>Most of us have been saying for years that we'd have a breakout album from an unknown without the help of an record industry label
Does the phrase Dave Mathiews Band ring a bell? Old enough to remember NWA? (first record) Drunk enough to know Black 47? All bands that got deals later.
Pulling over 260k people. To a show? No, to a webcast.
>her live audiences usually total about 200 when she plays in clubs around Britain.
--
>That sounds like they're either economically viable or will be real soon now using an all-Internet business model... this is proof of concept. They've managed the "fastest selling debut album of all time".
You RTFA - that's the Arctic Monkeys, who are from the same general part of the world and released their music off a myspace page. This article wasn't about the Arctic Monkeys. There's a band that predates the Arctic Monkeys with the successful myspace release (can't remember the story - hooked up with Fallout Boy)
>If you can't figure out why that's news... you must be new here.
Well I did actually read the article so I have some catching up to do.
While I'm not sure why this is news and sort of hope she paid someone for the plug -
In meatspace there is the element of risk. Performance comes in real time like sports. If you blow it in the first 10 minutes, you have 45 to get them back. The audience feels the risk and likes it. This is why playing to a prerecorded track inevitably is duller - I call it the hidden hand of the master. They want to see you on a limb, if they know the limb can break, even better.
This is no different than posting to youtube and linking to your myspace page except somehow it made/.
Emisions I'm curious about but I like this for the 'garage tech' media-bubble angle. It's got everything:
Dropout students go straight A Bad guys (big oil) Philly (tenuous Rocky ref: cue: Gonna Drive Now)
Hoping for the all-in-one grease/solar/bio/gas-if-need-be transition vehicle (from a Southern California garage most likely) but for timely media hype this story is good; get kids working on something besides beats. Not that big oil has anything to worry about - nothing ever gets started in a garage... hold on while I turn down iTunes...
Will Durant (I think) suggested civilization began when, instead of eating our vanquished enemy, we enslaved him. AANAAnthropologist but what are the preditors back before agriculture? My guess, the big cats. My other guess, tribalism was probably based on banding together for protection against the really big hungry guy - who was a fellow early human.
"I've chosen five to advertise the very best places to move to if we had to, or to point the telescope at," she told the BBC.
An open call for science fiction references if there ever was one.
Her criteria include a temperate zone that can support copious amounts of liquid water. If we're moving, I agree. There are chemical reasons we think life would be predisposed toward water but there could be different biochemistries. Any biochemists out there feel free to disagree and/or expound.
This story is also a good test of the slashdot equivalent of Godwin's law. How long until the usual sectarian debates spring up (and I don't mean MS)
I used to call it drowning in the net. For news junkies CNN was a kick but the web is like crack. The problem is filtering and/or how to monetize (love that buzzword) being an editor. I remember when Wolfram was releasing his 'brand new theory of... huh?... cellular automata' as a big book complete with media bubble he mentioned why it had taken him so long. He could find just about any scientific paper on the net and that would lead to another paper and another and pretty soon it's another month gone by.
Blogging (don't love that buzzword) is the start of a solution. Information filtering through editorial viewpoints. Let a thousand slashdots bloom.
(I didn't RTFA but) if they're talking about obsessive behaviour then web surfing is the effect not the cause. They could be: Channel surfing / renting (porn/action/...)videos / reading 40 newspapers a day / scratching their arm until they bleed.
After the recent uproar about the Dutch cartoons what problems do you forsee with articles about 'blasphemous' content, information or ideas? Besides, in the case of religion, your own safety, in situations where two or more sides have conflicting 'narratives' (see: Israel / Palestine for one), does Wikipedia have plans - or, to you, an obligation - to present, and probably have to lock the pages of, all or some sides of the story. Would you lock for instance a page presenting current Iranian theories (propaganda - take your pick) encompassing Holocaust denial to prevent 'vandalism'.
Given inevitable attempts at 'big lie' historical revisionism - repeat the lie over and over again - does the ability to lock a Wikipedia page impose a level of responsibility? If your editors have decided that figures have been falsified in an effort to 'prove' a point and/or spread Fear Uncertainty Doupt, do you have the moral right and or obligation to point this out and lock or unlock the page?
In a worst case scenario, do you end up with Winston's job (1984)?
Like the text ads and adsense on Google I would assume this was Craig's plan all along. Newspaper classifieds are going the way of the horse and buggy anyway. As soon as the routing, billing and favored content issues are sorted out we'll start to see the end of free email. A penny a message eliminates spam but doesn't slow me down.
OT somewhat: To me, the internet has so far destroyed more 'wealth' than it created. What was once the music business is losing the 'business' part (probably going to improve the music). Corporations that were worth $ because of song ownership / publishing catalogs are now involved in a market driven con game to claim they're still worth anything at all. Magazines that used to employ writers, designers, editors, mail room clerks are watching their industry go away, and some covering their own demise. The writers end up blogging where Googles current ad-revenue illusion can make them a couple of $$ a day. When the fraudulent aspect of click throughs becomes more evident, that revenue stream will ride off into the sunset.
Wikipedia is spectacular if you want to play tourist in the hard sciences. Curious about Meiosis? (insert joke) - Wondering what the hell feshbach resonance is?
Call me boring, but this is more important and lasting than some idiot... I mean elected rep... having an edit war with some other idiot over their 'legacy'. 'Liberals' Vs 'Conservatives' is next centurys' trivia. Frankly the future will be more worried about 20th century pop charts than who took money for what from whom during the reign of George III.
Google + Wikipedia on a cell phone is like handing me a crack pipe.
As someone who flies a lot, the real problem as I've seen it is underpaid / undertrained staff who all of a sudden have authority and decide randomly to ruin people's days just to pass the time.
From (pre 9/11) "you can't buy that ticket for cash, it's against the law." "How about my credit card." "No." - so I buy the ticket over the phone to ruin her day -
To walking on a airplane with a bag of wires and batteries (audio gear) while they are practically strip searching the elderly man in front of me. On the plane I realized I had wire cutters and screwdrivers (long day) none of which was noticed while grandpa had his shorts gone through.
As a (lefty) aside, if you feel this won't be abused, remember some kids kept Ted Kennedy off the same plane he had been taking from DC to Boston for a few days. Seems the name 'Ted Kennedy' had ended up on a DHS list.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Ike
Hendrix came along at the right time in the curve (also, speaking as a long time professional guitar player, he had the... uh... genius to back it up (and really big hands)).
The technology of the solid body electric guitar interfacing with the tube amplifier had reached a level where you (he) could lean on the vibrato arm and stay in tune (3rd Stone), the tubes were together enough to control feedback for long periods of time without the amplifier blowing out, PA systems had recently reached a point where you could play that loud and sing on top of the amps. Add to this a technological arms race going on with tape bandwidth and multitrack fueled by an enormous amount of money flowing into the music business. Read the studio logs, he gets his hands on the latest gear as it arrives. For the rest of the century devices are created that allow any kid in a garage to appx the amp sounds, tuners to take the first two years off of waiting to play out.
A better right place right time example from 60s pop music is Dylan (because he doesn't require the sheer mysterious hand-tone and control that Hendrix does). He arrives right as old school protest folk and Ginsberg are colliding, gets a head of steam and invents a language - having invented it his accent is usually more perfect than most. He's also granted unlimited carte blanc by the 'Zeigeist' to go where ever his beat poetry leads him, including rock and roll.
I can't speak for the science guys as I'm not qualified (though that statement doesn't make much sense on/.) but across musical history you see 'genius' arriving when the technology and or culture move (I'm resisting the phrase 'paradigm shift' for semantic reasons). The first ones to speak the knew language get to invent it, and the rest sit around analyzing Bach / Beethoven / Beatles / Bird et al. Your statement about > quiet, reserved, socially inept, introverts.
Is probably only partially true. Hendrix was definitely wierd by the standards of his time, but he wasn't socially inept.
> im fucking 16, and public school
Keep your head up. Highschool sucks. Learn shit. Join a band (or whatever you kids are calling it) and hit on chicks. It gets better at 18 (or so they say)
IMNAProfessional IT guy but... My prediction is more and more companies will physically segregate their networks, from the interweb and from their internal systems. Of course the Peter Principle implies that a lot of stupid stuff will happen before during and after.
Hoover routinely bugged anyone he felt like starting in the 50s. This allowed him to gain enough information to blackmail anyone he needed to in the Federal Government. He had privately split the difference between wiretapping and bugging and decided he had carte blanc.
He did it by screaming Communist all the time.
If you want to search this info, use Google for obvious reasons. Interesting to note that on Sept 10 2001 Ashcroft was about to begin his war on porn.
> This administration has liberated people from the evil clutches of dictators and tyrants in Iraq and Afghanistan
Dictators and tyrants that were clients of the people in this administration until they fell out. Google up the picture Rumsfield delivering Anthrax to Hussein. (but do it from a cafe as they're after those logs)
> thwarted further 9/11 style attacks on the homeland,
Sure were a lot of attacks in the 90s. One, if I recall. Same buildings.
> Those Clinton years sure were hard times.
> Compared to the last two Presidential Administrations, this has been quite a success.
Mabey if you're in the Iranian military it has been. If not... See: Federal defecit 2001 and subtract Federal defecit 2005. Wow.
Passing the Turing test is one thing...
Would we recognize a self aware computing grid? (insert - Skylab for the kids and Collosus for the ex-kids - ref here)
Does RNA 'think' it's (we are) still living in RNA world? And, if it does, is it wrong? One last ref:
I saw the story and knew that the comments would be a (by now standard) flame war over ID.
What about the bees, people? I know TFA basically had no info beyond the ID flamebait, and google news doesn't reveal much - is there someone on slashdot who:
Has a subscription to PNAS?
and/or has enough fluid mechanics / biophysics to chime in
can resist the tug of the flamewar?
Now I'm thinking - dummy up a story like: George Bush suggests ID be taught using Microsoft Software and set some sort of comments record.
The main problem I have with the big sites is monitor burnout. My eyes get tired of the computer screen after... hours a day. No amount of responsible/innovative layout is going to solve that. And blinking click-me animations are enough to make you turn on Flash block.
I find some blog sites interesting but blogging software limits the layout - and the bloggers I've tried to work with
1) resent the fact they aren't setting type with their fingers,
2) fear html or changing anything because 2a) they won't learn. 2b) they'll be at the mercy of their tech support,
3) think I/we/they should stop complaining.
The web is different. How does the cliche go: New wine, old bottles (?)
Newspapers are a passive medium -> they write, we read.
The web is an active medium -> we write, we link, we comment. Big news organizations try to monetize the only way they know how - sell it and sell ad space.
That said I think more should be done with rollover text. Roll over headline and summary text appears in summary window. Click and article comes in. Click again and the javascript breaks...
> Piracy makes it harder to have artists like Dolby stay in the music industry.
Learn to play live or try your hand at TV commercials. There's less money around for Dolby, but the gear's now cheap enough for and endless stream of Dolbys (see: Reason)
One way China is ahead of the game is their artists / music industry have given up on CD sales revenue. The artist makes money, or tries to, by selling concert tickets and with marketing tie-ins. In India bootlegs are available the day they are released. It won't come as much of a suprise to \.ers that, as the US moves toward this model, it is corporate profits and support staff who seem to be taking the heat / losing the livelyhood.
As a career sideman, I feel no pain for the old industry passing (especially the lawyers), but the job of recording engineer is going the way of the hatmaker. Actually that analogy breaks down: The job of recording artist and recording engineer are being merged and will not pay very well. There used to be more work for painters, too.
OT: There's a bigger issue here about labor and specialization - the best singer I've ever knew (hits in the 60s) was taking an occasional plumbing job in the 80s and wasn't bitter: The way he put it was: $30 an hour. This while commanding $2-$4k for 20 - 40 oldies shows a year. I didn't quit playing during the 90s net boom and still work a lot now. I also stay buzzword compliant - this year: AJAX(ugh) and psych-folk(cool).
Seriously(?), is this one step closer to the 'smart pebbles' of 'star wars'? - Reagan's not Lucas's. Not passing any ideological judgement on the incoming tide of technology (like it or not, here it comes...), but automated space replication would sure heat up the coming military space race in a higher ground sort of way.
Hold on - nuclear bombs are tricky machines designed to explode. U235 isn't in itself evil, but arranging it around some Polonium near some 2H creates an evil device.
Nuclear power isn't in itself evil. Actually a relatively clean source of energy. Here in the US, we'll end up letting FEMA administer the sites for the great 'how's my hair?' quote during Chernobyl II / Indian Point staring some hack fundraiser.
Obsessive behaviour isn't always 'bad'. A great(?) comedian once said: "I'm manic depressive. I could take drugs for it but that's where the work comes from." Issac Newton was a pretty strange guy by the standards of his and our times. I think it was Einstein who said that Newtons' genius was the ability to think about only one thing for days.
John Coltrane replace drug addiction with practicing all day, every day. Mentally healthy? You make the call. I'm personally addicted to wikipedia. Is it ruining my life? Ask me in a while (I'm editing right now;-)
Slashdot Mirror
>Most of us have been saying for years that we'd have a breakout album from an unknown without the help of an record industry label
Does the phrase Dave Mathiews Band ring a bell? Old enough to remember NWA? (first record) Drunk enough to know Black 47? All bands that got deals later.
Pulling over 260k people. To a show? No, to a webcast.
>her live audiences usually total about 200 when she plays in clubs around Britain.
--
>That sounds like they're either economically viable or will be real soon now using an all-Internet business model... this is proof of concept. They've managed the "fastest selling debut album of all time".
You RTFA - that's the Arctic Monkeys, who are from the same general part of the world and released their music off a myspace page. This article wasn't about the Arctic Monkeys. There's a band that predates the Arctic Monkeys with the successful myspace release (can't remember the story - hooked up with Fallout Boy)
>If you can't figure out why that's news... you must be new here.
Well I did actually read the article so I have some catching up to do.
While I'm not sure why this is news and sort of hope she paid someone for the plug -
/.
In meatspace there is the element of risk. Performance comes in real time like sports. If you blow it in the first 10 minutes, you have 45 to get them back. The audience feels the risk and likes it. This is why playing to a prerecorded track inevitably is duller - I call it the hidden hand of the master. They want to see you on a limb, if they know the limb can break, even better.
This is no different than posting to youtube and linking to your myspace page except somehow it made
Emisions I'm curious about but I like this for the 'garage tech' media-bubble angle. It's got everything:
... hold on while I turn down iTunes ...
Dropout students go straight A
Bad guys (big oil)
Philly (tenuous Rocky ref: cue: Gonna Drive Now)
Hoping for the all-in-one grease/solar/bio/gas-if-need-be transition vehicle (from a Southern California garage most likely) but for timely media hype this story is good; get kids working on something besides beats. Not that big oil has anything to worry about - nothing ever gets started in a garage
Will Durant (I think) suggested civilization began when, instead of eating our vanquished enemy, we enslaved him. AANAAnthropologist but what are the preditors back before agriculture? My guess, the big cats. My other guess, tribalism was probably based on banding together for protection against the really big hungry guy - who was a fellow early human.
At what point does BUSS technology break down? Figured this was where to ask.
"I've chosen five to advertise the very best places to move to if we had to, or to point the telescope at," she told the BBC.
An open call for science fiction references if there ever was one.
Her criteria include a temperate zone that can support copious amounts of liquid water. If we're moving, I agree. There are chemical reasons we think life would be predisposed toward water but there could be different biochemistries. Any biochemists out there feel free to disagree and/or expound.
This story is also a good test of the slashdot equivalent of Godwin's law. How long until the usual sectarian debates spring up (and I don't mean MS)
I used to call it drowning in the net. For news junkies CNN was a kick but the web is like crack. The problem is filtering and/or how to monetize (love that buzzword) being an editor. I remember when Wolfram was releasing his 'brand new theory of ... huh? ... cellular automata' as a big book complete with media bubble he mentioned why it had taken him so long. He could find just about any scientific paper on the net and that would lead to another paper and another and pretty soon it's another month gone by.
Blogging (don't love that buzzword) is the start of a solution. Information filtering through editorial viewpoints. Let a thousand slashdots bloom.
(I didn't RTFA but) if they're talking about obsessive behaviour then web surfing is the effect not the cause. They could be: Channel surfing / renting (porn/action/...)videos / reading 40 newspapers a day / scratching their arm until they bleed.
After the recent uproar about the Dutch cartoons what problems do you forsee with articles about 'blasphemous' content, information or ideas? Besides, in the case of religion, your own safety, in situations where two or more sides have conflicting 'narratives' (see: Israel / Palestine for one), does Wikipedia have plans - or, to you, an obligation - to present, and probably have to lock the pages of, all or some sides of the story. Would you lock for instance a page presenting current Iranian theories (propaganda - take your pick) encompassing Holocaust denial to prevent 'vandalism'.
Given inevitable attempts at 'big lie' historical revisionism - repeat the lie over and over again - does the ability to lock a Wikipedia page impose a level of responsibility? If your editors have decided that figures have been falsified in an effort to 'prove' a point and/or spread Fear Uncertainty Doupt, do you have the moral right and or obligation to point this out and lock or unlock the page?
In a worst case scenario, do you end up with Winston's job (1984)?
Like the text ads and adsense on Google I would assume this was Craig's plan all along. Newspaper classifieds are going the way of the horse and buggy anyway. As soon as the routing, billing and favored content issues are sorted out we'll start to see the end of free email. A penny a message eliminates spam but doesn't slow me down.
OT somewhat: To me, the internet has so far destroyed more 'wealth' than it created. What was once the music business is losing the 'business' part (probably going to improve the music). Corporations that were worth $ because of song ownership / publishing catalogs are now involved in a market driven con game to claim they're still worth anything at all. Magazines that used to employ writers, designers, editors, mail room clerks are watching their industry go away, and some covering their own demise. The writers end up blogging where Googles current ad-revenue illusion can make them a couple of $$ a day. When the fraudulent aspect of click throughs becomes more evident, that revenue stream will ride off into the sunset.
Wikipedia is spectacular if you want to play tourist in the hard sciences. Curious about Meiosis? (insert joke) - Wondering what the hell feshbach resonance is?
... I mean elected rep ... having an edit war with some other idiot over their 'legacy'. 'Liberals' Vs 'Conservatives' is next centurys' trivia. Frankly the future will be more worried about 20th century pop charts than who took money for what from whom during the reign of George III.
Call me boring, but this is more important and lasting than some idiot
Google + Wikipedia on a cell phone is like handing me a crack pipe.
As someone who flies a lot, the real problem as I've seen it is underpaid / undertrained staff who all of a sudden have authority and decide randomly to ruin people's days just to pass the time.
From (pre 9/11) "you can't buy that ticket for cash, it's against the law." "How about my credit card." "No." - so I buy the ticket over the phone to ruin her day -
To walking on a airplane with a bag of wires and batteries (audio gear) while they are practically strip searching the elderly man in front of me. On the plane I realized I had wire cutters and screwdrivers (long day) none of which was noticed while grandpa had his shorts gone through.
As a (lefty) aside, if you feel this won't be abused, remember some kids kept Ted Kennedy off the same plane he had been taking from DC to Boston for a few days. Seems the name 'Ted Kennedy' had ended up on a DHS list.
- Randolph Bourn 1918
"Gotta nuke someone." - Nelson Muntz
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Ike
Hendrix came along at the right time in the curve (also, speaking as a long time professional guitar player, he had the ... uh ... genius to back it up (and really big hands)).
/.) but across musical history you see 'genius' arriving when the technology and or culture move (I'm resisting the phrase 'paradigm shift' for semantic reasons). The first ones to speak the knew language get to invent it, and the rest sit around analyzing Bach / Beethoven / Beatles / Bird et al.
The technology of the solid body electric guitar interfacing with the tube amplifier had reached a level where you (he) could lean on the vibrato arm and stay in tune (3rd Stone), the tubes were together enough to control feedback for long periods of time without the amplifier blowing out, PA systems had recently reached a point where you could play that loud and sing on top of the amps. Add to this a technological arms race going on with tape bandwidth and multitrack fueled by an enormous amount of money flowing into the music business. Read the studio logs, he gets his hands on the latest gear as it arrives. For the rest of the century devices are created that allow any kid in a garage to appx the amp sounds, tuners to take the first two years off of waiting to play out.
A better right place right time example from 60s pop music is Dylan (because he doesn't require the sheer mysterious hand-tone and control that Hendrix does). He arrives right as old school protest folk and Ginsberg are colliding, gets a head of steam and invents a language - having invented it his accent is usually more perfect than most. He's also granted unlimited carte blanc by the 'Zeigeist' to go where ever his beat poetry leads him, including rock and roll.
I can't speak for the science guys as I'm not qualified (though that statement doesn't make much sense on
Your statement about
> quiet, reserved, socially inept, introverts.
Is probably only partially true. Hendrix was definitely wierd by the standards of his time, but he wasn't socially inept.
> im fucking 16, and public school
Keep your head up. Highschool sucks. Learn shit. Join a band (or whatever you kids are calling it) and hit on chicks. It gets better at 18 (or so they say)
IMNAProfessional IT guy but ... My prediction is more and more companies will physically segregate their networks, from the interweb and from their internal systems. Of course the Peter Principle implies that a lot of stupid stuff will happen before during and after.
Hoover routinely bugged anyone he felt like starting in the 50s. This allowed him to gain enough information to blackmail anyone he needed to in the Federal Government. He had privately split the difference between wiretapping and bugging and decided he had carte blanc.
He did it by screaming Communist all the time.
If you want to search this info, use Google for obvious reasons. Interesting to note that on Sept 10 2001 Ashcroft was about to begin his war on porn.
> This administration has liberated people from the evil clutches of dictators and tyrants in Iraq and Afghanistan
...
Dictators and tyrants that were clients of the people in this administration until they fell out. Google up the picture Rumsfield delivering Anthrax to Hussein. (but do it from a cafe as they're after those logs)
> thwarted further 9/11 style attacks on the homeland,
Sure were a lot of attacks in the 90s. One, if I recall. Same buildings.
> Those Clinton years sure were hard times.
> Compared to the last two Presidential Administrations, this has been quite a success.
Mabey if you're in the Iranian military it has been. If not
See: Federal defecit 2001 and subtract Federal defecit 2005. Wow.
Or: Change the goal posts again.
Passing the Turing test is one thing ...
Would we recognize a self aware computing grid? (insert - Skylab for the kids and Collosus for the ex-kids - ref here)
Does RNA 'think' it's (we are) still living in RNA world? And, if it does, is it wrong?
One last ref:
I have no stock and I must code.
I saw the story and knew that the comments would be a (by now standard) flame war over ID.
What about the bees, people? I know TFA basically had no info beyond the ID flamebait, and google news doesn't reveal much - is there someone on slashdot who:
Has a subscription to PNAS?
and/or has enough fluid mechanics / biophysics to chime in
can resist the tug of the flamewar?
Now I'm thinking - dummy up a story like: George Bush suggests ID be taught using Microsoft Software and set some sort of comments record.
Did I miss something or were there no dark skinned people interviewed? A couple of Indians, a 'dread', no Africans, African Americans etc ...
I'm not for quotas or anything but this seems strange.
Skip the: racist jokes, assumptions (I'm a multicolored freak==white hippy)
The main problem I have with the big sites is monitor burnout. My eyes get tired of the computer screen after ... hours a day. No amount of responsible/innovative layout is going to solve that. And blinking click-me animations are enough to make you turn on Flash block.
...
I find some blog sites interesting but blogging software limits the layout - and the bloggers I've tried to work with
1) resent the fact they aren't setting type with their fingers,
2) fear html or changing anything because 2a) they won't learn. 2b) they'll be at the mercy of their tech support,
3) think I/we/they should stop complaining.
The web is different. How does the cliche go: New wine, old bottles (?)
Newspapers are a passive medium -> they write, we read.
The web is an active medium -> we write, we link, we comment. Big news organizations try to monetize the only way they know how - sell it and sell ad space.
That said I think more should be done with rollover text. Roll over headline and summary text appears in summary window. Click and article comes in. Click again and the javascript breaks
> Piracy makes it harder to have artists like Dolby stay in the music industry.
Learn to play live or try your hand at TV commercials. There's less money around for Dolby, but the gear's now cheap enough for and endless stream of Dolbys (see: Reason)
One way China is ahead of the game is their artists / music industry have given up on CD sales revenue. The artist makes money, or tries to, by selling concert tickets and with marketing tie-ins. In India bootlegs are available the day they are released. It won't come as much of a suprise to \.ers that, as the US moves toward this model, it is corporate profits and support staff who seem to be taking the heat / losing the livelyhood.
As a career sideman, I feel no pain for the old industry passing (especially the lawyers), but the job of recording engineer is going the way of the hatmaker. Actually that analogy breaks down: The job of recording artist and recording engineer are being merged and will not pay very well. There used to be more work for painters, too.
OT: There's a bigger issue here about labor and specialization - the best singer I've ever knew (hits in the 60s) was taking an occasional plumbing job in the 80s and wasn't bitter: The way he put it was: $30 an hour. This while commanding $2-$4k for 20 - 40 oldies shows a year. I didn't quit playing during the 90s net boom and still work a lot now. I also stay buzzword compliant - this year: AJAX(ugh) and psych-folk(cool).
Fred Saberhagen has an uneasy feeling about this.
...), but automated space replication would sure heat up the coming military space race in a higher ground sort of way.
Seriously(?), is this one step closer to the 'smart pebbles' of 'star wars'? - Reagan's not Lucas's. Not passing any ideological judgement on the incoming tide of technology (like it or not, here it comes
Hold on - nuclear bombs are tricky machines designed to explode. U235 isn't in itself evil, but arranging it around some Polonium near some 2H creates an evil device.
Nuclear power isn't in itself evil. Actually a relatively clean source of energy. Here in the US, we'll end up letting FEMA administer the sites for the great 'how's my hair?' quote during Chernobyl II / Indian Point staring some hack fundraiser.
Obsessive behaviour isn't always 'bad'. A great(?) comedian once said: "I'm manic depressive. I could take drugs for it but that's where the work comes from." Issac Newton was a pretty strange guy by the standards of his and our times. I think it was Einstein who said that Newtons' genius was the ability to think about only one thing for days.
;-)
John Coltrane replace drug addiction with practicing all day, every day. Mentally healthy? You make the call. I'm personally addicted to wikipedia. Is it ruining my life? Ask me in a while (I'm editing right now