Posts by W

"...the company blamed a faulty transformer for the fire."

So is this why the Heathrow security guy made that fella take his Transformers T-shirt off?

Once upon a time, there used to be a sheet music chart...

A) Artists used to tour in order to promote their singles. Maybe the more lucrative album sales would come too... (eg: Chuck Berry / Diana Ross / Elvis).

B) Then singles became non-profit propositions in order to promote albums. Maybe the more lucrative tour ticket sales would come too... (eg: REM / U2 / Nirvana).

C) Now it's difficult to sell albums at a profit, they're being used more as a promotional tool for the tour. Maybe the more lucrative mp3 sales will come too...(Madonna / Prince / Nine Iinch Nails / Radiohead / The Charlatans).

>>>OK... so the games up? Music has come full circle. It's the end of the line for the Major Record Companies now that they can't coin it in by selling £2.50 CDs for £15? Now what? Let's draw some lines and identify some categories of artists at risk...

I) Notice that all the artists mentioned above are/were mostly "Record Business Names". They're more at the mercy of the changes in 'the market' but probably have enough of a "brand" to be able to go it alone.

II) Less at the mercy of the whims of 'the market' are artists who don't break into the massive "Record Business Names" category but who nonetheless make healthy careers thank-you-very-much by way of talent, exhibiting a USP not found elsewhere and/or by cultivating a loyalty amongst their fans. (Mansun / Belle & Sebastian / The Cure / Kirstin Hersch / The Breeders / etc). Some take a bit of time, but they catch up and come good eventually (Seasick Steve).

III) Some will might never be heard of outside of the venues they tour, but will still keep at it because they straight up love what they do and can sacrifice the dreams of an MTV "Crib" for the sake of intergrity, a roof over their head and food on their plate (Dave Arcari / Mr David Viner / Buck 65 / C.R. Avery / Copter (check 'em all out on myspace, btw!)).

IV) There has always been throwaway commercial music too. Then when their replacements get wheeled out, they go back to working in Asda. The music is a side issue. The important thing is that they can forge a symbiotic relationship with the tabloids and/or license the logo to Kelloggs or McDonalds or whoever. (S Club / Steps / 5ive)

V) And then we come to the tat that only gets there - or thereabouts - due to an unsustainable marketing push. (Busted / Dannii Minogue / The Kooks / Menswear / Bananarama / Pigeon Detectives / Katie Melua / Jamie Cullum / all Supermarket Indie / all runners' up of TV talent series' / and on and on and on and on...).

VI) Then of course there are the nameless session musicians. (A Non)

Category I) will be fine without record companies. We might not get to see any graduates from Category V) though. And for that we should be thankful.

Category II) & III) acts might find that there becomes less and less of a gap between them but they'll always exist around because they rely on a talent and loyalty that has nothing whatsoever to do with major record companies.

Category IV) has everything to do with the promotional department of the major labels. The promo opportunities still exist but music ain't the foil for their shite anymore. A 10 week primeitime saturday night TV series *might* be enough to shift a few units of aural blandness these days, but it's no guarantee. Your audience might be playing on the Nintendo Wii. Prediction: keep an eye out for the first Big Brother 'housemate' to be groomed for a quick buck #1 single.

Category V) will be first against the wall.

Category VI) are the jobbers. There'll no doubt be a need but it might not be what it was.

Just for the record (arf!) I'm 29. I've got 1000+ paid for CDs (+ plenty of vinyl) and still counting. But the record companies haven't made a penny out of me lately. I've only ever bought a few tracks from allofmp3.com (half decent, but gone). Play.com downloads are almost a decent set up (but only a narrow catalogue). And nope, I've never p2p'd (too much faffery and chaff).

For me, it's all about Amazon's marketplace and wishlists. There's little that I absolutely *must* get on the day of release. So it goes on the wishlist with all the other wants. I keep a check on the list now and then. Most stuff hits the agreeable fiver mark within six months. And there's loads stuff that drifts into sub-£2.50 'scoop 'em up' territory.

Maybe the seller thought it just wasn't worth the original price they paid for it and wants some of their dosh back.

Or maybe the seller has taken a rip of the disc before selling it on.

Whatever. Some folk want CDs. Some are happy with just the mp3s. But the RRP for CDs and mp3s is twice the price it should be. And so the market is levelling itself.

But let's not take my word for it. Let's take a look at some facts:

"78 million CD, tape and vinyl singles were bought in 1999 - the height of the physical single's popularity - but this fell to only eight million CD singles in 2007." -(http://preview.tinyurl.com/4554fn)

"Meanwhile, there were 72.6 million single downloads, which have been growing massively since the first legal sites were launched in 2004." -(http://preview.tinyurl.com/4cy5t5)

Digital album sales at "6.25 million albums"

Woolworths commercial director Jim Batchelor says, "CDs are alive and well for album sales" - (http://preview.tinyurl.com/45yrd6)

UK album sales are up approx. 40% over the last 10 years (after a 2004 high point), according to The Official Charts Company. (There's a nice graph here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/yoybwz).

So...CD album sales "alive and well". 72.6m single downloads + 8m CD singles = Up (3.3%) 2.6m on 1999s *best ever* sales.

Methinks the industry and media - doth protest - and worry - too much.

Pah! to HK...

...I thought everyone knew that it's all about Miffy.

<----- Pingu?

@Jon Biddell

Fail.

Unfortunately that's not what your invigilator said at the end of your test for a driving licence. You know. The licence you have to earn in order to gain the right to take a car onto the road.

Can't speak about Aus, but in the UK at least, post 1936, the public highways have been funded out of general taxation. The vehicle licence fee does not come close to covering highways expenditure. And the effect of cyclists on road wear and tear is effectively infinitesimal compared to the axle weights of motorised vehicles.

So in effect, non car owners are subsidising the roads network. No need to thank me. Maybe have a go at HGV drivers next tim, eh? They're the ones who don't pay their way, based on axle weight and road damage caused. Plus, they are far and away the major source of M-way hold-ups with their audacious +1mph overtaking manoeuvres.

NB: I note you quoted incorrectly, by omitting

Re: x2

>Re: "Didn't TVGoHome do this in 1999? - http://www.tvgohome.com/300499.html)" - James Dore

That Late Review bit is a bit of a nasty coincidence, considering those poor sods in the news at the mo.

And isn't Mick Hucknall making a comeback, too?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something.

>Re: "...anyone who eats factory farmed chicken or eggs is being a fucking hypocrite to object to these barbaric activities or their description." - John Stirling

I see your point. But steady on old chap. I'd reckon there's a difference between revelling in, or glorifying the animal cruelty, as opposed to blithely accepting what's happening as part of a set of fcuked up farming practices. If battery (is that the tech angle?) farms were used as entertainment and there was a magazine promoting them, then your point would stand.

Personally, as a veggie, I prefer to mock the divs that sign up to the anti-animal testing stalls in the street, whilst wearing their leather shoes, belts, etc. Everyone has their own set of morals I guess.

And as ever, it's not a simple case of black and white. We have to draw a line somewhere in the grey area. Do these dead cocks get eaten? Do we have a link from a respected source backing up Solomon Grundy's 'swift death' claims? If so, would it change our minds in any way?

@ DrXym

"People who compare the price to a regular laptop do not get it."

Yet you've gone halfway to contradicting your own point:

"The 701 does have faults like the small screen but these can be overlooked when when the price and size are considered."

Let's finish things off...

The MEDION does have faults like the PRICE, and these CAN'T be overlooked when when the SPEC and SIZE are considered.

Based on various comments being bandied about, I'd be confident in saying that, of the folk who haven't bought an EEE 701 4GB yet, there are an awful lot of 'em who think the following thoughts about the EEE 701 4GB:

a) it's a really useful form factor;

b) to be fair, it looks pretty decent too, for a cheapie;

c) the specs are easily useful enough for a bit of light, but functional PC usage (I can save the more heavy duty tasks for my 'proper' machine);

d) battery life seems fair;

e) at sub £250 it's very tempting indeed;

BUT...

f, for fail) the screen *really* shoulda filled that whole 'black space' where the speakers are.

Whoever can sort f) out without knackering a) - e) up will come out on top. Everyone so far has failed. Including Asus themselves, with the 900, by upping the specs, along with the screen size and the PRICE. To a point where the "proper laptop" argument becomes unavoidable.

In case the manufacturers just aren't understanding all this, I'll make it even simpler:

***If you make a machine equivalent to the EEE 701 4GB in every single way, but put in a 9 or 10 inch screen. Price it at £250 you'll sell more machines than you ever dreamed of.***

Once that has been sorted, then we can talk about add-ons like Bluetooth, HSDPA, Windows, upping the included storage, and other optional extras.

Who's willing to put a tenner on naming the first manufacturer to crack it?

Good call...

I forgot about the lack of an "Up one level" button in Windows Explorer. V annoying.

re: @ PayPal SchmayPal

Easy, Mr Paul Barnard. A few things...

eBay + PayPal = supposed updates within eBay on payment status. It mostly works. PayPal are at fault for not notifying of a problem (so that folk can manually check) when they are well aware of one.

I always leave positive feedback on reciept of payment. But there are still a good portion of problem purchasers that either mess around unduly with paying or are over-expectant when they've just purchased something for GBP 0.99 and will never be happy.

I never leave negative feedback, so as to avoid retaliation. eBay Feedback is broken. It should be left 'blind' within a certain window period after the bidding finishes. Slack buyers and sellers might then learn to tighten up a little, keep to deadlines and, read all the requirements.

You may say that the current PayPal issue has little to do with eBay feedback. But they're totally intertwined and basically the same company (as much as they like to pretend otherwise). PayPal is simply used as another layer of opportunity to cream another percentage off the top.

eBay should introduce an Amazon marketplace method of payment. But they won't because they've totally and utterly cornered the market in online auctions. So we'll all moan a bit but struggle along through it until the situation changes. Unlikely as that is to happen.

Ads

Hehe.

I keep forgetting the internet has ads. The comedy instances like the one pointed out by anarchic-teapot are the *only* thing that tempts me into turning 'em back on.

If you're automatically servin' up ads for toasters, I'm automatically batting back those toaster ads. I already have enough toasters. If the toaster vendor has had to pay for the priviledge of *trying* to sell a toaster to me, something's wrong somewhere. If/when I want to purchase a new toaster, personal judgements or unbiased recommendations will be the basis on which I shall proceed.

I presume there actually are toaster ads aplenty at this stage...?

Paris -> crumpet etc.

@ Please explain.

And if you squint, and tilt you head, she *almost* has a multicoloured Sun Microsystems logo on her top. How *very* geek chic of you Sarah?

scummers

I reckon a good proportion of all this talk of overheating and console unreliability is due to folk keeping their kit in scummy conditions. On the carpet / covered in fluff / discs out of cases / etc.

There are obviously legit cases, but - make no mistake - there are plenty of whiney scummers out there who abuse their kit.

@ 16th May 2008 11:16 GMT

Thants indeed. :-)

Surely it's obvious...

Think "Posh brand" / "Tesco Finest" / "Tesco" / "Value"

-Alienware = Straight up gaming

-XPS = Non-fugly Sony/Apple competitors, but sensibly priced.

-Inspiron = General consumer & Mid-market

-Vostro = Budget no-frills

My consultancy invoice is on it's way.

PS: I love my XPS M1330 to bits. Invokes coos from those that see it. Not a hint of a fault from it.

Let's be honest.

The 'worlds largest NES controller' (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=simqlREvRH4) doesn't have a girl in the vid.

Which probably explains why you posted story instead, no?

Paris because {joypad/stick : wood : press : buttons : biggest : play } etc...

...and they won, too!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_conf/7382167.stm

These are my experiences of the last 5 years, tell me yours...

Case 1/

Car up my rear. We both pull over. I get out to exchange details. Car drives off. Police informed of reg no. Person at address where car is registered denies all knowledge. Police: "Sorry, there's nothing else we can do." I take the insurance hit.

-CCTV? Dunno.

-Database/Register any use? Used, but useless.

-Police at the scene of the crime? No.

Case 2/

I can see a bunch of kids climbing onto a bin shed and entering the 1st floor window of a stairwell. Call local police station. No answer for 5 mins. Call 999. Deficiency in level of details taken. Call clearly not taken seriously. No police on the scene that evening. Not the first instance of apathy with something like this either.

-CCTV? No. Direct eye witness (me).

-Database/Register any use? No.

-Police at the scene of the crime? No, but we have since hired a private security firm who patrol the area regularly. Things have improved.

Case 3/

2 bikes double chained to a concrete colunm in a 'secure' underground car park. Bikes gone. Called police. All entrances to the car park were covered by CCTV and the car park was only accessible to residents with a swipe fob. And there was a concierge. Obviously it would be wrong of me to apportion blame to the guys doing building work, with the tools to cut the bikes free and the van to bundle 'em into (and the concierge who let 'em in and out). Police didn't even want to turn up at my address (apparently they would if I specifically requested). I got my crime reference number and made my insurance claim.

-CCTV? Yes, but useless.

-Database/Register any use? No (though investigation of the construction firm would have been known, but no apparent serious investigation of this avenue).

-Police at the scene of the crime? No.

Case 4/

Walking with my girlfriend along a CCTV observed street at 8pm. Got elbowed in the ribs by a chancer for absolutely no reason whatsoever (didn't know 'em, hadn't even made eye contact). Walked on and did nothing but still got a punch to the back of my head for good measure. Reported to the police. They arrive and take a statement. No crime number. Last I've heard of it.

-CCTV? Yes, but useless.

-Database/Register any use? No.

-Police at the scene of the crime? No. Took a statement after, for what it's worth.

Case 5/

Got surrounded and held up at a cashpoint. Handed over wallet and phone. They run off. But unfortunately for them, they were being watched by undercover cops (who had to wait until I was actually mugged before making chase, apparently - lucky there were no weapons involved, eh?). They catch the muggers (and return my wallet & phone!). They were also caught on CCTV and were already known to police. Court case verdict: a couple of 'em sent down for a short while. One lad is too young and pretty much gets away with it. One lad claims he has "things going on in his head" and sentancing is deferred.

-CCTV? Yes.

-Database/Register any use? Only as evidence of previous misdemeanours.

-Police at the scene of the crime? Yes. Had they not been, the CCTV and previous would've been no use to me.

In my experience CCTV has acted as no serious deterent or substitute for an actual police presence. Databases/registers were only of any use once the criminals had been caught and were open to abuse without the culprit being caught red-handed.

Off topic (-ish): Anyone seen the film Red Road? Excellent stuff, and one of CCTVs few saving graces if you ask me (if only for answering the question "I wonder what a female Bobby Gillespie would look like...?").

Non-story.

I pay £7.50pm on 3 for UNLIMITED data as a bolt-on to my £15pm tariff which includes free SE K770 phone + 300mins/texts x-network + 300 mins 3to3 calls + 30 mins of (never used) video calls.

Where's the story?

And 3, along with T-Mobile, lead the way with mobile broadband dongles too.

And "MySpace ranks eighth, reflecting its has-been status" isn't quite on the button, surely. I'd say it's more to do with the fact that myspace looks like a dog's dinner on a PC screen, so it'll be correspondingly awful on a mobile. And the size of the pages won't be much fun on a mobile connection either.

DVD Burners

"Once the media drops in price for data back-up/archive use, we should see a rapid take up replacing the tape drives for SMB in particular."

Maybe. In some SMBs. But the one I work for still backs up to CDRs. We don't have a DVR burner in the office.

Just saying.

@ Dazed and Confused

"So contrary to popular opinion they can be useful."

The knives or women? Arf.

<get's chased out of the Reg Comments ection by an army of women with electric carvers>

AS LONG AS MTV CRIBS EXISTS, THE RIAA WILL BE SEEN TO BE CRYING WOLF

4 Quotes I've enjoyed so far & then 4 points from me:

1/ "...the headliner often demanded a cut of our merchandise sales." - by MattW

2/ "The only thing the international record industry does is standardise the music we listen to across the entire world, simultaneously destroying local musical culture. [...] if the RIAA and all it's bands died tommorrow we wouldn't suddenly have a world without music, we'd have local bands playing to local people, those with some talent nowadays have the option of having their music spread worldwide via the internet." - by AC Thursday 1st May 2008 11:04 GMT

3/ "Seeing a half-decent band play - especially one you haven't seen before can often be incredibly satisfying and moving, and give you much more musical 'payback' than listening to the best produced recording from a plastic band from the corporations." - by Spbmssen

4/ "As long as the demand for the "Feeling" of physical music exists people will pay for that feeling but don't kid yourselves that they are paying because its a moral choice, it's the feelinfg of owning it." - by Kirk Bannister

---

1/ I'm 29. I've got approximately 1000 CDs, 100-odd LPs, 100-odd 7"s + x amount of tapes in a box. All paid for. I've got lees than 10 copied CDs, less than 10 allofmp3 DLs + x-amount of copied tapes from way back when. I've not downloaded a single track from p2p, thepiratebay or wherever so my conscience is clear. Even if that does make me a paytard. I'm the on with racks of CDs not the one with a crashed HDD and a bunch of lost music files that were never listened to anyway.

2/ The allofmp3 downloads model is the only one that can work. Price based on audio quality makes some sense. But the whole thing was a faff. id3 tags, artwork images, proper filenames etc were all an arse that I'd rather not have to worry about. Play.com was similar, but more expensive. I will continue to buy my £5CDs for the forseeable future (mostly AmazonMarketplace or via my Fabric subscription) with the odd £5+ purchase splurge at an independent shop. Just being in HMV/Zavvi for more than 5 mins is a truly horrible experience these days.

3/ One of the best performances for me lately was Dave Acari at the basement of Nice And Sleazy's. Less than a fiver entry. Blistering performance. Good choice of drinks at sensible prices and served in a glass. The biggest live disappointment for me lately has been Smashing Pumpkins at the SECC. £40-odd for a ticket. Soulless half-full venue. £3.50 for a can of beer (one choice of lager) served in a plastic tumbler. And unneccesarily-abrasive-toward-the-audience 'banter' in between a laclustre performance.

4/ I see normally go to at least one gig a week. Maybe a third are never to be seen again sub-£5 jobs. A third will be established but not especially 'mainstream' £5-15 gigs. The other third are established acts (often past their prime) with tickets at £15+. The £15+ concerts are normally much larger and as a consequence, unless you can hack getting crushed at the front, the experience is nowhere near as immersive as the basement club gig.

---

Now for the flame:

>"Only in the same way that a house has a value, because someone designed it, took time and skill to build it, you need somewhere to live, and had a preference for the look and location of the house you chose to live in above the cheaper and inferior houses you could have bought." - by censored

Nope. I draw houses. The houses get built. There's nothing I can practiucally do to stop someone taking a copy of the design and building another house, without me getting a cut. For "design" read "song". For "house" read "CD".

---

Make of these points what you will but one fact should stand tall: AS LONG AS MTV CRIBS EXISTS, THE RIAA WILL BE SEEN TO BE CRYING WOLF. End of.

The 'Music Indusrty' needs to get it's own house in order and the rest will follow. My first quote (MattW) makes this abundantly clear. I mean fookin 'ell - I wouldn't asking our office cleaner for a cut of her wages!

Rewind

It'd be sweeter if it worked the other way round.

I.e. if it could /record/ mp3s. Then you could simply press record+play on either a twin tape deck or a tape deck hooked up to turntable for one last blast of analogue nostalgia before dropping the resultant mp3s onto yer hard drive.

Better than plugging the tape player or turntable into the PC line in and then fannying around with Audacity or similar. And more likely to happen, too. Has /anyone/ got round to the never-gonna-happen job of mp3/jpeg/mpeg-ising their tapes/records/photos/VHS)?

I've not even done half of my CDs yet to be honest.

Petition

Remember pholks, the petition is still out there.

See: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/ if you haven't already.

It's #10 in the popularity list at the moment, so a phew extra signatures could be what's needed to help push this up the list of priorities within gov't.

Pencil?

What's the point of the pencil? Why not a piece of string?

Something like a dummy credit card would have been a whole load more useful.

@Echowitch

1. Get married

1a. Sell pics to Hello/OK

1b. PROFIT!!!

2. Get plastered

3. Have fight

4. Wedding cake curry afterwards

4a. Sell pics to Hello/OK

4b. PROFIT!!!

5. Go through rocky patch / divorce.

5a. Sell pics to Hello/OK

5b. PROFIT!!!

5c. Sell rights to SkyOne/E4/MTV

5d. PROFIT!!!

Oi!

>"Joe Bloggs of 43 Numpty Rise, PhormTown has brought a priate CD"

Oi! How did you find out? Stop tampering with my mail!

Kind regards

Joe Bloggs

43 Numpty Rise,

PhormTown

... it is, at most, only worth X/2. End of story.

>"There's no outrage because those of us who care about the issue to any degree won't be using this kind of service anyway". - Paul Talbot

>"Major labels will jointly own the new service. There's no stake for the indie sector which invests in the "Long Tail"." - Mr Orlowski

To tempt me as a customer, a succesful download service must:

a) compete with ripping Amazon/AmazonMarketplace CDs on PRICE - that means £5 per 15 track album AT MOST,

b) compete with ripping Amazon/AmazonMarketplace CDs on RANGE - that means offer virtually every piece of music released, be it from the publisher or a third party (I don't care, as long as it's being made available from /someone/ via the service),

c) have no apparent DRM ('watermark' if you wish)

e) offer, or be compatible with, free decent jukebox software to replace WMP or iTunes that:

-i) seamlessly and flawlessly imports files into my library

-ii) names and arranges those files to my specification, based on accurate metatagging

-iii) automatically and virtually instantly detects all tracks manually added to my library folders

-iv) allows drag and drop for ANY portable music player

-v) allows me to re-download everything for a nominally small fee (1p per track)

If, somewhere down the line, a physical CD can be sold at price X, then the data on it is, at most, only worth X/2. End of story. So, in a nutshell, I want:

--1) a *Download this for half the price of the CD* button next EVERY *Buy* button on Amazon,

--2) if the record companies can't be bothered to do the encoding and uploading in a hurry, then let us do it, and give us a few pence/"credits" for every track that we upload allow you to sell thereafter,

--3) allow buyers to rate the quality of what's been uploaded, to deter any fraudulent uploads, and other buyers have something to go on when making make their 'caveat emptor' judgments.

--4) PROFIT! (As long as you remember that your data is, at most, only worth X/2 GBP. End of story

Additional flaw

PAYG internet-enabled phones?

Re: Support? Linux?

Yup, as I said, I was really quite excited about my foray into Linux.

Did all the background reading. Had a bash with Fluxbuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Puppy, DamnSmall...

Still no joy with my WiFi card or even dial-up modem. No net connection = fail.

PCLinuxOS did look and feel very, very user friendly indeed to this Windows user though, so I might revisit if there's a hint of any improvement in the situation.

Come on Tux, get off yer bum and get me connected.

Wanted:

~10" screen / ~1kg

inbuilt 3G modem + WiFi

Enough grunt to run XP & Paint.NET without wheezing.

<£300

All I can think of is an upcomng 10" Eee w/ XP + 3 dongle. Any other suggestions?

Little to do with txt.

1. "Text-speak baby names" -> Dail Fail nonsense. Predictive text = RIP TXT SPK.

2. more like "a genuine misspelling or just an attempt by parents to give their kids unique labels" -> Cud bee eevur. Fik or krazy mumz n dadz lol.

3. "many kids leave mobile phones on overnight" -> As does the vast majority of the adult population. Who turns their phone off at night? Do you unplug your landline phone too?

One and the same?

Have you ever seen Ashlee Vance and amanfromMars in the same place at the same time?

Kind regards,

Oolla Frip.