Apple TV – This Won’t Work Either

Culture, Tech

No, this isn’t more Mac bashing (but that can be fun!). This week, Apple announced at Macworld their plans for Apple TV. So many companies have tried to make downloading movies work but it never does. Now, I will say if anyone outside ‘the system’ can, Apple can – but movies are very different from music. And that’s my point…

Face it, music is for young people. I can count on one hand the number of people that continue to go through music like I do – except for kids. What Apple did right with the iPod is the delivery system. In a minute more then downloading the song, anyone can be listening to their new favorite song. Without iTunes, iPods are just another MP3 player. The magic is in the delivery. This is why Microsoft latest Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) is so good, they knew they had to improve it in order to compete with their new Zune player (despite my grumblings on both Microsoft and Mac’s, I’ve dumped iTunes and gone to WMP11. If you haven’t seen it, check it out!).

Now movies are different. They are much more an event. You don’t just see something about a movie and sit down and watch it. It’s a 90 minute investment of time. Most people don’t like starting a movie and picking it up later. I know my family, we decide that afternoon or even the day before if we can have a movie night. Even if its just Desi and I, we ask ourselves if we want to stay up that late. And this is for movies we own!

So will people buy hardware to watch movies. Sure, they did, its called a dvd player. But what about the convenience? You would have really watch a lot of movies and be horrible at your own time management to justify buying hardware so you can watch movies whenever you want. If you do watch a lot of movies and can improve your time management, I would recommend NetFlix. I can’t say that from personal experience, I don’t watch enough movies. But the people that do use it love it.

Hats off to Apple on their iPod, they changed how people get music. I think Apple’s best bet would be to sell their technology to the cable and dish companies and go for the Apple branding. That will keep them in the game for television shows. I can find a half hour a lot easier then an hour and a half – THAT I might download.

Music & Technology, Part 5

Culture, Tech

OK, there aren’t 4 other parts to this story but just an update to what’s been going on with Music. In our last episode, our arch enemies (Record Companies, RIAA, etc.) were suing college kids and grandmothers, digitally locking up their stolen goods (remember, the artist is the ones creating what you want!) to the point of using hacking tools to keep you from digitizing your CD’s (Sony story). Our hero’s (artists) continued to be gathered liked sheep at an ever quickening rate to compete against each other in – winners to be praised, the loser to disappear and be forgotten.

iTunes continues to reign over the digital music market, good for them. I’m not a Mac or Apple fan but I do respect them. Did you know the next largest digital music provider is eMusic? The main differences are eMusic works with smaller record distributors – so lessor known artists; BUT all their mp3’s are Digital Rights Management (DRM) free. And now iTunes is beginning to offer DRM-free digital songs (Here’s a brief iTunes lesson – iTunes uses the .acc format to protect their songs. This means not only can you not send them to your friends to play, they will only play on up to 5 pc’s. iPods (and Nano’s, Shuffles, etc) will also play .mp3’s. But they will not play .wma’s – which is Microsoft’s format).

So what has happened lately? First, Amazon is entered the digital music fray. It is predicted they will quickly become #3 in digital music and potentially #2. While this doesn’t really change anything for us (the consumer) it verifies the potential money involved with digital music.

But this may – Radiohead announced their new album ‘In Rainbows’ will be available directly from the artist. How much? what ever you want. OK, that’s not 100% correct – there is a transaction fee of 45 pence (92 cents) but that is deducted from how much you pay (no you can’t pay less then 92 cents and make money). You can also preorder their ‘DiscBox‘ for £40 (or $82). Their downloaded album is sold an average of $6 each. People DO pay for their music.

Similarly but even more amazing is a ‘no-name’ making it. Enter Jonathan Coulton featured in Wired.com article about giving music away. Jonathan is a ‘Pop Geek’ that is building a fanbase with the use of Slide Song. His song ‘Code Monkey’ was the theme song for G4’s cable show and he has an original song in the latest release of the gaming classic Half Life ‘Orange Box’. He has become professional musician all without the help of the radio or the record companies.

The industry continues to evolve and stagnate still. CD’s were down 15% from last year but digital download versions were up 55%. Studies have shown that sharing music doesn’t kill CD sales. Yet the industry still doesn’t quite get it. But in a recent Wired article, Universal Music redid it’s contract with iTunes to help introduce competition and release iTunes stranglehold on digital downloads by cutting a deal with Zune (Microsoft’s answer to the iPod). But they want an ‘all you can eat’ model so you can download as many Universal songs as you want – and Microsoft is eager enough to cover your costs to overthrow iTunes. But that still means DRM files and that still won’t work, especial when everyone is now beginning to offer DRM-free songs. What doesn’t Universal get?

I’m still like a kid in a candy store. There is just so much great music out there but most people can’t find it – heck, I can’t find it! Music ain’t dead (but it is in another way but that’s a different article). Technology has made music easy, fun and more consumable then ever. Enjoy it and as I always say, ‘If you like it, Buy it!”

Cool Snowmobile Video

Culture

Here’s a very cool video Phil found on the internet. If you are into snowmobiling you will appreciate this. If you are into music you want to know the song is called ‘Breathe (2AM)’ by Anna Nalick. Thanks Phil!

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKn9kOtVgEg[/youtube]

Our Newest Member of the Family

Uncategorized

We’d like to introduce you to Dakota, our new dog! As many of you may know, we lost, literally, Daisy about a year ago. Nate has really wanted a new dog. While Nate didn’t get his American Eskimo, we did adopt Dakota from Save-A-Pet. After the problems we had with Daisy, I was very leery of getting another dog. But after much discussion, Desi and I agreed that we would give Dakota a try. He has been a great dog. The kids really love him. He is a husky mix and about a year and a half old. I’ve renewed his lease for 6 months and we’ll see how he does from there. (Just kidding, I don’t think I could part with him now!)

Dakota

Desi’s Christmas Letter

Uncategorized

Hello Friends & Family –

 

Wow, another year gone by! I decided to type a letter this year since I always write pretty much the same thing to everyone. We hope your year was a good one. Ours was just fine. The kids are doing great.

 

Nate is 14 & in 8th grade, Noah is 11 and in 5th grade, and Naomi is 8 and in 2nd grade. They are all doing well and keeping busy with school and their hobbies.  Nate and Noah play a game called Warhammer 40,000.  This entails making and painting tiny models and then doing “battle” with their armies.  There is a store at the mall where they do battling events with other people too.  Naomi is our little character. She just finished Iceless Hockey (floor hockey) her team finished in 2nd place. She can’t wait to get another big trophy. Hopefully the boys fair as well when their season starts in January. Waba coached Naomi and will be coaching Nate in his last year of Iceless Hockey with Dave (Waba’s brother) and Devin.

 

I would say the highlight of our year was our summer vacation. We went to South Dakota and Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. We saw the usual sites – The Mitchell Corn Palace, The Badlands, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. We also hit a couple of caves and Bear Country USA, which is a zoo where the animals roam free and you drive through it. It was so beautiful down there – the starkness of the Badlands, the lush Black Hills and the overpowering structure of Devil’s Tower. I had never been there so I was awestruck. Waba went when he was young so he was reliving his childhood memories of picking up cactuses and how things were back then. Mount Rushmore facilities and Crazy Horse had changed quite a bit in the last twenty one years I guess.  We also visited Waba’s Aunt  and Uncle in Minnesota.  They have a lovely place on a lake.

 

I think the kids really enjoyed it but were getting tired of all the site-seeing for the week. I think they like the ‘stay put’ vacations like we took with my family on Little Saint Germaine Lake in the cabins – no schedule to keep and more swimming.

 

We meet Lee at Devil’s Tower which was a nice surprise for the kids. It was very hot but the sites were too good to slow us down! It was a wonderful vacation.

 

Waba and I are at the same jobs. We’ve both had our ups and downs but we’re okay, nothing new there. I celebrated my 20 years at the hospital, I guess you don’t do that all the time.

 

Our last bit of news is we just got a new dog – Dakota. He’s a husky mix. It’s been a year since Daisy has been gone so I guess it’s about time – at least that’s what the kids thought. Hopefully the cats will accept him.

 

Here’s hoping you all have a great year.

 

Love,

The Zilligen’s

An Inconvenient Truth – Why It Changed My Mind

Culture

After four or five conversations about global warming Desi finally said, “What is the big deal with you and global warming?”

I asked, “Have you watched the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ DVD yet?” to which she just rolled her eyes.

And I understand. Having a whiny Al Gore shove more political crap in your face is not enjoyable. But he doesn’t. Believe me, voting for Al Gore was the first time I used my vote as a weapon. I think he’s just as slimy as any other politician but for the first time I thought someone could actually do harm in a public office – so I threw my vote to the lesser of the two evils. Ah, but Shrub got in anyways and now look. But I digress…

It wasn’t Al Gore I was interested in Inconvenient Truth but the information. I have always found meteorological, geological and planetary changes fascinating. Believe me, planetary changes is not an exaggeration.

If you don’t know the background, Al Gore has been doing the lecture circuit on this presentation for sometime and director Laurie David thought a movie would be a better way to get the message out. Apparently a professor he had in college, Roger Revelle, who is one of the original scare mongrels on this whole global warming thing, had inspired Al to do this lecture.

As much as I dislike Shrub, I am by no means an Al Gore fan. What I found so profound was the information he presented. I’ve been hearing about ‘Global Warming’ since I was a kid. Roger Revelle started measuring the CO2 levels in our atmosphere in the late sixties. Having gone 30 years and not seeing any real changes it was easy to dismiss Global Warming. After all, remember the over population threat in the seventies? Shortly after The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich none of his predictions came true. I don’t believe the same will be true of Global warming.

The difference is that 35 years have gone by and the evidence has just stacked up. “Come on, I just saw the forecast and there’s record heat that haven’t been broken since the 1800’s” Look at it this way – you have a 1 in 365 chance of breaking record. Believe me; we don’t want to break them all in one year. Did you know, since 1890, here are the 10 warmest years: 2006, 2005, 1999, 1994, 1933, 1927, 1998, 1995, 2004, and 2000 (in order 1- 10)? Notice only 1927, 1933 & 1995 are out of the last ten year range.

I have talked, argued, call it what you like about ‘Global Warming’ and some people just don’t want to ‘buy it’. I’m not really ‘selling it’. Without going into the whole Kyoto thing, it comes down to simple logic. Have you heard the logical discussion to believe in God? It goes like this: If you don’t believe in God and there isn’t a God nothing happens. If you believe in God and there isn’t a God, again, nothing happens. If you believe in God and there is a God, you’re good to go. BUT if you don’t believe God and there is a God, you’re kind of screwed.

This same logic applies to Global Warming. Do these ‘non-believers’ think Al Gore is going to raise taxes to put down a layer of Freon to refreeze the polar caps? Or paint our roofs with solar panel paint? Maybe that would be a good thing but that’s a different discussion. All I’m looking for is agreement that we screwed up on the environment, and, when the opportunity presents itself, we should try to fix.

Like any controversial issue, unless you are willing to compromise (meaning you agree you will be OK with NOT get your way) you do not have the right to sit at the table to come up with a solution. Too many people take an ultraistic perspective that it ‘my way or the highway’. It doesn’t work with Abortion, Christianity or any discussion when there is no clear answer. And it’s not going to work with Global Warning. All we can really do is lean for or against. And all I’m saying is we should lean to reducing CO2 whenever possible. Get it?


	

	
	


							


	

		
				

			So Is Music Dead?
		

		
		

			Culture					

	


		

		
Oh come on – how many times do we have to go through this? Whenever a generation loses their idols they say the current batch of artist are the worst ever. You don’t think in the seventies when Zeppelin, Stones and Who ruled the parents didn’t say they were no Elvis or Sinatra? And then in the Eighties when it was Springsteen and Madonna they said were no Beatles or Zeppelin. Or in the Nineties when it was U2 and Pearl Jam and there were no Springsteen or Police.


Let’s face it. The next decades’ heroes will always pale when compared the previous decades heroes. Time allows us to right the wrongs and the winners stand proud while the losers can quietly be forgotten. We laugh when we are wrong together and we are proud when we are right together.


When I was in eighth grade my favorite band was Blue Oyster Cult. They were great. And that was a respectable choice but they were by no means a decade defining Rock band. So was Peter Frampton great? Apparently he was for an album – but we all thought so. So are the Stones the greatest Rock band ever? There is something to be said for timing and longevity.


But are all the great days behind us? No, but the more ‘influential days’ could be – but not entirely. The 60’s were special times for music because they were special times for the youth culture. As they grew so did their music. Was it better? that, of course, is a matter of opinion.


I believe greatness is based on opportunity. Great performances, as in actors, are based on great characters. Tom Cruise sucks as actor because he is always playing the same damned character (yea, yea, I know – he was great ‘Born On The Fourth of July’ and no I haven’t seen Vanilla Sky, yet). The music of the 60’s & 70’s reflect what the youth culture was going through at that time.


So 25 years or so later is there anything left for the new ‘Youth Culture’ (Generation X, Y, Z or whatever you want to call them) to discovery? Maybe not. So it music dead? No way. When 9/11 occurred I watched the outpouring of music on MP3.com. These were reflections of a single event. Were they all classics? Of course not. But look at Springsteen’s ‘The Rising‘ his own reflections of the events on 9/11 – and his best album since ‘Born In The USA’.


The problem is how music is distributed. Believe me, there are hundreds of ways to distribute music now (Moby’s ‘Play‘ album is a poster child of licensing music for profit and exposure). It isn’t just us and our friends listening to albums in our bedrooms or listening to our favorite radio station anymore.


On the other side the artists themselves are more accessible. Most bands have a MySpace site and regularly interact with their fans. I hold up one of my favorite bands Marillion and how a ‘no name’ band can have a successful career as musicians their these type of relationships.


So music is not dead, has long as people continue to write songs and fans continue to find them and continue relate to them. Will there ever be another band like the Beatles or The Stones? no – those were different times. Are the Beatles better then U2? different music, different times. These days I am a kid in a candy store with all the music that’s out there. Can’t find anything you like? that’s because you aren’t looking. And you shouldn’t have to – and THAT I blame on the music distribution system. Music is not dead, not by a long shot. But as they say, its hard to get a drink from a fire hose.