I think I might be coming down with something. This morning I woke up feeling tired and sick, and while I was cleaning my room I had to lie down from nausea. I still have my paper to write and we have visitors coming this weekend- my aunt, uncle and my cousins ages 10 and 5. Should be fun, huh?
In other news, Nintendo just announced a new feature for their Wii console called WiiWare (I wonder if Wario gave them the idea?). WiiWare will allow developers to publish custom-designed games for the Wii controls that will be available in the Wii Shop Channel along with the classic Virtual Console titles. In addition to big-name developers like Sega using WiiWare, Nintendo is encouraging small, independent game developers to get involved. They want to see "shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas", and they're giving developers the freedom to publish what they want on the system, with Nintendo only intervening to check for bugs and compatibility issues.
This is really cool because it takes a lot to get your foot in the door in the video game industry, and this might very well blow the door wide open for indie developers. I hope this leads to more companies like Telltale Games (I'm a big fan of theirs if you haven't noticed yet) getting noticed and becoming more popular.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Book discussion stuff
Not much to say right now. I'm working on the next book discussion for LIS 2000. All of this copyright law stuff is kind of making my head spin.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Sopranos fans whack show's creator
Kind of old news, but heh.
You gotta give the Internet credit for one thing- it certainly allows people to voice their opinions about things easier, even if it's just calling The Sopranos creator a homosexual for how he ended the show.
You gotta give the Internet credit for one thing- it certainly allows people to voice their opinions about things easier, even if it's just calling The Sopranos creator a homosexual for how he ended the show.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Radio killed the music star?
So the other day, I was listening to the radio, and they had a pretty interested interview with a guy at MTV News who wrote an article/scathing angry rant about something that happened at another radio station in Chicago.
The gist of it: q101 gets a hold of a leak of the White Stripes' new album, Icky Thump. The DJ, being a huge fan of the White Stripes, decides to play the whole thing on air because she wants to get everybody hyped up for the finished album (the leak was actually of an unfinished version). There's much rejoicing, right? Wrong. A mere two hours later, lead singer Jack White
actually calls the station and chews out the DJ for playing the album, claiming that she's doing terrible things to the music industry by jumping the gun and whatnot. The MTV article was essentially blasting the q101 DJ and radio DJs in general for doing stuff like this, and the interview I heard was pretty much the DJs trying to get this guy to see the other side of the issue.
So, who's to blame for the mess? If you ask me, definately *not* q101 or the DJ. Sure, playing the *whole album* without thinking that there might be some backlash might not have been the smartest move, but if anyone's to blame, it's the person who leaked the album in the first place, or possibly even the record company itself. I'm more than willing to bet that these "accidental" leaks aren't as accidental as we're led to believe. Hey, what better way to score some free publicity for a new album than to cause a big ruckus over it getting leaked onto the Internet just weeks away from the release date? It also seems to happen quite a lot when there's a big name involved- Evanescence and Linkin Park's latest albums were also leaked prematurely.
Does Jack White have a right to be angry? Yes,but taking it out on a *fan* who loves his music and wanted to share it with other fans was totally uncalled for, not to mention, it smacks of looking a gift horse in the mouth if you go back to that "free publicity" thing. As someone who commented on the MTV article said, "There are thousands of musicians trying to get their music played on the radio and these guys are angry because too much of theirs was played?" If White didn't want the material leaked, then he should redirect his anger to whoever leaked it, or the record company itself. But what is there to be angry about? The copy the radio station received wasn't even the finished product, and anyone who might have recorded it not only got an unfinished album, but a radio rip of it.
On a related note, I present to you the story of Year Zero, the latest Nine Inch Nails album. In an effort to protest the way the recording industry is handling itself in the digital age, Trent Reznor personally leaked some of the songs on the album early by leaving USB drives containing the songs in easily noticeable places at NIN concerts.
The gist of it: q101 gets a hold of a leak of the White Stripes' new album, Icky Thump. The DJ, being a huge fan of the White Stripes, decides to play the whole thing on air because she wants to get everybody hyped up for the finished album (the leak was actually of an unfinished version). There's much rejoicing, right? Wrong. A mere two hours later, lead singer Jack White
actually calls the station and chews out the DJ for playing the album, claiming that she's doing terrible things to the music industry by jumping the gun and whatnot. The MTV article was essentially blasting the q101 DJ and radio DJs in general for doing stuff like this, and the interview I heard was pretty much the DJs trying to get this guy to see the other side of the issue.
So, who's to blame for the mess? If you ask me, definately *not* q101 or the DJ. Sure, playing the *whole album* without thinking that there might be some backlash might not have been the smartest move, but if anyone's to blame, it's the person who leaked the album in the first place, or possibly even the record company itself. I'm more than willing to bet that these "accidental" leaks aren't as accidental as we're led to believe. Hey, what better way to score some free publicity for a new album than to cause a big ruckus over it getting leaked onto the Internet just weeks away from the release date? It also seems to happen quite a lot when there's a big name involved- Evanescence and Linkin Park's latest albums were also leaked prematurely.
Does Jack White have a right to be angry? Yes,but taking it out on a *fan* who loves his music and wanted to share it with other fans was totally uncalled for, not to mention, it smacks of looking a gift horse in the mouth if you go back to that "free publicity" thing. As someone who commented on the MTV article said, "There are thousands of musicians trying to get their music played on the radio and these guys are angry because too much of theirs was played?" If White didn't want the material leaked, then he should redirect his anger to whoever leaked it, or the record company itself. But what is there to be angry about? The copy the radio station received wasn't even the finished product, and anyone who might have recorded it not only got an unfinished album, but a radio rip of it.
On a related note, I present to you the story of Year Zero, the latest Nine Inch Nails album. In an effort to protest the way the recording industry is handling itself in the digital age, Trent Reznor personally leaked some of the songs on the album early by leaving USB drives containing the songs in easily noticeable places at NIN concerts.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Telltale again
Recently, something awesome happened to Telltale Games, to the tune of six million dollars. That's a lot of money for a small, independent game developer with about fifty employees to its name. I'm really happy for them and can't wait to see what they do with it. Lots of fans are clamoring for them to buy the rights for the Monkey Island game series from Lucasarts, which *would* be absolutely amazing, don't get me wrong, but my guess is that they'll start developing games for the Xbox 360 and Wii, since they've hired developers for both, but haven't announced anything yet...
Oh and I'm definitely expecting more BONE to come out of this, which is good, because I've been rereading the comic recently.
Oh and I'm definitely expecting more BONE to come out of this, which is good, because I've been rereading the comic recently.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
User-created music videos
So a big aspect of Web 2.0, or just about anything 2.0-related, is user-created content, right? Well, I just realized that if that's the case, we also have Music Video 2.0 now.
Barenaked Ladies (which happens to be my favorite band ever, but I digress), has held two contests where fans film themselves singing, dancing and generally acting silly to the singles of their latest album, Barenaked Ladies Are Me. Then, the band released 'fan videos' for the singles featuring choice clips that were entered.
The first contest was for "Wind Me Up", and the resulting fan video can be seen here. Later, BNL released an "official" video, featuring a cameo appearance by the contest winner.
Their second contest was for "Sound Of Your Voice", and the video is here.
Just the other day I found out that the band Incubus had held a similar contest for their song "Dig". They also filmed themselves performing the song in front of a green screen so that contestants could have footage of the band in their entries. There were two winners- a fan and band pick and the grand prize winner, both of which are featured on the contest page.
So there you have it- Music Video 2.0. I think it's pretty cool that bands and their fans are interacting like this, and it would be great to see more big names get involved.
Barenaked Ladies (which happens to be my favorite band ever, but I digress), has held two contests where fans film themselves singing, dancing and generally acting silly to the singles of their latest album, Barenaked Ladies Are Me. Then, the band released 'fan videos' for the singles featuring choice clips that were entered.
The first contest was for "Wind Me Up", and the resulting fan video can be seen here. Later, BNL released an "official" video, featuring a cameo appearance by the contest winner.
Their second contest was for "Sound Of Your Voice", and the video is here.
Just the other day I found out that the band Incubus had held a similar contest for their song "Dig". They also filmed themselves performing the song in front of a green screen so that contestants could have footage of the band in their entries. There were two winners- a fan and band pick and the grand prize winner, both of which are featured on the contest page.
So there you have it- Music Video 2.0. I think it's pretty cool that bands and their fans are interacting like this, and it would be great to see more big names get involved.
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Monday, June 4, 2007
Double Fold
I'm slowly working my way through Double Fold, and once again I'm finding myself analyzing the writing style instead of the argument. I *really* dislike Baker's tone- it's so condescending. I should have expected it, since he flat out says in the introduction that he wasn't going to be unbiased about it, but still. The book is making me angry, but for all the wrong reasons- I'm angry at Baker for the way he's presenting his argument rather than being angry at what he wants me to be angry at.
Another thing that bothers me is the two problems that I thought of when I considered his "keep everything no matter what" idea, namely:
1. Where are we supposed to put everything? Trust me, I'm a pack rat, and I love the idea of preserving newspapers for historical purposes, but seriously, WHERE are we going to keep everything? Do we build a bunch of off-site warehouses? If so, how are library patrons supposed to access them? He always seems to skirt around this issue.
2. I've been searching on Google and I can't seem to find anything that supports his insistence that paper doesn't deteriorate as quickly as most people believe. In fact, all I find is more evidence to the contrary. Not to mention, there's a lot of other factors in keeping paper in good condition- mold, insects, exposure to light, handling, etc. Baker immediately pooh-poohs scanning high resolution images of texts as too costly, but keeping it in good condition with all of those factors in mind would be pretty expensive, too, don't you think?
I've also been reading/skimming Understanding Digital Libraries, which is a little dry. Lesk, like Baker, makes good points, but I'm not finding myself entirely sold yet. He's the opposite of Baker- instead of "save EVERYTHING!!!" it's "scan EVERYTHING!!!" and he never seems to acknowledge the other side at all either. However, he does get one bonus point for not being angry about it.
In other news, I spent the weekend at Lake Anna for the Virginia Renaissance Faire. It was a lot of fun, not to mention a little interesting after being submerged in technology from these classes. It would have been nice if the weather had cooperated a bit- it was sweltering on Saturday and raining on Sunday, but what can you do about that? I had a good time listening to raunchy songs and making s'mores, though!
Another thing that bothers me is the two problems that I thought of when I considered his "keep everything no matter what" idea, namely:
1. Where are we supposed to put everything? Trust me, I'm a pack rat, and I love the idea of preserving newspapers for historical purposes, but seriously, WHERE are we going to keep everything? Do we build a bunch of off-site warehouses? If so, how are library patrons supposed to access them? He always seems to skirt around this issue.
2. I've been searching on Google and I can't seem to find anything that supports his insistence that paper doesn't deteriorate as quickly as most people believe. In fact, all I find is more evidence to the contrary. Not to mention, there's a lot of other factors in keeping paper in good condition- mold, insects, exposure to light, handling, etc. Baker immediately pooh-poohs scanning high resolution images of texts as too costly, but keeping it in good condition with all of those factors in mind would be pretty expensive, too, don't you think?
I've also been reading/skimming Understanding Digital Libraries, which is a little dry. Lesk, like Baker, makes good points, but I'm not finding myself entirely sold yet. He's the opposite of Baker- instead of "save EVERYTHING!!!" it's "scan EVERYTHING!!!" and he never seems to acknowledge the other side at all either. However, he does get one bonus point for not being angry about it.
In other news, I spent the weekend at Lake Anna for the Virginia Renaissance Faire. It was a lot of fun, not to mention a little interesting after being submerged in technology from these classes. It would have been nice if the weather had cooperated a bit- it was sweltering on Saturday and raining on Sunday, but what can you do about that? I had a good time listening to raunchy songs and making s'mores, though!
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