The 4-Year old's Workday

This is fantastic.

Raul

When I hear stories like this about record label guys who get it (note that there aren't very many...), I think to myself what the market would be like right now if Mr. Klein had been in charge of BMG, Warner, etc. during the original fight with Napster. Can you imagine where we'd be today if the labels themselves had turned the RIAA into a mechanism to deliver what customers wanted instead of fighting them? Demand driven, priced below CDs, and in open formats, DRM free... I'm just looking at the market and seeing that despite all the pirating, CD sales really haven't fallen all that much so most people are still buying. This despite lawsuits against customers, disinformative propaganda, and technology to make it harder for people to do what they want with the music for which they're willing to pay.

When you throw in that iTMS download counter ticking up towards a BILLION downloads in just a few years... at basically CD prices... with encumbering DRM... and fixed bitrates... and product lock-in, it floors me to think where the Music biz could have gone. In all honesty, it's probably better that they didn't, since their draconian measures have done a fantastic job digging their own graves.

My only hope is that the smaller labels that are filling in the cracks, such as Everfine Records, the label created to support a band named O.A.R. (who are truly fantastic), really take off. These new smaller labels are quick to respond to the demands of their customers and excited to use new technology instead of afraid of it. Take a look at O.A.R.'s website. They have every album there for you to listen to. EACH SONG IN ITS ENTIRETY! What a RIDICULOUS idea!! The tracks aren't full quality, but aren't bad either. Compare this even to the iTMS, where the most you can get is a 30 second clip, which is particularly grating on some of the 10 minute electronic music tracks I like. 30 seconds might as well be from a different song for all it tells me about the track.

Raul

In a little exploration to finally find out exactly what del.ico.us and technorati.com are all about (the former is a mobile web bookmarking and link tagging site, ie. access your bookmarks from any computer with a web browser; the latter is a blog tracker that keeps running tabs on the "blogosphere"), I clicked on "Paris Riots" and read a highly linked blog. It belongs to a Mark Daniels and though not revolutionary, it was well written and to the point. It made me think a bit, and after crafting a post for his blog, I realized that I had enough to say that I might as well post here.


One of things that has been surprisingly absent from the news coverage of the rioting in France has been the impact of French welfare and immigration policies.

My understanding is somewhat limited, but from what I know, it is easy for Muslims to emigrate to France and gain citizenship (and other Western European nations, eg. Germany) relative to the US. Additionally, there are programs in place to pay welfare/unemployment even to all the new immigrants . I think these things clearly have encouraged an even higher rate of flow of foreign nationals into France than otherwise would have occurred, while at the same time drawing on the economy and diluting an already impoverished job market.

IMVHO, one of the things that has benefitted the US more than is often noted has been our policy of limiting legal immigration (ignoring illegal immigration for the moment). This is further differentiated by a demonstrated penchant for student and skilled professional visas. Proffesionals and students are much more likely to be forcibly involved in heterogeneus cultures, be that via University life or the white collar workplace. The result is that a Muslim immigrant is more likely to integrate into American society as an Islamic American and less likely to be just a Muslim. I think most people would agree with me that it is better for the US when immigrants integrate with US society as opposed to becoming isolated as seems to be the case in Paris.

In addition to targeting students and professionals, I think that it could be valuable to mandate English as the primary and required language for citizenship. Language strongly contributes to culture, and the more different two people are, the easier it is to distance oneself and remove their humanity. Violence and crime are more easily justified against someone who is not like you.

As a final note, I really do believe that it is important to limit illegal immigration to some degree (fully curtailing it would have a devastating economic impact, but that's a discussion for a different day). I just wanted to keep that one from biting me in the ass ;-)

So in a brief chat with JonnE, I came across the following:
... damn, I just tried to paste something I'd selected from my other computer. This brings up a great point. I'd like to see someone use a short range wireless tech to allow highlighting, cut&pasting, and draggin between multiple computers, preferably using some sort of open or at least well standardized protocol (javascript perhaps?).

That said, I give you the real Death Star™.


Enjoy.