Friday, March 21, 2008

What's the matter? Low marker intake?

  • Two new transcriptions: The Fragile (Bridge School version) and 12 Ghosts II. The latter would be best if I waited for the multitracks, but (uncharacteristically) I actually got a request for it. So, the best I can do is post it with a caveat.

  • Low marker intake? The picture (without my added words, that is) makes me laugh every time. I'm tittering right now, just thinking about it.

  • In other NIN news, Trent Reznor recently announced the Ghosts Film Festival. Never lacking in innovation, that one. Incidentally, Radiohead announced a similar deal soon afterward, except theirs is quite clearly a competition with a big prize. It's not that I find it amusing, how the striking similarities in the way NIN and Radiohead are going about things lately highlight their striking differences in values (Radiohead seems to be going to great lengths to maintain their dependence on the "old" model while NIN is very outspoken against that model). I just don't know a better word for it than "amusing."

  • NIN is also playing at the Pemberton Festival this summer. So far it's their only 2008 show listed on nin.com. And it's in Pemberton. How random is that? You can bet I'm going.

  • The Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Not really fun, or game-y. But it's fascinating that once you download the plugin this previously invisible world is revealed, and it's everywhere on the entire web. You find things—crates that other players have stashed, portals to other websites, "lightposts" that other players have put up from which you can take dumb "missions" that are rarely interesting—on many webpages you normally visit. (p.s. if you're interested, drop me a comment and I'll drop you an invitation. You don't need one to join, but this way I can earn a badge... or even three badges, if I invite enough people. And after all, it is a game, and I've got to keep one step ahead of *certain* opponents.)

  • What a crappy week.

4 comments:

Blake said...

I learned all about how to raise a Hermit crab as a pet because of PMOG! :p

Yes, most of the "missions" are quite dumb.

Anonymous said...

I think Radiohead and NIN are both trying to push against the old ways, it's just that one has more radical ideas and the other is maybe being more tentative.
The new Radiohead album is truly amazing by the way :)

-rt

Lapsura said...

^^ This is true, but there are some flaws in the way Radiohead approached it (both bands clearly ran into problems, so maybe it's just a learning thing) that do make it seem insincere if it was truly a "radical" move.

So you could "pay what you want" for the download—great idea, but what nobody realized is that the bitrate was 160 kbps, which is really MySpace streaming quality. In the words of Trent Reznor, "what if you just paid $20 for a cassette?" (which is about what the quality would be). Secondly, I'm not sure on this but I don't think it had been announced that there would be a physical release of the album as well (one might easily have predicted it, though). But they did put out a physical album, and what's more, in the face of criticism about the poor download quality they implied that oh, well this [physical album] is the way a Radiohead album should truly be experienced, anyway. I'm getting all my information from a Reznor interview, mind you. He also took issue with the fact that the download didn't include any album artwork whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

I think they were originally playing with the idea of having an internet-only release.

160 kbps isn't that bad. Most people can't notice much of a difference (except maybe in cymbals or other high frequencies). I would be a bit surprised if streams were actually used at a quality that high. To some people it matters, to some it's a technical detail ... I don't think it's such a big deal.