I have to ask, what sort of music does the volume named "Finally, the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid" consist of?

Ha! I should have included an explanation for that one. :) It's a comp of our favorite Flaming Lips tracks. The title is lifted from an official compilation of their early recordings from 1983-1988.

http://i.imgur.com/3pDYBRHl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aweR3p6l.jpg

The Nighthawk
 

Today I took the next step in audiophilia and invested in a pair of AudioQuest's flagship headphones - 2015 CES Best of Innovation Winner - The NightHawk.

The grills are 3D-printed using a process called selective laser sintering, and its biometric design mimicks the latticework in a butterfly's wing. It's designed to diffuse sound and to help defeat resonances.

The cups have substantial internal bracing, and have their interior surfaces coated with an elastomeric coating.

The driver uses a high-excursion 50mm biocellulose diaphragm - far superior to the Mylar diaphragms most drivers use. Compliant rubber surrounds improve the drivers' pistonic behavior. The NightHawk driver's magnet is very strong, rated at 1.2 tesla.

The earcup suspension mount system uses ultra-high-grade silicone bands that let them articulate with a lot of freedom, but while still providing nice tension and control. These are VERY comfortable to wear.

With the shock-mount-type suspension, the circular yokes, the Liquid Wood earcups, and the rod-type headband, the NightHawk looks somehow concurrently modern and vintage - a perfect fit for yours truly!

http://i.imgur.com/tKx7TJwl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PWgeunQl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ra1vySBl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/M0JW3rKl.jpg

A Personal Aside
 

This space is usually reserved for my silly musico-cultural obsessions and it’s not often that I use this blog to speak of personal matters in my life. But as today was particularly affecting, I’m going to take that liberty.

My fiance is brilliant. She is a magnificent author and incredibly adept at the art of crafting, needlework, and the like. She has a great appreciation for my less-than-accessible musical interests, and we share a love of cult/fringe cinema and literature.

You know there’s a “but” coming.

But, my friends, she’s also as mad as a matter.

Like so many writers and artists I’ve known, her inspiration is drawn from incredible traumas and misery - rejection, social isolation, self-loading, and misfortune. It’s what makes the works of these artists so spectacular. But it comes at a price.

In the last few months, my fiance has lost not just one but both of her beloved grandmothers, which resuted in a severe and debilitating depression leaving her in a state of near catatonia.

And on top of that, the women at her workplace (an educational center for autistic children) conspired to have her wrongfully terminated with false accusations of child sexual abuse.

This devastated her further, as she loved nothing more than helping her dear children.

The winter has been an incredible challenge for us, both financially as well as emotionally. She’s spent entire weeks in bed, will not look for work, and is self-victimizing and self-destructive.

And today, after I searched for jobs for her, drafted cover letters, and applied to multiple positions, she sabotaged her opportunity by smashing her smartphone.

I’ve tried to encourage her to seek professional help (and perhaps medication) but she dismisses the effectiveness of psychotherapy just as quickly as she does opportunities for employment.

I am grateful that I can afford the home I’ve purchased for us without her contribution, but the situation is clearly not healthy.

I’ve purchased a $15 flip phone to receive calls from her potential employers, and will continue assisting her in the search for a new position. My hope is that once she’s back into a daily routine that she will start to recover from her terrible depression.

My humble apologies, readers, if the dramatization above far exceeds my allowance of your attention or interest. But it has done me well to sound off. As you know my social encounters are few and releasing my stress here in this virtual but theraputic environment certainly has its value.

I thank you.

The Arrival
 

http://i.imgur.com/mYwX00Wl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/F0YBRKxl.jpg

My AudioQuest NightHawks have arrived! Settling in for the test drive with a robust setlist of tunes to see what they can do!
Now Playing: "Homeless" from Graceland. Ladysmith Black Mambazo makes for a wonderful test of vocal music.

Coming up I've got:

- Bernard Parmegiani - De Natura Sonorum
- Morton Feldman - The Late Piano Works Vol. 3
- Jean-Claude Risset - Sud
- John Cage - Concert for Piano and Orchestra
- Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
- Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
- Radiohead - OK Computer
- Steely Dan - Aja (the epic Steve Hoffman remaster of UK MCA MCLD 19145)
- Pink Floyd - The Immersion Blu-Ray 24bit 96kHz FLAC of DSotM

and the album I've tested every new piece of gear with for 20 years -

Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman!

http://i.imgur.com/JN145Fcl.jpg

Nice warm Friday night. Time to chill.
 

It's Friday night and the first day of proper warm weather- perfect for some quality atmospheric drum and bass.

NP: Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions

Library's review on RYM sums it up nicely:

One of the best of all time. The first step I took toward dubbier frontiers years ago. Still absolutely incredible. First disc is like six stars, there's a highlight about every 30 seconds; by disc two you're just lost in a wash of sizzling percussion and hazy bass floating around and it doesn't even matter. Two stoned m*therf****ers from Austria ripping up lounges worldwide. Recommended to everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

http://i.imgur.com/5kU8gMjl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WR6i0CEl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rvI0tnQl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/b6WdCibl.jpg

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http://i.imgur.com/THsHqJul.jpg

Delightful Inspiration
 

I always get hyper-productive around 1:30 in the morning on the weekends. After filing away the week's LPs I thought my audio workstation could use a fresh new look, so I put together a custom theme.

This was inspired by a graphic from psybient artist, Carbon Based Lifeforms' official website.

The Gnome Shell theme is a modified version of the minimalist Gray Revenge 1.7 theme by alecive on deviantart.

The Chrome theme is Slinky Elegant by slinky.me.

And the wallpaper is by Russian artist, Alexander Karpenko, who publishes under the name AiK-art on deviantart.

Here is CBLF's splash screen image which inspired the project:

http://i.imgur.com/A1RDdRC.png

And here is the desktop environment after tweaking:

http://i.imgur.com/IzHRRJa.png

Self-Confessed Materialism
 

Listening to a marathon of psybient and drone classics. Most were originally mastered for compact disc, and vinyl doesn't characteristically lend itself to sparse, minimal works. FLAC is functionally superior with its 0 noise floor, replicability, endless playback without decay of quality, and compact size.

But damn it, it isn't nearly as satisfying as spending a fortune on a trophy-like object of rarity and artistically symbolic self-identification!

‪#‎firstworldproblems‬

At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that no digital library will ever be as cool as this...

http://i.imgur.com/ekOxvaLl.jpg

At It Again - New Works from Brian Eno and Underworld's Karl Hyde
 

Friday saw the debut of Brian Eno's latest album - The Ship following the release of ts epic 21-minute self-titled single.



http://i.imgur.com/f9bSuXal.jpg
The Ship accompanied by an official postcard from Eno • Hyde

Like so many of Eno's albums, this record serves more to inspire thoughtful consideration and reflection than it does casual enjoyment. Unlike Discreet Music or Airports, this is not sonic wallpaper or furniture music, though it resonates a similar ethereal sonic essence. The Ship has a somber and harrowing quality, serving as a dire reflection on the Titanic disaster and the horrors of WWI. But the record maintains a meditative and cerebral tone rewarding to any listener who'll give the album their full attention.

The double LP includes more of Eno's art prints. The works are semblant of the visualizations from his 77 Million Paintings generative software. Not particularly inspiring, they function better conceptually rather than visually.

Also this week, Eno's recent collaborator Karl Hyde released a short art film of an installation he produced for Underworld's latest album, Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future. I found the fervent and tactile quality of Hyde's work more engaging than the static nature of Eno's prints.

Hyde's Tokyo Street Poem features Soundscape by Underworld's other half, Rick Smith and was exhibited at Parco, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan in March 2016 as part of the Tomato 25th Anniversary Exhibition.



Underworld also recently premiered a choreographed dance film for the album's track, "If Rah", but once again, I believe the concept was better executed by other artists in years prior.



Amelia: A Film by Edouard Lock With La La La Human Steps (2002) features David Lang's cover of "I'm Waiting For My Man" with choreographed dancers Mistaya Hemmingway and Jason Shipley-Holmes. The film is striking and visually captivating.



Sigur Ros produced an equally effective film piece for their valtari film experiment - a collection of 16 short films made for the valtari album. The 2012 film features Ekki múkk, Valtari, Rembihnútur and Varúð. It is a passionate and emotive work.



If you missed my feature on Underworld's latest album, check it out! And I'll be back next Saturday with my latest culturally-inspired creative and research projects.

Stay tuned!

From Subsonic to Ultrasonic - Do More With Your Media!
 

Friday evening was a night like any other, but as it happened this particular evening inspired a change to better my circumstances and proved to be most rewarding.

I was relaxing, reading a fascinating book on copyright reform, and enjoying my latest musical acquisitions via my Subsonic media server. But as each track concluded and the next began, I repeatedly found myself irked by a 2-second mark of silence which persistently seized my attention and vanished my cozy, zen-like musical trance.

Subsonic is a brilliant and magnificent application, but gapless playback is not among its features. And this periodic interruption was just bothersome enough to inspire me to take pause and find a better solution. Within a few minutes’ time, I discovered that Ultrasonic - an independently developed Subsonic client, offered continuous playback as well as genre browsing and other features not available from the official Subsonic app.

After testing the application that evening I was so delighted with the result that I set myself to the task of creating a video feature to showcase Ultrasonic and hopefully empower other users like myself to do more with their media. Google Play reports that only ~1000 users have downloaded the app, but as you'll see from the feature below, it's perhaps the best under-the-radar media client out there.

Check it out!

Apple Terminating Music Downloads ‘Within 2 Years’
 

DigitalMusicNews.com reports that Apple will be terminating their iTunes music service within 2 years' time. This follows a Sept 2014 article professing bleak iTunes revenue forecasts for the next 5 years - a projected massive 39% plummet from previous revenue. Today an article in MacWorld countered the rumor, though the fact remains that the service is no longer a money maker for the company.

Apple's newer streaming service, Apple Music generates $65M in monthly revenue, though CNet analyst Lance Whitney points out that this accounts for a mere 1% of Apple's revenue. Even still, Whitney calls attention to an important factor of Apple's business model -

I personally have never seen or used the iTunes market. Are there any users among our ranks sorry to see the service die? And does this news mark the beginning of the end of purchasable digital music as it is by and large replaced by streaming?

How do you feel about the news?

http://i.imgur.com/bta0D8dl.jpg

Recollection GRM - Classics of Musique Concrete
 

A friend from one of the vinyl communities I frequent kindly recommended that I explore the Austrian Recollection GRM sublabel - a series of reissues of records and archival recordings from Groupe De Recherches Musicales, produced by Peter Rehberg in coordination with Christian Zanési & François Bonnet at GRM under the parent label, Editions Mego. They contain fantastic specimens of experimental electronic / Musique Concrète and certainly right up my alley.

https://img.discogs.com/G2oofQcOuCNT...-3052.jpeg.jpg

I compiled a complete v0 label archive last night in order to survey their recordings and was surprised to find that a few of the albums are reissues of another favorite sublabel of mine - France's Philips Prospective 21c siecle. (Certainly indicative of their quality!)

Here is the Discogs index, featuring recordings from Bernard Parmegiani, Iannis Xenakis, Jean-Claude Risset, Pierre Schaeffer and others.

And as my friend kindly noted, this is the only way you'll find "Presque Rien" in its entirety in a vinyl format.

Thanks my man for tuning me in!

http://i.imgur.com/rTGMx90l.png

I use iTunes only because I have a Macbook Pro and an iPhone, so it makes sharing music between devices much easier. I plan on switching to Samsung when my phone contract is up however, and I'm hoping to find a better music app at that point because iTunes is really starting to get on my last nerve. Shutting down music downloads wouldn't have much of an affect on me regardless though, because I don't ever buy my music through iTunes.

I'm glad you have a light at the end of your misadventure with Apple. Your options for media management and playback increase exponentially when you come over to Android, as I'm sure you're aware. If I can be of any assistance with software recommendations when that day arrives, please let me know.

My word, rostasi; that was a magnificent response! I seldom receive feedback from my journal posts (likely due to my nuanced and hyper-specific fields of interest), so when I receive a communication like yours I am especially grateful.

Music communities like the private and secret groups I engage on FB and forums like MB have provided a rewarding social dynamic which has been sadly absent from my physical interactions in my very tiny RL world.

Richard Tirendi's modern adage that "if you're the smartest one in the room then you're in the wrong room" has been painfully evident in my day-to-day interactions. But these virtual communities have afforded me contact with individuals with all manner of specialized knowledge and enrich my cultural understanding through posts just like yours.

Thank you!

If you'd care to share, tell me of your experience working with their software! How did you become involved, etc?

I also use iTunes but since buying a Galaxy phone, Chromebook, and switching over to Chrome on my main workstation I've been using Google music more and more lately.

Curious Chula - I presume the persistent issue remains that non-commercial / private label / independent music is not available for purchase from Google Music. And there is likely a similar issue with rights litigation restricting some commercial music from being made available.

But what about the magic 20,000 track limit. How do users with hundreds of thousands of tracks use Google Music?

I'm still trying to find a viable legal solution for users who already have large libraries of their own. A personal server is practically free to setup and costs nothing to maintain monthly. It gives users total control and limitless accessibility to tens of terabytes of their media from any device. Will this method come to replace the streaming fad by which users don't actually own ANYTHING?

Dude, I'm in over my head here. I'm not that savvy with all this new technology. Sorry, I can't answer your question. I've been slowly transferring my iTunes library over to Google. The coolest thing with the Google/Chrome platform is that whatever I do with my Chromebook or Workstation is immediately available on my phone.

My new guitar amp has an aux in so I plug my phone in and can jam to anything in my Google library. That's about as technical as it gets with me. :D

A Bit of Desolation to Still the Mind
 

Things have been really crazy lately with all the wedding preparation, so I've found myself setting aside an hour at the end of each day to slow everything down, read or write, and to play some pulse-slowing field recordings and ambient music to steady my mind.

One album that I keep returning to, sometimes multiple times in a row is a collaboration between Biosphere and The Higher Intelligence Agency called Polar Sequences released on the highly sought-after Beyond label.

The album is an exceptional example of arctic ambient - with its cold and desolate air and a meditative, drone-like quality.

The liner notes reveal that the album is, in fact, a live recording capturing concert performances of the two artists together in Tromsø, Northern Norway from 1995.

The album was originally issued in a limited run of 5000 in 1996, and later reissued on Headphone Records in 2003.

http://i.imgur.com/pC3MnWWl.jpg

Give a listen to the opening segment, "Cimmerian Shaft"



and the stark album closer, "Meltwater"

The producer of the recent KLF drone releases spoke highly of Polar Sequences, and recommended Nautic Depths - North Passage (el culto) and the artist, Netherworld for further listening. I'll be exploring them in the days ahead.

Icebergsongs is a noble undertaking. It's great to see artists uniting under an important environmental theme, and I enjoyed the compositions I experienced when I visited the page. Thank you!

But your own piece from the series was something else entirely. I was instantly intrigued by the opening 30 seconds of chveang kau’k and knew right away that I needed to give it a proper listen in my circumaural monitors. I'm glad I did because it was a most rewarding listening experience. From what sounded like audio interpolation, I wondered whether the piece was produced using Paulstretch or a similar dilation agent. I was entranced by the nuanced ever-shifting character of the drone - subtle variations in frequency, intensity, and balance which transfix the listener's attention in a zen-like state of conscious and subconscious focus.

I'm equally curious about the source audio, the process, and the (perhaps Indonesian?) title, (is that, "change you?").

From what I was able to find, it appears your work explores many subjects I enjoy, such as Eastern Philosophy, Fluxus, Situationism, Information Theory, Psychoacoustics, Generative Music, Interactive Art and Installation work, Field Recording, Electroacoustics, etc.

Similarly astounding was your roster of fellow musicians with whom you'd had the pleasure to study. To a humble student such as myself, (with a portrait of Stockhausen hanging amongst my wall of musical heroes), I would love to survey more of your work.

Excellent article.

Button Button Who's Got the Button?
 

A WONDERFUL DAY! Today I completed a custom pinback button project to proudly sport my 37 pieces of Linux, Fair Use, Free Culture, and Electro flair!

I designed a set of 24 buttons, (but had to forego a few anarchist designs due to the small output size), encountered far too much difficulty in the production stage, but at last, a fantastic Etsy seller took care of me and I've just dressed up my leather murse to show them off wherever I go!

Sidenote - I doff my hat to anyone who has done needlework with leather. My fingers are punching me in the face right now.

Check out the designs and the finished product!

http://i.imgur.com/QhE0zHEl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Jjv0qgKl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ISA7Ywcl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jR2V7mWl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/e1tW0oll.jpg

^^^

I love that DJ Shadow product placement at the end. Really cool buttons too! What programs do you use to design?

I see Beck's Mutations back there. Love that album!

Good eye - Thanks! I also have the Ltd Ed Mobile Fidelity 180g pink vinyl press of Sea Change. But Mutations is truly a criminally underrated record! The LP came with "Diamond Bollocks" on 7" as well.

Thanks! I downloaded a pin back button template with bleed from the web. I'm a Linux user so I used OpenOffice Draw for the vector layouts and either GIMP or the browser based photo editor, Pixlr for the raster images.

I'm a designer by day so I've used Adobe applications from 1999 to the present. But for my home project I prefer to live open source.

I've got a real killer post going live by 6pm tonight so everyone stay tuned!

Do you ever use Inkscape? I used to find it a whole lot more user friendly than Illustrator even. How does your vector program compare?

I've recently learned of Inkscape and have been meaning to give it ago. It certainly appears to be the go-to vector design application for Linux users and is widely acclaimed.

As I was only setting a few lines of bold sans-serif type with no treatments or dimensional illustration, Open Office's pre-installed (but far more rudimentary) offering was more than sufficient.

Thanks for mentioning Inkscape - it's a reminder for me to try it out!

The Department of Records – A True Piece of Internet History
 

Over the past several months I’ve taken a considerable interest in Copyright Reform, Fair Use, Free Culture, and the fight for Internet Freedom. I purchased a copy of Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s cornerstone text, Free Culture and have been reading papers on the subject at every opportunity.

This returned my attention to one of the most prophetic and cautionary pieces ever written on collective freedom – John Perry Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Written during the infancy of the internet in 1996 by the co-founder of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Declaration warned readers to be ever-vigilant, warning that the governments of the industrial world would continuously work to erode and destroy the liberties afforded to us by the world wide web. At the time of its drafting, Bill Clinton had just signed the Telecommunications Reform Act into law – an act which perpetuated the merging of the largest corporations in the communications industry granting them even greater control of information than ever before.

Barlow has the distinction of being the only person to be inducted into both The Internet Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And his short but incredibly relevant paper is a pivotal piece of internet history. That’s why I am so honored to have claimed this latest addition to my library.

While poring over the EFF’s deep links, I came upon an article from December of 2014 describing a special limited release from The Department of Records. DOR’s homepage describes its mission, “to preserve cultural artifacts for the collective memory in both the physical and digital worlds.” And the first historical work for their catalog is a recording of John Perry Barlow reading his Declaration.

http://i.imgur.com/MqnNA8Vl.png

This special vinyl edition was limited to just 500 copies worldwide and distributed directly by DOR. The 180g album sports a smart minimalist black cover with the title of the work embossed at the center of the jacket.

http://i.imgur.com/ogrKvGPl.jpg

The gatefold sleeve contains a transcript of the original document and information about the three recordings on the album.

http://i.imgur.com/XDZnag8l.jpg

Side A Track 1 features A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as spoken by John Perry Barlow

Side B Track 1 is A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (ft. John Perry Barlow) by Dražen Bošnjak

Side B Track 2 is an Instrumental version of A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by Dražen Bošnjak.

http://i.imgur.com/CTAj6bbl.jpg

DOR kindly offers the album’s contents free to all courtesy of The Internet Archive.

When I discovered that DOR still had copies remaining for sale, I purchased it for my own archive without a moment’s hesitation. It instantly became the most significant artifact of my cultural custodianship.

http://i.imgur.com/r6pAEZel.jpg

You can watch the recording session below. Tune in for an incredible moment of our culture’s history.



http://i.imgur.com/2pjoVF1l.jpg

You could write about nearly any topic, whether it be related to music or not, and I'm safe to say I would still enjoy reading it.

Aww shucks! Thanks, Qwertyy. That really means a lot. It's an honor to be able to do what I love and to have readers who enjoy it!

What's Left, America?
 

I had a riveting discussion this evening with my fiance about the journalistic landscape in the post-mass media internet age.

A dear friend had suggested that I explore HuffPost as a publishing resource. While I understand The Huffington Post is an excellent outlet for public exposure, a brief survey of their content has left me to firmly contest their journalistic integrity, as they primarily publish fluff pieces with sensationalist click bait headlines. And since their acquisition by AOL, their adoption of Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and Jenny McCarthy-supported anti-vaxxer garbage and holistic chicanery, they've lost any remaining credibility. Furthermore, their grand-sweeping aggregation net steals all content great and small without compensating (or validating) their sources, so I'll personally have no part of it.

This sparked a rousing discussion of what reputable sources remain. And when she educated me as to the recent folding of one of the few last standing sources - Al Jazeera America, closing due to lack of American readership, I was devastated and appalled by the apathetically low standards of the average American reader - skimming for little more than headlines in the positive feedback loop that is their social media "newsfeed". We are self-sabotaging our opportunity for a rich and active discourse by scrolling through articles proclaiming that "you won't believe this optical illusion!". Illusion indeed.

Mass media's replacement by a personalized media echo chamber devoid of voices to challenge one's perceptions is an Orwellian construct - prisoners who serve as guards themselves to their own invisible incarceration, (as was so prophetically described in My Dinner With Andre). And the matter is only worsened by the fact that there are so few credible news sources left outside of their cell walls which could ever hope to set them free.

These are desperate times. All the more reason for me to be grateful to have found a woman of sharp mind like my fiance.

/rant

Back to the music.

The Rise of the Collective Market
 

http://i.imgur.com/DtFTD9ul.jpg

Over the course of the last decade, we have seen a significant transition of power – the stranglehold of the market loosening from the hand of the corporate gatekeepers as they are largely replaced by more efficient systems built by the citizens of the internet.

These markets crowd-source the knowledge of community members who are proficient in a particular field of interest, who develop databases, forums for discussion, and flat-hierarchal markets in which to distribute goods far more effectively than by previous corporate models.

For example; Abebooks and Alibris each do a magnificent job of empowering consumers and booksellers alike, by creating an easily navigable flat structure marketplace where bookshops large and small can offer their titles to a global community without any additional overhead. This creates a buyer’s market where millions of titles are available at impressively low prices.

http://i.imgur.com/ywOnAyrl.gif

Discogs is another successful user-supported market. The site’s users construct and maintain a detailed database and thriving marketplace of millions of music titles ranging from Billboard chart toppers to incredibly rare test pressings. By adhering to a core, (and greatly facilitated) organizational structure of data submission, the site is able to crowd-source a vast and well-organized database. The site also automates personal collection appraisals based on market history, right down to the condition of each item. The site even offers catalog submissions via UPC scanning to make library building a snap. And its marketplace is empowering for record sellers great and small as well as for music consumers the world over. Like other online markets, there are significant cycles of inflation, but regulation likewise occurs naturally.

http://i.imgur.com/8DmpSPe.png

Etsy offers a market for artisanal creative projects. And Audiogon is a community to help educate users about pro audio gear with both a forum and a trade-and-sell market of its own. For every need that arises, knowledgeable users in the community establish a market specializing in that service. This is a core tenant of the cooperative nature of the internet community.

http://i.imgur.com/7gJ4CqT.jpg

As with any eBusiness construct, several key advantages separate these ideal virtual markets from the antiquated corporate retail brick-and-mortar chain stores which came before them. Firstly, their operating overhead is minimal to non-existent, whereas physical stores must constantly grapple with expenses like construction, maintenance, electricity and heat, staffing expenses, and insurance. And the physical limitations of a building cripple a store front’s merchandise selection which is often restricted further by the distributors with which the corporation has aligned itself.

http://i.imgur.com/KezPh2yl.jpg

By stark contrast, online markets shed all of the restrictions of physical space. Most of these markets are user-supported so little staffing is required, and buyers can purchase any of millions of available products from other users anywhere in the world without corporate loyalty to a particular supplier.

These independent markets are far superior to their predecessors in every way, disseminating operating expenses and rendering the monopolistic behemoths obsolete and irrelevant. And as digital media rises to overtake the physical goods market, this obsolescence will only exponentially increase.

We are witnessing the end of the gatekeeper era. The Net has given rise to a new and better model of distribution – marketplaces which empower buyers and sellers alike. These markets, built upon fundamental automation structures and cooperative operation far more effectively serve the interests of the community.

As John Perry Barlow famously declared in his Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace to the governments of the world:

The century-long corporate dominance of our marketplaces is at its end. Together we have built something better which works for all of us.

We have won.

I know right? I told him he needs to write a book. I'd buy like 5 copies.

Everyone's encouragement is sincerely appreciated! At present I've compiled 16 of my unpublished articles and papers into a folder on Google Drive with the working title:

The Media Mind - Frustrated Blatherings of a Pretentious Knob (16 Curmudgeonly Essays)

The writings focus on my favorite topics - musico-cultural trends, the internet's impact on media economics, free culture (including copyleftism, open source, FSF, EFF, and their brethren), and piracy culture / Kopimist philosophy. I might also include the write up for my short film, 5'50" of Pop.

I'd greatly appreciate the community's input, particularly your thoughts on any articles I've published in the past which you'd deem book-worthy.

Thanks again everyone!

^if it's compiled and you provide links, I'd be all over that ****. I love your style.

Thanks, Ki! MB will be the first to know when it happens.

I'm Dancin' Like a Monkey.
 

WHAT AN OUTSTANDING DAY! I'd told my fiance that I was thinking about buying a record bin so that I could flip through my LPs record-store-style. Today her eagle-eye spotted this beer tub furniture piece on the side of the road - it has a metal lining EXACTLY wide enough for two rows of polybagged records!

I'll probably remove the lip at the top and paint it black to cover the less-than-perfect birch wood. But the beast is sturdy with an extra shelf at the bottom to hold even more!

My baby's thrifting skills are unmatched and she's made my birthday wish come true for FREE! For a gent with a meager income (and an expensive hobby), moments like these are real gems.

If anyone's interested in a flip-thru video of its contents, let me know.

http://i.imgur.com/0moKVgZl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/POcAkmHl.jpg

Flip-through video, please! I'm so happy for you!

Thanks, mordwyr! (Much appreciated considering how much sh*t I gave you on the other thread). Also - digging the new avatar!

I'll see what I can do for a video tomorrow!

That looks awesome! I'm heading off to university soon so I'm currently going through the troubles of finding myself a new shelf my records, but after seeing that, I'm considering looking for something similar instead.