Category Archives: Nosebleeds

Apple, Music, News, Nosebleeds, Not-So-Awesomeness, Popular Culture

Drawing The Line On My Horizon

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On September 23, 2005 I wrote on the blog about something I saw coming down the music business pike. I commented on a curious article quoting the outcry of some music execs (specifically Warner Music Group) desperately wanting “flexibility” in the price points of online music downloads. I warned that this line of thinking would lead to inflated prices on the newest, hotest tracks by top artists. Here is an excerpt from my post:

Record executives, however, are seeking some flexibility in prices, including the ability to charge more for some songs and less for others, the way they do in the traditional retail world.

“There’s no content in the world that has doesn’t have some price flexibility,” said Warner Music Group Corp. chief executive Edgar Bronfman at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference here. “Not all songs are created equal. Not all albums are created equal.

“That’s not to say we want to raise prices across the board or that we don’t believe in a 99-cent price point for most music,” he said. “But there are some songs for which consumers would be willing to pay more. And some we’d be willing to sell for less.”

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Think about that for a second. What he is effectively communicating is that he believes that he can suck more money out of consumers for hot, popular music. He is saying that he can manipulate you, the consumer, into paying whatever he wants you to pay for your favorite artists. In theory, an artist could be an .88 cent artist one week and a $1.50 artist the next. I am begining to see what the real problem is in the music buisness. Leadership. Small-minded, money grubbing leaders.

Sony Music wants to thank you for legally purchasing their music by adding an enjoyment tax. Here’s to you, music execs! Way to ruin the party!

I don’t know when it happened but it has happened. Right now in the iTunes store some tracks have jumped to a high of $1.29 while some tracks have hit a low of .69 cents. I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on SNL last week. They played an amazing performance of Zero, their first single from their latest album. I really dug it so I headed over to the iTunes store. Guess what?

Zero is the only track from the album priced at $1.29.

I began to think about that post from 2005 so I rushed over to Top Songs (this list is updated hourly). 49 out of 100 Top Songs are priced at $1.29. Out of those 49 I had purchased 5 of them in the past few months all at the original .99 cent price.

Want to hear the latest single from the Black Eyed Peas? How about that Jason Mraz/Colbie Callet duet from an album that came out this time last year? You can also stop believin’ that the classic track from Journey is only .99 cents. They will all cost you a little more.

Why? Because they are new or hot or a top seller.

These tracks will cost you a little bit more because the music industry believes that “there are some songs for which consumers would be willing to pay more. And some we’d be willing to sell for less.”

This consumer- a loyal, hardworking, music fan, downloading-for-pay-since-2003 consumer– is unwilling to buy À la carte tracks for more than .99 cents just because they’re the flavor of the week.

I hope that this is just an experiment. I hope that in the coming weeks that the new price points return back to normal. Maybe then I’ll get that song from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Maybe by then the track will be .99 cents again. You know by that time though, I might have forgotten all about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Part of the genius and the selling benefits of downloadable music its immediacy and being able capitalize on the impulses of buyers. Right now my impulse is to say “No Way!” I wonder if the record execs took that into account?

I am refusing to pay the $1.29 price point for hot and new tracks. I will not pay an “enjoyment tax” for the latest songs. I will not play this game.

I hope you won’t either. Who’s with me?

Read the original post: Hidden Agenda

LOST, Nosebleeds, Popular Culture, Theoretical Physics, Things That Are Beyond My Comprehension

The Light Doesn’t Scatter Right

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*LOST SEASON FOUR DISCUSSION HAPPENING BELOW* PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!

For those of you who are Lost fans you know that this season has been dealing with a lot of nerd-friendly issues such as theoretical physics, the space time continuum, and the nature of reality. All good stuff to be sure but often times I feel like my puny little BA can’t match up with the likes of Dr. Faradey and his time traveling rat.

So to make up for Lost time (ha) I have been expanding my reading list to now include a handful of scientific books. I began last Christmas with The Fabric of the Cosmos. I liked that book so much that I have since picked up Greene’s first foray into explaining deep, difficult, theortical concepts to everyday joes, The Elegant Universe.

In The Elegant Universe Greene introduces the reader to superstring theory. While general relativity deals with the big things in the universe, quantum mechanics deals with the smallest particles. Einstein believed that there must be a unifying theory that explains the entire workings of the universe both large and small. Many believe that superstring theory could be that unifying theory. Greene argues that throughout the history of physics, conflicts have emerged that, once settled, rewrote our complete understanding of what we know about how the universe works. Yes, like Desmond, I sometimes get a nosebleed just reading this stuff.

As I began reading last night I immediately ran across something that jumped out at me as extremely important as we head into the (second) season finale for season 4.

We all know that there is something off about the island and that this season we have come to understand that time plays a big role in that. First a rocket payload landed later than expected. Then a dead doctor washed ashore hours before he died. What is going on here? Now as we move toward the big finale John Locke is on a mission to “move the island.” What does this mean for those left on the island? What about those now on the freighter? What about the rest of us living our lives unaware of the islands existence? For those of you who have been following closely this season get a load of this:

The first conflict concerns puzzling properties of the motion of light. Briefly put, according to Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, if you run fast enough you can catch up with a departing beam of light, whereas according to James Clerk Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism, you can’t. Einstein resolved this conflict through his theory of special relativity, and in so doing completely overturned our understanding of space and time. Accoring to special reletivity, no longer can space and time be thought of as universal concepts set in stone, experienced identically by everyone. Rather space and time emerged from Einstein’s reworking as malleable constructs whose form and appearance depend on one’s state of motion.

I think that this is a pretty significant bit of information as it concerns our castaways. If the island can move (or is in a constant state of motion relative to…) then no wonder there is a hiccup in time as it concerns rockets and dead doctors and satellite phones.

Maybe I should send Grizzly Jack a copy of this book to help aid him in his quest to return. I’ll just have to tell the postman to stay on the bearing 305 lest he too get a nasty nosebleed.

I can’t believe we have to wait another two weeks to (not) get answers to the mysteries surrounding the island, the survivors of 815, the freighter people, Ben, and Charles Widmore.

If anything should happen to me during these next two weeks, Desmond Hume is my constant.