This is a really cool music video using a mosaic of web cams to create one of the more innovative music videos I have ever seen. The band is Japanese, named Sour. Definitely worth a watch.

Hilarious Video. Have to watch the whole thing.

As a part-time musician, and definite enthusiast, I was very pleased by Dr. Oliver Sacks research into the subject of how music effects the brain, and how the difference between experiencing music and playing music ride a very fine line, yet that line is very defined.

I was introduced to Dr. Sacks by an interview on the Daily Show, which you can find here

First watch this great YouTube video:

I found this video on YouTube and just had to share it. Enjoy!

In an effort to squash the competition, fox is caught with their pants down….again.

In an age where the gap between people seems to only be filled by digital fulfillment, it seems almost natural for people to broadcast themselves on the net. When people start to find that people out there, somewhere, are willing to embrace an individual for whatever they feel compelled to publish to the web, they achieve a sense of fulfillment. People have become overnight stars on YouTube, and Blogs that make thousands of dollars a month, all because some peoples opinions and impulses are valuable.

What people are learning is that someone, somewhere, will appreciate you. Especially for the teenager in high school who feels rejection from the people in their immediate life, receive that fulfillment from the people that give them ‘hits’ on their page. The person that gives them the most positive feedback becomes a ‘good’ friend. Then all you have to do is work with your following, and generate a valuable, successful and fulfilling future from lifecasting.

Lifecasting is an easy world to get lost in, but it can teach you a lot about yourself. What are you interested in, and why? How can you portray these things to people in a way to make them want to know more about you? When the net was starting to emerge, there were plenty of news reports about Internet addicts, and people staying up all night, gaining insomnia from their need to surf the web. These people were ridiculed for their impulse, but thanks to those early pioneers, we now have sites like Google, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, and many many more that contribute so much to many peoples daily lives.

The art of lifecasting can be a very therapeutic action, especially for the socially rejected. Anyone can find a home on the Internet. All you have to do is Google it!

]]> http://stat30fbliss.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/reflections-on-lifecasting/feed/ 0 stat30fbliss http://stat30fbliss.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/how-the-music-industry-is-killing-itself/ http://stat30fbliss.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/how-the-music-industry-is-killing-itself/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:53:27 +0000 stat30fbliss http://stat30fbliss.wordpress.com/?p=52 ]]>

The music industry is killing itself with its constant feelings of having to manufacture the next big star. The people running these industries are looking only at their pocketbooks, and missing touch with the one thing that actually matters, the music.

People have completely forgotten the thought of doing something for ideal, rather than its marketability. Musicians get lost in dreams of the limelight, and lose complete focus of why they even began their journey in the first place.

The birth of digital music, on line streaming and downloading, all landed huge blows to the industry. Something they just were not prepared for, and a service that tore the whole entertainment industry apart at the seams.

Similar to the strikes in professional sports, Music stars started demanding more security, more compensation, and fighting their potential loss in profit, and the labels doing just the same. Legal ramifications became a mainstay, and the freedom that so much of our best music stood for, suddenly became lost.

Even some of the independent, outsourced labels are finding it difficult to adapt to these new circumstances standing between them, and the mainstream. Mainly because it is no longer a stream, but an ocean of music and artists associating with countless categories of taste and preference.

With the American public becoming bored with the manufactured success created by big record labels and Television Channels like VH1 and MTV, they are starting to find new places to turn. As well, musicians are finding new and innovative ways to distribute themselves to the masses with the medium created by the Internet.

If the Big 5 labels are going to survive, they will have to utilize new and freedom based ways of enticing artists to work with them, rather than treat them like indentured servants, at the disposal of some corporate suit. When a band can release their music world wide, while retaining rights, and making near 100% profit, it will be difficult to sway someone to the creative blocks created by labels and managers.

A new age of music is being born, as the dust settles from the turn of the century. All we can do, is wait and see who comes out on top of this musical drought we have been instilled in for almost a decade now. Your best bet is to start looking into the cracks of the Internet, and watching who has what it takes to be our savior in these times of darkness.

The Internet plays an irreversible role in the world today, and stands as a testament as to just how fast our world moves now. Things grow so popular, and then lose attention in a day. Trends are started and popular in a click, and superstars are born overnight on YouTube. Thats all fine, but what does this mean for our society? In the corporate world, it stands for productivity. You can find ANY form of information on the web. You can almost accomplish any goal nowadays, and it is getting ready to turn the television sets in our home obsolete.

The Internet single handedly changed how we listen to music, watch TV, gain information, publish information, get famous, cause crimes, and even just operate as a society. In these countries where the Net plays an irreversible role, we have learned how to tie worlds together through this digital realm of data. Yes, hackers have found countless ways to wreak digital crime, and thus we have a whole new way of losing our identities, personal financial information, or even our ‘cherished’ Windows Operating System, but these are the prices we pay due to the advances in our world. For every positive, there will be an equal, and balancing negative.

You can track this whole development back to Mr. gates, and Mr. Jobs, who really led this digital pioneering by creating the products that would bring the Internet so close to home. After major leaps and bounds through the 60’s, 70’s, & 80’s in communications technology, the Internet was first born to many colleges and universities. First used in these universities laboratories, the Net played a role in the cold war by scientists as a form of communication to alert each other on the threat of nuclear war.

As the dynamics and possibilities of inter-personal communication grows, so will the complication, and depth of the net. After roughly 16 years of wide spread public use, the Internet is getting ready to spawn out of its adolescent phase, and start turning into the adult we all know it can be.