How do you account for the sheer number of them? The article called for a large number of them. If they managed to get away from stars in a globular cluster, don't you think the stellar density would have stuffed the orbital paths up so much that accretion to form tight planets would have been difficult? I mean, I can see a gas cloud remaining relatively stable, and thus bodies forming through shockwave interference, but suggestign planetoids all originated in stable orbits just seems really problematic in a globular cluster.
The way these things form is a real puzzle. The typical formation of these things requires a nearby nuclear furnace to provide the heavy elements such as silicon and iron. How these things formed in a globular cluster where the gravitational sway must have been so incredibly disruptive that no clear orbital path for accretion was laid out is the difficult part.
Recently in New Scientist there was an article on Megasuns. The theory is that before there were galaxies, there were gigantic stars, at some astronomical magnitude of a normal yellow dwarf's mass. There's apparently a number you reach where they get big enough to become stable again (think of a cubic mass distribution). My thought is that if these things somehow spawned galaxies, which are fractured thingies with accretion disks (bear with me) similar to an immature solar system's, then maybe it's possible that a)the globular cluster itself is a body more recently derived from a megasun than the Milky Way, thus having a less derived structure, and b) maybe that's where the planetoids come from? Accreted bodies orbiting a former megasun?
Bollocks, I know. A more plausible thought is that they're just in an area of such stellar density that shockwaves have somehow managed to form pockets of heavy materials which have accreted to form planet-like objects.
Actually, they say it was the one unnoticed link to another switch that fucked it. Bet it was running different vlans and trying to be the hsrp master over the other.
Never mess up your different vlan domains. Not a good idea - especially when they have the same numbers on two different groups.
Their reputation here probably isn't as good as it is in the States. I know they're still a million times better than Microsoft, but they do give you the run around.
For those that know: we've had problems where a switch was unable to ping a management interface on a router directly connected. It was runnning dot1q on the ports. They tried to tell us that we should try configuring ISL. It was a gigabit port - therefore ISL doesn't work (unless they've fixed it recently). I've also had them tell me that we can't configure multiple management vlan interfaces on a switch. Fine, I say. But I have six identical 2900s here, all with the multiple management ints, same IOS, all working. "They're all broken. The one that doesn't work is the one that's working right."
Turns out they were right, you're not supposed to be able to do that. But "all your other switches are broken???" Please! And the number of times I've been asked to upgrade IOS....
Cisco gets called all the time. It doesn't make it particularly hard, either.
Unfortunately, Cisco's support has gone the way of everyone else's. Most of the time they seem to wait for you to figure it out and then find out what you did. Don't think it's *taht* amazing because they got called. But hey! You can't expect a tech to know *everything!* So what if they call Cisco? Cisco gear melts down all the time, and it's not as reliable as all that. We used to have a 25% DOA rate on access servers at my old job. These thigns cost $60,000 with a 75% discount! Their quality control has gone down the drain to meet the demand of their manufacturing line.
Dunno who did or said what, but Cisco ain't that great, and they're surprised by nearly everything you ask them. You say "every router has this config and it works on all of them but this." They say "then the others are all broken, this one works to specs." SOunds funny, but it's happened to me.
LG Electronics, the Korean firm that used to be Goldstar and the Lucky Company (my girlfriend's Korean, she says this sort of name is normal - but still finds it funny) said they made their Internet Fridge (short for 'refrigerator' no d!) because while the tv is the source of information for alot of families to the outside world, they still keep their bills and notes on the fridge. Internally, they believe this is where the world organises itself and communicates the best. So as a 'core router' it makes alot more sense than a tv, which will always be a volatile border device.
The fridge is an ideal situation for a switched centre. Just because the tv already has a screen doesn't mean it's the best thing to inherit all the functions of a household. Think about someone trying to watch tv while someone else downloads their email to a pda via that same screen. Pain in the butt. Sure, later with better wireless networks you won't need a visual display. But you still don't want to lean on your single border device to do all the internal routing of the network.
Re:Ratios and Mozart, etc
on
Protein Music
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· Score: 2
That might work for protein structure, but when we're talking about straight DNA samples, there's not always a correlation between the DNA sequence and the amino acid chain. Not every start codon is interpreted, and sometimes it's on the other chain of the DNA double helix. In other words, your song might be backwards and wrong:)
Must admit, it's alot more interesting sounding than music with four tones. THough if it's four chords and played on a guitar, then it's more inventive than most modern rock music..
Well the way they handle that here is that the user pays "what they should reasonably expect to pay." This means if you're on global roam and someone calls you from home, they pay a local mobile call, you pay for the call to leg it round the world. Hence, global roam is only really any good if your business is picking up the tab.
No, still don't see anything good about it. New Zealand has free local calls as well. All they need to key on is the first few numbers, same as any other route. Probably the stupidity again comes from a lack of standards used in the US. You guys don't all have GSM, I hear. That's useless.
Just about every standard there is was made as a proprietary system by Americans and then bettered by European standards bodies. Pity the US never seems to wait for the good stuff to come through. I'm sure *that's* a good reason WAP ain't doing so well, too:/
Australia and New Zealand are the same. How can you possibly charge the person receiving the calls? What a bizarre pricing scheme! It's also opposite to the way interconnect charges are paid by the telcos. Which countries do this? I think Scandinavia does, but didn't think it was widespread.
If the above is correct, which other posts are saying it isn't, then your own argument works against you. If the only translation is at the content level, and that's only because of bandwidth restrictions, then there's no need for them! All there needs to be is a very simple javascript handler in the browser, and an industry-standard wap-browser navigator object. Then everyone can do a tiny bit of browser detection and provide a low-bandwidth copy of their site. Voila, no flashy shit, and a website that's designed for your viewing requirements with no stupid protocol conversions.
Anyhow, I hate having to do browser detection. The web should be "code once, run anywhere" not "code eight times just in case some idiot insists on using a DSL modem with a 386 and a copy of Mosaic.
While it may be true that cybersquatting isn't a problem in this country, it's often been noted by Australians that it's too hard to get a domain here. The commercial community is new enough that the '.com' hegemony is really rife. '.com.au' is a long enough extension to a domain. Not many people use '.net.au' or '.org.au' because it's just too obscure.
It's not just money here, you actually have to have a company registered with that name. It's not so bad for this country, but if everyone else did this now, the Internet wouldn't be what it is, but controlled almost solely by corporate commercial interests.
In isolation, there's never been much of an alternative offered in Australia. So people like us that don't want to register companies are polluting the top level domain space.
Sorry if this sounds like it's not going anywhere, but what I'm pointing to is that it's driving us to further exploit the top level domain. It's not good that the US has such a stranglehold on it. The namesystem needs to be freed up. The policies here are too restrictive for Free Speech, no matter how much lawyers hate them.
If you figure out a way to detect the plane, the military will just develop a new way to be undetectable by your new methods. It doesn't mean we shouldn't make new stealth planes, it means we just need to do a little more research.
Yeah, this theory has been proven by the MPAA.
But seriously, a moving object by its very nature displaces material and changes the relationship of its neighbouring bodies. There will *always* be an effect. Thus, there will always be something to detect. You can't outrun physics.
Interesting Stuff is having in related fields, as well. Last week's New Scientist had an article on flight suits utilising tactile cues capitalising on the 'cutaneous rabbit' effect. Basially, if you get tapped three times, it'll feel like many more, so a small number (32) of pressure pads all over your body will provide a nearly seamless feeling of contact anywhere on your body. They're using it for pilots right now, but as far as intuitive interfaces go, getting 'tapped on the shoulder' when your phone's ringing isn't a bad one. Plugging this into your car's computer and letting it give you cues whenever there's something getting too close sounds alot better than actually letting the automobile drive *itself* if you ask me. And damn, I just can't park.
One of the great things is that it uses air-pressure in the interconnecting system to feed the pads. Alot safer and lighter than carrying around huge battery packs.
Please, if they're trying to get it right, like Mission to Mars (ugh! the science in that gave me a headache!) we can have this discussion. But for films involving Sean Aston Williams Scott McBain, can we please dispense with them?
Re:Why Aren't Slashdot Comments GPL'ed?
on
Lord of the Geeks
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· Score: 2
Yes.. points for subtlety there, I think.
Why Aren't Slashdot Comments GPL'ed?
on
Lord of the Geeks
·
· Score: 1
Then I could go back and fix my obvious errors. Of course Sam killed him! Oops! And the pony killed the Balrog, right?
The author of the longer article goes through the article seemingly heaping praise on Tolkien (obviously in some attempt to get us 'geeks' on side for when he demolishes it (and us) later. Of course he does this so well, you're inclined to listen to his arguments. But he bring up several absoutely blind points, like "the bad guys are evil, the good guys are not". This is patently untrue, as anyone who's even read the book once knows. What kind of a fool spends all this time researching the author and his critics and none of his time checking that his main line of argument (the book!) isn't actually right? Boromir is corrupted by the ring, Frodo goes from a nice chap to someone who can kill giant spiders in very nasty ways (and that scene was very dark, with the shadow of murder hanging over it totally). Merry and Pippin are tainted by the journey, Saruman is the good brought low, Strider (sic) is the mighty king basically reduced to a ruthless killer. Gollum was nothing but a mischevious child until the ring corrupted him. What does he see in these 'oh so pure' characters BUT evil? The evil of the ring corrupts all who come near it, and the quest to destroy evil leads people to questionable deeds. Ok, nothing like killing families in Vietnamese villages, but they still change utterly through the story. The end leaves you with an utter sense of loss, and none of the characters are ever the same. Even Hobbiton has been corrupted and scarred.
And at the risk of being a karma whore, for Christ's sake, he just took one of the world's most obviously intelligent groups, and said we'e all "children" for liking Tolkien! Perhaps we could point at those of such a literal mindset and say their lack of imagination renders them "childish" in their expectation that the world around them is the only one worth thinking about. Reporters don't discover quantum fluctuation, or super string theory, geeks do! I fail to see how broadly saying we're all emotional runts fails to take into account the overwhelming burden of evidence which is our contribution to the world, and his life.
Fuck the media and fuck this guy. Learn to read the book you're writing about, and learn that not everything is about politics or fucking lawyers. It's easy to read about doctors, because everyone's afraid of dying. Lack of imagination doesn't make you a better person.
I think it's true, they peobably would try to keep all the money. But with no disincentive to reduce prices, price wars could break out. We'll never know, cause it'll never happen:/
Much has been made of Moulin Rouge in this country for obvious reasons. Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann (director, vision et al) are Australian. But onto some real thoughts.
It's a difficult film. Some people will love the soundtrack. Personally, I found it alternatingly despicable and admirable. For those of you who don't know, it's all modern music by other people. One problem: none of it's new. The music he used for Romeo & Juliet worked so well because it was new and largely unheard. And it wasn't commercial pap, but largely 'alternative' fare. The music in Moulin Rouge is clearly made up of "Baz's road trip compilation tape." Its mostly made of modern classics like "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Roxanne" by the Police (I think!) and "Diamonds are a girl's best friend".
Being largely bent on electronic music, but with a good knowledge of recent musical history, this was a collection of music I really loved. Some part of me thinks that if every track had been interpreted in some new and interesting way, it would have been worth seeing. Indeed, one highlights of the film were the second or third rendition of "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" at the beginning of the third act. This is a brilliantly disguised version of the original, well worth hearing. Similarly, the version of Roxanne sung by a Spaniard well on his way to throat cancer is worthy of the original in the same way Cake's version of "I Will Survive" (not in the film) managed to put a new spin on emotional pain through it's understated, sinister approach. But most of the music falls well short of this, simply being sung in the wrong key by Kidman and MacGregor, with their flat, untrained voices. Part of me thought "This could be so great!" While the other part thought "How dare he steal the emotions of other songwriters and put it to such tawdry use."
Major flaw: these songs are old. They have established places in the hearts of the populace, and they remind us of certain evenings, certain times. It's impossible to resign that and let it take on new meaning for most people. Disguising them with good intent is interesting. Simply playing the riff of a nineties guitar anthem isn't very.
It took balls to do what he did. But what it really needed was music, not balls. To me, he just managed to rob a great number of terrific songs of meaning and place them in the wrong context. With the voice of Tom Jones and interpretation of a brilliant musician, this might have worked. But he had a couple of flat voices with accents and no genius.
Ok, here's a scenario. Say the record companies take cooperative ownership of some of the record store chains. This might seem anticompetitive, but if it's a 'music industry owned' store, it's kinda possible. Well, like Communism works well in most countries, but you see the Ideal World scenario I'm painting here.
Anyway, with that, there's no need to make overmuch profit in those stores. The profits are straight from sales, since there's no middlemen.
Have you guys heard of "ship gold, return platinum?" It goes like this: a sales rep wants their single to go platinum/gold for a new band. They call record stores and say "if you agree to buy all these NSync CDs and hold them for a week, we'll give you a discount on Korn." Korn sells damn well, but isn't a chart success story like NSync. So they buy all the singles, which screws the charts up. Then they ship em all back (ever wonder where those walls of singles go?) and get their cheap Korn CDs, which fly out the window.
If the labels owned the stores, there wouldn't be any need for this. They'd base their music on *actual sales*. You know how everyone bitches about shitty pop music? Well, don't think that charting highly means it's getting sold. It just looks that way. Music would actually get *better* and profits *higher* so decent bands could actually make more money because there'd be no more loss leaders.
Admittedly, this might strangle independent record labels, but I don't shop at major chains anyhow. Might find the independent stores do ok out of it, who knows? Ah, for an Ideal World.
No dude, that artist's money includes paying for the recording of the album, which for most bands is more money than they ever make back on sales. If you're a one-hit-wonder boy band, you also had to pay someone to write the music, the royalties to the original artists (let's face it, stuff all of it's new) and the constant clothing accessories etc etc.
Americans wouldn't know him, but you'd be surprised how not rich Jason Donovan is now. And didn't MC Hammer become a computer salesman or something?
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How do you account for the sheer number of them? The article called for a large number of them. If they managed to get away from stars in a globular cluster, don't you think the stellar density would have stuffed the orbital paths up so much that accretion to form tight planets would have been difficult? I mean, I can see a gas cloud remaining relatively stable, and thus bodies forming through shockwave interference, but suggestign planetoids all originated in stable orbits just seems really problematic in a globular cluster.
PS: I'm not a physicist or an astronomer..
The way these things form is a real puzzle. The typical formation of these things requires a nearby nuclear furnace to provide the heavy elements such as silicon and iron. How these things formed in a globular cluster where the gravitational sway must have been so incredibly disruptive that no clear orbital path for accretion was laid out is the difficult part.
Recently in New Scientist there was an article on Megasuns. The theory is that before there were galaxies, there were gigantic stars, at some astronomical magnitude of a normal yellow dwarf's mass. There's apparently a number you reach where they get big enough to become stable again (think of a cubic mass distribution). My thought is that if these things somehow spawned galaxies, which are fractured thingies with accretion disks (bear with me) similar to an immature solar system's, then maybe it's possible that a)the globular cluster itself is a body more recently derived from a megasun than the Milky Way, thus having a less derived structure, and b) maybe that's where the planetoids come from? Accreted bodies orbiting a former megasun?
Bollocks, I know. A more plausible thought is that they're just in an area of such stellar density that shockwaves have somehow managed to form pockets of heavy materials which have accreted to form planet-like objects.
Back to scratching my arse..
Actually, they say it was the one unnoticed link to another switch that fucked it. Bet it was running different vlans and trying to be the hsrp master over the other.
Never mess up your different vlan domains. Not a good idea - especially when they have the same numbers on two different groups.
Their reputation here probably isn't as good as it is in the States. I know they're still a million times better than Microsoft, but they do give you the run around.
For those that know: we've had problems where a switch was unable to ping a management interface on a router directly connected. It was runnning dot1q on the ports. They tried to tell us that we should try configuring ISL. It was a gigabit port - therefore ISL doesn't work (unless they've fixed it recently). I've also had them tell me that we can't configure multiple management vlan interfaces on a switch. Fine, I say. But I have six identical 2900s here, all with the multiple management ints, same IOS, all working. "They're all broken. The one that doesn't work is the one that's working right."
Turns out they were right, you're not supposed to be able to do that. But "all your other switches are broken???" Please! And the number of times I've been asked to upgrade IOS....
Cisco gets called all the time. It doesn't make it particularly hard, either.
Unfortunately, Cisco's support has gone the way of everyone else's. Most of the time they seem to wait for you to figure it out and then find out what you did. Don't think it's *taht* amazing because they got called. But hey! You can't expect a tech to know *everything!* So what if they call Cisco? Cisco gear melts down all the time, and it's not as reliable as all that. We used to have a 25% DOA rate on access servers at my old job. These thigns cost $60,000 with a 75% discount! Their quality control has gone down the drain to meet the demand of their manufacturing line.
Dunno who did or said what, but Cisco ain't that great, and they're surprised by nearly everything you ask them. You say "every router has this config and it works on all of them but this." They say "then the others are all broken, this one works to specs." SOunds funny, but it's happened to me.
LG Electronics, the Korean firm that used to be Goldstar and the Lucky Company (my girlfriend's Korean, she says this sort of name is normal - but still finds it funny) said they made their Internet Fridge (short for 'refrigerator' no d!) because while the tv is the source of information for alot of families to the outside world, they still keep their bills and notes on the fridge. Internally, they believe this is where the world organises itself and communicates the best. So as a 'core router' it makes alot more sense than a tv, which will always be a volatile border device.
The fridge is an ideal situation for a switched centre. Just because the tv already has a screen doesn't mean it's the best thing to inherit all the functions of a household. Think about someone trying to watch tv while someone else downloads their email to a pda via that same screen. Pain in the butt. Sure, later with better wireless networks you won't need a visual display. But you still don't want to lean on your single border device to do all the internal routing of the network.
That might work for protein structure, but when we're talking about straight DNA samples, there's not always a correlation between the DNA sequence and the amino acid chain. Not every start codon is interpreted, and sometimes it's on the other chain of the DNA double helix. In other words, your song might be backwards and wrong:)
Must admit, it's alot more interesting sounding than music with four tones. THough if it's four chords and played on a guitar, then it's more inventive than most modern rock music..
Nah, I actually meant NTSC & ISDN. They're my two pet peeves. NTSC's quality is rubbish compared to PAL. And why have 56k when you could have 64?
Well the way they handle that here is that the user pays "what they should reasonably expect to pay." This means if you're on global roam and someone calls you from home, they pay a local mobile call, you pay for the call to leg it round the world. Hence, global roam is only really any good if your business is picking up the tab.
No, still don't see anything good about it. New Zealand has free local calls as well. All they need to key on is the first few numbers, same as any other route. Probably the stupidity again comes from a lack of standards used in the US. You guys don't all have GSM, I hear. That's useless.
Just about every standard there is was made as a proprietary system by Americans and then bettered by European standards bodies. Pity the US never seems to wait for the good stuff to come through. I'm sure *that's* a good reason WAP ain't doing so well, too:/
Australia and New Zealand are the same. How can you possibly charge the person receiving the calls? What a bizarre pricing scheme! It's also opposite to the way interconnect charges are paid by the telcos. Which countries do this? I think Scandinavia does, but didn't think it was widespread.
If the above is correct, which other posts are saying it isn't, then your own argument works against you. If the only translation is at the content level, and that's only because of bandwidth restrictions, then there's no need for them! All there needs to be is a very simple javascript handler in the browser, and an industry-standard wap-browser navigator object. Then everyone can do a tiny bit of browser detection and provide a low-bandwidth copy of their site. Voila, no flashy shit, and a website that's designed for your viewing requirements with no stupid protocol conversions.
Anyhow, I hate having to do browser detection. The web should be "code once, run anywhere" not "code eight times just in case some idiot insists on using a DSL modem with a 386 and a copy of Mosaic.
While it may be true that cybersquatting isn't a problem in this country, it's often been noted by Australians that it's too hard to get a domain here. The commercial community is new enough that the '.com' hegemony is really rife. '.com.au' is a long enough extension to a domain. Not many people use '.net.au' or '.org.au' because it's just too obscure.
It's not just money here, you actually have to have a company registered with that name. It's not so bad for this country, but if everyone else did this now, the Internet wouldn't be what it is, but controlled almost solely by corporate commercial interests.
In isolation, there's never been much of an alternative offered in Australia. So people like us that don't want to register companies are polluting the top level domain space.
Sorry if this sounds like it's not going anywhere, but what I'm pointing to is that it's driving us to further exploit the top level domain. It's not good that the US has such a stranglehold on it. The namesystem needs to be freed up. The policies here are too restrictive for Free Speech, no matter how much lawyers hate them.
Yeah, this theory has been proven by the MPAA.
But seriously, a moving object by its very nature displaces material and changes the relationship of its neighbouring bodies. There will *always* be an effect. Thus, there will always be something to detect. You can't outrun physics.
Interesting Stuff is having in related fields, as well. Last week's New Scientist had an article on flight suits utilising tactile cues capitalising on the 'cutaneous rabbit' effect. Basially, if you get tapped three times, it'll feel like many more, so a small number (32) of pressure pads all over your body will provide a nearly seamless feeling of contact anywhere on your body. They're using it for pilots right now, but as far as intuitive interfaces go, getting 'tapped on the shoulder' when your phone's ringing isn't a bad one. Plugging this into your car's computer and letting it give you cues whenever there's something getting too close sounds alot better than actually letting the automobile drive *itself* if you ask me. And damn, I just can't park.
One of the great things is that it uses air-pressure in the interconnecting system to feed the pads. Alot safer and lighter than carrying around huge battery packs.
Yes, the complete absence of foreigners in a foreign-led and run war wasn't conspicuous, was it?
Please, if they're trying to get it right, like Mission to Mars (ugh! the science in that gave me a headache!) we can have this discussion. But for films involving Sean Aston Williams Scott McBain, can we please dispense with them?
Yes.. points for subtlety there, I think.
Then I could go back and fix my obvious errors. Of course Sam killed him! Oops! And the pony killed the Balrog, right?
The author of the longer article goes through the article seemingly heaping praise on Tolkien (obviously in some attempt to get us 'geeks' on side for when he demolishes it (and us) later. Of course he does this so well, you're inclined to listen to his arguments. But he bring up several absoutely blind points, like "the bad guys are evil, the good guys are not". This is patently untrue, as anyone who's even read the book once knows. What kind of a fool spends all this time researching the author and his critics and none of his time checking that his main line of argument (the book!) isn't actually right? Boromir is corrupted by the ring, Frodo goes from a nice chap to someone who can kill giant spiders in very nasty ways (and that scene was very dark, with the shadow of murder hanging over it totally). Merry and Pippin are tainted by the journey, Saruman is the good brought low, Strider (sic) is the mighty king basically reduced to a ruthless killer. Gollum was nothing but a mischevious child until the ring corrupted him. What does he see in these 'oh so pure' characters BUT evil? The evil of the ring corrupts all who come near it, and the quest to destroy evil leads people to questionable deeds. Ok, nothing like killing families in Vietnamese villages, but they still change utterly through the story. The end leaves you with an utter sense of loss, and none of the characters are ever the same. Even Hobbiton has been corrupted and scarred.
And at the risk of being a karma whore, for Christ's sake, he just took one of the world's most obviously intelligent groups, and said we'e all "children" for liking Tolkien! Perhaps we could point at those of such a literal mindset and say their lack of imagination renders them "childish" in their expectation that the world around them is the only one worth thinking about. Reporters don't discover quantum fluctuation, or super string theory, geeks do! I fail to see how broadly saying we're all emotional runts fails to take into account the overwhelming burden of evidence which is our contribution to the world, and his life.
Fuck the media and fuck this guy. Learn to read the book you're writing about, and learn that not everything is about politics or fucking lawyers. It's easy to read about doctors, because everyone's afraid of dying. Lack of imagination doesn't make you a better person.
I think it's true, they peobably would try to keep all the money. But with no disincentive to reduce prices, price wars could break out. We'll never know, cause it'll never happen:/
"So, what are your opinions of Plug n Play devices?" "That's why we pray."
Much has been made of Moulin Rouge in this country for obvious reasons. Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann (director, vision et al) are Australian. But onto some real thoughts.
It's a difficult film. Some people will love the soundtrack. Personally, I found it alternatingly despicable and admirable. For those of you who don't know, it's all modern music by other people. One problem: none of it's new. The music he used for Romeo & Juliet worked so well because it was new and largely unheard. And it wasn't commercial pap, but largely 'alternative' fare. The music in Moulin Rouge is clearly made up of "Baz's road trip compilation tape." Its mostly made of modern classics like "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Roxanne" by the Police (I think!) and "Diamonds are a girl's best friend".
Being largely bent on electronic music, but with a good knowledge of recent musical history, this was a collection of music I really loved. Some part of me thinks that if every track had been interpreted in some new and interesting way, it would have been worth seeing. Indeed, one highlights of the film were the second or third rendition of "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" at the beginning of the third act. This is a brilliantly disguised version of the original, well worth hearing. Similarly, the version of Roxanne sung by a Spaniard well on his way to throat cancer is worthy of the original in the same way Cake's version of "I Will Survive" (not in the film) managed to put a new spin on emotional pain through it's understated, sinister approach. But most of the music falls well short of this, simply being sung in the wrong key by Kidman and MacGregor, with their flat, untrained voices. Part of me thought "This could be so great!" While the other part thought "How dare he steal the emotions of other songwriters and put it to such tawdry use."
Major flaw: these songs are old. They have established places in the hearts of the populace, and they remind us of certain evenings, certain times. It's impossible to resign that and let it take on new meaning for most people. Disguising them with good intent is interesting. Simply playing the riff of a nineties guitar anthem isn't very.
It took balls to do what he did. But what it really needed was music, not balls. To me, he just managed to rob a great number of terrific songs of meaning and place them in the wrong context. With the voice of Tom Jones and interpretation of a brilliant musician, this might have worked. But he had a couple of flat voices with accents and no genius.
Ok, here's a scenario. Say the record companies take cooperative ownership of some of the record store chains. This might seem anticompetitive, but if it's a 'music industry owned' store, it's kinda possible. Well, like Communism works well in most countries, but you see the Ideal World scenario I'm painting here.
Anyway, with that, there's no need to make overmuch profit in those stores. The profits are straight from sales, since there's no middlemen.
Have you guys heard of "ship gold, return platinum?" It goes like this: a sales rep wants their single to go platinum/gold for a new band. They call record stores and say "if you agree to buy all these NSync CDs and hold them for a week, we'll give you a discount on Korn." Korn sells damn well, but isn't a chart success story like NSync. So they buy all the singles, which screws the charts up. Then they ship em all back (ever wonder where those walls of singles go?) and get their cheap Korn CDs, which fly out the window.
If the labels owned the stores, there wouldn't be any need for this. They'd base their music on *actual sales*. You know how everyone bitches about shitty pop music? Well, don't think that charting highly means it's getting sold. It just looks that way. Music would actually get *better* and profits *higher* so decent bands could actually make more money because there'd be no more loss leaders.
Admittedly, this might strangle independent record labels, but I don't shop at major chains anyhow. Might find the independent stores do ok out of it, who knows? Ah, for an Ideal World.
No dude, that artist's money includes paying for the recording of the album, which for most bands is more money than they ever make back on sales. If you're a one-hit-wonder boy band, you also had to pay someone to write the music, the royalties to the original artists (let's face it, stuff all of it's new) and the constant clothing accessories etc etc.
Americans wouldn't know him, but you'd be surprised how not rich Jason Donovan is now. And didn't MC Hammer become a computer salesman or something?