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Sometimes people say awesome stuff, and it needs no further explanation.

And in other news, I’m smarter ’cause I was first

Apr 15, ’08 8:38 AM

Seriously, science says first-borns are smarter:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, April 12 (UPI) — First-born children usually are smarter than their siblings, a Dutch study indicates.

A study of 1,000 children whose IQs were monitored from the time they were adolescents until they were 18, suggests that siblings’ IQs are influenced by the order they are born, The Times of London reported.

The study, which appeared this week in the journal “Intelligence,” revealed that older siblings had higher IQs in a majority of cases.

This study reportedly is the most recent to indicate that children’s birth orders may strongly influence significant human characteristics, such as cancer risks, asthma, weight and even life span.

Scientists have also suggested birth order could affect which hand a child uses to write, sexual orientation and the number of people someone has sex with throughout their life.

(Via United Press International)

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Warner Music Group: Profit & Loss

Nov 29, ’07 9:00 PM

warner-logo.jpg

Seems that Warner didn’t do too well money-wise this fiscal year. According to an article at Mashable!, it seems they did $5 million in profit out of $869 million in revenue. Seems they’re finally feeling the pinch from going to war against their consumers. As quoted in the article:

The RIAA and the lesser known but similar IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) receive funding primarily from EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal. Estimates put the combined funding at an approximate $132.48 million a year. Sony and Universal haven’t been recently vocal about their feelings on the RIAA, but Time Warner CEO Egar Bronfman recently confessed that ‘We were wrong to go to war with consumers.’

The article at Mashable goes on to compare these profits to Radiohead’s recent “pay if you want to” bit with their latest album, saying:

That’s right, even by the most critical of earnings estimates, Radiohead made between half as much to as high as twice as much as the entire Warner label made in profit this year.

When you can make more money giving music away, do you think that perhaps it is time for a new strategy, Bronfman?

(Via PaidContent by way of Mashable!)

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Way to go Congress

Nov 15, ’07 11:33 PM

Universities to Enforce Copyright Protection or Else:

The US House of Representatives has gone a step further in helping the helpless RIAA and MPAA in defending themselves from the monstrous and looming threat of college students with P2P clients. For a while there, I was worried that mom and pop entertainment companies would no longer be able to afford the salaries of those that produce the entertainment for us consumers, but lucky for us Congress is on the job.

In the House Education and Labor Committee’s comprehensive College Opportunity and Affordability Act, there is a small section dictating that any university in receipt of federal funding shall act as an enforcement agents for the stoppage of unlawful downloading. The committee unanimously approved the bill today.

This comes hot on the heels of Warner head’s apology for going to war with its customers, but perhaps he forgot to remind his lobbyists that his customers include kids in college. No matter, though; defunding American higher education is a small price to pay to ensure we remain entertained.

[via ZDnet — courtesy of Mashable]

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Andy Ihnatko: What’s Leopard Really Worth?

Oct 28, ’07 11:57 PM

It seems I’m merely relaying some other blog posts, but damn, this one is just too funny. Ihnatko’s humor is spot-on, and I like his analysis of how Leopard is about all the little things bundled together, as opposed to one single “killer app.”

Andy Ihnatko: What’s Leopard Really Worth?

I think the way to sum up the correct level of anticipation for Leopard is to compare it to a movie that stars Gene Hackman or Michael Caine. You know that it’s going to be worthwhile… but the coin’s in the air as to whether it’s worth seeing right away.

And my favorite quote:

And now we have the de-wussification of Mail. Mail was once a candy-apple red Mazda Miata. Now it’s a Ford pickup with a gun rack and a rear-window decal of a cartoon Calvin peeing all over the Microsoft Entourage icon.

(Via Daring Fireball ‘★’.)

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As if we needed more proof…

Oct 15, ’07 5:23 PM

I’m not gonna claim that last.fm is the end-all be-all of song playcounts, but it’s one of the biggest sites like it out there, so this is pretty accurate I’d say.

Spot the difference:

What a week. From the moment Radiohead announced their plans for latest release ‘In Rainbows’ we’ve been itching to see how you, the listeners, would respond. We let our friends over at Drowned In Sound in on some early data after just 12 hours. Now that our weekly charts are compiled there’s not much else to say apart from ‘Wowzer’. Below you can see the Last.fm global tracks chart for last week, and below that the official UK downloads chart for the same period. Spot the difference?

Last.fm global tracks chart - Week Ending Oct 14
Last.fm global tracks chart for week ending October 14th

Official UK Downloads chart - Week Starting Oct 15
Official UK downloads chart — Week Starting October 15th

(Via Last.fm – the Blog.)

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All pop songs sound the same

Oct 5, ’07 1:17 PM

Seriously, rigid song structures in pop, as demonstrated by Linkin Park:

Linkin Park’s singles often inspire the question “haven’t they already written this song?” An mp3 that does the rounds from time to time mixes Numb (on the left) and Pushing Me Away (on the right) to illustrate this with almost comical effect: All Linkin Park Songs Sound Exactly The Same.

As shown below, and forgive the hyperbole, much more than they sound the same all Linkin Park songs look the same. And while it’s easy to criticize the band for their overuse of a formula that’s by now cliché, the similarity between their tracks at least holds a lesson on the importance of song arrangement in pop music production.

Each image above shows the audio level in (roughly) the first 90 seconds of a Linkin Park song. The tempo has been adjusted for a few tracks for better visual alignment.

Kinda ridiculous. And that, my friends, is why so many songs on the radio sound the same. Formulaic structure & composition.

(Via Hometracked)

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New William Gibson book

Aug 27, ’07 6:57 PM

So I’m a big fan of *Neuromancer*, the original cyberpunk novel, so this story on Macintosh Journal caught my eye: Ghosts in the Machine

William Gibson, author of Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive and Virtual Light, among several other books, is back with Spook Country.

The book rotates among the perspectives of three characters…

(Via The Macintosh Journal.)

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