Great. Just what drummers need. Check out the BBC article on a study from Chichester University that scientifically proves that your drummer is not lazy, no matter how lazy he might seem. In fact, he’s probably the fittest guy in the band, provided he consistently does at least a 90 minute session on the skins every day or so.
SpiralTruth
Just another post-modern quest for meaning.
Browsing SpiralTruth blog archives for December, 2008.
I stumbled on an awesome virtual jam session today. The musician is “Danielle Ate the Sandwich” and the song is “The Wanderer”. Her virtual accompaniment is provided by fellow YouTuber Funkwurm, from the Netherlands. Now, think about what’s happening here. Someone writes a great song and webcams a performance of it. A total stranger decides to collaborate with her and posts the results. This sort of collaboration could not have happened ten years ago. What you’re seeing here is remix culture at its best. Here’s the original, which is a great song on its own:
And here’s the version with Funkwurm:
In today’s world of increasingly fast-paced information, a good acid test for freshness is the lack of a wikipedia article. I was amazed more than anything, after watching the trailer for “The Last Drug” at the lack of information about it. This is, according to the site, the first full-length feature film, shot entirely in HD, to be released under the Creative Commons license. The company releasing it is VEB FILM, based in Germany. They previously released a Creative Commons licensed film called “Route 66 – An American (bad) Dream”, which I have yet to watch. Apparently, they did well enough with Route 66 to warrant another experiment with the Creative Commons. I find this wildly exciting, not only because the idea of the Creative Commons is so appealing to my inner utopian idealist, but also because of the quality. I can honestly say I’m more excited to see this film than any completely commercial production over the last few years. Yes, even more excited than I was to see The Dark Knight. I’m not saying it’ll stand up to Hollywood standards. But then, sometimes Hollywood doesn’t stand up to its own standards. There is a lot of crap produced every year that we’re more than willing to pay for. But make up your own mind. Check out the following trailer and see if you’re as intrigued as I am about the movie:
The site’s description of the movie is: “Three backpackers cross South America searching for one of the world´s most powerful drugs. The self-experiment turns into a race against insanity, in a world, where the mind transcends the senses.” My guess from the trailer is that we’ll eventually find out that the person hooked up to the IV has taken the “last drug”, something which probably transcends the reality of this world in an almost Matrix like way. In fact, I expect this movie to be a lot like the Matrix, without all the gratuitous violence – choosing to explore the philosophy rather than simply use it as the backdrop to an action movie. But that’s just my guess. It may turn out completely different. The cool thing about it being a CC movie is that if it does disappoint me enough, I could always remix it! Finally, I’ll note that I did eventually find a wikipedia entry about it, albeit in German. If you happen to spreken ze deutsch, you can read about it here. The entire film is supposed to be released in 2008, and we have only three days left in the year as of this post, so I’m hoping to be posting an update on the actual content of the film very soon.
Check out some great videos that introduce the ideas of the creative commons to the uninitiated of the world. I think they do a pretty good job at showing the spirit behind the idea in a way that anyone can appreciate. Wanna Work Together?
Creative Commons Mayer & Bettle Animation
Since the creative commons and remix culture often cross paths, it’s no surprise to find a remix of the first video that replaces the single voice narrative with the voices of the commons itself. What is Creative Commons? Wanna Work Together RG Remix
This is a great presentation by Christopher Penn on ways to coax your inner creative genius out of hiding. In it, he explores five almost mechanistic techniques that actually make your mind feel like less of a machine and more like the effortless fountain of inspiration we’d like it to be. Wander on an aimless journey of association, turn things into black boxes so you can chain them together (a good software developer will have this form of thinking burned into the circuits of his brain), draw parallels between past and future, experiment with artificial variations of tools and techniques, or start with an already great idea and figure out what it needs to push it to an even higher level. These may seem like simple concepts, but this presentation makes them look fresh again, and if the role of a really good teacher is to point out what you already know in a way that encourages you to go even further in our necessarily solitary search for Truth, then I suggest that Mr. Penn is definitely one of the best.
When I started watching this, I almost wrote it off as some web 2.0 remix version of the infamous “after school special” of days gone by. It seemed – how can I put this? – very straight edge. [ For those who are unfamiliar with the term "straight edge", you can click the link for the wikipedia article or you can just be satisfied with my admittedly biased labeling of this group as journeyman fundamentalists. ] Even after it has gotten over the sizable chunk of time dedicated to admonishing you for ever taking an intoxicant, it goes on to suggest that anyone with a new laptop is probably using it to hide his or her inferior creativity. But just as I started to think that the creator had simply taken everything he had not experienced or did not own and turned it into crosses that the geniuses of the world must bear, the moralizing that had been bothering me got turned down a bit, and I was able to enjoy a Desiderata-like message to the creative class. This side of the video is, I think, captured best when it warns the struggling creative to “avoid the water cooler gang”.
Looks like the RIAA is dropping the policy of suing individuals who share music online in favor of one that cuts off their internet access after repeat violations. Before you say, “That’s fair,” consider the importance of Internet access today. Consider also that, unlike Cory Doctorow has suggested before, the reverse (cutting off the Internet access of companies who make repeated spurious copyright claims) would be met with outrage from the same people who support such a system. Finally, consider that this creates a situation where the RIAA is effectively allowed to pursue vigilante justice. So, what we’re really saying is that, when big business deems it acceptable, we can strip citizens of basic rights (i.e. the right to free speech in a communication channel that has permeated every aspect of our lives) without the use of our legal system. Read more here.
Or perhaps instead of trying to destroy everything that doesn’t fit the RIAA’s perception of reality (file sharing, the internet, our basic rights, etc.), they could just change the way they approach the business of making money off of music. I hate to invoke Orwell, but the similarity is too obvious to resist.
Brian Toder of Chestnut & Cambronne is the lone voice of reason within the article, which almost makes it sound like the RIAA is doing everyone a favor, when he says this: “People like to share music. The Internet makes it so easy. They have to do something to change this business model of theirs.”
The Obama teams’s commitment to transparency and interaction with constituents seems to be running strong. Check out their posting of the MPAA’s lobbying issues here. The document itself is scary stuff. It represents a fundamental ideology of most big business these days: socialize the risk and policing of people in the interests of big business and privatize the wealth. Remember when the uber-capitalists used to cry in indignation about any form of government regulation? Well, here it is in black and white: the media giants want more regulation in order to protect a dying business model. There are about 50 comments so far, all of them appealing to the Obama team’s commitment to fairness, justice, and economic smarts. With any luck, not only will the American people avoid more crippling laws on top of the DMCA, but they might even be able to roll back some of the most harmful ones. I hope that more Americans weigh in on this, especially as the MPAA also wishes to put more pressure on countries like Canada to conform to their myopic vision of the entertainment market.
Oh my fellow Canadians… we have had an interesting week, haven’t we? I found myself alternating between excitement over my country actually being represented by a majority (contrary to what one might assume by our Conservative leadership, we actually voted 63% or so in favor of political parties from the left) and anxiety because if a coalition government was not stalled, the overwhelming majority of idiots in my particular province (the lovely Alberta) might truly end up trying to forge ahead with this western separatism bullshit. Alas, Prime Minister Steve Harper ran like a baby to our Governor General and got Parliament prorogued – i.e. shut down – for a couple of months, hoping that the parties he’s been pissing on ever since he won a minority government will start wimping out again.
How dare I call my fellow anti-Coalition Albertans stupid? Well, perhaps some quotes from one of their groups on Facebook to illustrate:
“Canada has never had a civil war. But if they threaten this nations constitution and democracy then that certainly warrants action.”
“How about just nuking Quebec, we would then have a majority Conservative government, and we wouldn’t have to deal with the retarted bilingualism crap. plus we could still Hire Newfies to do all our crap work, like we already do.”
(more…)