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EntropiK — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:36:00 GMT

Slaves to Technology

EntropiK — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:36:00 GMT

We all know how much we rely on technology - it pretty much rules our lives. All good and well when it works. Fantastic and a little scary to see how rapidly and cleverly it advances. Not too long ago, the notion of writing these words and making them instantly available to millions of people was ludicrous. Now it's a cultural norm.

We're never made more aware of how lost we are without technology than when it fails to work. For example: the notebook PC whithout which we can't run our business, which apart from the odd crash, had shown no signs of ill health until last Monday when the backlight on the monitor died. Aparently it was "just its time". Attempts were made to hook the notebook up to an external monitor, and the rank smell of burning electronics indicated that several components apart from the backlight had also found their enigmatic time to die.

Fortunately we had the forsight to back most data up on an external hard drive. We're up and running again after several days of waiting to find out whether the notebook could be resurrected (negative) and then going through the very tedious process of reinstalling dozens of applications and updates, transferring data, retrieving lost passwords... the list goes on.

The dreaded PC burnout is something we've all had to endure at least once - often with disasterous and expensive consequences. There's never a good time for it to happen, but somehow computers seem to have the intuition to know when the worst possible time is... the day before you were due to hand in your doctoral thesis; the day you complete your four movement symphony or your all-singing, all-dancing business database... it's just uncanny. And so the great "PC burnout" excuse now resides comfortably next to the "dog ate my homework" excuse.

There's definitely something to be said for the simple life. We're off to buy us a horse and cart.

Giving it Away

EntropiK — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:35:00 GMT

So Radiohead are practically giving away their new album, "In Rainbows". Prince sold his new album to a Sunday paper for £300K enabling the public to have it for free. More and more established artists are jumping on the same bandwagon - free singles, free albums. The price of new release CDs has dropped by around 50% unless the release is some kind of "special edition". What does this mean for struggling independent and DIY artists? Is the general public really going to pay £6 - £10 for an album by an artist they've never heard of before when they can download Radiohead for the nominal admin fee of 50p? It's being said more and more that the earning potential in music has shifted from album sales to live gigs. So where does that leave artists whose music is not designed for performance? Is this the Industry Giants' way of putting the small fish in their place? With the digital revolution, the market has been literally flooded with unknown bands and artists who in the old days, would never been able to record their music let alone get it listened to by an international audience. Peer to Peer and file sharing sites have cost the music industry a blind fortune. Is this the topic of a lively debate or one of united contempt for those of us who don't have the financial and marketing support of a major label?