Digital Lifestyle

True Peter, that's indeed a factor to take into account. Anything that has some value will stay inside these huge corporations that will continue to grow by consolidating. It's a pity the copyright laws are constantly Mickey Moused as well as it used to be the only way for stuff to become truly liberated.

Not sure what the solution would be, although it would help if we'd all stop buying. Not much value in stuff nobody buys.

Quote
peter
OK, so I agree with everything you say about how evil and/or foolish the music publishers have been and are. (Though I know there must be good and even heroic conservators at work against odds in the lower echelons.) But the big 4, or however many, own the masters, mostly locked in vaults, and the rights, locked up by the DMCA. They have us by the short hairs and when it comes to high quality recordings and classic sessions no digital archive, Apple, Amazon, Library of Congress is going to be able to rescue what the labels, motivated by greed and propelled by incompetence, determine to destroy or let wither on the vine.

This, I also agree with.

Here's looking at a digital revolution! Where have I heard that phrase before?

The Revolution will be downloaded.
or
The Revolution will be P2P.

The revolution will require you to authenticate with a Rights Management server every 30 days.

By eviscerating copyright for an evening at the local strip club courtesy of the recording industry a generation of spineless congressmen have ensured that the stuff the labels have, they will continue to have, and it will not be passing into archive.org anytime soon. Heck, if copyright was the way the founding fathers wanted it, you wouldn't be paying for that Nirvana album you always wanted.

How long have I been saying they need to stuff two drives and RAID them into a 'consumer' Apple Mac box?

http://www.apple.com/macmini/server/

New Mac Mini has option.

And guess which machine they won't let their independents sell...

Huh? That makes absolutely no sense. While it would be dumb for them to yank their consumer line products from indies, I could at least understand the rationale behind it... but to release a server and not let your VARs sell and support it seems remarkably stupid.

Welcome to the world of selling Apple.

Perhaps. I mean seriously if'n the kind of people that might want a very small SOHO device were legitimately sold on the benefits of getting a proper XServe with full external backup systems would not it make sense to have the VARs try to help sell that solution?

What is the price delta for that? A few thousand dollars? Even the smallest of the small real business ought to understand that real businesses ought not run an glorified laptop... If there are VARs that think they ought to build a business around selling HW at $999 I must say I have not met many of 'em...

A small business is going to need help setting things up beyond what the Genius Bar can provide. They may not be able to afford an XServe, a rack and the labor to set it all up but a Mac mini Server, a shelf and a couple hours of support might be tempting to them.

Apple needs to start certifying (more) normal folks that can offer these types of services.

I dunno. The model that I suspect that Apple is going for is something new -- not so much "custom on-site service" but "bring the miniServe in, maybe sign up for some OneOneOne time (at a reasonable rate) let us show you how to configure a few email accounts / mailboxes / calendars/ shared directories, go back to the basement / loft / store front and keep your fingers crossed...

If Apple can deliver on the "cloud" and/or play nice with Google Office /Apps this might be a viable very small foot print device (in every sense of the phrase...) and it MIGHT be a revolution in the making. The will need more than a regular "Genius Bar" to really exploit this, but the pieces are NOT YET in place for this to really have a full-court press. And MobileMe is still way too 'DANGER-ous' to be business worthy...

This could be the worst news to hit retailers hoping for decent Holiday sales numbers:

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/lcd-tv-picture-specs-help-or-hype/

I don't know how many of you remember the early days of CD players, but when people like Leonard Feldman and Julian Hirsch had no measurable way to tell the difference between mainstream players that cost $50 or $500 it really up ended the ability of audio speciality shops to survive.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/wildcard/521/julian-hirsch-1922-2003.html

http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/jaes.obit/JAES_V42_4_PG299.pdf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2009 10:38AM by stan adams.

20 odd years ago I made a stupid decision to blow 2K guilders (1000 USD) on a Luxman CD player (plus another few thousand on other audio stuff) and it took me a few years to discover that a lot of it is indeed a load of crap. I'm glad that I invested in a pair of very good loudspeakers which to this day serve their purpose really well.

It finally took a guy in such a specialist shop 15 minutes to convince me they were all full of it when he tried to convince me that changing the cable between the CD mechanism and the D/A converter for a oxygen free one would make the sound 'twice as wide and dramatic'.

Yeah right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2009 12:12PM by tliet.

I thought I always remember an early early Nakamichi reference CD player that they used on a ton of audio tests.
But for me, personally, neither my eyes nor ears are high-def (degradation and injury) so I am not that finicky about my displays and such, either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2009 01:00PM by El Jeffe.

I have always admired the adjective engineering and ability to proclaim extraordinary emotional subtlety and perception that is the hallmark of the high end audio world.

adjective engineering

that is an AWESOME term, bruce! i'll have to remember it... "audi doesn't make such great cars, but they are masters at adjective engineering"

ddt

Ranks right up there with "slide warfare" - engineering via PowerPoint.

Google's Voice Is Silent In Some Rural Areas

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114341718