Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Autotune the News #5
I continue to love this stuff. Joe Biden's "God Bless America" is classic!
("s-word" warning: they sing "it would taste like goat sh--" at one point when discussing rolled & smoked lettuce)
("s-word" warning: they sing "it would taste like goat sh--" at one point when discussing rolled & smoked lettuce)
Rolling on Amie Street
Given the problems with emusic I posted earlier, I have been looking at some other options for inexpensive music on the web. The one I've landed on is Amie Street. It's focused nearly 100% on the independent artist, and has even less mainstream music than emusic does. It does, however, have a very interesting pricing scheme. Basically, the instant an artist or group uploads their songs to the site, you can download them for free. As people start downloading them, however, the price increases. The price continues to increase until it gets capped out at $0.98/track. Nearly all of the music I've been downloading has been $0.00 - $0.40/track.
(Wikipedia says: "As of August 5, 2007 15 buys yielded a price of 1¢, 25 buys yielded 15¢, 50 buys yielded 50¢, and 84 buys yielded 98¢.")
A big advantage over emusic is that you an pay for songs as you go (emusic requires a monthly commitment). Or, even cooler, they periodically have 50% off sales, where you can deposit funds into your account and get twice as much money on account as you actually deposit. I did that a few weeks ago. If you use that method exclusively, then your downloads are really capped out at $0.49/track--and quite a few are less than $0.20/track!
Anyway, I wanted to check it out for a bit before giving it my official recommendation. I've now been downloading music from them for two and half weeks, and I give it a "thumbs up". I have spent about $57 so far, and have downloaded 55 albums. You do the math!
If you're interested, here's my profile: http://amiestreet.com/user/jcolton. If you look under the "My RECs" tab on the right hand side, you can see which songs from which albums I've liked the most.
Warning: the search function is really horrible. There have been albums that I *know* are on the site (because I downloaded them), that I was unable to find using "Search". It is pretty good at giving you recommendations based on your ratings or the recommendations of people in your "network", though. It also has an excellent music player built into the site, the best I've seen in similar websites. And after you've paid for (unless it was free...) and downloaded music, you can use the player to listen to the music from any internet-connected computer.
(Wikipedia says: "As of August 5, 2007 15 buys yielded a price of 1¢, 25 buys yielded 15¢, 50 buys yielded 50¢, and 84 buys yielded 98¢.")
A big advantage over emusic is that you an pay for songs as you go (emusic requires a monthly commitment). Or, even cooler, they periodically have 50% off sales, where you can deposit funds into your account and get twice as much money on account as you actually deposit. I did that a few weeks ago. If you use that method exclusively, then your downloads are really capped out at $0.49/track--and quite a few are less than $0.20/track!
Anyway, I wanted to check it out for a bit before giving it my official recommendation. I've now been downloading music from them for two and half weeks, and I give it a "thumbs up". I have spent about $57 so far, and have downloaded 55 albums. You do the math!
If you're interested, here's my profile: http://amiestreet.com/user/jcolton. If you look under the "My RECs" tab on the right hand side, you can see which songs from which albums I've liked the most.
Warning: the search function is really horrible. There have been albums that I *know* are on the site (because I downloaded them), that I was unable to find using "Search". It is pretty good at giving you recommendations based on your ratings or the recommendations of people in your "network", though. It also has an excellent music player built into the site, the best I've seen in similar websites. And after you've paid for (unless it was free...) and downloaded music, you can use the player to listen to the music from any internet-connected computer.
Michael Jackson tribute
I recommend clicking on the YouTube logo. Then click the "HQ" button so you can watch it in higher quality--that allows you to read what all the tracks represent (use full screen mode).
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Cousin time!
We got to have Leslie & Emily's cousin Erin stay with us for several days. Erin's just a week different in age from Leslie, and they are both pretty close to the same size. A fun time was had by all for most of the time.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
All of Bach's organ music - for free!
How's this for a find?
http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/catalog.php?scope=recorded
They are performed by Dr. James Kibbie, an organ professor at University of Michigan. The recordings are of high quality, both in terms of musicality and recording, done on 18th Century pipe organs in Germany.
The downside: it is a bit of a hassle to have to download each track individually, and I wasn't happy with either of the two formats offered. But, I just got finished downloading them, transcoding the high-quality AAC files into still-fairly-high-quality VBR mp3s, renaming the files so they include the title as well as the BMV number, and sticking mp3 tags on them. At 257 files, approx 13 hours of music, they are now the largest "album" in my mp3 collection, and will almost certainly stay that way for eternity. :-)
If anyone wants to download them as a zipped file from me, saving yourself the whole downloading & tagging hassle, let me know and I can help you out. (Hopefully that's legal.) Just send me an email.
http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/catalog.php?scope=recorded
They are performed by Dr. James Kibbie, an organ professor at University of Michigan. The recordings are of high quality, both in terms of musicality and recording, done on 18th Century pipe organs in Germany.
The downside: it is a bit of a hassle to have to download each track individually, and I wasn't happy with either of the two formats offered. But, I just got finished downloading them, transcoding the high-quality AAC files into still-fairly-high-quality VBR mp3s, renaming the files so they include the title as well as the BMV number, and sticking mp3 tags on them. At 257 files, approx 13 hours of music, they are now the largest "album" in my mp3 collection, and will almost certainly stay that way for eternity. :-)
If anyone wants to download them as a zipped file from me, saving yourself the whole downloading & tagging hassle, let me know and I can help you out. (Hopefully that's legal.) Just send me an email.
Friday, June 05, 2009
More autotuned news
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
So long, emusic...
...it was nice knowing you.
Short version: emusic, in a bid to become more like itunes, has gotten some more mainstream music--but has also more than doubled the cost per track for subscribers like myself. In the past, emusic has been a fabulous way for me to take a flyer on albums I think I *might* like, because it was only ~$2.50 per album or thereabouts. Now, the prices are no better--and probably a little worse--than my local used CD store.
http://17dots.com/2009/05/31/more-of-the-good-stuff/
Bonus points if you can tell which one of the 750+ comments is mine. ;-)
Short version: emusic, in a bid to become more like itunes, has gotten some more mainstream music--but has also more than doubled the cost per track for subscribers like myself. In the past, emusic has been a fabulous way for me to take a flyer on albums I think I *might* like, because it was only ~$2.50 per album or thereabouts. Now, the prices are no better--and probably a little worse--than my local used CD store.
http://17dots.com/2009/05/31/more-of-the-good-stuff/
Bonus points if you can tell which one of the 750+ comments is mine. ;-)
Monday, June 01, 2009
Blonde Brownies
Here's another recipe, this one from Pauline (a modified version of her mother's)
Blonde Brownies, by Pauline Colton
½ lb butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
Melt butter.
Mix in brown sugar, white sugar.
Add eggs; beat together.
Mix in the dry ingredients and vanilla a little at a time with a spoon -do not beat.
Press the dough into a greased cookie sheet.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top and gently press into the dough.
Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
Blonde Brownies, by Pauline Colton
½ lb butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
Melt butter.
Mix in brown sugar, white sugar.
Add eggs; beat together.
Mix in the dry ingredients and vanilla a little at a time with a spoon -do not beat.
Press the dough into a greased cookie sheet.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top and gently press into the dough.
Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
in other news... World's most powerful laser
This should be an awesome facility. I remember they started working on it while I was at Berkeley. (quick Wikipedia look-up) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility Yep, construction started in 1997, but a series of problems delays caused them to complete construction 5 years behind schedule. --John
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World's strongest laser unveiled at California lab
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_on_sc/us_super_laser
Associated Press
Sun May 31, 5:42 pm ET
LIVERMORE, Calif. – The world's most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, has been unveiled.
The super laser, known officially as the National Ignition Facility, was unveiled Friday at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about 50 miles east of San Francisco.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., were among thousands of people in attendance at the ceremony.
The NIF, which is the size of a football field, consists of 192 separate laser beams, each traveling 1,000 feet in one-thousandth of a second to converge simultaneously on a target the size of a pencil eraser.
Federal officials said they planned to use it on a multifaceted assignment that would include ensuring aging nuclear weapons are functioning properly without resorting to underground testing.
Other uses will include the study of astrophysics and experiments in developing green energy programs.
Beginning next year, scientists also will use the laser for experiments aimed at creating controlled fusion reactions similar to those found in the sun.
"More energy will be produced by this ignition process than the amount of laser energy required to start it. This is the long-sought goal of energy gain that has been the goal of fusion researchers for more than half a century," said NIF director Edward Moses.
The laser will be used in astrophysics, allowing scientists to mimic conditions inside planets and new solar systems, something the lab's officials said would allow for conducting experiments that could never be undertaken on Earth before.
------
World's strongest laser unveiled at California lab
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_on_sc/us_super_laser
Associated Press
Sun May 31, 5:42 pm ET
LIVERMORE, Calif. – The world's most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, has been unveiled.
The super laser, known officially as the National Ignition Facility, was unveiled Friday at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about 50 miles east of San Francisco.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., were among thousands of people in attendance at the ceremony.
The NIF, which is the size of a football field, consists of 192 separate laser beams, each traveling 1,000 feet in one-thousandth of a second to converge simultaneously on a target the size of a pencil eraser.
Federal officials said they planned to use it on a multifaceted assignment that would include ensuring aging nuclear weapons are functioning properly without resorting to underground testing.
Other uses will include the study of astrophysics and experiments in developing green energy programs.
Beginning next year, scientists also will use the laser for experiments aimed at creating controlled fusion reactions similar to those found in the sun.
"More energy will be produced by this ignition process than the amount of laser energy required to start it. This is the long-sought goal of energy gain that has been the goal of fusion researchers for more than half a century," said NIF director Edward Moses.
The laser will be used in astrophysics, allowing scientists to mimic conditions inside planets and new solar systems, something the lab's officials said would allow for conducting experiments that could never be undertaken on Earth before.
