and combining it with the new drum machines that were making their appearance at the time (which also, incidentally, encouraged the development of rap music, which used the beats as well). The gay clubs of detroit were, basically, the incubator where the first techno was developed. This was around '83 or 84 I think.
Uh... not quite.   As myself and previous posters have noted, rap has been out a long time.   I guess you're thinking about the use of the drum machines by groups like Afrika Bambatta and the Soul Sonic Force or something?   DJs, who were the first rappers, didn't need a drum machine - they used their 2 turntables and a mixer (plus a tape recorder to capture the moment).   The rap then was obviously not on the radio (although a few local stations might sneek a premix tape on in the wee hours of the morning) or distributed by big record producers.   It wasn't until the Sugar Hill Gang's OVERPLAYED "Rapper's Delight" came out when suddenly rap was "discovered" (sigh).   And when you say '83 or '84, Techno-pop groups like Kraftwerk (with their jammin' song "Numbers") had been out for some time.
I won't speak for what happened in Europe during the 80s ' but:
After this, techno began to make its way back to where it originated: the USA.
As far as I know, it never left.   It was still being played in the clubs.
It took several years, but in 1991 the first techno-explosion occured in the US. This first incarnation of techno in the US was strongly associated with Hippie culture (probably due to the mutual association with drugs),
Huh??
and then promptly faded from the mainstream in 1993.
Well put. Hip-Hop is the soul, Rap is the business.
Huh?   I guess I'm now sorely out of date...   I remember Hip-Hop starting off as a "dance and music style" for the 80s teeny boppers, different from R&B, popularized by guys like Bobby Brown and his little group, and absorbing the "Go Go" (remember that?) style that was all the rage in the Chocolate City (D.C.).   Then it sortof mysteriously tranformed itself into this "culture" generation-gap thing ($$$-generated) with clothing and attitudes and the brief ressurection of James Brown and "gettin' paid" and stuff like that.   The rap of today is similarly "media generated" and has now sunk to the level of the media-created groups of the 60s.   The groups today lack the cleverness and hard driving, "in your face" message of a Public Enemy (although Arrested Development tried to hold down the fort amidst the so-called gangsta rap genre).   Sigh... music =! technology...   I still think the connection is weak...
The cash register systems at Radio Shack are still Windows based, although I think RS is transitioning their back-office systems. Let's hope these open source cash register systems hit it big, since once the cash registers are on linux, more and more of the back-office systems will be driven to open standard systems, something that Microsoft hasn't been good at retaining control over.
You know what... you're RIGHT!   When I bought my notebook last year at RS, one of the clerks was there putzing around with the box attached to the register.   I looked around to see what he was doing and was shocked to see what looked like maybe win98 running...   And then when it crapped out on him again, he booted it and it started running scandisk... scary huh?   My US$1600+ transaction depending on the results of scandisk.   Gosh... and I forgot about the whole thing since all I cared about was getting my notebook home so I could install SuSE on it... -)
And then there's the issue of security. Yeah, the Linux community does a good job of patching bugs and other unintentional errors. But what you really have to be on the look out for now is intentional security violations. Going with an open source operating system is like giving out the keys. Whose to stop someone from passing of a 'trojan' kernel? These registers will be networked, so it's not like they couldn't be broken into. Scary.
Hmmm... I don't know if I've been sucked in by a troll or perhaps you should be modded up to Funny or whatever... maybe so.   But this is just an fyi anyway to those not knowing or if you are truly sincere:   Did you know that every fscking piece of snail mail that those in the US of A send through the U.S. Postal Service is sorted using a Linux box?
Just responding to your issues with security and not meant to be a flame...;-)
Yeah... I read this story off a Linuxtoday link and couldn't make heads or tails of the article.   It doesn't explicitly say that Little Caesars, et al will be running Linux for their POS boxes, it only says that the company who makes the equipment will be moving their stuff to Linux...   And even then, you don't know if they mean new stuff or existing stuff, like what might be in place at a Little Caesars.
Oh well... really a non-story.
Re:not quite right to compare software to music...
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Sliding ever so slowly Offtopic...
Dude, that was years ago. It was over in a few months. I realize that the old folks here probably aren't too (to use a phrase you'd be familiar with) 'hip to it, daddy-o'.
Heh heh... now you're trying to guess my age... I'll tell you right now, I ain't from the "hip to it daddy-o" generation...;-)   And you can't tell me the dance clubs aren't having "Swing" nites on Sundays either, 'cause they are.
Remakes of the oldies ('classic rock') are done mainly becuase that's what the artists themselves grew up with. Personally, I find the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. to be complete bullshit.
I'm not just talking about rock - I'm talking about everything - the groups today are reinventing the wheel and not even doing it with style either.   Many of these so-called artists weren't even born when the Stones and Beatles were in their heydays and folks like me were mere children...;-) And Mick Jagger did spark something in the rock world which you sometimes see reflected in the styles of the modern groups (ie., "slummin'"... oh oh.. I may start a Jagger-slamfest now...)   Lennon wasn't so bad now either... admit it.... hee hee.
Re:EXPLODE YOUR TRADING PROFITS!!!!
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What's your problem? I'm providing an important service.
Here's somthing quoted out of the Slashdot FAQ:
Basically we are trying to moderate as best we can, removing spam, troll posts, first posts, offtopic stuff. The moderation system doesn't delete anything, it just marks it down, so people can choose how much they want to read, or not read. A better description of the moderation system can be read on the moderator guidelines page.
Since ads placed in the middle of a discussion (or emailed) are considered as "spam", you are thus moderated down.   If you go here, you can join the others at the top of the page with their blinking ads - at a price of course.
Linus himself never talks about GNU/Linux... I think he has the authority to choose his OS name, right ?
Sure he does.   But after what? Version 0.91 or something?   He didn't do it all by himself now, did he? -)   I guess the answer would be to confirm what he actually trademarked.  :-)
And for that recursive play on words that GNU's Not Unix... That's so kiddy ! I don't mean to flame anyone here, but if you want acceptance in the real-world server markets, puns just won't make it.
But see, that depends on your definition of "real-world".   I would think that actual "real world" peformance makes all the difference in choosing a NOS, not what it's called.
Oh well... This will kill my karma, but I had to say it.
Why should it?   You're merely expressing your opinion about a wild name (and it is, IMHO).   But in fact, it catches your attention, doesn't it?   It goes along with the term "copyleft".   All a rebellion against the "establishment" really.   And I think the original point was to say that Linux is not Unix.
hmm....Disco == House. I only partially agree with that. While the "lifestyle" of Disco and the "heart and soul" of Disco is being repeated through the current trend of "House" the music is not the same.
Slowly sliding Offtopic here but Disco =! House but is closer to Club.   Disco was always considered (at least by me) as basically "dance music" (I'm not talking about the knock-off stuff that started appearing near the end of the era) - something that people went to clubs for and dressed up for - which you still see today, but they're playing House and Club and alot of Techno (-funk, that is).
I DJ'd on the radio station at my college for 3 years back at the tail end of the Disco days and got to experience the changeover and the interweaving of music styles...   If you play some vintage Madonna or even good 'ole KC & the Sunshine Band or EW&F, much of that can still stand on its own really.   If you remove the horn sections, it doesn't date itself as much.   Kindof interesting actually...
Re:No, Linux is more like techno/rave
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Wrong. The Chemical Brothers invented techno in 1994. And they're English, not European.
You mean they aren't continentals????   heh heh -)
Let's all give a big thanks to Kraftwerk - Techno geniuses.
Re:not quite right to compare software to music...
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Maybe so, but do you hear any big band music anymore? No... how about oldies? Do most people nowadays listen to oldies? Maybe your parents do, but rarely do younger people listen to them...
Ever heard of the group "Cherry Poppin' Daddies" or the so-called latest greatest thing - "Swing"?   I'm afraid we're going through a cycle of re-gurgitating music and the "younger people" (I'm not one of them) seem to find this all the rage.   Add to that the kajillion "remakes" of the "oldies" and you can see that we're rapidly losing our ability to come up with a fresh new style.   Probably 80% of the so-called rap today is literally taking snippets from the rap of 20 years ago and remixing it... and adding profanity to somehow make it appear different.   It's pathetic and lacks any creativity.
It seems that most music has a shelf life of around 30-50 years and then it's pretty much dead. Some people still listen to it, but not very many.
Then why is 18th and 19th century European and American-based orchestral or "classical" (as it has been defined) music still around, being played, and the style being copied to generate new works?   Why is "Jazz" and it's forerunners, "Blues" and "Ragtime" still around (and in the case of Blues) well over a century later?
Linux, on the other hand is here to stay, IMO.
Wishful thinking.   If it was, we wouldn't progress much would we?   This is where comparing music (or any of the arts) to technology fails every time.
Re:I agree with this on one principle
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I saw this article off a Linuxtoday link before/. posted it and thought it was stretching the comparison a bit too much (and not even worth putting in print), and although it's obviously generating alot of disucssion, it's also (as expected) generating alot of degenerative discussion.
Just as an FYI folks, "rap" was out WELL before the 80s whereas "hip hop" was an 80s thing (and the so-called "rappers" that folks keep citing and emulating on this forum weren't even BORN when rap began to appear - down in the basements at parties, out on the street corners in Brooklyn, and on the radio with a DJ named Doug "Jocko" Henderson, Sr.).   Rap was a rhythmic form for DJs to use in compliment to the music, to add to the entertainment at dance parties while spinning records, not something intended for real singers.
And the only comparison that I can maybe see (other than rap being almost as old as Unix - yes it is) is that both it and Linux started out being distributed (as the parent of this suggests) via what could be termed "the underground", ie., "street" rappers could only distribute their works on tape themselves to their friends and interested listeners (no BIG RECORD COMPANY(tm) would do it because R&B, Soul, Rock,and Pop, and at one time, Disco (which is alive and well and renamed to "House" and "Club" music), were more profitable) just as Linophiles, at one time, distributed copies of distros to their friends via disk or their own burned CDs (not counting FSF or Walnut Creek) - ie., before the "commercial" boxed distros became available.
the fact the a nimrod lives in yon leafy suburb and can't bank his pipes is probably a personal issue, but it's not just to piss people off.
Don't live in a "leafy suburb" but in a big city, and in a high-rise even... and it's the kids doin' it.   Loud pipes are one thing - you gotta get where you need to go and most cyclists, IMHO, are not only responsible dudes but pretty cool to talk to.   But going up and down a main strip - over and over and over is what I'm talking about...;-). Spinning your tires and leaving half your rubber at an intersection is not my idea of responsible.   I can imagine what might happen with these skyriders buzzin' around the damn place...;-)
Some of the posts here suggests that NT does not protect the apps from the kernel(which it does, kernel runs in ring0, while apps or userland programs runs in ring3)
rant_mode=on
When Explorer (and I'm not talking Internet Exploder, by the way) crashes (for whatever reason) can I get out of the GUI, kill it and restart it as a process, and then go humming along my merry way (and believe me, the 3-finger salute to get to Task Manger is a pretty lame way to try to kill apps, especially when your keyboard locks)?   Can I switch to another terminal or console and manage my processes independent of the GUI?   Is not the GUI pretty much tied up in the kernel?   Can I install any app without having to reboot the box?   Why can't the registry be reinitialized in NT?
When Microsoft produces a stable, cost-effective, highly manageable, highly customizable network operating system, with a guaranteed high % uptime, that I can telnet into to manage it rather than having to go out and buy some fscking 3rd party product to connect to it remotely, -ie.- a box that I can stick in the corner that stays up without having to babysit the damn thing, then *I* will be the first one to push it.   Otherwise, though I'm stuck managing it at work, it won't be my choice at home.
As a microsoft trainer, cisco trainer and linux trainer I can only say: get a life -
Did you take the Linux certification courses like that given by Red Hat or are you saying this to sound neutral?   Believe me, those who have had to work with Microsoft's networking products for years and who suddenly discover other OSes and how they handle networking, really do eventually see the light after awhile.   We're not making this stuff up.   Some consider it a challenge to manage whereas I consider it a waste of my time.   Why should I have to pull my hair out and see my staff waste so much of their precious time trying to figure out MS's so-called undocumented features?
And you yourself use the flame-baiting "M$" in your own Subject line!
remember my first time on Unix, I was in grade 9 in high school. The OS was actually called QNX on a 8086 machine called the Icon that was made here in Canada.
Am I senile or maybe mixing this up with something else, but is this not the same, but updated QNX that sits on a flash card on the i-opener made by Netappliance...
Well, if you do write a strictly POSIX program, it should compile and run just fine on any one of those unixes.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't win2k supposedly "POSIX-compliant" (probably with a million extensions).   Supposedly win2k separates out the core frm the apps better than NT (ie., you can stop or kill a misbehaving app without having to reboot the whole damn OS), making it a little closer to *nixes in general, but...
I can see that this topic is gonna be jumpin' today...
Could one port all the standard command line utilities to NT, clone one or two of the popular shells, set up the directory structure in the standard UNIX layout and call it Microsoft UNIX?"
Didn't one already do that and it was called "Xenix"?
;-)
Okay folks - let's get started on a good Xenix thread now...
I still kindof agree with the parent poster.   Despite the uprise in "office parks" in the less congested, non-metro areas, the majority of commuter traffic is still coming into the metro areas for work (not counting the telecommuters).   Vehicles like these, en masse, conjure up visions of Star Wars:TFM and the scenes on Corucant, with multiple layers and lanes of traffic, all apparently auto-guided.   I would expect special zones would have to be created in congested areas where auto-guidance would be required.   But would we, as a normally "free thinking, free acting" people relent to such auto-control?   It doesn't exist with aircraft at present, although pilots are expected to follow the flight paths and "stay in their lanes", but there's nothing stopping them from suddenly deviating...   This is why I think (at least in the U.S.) we have generally been resistant to any of the latest magno-trains and other high tech vehicles.   We like the freedom and independence of our cars.   With these little personal vehicles, where it would be expected that an average Joe Schmo might be behind the wheel so to speak, the type of assumed "stay in your lane" common sense would be a stretch for alot of idiots currently on the road (ie., folks who really do think they're flying an aircraft and believe that the front of their cars contain a single wheel that MUST stay centered on the line between lanes.... -)
Oh well... there are so many issues that would need to be seriously hashed out before any of these things see the light of day in our transportation structure as it stands now.   The most viable starting point would be as a bus/train replacement - a way to limit the number vehicles "in flight" while allowing the time to hash out the air traffic control issues.
Dammit!   It's noisy enough with mufflerless cars and purposely modded motorcycles that hotrod up and down straight-a-ways.  Let alone the noise coming from a regular helicopter.   All I can imagine is yet another thing to add noise pollution to my environment (and I'm not an obsessive environmental freak, by the way).
Any engineers out there have an idea as to what a "swarm" of these things would do, db-wise?   Just curious.   And interestingly, US$30,000 is pretty cheap considering it's right there in the price range of the average SUV.
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I'm not talking about "electronic music", I'm talking about techno.
;-)
I'm not talking about electronic music either.
While kraftwerk, brian eno, john cage, and many others were making music with electronic instruments for a long time (Autobahn was out in '73 I believe), they shouldn't be considered the source of today's techno scene. While the instruments, and even the sounds, may be similar, there is no straight progression from the experimental electronic artists of the 70s (and other funk oriented bands).
To many on the east coast of the U.S., "techno" back then, was defined not just by the sound or use of certain instruments like synthesizers or drum machines, but by the subject matter or "themes" of the music and lyrics - eg., "computer or technology oriented" (like Kraftwerk became) or "space oriented", such as the music created by Parliment Funkadelic and their "Mothership" and "Sir Nose Devoidofunk" series of albums and songs...
The later artists may have been influenced (although that's always hard to say), but the fact is that techno has always been associated with dance music, which is very different from what groups like Y.M.O., and Kraftwerk played.
I don't know about what you experienced, but every club (and party in college) that I went to played (and mixed) songs (for 45 minutes at a pop at times) by groups like Kraftwerk - FOR *dancing*, eg., songs like "Numbers" and "Electric Cafe".   We used to call these parties "sweatbox affairs" and you'd often here songs by YES, et al...;-)
Prior to the drum machine, as you point out, rappers used the proverbial "two turntables and a microphone". However, this inherently limited the rappers to whatever records they could get their hands on. The advent of the drum machine meant that, rather than having to use someone else's records, they could lay their own beats down. Drum machines didn't create rap music, but they allowed it to grow much faster than it might have otherwise.
I don't know what part of the country you live in (although you mention Detroit a number of times, but that may not be your origin) but on the east coast, records, including the "imports" (ie., from Europe), were NOT hard to come by - especially by those who lived in or near New York City (the home of the 99cent "second hands").   The increased use of a drum machine occurred after the Sugar Hill Gang were sued by Chic for blatantly re-using Chic's song "Good Times", in its entirety, in their song "Rapper's Delight" - all without prior permission or even offering up their proceeds to Chic from their record sales.   That resulted in the enforcement of the current law that says something like up to 8 notes of a copyrighted song can be sampled before permission must be sought, etc.   Among the DJ culture, scratching and mixing (without extra instruments) were top priority (even by the newcomers) and in fact, the groups expanded during the early 80s with the so-called "human beat boxes" (basically the a cappella equivalent to creating instrument-less music) - all in avoidance of real instruments.   In fact, since you mention "drum machines", I recall entire collections (because I still have some) of RECORDS that were created SPECIFICALLY of "Beats", ie., the "song titles" were "120 bpm", "70 bpm", etc.   Thus the DJ had no need for a drum machine - he pulled out his 12" "Beats" record, picked a cut similar in speed to the current playing song, adjusted the turntable pitch, and away he went.
The thing here with DJing and rapping in general, was ego.   Any idiot can program a drum machine, but to be able to cut and scratch, on the fly, is what brought fame and fortune.   Basically, the move to add instruments to the mix had to do with COPYRIGHT infringment and lawsuits and had NOTHING to do with the so-called "expansion of rap".
Note that I'm talking about progression of music development, and not about where it was being played. The big difference is that, in the early 80s, most techno producers were located in the US (and most of them in Detroit), but after a few years most producers were located across the atlantic. While the American clubs were still playing the music, the source of the records had changed.
Note what happened in the early 80s too?   That's right.   CDs.   And within about 5 years, vinyl disappeared from the shelves of the record stores, which put many DJs in a bind.   There were still some places (as there are today) who produced 12" singles on vinyl, but basically, the CD drove the entire scene underground - at least for a little while.   Which resulted in a shift to tape (which I have done in the past), ie., mixing records and CD, with some quick edits, to tape, and then playing THAT at a club.
The progression of the music continued but was obscured by the brief but major resurgence of dance-pop and R&B in the U.S. (eg., Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Prince, EW&F, Madonna, George Michael, et. al) - whereby as you indicate, techno and music formally known as Disco began to reinvent itself as "club" and "house" and were generally instrumental - with some "world music" type vocals and other stuff mixed in.
Of course at the end of the 80s and into the 90s, this so-called "gansta rap" began to take center stage, and since the new rap stuff was often not "dance-to-able" (unlike the older rap), "house" and eventually "techno" (in its modern form) became the mainstay of those clubs still open (alot of clubs had closed! Believe me, I watched it happen!).
Anyway, I'm just speaking from experience and having been a DJ during the late 70s - early 80s and having worked with east coast DJs, I'll just say that it doesn't make me any kind of expert by any means, but I was there.  
Earth, Wind and Fire without a horn section? You are unwell.
;-)   And I guess I wasn't thinking about EW&F (cause almost their entire complement of instruments are horns...).   Thinking mainly of KC.   heh heh.
Heeeeeheeeheeeheeeeheee...   Not unwell - that was posted late at night...  
Hmm... you posted here too huh?   You certainly are persistent despite the quoting of the Slashdot FAQ.
/. when it is being /.'d let alone to have spam showing up as +1.
Moderators - please moderate the parent down as spam.   It's bad enough getting to
Thank you.
The U.S. Postal Service? C'mon, couldn't you have gone and picked an organization held in higher regard than the USPS? Like, say, oh I dunno, ValuJet, CyberPromotions, or maybe Juggs Magazine? :)
;-)   I bow down in humble admiration.   :-)
/. since it's along the lines of this confusing article about cash registers and Linux).   And don't say it...   "that's why the weather forecasting is so fscked up".   ;-)
;-)
Wow.   The Zico!   As much as I've seen your many posts, I finally get to respond to you...
Okay... how about Accuweather and Linux (from some article I saw that I'm surprised didn't get posted on
Okay, here's one - Burlington Coat Factory.   This example relates directly to the article as this company uses Linux for their POS boxes.
'Nuff said.  
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Cheers to you too... heh heh.
In the early days, there was electro, and breakbeat, disco, and soul. Hardcore, House, and straight techno emerged from this soup.
;-)
Don't forget "funk", the genre (and I mean the George Clinton and friends of the "Tear the roof off the mutha" and "Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadooloop" variety) which pre-dated all of this and used synthesizers throughout.   You could probably add the techno-rock-funk style of a then young Prince (from the late 70s) in that mix too...
Actually, techno is American, invented in the early '80s. And actually, it evolved from Disco. When disco "died", it actually just disappeared from the mainstream culture, but didn't actually die completely. There were many places where disco was still popular, namely gay clubs.
Whoooo boy.   Not correct.   You can technically take Techno back to the invention of the electric keyboard/synthesizer in the 50s (does Sun Ra and his Arkestra ring a bell.... nahhhh, guess not... although Sun was doin' big band and be bop as his main paying job), but I digress.   Let's just say it's been out for awhile (eg. 70s groups like Parliment & its various iterations used the "funk" version of it in the early-mid 70s).
During this time, a few DJs/producers began to play around with the dance-music feel of disco, and combining it with the new drum machines that were making their appearance at the time (which also, incidentally, encouraged the development of rap music, which used the beats as well). The gay clubs of detroit were, basically, the incubator where the first techno was developed. This was around '83 or 84 I think.
Uh... not quite.   As myself and previous posters have noted, rap has been out a long time.   I guess you're thinking about the use of the drum machines by groups like Afrika Bambatta and the Soul Sonic Force or something?   DJs, who were the first rappers, didn't need a drum machine - they used their 2 turntables and a mixer (plus a tape recorder to capture the moment).   The rap then was obviously not on the radio (although a few local stations might sneek a premix tape on in the wee hours of the morning) or distributed by big record producers.   It wasn't until the Sugar Hill Gang's OVERPLAYED "Rapper's Delight" came out when suddenly rap was "discovered" (sigh).   And when you say '83 or '84, Techno-pop groups like Kraftwerk (with their jammin' song "Numbers") had been out for some time.
I won't speak for what happened in Europe during the 80s ' but:
After this, techno began to make its way back to where it originated: the USA.
As far as I know, it never left.   It was still being played in the clubs.
It took several years, but in 1991 the first techno-explosion occured in the US. This first incarnation of techno in the US was strongly associated with Hippie culture (probably due to the mutual association with drugs),
Huh??
and then promptly faded from the mainstream in 1993.
Sigh...
Well put. Hip-Hop is the soul, Rap is the business.
Huh?   I guess I'm now sorely out of date...   I remember Hip-Hop starting off as a "dance and music style" for the 80s teeny boppers, different from R&B, popularized by guys like Bobby Brown and his little group, and absorbing the "Go Go" (remember that?) style that was all the rage in the Chocolate City (D.C.).   Then it sortof mysteriously tranformed itself into this "culture" generation-gap thing ($$$-generated) with clothing and attitudes and the brief ressurection of James Brown and "gettin' paid" and stuff like that.   The rap of today is similarly "media generated" and has now sunk to the level of the media-created groups of the 60s.   The groups today lack the cleverness and hard driving, "in your face" message of a Public Enemy (although Arrested Development tried to hold down the fort amidst the so-called gangsta rap genre).   Sigh... music =! technology...   I still think the connection is weak...
The cash register systems at Radio Shack are still Windows based, although I think RS is transitioning their back-office systems. Let's hope these open source cash register systems hit it big, since once the cash registers are on linux, more and more of the back-office systems will be driven to open standard systems, something that Microsoft hasn't been good at retaining control over.
;-)
You know what... you're RIGHT!   When I bought my notebook last year at RS, one of the clerks was there putzing around with the box attached to the register.   I looked around to see what he was doing and was shocked to see what looked like maybe win98 running...   And then when it crapped out on him again, he booted it and it started running scandisk... scary huh?   My US$1600+ transaction depending on the results of scandisk.   Gosh... and I forgot about the whole thing since all I cared about was getting my notebook home so I could install SuSE on it...  
And then there's the issue of security. Yeah, the Linux community does a good job of patching bugs and other unintentional errors. But what you really have to be on the look out for now is intentional security violations. Going with an open source operating system is like giving out the keys. Whose to stop someone from passing of a 'trojan' kernel? These registers will be networked, so it's not like they couldn't be broken into. Scary.
;-)
Hmmm... I don't know if I've been sucked in by a troll or perhaps you should be modded up to Funny or whatever... maybe so.   But this is just an fyi anyway to those not knowing or if you are truly sincere:   Did you know that every fscking piece of snail mail that those in the US of A send through the U.S. Postal Service is sorted using a Linux box?
Just responding to your issues with security and not meant to be a flame...
Yeah... I read this story off a Linuxtoday link and couldn't make heads or tails of the article.   It doesn't explicitly say that Little Caesars, et al will be running Linux for their POS boxes, it only says that the company who makes the equipment will be moving their stuff to Linux...   And even then, you don't know if they mean new stuff or existing stuff, like what might be in place at a Little Caesars.
Oh well... really a non-story.
Sliding ever so slowly Offtopic...
;-)   And you can't tell me the dance clubs aren't having "Swing" nites on Sundays either, 'cause they are.
;-) And Mick Jagger did spark something in the rock world which you sometimes see reflected in the styles of the modern groups (ie., "slummin'"... oh oh.. I may start a Jagger-slamfest now...)   Lennon wasn't so bad now either... admit it.... hee hee.
Dude, that was years ago. It was over in a few months. I realize that the old folks here probably aren't too (to use a phrase you'd be familiar with) 'hip to it, daddy-o'.
Heh heh... now you're trying to guess my age... I'll tell you right now, I ain't from the "hip to it daddy-o" generation...
Remakes of the oldies ('classic rock') are done mainly becuase that's what the artists themselves grew up with. Personally, I find the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. to be complete bullshit.
I'm not just talking about rock - I'm talking about everything - the groups today are reinventing the wheel and not even doing it with style either.   Many of these so-called artists weren't even born when the Stones and Beatles were in their heydays and folks like me were mere children...
Here's somthing quoted out of the Slashdot FAQ:
Since ads placed in the middle of a discussion (or emailed) are considered as "spam", you are thus moderated down.   If you go here, you can join the others at the top of the page with their blinking ads - at a price of course.
Linus himself never talks about GNU/Linux... I think he has the authority to choose his OS name, right ?
;-)   I guess the answer would be to confirm what he actually trademarked.   :-)
Sure he does.   But after what? Version 0.91 or something?   He didn't do it all by himself now, did he?  
And for that recursive play on words that GNU's Not Unix... That's so kiddy ! I don't mean to flame anyone here, but if you want acceptance in the real-world server markets, puns just won't make it.
But see, that depends on your definition of "real-world".   I would think that actual "real world" peformance makes all the difference in choosing a NOS, not what it's called.
Oh well... This will kill my karma, but I had to say it.
Why should it?   You're merely expressing your opinion about a wild name (and it is, IMHO).   But in fact, it catches your attention, doesn't it?   It goes along with the term "copyleft".   All a rebellion against the "establishment" really.   And I think the original point was to say that Linux is not Unix.
hmm....Disco == House. I only partially agree with that. While the "lifestyle" of Disco and the "heart and soul" of Disco is being repeated through the current trend of "House" the music is not the same.
Slowly sliding Offtopic here but Disco =! House but is closer to Club.   Disco was always considered (at least by me) as basically "dance music" (I'm not talking about the knock-off stuff that started appearing near the end of the era) - something that people went to clubs for and dressed up for - which you still see today, but they're playing House and Club and alot of Techno (-funk, that is).
I DJ'd on the radio station at my college for 3 years back at the tail end of the Disco days and got to experience the changeover and the interweaving of music styles...   If you play some vintage Madonna or even good 'ole KC & the Sunshine Band or EW&F, much of that can still stand on its own really.   If you remove the horn sections, it doesn't date itself as much.   Kindof interesting actually...
Wrong. The Chemical Brothers invented techno in 1994. And they're English, not European.
;-)
You mean they aren't continentals????   heh heh  
Let's all give a big thanks to Kraftwerk - Techno geniuses.
Maybe so, but do you hear any big band music anymore? No... how about oldies? Do most people nowadays listen to oldies? Maybe your parents do, but rarely do younger people listen to them...
Ever heard of the group "Cherry Poppin' Daddies" or the so-called latest greatest thing - "Swing"?   I'm afraid we're going through a cycle of re-gurgitating music and the "younger people" (I'm not one of them) seem to find this all the rage.   Add to that the kajillion "remakes" of the "oldies" and you can see that we're rapidly losing our ability to come up with a fresh new style.   Probably 80% of the so-called rap today is literally taking snippets from the rap of 20 years ago and remixing it... and adding profanity to somehow make it appear different.   It's pathetic and lacks any creativity.
It seems that most music has a shelf life of around 30-50 years and then it's pretty much dead. Some people still listen to it, but not very many.
Then why is 18th and 19th century European and American-based orchestral or "classical" (as it has been defined) music still around, being played, and the style being copied to generate new works?   Why is "Jazz" and it's forerunners, "Blues" and "Ragtime" still around (and in the case of Blues) well over a century later?
Linux, on the other hand is here to stay, IMO.
Wishful thinking.   If it was, we wouldn't progress much would we?   This is where comparing music (or any of the arts) to technology fails every time.
I saw this article off a Linuxtoday link before /. posted it and thought it was stretching the comparison a bit too much (and not even worth putting in print), and although it's obviously generating alot of disucssion, it's also (as expected) generating alot of degenerative discussion.
Just as an FYI folks, "rap" was out WELL before the 80s whereas "hip hop" was an 80s thing (and the so-called "rappers" that folks keep citing and emulating on this forum weren't even BORN when rap began to appear - down in the basements at parties, out on the street corners in Brooklyn, and on the radio with a DJ named Doug "Jocko" Henderson, Sr.).   Rap was a rhythmic form for DJs to use in compliment to the music, to add to the entertainment at dance parties while spinning records, not something intended for real singers.
And the only comparison that I can maybe see (other than rap being almost as old as Unix - yes it is) is that both it and Linux started out being distributed (as the parent of this suggests) via what could be termed "the underground", ie., "street" rappers could only distribute their works on tape themselves to their friends and interested listeners (no BIG RECORD COMPANY(tm) would do it because R&B, Soul, Rock,and Pop, and at one time, Disco (which is alive and well and renamed to "House" and "Club" music), were more profitable) just as Linophiles, at one time, distributed copies of distros to their friends via disk or their own burned CDs (not counting FSF or Walnut Creek) - ie., before the "commercial" boxed distros became available.
Other than that, the comparison really ends...
the fact the a nimrod lives in yon leafy suburb and can't bank his pipes is probably a personal issue, but it's not just to piss people off.
;-). Spinning your tires and leaving half your rubber at an intersection is not my idea of responsible.   I can imagine what might happen with these skyriders buzzin' around the damn place... ;-)
Don't live in a "leafy suburb" but in a big city, and in a high-rise even... and it's the kids doin' it.   Loud pipes are one thing - you gotta get where you need to go and most cyclists, IMHO, are not only responsible dudes but pretty cool to talk to.   But going up and down a main strip - over and over and over is what I'm talking about...
Some of the posts here suggests that NT does not protect the apps from the kernel(which it does, kernel runs in ring0, while apps or userland programs runs in ring3)
rant_mode=on
When Explorer (and I'm not talking Internet Exploder, by the way) crashes (for whatever reason) can I get out of the GUI, kill it and restart it as a process, and then go humming along my merry way (and believe me, the 3-finger salute to get to Task Manger is a pretty lame way to try to kill apps, especially when your keyboard locks)?   Can I switch to another terminal or console and manage my processes independent of the GUI?   Is not the GUI pretty much tied up in the kernel?   Can I install any app without having to reboot the box?   Why can't the registry be reinitialized in NT?
When Microsoft produces a stable, cost-effective, highly manageable, highly customizable network operating system, with a guaranteed high % uptime, that I can telnet into to manage it rather than having to go out and buy some fscking 3rd party product to connect to it remotely, -ie.- a box that I can stick in the corner that stays up without having to babysit the damn thing, then *I* will be the first one to push it.   Otherwise, though I'm stuck managing it at work, it won't be my choice at home.
As a microsoft trainer, cisco trainer and linux trainer I can only say: get a life -
Did you take the Linux certification courses like that given by Red Hat or are you saying this to sound neutral?   Believe me, those who have had to work with Microsoft's networking products for years and who suddenly discover other OSes and how they handle networking, really do eventually see the light after awhile.   We're not making this stuff up.   Some consider it a challenge to manage whereas I consider it a waste of my time.   Why should I have to pull my hair out and see my staff waste so much of their precious time trying to figure out MS's so-called undocumented features?
And you yourself use the flame-baiting "M$" in your own Subject line!
Anyway, rant_mode=off
remember my first time on Unix, I was in grade 9 in high school. The OS was actually called QNX on a 8086 machine called the Icon that was made here in Canada.
Am I senile or maybe mixing this up with something else, but is this not the same, but updated QNX that sits on a flash card on the i-opener made by Netappliance...
Interesting how OSs hang on over time...
Remember that Linux's real name is "GNU/Linux" and as we all know, "GNU=GNU's Not Unix".
Well, if you do write a strictly POSIX program, it should compile and run just fine on any one of those unixes.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't win2k supposedly "POSIX-compliant" (probably with a million extensions).   Supposedly win2k separates out the core frm the apps better than NT (ie., you can stop or kill a misbehaving app without having to reboot the whole damn OS), making it a little closer to *nixes in general, but...
I can see that this topic is gonna be jumpin' today...
Could one port all the standard command line utilities to NT, clone one or two of the popular shells, set up the directory structure in the standard UNIX layout and call it Microsoft UNIX?"
;-)
Didn't one already do that and it was called "Xenix"?
Okay folks - let's get started on a good Xenix thread now...
Stay in your lane and it's a piece of cake.
;-)
I still kindof agree with the parent poster.   Despite the uprise in "office parks" in the less congested, non-metro areas, the majority of commuter traffic is still coming into the metro areas for work (not counting the telecommuters).   Vehicles like these, en masse, conjure up visions of Star Wars:TFM and the scenes on Corucant, with multiple layers and lanes of traffic, all apparently auto-guided.   I would expect special zones would have to be created in congested areas where auto-guidance would be required.   But would we, as a normally "free thinking, free acting" people relent to such auto-control?   It doesn't exist with aircraft at present, although pilots are expected to follow the flight paths and "stay in their lanes", but there's nothing stopping them from suddenly deviating...   This is why I think (at least in the U.S.) we have generally been resistant to any of the latest magno-trains and other high tech vehicles.   We like the freedom and independence of our cars.   With these little personal vehicles, where it would be expected that an average Joe Schmo might be behind the wheel so to speak, the type of assumed "stay in your lane" common sense would be a stretch for alot of idiots currently on the road (ie., folks who really do think they're flying an aircraft and believe that the front of their cars contain a single wheel that MUST stay centered on the line between lanes....  
Oh well... there are so many issues that would need to be seriously hashed out before any of these things see the light of day in our transportation structure as it stands now.   The most viable starting point would be as a bus/train replacement - a way to limit the number vehicles "in flight" while allowing the time to hash out the air traffic control issues.
Dammit!   It's noisy enough with mufflerless cars and purposely modded motorcycles that hotrod up and down straight-a-ways.  Let alone the noise coming from a regular helicopter.   All I can imagine is yet another thing to add noise pollution to my environment (and I'm not an obsessive environmental freak, by the way).
Any engineers out there have an idea as to what a "swarm" of these things would do, db-wise?   Just curious.   And interestingly, US$30,000 is pretty cheap considering it's right there in the price range of the average SUV.