Quotes from 2008

Music’s metadata could once be ignored. The way we valued music in the 1980s and the 1990s is part of a world that no longer exists: when music’s economic value has to be reassessed, the way we reassess the music as a whole changes as well. The way we value music might be increasingly moving to metadata.

I don’t want to “explore the interface”. I want to get in, do my shit and get out again. If you think forcing users to explore the interface is such a good idea, try ripping the labels off all the cans of food in your cupboard. A couple of meals of cat-food, chilli and peaches should demonstrate exactly how “fun” this is.

1. Stop buying stuff you don't need 2. Pay off all your credit cards 3. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in your house/apartment (storage lockers, etc.) 4. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit on the first floor of your house (attic, garage, etc.) 5. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in one room of your house 6. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in a suitcase 7. Get rid of all the stuff that doesn't fit in a backpack 8. Get rid of the backpack

SEO is using deodorant instead of washing. SEO is masking bad coffee with sugar. SEO is cramming instead of studying. SEO is using pain killers instead of going to the dentist. SEO is taking weight loss pills instead of exercising. SEO is a comb-over. SEO is Scientology. SEO is Paris Hilton. SEO is the Zune. SEO is the morning-after pill. SEO is astroturf. SEO is not the real thing. SEO is cutting corners. SEO is not the solution. SEO is bullshit.

I knew giving the album away for free would be a good idea, but still, I’m pretty much unknown, and here are 500 people willing to take a punt. Why the hell should they, even if it does cost nothing? What the experiment proved to me is that there’s a significant amount of passionate music fans congregating around these so-called illegal download sites who are actually willing to take a chance on new music.

If you can identify what are the valid criticisms of your code or your ideas or your writing, and who are the trolls, and which are the other people just being temporarily stupid obtuse geniuses-in-waiting, you can parlay all that valid feedback and move from fool to slightly less fool in quick time.

Freelancers are unlike normal people and will automatically know where the printer is. Though, of course, your computer won’t be networked to it. It will take IT three days to attach you to a printer named after a celebrity.

The importance of comprehending context – circumstances and conditions that surround a place, thing, or event – within the mobile environment cannot be overstated. Your content is of little value to users if it ignores the context in which it is viewed, manipulated, and processed.

If you’ve got a list of 20 things you should be doing, pick the most important one or two and then just let go of the rest. You will never upload your music to every one of these sites. You will never contact every person. You will never enter every contest. Just take the one or two things that would make the biggest difference in your career, do those one or two, then stop. Turn your attention to the next one or two most important.

I didn’t RTFA, but I for one welcome our new, naked Natalie Portman and grits overlords, to which CmdrTaco replied, “you must be new here.” He’s a Twitter sock-puppet, but so am I, you insensitive clod! In Soviet Russia, the only way to be sure is for orbit to nuke you with a beowulf cluster (yes, it runs Linux!). ??? Profit!

I am trying to condense Slashdot down to a fine extract. Anyone else want to see if they can perfect it?

Mix tapes mark the moment of consumer culture in which listeners attained control over what they heard, in what order and at what cost. It liberated us from music stores and radios in the same way radios and recordings liberated generations earlier from the need to be present at the performance of live music.

Kids are time-rich and cash-poor and have an infinite supply of ingenuity and impecuniousness to apply to the job of getting music for free.

I killed a man. No, too modest. On every continent and in all countries, across centuries, worlds and dimensions, in times of war and times of peace, my trail of dead is one frag short of endless.

Don’t let thinking get in the way of building – build, then think.

It’s a widely accepted axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, some entrepreneurs have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do… creating a great place to work… providing great customer service… making great contributions to their communities and finding great ways to lead their lives.

“Hulk. Smash!” Yes. Hulk. Smash. Yes. Smash. Big Hulk smash. Smash cars. Buildings. Army tanks. Hulk not just smash. Hulk also go rarrr! Then smash again. Smash important, obviously. Smash Hulk’s USP. What Hulk smash most? Hulk smash all hope of interesting time in cinema. Hulk take all effort of cinema, effort getting babysitter, effort finding parking, and Hulk put great green fist right through it. Hulk crush all hopes of entertainment. Hulk in boring film.

There are some architects and developers who really get climate change, but most don’t or choose not to. As a result we get a lot of greenwash, such as green gadgets and microtechnology stuck on to buildings, rather than a proper approach to sustainable design.

The arguments of Bruce and Shulman suppose that great ideas are precious. It is too much for them to imagine that a discovery as remarkable as the telephone could arise in two places at once. But five people came up with the steamboat, and nine people came up with the telescope, and, if Gray had fallen into the Grand River along with Bell, some Joe Smith somewhere would likely have come up with the telephone instead and Ma Smith would have run the show. Good ideas are out there for anyone with the wit and the will to find them.

Pay attention, that's all… Notice things. Connect what you’ve noticed. Connect it into a picture. Think of how the picture might be changed; and act to change it. Some of your acts may turn out to be foolish, but others will reward you in surprising ways; and in the meantime, simply by being active instead of passive, you have a kind of immunity that’s hard to explain.

Via alexcreed.

Could you crib me some notes for my work-related robots vs. zombie debate later today? Why would robots defeat zombies in a knock-out, drag-out apocalypse?

Misdoing anything opens up a breach in ethics that can never be closed. It removes culpability from any distortion and makes anything, no matter how heinous, a complete accident. A drunk driver who crashes a car into someone can now apologise for miscounting his alcohol intake before going on to misdrive into someone he mistook for a road. I can happily write back to my bank and explain that I’ve merely mis-defaulted, a thug can explain in court that he simply misstabbed, British Airways can smile at the goings-on at the opening of Terminal 5 and explain that all that’s happened is that they’ve momentarily misrun a national airline, and, five years after the event, George Bush can look at the resounding inconclusiveness of his entry into Iraq and explain to the American people that it now appears he may have misinvaded.

It’s better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to participation. When you see a lolcat, one of the things it says to the viewer is, “If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too.” And that’s message–I can do that, too–is a big change. This is something that people in the media world don’t understand.

If the breathless advocates of “the free distribution of ideas” are serious, they need either a) to come up with a realistic proposal as to how I am to keep feeding myself while giving the fruits of my labours away for free; or b) come out and say honestly that they don’t think any such thing as a “professional writer” ought to exist, and that I should just get a job like anyone else. In a way, I’d respect people who came out and said the second thing. What I don’t respect is people who can’t see that those are the choices.

In the land of cutting out people in Photoshop, the bald man is king.

Even though print continues to cash in significantly more ad revenue than digital media, printed news will – from a purely economical point of view – undoubtedly fail.