I think you picked the wrong albums to criticize, especially since those are two highly-acclaimed acts and Outkast has a batting record of nearly 1.000 with critics and audiences alike. The Notorious B.I.G. was only alive to release two extremely-popular albums.
Now Lou Reed and Devo have some great albums in their collection, but a lot of crap too. They might've been better choices for your argument.
Just because you don't like rap (I'm not a regular listener myself) doesn't mean that it's unsaleable crap. I think you need to do yourself a favor and check your personal tastes at the door when making a statement like that.
And a state government has the right to ban objectionable material under the First Amendment where? Outkast and Rage Against the Machine make artistically valid statements which may be offensive to some, but they are not obscene and the state has no right to block distribution of these CDs.
The good stuff (the best recent mainstream stuff I saw: Ben Folds Five, TWO Outkast discs (in fact their best two), Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and some good archive stuff by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, etc.) was only in small handfuls in comparision to the Whitney Houstons and Will Smiths in there.
Putting a handful of good stuff in with the crap does not take one's eye off the huge amount of crap in the pile.
I don't think the media sensationalized it one bit. If some truck driver dropped off 1,500 copies of the same CD of Whitney Houston singing the Star-Spangled Banner, wouldn't you be a little pissed too?
I bet you, if you searched for some of these CDs, you'd find that the bulk of them didn't actually hit the charts, which would be a boo-boo on the RIAA's part.
Let's see the proof in the pudding.
I can't even find the Martha Stewart one on allmusic.
The truth of the matter is, if iTunes has something I want, I'm going to buy it, quality be damned.
Recently, they released an EP by one of my favorite artists, Iron & Wine, that had at least one song that I had never heard from him before. I snapped it up quickly.
I wish iTunes would move closer to VBR, as I'm an --aps junkie, but I have a feeling they will eventually. There are times I will occasionally buy songs on the service because I could find them there more easily than using something else.
Side note: Getting Hymn to work on a Mac is a bitch.:(
Back when I followed emulation pretty heavily, you could just tell this undercurrent was coming back up. I picked up on this in 1996. It's 2004.
Something about newer games really smacks of "losing soul", because they take forever and a day to play.
Personally, i just got sick of following new games after a while, because they are too complex for playing for short periods of time. I admit it: I'm a grazer, and when I can choose from a thousand NES ROMs, I'll play nine or ten in a session.
I think you need to take a step back and think about this a second.
Pop has a pretty wide definition in some people's minds. He's not even thinking of the Billboard charts -- I take what he was implying as "anything but classical or traditional music". I'm betting that "pop" was a simple way for him to encapsulate ALL genres of music into his study. I have a wide definition of pop too -- just because I can see most music as one entity does not mean that I can't break down the lines, either.
I think you really underestimate what he's getting at.
As-is, I'm impressed by the study because it tweaks the nipples of anyone with a critical eye to music. I hope Pitchfork reviews these songs in their "We Are the World" section, because it'd be interesting to see how close they got. Strangely enough, I believe that Pitchfork is also located in Chicago.
The music itself reminded me of a lot of stuff that's been highly rated in the last few years on Pitchfork including The Postal Service (style-wise) and Wilco (production-wise; very untraditional techniques used). His voice reminds me of Sondre Lerche and Sufjan Stevens, two highly-rated artists on the site. At the same time, there's a couple of unique touches to it.
Who knows, maybe he'll earn a couple of fans out of it.
I appreciate the link to this, I'm about to try it out. I've been trying to decide for a while what sort of content management system I want to use for this online magazine I'm helping to redesign, and this looks like the ticket. Thanks.
Just think, if these stupid kids started beating the shit out of someone with actual power and authority, China might eventually have democracy.
This is how revolutions are started, people. One small seed, one small desire to look at something that you can't look at, and eventually the opressors start feeling the heat.
I did. There's no reason NOT to expect quality for an educational sub-project. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it has to look like crap. They are going to want to use it for a lot of things related to promotion of the sub-project. For all intensive purposes, YES, it is a logo. They want to identify their sub-project with it. Sounds like a logo to me. If MS were doing something similar for kids or education, it'd beat the snot out of this, hate to say it.
Sorry, MS and Apple have the bar up HERE for marketing.
A lot of open source stuff is down here. And they'll continue to be down here if the "aww jeez, it's good enough" crowd continues to chant their battle cry.
..but that's not saying much.
When OpenOffice tries to use this for ANYTHING, be it a black letterhead logo or a promotional bumper sticker, they're going to find out exactly why it sucks -- it's not reproducable at different sizes. That hair is just too goddamn busy (and since when do seagulls have hair anyway?).
They had a good idea when they considered having kids do it, but as these entries have shown, it was at best misguided.
I wish that, seriously, there was some standard open source graphic designer that projects like OO used. Because things like this emphasize the weaker points of Open Source -- sure, there are a lot of great programming minds out there, but they don't know anything about marketing or advertising, which companies like Apple and Microsoft will always beat them on because they can afford it.
I'm a student who has a lot of experience with graphic design (though mostly with print and newspaper design). I would gladly intern for something like this, and help with the visual look where I could. Open source has a lot of great ideas, but deserves better advertising.
As someone who's tried a multitude of interfaces in many respects, who went from being a Windows user most of his life to being a Machead, my big issue streams around this simple idea: Where's the originality?
Nearly everything shown didn't really impress me all that much from a visual level, and yeah, I clicked on every page. Sure, there were some cool things here and there, but I went into it thinking "what's the big deal?" especially since the initial post really played it up as Linux being THE desktop option.
Here's what I saw as lacking:
Visual appeal: Even Windows has improved on that in recent years, though it probably could have used a better default theme. As for KDE here, I really felt a lack of graphical consistency to bring everything together. It needs to be default in the desktop. Sure, the add-ons improved it greatly, but most users won't want to waste hours of time making their desktop look nice. Those people will just be like, "OH GOD THIS IS TOO MUCH! HOW DO I GET THIS STUPID THING OFF MY COMPUTER? I WANT WINDOWS WAAAAAAAAA"
A lot of the apps didn't look clean, a lot of the programs didn't look smooth. I was reading that there are anti-aliased fonts available for KDE in this thread -- how come they weren't used?
Simplicity: When I look at my OSX desktop, I know what's going on, right away, even though I have an Adium window, multiple apps loaded, a ton of icons on my desktop, and friggin' Konfabluator telling me that I have 38-degree temperatures outside.
Those KDE screenshots confused me, at least a little. There was too much going on -- too many elements to worry about. As someone who has been using computers for over a decade now, who knows how to crack open a Windows registry, that's a problem. If you bring it down to the basics, this wouldn't be a problem at all.
Too Windows-Like: This is the biggest problem with KDE, though admittedly a little less so with GNOME, at the moment. As opposed to finding its own way of doing things, it feels like there's just way too much of an effort to pick up on Windows users by making it familiar to them. That's not strategy, that's mimicry. Sure, there are only so many ways to skin a cat (as I'm sure the argument would come up in a reply to this), but as an example, look at OSX. They did something completly original with the OS, and it's STILL easy to use, it's STILL not confusing, and so on. Tacking vaguely Windows-like OS details to KDE is not the way to go. The way to go is having a huge group of people sit down (including USABILITY EXPERTS) and come up with something that comes across as killer app rather than also-ran.
I mean this as no criticism of what your direction has been up to this point. It's obvious that KDE, and Linux in general, has come a long way. However, this comment bothers me due to its immense blindness: "it's become clear that the Linux desktop has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives."
As someone who's pretty objective to Linux in general, and who potentially could've been convinced to switch, I wasn't impressed, and saw this comment more as blind support for the OS rather than an actual truth.
In closing, I'm your potential audience. Give me a reason to switch other than, "It's kinda like Windows."
I like iChat and all, but I really wish Apple would make more of an effort to enhance the general functionality of the program.
I like tabs. Tabs are such a great benefit when browsing the web. However, if I want to send instant messages to people, my only really option for tabbed IM conversations is Adium, which while it has benefits, doesn't have nearly all the features of a normal client, and suffers greatly because of it.
On top of this, I wish that iChat had Konfabulator-type features that would allow the buddy list to be docked on the main window. That's a pretty darn cool (though memory-intensive) feature that Adium has that would really add a lot of appeal to iChat for me. I don't wat to have to leave the window open all the time to find out who's online. It should just stay open in a way that is unobtrusive.
Apple strives on thinking different? Well, they should think less in the AOL mold of instant messaging, because there's some really cool stuff that some of the other indie IM clients have that I really want to see iChat implement.
I think AOL and Apple have seriously overestimated the market for video IM. Instant messaging should be free to use in the middle of the day, at night, when people are sleeping (because it makes a GREAT replacement for a phone) and any other time when a phone isn't very helpful to have around. Video offers few of those benefits to everyday life.
Small little details that make IMing easier, however, offer many.
As someone interested in graphic design along with general nerdery, I think the best example of a micropayment system is the stock photo site iStockPhoto. There seems to be a benefit to the whole idea of micropayments in that realm.. Why pay $50 for a photo when one that cost maybe a dollar works just as well?
It's a pretty smart system, and other companies seem to be building on its success (Adobe offers free iStockPhotos with registration of their Creative Suite).
I think there's a good product there, and I wouldn't mind to see that site succeed, if any.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you picked the wrong albums to criticize, especially since those are two highly-acclaimed acts and Outkast has a batting record of nearly 1.000 with critics and audiences alike. The Notorious B.I.G. was only alive to release two extremely-popular albums.
Now Lou Reed and Devo have some great albums in their collection, but a lot of crap too. They might've been better choices for your argument.
Just because you don't like rap (I'm not a regular listener myself) doesn't mean that it's unsaleable crap. I think you need to do yourself a favor and check your personal tastes at the door when making a statement like that.
And a state government has the right to ban objectionable material under the First Amendment where? Outkast and Rage Against the Machine make artistically valid statements which may be offensive to some, but they are not obscene and the state has no right to block distribution of these CDs.
The good stuff (the best recent mainstream stuff I saw: Ben Folds Five, TWO Outkast discs (in fact their best two), Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and some good archive stuff by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, etc.) was only in small handfuls in comparision to the Whitney Houstons and Will Smiths in there. Putting a handful of good stuff in with the crap does not take one's eye off the huge amount of crap in the pile. I don't think the media sensationalized it one bit. If some truck driver dropped off 1,500 copies of the same CD of Whitney Houston singing the Star-Spangled Banner, wouldn't you be a little pissed too?
I bet you, if you searched for some of these CDs, you'd find that the bulk of them didn't actually hit the charts, which would be a boo-boo on the RIAA's part.
Let's see the proof in the pudding.
I can't even find the Martha Stewart one on allmusic.
Recently, they released an EP by one of my favorite artists, Iron & Wine, that had at least one song that I had never heard from him before. I snapped it up quickly.
I wish iTunes would move closer to VBR, as I'm an --aps junkie, but I have a feeling they will eventually. There are times I will occasionally buy songs on the service because I could find them there more easily than using something else.
Side note: Getting Hymn to work on a Mac is a bitch. :(
Back when I followed emulation pretty heavily, you could just tell this undercurrent was coming back up. I picked up on this in 1996. It's 2004. Something about newer games really smacks of "losing soul", because they take forever and a day to play. Personally, i just got sick of following new games after a while, because they are too complex for playing for short periods of time. I admit it: I'm a grazer, and when I can choose from a thousand NES ROMs, I'll play nine or ten in a session.
Pop has a pretty wide definition in some people's minds. He's not even thinking of the Billboard charts -- I take what he was implying as "anything but classical or traditional music". I'm betting that "pop" was a simple way for him to encapsulate ALL genres of music into his study. I have a wide definition of pop too -- just because I can see most music as one entity does not mean that I can't break down the lines, either.
I think you really underestimate what he's getting at.
As-is, I'm impressed by the study because it tweaks the nipples of anyone with a critical eye to music. I hope Pitchfork reviews these songs in their "We Are the World" section, because it'd be interesting to see how close they got. Strangely enough, I believe that Pitchfork is also located in Chicago.
The music itself reminded me of a lot of stuff that's been highly rated in the last few years on Pitchfork including The Postal Service (style-wise) and Wilco (production-wise; very untraditional techniques used). His voice reminds me of Sondre Lerche and Sufjan Stevens, two highly-rated artists on the site. At the same time, there's a couple of unique touches to it.
Who knows, maybe he'll earn a couple of fans out of it.
Are acronyms overused, or is Slashdot focusing on making their posts palatable for SMS capable phones?
I appreciate the link to this, I'm about to try it out. I've been trying to decide for a while what sort of content management system I want to use for this online magazine I'm helping to redesign, and this looks like the ticket. Thanks.
Just think, if these stupid kids started beating the shit out of someone with actual power and authority, China might eventually have democracy. This is how revolutions are started, people. One small seed, one small desire to look at something that you can't look at, and eventually the opressors start feeling the heat.
I did. There's no reason NOT to expect quality for an educational sub-project. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it has to look like crap. They are going to want to use it for a lot of things related to promotion of the sub-project. For all intensive purposes, YES, it is a logo. They want to identify their sub-project with it. Sounds like a logo to me. If MS were doing something similar for kids or education, it'd beat the snot out of this, hate to say it.
Sorry, MS and Apple have the bar up HERE for marketing.
A lot of open source stuff is down here. And they'll continue to be down here if the "aww jeez, it's good enough" crowd continues to chant their battle cry.
..but that's not saying much. When OpenOffice tries to use this for ANYTHING, be it a black letterhead logo or a promotional bumper sticker, they're going to find out exactly why it sucks -- it's not reproducable at different sizes. That hair is just too goddamn busy (and since when do seagulls have hair anyway?). They had a good idea when they considered having kids do it, but as these entries have shown, it was at best misguided. I wish that, seriously, there was some standard open source graphic designer that projects like OO used. Because things like this emphasize the weaker points of Open Source -- sure, there are a lot of great programming minds out there, but they don't know anything about marketing or advertising, which companies like Apple and Microsoft will always beat them on because they can afford it. I'm a student who has a lot of experience with graphic design (though mostly with print and newspaper design). I would gladly intern for something like this, and help with the visual look where I could. Open source has a lot of great ideas, but deserves better advertising.
L.A. Reid went to the Mercedes dealership a few weeks ago and was only able to afford the mid-range model. He has been a recluse ever since.
As someone who's tried a multitude of interfaces in many respects, who went from being a Windows user most of his life to being a Machead, my big issue streams around this simple idea: Where's the originality? Nearly everything shown didn't really impress me all that much from a visual level, and yeah, I clicked on every page. Sure, there were some cool things here and there, but I went into it thinking "what's the big deal?" especially since the initial post really played it up as Linux being THE desktop option. Here's what I saw as lacking: Visual appeal: Even Windows has improved on that in recent years, though it probably could have used a better default theme. As for KDE here, I really felt a lack of graphical consistency to bring everything together. It needs to be default in the desktop. Sure, the add-ons improved it greatly, but most users won't want to waste hours of time making their desktop look nice. Those people will just be like, "OH GOD THIS IS TOO MUCH! HOW DO I GET THIS STUPID THING OFF MY COMPUTER? I WANT WINDOWS WAAAAAAAAA" A lot of the apps didn't look clean, a lot of the programs didn't look smooth. I was reading that there are anti-aliased fonts available for KDE in this thread -- how come they weren't used? Simplicity: When I look at my OSX desktop, I know what's going on, right away, even though I have an Adium window, multiple apps loaded, a ton of icons on my desktop, and friggin' Konfabluator telling me that I have 38-degree temperatures outside. Those KDE screenshots confused me, at least a little. There was too much going on -- too many elements to worry about. As someone who has been using computers for over a decade now, who knows how to crack open a Windows registry, that's a problem. If you bring it down to the basics, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Too Windows-Like: This is the biggest problem with KDE, though admittedly a little less so with GNOME, at the moment. As opposed to finding its own way of doing things, it feels like there's just way too much of an effort to pick up on Windows users by making it familiar to them. That's not strategy, that's mimicry. Sure, there are only so many ways to skin a cat (as I'm sure the argument would come up in a reply to this), but as an example, look at OSX. They did something completly original with the OS, and it's STILL easy to use, it's STILL not confusing, and so on. Tacking vaguely Windows-like OS details to KDE is not the way to go. The way to go is having a huge group of people sit down (including USABILITY EXPERTS) and come up with something that comes across as killer app rather than also-ran. I mean this as no criticism of what your direction has been up to this point. It's obvious that KDE, and Linux in general, has come a long way. However, this comment bothers me due to its immense blindness: "it's become clear that the Linux desktop has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives." As someone who's pretty objective to Linux in general, and who potentially could've been convinced to switch, I wasn't impressed, and saw this comment more as blind support for the OS rather than an actual truth. In closing, I'm your potential audience. Give me a reason to switch other than, "It's kinda like Windows."
I like iChat and all, but I really wish Apple would make more of an effort to enhance the general functionality of the program.
I like tabs. Tabs are such a great benefit when browsing the web. However, if I want to send instant messages to people, my only really option for tabbed IM conversations is Adium, which while it has benefits, doesn't have nearly all the features of a normal client, and suffers greatly because of it.
On top of this, I wish that iChat had Konfabulator-type features that would allow the buddy list to be docked on the main window. That's a pretty darn cool (though memory-intensive) feature that Adium has that would really add a lot of appeal to iChat for me. I don't wat to have to leave the window open all the time to find out who's online. It should just stay open in a way that is unobtrusive.
Apple strives on thinking different? Well, they should think less in the AOL mold of instant messaging, because there's some really cool stuff that some of the other indie IM clients have that I really want to see iChat implement.
I think AOL and Apple have seriously overestimated the market for video IM. Instant messaging should be free to use in the middle of the day, at night, when people are sleeping (because it makes a GREAT replacement for a phone) and any other time when a phone isn't very helpful to have around. Video offers few of those benefits to everyday life.
Small little details that make IMing easier, however, offer many.
As someone interested in graphic design along with general nerdery, I think the best example of a micropayment system is the stock photo site iStockPhoto. There seems to be a benefit to the whole idea of micropayments in that realm.. Why pay $50 for a photo when one that cost maybe a dollar works just as well?
It's a pretty smart system, and other companies seem to be building on its success (Adobe offers free iStockPhotos with registration of their Creative Suite).
I think there's a good product there, and I wouldn't mind to see that site succeed, if any.