Our ability to modify ourselves through intelligent analysis of ourselves and our environment is really just another mutation. Same as big boobs or a 3rd leg.
We've been close to our present level of sophistication for what, 2-3,000 years? More maybe? Still just a blink of an eye in terms of the long haul. The last 200 years have seen what looks to be a boiling point of sorts in terms of our ability to modify ourselves and our environment. To what end? Who knows?
The jury's still out - only Time will tell if this mutation stays or goes!
This is what I find disturbing about music today. It is basically mass produced "fast food" music. It really doesn't take anyone special to perform it, just a good set of pipes and some nice T&A.
ANY art that can be profitable WILL be relegated to the realm of fast food. Simple fact of life.
Hell, food itself has been relegated to the realm of fast food!
That's what makes Mom's home-cookin' or Chef Nagato's sushi so worthwhile!
Or bands like Nirvana or the Smashing Pumpkins.
Doesn't stop me from choking down a little Burger-Doodle now and then. If you consistently avoid Burger-Doodle, well, you can pat yourself on the back, but they're not going out of business any time soon.
The same technology that gives us Slashdot has also given us MIDI, cheesy synthesiser sounds, hard-disk recording and Digital Voice Pitch Correction, all of which have been put to blazingly creative as well as cunningly nefarious uses.
Mope if you must, but some performers don't want your respect, they just want the money. If they can work the system in their favor and get it, I say more power to 'em.
So fucking what if you can code in Perl? (Just supposing 'you' as a prototypical Slashdot reader can, for dialog's sake.) Is your 'striving' to learn Perl on your Dad's computer somehow more noble and respectable than Britney's learning to dance and sing?
Give me a good choreographer and I can do the same thing.
That I'd LOVE to see!
Remember Tifanny? Or Debbie Gibson? How about Samantha Fox? And where are they today? How have they recently made your life better?
Not every successful performer creates a lasting legacy, if that's what you're getting at, and there's no rulebook saying they have to. Part of successful Entertainment is giving the People what they want, when they want it. Silly question.
She is yet another bubble-gum pop-star that will be forgotten as soon as her tits start to sag.
That's her problem and her responsibility that she'll have to face it the same way the rest of us do . Ever heard the term 'dead wood' in the corporate realm? Doesn't matter what you do or for whom, sooner or later your tit's will sag too. Worry about your own ass, and she'll worry about hers (while the rest of us admire it from afar;)
Examples abound of pretty-girls that have two, three hits and are tossed aside by the next new thing
Examples also abound of software developers, heavy-metal guitar-players and vaccuum(sp?) sales-men who are also tossed aside by the next new thing. Are you bitter of these folks too when they're successful? What's your point?
You've been sold an odorous pile of shit, pal, no matter how fuckable it looks.
She's a smart kid thriving in a high-pressure, high-profile job, and I respect that. End of story. I haven't 'bought' anything.
Spears is the music equivalent of America's Funniest Home Videos: occasionally humorous, but ultimately forgettable
That's an insightful bit of music criticism, but I'm not sure that it's of any consequence.
Courtney hit on a novel concept, intentionally or otherwise, when she mentions pop-musicians playing for tips.
I think in the future we'll be seeing a lot of high-quality free mp3's and virtual "tip jars" for bands where you can click to send some small (but oh so significant) change to the artist(s) whose music you've just snagged.
It'll be TOTALLY voluntary and EXTREMELY profitable for the bands who please their audience.
The biggest obstacle is an easy and secure way for listeners to proffer real cash credit in minute amounts without always having to have a credit card number handy. Now that online banking is becoming more common, the only remaining obstacle is a distribution model that helps listeners separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of mounds of online music, much of which is of low grade and inspiration.
The profitable sites (Mp3) of the future will be the ones that provide filtering via ratings and such in an agreeable and reliable manner, rather than the ones that simply host mounds of mp3 material.
It's funny, but understandable that you would would so eagarly write-off Britney Spears as a talentless bimbo, and recieve lots of support (moderation points) from other less-than-very-thoughtfull slashdotters.
The girl can dance and the girl can sing, both with confidence and style well beyond her years. Is she and her act completely self-made from the ground-up? Hell no, but it takes skill, determination and, yes, Talent to hang on to and thrive amongst the opportunities she has been given. It's easy to look at those opportunities and say that, given the same, anyone could be a Britney Spears. Wrong-o pal! Star-struck upper-middle-class parents around the world funnel millions into little darlings with lot's of potential who end up going to college instead of Hollywood, because they don't have the extra ingredients (and luck of course) to capitalize on the opportunities as they arise.
I'm not a fan of Britney's music/product, but she totally kicks ass in her own way, and for that I congratulate her.
SAlbini's article is and was great, but it's on the shelf, and has hence lost it's impact. Ms. Love expertly and enthusiastically re-stated much of what SAlbini said with a fresh and updated perspective. She did all that and got it smack in the Public Eye. Piece-o-work, I say.
It sorely needed doing, and she did it BRILLIANTLY!
To mean-spiritedly write off her achievement as "ripping-off Steve Albini" is an act of annoying, whining Ignorance.
I have NO DOUBT that SAlbini was the first to applaud her effort.
Beautiful movie. Can say no more than that. Should be shown in every middle/high school history class!
Totoro overwhelms with it quiet mystery, pervasive and relentless charm and moments of pure zen. See it with the original Japanese dialog first. I don't know if there's a sub-titled version out, but you HAVE to hear the original sound, exactly as Miyazaki intended. I have a copy that is Japanese, no subtitles. I can't understand most of the dialog, but the visual story-telling is crystal clear. I've since seen the American release to fill in the gaps. The American version is good, but misses the mark repeatedly in terms of subtlety and the Japanese mind-set. Not to mention the horrible packaging of the American version, with that hideous 3d airbrush shadow effect you see on all the cereal-box characters these days!
Laputa has much of the same with a greater emphasis on movement and change. When they first land on the island, the sense of age and quiet decrepitude is jaw-dropping. The moss-covered guardian handing them a flower...(sigh). I wish they could stretch that part out longer, and explore the island further before moving on with the story.
Miyazaki is a true Master in every sense of the word!
This mob rule mentality that has been adopted by many here is complete bullshit.
Actually, it's not. The Watts riots are a lousy analogy, unless the looters ran around 'copying' TV sets and home appliances without so much as tapping on a window or rattling a lock.
The Boston Tea Party, while not perfect, is a much better analogy.
But there needs to be a way for people to opt-out.
Fair enough. Good luck.
Bottom Line: Metallica and EVERY OTHER BAND distributed on Napster should be forced to PAY Napster for the free exposure and mind-share their service has provided. The book in you mail-slot will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I'd love to see BeOS skyrocket into common public use, but there's no software out yet to make it worthwhile. It's a cruel catch-22 (which comes first) but Mac is already there with all the apps people want. BeOS has some great design elements and features, but to what end?
That's what I never understood about BeOS, charging $100 for an OS that you can't really use for anything 'cept browsing the web to see if anything *really* useful has come out yet!
And have it melt-down in the summer? Nah. The CD-mp3 player is the best and cheapest way to go by far. If you're talking on-board navigation and all that, then your 486 'slap together' idea is more-or-less valid but still more of a pain than it's worth. A wave of these players is just over the horizon. Very soon you'll be able to buy a cheapo discman-mp3 at KMart for $49.
The on-board computer idea is truly 'leet' beyond all comprehension, 'specially with speech-activation and/or a nice 'gameboy' type hand-held interface. Actually, I think a ppilot makes an excellent interface. It's already got IR built in.
Metallica is not about to cut themselves from the apron-strings that have kept them well-fed until now, and the record industry execs will spend every spare minute convincing them and other cash-cows that the Threat is real and deadly.
As the paradigm shifts, there is pain and much scrambling for high ground. These people are acting in what they believe to be their best interests.
They're all still big enough and entrenched enough to believe that they can legislate the laws of physics in their favour.
God bless 'em for trying. Alas, 'twill avail them not. The Middle Man is in his death-throws already. Things will be getting very ugly from here on, and then it will be over, and Something New (better? who can say?) will have sprung up.
It's funny, the idea of "putting Napster out of business". It's too late. MSWord is a 'word-proccessor', and so is Corel and vi. The idea of a word-proccessor is established now and will never die. Napster is the first (or most successful manifestation) of a new idea that will become every bit as ubiquitious as the idea of the word-proccessor.
Killing Napster would be a brief and hollow victory.
What if, instead of simply stealing your car, someone came by and copied it, driving away in an exact replica of your car, but leaving the original intact and unchanged? It may change your answer a lot or not at all, but the question must phrased correctly.
There's something about British Pop Culture (writing, music, whatever) that keeps it, if not quite a step ahead, certainly a step away from the rest of Western pop culture. Is it the 'island mentality'? The 'stiff upper lip'? Do you swap anecdotes, wives and pints of Guinness with others of your ilk, Gaiman, Pratchet, the cast of Monty Python and Robert Smith? What is it with you guys? Where does it come from and where is it going? How can you all be so damn British all the time?
I really don't envy the man. Apparently he'd very much like out of the CoS, but he's such a cash-cow for them that they won't let him go without causing all sorts of trouble for the man, threatening family, whatever.
I feel for the man, but he made his bed, so he can lie in it and all that.
As much as many of us (often understandably) like to refer to as 'just another cult', there is a difference. Religions generally have open membership, low and strictly voluntary donations and are not generally secretive or exclusive as to who can or cannot join. Cults are usually centered around a still living or recently deceased charismatic figure, have very strict rules for membership, high 'donation' requirements and are generally very secretive (paranoid). Off-shoots from mainstream religions are not neccessarily cults either. The 'Jews for Jesus' are a sect of Judaism, while the 'Knights Templar' were (are?) a sect of Catholocism/Christianity. Tibetan Budhism, while centered around the charismatic figure of the Dalai Lama, still qualifies as a religion, because membership is open, donations are low and they are not very secretive. You could also say that the Dalai Lama represents the most recent human incarnation of 'God', much like Jesus represented God on Earth for Christians. The Tibetans just get a new one every 60 years or so, wheras the Christians are still waiting;) The 'Catholic' kooks in Africa that killed themselves/each other are (were) a cult and not a sect. Borrowing names/terminology from other religions does not immediately qualify any old group-o-kooks as a sect. Keep those Grits-a-pourin':):):) -kent
Slashdot Mirror
While I appreciate the attempt, is this post really funny? Or are you just rewarding the fact that it's writer is trying to be funny?
Moderation in all things...
Our ability to modify ourselves through intelligent analysis of ourselves and our environment is really just another mutation. Same as big boobs or a 3rd leg.
We've been close to our present level of sophistication for what, 2-3,000 years? More maybe? Still just a blink of an eye in terms of the long haul. The last 200 years have seen what looks to be a boiling point of sorts in terms of our ability to modify ourselves and our environment. To what end? Who knows?
The jury's still out - only Time will tell if this mutation stays or goes!
Why are you watching 'The Charts' in the first place?
If you don't like ants, don't stare at ant-hills.
This is what I find disturbing about music today. It is basically mass produced "fast food" music. It really doesn't take anyone special to
perform it, just a good set of pipes and some nice T&A.
ANY art that can be profitable WILL be relegated to the realm of fast food. Simple fact of life.
Hell, food itself has been relegated to the realm of fast food!
That's what makes Mom's home-cookin' or Chef Nagato's sushi so worthwhile!
Or bands like Nirvana or the Smashing Pumpkins.
Doesn't stop me from choking down a little Burger-Doodle now and then. If you consistently avoid Burger-Doodle, well, you can pat yourself on the back, but they're not going out of business any time soon.
The same technology that gives us Slashdot has also given us MIDI, cheesy synthesiser sounds, hard-disk recording and Digital Voice Pitch Correction, all of which have been put to blazingly creative as well as cunningly nefarious uses.
Mope if you must, but some performers don't want your respect, they just want the money. If they can work the system in their favor and get it, I say more power to 'em.
I'm sorry
Don't be.
So fucking WHAT if she can "sing and dance"?
So fucking what if you can code in Perl? (Just supposing 'you' as a prototypical Slashdot reader can, for dialog's sake.) Is your 'striving' to learn Perl on your Dad's computer somehow more noble and respectable than Britney's learning to dance and sing?
Give me a good choreographer and I can do the same thing.
That I'd LOVE to see!
Remember Tifanny? Or Debbie Gibson? How about Samantha Fox? And where are they today? How have they recently made your life better?
Not every successful performer creates a lasting legacy, if that's what you're getting at, and there's no rulebook saying they have to. Part of successful Entertainment is giving the People what they want, when they want it. Silly question.
She is yet another bubble-gum pop-star that will be forgotten as soon as her tits start to sag.
That's her problem and her responsibility that she'll have to face it the same way the rest of us do . Ever heard the term 'dead wood' in the corporate realm? Doesn't matter what you do or for whom, sooner or later your tit's will sag too. Worry about your own ass, and she'll worry about hers (while the rest of us admire it from afar;)
Examples abound of pretty-girls that have two, three hits and are tossed aside by the next new
thing
Examples also abound of software developers, heavy-metal guitar-players and vaccuum(sp?) sales-men who are also tossed aside by the next new thing. Are you bitter of these folks too when they're successful? What's your point?
You've been sold an odorous pile of shit, pal, no matter how fuckable it looks.
She's a smart kid thriving in a high-pressure, high-profile job, and I respect that. End of story. I haven't 'bought' anything.
Spears is the music equivalent of America's Funniest Home Videos: occasionally humorous, but ultimately forgettable
That's an insightful bit of music criticism, but I'm not sure that it's of any consequence.
Looking forward to seeing your dance number!
Courtney hit on a novel concept, intentionally or otherwise, when she mentions pop-musicians playing for tips.
I think in the future we'll be seeing a lot of high-quality free mp3's and virtual "tip jars" for bands where you can click to send some small (but oh so significant) change to the artist(s) whose music you've just snagged.
It'll be TOTALLY voluntary and EXTREMELY profitable for the bands who please their audience.
The biggest obstacle is an easy and secure way for listeners to proffer real cash credit in minute amounts without always having to have a credit card number handy. Now that online banking is becoming more common, the only remaining obstacle is a distribution model that helps listeners separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of mounds of online music, much of which is of low grade and inspiration.
The profitable sites (Mp3) of the future will be the ones that provide filtering via ratings and such in an agreeable and reliable manner, rather than the ones that simply host mounds of mp3 material.
-kent
Oh, that's right. I forgot.
Thanks!
It's funny, but understandable that you would would so eagarly write-off Britney Spears as a talentless bimbo, and recieve lots of support (moderation points) from other less-than-very-thoughtfull slashdotters.
The girl can dance and the girl can sing, both with confidence and style well beyond her years. Is she and her act completely self-made from the ground-up? Hell no, but it takes skill, determination and, yes, Talent to hang on to and thrive amongst the opportunities she has been given. It's easy to look at those opportunities and say that, given the same, anyone could be a Britney Spears. Wrong-o pal! Star-struck upper-middle-class parents around the world funnel millions into little darlings with lot's of potential who end up going to college instead of Hollywood, because they don't have the extra ingredients (and luck of course) to capitalize on the opportunities as they arise.
I'm not a fan of Britney's music/product, but she totally kicks ass in her own way, and for that I congratulate her.
SAlbini's article is and was great, but it's on the shelf, and has hence lost it's impact. Ms. Love expertly and enthusiastically re-stated much of what SAlbini said with a fresh and updated perspective. She did all that and got it smack in the Public Eye. Piece-o-work, I say.
It sorely needed doing, and she did it BRILLIANTLY!
To mean-spiritedly write off her achievement as "ripping-off Steve Albini" is an act of annoying, whining Ignorance.
I have NO DOUBT that SAlbini was the first to applaud her effort.
-kent
Maybe a large artificial satellite to re-heat the core via tidal-flexing.
Or maybe just pirate Mars bit by bit as land-fill for our Dyson spheres!
Beautiful movie. Can say no more than that. Should be shown in every middle/high school history class!
Totoro overwhelms with it quiet mystery, pervasive and relentless charm and moments of pure zen. See it with the original Japanese dialog first. I don't know if there's a sub-titled version out, but you HAVE to hear the original sound, exactly as Miyazaki intended. I have a copy that is Japanese, no subtitles. I can't understand most of the dialog, but the visual story-telling is crystal clear. I've since seen the American release to fill in the gaps. The American version is good, but misses the mark repeatedly in terms of subtlety and the Japanese mind-set. Not to mention the horrible packaging of the American version, with that hideous 3d airbrush shadow effect you see on all the cereal-box characters these days!
Laputa has much of the same with a greater emphasis on movement and change. When they first land on the island, the sense of age and quiet decrepitude is jaw-dropping. The moss-covered guardian handing them a flower...(sigh). I wish they could stretch that part out longer, and explore the island further before moving on with the story.
Miyazaki is a true Master in every sense of the word!
Gambatte Miyazaki san!
This mob rule mentality that has been adopted by many here is complete bullshit.
Actually, it's not. The Watts riots are a lousy analogy, unless the looters ran around 'copying' TV sets and home appliances without so much as tapping on a window or rattling a lock.
The Boston Tea Party, while not perfect, is a much better analogy.
But there needs to be a way for people to opt-out.
Fair enough. Good luck.
Bottom Line: Metallica and EVERY OTHER BAND distributed on Napster should be forced to PAY Napster for the free exposure and mind-share their service has provided. The book in you mail-slot will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I'd love to see BeOS skyrocket into common public use, but there's no software out yet to make it worthwhile. It's a cruel catch-22 (which comes first) but Mac is already there with all the apps people want. BeOS has some great design elements and features, but to what end?
That's what I never understood about BeOS, charging $100 for an OS that you can't really use for anything 'cept browsing the web to see if anything *really* useful has come out yet!
Because it comes with an automatic cup-holder pre-installed.
And have it melt-down in the summer? Nah. The CD-mp3 player is the best and cheapest way to go by far. If you're talking on-board navigation and all that, then your 486 'slap together' idea is more-or-less valid but still more of a pain than it's worth. A wave of these players is just over the horizon. Very soon you'll be able to buy a cheapo discman-mp3 at KMart for $49.
The on-board computer idea is truly 'leet' beyond all comprehension, 'specially with speech-activation and/or a nice 'gameboy' type hand-held interface. Actually, I think a ppilot makes an excellent interface. It's already got IR built in.
Metallica is not about to cut themselves from the apron-strings that have kept them well-fed until now, and the record industry execs will spend every spare minute convincing them and other cash-cows that the Threat is real and deadly.
As the paradigm shifts, there is pain and much scrambling for high ground. These people are acting in what they believe to be their best interests.
They're all still big enough and entrenched enough to believe that they can legislate the laws of physics in their favour.
God bless 'em for trying. Alas, 'twill avail them not. The Middle Man is in his death-throws already. Things will be getting very ugly from here on, and then it will be over, and Something New (better? who can say?) will have sprung up.
Nothing lasts forever. Absofuckinglutely NOTHING.
It's funny, the idea of "putting Napster out of business". It's too late. MSWord is a 'word-proccessor', and so is Corel and vi. The idea of a word-proccessor is established now and will never die. Napster is the first (or most successful manifestation) of a new idea that will become every bit as ubiquitious as the idea of the word-proccessor.
Killing Napster would be a brief and hollow victory.
Oh well!
What if, instead of simply stealing your car, someone came by and copied it, driving away in an exact replica of your car, but leaving the original intact and unchanged? It may change your answer a lot or not at all, but the question must phrased correctly.
There's something about British Pop Culture (writing, music, whatever) that keeps it, if not quite a step ahead, certainly a step away from the rest of Western pop culture. Is it the 'island mentality'? The 'stiff upper lip'? Do you swap anecdotes, wives and pints of Guinness with others of your ilk, Gaiman, Pratchet, the cast of Monty Python and Robert Smith? What is it with you guys? Where does it come from and where is it going? How can you all be so damn British all the time?
In any case, keep it up!
'Cause if they do, it aint Newtonian.
The sound-development crew for this game should have an easy time of it!
This Republican bows deeply and with great humility to your post. Superb!
Supermarionation!
I really don't envy the man. Apparently he'd very much like out of the CoS, but he's such a cash-cow for them that they won't let him go without causing all sorts of trouble for the man, threatening family, whatever.
I feel for the man, but he made his bed, so he can lie in it and all that.
As much as many of us (often understandably) like to refer to as 'just another cult', there is a difference. Religions generally have open membership, low and strictly voluntary donations and are not generally secretive or exclusive as to who can or cannot join. Cults are usually centered around a still living or recently deceased charismatic figure, have very strict rules for membership, high 'donation' requirements and are generally very secretive (paranoid). Off-shoots from mainstream religions are not neccessarily cults either. The 'Jews for Jesus' are a sect of Judaism, while the 'Knights Templar' were (are?) a sect of Catholocism/Christianity. Tibetan Budhism, while centered around the charismatic figure of the Dalai Lama, still qualifies as a religion, because membership is open, donations are low and they are not very secretive. You could also say that the Dalai Lama represents the most recent human incarnation of 'God', much like Jesus represented God on Earth for Christians. The Tibetans just get a new one every 60 years or so, wheras the Christians are still waiting ;) The 'Catholic' kooks in Africa that killed themselves/each other are (were) a cult and not a sect. Borrowing names/terminology from other religions does not immediately qualify any old group-o-kooks as a sect. Keep those Grits-a-pourin' :) :) :) -kent
MainActor, a commercial app runs on Linux too. Free download of fully working app.