Miscellaneous News of Note

You gotta love this week's cover of TIME magazine. When I mentally imagine George W., this is how I picture him -- looking as dumb as a bowling pin wondering if that big round thing coming at him very fast would like to be friends with him. I'd be laughing at his ingenious plan to protect freedom and democracy by turning the US into a fascist police state -- if I didn't have to live in it. If you want to know my thinking on the latest twists and turns of this ever-more-bizarre "war on terrorism," just have a look at the last few blog entries by Tom Tomorrow.


In other news, it's now official that Macs cost substantially less to operate than PCs -- oops, there goes that much vaunted "price premium" (that actually evaporated a few years ago). The study also showed that users enjoy Macs more and are thus much more productive, they have less downtime, the software costs less and the training costs are practically non-existent. They didn't even mention that Macs don't suffer huge losses of time and data that virus-prone PCs do. This all comes from a Gartner Group study, and no, Apple didn't pay for it.


Need free internet access? Got an Airport (802.11b) card and a can of Pringles? You may be in luck!


Here's a c|net interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs talking about why MPEG-4 is going to be such a huge freakin' deal. I'm playing with Quicktime 6 right now (you can too, via a free preview version for Mac or Windows courtesy Apple.com), and the difference is substantial. Not only do streamed items such as video or audio kick on instantly now, the files are up to 1/2 their former size, meaning even 56K modem users can finally get video that actually looks a little like moving pictures rather than a bad educational slide show.

If you're looking for some media that really shows off how QT6/MPEG-4 works, install your QT6 preview and head over to Apple's MPEG-4 Gallery, or better yet try out the new "Switch" TV ads. The screen size of the movies, the clarity, the instant-on ... you will be impressed. And this is just the beginning ... wait till AAC audio catches on. Imagine the quality of the best-sounding MP3s, in a file about 1/2 the size. An iPod could hold up to 4,000 songs. Woah.


Speaking of music, check out this article on Salon about the latest sneaky move by the record companies -- dumping loads of "fake MP3s" into the p2p filesharing networks to discourage pirates. I'm real divided about this, but part of me has to say "well done!" This is an effective way to discourage piracy -- annoy people out of it. Gee, and it didn't require any acts of Congress, special taxes or millions of dollars in wasted anti-piracy technology -- just a little "thinking different." Golly!


Finally, I wanted to point out that academia has now spotted, chased down, tagged and released back into the wild yet another genre of music the rest of us have known about for a while -- Outsider Music. Geez, dudes, try to keep up, okay? I think I first heard of the Goddesses of this "movement," the Shaggs, about 25 years ago. I know I was listening to people like Wildman Fisher and other such "Outsider" acts by at least 1984 when I moved back to Orlando for good (or evil, perhaps). Dr. Demento first, and later the Church of the Sub-Genius and RE/Search's "Incredibly Strange Music" tome (later turned into the incredibly popular community radio show on WFMU by vague acquaintance Michelle Boule, Incorrect Music) were all fertile ground for this genre, which naturally grew out of the "Bad Movie" craze of the late 70s.

You want a taste? Currently available in your local Borders bin is the jaw-droppingly awful "Langley Schools Music Project," which may make you want to kill yourself, but wait! You must first listen to the incredible Shaggs, then off yourself. Only then can you enter the kingdom of heaven.