Single Speed Heaven...

...may be Boston, MA (at least around the MIT campus) where I saw a whole mess of single speeders this weekend. I wandered up to Cambridge Bicycle, apparently the high altar of One Speed Cycling. Great, grease on the floor store, fully stocked with both fixed track bikes and freewheel single road bikes. Found my bullhorn bars and a lightweight brake lever (should amuse TSA for awhile) so as soon as time permits it's on to phase 2. Stay Tuned.

Single Speed 1st Ride

Thanks to a break in the rain I got my first real ride on the single speed conversion. Had to make a few mechanical adjustments on the way but the overall impression is fun-fun-fun! Rode with a friend on his delicious, saved from the trash, old school Trek/Campy Nuovo Record. I kept up just fine although obviously if he'd dropped to the bottom cog on the downhills I'd have been dust in the wind. I've got a few chain line grumblings to look at and I'm still in the market for some bullhorn bars but otherwise this is shaping up to be a great thing.

Thanks AT&T (or whoever you are today)

Sitting at DCA waiting on a connection, saw the AT&T Hot Spot and remembered reading that premium home customers could now log on for free. Tried it & wow, it actually works! I hear T-Mobile may soon be offering similar to their phone customers so the traveler's best option would be to keep their home account but switch their mobile service? Probably not what AT&T had in mind though.

Back To Our Regular Programming

Here are some more criminals to hunt down -

mp3Sale
LegalSounds
mp3Sugar
mp3.ua
Musicmp3
mp3Ninja
JustMusicStore
mp3Search
SoundLike
mp3Stor
mp3 Love-X (not porn)
3mp3
mp3Hotfly

Thanks to HubPages for some info.


Hmm, looks like a flood to me?

And Now For Somthing Completely Different

Inspired by a long wish to build a single speed bike & goaded into action by an article in MakeZine I finally got around to this. My old Oschner/Cinelli Columbus SL frameset with a Mavic bottom bracket, Dura-Ace 42 chain ring and a Shimano freewheel with only the 17 cog remaining (about 2.4:1). I used spacers to fill out the rest of the hub (thanks to Richardson Bike Mart for the inspiration) and removed all signs of gear shifting. Aligning the chain & getting the tension was surprisingly easy as the framset has fairly deep Campagnolo dropouts.

Maybe I should have called this post "How To Make A Really Lightweight Bike" as the first thing that struck me was the lack of heft, even for an SL frame. I imagine with a lightweight aluminum donor a sub 14lb bike could be easily done. Next to come on this one is some home-made (read cut down) bullhorn bars & a single front brake with a BMX lever.

So what's it like to ride? Well if it stopped raining for 5 minutes I could tell you! Actually first impressions are very good, it accelerates extremely well and the lack of weight really allows the aggressive frame to shine through. I found I topped out at around 22 mph which is totally acceptable. In all, a highly recommended project for anyone with a spare bike, some tools (the only specialty item is the $8 freewheel wrench), some time & about $20 to spend.

Are they moving again or have the authorities caught up with the International Men of Mystery at mp3sparks.com (formally allofmp3.com)? A check today referred me back to the OpenDNS site which perhaps isn't surprising considering the amount of blog activity generated by Sparks last week.

Just because they've caught these criminals doesn't mean the public should not remain vigilant. There are others out there including GoMusic.ru and MP3Fiesta all happy to relieve you of your hard earned money in exchange for dubious music.

Remain firm fellow citizens, if we all keep downloading expensive, low bit-rate, DRM encoded music we can beat these cyber-terrorists and their little dogs too!

Sennheiser Kudos

I run with my iPod (imagine that) and a pair of Sennheiser PMX-70 headphones, these are really great sounding units & fit snugly even under the most strenuous workout conditions.

However, recently I caught the headphone cable on a door handle and ripped the connector clean off the end. Bummed, I went to Sennheiser's website to see about repairing them. There I found a very intuitive & simple web based RA system which even allows you to print a bar coded address label to their service center in CT. I clearly noted on the return form that this was not a warranty item since the damage was caused by my own carelessness and I was happy to pay for the repairs.

Here the story gets better. Having put the damaged pieces in an envelope I asked one of my teens to stop by the post office and mail them out for me. With typical teenager attention to detail, she put them in mailbox at the house where they were promptly picked up with no postage attached! At that point I figured I'd never see them again.

Two days later I get an e-mail from Sennheiser saying they had received my headphones and were processing them for repair. Two more days passed and I got an e-mail saying they had shipped out. Within five days I had a brand new pair of headphones at my door!

So in all, Sennheiser paid for 2 way shipping and a new pair of headphones. In these days of horrendous customer service stories I think they deserve a commendation & serious consideration by anyone looking for excellent audio products.

Let's Catch The Real Pirates

Hey RIAA, time to sharpen your legal pencils again! Hot on the heels of the First Family's admitting to creating an illegal mix CD comes another confession, this time from the pages of People Magazine. There, American Idol star Fantasia Barrino freely admits to cherishing a mix CD given to her by "a friend."

A quote from the RIAA's website -

Do The Crime, Do The Time
If you do not have legal permission, and you go ahead and copy or distribute copyrighted music anyway, you can be prosecuted in criminal court and/or sued for damages in civil court.

• Criminal penalties for first-time offenders can be as high as five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
  
• Civil penalties can run into many thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees. The minimum penalty is $750 per song.

Seems like these folks are in a whole heap of trouble or is that only reserved for students, grandparents, disabled mothers, pre-teens and all the other riff-raff, pirating trouble makers?

Record Industry Decline - The Rest Of The Story

Rolling Stone has a nice piece on the rapid decline of the record industry. They put the blame on the label's early 2000's decision not to embrace Napster. Whilst I agree this is a major factor I think the grave plot for the industry was prepared much earlier than that.

1) They killed off the 7" single - although not known for it's musical quality the 45 rpm single was a great introduction to the concept of purchasing music. Highly portable and pocket money priced they introduced younger consumers to the concept of buying records regularly. The replacements were either too clumsy (cassette singles) or too expensive (CD singles). Digital downloads have reintroduced the concept a decade too late.
2) They forced customers into expensive CD's - rather than letting the market slowly switch over, the labels abandoned the vinyl album (priced at around $6.99) and forced them to purchase CDs at double the price. Music buying became a more risky proposition, a $7 mistake is easier to stomach than a $17 one. After a great run of reselling customers music they already owned the simple economics of price elasticity kicked in.
3) They fought the internet - as use of the internet exploded the labels did everything in their power to fight it. It's not just Napster, there were hundreds of missed opportunities. As their core demographic became increasingly wired the record companies headed out on a suicide mission.
4) The Product Sucked - the labels forgot about investing in talent long term and scrambled all over each other to release huge numbers of poorly conceived, one hit artists and albums. The result was mass consumer confusion and turn-off.
5) They Ignored Profitable Market Sectors - deciding to focus purely on the MTV demographic (which changes every 5 years) the labels forgot all about selling to a maturer audience, even though these are the people with the most disposable income and loyalty to acts.
6) They Allowed Radio To Get Away With It - commercial radio is all but dead, killed by corporate greed and homogenization. Rather than forcing radio to open up their play lists and expose consumers to new music the labels colluded with the folly, narrowing the selection further.
7) Now They're Killing Internet Radio - not having learned any lessons, the labels are forcing usurious (and back dated) fees for internet radio stations. Like Napster in reverse, this ploy seems to be aimed at forcing the legal stations out and paving the way for an underground community.
8) They Sued Their Best Customers - a recent internet poll lauded the RIAA as the worst company in America (admittedly they're a trade association), true or not it's a public relations nightmare. Abusing the legal system and using the courts to shore up their business model, the labels have created a "screw-them" mentality amongst consumers. Piracy is relished as a way of getting back at the industry and a fake Prada & iPod full of P2P music is a badge of honor amongst young consumers.

The record industry has one, last chance. It's going to require a complete realignment of their business models & the alienation of some huge customers (Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart). Much creativity and imagination are going to be needed but luckily for them the research has already been done and customers numbering millions have shown their willingness to embrace the new distribution model. It looks like this.

OK, sorry, it looks like this.

Music to Travel by...

Or run by! No secret, I'm a big fan of progressive electronic music, get some for yourself right here (no DRM, 320kbs mp3, what's not to like).

Pirated Goods - A Short History Lesson

This gentlemen (name of William Heath) and his smuggling cohorts & predecessors plyed the English south coast from the 1300's until the mid-Victorian age. As the English Crown levied ever higher import duties on wools & luxury goods in an attempt to control & profit from all trade, our smuggler friend here found himself increasingly popular. And rather than being seen as a scourge to polite society, William was actually lauded as it's supporter. Fine ladies would boast of their smuggling connections as they served tea over lace cloths. In fact, it became increasingly difficult for the Revenue Men (government officials charged with catching smugglers) to get justice in the local courts because the magistrates were enjoying the benefits of smuggling themselves. Finally, after hundreds of years of battles, both physical & legal, the English dropped the tariffs and put William out of business.

It's all Economics 101. You have something I want but the price is high or the supply is low. At a certain point it becomes profitable for a 3rd party to supply me with the same goods either at a lower price or higher supply. For him, the potential profits outweigh the risks (the drop in William's case). Of course, it couldn't happen today, could it?

Oh - Those Good Old Days

My cassette picture reminded me of the this one. The golden early 80's where the record labels predicted the death of music for the first time as millions of teenagers grabbed their cassette recorders & copied each other's albums with impunity. Even the mighty Quincy Jones got into the fray, standing before a judiciary committee and claiming that without protective legislation the days of the 5 million plus selling album were over (bad news Quince, your Thriller album, released later that year went on to sell over 25M in the US alone). He even supported the insertion of an audio notch at 3KHz ("that no one could hear") into all recordings which would disable the record feature on cassette decks.

Of course the music industry didn't die. In fact, following MTV & the CD introduction, they went on to make more profits then ever before. But the rhetoric was not so surprisingly similar to what we hear today about file sharing, downloading, bit torrents and broadcast flags. "Our business model isn't working so we need regulators to step in and save it."

Immigration?

I've been up on this soap box before and taken more than my fair share of jabs over my stance on immigration. I think this excellent piece says much about how I feel on the subject. I picked this frame for the header because what surprises me most is that some of the most vehemently anti-immigration voices I hear are Catholics! Yet it was often traditional Catholic immigrants (particularly the Irish and Polish) who bore the most hatred when coming to the US.

The current wave of Hispanic immigration is predominantly Catholic yet so many of my faith are opposed to their entry, basing their prejudices on the flimsiest of racist rhetoric and media hysteria. Our church's teachings are pretty clear on the subject of the treatment of fellow human beings irrespective of immigration status. Jesus' teachings are even clearer.

DRM-Free Online Music

That would be legal, downloadable music with no pesky DRM encoding, some of it for no-$ free too. Since I've had it with DRM and the RIAA and am trying to avoid iTunes Music Store wherever possible I thought I'd spread the word.

1) Mercedes Benz Mixedtape - believe or not the venerable German automaker publishes a monthly mix of around 15 songs from new and established artists. Leans on the mellow eclectic Euro-music side but the download includes artwork and artist info. If I didn't already own a BMW I'd be tempted towards Stuttgart by their musical tastes alone. Look for a complimentary podcast too.
2) Beatport - primarily a source for DJs but open to all, Beatport has a web interface to beat all and a choice of downloads in high quality MP3 or uncompressed WAV files. Per song prices range from $1.49 to about $2.99 but their is always a ton of free tracks & mixes available to registered (registration is free) users. A most for the electronic dance & trance fan, they also have a somewhat regular podcast.
3) e-music - offers independent releases in every genre imaginable for a slightly confusing monthly subscription system (like any good drug deal, the first few are free). However, unlike other subscription rip-offs, the songs you download are in MP3 format & yours to keep for eternity. What makes this site great is the reviews and write ups for almost every artist listed. The preview system is a little clunky (I open the links in Quicktime) and leaves lint all over the desktop.
4) Techtronic Sounds - great & regualr podcast in the dance/trance/techno genres. Great mixes, not much else to get in the way of the music.

The Wrong Baggies!

I got my toiletries unceremoniously dumped by the 'droids at TSA in Orlando this weekend. I had carefully packed them all into a Ziploc bag as required but it turned out that the bag was the wrong size so it was bye bye handcream, toothpaste & shaving lotion. I'm so glad the TSA are on top of this kind of thing, imagine a whole traveling nation pulling out any kind of sealable baggie they fancied for the toiletries! It makes me shudder to think what an Enemy Combatant could do with a 2 quart freezer pack.

In all seriousness, doesn't this kind of moronic behavior invite ridicule of the whole TSA system? They have already become the joke butts of the late night talks & even Garrison Keillor's Prarie Home Companion took a dig at them this weekend. As Mr. Bumble said, "if that sir is the law, then the law is an ass."

Looking More & More Like American Idiots

Thanks to my 12 year old for the blog inspiration. In the past week we have seen cell phone not-exactly-terrorists in Michigan & elsewhere, airplane bombers in London with an almost impossible chemical attack & hysterical misreporting of an attack of clustrophoebia high over the atlantic.

From Green Day :
Don't wanna be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation under the new media.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mindf**k America.

World Cup Comments

I've been getting into the World Cup although with ABC shifting all the weekday games to ESPN it's been harder to watch live, thank goodness for Univision! Anyway I came across an intersting comment by Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira on the US soccer scene. He believes that the US youth scene is too organized and official for real development of the game. He may have a point. I live 100 yards from a local soccer park and daily I see youth leagues either in training or in games. However, I never see these kids out on the street or on their own in the park just knocking a soccer ball around.

I was not much of an athlete growing up in England but I do remember that every street, alley, park or playground was an excuse for a game of football. With discarded sweaters as goals, teams of diverse numbers & ages would form merely for the fun of the game. On my travels I've seen similar pick up games all across the World except in the US where the Soccer Mom, Coach & YMCA League seem to be the only outlet. Parreira's point is that without these thousands of hours of unconscious refinements of skill the USA can never hope to compete with the soccer powerhouses. Of course England ain't been looking too great recently either!

How Radio Shack Blew It!

Of my 3 local Radio Shacks, 2 are now closed and the 3rd is being “updated.” All are victims of the latest in a long line of failed attempts to revive the once thriving brand. Originally dating from 1921 the Shack really came into it’s own in the 70’s with the Ham & CB radio craze in full boom (a radio shack is actually Ham slang for your personal rig), the homebrew electronics builders & a line of very innovative and successful computers.

However, the dubious appointment of former fast food executive Len Roberts and then the subsequent resume gaffs from his successor have brought this once highly regarded chain to its knees. Floundering between the big box electronics retailers and discount chains the stock performance clearly shows that the once proud Radio Shack has completely lost its direction. Unsuccessfully flirting with various third party manufacturers including RCA, Compaq, Blockbuster & Apple has only served to confuse the brand further.

A visit to your typical store will show a mish-mash of cellular phones, home entertainment equipment, computer peripherals, toys & electronic parts & accessories. Of course batteries are still a mainstay but the traditional selection of cables, parts and innovative problem solvers have been largely eliminated. Days were you could pretty much fix any electronic equipment with parts bought right at your local Shack. I remember finding an IC for an Otari 24 track recorder right there on the shelf. Nowadays you’re lucky to find an antenna cable let alone a replacement transistor.

Now the company’s reasoning behind these changes is that the homebrew electronics fan has largely disappeared and if you’re talking about the guy with the breadboard & smoking soldering iron then that reasoning is largely true. However he has been replaced by a much larger group, the home computer builders & PC hot rodders. Here is where Radio Shack has completely missed the boat. These individuals are into building the biggest, baddest home computers with clocked chips & neon lit cases; their retail source for parts? Not Radio Shack who helped usher in home computing and had a vast wealth of electronics knowledge but Frys Electronics, the abandoned grocery store retailer turned mass marketer. While Radio Shack are going toe to toe with Wal-Mart, Best Buy & a million corner store phone retailers Frys are selling high ticket microprocessors, hard drives and cases to the new generation of home experimenters. To add insult to injury some Frys are actually located in old Incredible Universe locations, themselves another failed Radio Shack project.

The Company’s current solution seems to be mainly cost cutting, plans are to close 700 stores worldwide in 2006, however, the investment community remain to be convinced and I’m right with them, Radio Shack just doesn’t have a product to sell anymore.

My advice? Get back to what made you great in the first place. Firstly, a neighborhood store that actually stocks the things you need to get that Best Buy HD TV to connect to your home stereo. Put together a high-tech parts selection with the kind of stuff the current generation of home experimenters want. People are editing videos and cutting CDs in their front rooms, you used to sell decent pro-am audio equipment, expand the line to offer the kind of hardware home creators need. And most importantly, staff the stores with people who know & understand the technology, “You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Blank Stares” is getting old.

Following The Apple Money Trail

The title's lame but I thought better of "Oh Those Euro's - Part Deux." Next on the piracy hit-list is the popular Bit Torrent site PirateBay. The Bay Buccaneers don't actually host pirated content, they merely point the way to locations where Bit Torrent users can find such files. It's Swedish based & was recently shut down by a local police raid (the legality of which is causing some headaches for certain Swedish politicians). In true Whack-A-Mole fashion the site had returned within 48 hours.

All of which helps drive Apple's bottom line. Looking at the numbers the Cupertino folks make about 50% on every iPod sold and are set to hit the 50 million mark this year. Sites like Allofmp3, PirateBay and the traditional P2P networks help drive those sales. Even barely tech-savvy consumers know that there is an almost endless supply of cheap or free media to fill those hard drives. Apple's stock price has almost doubled in the past 12 months due in large part to this wide availability.

What about iTunes though? Don't the P2Ps & pirates eat into legitimate sales for Apple? Undoubtedly yes, but at an estimated profit of 4 cents per download it takes a lot of music sales to cover the profit in one Nano. Either way Apple gets their cake & eats it.

Oh Those Euro's!

When will they learn? After tepid support for the War On Terrorism now various EU members are starting to grumble about the Digital Rights Management flags inserted in various downloadable media such as Apple's iTunes.

Naturally the French went first, claiming that Apple's restricting of iTunes music to no other portable than it's own iPod was against the interests of French consumers & that the music should be made available in a cross platform format. Now the Norweigans are getting into the fray, giving Apple until June 21 to comply with a similar order. The Swedes are close behind and to complicate matters further the EU is hearing complaints against regional pricing differences between iTunes downloads in violation of EU policies. Now to be fair to Apple they have largely been singled out because they are the largest supplier of downloaded music in Europe which represents over 20% of iTunes total music sales. And let's face it, no one has held a gun to a European head insisting they buy music from Apple.

However it seems that the Euros are increasingly dissatisfied with DRM imposed by US legislation and the real battle ground may be shaping up to be Allofmp3.com. I'll let the Wikipedia entry explain the site more thoroughly, however, according to their FAQ, they are completely legal under Russian law. Of course the RIAA is up in arms, claiming that Allofmp3 have no such rights and their downloads (about $1.75 for an entire album) are completely illegal. What must be doubly troubling to them is that the site is highly professional (no porn pop-ups or the like) and gives the customer download choices in both file format & quality. I'm just not sure how much jurisdiction the Recording Industry Association of America can claim in the Russian Federation or anywhere else? Therefore they are petitioning the US Trade Department to apply pressure on countries (Russia and China particularly) openly ignoring copyright violations.

These WTO tactics can probably have some effect on the piracy of hard goods such as designer handbags, watches & the like but digital music? To operate a site such as Allofmp3.com you only need 3 things, electricity, a server and an internet connection. I predict an endless game of international Whack-A-Mole with the RIAA fruitlessly chasing pirates around the globe.

But it's hard to find much sympathy for the RIAA, perhaps if they would leave hamming teenagers and low res pop videos on YouTube alone and concentrate on the real issues they might see some support. Right now, as Dicken's said "if that is the law then the law, sir, is an ass."