RTP-area local music and culture

[DJ Stevo <djstevo AT wknc.org>]

On Mar 5, 11:59 am, chapelhillguitar... AT hotmail.com wrote:
> True consumer.  Makes me sick.
>
> Newsflash!  Open source is already here for those of us who can follow
> instructions in a readme file.

By Stallman's beard, you have no idea who you're talking to when you
say that.  Having a slight bit of experience with FOSS myself, I can
say with definite surety that Jim is extremely familiar with open
source software and the free software movement.  He's managed to use
Ardour, and even I've had trouble grokking that tool.

On Feb 29, 12:54 pm, jim.brantley AT gmail.com wrote:
> > What I really want is a way to remotely access (and download, if not
> > stream) my entire music collection from my phone. I know eMusic and
> > others tried out this "digital locker" concept a few years back, but
> > why has no one picked this back up? I guess it's more likely that some
> > kind of all-music-ever-recorded-is-freely-available-on-the-internets
> > solution will show up first. I guess we're already there is some ways.

My best suggestion here would be a tool called Ampache, which runs on
top of an Apache/MySQL/PHP stack, installs in about 20 minutes, and
provides a pseudo-WinAmp-like web interface for both audio and Flash
streaming and downloading your music.  It can transcode to MP3, OGG,
FLAG, and AAC on the fly if you've got the codecs installed, it can
control numerous 'remote stereo' devices, and we've found it to be
really useful for both sharing and enjoying music here at the
StevoPad.  Believe me, there's nothing like cueing the dulcet tones of
Rick Astley to play over the stereo via the Internet, giving you the
power to annoy your roommates from anywhere on the planet.

Regarding playing them over the phone, it sounds like you've an
iPhone, which should make grabbing the streams and/or audio from the
interface a simple procedure.

> Why?  How could you possibly listen to your entire music collection at
> one time unless you have less than a few hours of music?  I don't
> understand the reasons that compel people to want things that have
> such overblown features which a person could not possibly use without
> constantly wearing such a device.  This is similar to the hundreds of
> channels of programming now available on subscription based TV.  Why
> would anyone pay for all of those channels if they can never watch all
> of the channels at once?  It is wasteful and indicative of a society
> out of touch with a sustainable future.

Dude, are you a troll in real life, or do you just play one on the
Internet?

> Now I am not saying that every person who fits the description above
> is an idiot but it is fairly clear that this is the method of
> operation for a lot of people in this country.  We seem to be lazy
> (well some of us), so we must be spoon-fed new ideas and new
> technologies through some mechanism other than our own thoughts and
> curiosities.  I think that paradigm should be changed to benefit the
> thinkers as opposed to the non-thinking hoards.  Technology used to be
> a domain restricted to those who took the time to learn about the
> technology.  Then along came MicroCrap and their ilk and decided to
> make the PC an appliance that even an untrained human could operate
> (well most of them anyway).  This lowest common denominator approach
> has created a population of non-technical people using highly
> technical machines... a formula destined to be remembered as
> Machavellian genius.  As the average non-technical person becomes more
> and more the description of people who use PCs and other computing
> devices, the number of true techies who become millionaires increases.

I apologize for the thread derail, but there's a really interesting
essay that you might read on this topic written by sci-fi author Bruce
Sterling.  It's called 'In the Beginning There Was The Command
Line...', and you can check it out at:

http://mwkworks.com/nealstephensonOS.html

Sterling's point is that computer users had to learn how to use
Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS at one time in their lives;
psychological and work studies have shown that computer usage skills
must be learned regardless of whether you're using Windows, OS X,
Linux, GEOS, BeOS, A/UX, Contiki, or whatever floats your boat.  As a
result, many users are reluctant to switch from Windows or OS X to
Linux, as switching requires a significant time investment while you
re-learn those vital usage skills.

Now, to address your point, open source tools offer many incentives
over their closed source counterparts: they're free, they're usually
backed by a large community of talented coders, and they encourage you
to learn more about them so that they can be used to the greatest
effect.  Unfortunately, there's a lot of FUD out there, propagated by
some major proponents of closed-source software, that claims that open
source software is expensive to support, buggy, and hard to use, and a
lot of the arguments spawned by it have risen to levels of epic drama
over the Internets.  Your postings, however well-intentioned, help to
propagate that negative image.

Think about how Microsoft and Apple convince people to buy their
software and hardware; do Steve Jobs or Bill Gates get on stage and
say, "Hey morons, buy our motherfucking operating system because
you're all non-technical, lazy louts who can't be arsed to learn about
fundamental computing paradigms and the core tenets of Computer
Science.  YOU...  ARE...  LOSERS!"  Of course they don't; they entice
you instead by explaining the positive aspects of their products and
by explaining how, with just a bit of time and money, you can improve
your computing experience, and, by proxy, your life, with them.  The
same thing goes for open source, as you can't convince people to try
tools like Linux or Firefox by haranguing users like that, and,
sometimes, people will find non-open tools to be more useful to them
in their situation.  In the end, you choose the software that works
best for you, and the action of using open source software does not
make you a superior human being to those who do not.

So to sum up, I'd like to once again shamelessly pimp my own Internet-
powered open source music project, Sessions@KNC, and encourage you to
check out a site called Jamendo, which is a repository of free, high-
quality independent music, all licensed under Creative Commons, and
which is soon to be ablaze with the amazing live music of the
Triangle.  It's the perfect remedy for Ruckus/RIAA/Schoolkids-induced
musical depression, believe me.
-Stevo
djstevo AT wknc.org