Adventures in My Mind
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Mar 30, 2004
Wired News: Maybe the Music's Just Lousy?
"Researchers at two leading universities have issued a study countering the music industry's central theme in its war on digital piracy, saying file sharing has little impact on CD sales."
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:38 PM
Mar 29, 2004
Governmental insolence and myopia, the death of an artistic legend, and deadly invaders from south of the border.
Condoleeza is still resisting calls to testify under oath. The great Peter Ustinov is dead at age 82. South American Fire Ants are waging war on America's elderly and infirmed. Congress is attempting to criminalize P2P networks entirely.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 9:44 AM
Mar 26, 2004
Five things I'm thinking right now:
- Serendipity
- Little people are insane
- Yes, I would like fries with that
- I wonder if the neighbors can see
- If all roads lead to Rome, how did I wind up here?
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 6:37 PM
Mar 25, 2004
Bush Pokes Fun During Media Dinner
I saw this little attempt at levity and found it to be positively devoid of humor. Here is what was particularly bothersome:Bush put on a slide show, calling it the "White House Election-Year Album" at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.
There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds this offensive. And to top it off, he repeated the joke later by showing another slide of him looking under a desk and saying, "They've got to be around here somewhere!"
Everyday more U.S. soldiers die in Iraq, adding to the list of 500+, not to mention the thousands of dead Iraqis. Yet somehow our commander in chief finds a way to make light of it. WMDs, the irrefutable raison d'etre of a year ago, have been demoted from cause for action to the butt of a joke.
Do you suppose the family of Army Spec. Clint Matthews, the most recent casualty from the Pittsburgh region, could find humor in they way their son's vehicle hit a land mine? Or how the vehicle then lost control and tumbled down a hillside?
Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they would find a raucous juxtaposition in Clint clinging to life in an Army MedEvac unit bound for Germany and W. fumbling his poorly written jokes, while not finding those peskie WMDs anywhere.
Maybe. Maybe not.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 3:56 PM
Mar 23, 2004
Wired News: Music Group Sues Another Batch
When will this group of luddites get the point? When will their harrassment stop and real solutions begin? According to them, never:"This is a group that does not appreciate as much as the general population that it is illegal to share copyright music on a peer-to-peer network," said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America. "More education is necessary. One form of education is lawsuits."Yeah, and college students are also the only group left that still avidly purchases their pre-packaged, formulaic crap.
To the RIAA: Your produt is crap. It is bad, bad, bad; and we all hate it! We also hate your collusion with broadcast giants like Infinity Broadcasting and ClearChannels Communication. You have painted yourself into this corner by offering a consistently sub-standard product and consistently screwing the artists that you are supposed to be representing.
File sharing is as much about getting over on you as it is about getting free music. You have been sued for price fixing. You have been sued by disgruntled artists. You have been boycotted for being more concerned about the bottom line than the lines of decency. You are despised and maligned.
File sharers are not downloading the latest Brittney or Limp Bizkit pablum. They already get enough of that shoved down their throats. Their downloading artists like Miles Davis, The Mahuvishna Orchestra, The Mavericks, Tom Waits, Leon Redbone, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainright, and the list goes on and on and on. And these are just bigger name artists to speak nothing of those who are up and coming.
Instead of just counting the number of songs downloaded, pay attention to the vast variety and numbers of artists that are being downloaded. Then compare that list to those artists you currently have under contract and those under A&R development. I am positive that the lists will be very different.
Yeah, it's great to get free music. But it's even better to get what you really want.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 5:03 PM
Mar 19, 2004
This is a rather curious item. But wouldn't they make great conversation pieces as throw pillows. "Watch it! You're sitting on my nigiri!"
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 2:52 PM
Mar 17, 2004
Cead mile failte and Erin go bragh!
Oh, yeah ... and Happy St. Patrick's Day. Normally, I don't get excited about a quasi-religious holiday like St. Patrick's Day -- except for maybe Halloween -- but none of the others celebrate my ethnic heritage, although the Germans are primarily responsible for the secular tradtitions of Christmas.
I'm proud to be Irish, even though I am not Catholic. Nor am I protestant. These facts make me odd for an Irishman, as a very large number of Irish are devoutly religious. They're still killing each other in Northern Ireland for primarily religious reasons.
Of course, modern St. Patrick's Day celebrations have little to do with Patrick's lifelong mission of Christianizing the pagans of Erin, which is okay with me. Instead, it focuses primarily on drinking until you fall down in a pool of your own vomit, which is not okay with me.
I celebrate neither the religion nor the drink, although it's not unheard of for me to imbibe a couple Guinness come the 17th of March. I prefer to simply celebrate my Irish heritage and the pride I have in it. And on St. Patrick's Day, it seems that most people, whether they are Irish or not, do the same. The wearing o' the green seems to genuinely bring people together. If you don't believe me, ask all the people whose last names are Maleski or Francini or Schroeder or Krzyzewski why they are wearing green today.
Happy St. Paddy's Day!
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 11:14 AM
Mar 15, 2004
Wired News: P2P in the Legal Crosshairs
We fear what we do not understand. And that fear results in attempts to destroy technology -- yet again -- instead of embracing it and making part of a new model.
The RIAA and the MPAA are relics of by-gone centralized media oligarchy that is destined to be as relevant as the bones in the very near by LaBrea Tar Pits.
The more consolidation there is, the stronger the desire to break away from it. The media giants are learning very painful lessons about that, while our ersatzt Adam Smith at the FCC, Michael Powell, is learning that he may have created a monster.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 6:38 PM
Mar 11, 2004
Yahoo! News - EPA Studies Vapors From Microwave Popcorn
Anyone of you who've ever worked in a tech firm knows the sinister implications of this report. Think of all the hundreds, if not thousands, of bags of popcorn that have been popped where you work. Until now, we all thought that the poppers of those late lunch delicacies were just taunting us with that steamy, buttery-flavored aroma. Who knew they were actually killing us?
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 12:51 PM
Mar 9, 2004
Fire Rod Paige!
A few weeks ago Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, was speaking with a group of govenors at the Whitehouse when he labeled the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, a "terrorist organization."
Now I have many disagreements with the NEA, but I can't for life of me think why our Secretary of Education, in a very public situation, would make such inflammatory and obviously wrong statements.
Neither can I think of a single reason why Paige should be allowed to keep his job after uttering such remarks.
If you agree, visit the link above and sign an ever-growing petition to have Rod Paige removed. Be sure to click on "Tell a Friend" to spread the word.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 4:19 PM
Mar 2, 2004
Marketing in the Age of Affinity
This is a pretty good article about the ability of companies to use social networking apps as affinity marketing spaces. Here's the biggest thing to keep in mind, however:Critics of would-be viral marketers also say networking sites face the same basic problem that has always plagued affinity-based marketing. Viral awareness tends to happen on its own, because of the worthiness of a product or brand rather than any special effort on the part of a product's marketers. Every social network has a Mac group, for example, formed without the knowledge of Apple's branding folks.Too often, marketers think that they can define what is cool and what is worthy of our money; they can't. All that they can do is tap into the earliest stages of a trend and hopefully match their product or service to that trend. If they do, it's a big hit and their companies or clients make a ton of cash. If they don't, they are exposed as frauds at best and completely clueless at worst.
To be a successful marketer, you must abandon the idea that you can create opinions where none exist. You must tap into already existing opinions and see what aspects of your products brand matches those opinions. If there is a match, focus all of your efforts on those attributes. If there isn't a match, look elsewhere. You cannot create something out of nothing.
Just ask the music industry if they are successful these days with their outmoded command and control style of marketing.
0 Comments | Link to this post posted by Teddy 6:11 PM
