Sorry, but I’m not an audiophile
November 7th, 2008It would be fair to say that, for a student, I spend a stupid amount of money on audio equipment. People will often comment on my purchases with phrases like “Are you insane?”, “Why would you ever spend that money on a set of …..’s?” or “Yeah, but that’s because it’s what you do” and I guess comments like these are fair to a certain point. However, I don’t think that any of them accurately depict why my money goes into the pockets of audio companies.
Over, what I hope to be the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing some posts about audio equipment I’ve purchased recently. Not to try and entirely justify my purchases (although I think that’s what I’ll probably end up doing), but to explain why the equipment makes the difference for me, and how it has affected the way I listen to music and how my audio recording and editing skills, I hope, will improve as I learn more about the nuances of reproducing audio for people who choose to listen to the projects I work on. In the process, I hope to offer the good and bad points of the equipment that has robbed my wallet, and perhaps offer some (cheaper) alternatives.
I’m certainly not an audio purist. Some people will read this post and shudder when I proclaim that I rip my music to a compressed, lossy, format, but really, I’m yet to hear the difference. All my music is stored straight from a CD 256kbps AAC, unless I buy DRM’d music from the iTunes store at 128kbps, which I try and avoid anyway. For me, storage for media, wether it be photos, music, movies, or podcasts, is at a real premium right now, and so even if I could tell the difference between my compressed music and ‘CD quality audio’, I don’t think I’d be able to manage the amount of data anyway.
I hope you’ll stick with me for the ride over how ever long it takes me to get through writing up these review-like posts. I’d love to get your feedback on the series.
-james
Who wants to know this information?
August 25th, 2008I logged into Facebook today, to find the following ‘Sponsored Poll’:
Of course, I clicked no, but the results were still pretty strange:
I’m sure I’ll find stupid or weird things to post soon enough. They seem to be coming often at the moment.
-james
I don’t like to be mean but….
August 19th, 2008Seriously, a lecturer at Uni sent this out. Hopefully you’ll pick up on the irony and stupidness of the contents.
Dear students,
More than 20 student email accounts are bouncing subject-related emails.
Please check and ensure to use Faculty or UTS email accounts.Hotmail or other free mail is not recommended for faculty related emails.
If only people would think before they write. You’d think an IT Lecturer would know better.
James
Where (some of) my Uni fees are going
June 7th, 2008What else am I to do when I’m in the city with time to use up between events than go to Uni and do some downloading of some of my favourite content distributed on the internet.
Most people would realise that this is content is coming down faster than I think any connection available to consumers anywhere in Australia, maybe even for a business.
It’s great to know my (and my families) money is being spent on worth while things like internet connections and the stupidly large salary of the University Dean.</sarcasm>.
-james
CeBIT Au 2008 Preview
May 20th, 2008I’ve just got back from a quick preview of CeBIT AU for Bloggers. I took a couple of snaps before the show opened to the public. There was even a guy from Syron (Subliminal Media) sitting around playing games — which I can only imagine was something just to fill in time before he got back on his feet!
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- I think this guy had a bit too much time.
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- The show floor before the opening!
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- An empty CNET Australia booth
I’ll be going down to the Convention Centre most of tomorrow, so check back for some photos and impressions of some more products. It looks like a great show again this year!
-james
Music Industry vs. The people of this generation
May 6th, 2008Many people would have read about the Australian music industries propaganda video that essentially blames the illegal downloading of music for their decline in revenue and sales. If you didn’t it was covered widely in the media — probably in most depth by this Sydney Morning Herald article.
Thankfully, a couple of blokes have come up with a very sensible response to the propaganda in the website tune-out.com. At the moment, they’re still working on a response in video format, but you can go and sign the online petition, which I encourage you all to do!
All this comes not long after some big name bands including Coldplay, Metallica (finally) and Matchbox Twenty are starting to break into the digital world, following bands like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead.
It really makes me wonder when the record industry will understand their users. Most technology journalists speak of the industry ‘not getting it’, but I think they do, but are completely lost in how to satisfy their market and their tastes in this world of the internet and portable music devices, among other technologies. I only pay for music I actually really enjoy and the stuff I don’t enjoy I simply just don’t purchase from iTunes or buy from a record store. Besides, music sounds horrible compared to what it used to be.
I hope Adam and Jared at tune-out lead a successful campaign. It will be great to see the real message displayed, rather than one that revolves around blaming consumers.
-james
Daily Photo #2
May 3rd, 2008Today, most of my time was (and will be) spent traveling in a car between my brothers 18th Birthday lunch and a friend from Uni’s 21st this evening.
I took this photo as I was thinking about some code I was writing while sitting in the back of my grandparents car traveling down the F3 Freeway between Newcastle and Sydney.
-james
New idea: (near) Daily Photo
May 2nd, 2008So, it seems these days I have a lot of time to do things when I’m at work, but often by 5pm on a Friday afternoon, with still an hour to go, I’ve ran out of ideas. I thought I’d try and take a photo almost daily that best reflects my activities for the majority of the day using PhotoBooth — just to be quick and easy.
Today’s photo features me at work with one of the two OLPCs that the UTS Programmers Society took reciept of on Tuesday night. It’s quite a nifty little machine. Sometimes a bit slow and unresponsive, but for a cheap laptop it’s perfect!
- james
Techtrum - A new podcast
March 31st, 2008Just a short one today.
My mate from Uni, Simon, and I have started a podcast titled Techtrum. We’re aiming to cater to the Australian tech community — covering some international, but mainly local news. We’ve got some good feedback so far — and I’m still working on getting the audio quality higher.
I’d love you all to check it out and let me know what you think! www.techtrum.net
Also, there’s an Australian TWiT meetup with Leo Laporte tomorrow (1st April) at the Starbucks Sydney Airport, Domestic Terminal at 11am. I’ll most likely be there, so come and meet my self, other members of the TWiT Army and Leo!
Cheers!
-james
Yahoo! Live
February 18th, 2008Starting today, you can watch happenings of my life on Yahoo! Live at http://live.yahoo.com/jameskirsop. I’ll be broadcasting live (bandwidth permitting) from UTS Orientation/Clubs day this Wednesday, 20th Feb, so make sure you tune in to watch this social experiment.
Live (not to be confused with Microsoft’s Live service), seems pretty interesting - but isn’t really new. Other startups have been doing this for a while, but Yahoo seems to be the first major tech player to be doing anything about live video blogging.
The Y! Live blog gave a pretty good explanation of what they’re trying to do for broadcasters, viewers and developers on their blog.
You’ll see me intermittently broadcast from home — my connection isn’t fabulous here, but it might make some interesting viewing from time to time.
-james