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An article in The Straits Times frets that the mini iPod -- due to debut in Singapore soon -- and the iTunes Music Store -- not expected soon -- may endanger the music album, as people buy just the singles they already like or know the like. There could be a loss of people listening to anything but the already-proved-popular stuff of already-liked musicians. My music collection is so small and imbalanced I'm worried what it says about my personality, to the point that I'm proud all my subject lines since mid-February have been music riffs, but I don't think convenient single-track purchases and easy-to-mix playlists are a threat to music in this case. I think they'd encourage experimentation among people inclined to experiment.
One of the Internet's great blessings is anything you really can't stand is gone: don't go to that web site; killfile or /gag it. But that shuts out some chances for new and wonderful experiences. So I agree the Internet makes it terribly easy for people to wall their personalities in. That's some of the value of magazines and anthologies and just watching whatever's on channel 12 instead of putting in a DVD set all night is; there's something energizing in letting yourself be carried away.
I'm trying deliberately to correct my narrow experiences, taking more chances at what I read and listen to and watch. I'd like that process to be easier, but really the challenge is keeping myself in the habit of wandering through the library without looking at the card catalogue numbers, or going ahead and buying a music CD even if I haven't heard all the tunes on it before. Reporting my currently-reading book and a daily bit of trivia here helps; it's spooked me off a few re-reads. So maybe the Internet can correct an imbalanced personality after all.
Trivia: War-weary Parisians initially attributed the aurora borealis of 24 October 1870 to a Prussian military device. Source: The Siege of Paris, 1870-71: A Political and Social History, Melvin Kranzberg.
Currently Reading: The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made The Future, Jenny Uglow.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-24 07:19 am (UTC)In my experience, this is one of the blessings and curses of having a DVR like a TiVo (http://www.tivo.com). Based on 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' choices you make on programs you see, it records suggestions of other things you may like.
Between those suggestions, and 'season passes' where you tell the recorder to 'get every episode of this no matter what', it's possible to find yourself watching the same sets of programs indefinitely. The TiVo is generally smart enough not to record the same exact episode of a program twice, and yet there are over 6,000 episodes of The Price is Right, so you might be watching them for quite a while.
I sometimes miss turning TV Land on at random and seeing 'what happens to be on', or realize I haven't watched television news in weeks, even though I'm good about checking news sites on the Internet. A TiVo gives a person a curious rewritten equation that allows you to spend what little television time you have watching exactly what you want to, and without burning time on commercials.
I'm quite aware, however, that I'm missing some of that 'random silliness' factor television can give you, too. DVRs make the television experience different, and better in some ways...but leave curious holes in others.
-Skyler
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 02:21 am (UTC)Yeah ... though it annoys me that I don't have Game Show Network or Boomerang as its own channel, I realize intellectually that I'm better off not seeing every episode of Goldie Gold and Action Jack ever made. I've even refused so far to buy a VCR or similar recorder, because I know if I start I'll end up grabbing the ``60s Hanna-Barbera Shorts'' block and the ``Disney shorts'' block and spend evenings watching that, when now I'm nudged into watching things I really hadn't seen before.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-24 10:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 02:23 am (UTC)Nope; I was referring to the Paul McCartney song. First song I could think of that had any reference to ``distractions'' at all. The theme of the post was that I was terribly distracted all day, and subject lines are my little way of playing Carl W. Stalling.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 09:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-24 11:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 02:30 am (UTC)Well, the book is about Erasmus Darwin and James Watt and that social circle of scientists/engineers/doctors/financiers who lead the early Industrial Revolution, and turned everything north of Warwickshire into a coal mine leading to a steam engine digging a canal, a trend halted only in 1828 when their work managed, at long last, to sink Burslem.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-24 11:51 am (UTC)But don't people already have such a choice? After all, witness the popularity of Mr Limbaugh - not greatly renowned as a source of unerringly factual details, he nonetheless commands quite a considerable audience, who do find him entertaining. Similarly, people often choose the paper that fits their own outlook, rather than the accuracy and breadth of its reporting (of course, some bias is inevitable, to some degree).
I'd contend the net opens the possibilities much wider than before, whether one considers news, video, or music. With news, for instance, there's not just the "known names" such as the BBC or CNN (not one I favor, I'll admit, for their love of compressing every story into a tiny clip, in between the frequent ads), but a whole world - literally - of alternatives, from national and regional papers all around, all equally accessible - and almost always, without charge. I can, therefore, see what the BBC, the Guardian, The Hindu, the Sun-Times, the SF Bay Guardian, Fox News, Al-Jazeera, and the Straits Times have to say on an issue, not to mention more activist outfits like GNN and IndyMedia. It's a wonderful thing, and I mean that in its literal sense - the sheer breadth of reporting is astonishing, and truly a thing of awe, to my mind.
On more entertaining matters, again, there's much to be seen and heard on the net, some of it entirely legal, and some also free - archive.org is also home to quite a range of music, yours to enjoy without cost. One example I'd quite like to suggest is Aleksi Virta "... Meets Torsti at the Space Lounge" (http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php?collection=monotonik&collectionid=mtk123&from=mostViewed), a rather mellow album of futuristic jazz. Or something like that. Then there's the multiplicity of free tracks and videos from folks like NinjaTune (http://www.ninjatune.net/videos/), or remix artists like the Hong Kong-based Digital Cut-Up Lounge.
I think, overall, I'd more go along with your later sentiment. Like many influences in life, the net can compliment or augment onesself - whether one may choose more of the same, or fields anew, depends very much on the individual. Wondrous times, indeed!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 02:36 am (UTC)Agreed the Internet offers much more, and anyone who wants can use it to sample an incredible array of new experiences -- but it also makes settling into a narrow divot easier, sometimes too easy. I can't help thinking the newspaper web site offering to customize my front page so that it shows only the sections or features I'm interested in is a bit insidious; granted very few stories about college basketball will interest me, but I don't want to rule out the possibility.
That's something I love about the Google News page -- I don't have any control about what's on the first couple pages, even if I choose to limit myself to articles mentioning Singapore, or Albany, or Jackson, New Jersey. There's always something surprising.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-24 11:22 pm (UTC)People bought singles before, too. I think it's more a return to the era of 45s than anything else; the cassingle was never a big format, and a CD-single tends to be pricey ($4-5) due to the loading up of it with remix tracks. a buck for a song is a good deal in my boat.. It'll probably be good for finding those not-quite-a-hit tracks that appear and vanish rapidly on the radio.
--Mongoose
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 02:40 am (UTC)Oh, no; I'm a very pattern-prone person. It's that obsessive-compulsive personality type; it takes effort for me not to do the same thing every day, or to not read the same books over and over, or so on. I should list my CD collection someday, so everyone can see how pathetically limited my experience is. I kind of miss something from the 1994 days of the Internet, when there was a neat service called the URandomizerL (or something to that effect); it took you each time to a completely random address. It was a neat way to find things you'd never have thought to look for. I don't even look for new web sites anymore; it's too much work to keep up with the ones I already follow.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-25 08:03 am (UTC)--Chiaroscuro