2/11/2001

As if on cue, here's an article in the New York Times on how technology is enabling musicians to make their own CD's and bypass the record companies altogether. My guitar teacher, Steve Greene, is one of these. I hope to be also, some day. There's no middleman, so some of the work is subsumed by the artist, but it's still makes more money available to them, and that's the point. So buy direct whenever you can and support the artists who make the music you really love. If it helps, think of it as a revolutionary act.

A reasonable question to ask, is "how can direct sales of music work for the kind of numbers a Ricky Martin generates?" My answer would be, "it can't, and that's the point." There is no small amount of manipulation of public tastes in the music industry (not to be taken as a commentary on Mr. Martin) that takes into advantage the disposable income of modern teens, their desire to "one of the crowd" (while at the same time proclaiming their individuality) and a general inability to realize this is happening. There's nothing wrong with giving the people what they want, but by doing so, the music industry had made it almost impossible for those whose tastes are outside of the mainstream to get the music they want. Look at radio, as an example. When I was growing up in the New York City area in the 60's and 70's, there were stations that played a wide variety of music, Motown, Top 40, oldies, you name it. But as the 70's came in, and FM radio became popular, the stations began targeting listeners, and soon there would be stations that played only one genre, to the exclusion of all others. Naturally, the fringe stations, unable to generate enough listeners to make their advertisers happy, fell off the air. Most people probably just bowed to the inevitability and joined the masses.

This made for a large group of people all seemingly willing to buy the same offerings from a small group of artists, or type of artist. Consider the current popularity of "Boy Bands". There's N`Sync, Backstreet Boys, and O-Town, to name a few (all of these were conceived by the same man, and the last of the trio was actually a television series documenting the manufacture of a singing group). I believe that it's the absence of choice that drives the high sales of these marginal artists. Given more choice, the overall sales number for the industry at large might stay the same, but the unit sales per artist would be lower. But remember, each artist is getting more of the sale price of their music, so lower unit sales could actually make for greater income. Like I said before, revolutionary.

2/10/2001

Thought I would wax personal before I wax technical. This for no other reason than it was time. If you've ever read this journal, you know it tends to wander a bit, but it really took a detour to the strictly personal side this past summer. Having a serious accident can do that. But the rest of the year was not much fun either, and 2001 hasn't given me much to cheer about. It's no secret I'm not an optimist, but even the most upbeat person would have to affected.

If there is a theme to any of this, it would seem to me to be the Triumph of Ineptitude. My company, which is A Big Company, is in trouble partly because of accounting irregularities in a foreign (NAFTA) country. The people who cooked the books have been identified, but not yet charged. Meanwhile, the CFO, who has been supposedly on the watch, is never mentioned as being culpable. Given this is his bailiwick, he's either a crook or incompetent, pick one. On the home front, the new roof, which seemingly cost a fortune, partially ripped off in a wind storm last night. Quite likely it was installed wrong. This is not surprising, given that we had to have our skylights redone because they were flashed incorrectly and leaked like a sieve, ruining the ceiling in our family room. At least we can (and will) sue the contractor in Small Claims court. Can't do that with the CFO, but then again, it's likely he'll get his comeuppance, though not soon enough.

Napster is still hot, though it's getting closer to the "new" format. Jaron Lanier, a Virtual Reality pioneer, has written a "thought experiment" for Discover magazine, on this particular part of the Napster saga. It makes for chilling reading. As a computer person and a (would-be) performer, I have to agree with his assessment that eventually the Net will give musicians a way to get their work out to people AND make money, even if there is a short-term decrease in profits.

2/3/2001

On the Napster front, it's been announced that they will be charging $5(US)/month, starting some time soon. This brings two questions, first, how many people will actually spend money for something they could previously get free, and second, given that there are servers that Napster users can connect to that are not owned by Napster, is this even relevant? Add to that the gowing popularity of alternative, peer-to-peer (no server) schemes like FreeNet and Gnutella, and is any thing about Napster going to be relevant for long?

Sadly, Pyra Labs, the company behind the Blogger weblog tool, is now down to a single employee. This was after a sucessful campaign for voluntary contributions that gave them a bunch of new servers. Despite the sudden influx of cash, it wasn't enough to overcome the inherent problem of not having a sustainable business model. They did indeed show that web people are willing to pay for something they liked, while at the same time showing that love is not enough, even when it has a check attached. Along with all of the other dot-com failures, and the general business slowdown in the US, you have to wonder if there is such a thing as a successful business model built around the web. The poster child for dot-coms, Amazon.com, has decided that profitability is a good thing and has begun to move towards making money. Their tactics, of course, involve layoffs, along with dropping parts of the business that don't work all that well, revenue-wise. Early on in this journal, I wrote about Amazon's patent issues, and refused to order from them anymore because of them. Well, convenience and practicality won out over principles, and I continue to Amazon, especially the One-Click ordering system (one of the patented features). The sobering thing, though, is how small Amazon is, in sales, than Barnes and Noble. Looking at it from a strict sales basis, Amazon doesn't compete with the big "bricks and mortar" booksellers, it's really in mindshare, or perception, that Amazon holds it's own.

It's clear the Internet hysteria is over, though to assume that the net is dead is foolish. Internet-only companies are going to be in the minority, but will never go away. Neither will companies that ignore the net altogether. The so-called "bricks and clicks", or hybrid strategy, will most likely dominate in the long run. What's important is not using the net for it's own sake, it's using it to it's best advantage. Some goods and services are naturals for the net, but some aren't. To my mind, books fall somewhere in between. It's one thing to buy a book that's on the New York Times bestseller lists, it's another thing to brovse for a book among titles and authors you don't know much about. I belong to a book club, Quality Paperback Book Club, that has a web site and sends a monthly newsletter/order form. What I like about it is the reviews and descriptions of books that are in each issue. I seldom, if ever, but a book from QPB that I've heard of from another source. I use Amazon for that. Amazon does offer reader reviews, but they are voluntary and new books might not have them. And neither is like walking the aisles of a bookstore, which is an experience unto itself. Done right, they complement each other, and that's the point. If it doesn't enhance the experience, it's not valuable. And out of business.

1/26/2001

In one of the communities in which I participate, there's been a sudden rash of breakups between romantic couples. In one case, the man involved was married, but had represented himself as a widower. This community is hosted by one of the major free online services and gives each user a "profile" page, where they can put information about themselves like name, age, gender, location, and marital status (including values like "Married but looking"). It is optional, of course, and there's no way to verify any of it, including the picture. This is one aspect that I think really differs from the non-virtual world, where some things are impossible to cover up for long. There are, of course, ways to overcome almost any anonymizing aspect of the Internet, including tracing packets to the source, but most of these are beyond the capability of casual users (without a court order). In this instance, the man betrayed himself, succumbing to guilt at becoming an adulterer.

Could this have happened without the Internet? I don't think so. Despite the occasional news story about men with multiple families, it's much more difficult to live a double(or more) life without the layer of obscurity of the net. If this guy hadn't come clean, there's no reason to believe he couldn't have continued the charade for much, much longer. Would polygamy been out of the question? Only he knows.

One aspect of this online community that is very much like the non-virtual world is how the other members are rallying around the woman affected. It's probably not as comforting as a real, solid, shoulder to cry on, but it's great to see that happen. I guess there is hope for humanity, despite those who refuse to care about others.

1/21/2001

There's an interesting on-line journal, called the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization, or JOHO, that read whenever a new issue comes out. The latest issue, 19 January, starts out with a piece on on-line interactive communities. This is something I'm acutely interested in and was a a frequent topic of this journal in the early days. I've had the opportunity to participate in many different forms of on-line communities and continue to do so today, although with a greater sense of detachment that I have in the past. I really believe that on-line communities can and do exist and that there are many forms that they take on. It seems almost inevitable that, given a communications medium that is available to many people,.groups will form, united in some way by a belief or other common interest. But you should read JOHO, for a much better description than I can give.

1/18/2001

This may sound like something you say to a friend but, I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. I've meant to, but things have conspired to take my time away. To be honest, these haven't been the happiest times of my life, and that's had a lot to with it. I derive most of my sense of self from my work. I realize that's not a great thing, but it's far too late to change now. That means, of course, that when is less than ideal, my whole world suffers. Given that I work for a company that is far from healthy and adding to that not being in a position where I feel comfortable or valuable, is it any surprise I feel this way? I am living proof that you can surround yourself with technology and possessions and still feel poor. I've begun to entertain notions of a drastic career change in the hopes it will jar me out of the funk I am in.

I promised in my weblog that I would have an essay on micropayments, I will, but it's going to take some time because I want it to be more of a standalone essay than just an entry here. Not that anyone ever reads this but me.

1/13/2001

I've started yet another weblog, Palm Leaves, on Blogger. I use my Palm V to create the content and then convert the Doc files to text for importing into Blogger. Right now I'm still using the stylus to hand write the entries although I'm looking at keyboards. I am closely approaching cool.

And check out my avatar! I made it at http://www.stor.co.uk. It requires Java, so you'll need to have that to play.

1/7/2001

I realize now that in the past when I have thought and written about buying music direct from the artists, I was overlooking a related issue. That issue is concerned with material that you may not want to experience more than once, like a picture or perhaps a concert performance. In the physical world, you pay an admission fee or toss some money into a hat and you're even. While the former is mandatory and the latter voluntary, the end result is you experience it and then you go on your merry way. The experience is all you take and you have to rely on your memory if you want to recall any of it. I'm doing some personal research into some ideas around this concept. I've heard of two possible "solutions", Micropayments and the Street Performer Protocol. So far, it's obvious that there's a lot of differing opinions here, it may take me some time to sort it out for myself. In the meantime, keep buying your music direct from the artists.

1/6/2001

I guess the new buzzword is P2P, or Peer-to-Peer. It's been everywhere, with more definitions than you can count. This guarantees that it will be over-hyped, found wanting, and thrown onto the scrap heap. Later on, of course, it will be resurrected, all past foolishness forgotten, and it again be the paradigm of the moment. All of which serves to hide the fact that P2P has real value in situations where the peers have sufficient power and storage. Think about it, your PDA or Web-enabled phone is primarily a display device, storage is limited and so is computational power. But if they could access your desktop machine, in other words if your desktop was a server too, they could participate as well, albeit with reduced functionality. I've joined a egroups forum, called decentralization, that is working on this concept of every desktop a web server. One of the participants, Dave Winer, of Scripting News fame, is pushing what he calls the Two-Way-Web, where everyone can be a writer, as well as a reader (browser) of web content. Although this may seem radical, it's actually the idea that Tim Berners-Lee had when he originally designed the WWW. It was never meant to be a read-only medium, but a way for scientists to collaborate. The W3C, the people who maintain the standards that allow the web to work, produce a tool called Amaya, which is not only the standard for web browser compliance, but is also a creation tool. It allows you to edit any page you display, whether or not you can write that page is a different story.

Ray Ozzie, the guy who created Lotus Notes, has developed his own peer-to-peer collaboration tool, called Groove. I've used it a bit at work, since it is only for Windows right now, and I'm still at the "trying to figure out what I can do with it" stage. Part of this is because you need to have more than one person to have collaboration and it worked poorly at first with the router setup we have. But they keep issuing new versions and the latest works reasonably well, although is somewhat slow (probably due to debug code and overall immaturity). Groove offers file sharing, message boards, shared workspaces, instant messaging, even games for two or more. Right now, I don't need any of those features at work, so it remains more a novelty. But the concept is one that can work. Napster, Gnutella, and the rest are the merely the first wave (and very visible targets for the establishment). While there are certainly issues (and will continue to be) around ownership of music, no one will be able to dispute ownership of a word processing document (like this one, say) that I've created from scratch myself.

One issue, though, is who owns a document (or any easily modifiable object) once it's been modified? In the software world, this is often taken care of by simply appending the modifiers name to end of a list, at the top of which is the creator. This is, of course, a convention, since the file can be easily modified and there is nothing stopping the last modifier from removing all the previous names. It's fairly clear to me what would happen to existing pre-electronic era documents, given that their history is known to many but how will we do the same on the Two-Way-Web for those that wish to be recognized as the originator? I hope to learn that in the coming months.

1/1/2001

If you're reading this, you've survived the New Millennium! Yes, this time it's for real, not the made-up millennium the media fostered upon us in 2000. And to be honest, I barely stayed awake until midnight last night to see it. The technosoothsayers' predictions of technological collapse and the fundamentalist's predictions of the Apocalypse were both wrong in 2000 and there were far fewer rumblings this time. What we are all going to have to face is that, despite what science fiction may have told us, 2001 is not significantly different from 1950. While the rate of change of technology in the micro sense is quite high (compare a vacuum tube to a PowerPC G4) in the macro sense it is almost glacial (compare cars). Take someone from 1950, plop them into 2001, and while they might be surprised by some of the details, they most likely will be able to survive just fine. Consider just two aspects of our lives, the kitchen and the car.

In the kitchen, the microwave oven might seem fantastic to someone from 1950, but given it uses radiation to cook, it would also be looked at as a logical extension of the A-bomb work. Otherwise, we still cook with stoves, keep food in refrigerators, wash in sinks, and throw garbage in cans. You may have a gas or electric stove, but it still functions pretty much the same. There's certainly a lot of "labor saving" devices that may not have been common in 1950, like electric can openers, food processors, and dishwashers, but the manual alternatives are still available and still in use. I think most refrigerators are larger, but food storage is still a matter of keeping food cold. Our friend from 1950 won't starve.

Out on the road, nothing much has changed either. Same basic layout in the controls of an automobile, same roads, same road signs, though the price of gasoline might be a shocker. Automatic transmissions are common, though manual shifters are still available (and considered essential in a performance car). Our friend might be amazed at how soft and airplane cockpit-like cars have become, compared to hard surfaces and open layouts of 1950, but it's unlikely they'll be unable to drive. The performance of even the most mundane car might be surprising too, but not enough to send anyone running in fear.

Where things might be troublesome is the office, since most office workers sit, apparently passive, in front of television screens with typewriter keyboards in front of them. There may be less paper moving around, though that depends on the business. Worker output is more difficult to measure than in 1950, but something must be happening, right? In industry, a lot of things are still being made by people assembling parts, nothing new there. Robots are doing some of the work, and many of those jobs were dirty and/or dangerous and would have been mechanized in 1950 if they could have.

So, all in all, the future is not so different from the past. While I'm sure you could find a bunch of examples of things that might surprise and confound someone from 1950 (clothes, pop music?) I contend that, overall, they would not prevent them from living a fairly normal life in 2001 (though one full of little surprises). Unless, of course, they were avid sci-fi readers, then they would be sorely disappointed with the lack of progress. Have a Happy New Year/Millennium/Rest of Your Life.

12/29/2000

Here's an End of Year Summary (in convenient table form) for my 2000. It's obviously more lighthearted than I was originally going to do, but there comes a point where being maudlin is counter-productive. I hope you had a decent 2000 and I especially hope you have a better 2001.

12/25/2000

I thought I would not have time to write another entry but I have some time between the opening of gifts and the making of dinner to jot down a few things. I received the electronic guitar tuner than I asked for. It's almost foolproof in that all you do is turn it on and it figures out which string it's listening to and then tells you sharp or flat. You can use it for just about any instrument, not just guitars. I also have the Leatherman tool, the standard model, and it's already been put to use on toys. The kids let us sleep until 8:30 AM although they had been up since 6:00, at 9 and 11 they're enthusiastic but not as crazy as in past years. I wonder how much longer this will hold any fascination for them. It's a cliché to say you don't want them to grow up, but it's true in a way. But in another way it is a fantastic gift I have been given to watch them grow into the women they will be someday. I enjoy seeing some of the things I feel and the principles I live by mirrored in them, alongside feelings and principles that are theirs alone. Santa is still mentioned, even though my oldest is pretty sure he doesn't exist. She doesn't talk about it in front of her sister because she knows better and, deep down inside, still holds out for the possibility.

Of all the gifts and such I received this year, the one I got back in July was by far the most cherished. It is one I didn't ask for, and probably didn't deserve, but that is what makes it so special to me. I know my time will come, but I hope it isn't for a few more decades. There are a lot of things I want to do and far too many special people in my life that I don't wish to say good-bye to just yet. Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards All.

12/22/2000

How connected are you? What I'm asking is this, can you go anywhere and not be reachable? I have multiple phone numbers (office and home), a cell phone, numerous email addresses, what do you have? Have you ever considered turning all of them off at once and seeing if the world ended? I haven't, though I find ways to be alone and out of touch in other ways.

This may be my last entry of 2000, though I may get an End of Year Summary in before New Year's Eve. I'm sort of busy with things at home, but more importantly, I'm just plain tired. This has been an exhausting year for me in many ways and it's time to simply lay low and recharge. I hope to get some of my England and Germany pictures online so that is the one project, computer-wise, that I hope to accomplish in the next week.

And lest I be remiss, please have a happy and safe holiday season. There are a lot of opportunities to be unsafe this time of year, don't take them. Remember to love the ones around you and the ones who are far away. Remember those less fortunate and how little may separate you from them. Remember all those who have gone from this earth in 2000, never let their memory leave you. And remember, no matter how technology changes our lives, we are still people.

12/16/2000

Welcome to my redesigned site containing my journal and some other things that I've been meaning to get online. I still expect to add some things, particularly some digital photos, but they are on a different computer at the moment and I will most likely start that work of the Christmas holiday.

The design overall is nothing radical, and it looks like a whole bunch of other pages, but I wasn't trying to be anything but simple and obvious. I think that this should also load fairly quickly, especially compared to the big honkin' file approach I used before. Also I was able to include my old home page, which was just a page of quotes I like a lot. I will probably update that page too, from time to time.

The My.MP3.com service of MP3.com is back online after the brouhaha with Universal:

MP3.com has reached an agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG), the fifth and final major record label. It was announced November 14 that UMG has granted MP3.com a non-exclusive, North American license for the use of UMG-controlled recordings on the My.MP3.com system, including the Beam-it(TM) and Instant Listening(TM) software services.

What's unclear is whether or not the new service actually represents a convenience or not. The original idea was for you to load CD's into your computer and then "upload" the songs to My.MP3.com, where they are stored in MP3 format for you to play anywhere you have access to the site. The issue was around access to the MP3 files and proof of purchase of the original CD. As of today, you can purchase certain titles online and have them available and you can play certain titles that you may have already uploaded. It cost MP3.com $53.4 million (USD) to get to this stage. In terms of convenience, I would guess it is if the titles you play are available to play or available to purchase online. The web site with the news states in their FAQ:

Q: Why are there locks on some of my songs?

A: Some labels and publishers have not yet agreed to let consumers listen to their own CDs online. Our hope is that all labels and publishers will embrace this positive development. You can help by supporting the Music Owners' Listening Rights Act and encouraging record labels and publishers to embrace this consumer friendly technology.

I find the first sentence in the answer to be very important. It seems that in music, as well as in software, the concept of ownership is still murky. The implication here is that the record companies own the music, not you. What you may have is similar to the software "right to use" where you purchase the ability to use the music/software under terms dictated by the record/software companies. You'll also note the lack of mention of the artists in that paragraph. Do yourself a favor, buy direct from the artists. My guitar teacher, Steve Greene, has a new CD with Gene Bertoncini. Buy it.

12/14/2000

I've been using some type of electronic mail since about 1981. First only to users on the same mainframe, then to users on other Vaxen in the same cluster, then to UUCP-based mail to others in the world, to today's Internet email. I have, at last count, 6 active email addresses (meaning I use them from time to time). I'd have 7, but I haven't enabled that on my digital phone (yet). If you're interested in the first electronic mail sent via the Internet (then called the ARPANET) there is an article, The First E-Mail Message, that tells the story behind it. Keep in mind this was in 1971, I was still in 8^th grade, and most people outside government and academia had ever heard of the ARPANET.

I would guess that if you're reading this, you're likely an email user as well as a Web surfer. I get a significant amount of information via email, and the fact that I can filter the information and read it at my leisure (even when not connected) is a powerful attraction for me. At work, I have the ability to download work email to my Palm PDA and even compose on it for later sending. I wouldn't be surprised if, for most people, email capability was so basic, so entrenched in their lives, that it no longer has much visibility. You expect it, it is part of the very fabric of your life. I talk about Instant Messaging a lot here, but don't think I'm not paying attention to it's predecessor.

12/9/2000

I've been thinking of doing another site update, going to a frames approach, with some permanent stuff in a non-scrolling frame to the left and a central scrolling area for the journal entries. One reason for the change is the fact that there are lot of entries now and I'd like to start archiving the older ones to save space. My weblog on Blogger has this as a default feature but I maintain this journal by hand in StarOffice 5.1. If anyone actually reads this, would you be so kind as to let me know what you think. I have ideas in my head, but unlike normal programming languages, I have trouble converting ideas to code in HTML.

It's been a mostly down week for me, given what has happened, and overall, 2000 has been a tough year for me in general. To say I'll be looking forward to change in 2001 is an understatement. I still have flashbacks to my accident, though the frequency and severity are diminishing. To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out why I'm still here, what it all means.

12/4/2000

I would like to take some time out to talk about my Uncle Joe, who passed through death into eternal life yesterday. Rather than put that here, please go here.

12/3/2000

One thing I missed in the previous entry was the effect that the emphasis on being thin has on people, especially young women and girls. The various eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia just show how powerful this emphasis can be. Sufferers are so convinced that they are "fat" they can literally starve themselves to death, all the while believing they are overweight. Now there's evidence to indicate that the problem is spreading to boys as well.

There really needs to be a careful consideration of what images we present to young people, since it is just as important to promote physical well-being as it is not to punish those who don't match the "average". I'm no behavioral expert, so I can't say for sure the best way to do this though I know we have to do a better job. I was an overweight child and I remember, without fondness, how I was treated. Being far taller than average and smart also made me a target of ridicule. As the father of two girls, both bigger than average, I don't want them to have to endure what I did. In short, I want them to be healthy and happy.

Stephen King has temporarily suspended working on his downloadable serial novel, the reasons vary with the source you read. Two things are clear, less than half of the downloaders have paid (see below) and no one has said he's not going to continue. As a reader of the Dark Tower series, I can assure you that delays are part of the experience. What is troubling is the percentage of people who paid. It's becoming clearer that freeloaders are unavoidable, and that says that only those who can sell enough units to be able to ignore the loss, or who have alternative outlets, will survive.