This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.
Jul
24
Net firms in music pirates deal
Posted by monster in Music
According to the BBC News the largest ISPs have agreed to start clamping down file sharers with people being warned and then potentially having their either slowed down or cut off. This includes Carphone Warehouse who originally had declined to tow the line as far as the BPI was concerned.
The concerning thing is that there appears to be no means to dispute an accusation of file sharing. For example, if they pickup on a transfer of music that I legitimately own from my home PC to my work machine over the Internet how I can defend myself?
It will also be interesting to see if people start to migrate their Internet access away from the major players to smaller ISPs who are not currently party to the agreement.
Jul
23
How portable is Java?
Posted by monster in Technology, Work
The title is a bit of a trick question - if the JVM meets all the tests to qualify being called Java then it is portable. However the website JavaSpecialists has a series of brilliant articles about some of the depths of Java, with a rather interesting article called ‘Law of Cretan Driving’ which looks at the way 64 bit value are handled (such as long) within the JVM. The article points out that it is not mandatory for the JVM to ensure that the bytes that are used to represent a long can not be manipulated by separate threads at anyone time. That is to say that any 64bit primitive such as a long is not guaranteed to be thread safe. However problem is that primitive data types are generally considered by developers to be atomically safe - which isn’t necessarily the case. So we can find that a java application which is theoretically portable may actually not port.
Java Standard - http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jvms/second_edition/html/Concepts.doc.html#17876
Jul
22
A Whole Load Of Free Downloads
Posted by monster in Music
XFm the British Radio station have got a page of free downloads ranging from Unkle’s remix of their song that has been included on the new X Files film soundtrack, through a new live Verve track along with a lot of other music in between. To find more go to A Whole Load Of Free Downloads - Xfm
Jul
22
Paul Westerberg - $0.49 album - sort of
Posted by monster in Music
Paul Westerberg (solo artists and former key member of The Replacements) has released a new album with with a price tag of forty nine cents (twenty six pence). Although iTunes has not cooperated with this pricing other online vendors such as amazon.com have. To help with the licensing the album - all 43 minutes & 55 seconds is a single track. This strategy has generated a fair bit of activity on the web for Paul with lots of sites large and small blogging about it. The initial release was US only, but today the track has become available to the rest of the world via Tunecore.com. The fun things was that once I’d downloaded the track, I got an email on behalf of Paul that included the statement:
*A note from Paul:*
“WARNING: DO NOT LISTEN WHILE OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE. THIS PRODUCT IS NOT FAULTY - ALL SOUNDS ARE INTENTIONAL AND VALID AS A WORK OF ART.”
PaulWesterberg.net also has details of the track listing here.
Jul
22
Tori Amos bootlegs go main stream
Posted by monster in Music
The official bootleg series originally only available through one of Tori Amos’ site (http://toribootlegs.com/) that had been recorded over recent tours have gone main stream with the bootlegs being available through iTunes (UK and US) and other download stores over the next few weeks. This does mean that the bootlegs aren’t likely to be cheap to download.
In addition to this Tori has continued to plunder her live recordings catalogue with the release of live recordings from Montreux festival in 1991 and 1992. These recordings will reflect Tori around the time of the release of the amazing Little Earthquakes album. The release will be both as CD and DVD on September 22nd in the UK and Europe and a week later in the US. Spinner (part of AOL) also has information about this release here.
Jul
18
Amazing Skyscraper Photography
Posted by monster in Photography
I came across some amazing photography, I saw a version of the image below in a magazine news letter. The picture below is a genuine shot of the Dubai skyline taken from the Burj Tower which is being constructed. Once the Burj is complete it will be the world’s tallest building at around 800 metres, that is twice the height of the Empire State Building. It is worth keeping in mind that the oil princes in Dubai are competing with each other for the tallest and most elegant tower blocks.
Look carefully at the clouds to the left of the buildings, the cloud is blowing in from the right and you can see how the buildings are breaking up the cloud and creating ’shadows’.
This photo was taken by a guy called Jack Frost who is a seriously talented photographer and has lots more amazing photography here and blog here.
Jul
17
SeeWhy for JBoss jBPM
Posted by monster in Work
SeeWhy for JBoss jBPM is the latest evolution in the integration between jBPM which forms a crucial element in the orchestration of JBoss’ SOA (Service Orientated Architecture) stack. We’ve produced some video clips complete with commentary together that show the core parts of the SeWhy for JBoss jBPM along with looking at SeeWhy in the broader context of BI (Business Intelligence) and BAM (Business Activity Monitoring). The SeeWhy page here has both low res streaming versions of the videos and downloadable high res versions.
If you’re interested in work flow and how you can monitor and measure its activity both in terms of IT operational performance and in the business context then the three clips will be ten minutes well spent.
Useful links …
Technorati tags: jBPM, SOA, Service Orientated Architecture, JBoss, BPM, BAM, BI, Business Activity Monitoring, Business Intelligence, Orchestration, SeeWhy, Realtime BI
Jul
17
Paul Weller - Live EP
Posted by monster in Music
With Paul Weller having participated in the iTunes festival in London this year, there has inevitably been an iTunes exclusive EP announced that was released on Monday. The EP features six tracks:
- Peacock Suit
- From the Floorboards Up
- All I Wanna Do (is Be With You)
- Out of the sinking
- Invisible
- Sea Spray
Initial comments on iTunes don’t look too promising though - the suggestion being aside from only a small part of the whole gig that the recording is extremely clinical in nature.
Jul
16
Another free song from Coldplay
Posted by monster in Music
To celebrate the start of their North American tour Coldplay are giving away another song from their website called Death Will Never Conquer - to download it you need to provide an email address on the coldplay site.
Note that the track is pretty sort and simple with pretty much Chris Martin performing solo at a piano. The track is also only 128kbps.
Jul
16
RA DIOHEA_D - HOU SE OF_C ARDS
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
Radiohead’s latest video is certainly gaining a lot of attention, purely because of the fact that it was shot without any cameras. The end result is amazing. As you can see …
But having an engineering background I found the short video clip about how the video was made, just as intriguing…
Jul
11
gigapixel shots of Yosemite Valley
Posted by monster in Photography
I came across a fabulous project from reading Robert Scoble’s blog - The Yosemite Extreme Panoramic Project. The goal is create a large scale gigapixel image of the valley walls to help research such as rock fall in the park. The work has been done with xRez. The XRez site for the Yosemite project is here. I have to admit that I’ve always liked Yosemite since I first saw photos taken by Ansell Adams, and having been there and tried to capture the glory of the place myself find photography in the area fascinating. To see how beautiful the valley is and the stunning detail of the gigapixel images checkout the Glacier Point photo xRex have posted here.
I recommend installing the plugin and looking at some of the high definition pictures the image detail is simply stunning. Here is a clip from a zoomed in view to illustrate …
And my efforts …
Jul
10
Chain Letters the Photo Way
Posted by monster in Photography
Photojojo have come up with an interesting and fun challenge. Rather than sending a letter and getting the people to send on the letter to everyone they know (a chain letter), this works by taking a picture with a picture in it, or retrospectively adding the picture digitally. Pass this on to friends who repeat the process. So eventually you have a photographic Russian Doll effect. It would be interesting to see how many pictures can be nested.
The full article and example can be found at http://photojojo.com/content/photo-projects/the-photo-chain/.
Jul
10
Bruce Springsteen to release EP
Posted by monster in Music
According to the Boss’ website (here) he will be releasing a live EP containing tracks taken from the current ‘Magic Tour’ with guest appearances from Alejandro Escovedo, Tom Morello and Roger McGuinn. The EP will be available in digital download form from the likes of iTunes.
The EP is to help raise money for the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, a charity setup after the death of Bruce’s long time keyboardist. As the release is for a charitable cause all profits and royalties are going to the charity.
del.icio.us tags: Bruce Springsteen, E Street Band, Charity, EP, Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, Alejandro Escovedo, Tom Morello, Roger McGuinn, Music
Jul
7
Thom Yorke follows Johnny Greenwood and goes classical
Posted by monster in Music
A number of music sites have been reporting on Thom Yorke’s classical dabbling including Filter-Mag.com. Unlike Greenwood’s full orchestral score of There will Be Blood, Thom’s effort is only a contribution of a group of classical remixes. With Thom and Jonny having gone all classical, and the experimentalism of Radiohead what are the chances of a full ‘classical’ Radiohead album?
Jul
4
FixMyStreet - neat map relate service
Posted by monster in General, Website
I came across this rather cool little service - FixMyStreet. It allows you to mark onto maps problems from potholes to fly tipping. The website will then submit the problem to the appropriate authorities. To can also see what other problems have been reported. a lot easier than tying to work out which council and which department to report a problem to.
Jul
3
Warning letters to ‘file-sharers’
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
The BPI (formerly British Phonographic Industry) along with Virgin Media have started getting tough with people they believe are downloading illegally. Virgin Media according to BBC News have sent out 800 letters to people they believe are illegally downloading warning them that they may face being disconnected and possibly legal action. This is probably a step up on the BPI’s RIAA like campaign and probably to help apply pressure with the negotiations with ISPs about dealing with illegal downloading of music (previous blog here). The downloading information has been provided by the BPI to Virgin Media according the BPI’s new page (here) - interesting given that the similar approach by the RIAA is coming under increasing legal questioning in the US.
The chief executive of the BPI told the BBC that the BPI in very bullish terms that if necessary the BPI will take the ISPs to court and win, including ISPs who will not participate in their actions such as Carphone Warehouse. This is also very reminiscent of the RIAA’s early campaign. It seems to me that the BPI have not looked at the way the US litigation for the RIAA is going which has resulted in both counter cases, a lot of embarrassing revelations about how the cases have been built. Not to mention that a number of US record executives and artists have been publicly disagreeing with the RIAA.
Interviews with a few of those affected so far suggests that Virgin Media may stand to lose subscribers as the perceived invasion of digital privacy talks hold, plus the ISP dictating how people can use the service that they’re paying for.
Jul
3
Fuel Prices Update
Posted by monster in economy
With more haulier protests in London yesterday over fuel prices and the rate of price inflation. Here is a new monthly graph of fuel prices based on the AA figures:
The critical values are that diesel has gone up 9.1% from last month and unleaded has increased by 6.3% since last month. Diesel is now averaging 13p per litre more expensive than unleaded.
Jul
2
SeeWhy release announcements
Posted by monster in Work
It would appear that the SeeWhy press announcements about the latest publicly available version of SeeWhy are filtering out (e.g. webitpr | SeeWhy Announces Version 3.4 to Drive Online 1-to-1 Marketing )onto the Net. The announcements also reflect the current push into the Customer Experience Management (CEM) application of our real-time event processing platform.
As SeeWhy is an event engine with configured and configurable metrics it provides a very powerful offering that will allow simple measurement such as user experience (such as how well are page requests being serviced - in general and for key customers) all the way through to some significant business orientated metrics - website performance against hit to sale conversions trended over a time. Particularly when you add to this a highly customisable closed loop capabilities.
