IM IN UR INTERNETS SHARING UR FILES

For a long time, so many conglomerates, and their brothers, have been looking at us with mistrust, spreading the word, whether they knew so through research or - more probably - not, that we were tapping into their much-needed, hard-earned revenue from their reasonably priced product. Video, television and, more so, music have all been part of this media misinformation-followed-by-adaptation dance for a while now.

Yet, slowly but surely, the industry has come to understand, to swallow the pill that filesharing is actually more to their benefit than not. So, other than the fact that they should appear as somehow going out of their way to maintain the status quo - especially if they're called Fox or CBS or whoever else is giving the WGA writers grief right now - they're trying to come up with ways to dip into the new media cash-pot tambien.

So, on the music front, we already had the labels doing a fair amount of their PR through myspace, but now that Radiohead are going about their own thing, with In Rainbows, one cannot say what will follow; no need for labels, no need for RIAA and the likes, no need for stupid amounts of cash to be paid by us if we don't have to? If we can download the new album over the 'net and pay as much as we want to - or don't - and be sure that our money goes straight to the pockets of Thom and his gang, we'll sleep better at night knowing that our cash is not lost paying intermediaries, now, won't we?

Then, the media nouveaux offer new ways for 'the product' to be distributed. With Jack and Meg White going the white way and releasing Icky Thump on USB flash drives, USB is officially the way to B now. Who needs those old... how-ya-call-em... See Dees, when you can have all your music on a hard drive, no, an mp3 player? Many of you that [are among the three that] read this must know that I called it, by transferring all my music, in the year 2000, when I left from Greece's Athens to Scotland's Edinburgh, watching what was previously my hundreds of CDs drive away in my friend RiverWind's car, and hence having nothing but a portable hard drive to carry on the plane with me.

So, where does TV follow suit, with youtube and Google Video being out there and staring at it threateningly? After my Distribution and Exhibition course yesterday morning, I spent some time talking to this coursemate of mine who is, reportedly, doing his thesis on something regarding how television will follow the music industry in weaving through the new media instead of fighting it, all to make money instead of losing money. And then I came back to find this 'ere article among my RSS feeds, which pretty much says that Comedy Central, always there to incorporate the new in useful and creative ways, is not only happy to share The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with us (sic) online, but will now be doing the same with all the backlogs of South Park.

Therefore, I honourably stipulate that time passes and the world thereby evolves, and that we won't remain stagnant and stuck in the past. I can sincerely guarantee you that, I know it to be true (since I can see the future so clearly, through the past and all) - while there's really not much I enjoy more than seeing it happen.

Taking Fun And Games Back From Kids

Kids' stuff is pretty much what video games are seen as. But many of them are not fit for your 10-year-old, with 'sex and violence' often being their major selling point [*'Major Sellingpoint' HIMYM in-joke reference salute here*]. And I'm not just talking Devil May Cry or Need for Speed here, as popular as they may be; there are far more 'adult' examples out there than that.

However, the ex First Lady, now Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton is kind of heading - along with 3 other 'key lawmakers' - the fight to 'review the robustness, reliability and repeatability' of the games rating process. Which, although I would normally be against, having previously spoken against the classification of any form of entertainment, I have now come to understand, pretty much.

I spent a week at my gran's house during the summer, where my cousin, who was also there, was busy playing God of War II on his PS2. Him being not much older than 16 years old then (he's 17-and-a-couple-of-weeks as I write this), I found it borderline offensive that he would enjoy the game that much - and not only because I think it's a disgusting game that I wouldn't want anyone related to me playing, mind you. Especially after the disgusting release party that was a big thing on worldwide web2 news just shortly before that.

Hmmm, I sound old, don't I? Wanting a strict ratings process, tut tut tut. Still, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense, as it would make things easier for games if the more 'questionable content' ones weren't this easy for kids to get their hands on. I'm still dreadfully against prohibiting any game altogether, but I do support shops checking the age of buyers and whatnot.

At this point in time, shops generally tend to sell any game to pretty much anyone, no matter how old they may be. Which naturally leads to mothers seeing what their kids play and freaking out, asking for the game to be banned in general and maybe even burnt in the fiery depths of over-protective motherhood. Which, I expect, wouldn't be the case if they just saw their manly, rugged husband playing the same game.

Once again, games suffer from their novelty. You see, nobody would call for movies to be banned any more, in the Western world. Not really. They've passed the one hundred year mark of being out there, and have been through their own reception ups and downs, only eventually reaching the point where most people understand that there are different flicks for different people.

Games, however, still have a long way to go. Any game can be played by anyone, and a child, for whose innocent and malleable mind Disney games would perhaps be more suitable, can end up playing God of War. Which, the way I see it, is wrong, branding the whole gaming industry as evil, when there are games out there that can be used as valuable teaching resources or whathaveyou.

Therefore, I call for games to be treated more responsibly, so that we do, eventually, end up being understood by... mothers. Uh-huuh. Because once we all 'get it', not having video games being 'for kids' by default - as games in general would be expected to be - and 'for adults' only provisionally, VGs may avoid being branded as dangerous.

Lost In Time, Found On Web!

I've been following this guy's art for a while now, on Gizmodo. He makes working steampunk gadgets of all sorts and I've been drooling over their artistic and geeky value for obvious reasons (mainly the fact that steampunk is sooo cool) over the last few months .

The thing is, his name wasn't known on Gizmodo, not until now. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, however, found the guy who makes these awesome pieces of awesomeness, just like they'd find the latest in stock quotes. His name is Richard E. Nagy - couldn't get it to sound more fictional if he tried, which he may even have done, now that I think about it - and he is better known online as Datamancer.

I shall now embed this video from YouTube, which I found interesting for more than the mere fact that he shows us how he makes his stuff (with a laptop as a case-study). He actually makes you feel, not only the culture, but the pure artisan honour of making such pieces.

Peggle Weggle!

Well, I just discovered evidence for the fact that Than is a bored housewife, and that he has a degree in Geometry from the University of Smart-arse. Which is why I was with him for more than 5 years, actually. And he's also an escapist that lets great chunks of time disappear into thin air, which is kind of why I split up with him. And he also finds cool stuff on the web for me to look at, which is why I'm still good friends with him.

There's a video-review-thingy here, by an awesome Aussie-Brit who calls himself Yahtzee, concerning the game Peggle - the new and cool way to lose amazing amounts of time in a kewl way, which Than spent many-an-hour tinkering with last May, eventually getting through all of the Challenges in it and convincing the Geekfish that he's cool.

I'm not caught up in it (yet?), but I do think it's pretty cool. Way cool, in fact, since we first heard about it through PC Zone, the Digital Coolness Bible.

Haute Jouer

I always find it frustrating that gaming is still not widely accepted as a 'higher art'. As a medium, it already has its auteurs, its classics and its avant garde, so... why not? Just because it's newer? Just because there's not a bunch of French guys that have decided so for us, and have not elevated it socially?

It's not that it's new, either, I don't think. Machinima have their own festival, for chrissakes, and they're even newer. OK, 'we' have E3 and all, but still... that's a trade-show, innit? The thousands of people that offer us their creative awesomeness - or just their creativity, sometimes, I must say - are completely ignored, when one sees the product and reacts with no more than a 'meh'.

'Games are for kids'. That's what people say. And think. And that goes as far as them not thinking twice of the fact that art needs to be made, in fact, for these kids' enjoyment. A-doooh! In fact, the stupidest thing I ever heard on the subject, when a debate about 'are videogames an artform?' was going on in a greek web forum about comics (the 9th art, as they - constantly - say), was that 'OK, I'll give you that gaming is an art-form, then, if you insist, but it's actually an applied art'. Yeahbuhwhat?! - Priceless!

There's a lot of discussion going on about the subject and, to be frank, I wish I followed it more, and took part in it more, actually (hey, I do have a BA now in a similar 'social science', my word should count for something!). Explaining how hard it is for the thing to be made, in case someone does pay attention to the poor sods' drama, saying farewell to another-one-down-the-drain due to 'popularity issues', or just generally proclaiming that it is, in fact, an art, don't really seem to be enough any day of the week.

I'm telling you, though: it's just a matter of time, I know it. There'll soon come a day when people out there realize what it's all about, and give the medium the necessary recognition. It's just around the corner.

The Card

I just discovered that McDonald's UK now takes cards. Which is the coolest thing since Frappuccino Light.

Let me explain. I think that credit cards are the smartest financial institution ever invented until now, and I'm glad they're around. Especially due to their application in online shopping, but not that alone. They're actually used in so many different ways nowadays, and people don't always seem to appreciate not having to carry cash most of the time.

It's like something out of a science fiction story, if you think about it. Like credits - probably 'from Star Wars' in your case, but 'from The Foundation' for me. Something that intangibly signals for money, just like the money you're used to actually does, in fact, signal for gold.

I just wanted to share with you how awesome I find the concept of credit cards. And to geek out, and all that.

Geek Chic

I may have whined about the whole 'pink gadgets' thing before, but the truth is that I am female after all and I do care about the design side of mah gadgets. I just moved into my new room and set up my PC and all, and what was the first thing I bought? Yes, coordinating peripherals, in black and matte silver...

I firmly believe that these colours are, to every self-respecting geek of 2007, the new white, which was the new black. There was a phase, back in the late '90s, when that full-of-colours-and-lights thing was cool, yellow and blue and whatever, but that grew old pretty quick, I think.

Still, the point is that it's getting to a stage where - post-ipod and all - gadgets and electronics that look good are officially cool. And I was impressed when I found out that CBE supported that too, on the exact same day that I was really, really thinking about it.

An Apple A Decade

I just watched the video of 1997's Macworld - the one where Steve Jobs comes back to what seemed like a doomed company at the time, which still cultivated the enmity between Macintosh and Microsoft, started because of the mouse patent issue and all. The one where he was criticized for announcing Mac's new deal with Microsoft by presenting Bill Gates on a big screen - which was really referential to the 1984 Macintosh ad, Big Brother and all. By all accounts, Jobs seemed like a sorry little child at the time, who had lost the battle - which some may say he was right to fight in the first place, but he'd lost already - and was publicly apologizing, in a demeaning way, trying to 'be friends now'. Which, you must admit, must have taken loads of strength - and that is, I suppose, why he seems timid and sad from the beginning of his speech; contrary to this year's Macworld keynote address for example, not a month before this day, where he inspired countless nerdrections by presenting the iphone with the enthusiasm of a pro entertainer.

The thing is, I watched the 1997 video, a piece of history indeed, and could instantly see the steps along the way, a clear description of the path he climbed to get from the nadir to the zenith in one single decade's time. Throughout his speech, he goes into detail about where the company was at the time, its strengths and weaknesses and the way he was planning to address matters now that he was back... But we had no idea back then, even if he was spelling it all out for us. I remember - all we could do then was boo the apologetic acknowledgment of previous arrogance on his part, the fact that he seemed like he had to wear his underpants on his head and say sorry to the school bully.

He openly reported, and had it written on the screen for all to see, that Apple had been accused in the press of being irrelevant at the time. And he was back to deal with that, and, apparently, he had a plan *cue ominous music*. He saw things in a way that offered opportunities, many of them requiring sacrifices and compromises on their part, but all of which actually seem to have worked if you think about it ten years later.

As he saw it, the company may have been full of holes at the time, but that didn't mean that it had to be an entrepreneurial sieve - expensive blocks of French cheese have holes too. But to turn metal into cheese, the material in question had to be analyzed. So he went on to identify the company's strengths, which lied with creative professions and education, as he identified them. I knew many creative professionals, even back then, that would stand by their Macs as tools for what they did - from publishing to image and video editing pros, they saw the Mac like a baker sees his oven. And a tool it was, just like your coffee maker - which you'll never complain about it not being compatible with your PC or its incompatibility with the other appliances in your kitchen.


So he went on to identify the two things he saw as Apple's strengths: its logo and its operating system. Immediately, as those two things popped onto the screen behind him, our friend Filip came to mind - the one who briefly appears in our NPN theory docu, sitting next to his desktop Mac, his Powerbook and his iPod, and who thusly goes by the nickname iBoy. He often goes into the Mac Vs PC debate with us, and what he always mentioned, up until a few days ago when Windows Vista were released, was the fact that MacOSX was top-notch. And although we haven't seen him since Vista came out, I'm sure that anything good there, he'll point out that OSX had it first. He also pops to mind accompanied by the minimalist design of Apple products and packaging that can usually be seen floating around him, all of them prominently featuring the company's recognizable logo.

And this is where Jobs focused, it seems. But in order to use these tools, he had, there and then, to declare that Microsoft had paved his way. They could do nothing, the way things were going, without Java, the Internet Explorer, or, of course, Microsoft Office - the same tool John Hodgman's version of the PC in recent Macintosh commercials surely uses for his spreadsheets. And money would help too, especially since the two companies had recently agreed to bury the hatchet on the patent issue, and I'm sure Jobs would never have settled without some financial incentive. It was done by selling Bill Gates, not his soul, as it may have seemed at the time, but some - non-voting - shares in the Apple itself. What Forrest Gump, the well-known genius, made his money from, actually.

Overall, the moral of my story here is: You win some, you lose some. Apple would never have been the pop culture icon it is today if it hadn't swallowed its pride where it should have. Intel processors and running parallel Windows and MacOS allow the iPod to be the gadget in everyone's hand today. It's not a straight line, but it is Jobs' job.

Pink Gadgets

So I've been browsing through websites and store catalogues in my pre-Xmas gift-buying escapade. And along with the "what to get for which member of your family / social life" poor attempts at grouping people together, I've noticed so many "for her" items in gadgety stores (mostly online, 'cause dat's where us geeks buy dah prezzies). And what I really can't wrap my carefully coiffed head around is the assumptions made by stores regarding the female tech enthusiast (that's the female member of the species who is enthusiastic about technology, mind you, not the person who is enthusiastic about female techies).

Pink gadgets of all kinds, OK, I can accept. Not that I wouldn't go for the metallic-coloured USB coffee cup warmer rather than the pink one anyway, since it would look better next to my monitor. But stuff like an aromatherapy diffusion gadget is just... borderline offensive. Not just the fact that they are proclaimed to be "female" gadgets, but the more offensive fact that there are girls out there who would actually buy these things, or guys who would buy them for their girlfriends, and still be able to call them their girlfriends after presenting them with a gift that says "I may find you interesting, sometimes, but you're still a giiiirl"...

Actually, I think the only ones who've got it right, from what I've seen up to now, are thinkgeek... They seem to have realised that it's not hard for a girl to be geeky, and still cute or at least female enough to care.
Check them out, by the way, whether you're male or female. If you're reading this, I'm sure there's more than one novelty there that would make you consider parting with your money.

Digital VS Analogue

Whether it's about image or sound, in homes or specialised shops, the debate is still on, and the relevant misconceptions are abundant...

A great portion of the general population will have an opinion, whether they actually know what it's about or not. And there's the ones who are pro-analogue, just because it's older and more "established", without them actually realising what it means - just because e.g. film is considered better than digital images for the time being in the industry, or because analogue sound capturing produces different results than digital. And then there's the people who prefer digital just because it's new and cooler, and most of them have no points to support their claims, or take them further than they make sense. It's funny.

Most people just go with the flow, using whatever's handier for them, not caring about which format is actually "better". But among the elitist few who will state their case, it's odd how few of them actually have an opinion or will realise what one or the other has to offer. Examples like vinyl records - where it's ok to prefer their sound or large album covers or whatnot, but to say that their analogue sound is better than that on a cd is just plain wrong, since they've been through digital channels anyway and they can't possibly remain unaffected by the dust or the number of times you replay them, so how on earth can they be a more "reliable" or "direct" format? - or even film for your automatic photo camera, videotapes Vs DVDs or whatnot, just don't say it if you don't know it to be true or you don't realise what one or the other means, you guys...

I've heard things like "oh, come on, VHS is analogue, it's better" or "mp3 is compressed, you can't possibly listen to a song with its crap sound" (even when we're talking about good compression and a person who just wants to hear a song, not the slight nuances in its sound that only their dog can discern). And overall, it all comes down to what level of detail you need from your device, what you're going to use it for and what serves your own needs best. But there's so many people who will try to state "ultimate truths" and make absolute value judgements about a format, without even knowing what the differences really are, what digital or analogue really means in each case, what formats each thing has been through, what pros and cons it has and what they mean for you at the end.

I know what I use in each case, and I know why. I'll have mp3s for my music, because I want to keep a mean of around 120 gigs of songs that I can carry around with me ever since I was a teenager, moving from country to country, make playlists and compilation CDs with, classify them any way I choose and not feel as bad when I delete some and download others, and my ear is not as well trained as my friend Nick's, who's a sound engineer, to listen to anything other than the basic melody and the lyrics of each song. I'll use a digital camera for filming, just because it's easier for a wannabe film producer to use without having to pay for reels upon reels of film, and capture onto a hard drive and edit on Adobe Premiere and After Effects. And I know what analogue is better for, I know what difference an SLR photo camera has from my cellphone's one, what a megapixel means or why VHS and audio cassettes are ultimately dead right now even if film crews use, erm, film, which is analogue.

And in some cases, I know I'm getting inferior quality, but that's the quality I need for the time being, with the practical benefits it offers in other areas. Or I might just want the quality one way, not caring about what I'm missing somewhere else. Which holds true for me, my mother, my friend the professional, or my other friend who just cares passionately about some aspect of things. So quit trying to convince us otherwise, there's no "ultimate truth" behind it, and your penis won't grow any bigger if you make huge statements about stuff you heard mentioned one way and translated in your brain to mean 102 different things.