Speaking of good music and @Trent_Reznor, you should totally download The Slip. Nine Inch Nails are releasing all their music as totally free downloads (under creative commons licenses) these days.
Filed under: Entertainment , drm-free, Music, nin
April 10, 2009 • 3:14 pm 2
The Slip
• 1:30 pm 0
Justice
Thanks to @trent_reznor’s blip.fm play list today I discovered Justice. If you’re at all into acts like Daft Punk I’m sure you’ll dig this album.
Filed under: Entertainment , dance, electronica, Music
February 15, 2009 • 6:49 am 0
Old skool b-boys.
Too good not to share.
Yeah, I know it is old…
Filed under: Entertainment, Humour , b-boy, run dmc, youtube
October 16, 2008 • 9:52 am 1
The power of video games to sell music.
I watched the Mirrors Edge story trailer on my XBOX 360 the other night and noted at the end of the trailer it mentioned the music was from an artist by the name of Solar Fields. The music in the trailer being nice low key ambient trance had me interested in finding out more about the artist. A quick Google had me at his home page and MySpace profile listening to a couple of tracks which were nice. A quick search of the iTunes Music store had me buying the 2007 album EarthShine. I would probably have picked up others if they had been available as DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks.
The album, by the way is very good. The sort of dance/trance that I enjoy a lot. I also notice that Solar Fields is playing the Earthcore festival here in Melbourne in November.
Filed under: Entertainment , Music, video games
October 4, 2008 • 4:40 pm 0
Plex. XBMC for Macs.
I just downloaded and had a brief play with Plex on my Macbook. It is basically a direct port of XBMC (Xbox Media Center) to the Mac platform. This makes me want to buy another Mac to plug into the telly to replace my current XBMC.
The trust old XBOX is getting a little underpowered. It can’t output HD and it can’t decode HD content on its puny 700Mhz Celeron processor.
Now, where can I find a cheap Intel Mac Mini when I need one.
Filed under: Asides, Computing, Entertainment , mac, plex, xbmc
June 6, 2008 • 3:49 pm 1
Amplitube is awesome-itube.
Today I went into Allans Music and bought myself a Stealth Plug electric guitar to USB 2.0 DAC. This device came with a copy of Amplitube Live 2.0.
Amplitube, made by IK Multimedia, is guitar amp and effects modeling software. Basically it makes you guitar sound awesome. As if you’ve spent thousands of dollars on amps, stomp boxes and the like. It plugs into all the usual pro audio software that you might have.
I’m a rank amature when it comes to playing the guitar and even more so when it comes to audio production software. But plugging this little widget in to GarageBand and playing along to Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and having it sound right just puts a giant shit kicker grin on my face.
Filed under: Computing, Entertainment, Personal , amplitude, Guitar, Music
January 20, 2008 • 10:01 pm 0
Typography
Over the Christmas break I watched the documentary Helvetica.
It seems that Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror has been similarly intrigued by typefaces and the history of Helvectica and its many knock offs, of which Arial is the most commonly seen.
Jeff linked to an interesting article from 2001 by Graphic & Type Designer Mark Simonson who discusses the history of Arial and how to spot it. Having looked at the samples on Mark’s site comparing Arial to Helvetica I think I can say I prefer Helvetica a lot more than Arial. Its seems to be a more balanced typeface.
Filed under: Entertainment , film design
January 6, 2008 • 4:33 am 0
Steal This Film
I just finished watching Steal This Film II. It is a very well put together documentary about copyright, big media, and the cultural shift that is happening away from pure consumption to a much healthier consume/produce model. I highly recommend watching this film, and although it is a copyrighted work, the producers of the film want you to steal it, hence the name. If it weren’t copyright you couldn’t steal it. So here is part one:
Watch part two, three, four and five, on YouTube.
Now having said that I encourage you to support the artists you like. Attend their concerts, buy their music (when they’ll get paid, ie directly from them, not from iTunes), movies, books etc.
Remember, just because you paid for a CD or DVD don’t assume that the artists behind it will get paid. Just look at the current Hollywood writers strike for an example of where creative people behind the media you enjoy aren’t getting paid their dues.
Try and find artists out there who aren’t backed by big media. Support them. They need it more than Warner Brothers, Fox, and Sony.
Filed under: Entertainment, Politics
February 8, 2007 • 2:15 am 1
MacNN | Jobs would offer DRM-free music in a ‘heartbeat’
MacNN is reporting that Jobs would offer DRM-free music in a ‘heartbeat’. And Jobs’ open letter on Apple.com seems to suggest the same. This is nice. I hope he gets to prove his word.
Maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning on DRM and we’re actually heading in the right direction away for DRM lock-in hell. Emusic sells DRM-free music, Yahoo is trying the odd song, and Amazon might be giving it a go.
Hmm. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Filed under: Computing, Entertainment, Politics
Deeper Design is Oliver Jones. This is his place to brain dump about anything that crosses his mind.