The Blogg

March 16, 2009

Why I Am Not An iTMS Customer

Filed under: Music,Personal — chadhogg @ 10:50 pm

(This was essentially the conversation about file formats referenced here.

There are some minor reasons. The first is the zealotry of Apple fanboys that I wrote about in one of my very first posts. Another is that the iTunes Music Store encourages the culture of purchasing singles. I have zero interest in buying music in any increment less than an album, and I fear that digital music stores are pushing us further towards an era when the only music that gets published is pop and hip-hop “hits” churned out by the labels’ factories.

I would never consider buying music in the form of a file that has been compressed by a lossy algorithm, unless it was to somehow tide me over until I could buy the real thing. My understanding is that it is now possible to purchase lossless versions of at least some material, although you pay a premium to do so. I would also be unwilling to buy a license to use music in some specific ways. If I am giving the label money for it, I will play it wherever I please. Again, I believe that iTunes is going to scrap its anything-but FairPlay scheme in the very near future.

Even with lossless, non-DRM-ed files there remain serious issues with the music actually being useful, and this is the real reason that I will not be a customer anytime soon. The AAC and ALAC formats used by iTunes are indeed industry standards, and they are technically superior to the traditional MP3 format. However, interoperability is much more important than encoding quality to me. These standards remain encumbered by patent, and Apple has made it quite difficult for any other systems to work with files purchased from iTunes. If you think that it is not intentional that the iPod is the only digital music player capable of playing iTunes content, then I have a bridge to sell you. For some reason the same people that (rightly) complain about Microsoft trying to push OOXML over OpenDocument have no problem with this.

There are four primary ways that I need to be able to play the music that I own. The first is on a data CD in my vehicle. The second is in cmus on my server at home. The third is through the Jinzora -> MPD -> mpg123 stack at work. The fourth is through Exaile on my laptop. Of these, not a single one will be able to read iTunes files with FairPlay. A few can be made to work with DRM-less iTunes files, but two definitely cannot. Even applications to convert files from the iTunes format to something more universal are virtually nonexistent due to Apple’s enforcement of their intellectual property rights.

Although I generally prefer players that I can just point to a directory over those that force me to allow them to manage a music “library”, I might be interested in trying out the iTunes media player software if Apple decided to make it available for my operating system. They will not do so, of course, because it is competition against their own OS X product. I tried to use the iTunes Music Store as research for this project, and apparently they have even made it so that this is not possible without installing the software that they will not make available for me.

For now and the foreseeable future I will continue buying my music on physical media, ripping a FLAC copy for archival and an MP3 copy for easy transport between the different places that I listen to music, and having everything just work. I realize that I am a crotchety young man, but I reserve the right to allow this technology to pass me by. I also realize that many of the things that I dislike about iTMS were forced on Apple by the record labels, and that many other legitimate digital resalers have similar issues. Still, others like Magnatune seem to have gotten it right.

March 14, 2009

Concert Review: Led Zeppelin Big Band

Filed under: Music — chadhogg @ 11:31 pm

A big band playing the music of Led Zeppelin? That could only be awesome or terrible; there is no middle ground. Thankfully, it was mostly the former. The band was made up of students and faculty at Lehigh University, and was put on at the school’s Zoellner Arts Center. The setlist, as I remember it, consisted of “Good Times, Bad Times”, “Tangerine”, “Black Dog” / “Dazed And Confused”, “Immigrant Song”, “Stairway To Heaven”, “Kashmir”, and “The Song Remains The Same”, with a medley anchored by “Whole Lotta Love” and a film score by Jimmy Page. Some of the tunes worked better than others in this format, but all were interesting.

The arrangements were challenging in some ways, but in others strangely traditional. They often left players exposed, but the band generally played well and confidently. There were quite a few sections of collective improvisation, which was very cool but impaired by the fact that some of the soloists, particularly the alto and soprano saxophones, were not amplified to the point that you could actually hear them over the background figures. I was surprised to find that, at least to my admittedly poor ears, the harmonies of riffs had not been extended beyond the root and fifth of Jimmy Page’s power chords. Especially on songs like “Kashmir” I would have kept the drone-like ascending bass line but added thirds and sevenths in the trombones and changing upper structures in the trumpets. Then again, I don’t exactly know what I am talking about.

March 10, 2009

I Don’t Want To Be “That Guy”

Filed under: Personal — chadhogg @ 1:42 pm

You probably have a “that guy” that you have to interact with on a regular basis. The clearest example in my life at the moment is a member of the Graduate Student Senate at Lehigh University. No matter what topic is being discussed, it seems that he has an opinion that he believes would be valued by the entire group, and often about outlandish things. For example, during a discussion of public safety and transportation, he tried to get support for the right to concealed carry on campus. In addition to enjoying the sound of his own voice and apparently thinking that everyone else does also, he seems to think that he is always the most intelligent person in the room.

I’ve not met him personally, but there is apparently an undergraduate in our department who is similar. He interrupts class randomly, tries to answer every question, and typically responds under his breath to anything any other student says. He is currently in a course taught by my advisor, who needed advice on how to deal with someone who was much more disruptive than anyone else he had experienced in his career. Apparently there is a professor in another department who coped by telling this student to “shut up” every time he spoke out in class. There is a facebook group devoted to people who are annoyed by this kid with 129 members. Despite all of this, he seems to genuinely think that people love him.

What is it that makes these people tick? Is this a manifestation of narcissistic personality disorder? Is it a natural outcome of the “everyone is special” movement of the last two decades? Are their social skills so degraded that they have no idea that their behavior is inappropriate? Whatever the cause, I sometimes fear that I exhibit some of these same traits. You can probably tell that from this blog that I have an opinion on just about any topic, and that I think there is at least one person who would be interested in reading them. I also enjoy discussing just about anything in person, and it is here that I may get myself into trouble.

Within the last week I’ve had two people in different situations comment on my candor when I disagree with someone and one person (at least half-jokingly) protest that they do not appreciate my “looking down” on their choices. I am indeed quite willing to tell someone when I disagree with their position. To pretend to agree would be a disservice to everyone involved, and to simply remain silent tends to starve a conversation. I also argue forcefully for the things I believe, whether the topic at hand be theology, musical tastes, or file formats (the three discussions that prompted the afore-mentioned responses). For those things I do not apologize, and I certainly hope that anyone conversing with me does the same. If we cannot speak openly without offending one another, then what hope do we have of knowing each other in any meaningful way?

What I do not want to do is to give people the impression that I believe I have some sort of monopoly on truth, that I cannot be persuaded to abandon my beliefs in favor of others, that I am more interested in spreading my ideas than learning about theirs, or that I am intentionally argumentative. Moreso, I hope that none of the above is actually true; I do not believe that any is, but introspection can be difficult. The people who brought this up to me assured me that this was one of the things they *liked* about me, but this does not entirely allay my fears.

If you ever catch me being or appearing like “that guy”, *please* let me know. I would hate to wake up one morning and realize I had been a jerk for most of my life.

March 3, 2009

Book Review: The Last Lecture

Filed under: Books — chadhogg @ 2:27 pm

I had watched Pausch’s “Last Lecture” back when it first became a youtube sensation. Although chock-full of “you can do anything if you try hard enough” platitudes, it was an interesting listen for his interesting stories, pedagogical insights, and unique personality.

I came to own a copy of the book based on the success of the lecture when my mother read it and noted the similarity between my life and Pausch’s (except that I have not as of yet been diagnosed with a terminal illness and am not nearly as successful, driven, or wise as him; basically, we are both computer science academics). For someone who has already seen the lecture, there is not much additional material. Several of the stories are fleshed out a bit more and there are more sections on his relationships with his wife and children. It is a short and easy read, but in this rare case I would say that the movie is nearly as good as the book.

« Newer Posts

Powered by WordPress