It’s a Panda eat Panda World Out There
When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with was then called the WWF (World Wrestling Federation). However, due to disputes with the World Wildlife Federation, they had to change their name to WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). Someone recently sent this picture to me and I thought it was funny.
As we’re all probably aware, the record industry has been generally reluctant to sell music online. I can’t say that I can completely blame them with the onset of Napster and other file sharing services, but they’ve been making progress. When iTunes and most other music stores got started, they sold music that used Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Essentially, this was intended to prevent filesharing by limiting the number of computers it could be played on. However, unlike mp3s, DRM music files came with many annoying compatibility issues and headaches that discouraged people from buying legal downloads. Fortunately, the record companies began to realize this and started offering mp3s through sites like AmazonMp3.com.
Among the major record companies, Sony/BMG was the last to make the switch to “unprotected” music. More recently however, they seem to be notoriously hostile toward any form of streaming music. In addition to various lawsuits, I have recently noticed a condition of their recent partnership with Youtube. Most videos from Youtube can be embedded on blogs or other websites. However, this has been disabled for music videos based on songs owned by Sony/BMG. To my knowledge, none of the other major record companies do this. In fact, many artists embed Youtube videos on their own websites. Hopefully, Sony is only holding out once again like they did with mp3s, but a less people have complained about embedding videos so I’m not very optimistic about. Recently, I have also tried to get streaming licenses from them for AudioBiblio, but that has been a bit of a challenge. EMI on the other hand doesn’t have a problem with this. I’m still waiting on responses from the other two.
Have you ever notice that sometimes websites have a little icon by the address bar? Those are called favorite icons. Recently I changed Reality Lapse’s favorite icon to reflect the new logo that has been on the site for quite some time. In order to do this, I used Dynamic Drive’s Favicon Generator to generate an icon file. Then, I just uploaded favicon.ico to the root folder for RealityLapse.com. Most modern browser just look for the file there. For example, you can find it at http://www.realitylapse.com/favicon.ico
I finally have my laptop back after sending it to HP to repair a problem I was having with my WiFi. In case you’re wondering, it’s an HP Pavilion that I originally bought because it was only $700. However, I’d recommend it to anyone who’s looking to buy a new laptop and it seems to be fairly common as well. Most people don’t bang their laptops up like I do mine so you probably won’t have to repair it like I did, but it was under warranty anyway so I didn’t pay anything. Now that I have it back, I can begin working on some stuff that required a few files that were stored on there.
//Edit: Ha ha, now it says “Compaq” every time I turn it on.
Horrible Band Name, Good Indie Music
Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of indie music on the radio. If you don’t know what Indie music is, it refers to songs by artists who haven’t been signed to major labels and are therefore less mainstream. Sometimes I wonder why some of these people aren’t more popular, but in other cases it’s painfully obvious why their success will always be limited. For example, the song Must Be the Moon has a nice funky and techno sound to it. However, it’s made by a band called “!!!” (pronounced chk,chk,chk). Don’t get me wrong, I like some of their music, but this is probably the most retarded name I’ve ever heard for a band. Try searching for “!!!” on Google or any search engine for that matter. It won’t work. When musicians make decisions like this they’re essentially shooting themselves in the foot because nobody can ever find them. However, you should check them out never the less and maybe buy the song if you like it. This was also annoying slightly annoying since it wasn’t on AmazonMp3.com, my music store of choice, but at least they have digitial downloads.
Admittedly, these should have been among the first things added, but now you can automatically reset your password. This applies to members on AudioBiblio.com and SpeedPass members on RealityLapse.com
One of the interesting things about music and other art forms is that it can be reused over and over again to form something new. As I’ve come to find out, “remixes” are often a tool used by the music industry to milk the royalties of a song for all it’s worth. However, remixes and covers can be a refreshing mix between the new and old if done correctly. When I first heard “Misunderstood” by Common, I always wondered where its introduction came from. Eventually, I came closer to an answer when I heard “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by The Animals. Although I was initially impressed that Common borrowed part of his song from a classic rock band, I suspected that The Animals didn’t make the only version simply because they’re so different from what most rappers would be interested in. After a bit of googling, I stumbled on a site called SecondHandSongs.com and found out that it was originally done by Nina Simone. In fact, it was covered 13 times without including Common’s introduction. I just find it interesting how a 1964 blue’s song can find its way in a 2007 rap song.
Finding New Anime on Reality Lapse
Although I don’t always reply to posts in the Reality Lapse forum, I regularly take a look at what people have to say. Recently, people having been making suggestions concerning ways to find similar anime on the site. This could be achieved by implementing a rating and review system in addition to sorting anime by genres. From a coding perspective, both are relatively simple tasks. In fact, I actually created a tagging system for the anime on the site based on information at Anime News Network a couple of days ago. However, now that I’ve started to work on them, these features can get a bit complicated.
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