Here’s a beautiful little experiment in sound and motion called the Pianolina from the Grotrian piano manufacturers. It’s particularly interesting to me what various composers’ style of music happen to look like when the notes are flying around the screen.
I recently wrote John Gruber an email with regards to his note about Michael Robertson’s claims (Robertson is former CEO of MP3.com). In general, Robertson has made the argument that the cell phone is the iPod killer. But really, he’s got it completely backward. What I said to Mr. Gruber was as follows:
Unless Robertson is not including the iPod Touch, then he has his assessment quite backwards. iPods are actually the iPhone killer. Everything from television to the landline network is gradually being sucked into TCP/IP. I don’t think anyone would be surprised by that statement. Data is data and data only needs one network, and that one’s already up and running on wifi and soon, wimax.
As someone who owns an iPod Touch with a microphone and that lives amongst (a University Campus and my house) ubiquitous wi-fi networks, I didn’t even see the point of getting a cell phone attached to my iPod. There’s nothing special about all the cellular networks with the exception of the fact that they are not as open as the Internet.
What other technological channel has managed to attach itself to the Internet without being entirely absorbed by it? Cellular networks and cable TV are being assimilated. Cell phones aren’t Internet devices–the iPod is. In fact, that’s got me wondering about Jobs’ inspiration for naming the iPod versus the iPhone. Did he realize the iPhone was just a hybrid while understanding that the iPod (a much more generic and flexible idea) was still the end-all-be-all?
Seriously though, is the Reality Distortion FieldTM hitting me this far out from California? There is only one well-known device on the market that is prepared for the transition from cellular network to wifi transmitted IP. The cost of maintaining cellular towers that can utilize 3G seems much higher than wimax. I really think the iPhone is a transition device, a hybrid. Still though, Apple has its bets covered on this one.
Generally speaking, holiday music drives me batty—not because I’m a scrooge or anything, but any music that I have to hear over and over again that’s “catchy” pretty much drives me batty. It’s why there are no radios in my life and haven’t been for years. But there’s no avoiding holiday music. So the least I could do is throw some holiday music out there that is distinctively un-holiday-music-like, or at very least interesting (and free!). My first choice is Dr. Octoroc’s 8-bit holiday tunes. Just think back to that Christmas that you got your first Nintendo and these square-wave songs will bring you Christmas cheer. Then, of course, there’s the scientifically created most annoying song in the world. Okay, so technically only some parts of the song are holiday oriented, but it doesn’t matter, because if you manage to listen to the whole thing, you’ll never listen to it again. Next, Podington Bear has done some decidedly holiday-y music; among those tracks are misfit toys. Finally, here’s a musician I just can never get enough of: Sufjan Stevens. He’s got some great Christmas tunes you can download from Cnet. Some of the titles alone are great, like “Get Behind Me, Santa!” and “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever.” Anyway, enjoy and Happy Chrismahanaquanzadan.1
Hey fellow agnostics and you atheists, could we get together on a holiday? “Happy Holidays” is great and all, but we need a definitive winter solstice celebration with presents and junk. Hopefully, if we do it right, in a few years we’ll all be able to complain about how commercial its become. ↩
Fleshmap has put together a fascinating study of the occurrence of certain body parts in various musical genres. Check out hip-hop for a good laugh. [via Buzzfeed]
I’m not going to say too much about Sony BMG’s unbelievably stupid new business model—I’ll just leave it to Whatever’s excellent fictional focus group. Nuff said.
[Update 1/9]
Just a thought: If record companies are so obsessed with being in the selling-plastic-things business and DRM, why not defer to the USB album? The user doesn’t have to worry about ripping it and making sure all the tracks get named right, there’s ample room for varying album sizes, it’s re-useable, and you can have the music files in a DRM format like Apple’s fairplay AAC that attaches to a particular computer or user account. Maybe this kind of solution is too obvious for Sony. Some music groups have tried it, the White Stripes and the Fratellis among them, though I can’t figure out with what success.
