| the internal mental debate over whether to get an iphone - specifically, wondering whether this or that cool-seeming feature justifies the price tag, considering the known usability problems - gets a lot easier when you wake up on your birthday and all of a sudden you just have one. thanks, amy!
so far it works as promised -- reasonably well for most things, awesome for some (music, photos and video, and maps), not so awesome for others (typing urls or proper nouns). the screen is super nice, it makes and receives phone calls reasonably well, and the text messaging ui is great. the web browser is OK -- flashy and impressive to see it render pages, a pain in the ass to use anything relatively complicated (e.g. amazon or facebook) -- i think i'll probably only use it for google reader in mobile mode, or if i desperately need to look something up or whatever.
what really sucks is that there's no way to send photos from the phone at all. no flickr, not even some platform-locked .mac thingy, nothing.
it also doesn't play well with my work email or calendar, which when i think about it is actually probably a good thing. i need to be a little more disconnected.
more later once i'm done playing... | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | Greetings from sunny Barcelona... I've posted some photos and video from the Sónar festival up on Line Out, the Stranger's music blog. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | ISDN! | | Time: | 07:06 pm |
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| And look what I found in the room! Maybe I can get my new phone wired into it, otherwise I'll just telnet into the CWRU Freenet...
| | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Here is the one souvenir I brought back, from a junk shop in Cairo.
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| [From Line Out.]
A few days ago, Mark Cuban posted some interesting thoughts on the popular "Long Tail" concept, mostly focusing on the relationships between content creators (that's you and me, folks) and the big entities that stand to gain from aggregating all those teeny niche markets into something profitable. (The Long Tail in 10 seconds: In the world of Amazon, iTunes and Netflix, you can do just as well selling 100 copies of 100,000 different records as you can from selling 10 million copies of a single megahit. I've explained the creative implications in the graphic above.)
"No content creator wants to be on the long tail," Cuban says, and he's sort of right. It's nice to be on the big, fat left-hand side of that curve. It means paying your rent on time, or buying Bentleys and shit. He's right about the relationships between big companies, popular content and copyright infringement. And he makes some good points about how it still takes hefty investments to sell significant units of digital (or analog) anything.
It's a pretty solid analysis of what's going on at the big-business level, but I wonder if he's missing (or ignoring) the changes at the individual level -- specifically, how individual artists will be paid (if at all) for their work, and what their motivations are when they plug their art into the long tail.
Most of the successful electronic musicians I know don't make that much money from record sales. Some of them do sound design for video games, or write spec music for advertising, film or TV. Many of them do remixes for other artists for a flat fee (basically shifting the sales risk to others). A lot more of them make money playing records or performing live -- selling the stuff you can't digitize. And most of them get that kind of work by being somewhat known as an artist, somewhere deep in the tail.
Records are more like advertising, and although many still cling to the idea that you have to sell them profitably, many others are choosing to just give their music away, or at least turn a blind eye to piracy, knowing that their reward will come when the right music supervisor or club promoter comes across their work. (And then, of course, there are artists who have day jobs, and whose reward is merely expressing themselves and connecting with their audience -- being famous for fifteen people.)
So by that logic, it doesn't seem like it should matter if you're in the "long tail ghetto" unless you really are just focused on selling records.
But should it? Let me know in comments. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| When I was 10 I expected to be working on the moon by now. The future turned out to be kind of a drag. I guess I'll have to settle for this.
Edit: Alas, the posting has been pulled. Raytheon Polar Services was seeking a hairstylist to work at an Antarctic research facility. They were also in the market for a sous chef. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Hey everyone -- looking for something fun to do in Seattle this weekend? I will be performing /LIVE/ on Saturday night at Cafe Des Amis, 1013 E Pike St, in Seattle's colorful Capitol Hill neighborhood. 5 bucks to get in.
This should be a good show - my first headlining gig in a while, and this Saturday night tends to draw a really fun crowd. Put on your dancing shoes and drinking cap and come on down. And if you come a little early you can chat and say hello rather than just stand there and watch me like the rock star I am.
Here's the full lineup.
Mister Leisure
DJ Eddie
Jon Lemmon
Check out some of the music at http://www.myspace.com/misterleisure.
And also be sure to check out the latest insightful commentary at www.genericide.net as well as thrice-ish weekly postings to the Stranger's new music blog, Line Out: http://www.thestranger.com/lineout.
Here's what else the Stranger has to say:
MISTER LEISURE, DJ EDDIE
Stranger freelancer Matt Corwine (AKA Mister Leisure) rarely plays out, but when he does, he always delivers engrossing tech-house sets that make me wonder why he doesn't play out more often (maybe because quality that rarefied needs time to germinate; glad that's settled). Corwine plans to bring a "more house-oriented twist on my live set for this one, so bring your dancing shoes." He starts making the magic sounds around 11:30 pm. For lovers of world-class techno and house, DJ Eddie is money in the bank. Don't miss him. Des Amis, 1013 E Pike St, 322-0703, 9 pm–2 am, $5, 21+. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Guy Kewney, editor of Newswireless.net, was recently invited down to the BBC to opine on the Beatles vs. Apple verdict and the future of digital downloading. But as he was waiting in reception, a confused floor producer grabbed another man (who they think was Kewney's cab driver), slapped a mic on him and rushed him on set, where he gave a 45-second live interview on the verdict and its impact on the music business to BBC consumer affairs correspondent Karen Bowerman.
Read the story, see the clip.
(via TEDblog.) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I reflect on the EMP Pop Conference.
Also check Line Out, their new music blog, where I tell you something you may not have known about Journey. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| http://www.myopenbar.com/ is a list of all known events in the New York area with an open bar. They just recently expanded to LA. The mental image I have is of hipsters turning into old ladies clipping coupons -- "Ooh, look Myrtle, here's one for 2-for-1 Duracells over at Eckerd's!"
Right now it's probably good news for the people with open bars, as it's not widely known (no Craigslist category, yet) and designed to appeal to the sorts of folks who would already be likely to buy the art, see the band, eat the food the open bars are meant to sell. Bums, on the other hand, are probably not yet hip to this. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| (from www.genericide.net)
Instructions:
1. Go to your favorite chain bookseller, ideally somewhere way out in the exurbs.
2. As you leisurely browse the aisles, pick up two or three pieces of George W. Bush hagiography. May I suggest this or this.
3. Wander the store for a few minutes, flipping through the pages occasionally.
4. Put the books back on the shelves, but in the "Humor" section. Some with covers facing out, some not.
5. Find another bookstore, repeat step 1.
Feel free to also try this with the collected works of your favorite right-wing pundits. Or, if you're feeling especially cynical, the United States Constitution.
Pass it along... | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| (from www.genericide.net)
This month, an animation by my friend Janet with an original score by me will be shown as part of the "Forming Motion" program on Feb. 12 and 13 at Directors Lounge in Berlin. (Janet will also show In Situ, a collaboration with Briggan Krauss.)
If you're in Berlin, go check out the show. The program, which features loads of short films, looks pretty cool. Or just click the links and enjoy them at home. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| If any of y'all will be up Ballard way tonight, I will be playing at The Balmar all night. Swanky cocktail lounge at the corner of Ballard and Market. Downtempo / eclectic / lounge music. (I'm hoping people get drunk and sloppy so I can start off the new year with Mr. Roboto, but chances are slim.)
Were I not doing that, I would be at Nectar, so if you don't see me go there instead. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | an oceanographer involved in finding and mapping the "eastern garbage patch" also worked to map various ocean currents by tracking a shipment of (no kidding) rubber duckies that fell off a container ship in the pacific back in 1992. some of the duckies made it into arctic ice floes, where they drifted into the north atlantic and washed up on the shores of maine. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| for those of you who missed it, here is a transcript of the transit workers' union press conference just now:
*bzzzt* attenthmmm passenngrrnnmmmm. th *bzzt* hrsmm vodddd to nn *bzzzt* strinnnk unnnm continnnnm negoti *bzzzzt* unnnz ann we hummmv ordrrrrd transismmmm work*bzzzzzzt* to retuummmm to theiummm jozzz immeditmmnnmm. thankmm mmm.
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mcorwine's journal
