recepticle=Monday, March 21, 2005
osama vs. metallica
last week tabloids and broadsheets alike were overflowing with the news that the british phonographic industry was going to sue anywhere between 28 and 54 'major uploaders' for sharing music online. perpetuating the absolute ignorance of the masses, quotes were thrown around with as many buzz-words as they could possibly cram into a sentence: "these major uploaders have been uploading digital music files using file-sharing software like napster." uploading? napster? what? how exactly does one upload a 'digital music file' to a decentralised peer-to-peer network? and who the fuck uses napster?
of course, getting utterly useless agencies like the federation against copyright theft to release public service announcements that claim that 'piracy funds terrorism' makes the record industry's plight even more laughable. i'd like to sit down with whoever came up with that 'fact' and ask them precisely how you get from a 14 year-old downloading blazin' squad mp3s with kazaa lite to osama bin laden's oil-rich pockets.
of course, being the absolute fucking genius that i am, i have already conceived of a complete piracy solution. would ypu, mr. bpi, like to know how to stop people from ripping your music and sharing it with millions of people?
TAPE AND VINYL.
that's right. stop pressing cds immediately and just go back to releasing everything on cassette tape and smooth black plastic. do you know how many mp3 albums i have that have been ripped from tape or vinyl? three: 'pocketwatch' by late!, which was only ever released on cassette via mail order, and the muppet show cast albums 1 %26 2. and you know what? the audio quality is shit, and in every case they were nearly impossible to get hold of. i had to buy the muppet albums off ebay, then wait four weeks for a guy to remaster them, and they still sounded scratchy. it's just too much fucking hassle to encode mp3s from vinyl records, so no one would bother. within 6 months you'll see your profit margins skyrocket back up to the 1%25 growth a year the riaa were whining about in 1997, before hardly anyone in the world had the technology or the means to obtains mp3s.
bpi, would you kindly go fuck yourselves. thank you.
- posted by lawrie at 5:17 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
you all using me for your funnies
i found out last week that the freephone number for gaijin design hasn't been working since november. thoroughly unimpressed, i call up severn trent water (maybe this is what i get for having a water company look after my telecommunications) to see what the problem is. they can't find any fault on the redirection of the freephone number, and they can't find any outstanding bills on my account that might suggest that they would cut me off. so, what the fuck?
in a misguided attempt to cut this horrendously long story short, i had to book a bt engineer to come out 'between 1pm and 6pm' and take a look at my phone. he calls me at emily's house at 11.30am while i'm still in my jimmy-jammies doing a workout and says, "i'm at your house, i'll take a look at your phone now." "how, exactly, are you in my house?" i ask. "the bloke let me in," says he. hopefully by 'the bloke' he meant my stepfather and not a burglar or a homeless.
two hours later he calls back saying that it's a problem with the exchange, and he's booked someone to take a look at it. fine, good, ace; my problem will be sorted in a couple of days. or so i thought. two days later, still coughing up blood, bt call me up and say that (surprise surprise) the problem is not with them at all; it's a problem with the redirection as done by severn trent. so!, off i trundle back to severn trent (who maintain there's no problem on their end). i try to explain that i'm slightly confused by my bills; i'm not sure who i pay my calls with. at this point the woman on the end of the phone decides i am mentally retarded and that she should speak to me in the same way one might try to explain phone bills to a dog:
severn trent bitch: ...if your line rental bill says '0.00', it means you're not paying your bill, which means you don't have a telephone line.
me: but i obviously do have a line, because...
stb: if you don't pay your bill you don't have a line. you will not have a working phone, you will have no dial tone.
me: ah ha! i do have a dial tone. but after i dial a number, it goes dead.
stb: that's because you're not paying your bill.
me: okay, listen. i'm either paying you or bt. i've never received a final demand from either of you, and everyone seems quite happy about the whole situation. so either you've got it wrong or bt have, but lawrie is perfectly fine.
stb: if you don't pay your bill, you don't get a telephone.
me: blah blah blah! bleh blurgh blargh!
- posted by lawrie at 3:39 PM ~ comments
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
help! designer in distress!
i don't usually do this, but i'm feeling like absolute fucking horseshit right now and i need your help. i'm looking for old crumply paper and old crumply photographic textures, very much like this. i need them big! not wheedly little ones. big fat fucking ones! and with all of the edges. the edges are very important. help me! help me now!
- posted by lawrie at 11:25 PM ~ comments
Saturday, March 05, 2005
like my boots?
if you pay any attention to this site at all, you'll know that i'm a member of deviantart, and one of the many facets of the site is the user-submitted 'features'; recent works of art by deviantart members that people believe should receive a great deal of attention. there's always a little description to accompany one of the randomly displayed pieces on any given page, and one popped up today that totally threw me. the description was written by a guy... let's call him mr. wordy, and he had this to say:
"'resist 1' by ~nameofartist is beautiful in a protactive andeedextrous analeyetical apocraphictic and suffixive kind of way. anyway, enjoy it. it's something deviantart should see more of; something that not many appreciate; something that works an inner, visceral kind of pleasure. but maybe that's just me. this artist has a truly excellent gallery."
wha? zuh? my first thought was, "this was written by a goth"; the overly verbose orgy of adjectives, the attempt to throw in every multisyllabic word you can think of in an attempt to convince people that you are very clever... it all reeks of being written by a goffic. the main problem with this is that your regular goth would usually spend about an hour consulting his thesaurus before committing anything to the internet, so what gives? was his little book of adjectives written by a phonetically dyslexic child? let's take a look:
protactive: protractive? protective? protoactive? prussian?
andeedextrous: ambidextrous? i can't think of anything else. uh... android sex truss?
analeyetical: analytical? levitical? anally?
apocraphictic: epigraphic? epicritic? apothecary?
suffixive: suffixed? suffusive? subterranean homesick alien?
really now, mr wordy - what are you trying to say? that this piece of art is beautiful in a lengthy, equally-handed, spread-out kind of way, a bit like an inscription or a member of the levi tribe? stop listening to nine inch nails and get a clue.
- posted by lawrie at 3:51 PM ~ comments