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karl fungus posted:Speaking of obsolete services, here's something on Prodigy: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/where-online-services-go-when-they-die/374099/ I have a vague memory in the mid 90s of my mother calling Epic Megagames on the phone to order Jazz Jackrabbit for me. They then e-mailed us a one time link to download the game.
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Jul 15, 2014 19:42
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quote:Doary said the decision will result in one employee layoff. Clearly business was booming!
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Jul 15, 2014 22:26
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Lowen SoDium posted:For starters, file attachments on email are unsolicited. You could send a large file to me, regardless if you know me or not and fill up my mail box or impede mail delivery. Google is in the process of opening the gmail API, I think.
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Jul 16, 2014 00:41
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Albums are great, and if you (in the general sense) don't have the patience to sit through A Love Supreme or Abbey Road or The Dark Side of the Moon or Fear of a Black Planet and appreciate the music as a coherent whole, that is absolutely your problem, not the Also, how did everyone just let this go? Jerry Cotton posted:Congratulations, you don't like most pre-60s popular music. (Nor a shitload of 60s popular music.) Jerry Cotton posted:I said congratulations do you not know what congratulations are? Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 21:00 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 20:41
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Albums are great, and if you (in the general sense) don't have the patience to sit through A Love Supreme or Abbey Road or The Dark Side of the Moon or Fear of a Black Planet and appreciate the music as a coherent whole, that is absolutely your problem, not the While I agree, I kind of just wanted to let it go and let the argument end. This is a good thread, unlike my and Jerry Cotton's posts during that slapfight.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:06
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Albums are great. So are singles. The problem is trying to force all music to conform to one model, because some stuff is better as an album and other stuff just wants to be singles.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:15
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Still on the topic of albums/records but going away from "the concept of the 'album' is good/bad" here's a greybeard blabbing about records that glow in the dark and those that glow under blacklight. Neat stuff, seems like something followers of this thread would enjoy.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:59
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p-hop posted:Still on the topic of albums/records but going away from "the concept of the 'album' is good/bad" here's a greybeard blabbing about records that glow in the dark and those that glow under blacklight. Neat stuff, seems like something followers of this thread would enjoy. Where's the blabbing give us the blabbing!
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Jul 17, 2014 13:00
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Jerry Cotton posted:Well obviously I'm glad Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds exists but about 100% of all albums contain filler. Sham bam bamina! posted:Albums are great, and if you (in the general sense) don't have the patience to sit through A Love Supreme or Abbey Road or The Dark Side of the Moon or Fear of a Black Planet and appreciate the music as a coherent whole, that is absolutely your problem, not the I wish people would respond to posts, not arguments they make up in their own head. Do you want me to list a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand albums that absolutely exist just because it's the go-to format, not because there's an album's worth of good or even decent music on them? Because it would not be hard to come up with them and you know it as well as I do. (I won't do it of course.) 3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 13:12 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 13:08
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Jerry Cotton posted:I wish people would respond to posts, not arguments they make up in their own head. Do you want me to list a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand albums that absolutely exist just because it's the go-to format, not because there's an album's worth of good or even decent music on them? Because it would not be hard to come up with them and you know it as well as I do. (I won't do it of course.) Do you want me to list a bunch of lovely singles my list will be longer and I guess that's what counts. e: You can't argue against albums because that refers to either a) just a collection of songs or b) a collection of songs held together by a unifying or common concept. Collections of songs are not going to go anywhere because musicians aren't going to make one song and stop. And if you're a e2: vvv Thank you so much. Manky has a new favorite as of 13:55 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 13:33
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You guys should chill out and watch this documentary on when, how and why albums came into existence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em4kpy1YuNQ Much more interesting than this "I can name more x than you!"
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Jul 17, 2014 13:49
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Manky posted:e: You can't argue against albums because that refers to either a) just a collection of songs or b) a collection of songs held together by a unifying or common concept. Collections of songs are not going to go anywhere because musicians aren't going to make one song and stop. And if you're a Well no I'm not against a. I guess I should've said "studio albums" although maybe that's ambiguous as well? Fake edit: This is what started it all so it's obvious I'm not arguing against a: "Of course the concept of an album as a more or less monolithic or cohesive work of art as opposed to just a format was pretty much set up to fail from the start, and will hopefully be rarely used if not obsolete in my life time." I added emphasis to what was my original point.
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Jul 17, 2014 14:00
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Sir_Substance posted:Maybe it's just me, but it seems to me that given how cheap storage space and bandwidth are these days, it would be totally practical for most places to just give everyone a 1/5/10GB mailbox limit (whatever you like based on org size) and let them manage it themselves. This is a management issue, not a technical one. You can do exactly this for not a terrible amount of money (compared to revenue, at least,) but every one of those users is going to run straight into that limit and bitch at IT about how they need more space. 99% of "Why is TECH THING still done this way?" can be answered with "Management and/or budgets."
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Jul 17, 2014 15:07
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In general you need an album to build a promotional push around, it is a nice easy to manage chunk of (generally) a yearly release that you can then create a tour out of and do the promotional / merchandising rounds. It's not much more than that, it makes sense just like anything else (yearly sports finals, whatever you want to choose as an example works). The idea that albums were created as some sort of artistic statement is  and was only adopted as such (successfully in a lot of cases) later on.That's why they won't go away, even though singles are more popular than ever.
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Jul 17, 2014 15:34
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Jerry Cotton posted:I wish people would respond to posts, not arguments they make up in their own head. Do you want me to list a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand albums that absolutely exist just because it's the go-to format, not because there's an album's worth of good or even decent music on them? Because it would not be hard to come up with them and you know it as well as I do. (I won't do it of course.) Jerry Cotton posted:Well no I'm not against a. I guess I should've said "studio albums" although maybe that's ambiguous as well? You're trying to argue that there's no middle ground between "completely disconnected songs that happen to be distributed together" and "excessively ambitious concept album", and that's plain wrong. Most albums, even lovely ones, have some sense of individual identity, if only because their songs were all written and played by the same people around the same time (and often because of conscious effort to give them that identity, effort which you seem to specifically dislike for some reason). Just read or watch or listen to almost any interview with a band or musician from when they're working on or have just released a new album; almost as a rule, they'll talk about their specific vision and goals for that album as an album. To divorce that vision, however weak or nebulous (again, Sturgeon's Law definitely applies, and sometimes people do just want to write a bunch of good individual songs), from the album itself is to fundamentally misunderstand the creative process that goes into the album. Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 17:53 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 16:54
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Jul 17, 2014 18:36
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And you don't have to flip the cylinder to hear the other side! 
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Jul 17, 2014 18:42
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Weird Al released an album this week, then said on a Reddit AMA that it might be his last:"'Weird Al' Yankovic"[/quote posted:I haven't made any real plans beyond the release of my current album, but since everybody's asking... I'll probably just be releasing singles (possibly EPs) going forward - I really don't think the album format is the most efficient or intelligent way for me to distribute my music anymore. I highly doubt that I would sign with another label. I guess I might be open to a distribution deal, but... we'll see. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't want to have my releases on any kind of a schedule - that would be too much pressure, and it might actually start to feel like a JOB!" Earlier, he has said something to the effect that unique songs are getting harder for him to so since someone is pushing one out to YouTube pretty much immediately. So, at least for Weird Al, the album appears to be obsolete.
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Jul 17, 2014 18:48
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On the subject of music, I could have sworn in the 90s Todd Rundgren was tried to push a multimedia music experience that would let users listen to customized versions of tracks by essentially giving them some very low-degree of simulated mixing power at home: You could listen to a song as it was or adjust playback parameters of it to your liking. It was for the CD-i, nothing more ever seemed to develop of this user-controlled music that I can figure out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_World_Order According to a Q&A, it sounds like Rundgren was stating that the mixes were sort of pregenerated in a way and you didn't have access to individual components to alter on the fly.
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Jul 17, 2014 19:12
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I thought Al commented on his record contract about 10 years ago, right around the time the digital singles downloads were becoming popular, where he said it ended up sort of not being the best for him because the way it dictated how the label would pay royalties to him on singles from downloads vs. physical album sales.
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Jul 17, 2014 19:18
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There's also the issue of needing to keep up with what's popular; Weird Al's complained about some of his parodies becoming outdated before they end up being released, because the first ones written are held back by the last ones.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:35
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Out of all the people we could choose as a metric, we are going with Weird Al?  Is he still well known in America or something? Last I heard of him was Eat It or something in the 80s.
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Jul 17, 2014 20:49
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peter gabriel posted:Out of all the people we could choose as a metric, we are going with Weird Al? He's been releasing daily music videos from his new album all week, so, um... yes?
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Jul 17, 2014 20:57
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JediTalentAgent posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_World_Order I also recall him rebranding himself as TR-i for "Todd Rundgren Interactive." It was in a Wired article at the time. peter gabriel posted:Out of all the people we could choose as a metric, we are going with Weird Al? He's been in the social media "news" a bunch over the past week or so. It's vaguely topical. vvv Sham bam bamina! posted:His music really would make more sense as disconnected singles, which is why he was brought up here in the first place. Although the albums would usually contain one "style parody" and one polka, which were often more fun and less rote than the song parodies. I assume the song parodies are what move units though. moller has a new favorite as of 21:07 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 20:58
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peter gabriel posted:Out of all the people we could choose as a metric, we are going with Weird Al?
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Jul 17, 2014 20:59
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Sham bam bamina! posted:He had something of a comeback in 2006 with the "White and Nerdy" video, then his album in 2011 was a big deal because it was his first since 2006, and his new one is back to being "another Weird Al album". His music really would make more sense as disconnected singles, which is why he was brought up here in the first place. I had no idea, the whole thing passed me by completely, sorry!
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Jul 17, 2014 21:25
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this thread, regarding albums: To summarize: albums suck, albums are great, albums are both flawed and valuable, most albums (like most things) are awful, arguing that albums will either go away forever or are the most artistically valuable form of music are both wrong.
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Jul 17, 2014 21:28
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peter gabriel posted:Out of all the people we could choose as a metric, we are going with Weird Al? Sham bam bamina! posted:He had something of a comeback in 2006 with the "White and Nerdy" video, then his album in 2011 was a big deal because it was his first since 2006, and his new one is back to being "another Weird Al album". His music really would make more sense as disconnected singles, which is why he was brought up here in the first place. Prior to that, I think the last thing anyone really knew of that he made was the song "Amish Paradise," which came out in 1996. That's not to say he wasn't making/selling records in the interim--he just sort of faded away in the way that you hear about someone you haven't in ages and say something like "Bobcat Goldthwait? I thought he was dead."
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Jul 17, 2014 21:40
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Back in the 60s, it was not unusual for a record label to say to a new artist, "We think you have potential, but not enough to commit to a full album. So we'll let you cut a single or two and we'll see what happens."
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Jul 17, 2014 23:02
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Mister Kingdom posted:Back in the 60s, it was not unusual for a record label to say to a new artist, "We think you have potential, but not enough to commit to a full album. So we'll let you cut a single or two and we'll see what happens." Used to happen to a lot of bands when I was growing up in the 90s as well but usually they'd put out an EP (extended Play - usually 4 songs) then another and then merge them as an album if they sold well enough.
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Jul 17, 2014 23:27
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This probably got posted before but whatever The Sega Ir-7000 Communicator. This thing had basic pda functions and this battle mode which was like a very simple pokemon type game that I think had leveling, and if you had 2 of these devices you could play over IR which was very wicked. 
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Jul 18, 2014 02:47
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:Prior to that, I think the last thing anyone really knew of that he made was the song "Amish Paradise," which came out in 1996. That's not to say he wasn't making/selling records in the interim--he just sort of faded away in the way that you hear about someone you haven't in ages and say something like "Bobcat Goldthwait? I thought he was dead." Running with Scissors (1999) had a minor hit with "The Saga Begins". Poodle Hat (2003) didn't land any hits though (though "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" holds a place in my heart as a Ben Folds fan). He's never really gone away and even his "flop" albums chart pretty drat well. SCheeseman has a new favorite as of 08:23 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 08:21
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madpanda posted:This probably got posted before but whatever A guy I knew in high school brought this thing to school a couple of times and showed off the game to our group of friends. I seem to recall that we were all pretty impressed by it but he would never let us actually play it for ourselves. Oh man, I must have spent a good fifteen or so years trying to find out what the hell this thing actually was; I didn't realize Sega put it out and there was also a bunch of other similarly colored basic PDAs for teens out at the time so apart from the game it didn't exactly stand out. So thanks thread, I guess.
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Jul 18, 2014 09:44
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SwissCM posted:Running with Scissors (1999) had a minor hit with "The Saga Begins". Poodle Hat (2003) didn't land any hits though (though "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?" holds a place in my heart as a Ben Folds fan). And as someone else pointed out, his style parodies are way way better and don't age as badly as his song parodies. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLnapb-30hA
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Jul 18, 2014 14:16
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Rev. Bleech_ posted:And as someone else pointed out, his style parodies are way way better and don't age as badly as his song parodies. Example: Dare To Be Stupid remains a fantastic Devo style parody
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Jul 18, 2014 14:50
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mark mothersbaugh loved that song so much he literally tried to buy the rights to it for their next album fake edit: meant to be a joke how each time I've seen this mentioned this week it seems to inflate Marks reaction, but I'm surprised no artist has rerecorded a style parody with their own "serious" lyrics so you get a chicken/egg situation
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Jul 18, 2014 16:02
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Pham Nuwen posted:Dare To Be Stupid remains a fantastic Devo style parody ...with bonus pseudo-Bob Dobbs in the video
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Jul 18, 2014 17:31
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Sham bam bamina! posted:So, because of Sturgeon's Law, you'd prefer that nobody tries to make the most of the format? Of course there are going to be lovely albums; it's inevitable, with so many bands and solo musicians, that not everything can be perfect or even good. Maybe if I listened to more disposable radio pop (a genre whose albums are basically defined by the singles+filler stereotype), I'd be more sympathetic to your point, but the idea that the concept of a "cohesive" album is "set up to fail" is just ridiculous. People generally write more than one song (which is why albums exist at all), and when putting them together, they generally want some cohesion. It's an inevitable consequence of giving a poo poo. Just emptyquote'n this because: Yes. As for failed technology, I nominate these:  Clam Clips I can see where they were coming from. Staples aren't frendly to remove and damage the paper but hold well, paper clips are easy to remove and reuse but don't hold well. So somebody (probably a committee) designs these things. They were meant to hold strong, be easily removable, and reuseable. Instead they're kind of a bitch to remove, you need to use a specific applicator to put them on, and since they come in different sizes to hold different amounts of paper the applicator need to be different sizes. In the end way less user friendly than both staples and paperclips, but they're still being made so not obsolete, just stupid and failed.
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Jul 18, 2014 18:08
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So they're less useful binder clips? I had never even heard of those before.
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Jul 18, 2014 19:31
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BuddyChrist posted:Just emptyquote'n this because: Yes. I'm confused, but probably shouldn't be.Are you agreeing or trying to say that Yes albums are somehow support or oppose the statement? If the later, could you expand upon the point some? I can sort see the argument I guess since they shuffled the lineup some and things changed drastically then shuffled it again and kind of became a combination of the two earlier sounds yet still something else.
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Jul 18, 2014 19:47
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