All They Needed Was an Excuse

The horror of having a brain full of holes might be abated by the infinitesimal chance of it happening. 'Mad Cow Disease', a nasty side-effect of bovine cannibalism, has a tiny chance of spreading to humans. But people have a tendency to guard against low-risk horrors when it is convenient to do so.

The desire to protect your local farmers is just barely held back by the benefits of free trade. If you can scare the public into only wanting meat from your cowboys, instead of their cowboys, your cowboys will be all the richer. So panic is a protectionist's best friend.

But it's not just the protectionists that need a good excuse. Beef is a bit of a guilty pleasure for people, especially increasingly flabby Americans. Sometimes we need just a wee bit of panic to at least temporarily eat something that has fewer human-compatible prions (and hopefully less fat) than beef.

I'll contemplate these issues over some locally grown, organic, fried chicken.

Selling Fame, and Overcharging for It

We tend to think of record companies selling music to listeners, and overcharging for it. They generally take all the money and give little to the artists until the records are successful.

But for decades the artist put up with this. Why are they essentially paying the companies to make us pay for their music? Shouldn't they be payed for their work, after all, the record companies keep the rights to the music, just like my boss keeps the rights to the software that I write; My boss, however, pays me when I do my work, not in some distant, unlikely future.

The reason is that the true business of music companies is to sell fame. Fame requires that people know who you are. Many people think they can sing, everyone wants to be famous. The labels can charge up front when they sell this shot at fame, and since they are the gatekeepers of fame, they have unbeatable negociating power. So musicians buy their chance at fame much like Vegas gamblers buy their very slim chance at a jackpot.


And the 'house' usually wins...

Will Chick-Flicks Dominate the Future of TV and Cinema?

TV execs are now often lamementing the fact that young men are not watching much TV anymore. I guess, they, like myself, are too busy playing video games. Of course, we still go to the movies occasionally, and I sometimes watch TV, but in my case it's usually to be with my wife. If left entirely to my own devices, I stick to video-gaming devices.

Women play games too, but this isn't as big a threat to the emotional films derided as being 'Chick-Flicks'. After all, violence, warfare, racing, and other macho mayhem are much easier to simulate than the richly textured emotions of movies that are built around dialog rather than action. Some games do have intelligent, emotional stories, but, like in a movie, the emotion is pre-recorded, while in a good action game, the action is as much a creation of the player as of the developer.

Give it up 'Governator', Oprah and Playstation will render you obsolete.

Infected By Viral Marketing

I've lately been enticed into dabbling in electronic music over at cokemusic.com. I've always liked digital music, and how it can enable people of even modest resources to produce professional sounding tunes, such as 'Big Mighty Drum Cake', performed by the German Duo 'Sea of Tranquility'. It sounds orchestral, but was done mostly with computers. Similar music and links to these artists can be found here.

Anyway, I'm too lazy to do real composition, so when I found out that I could mix up some tunes for free, I signed up for cokemusic.com. It's a chat-room world where each room is a game-like avatar scene with at least one place to show off your tunes. Rooms created by individuals have a mixing board where you can assemble canned clips into your own compositions.

Anyway, Here is what I've done with it so far, playing as Rampant Raven, of course.

BirdBrain: This mixes some of the rock beats with cowbells, bells, and a violin riff called 'magpie'. It introduces itself with the magpie riff and then builds in with the other rhythms, then it tapers off again, ending just as it starts.

Good ol boy Duel: Originally to be titled 'Redneck Duel', it emulates the concept of dueling banjos, but with the more typically techno style of the cokemusic samples. The name was changed because Coke seems to consider the term 'Redneck' as a bad word.

I haven't guzzled enough code-cap bearing coke to buy much virtual furniture, so the cokemusic version of Raven's Roost is a tad barren.