I’ve had this article on draft since the Instagram TOS debacle, but I didn’t finish writing it because of reasons. Life got busy and I lost the timing.

Anyway, the crux of it remains relevant. I won’t get into the whole “if you don’t pay for a service, you’re the product” thing since it’s been done to hell, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

So, I decided to move from Instagram back to Flickr when the TOS “controversy” was at its height. I didn’t have that many photos or thought they were good enough to be used in ads, but I was a bit pissed off when Instagram decided to pull out Twitter integration about one month before that.

I had reached the 200-picture limit on my free account a long time ago, but there I had a service that did way more, where I could store full-resolution photos, create sets, use proper geolocation and, on top of everything else, had proper social network integration. A Flickr Pro account costs 25 bucks a year, a very fair price for a full-featured ad-free cloud photo storage service.

Please let me pay for stuff

It’s a known fact that paying for a service makes it more serious. Paying legitimizes a commercial relationship; it gives you leverage when you have a complaint, it creates a proper binding contract where you have a say about the services you’re using. When you use a service for free, the company can always come back at you and say “I was being generous, you ungrateful bastard”.

A good example is Posterous. I’ve used it for a long time to post pictures and short text posts via email when I didn’t have a decent smartphone. Twitter bought them and now the service is being discontinued. They offered an easy way to download everything as a working website (which I’ve uploaded here), but it doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t exist anymore. If I want to post via email, I’ll have to look elsewhere.

Unfortunately, not all “free” services have decent paid options. The biggest example is possibly Google. While I can buy extra storage for Gmail, that doesn’t really constitute a proper paid account. Yes, I can sign up for Google Apps, but that’s way more than most people need and still lacks integration with a few services (Youtube, for example). What if I don’t have (or don’t want to use) a domain? Would it be so hard to offer a Google Premium account?

I have a non-Google email that I use for serious stuff precisely to have an “exit strategy” if Google ever decides to pull the plug on Gmail. Don’t think it can’t happen - remember that Google Reader had a loyal following, and was killed anyway.

So please internet, take my money. Use it to remove those annoying ads and create great services for users, not shareholders.

You’ve been there. Maybe you’re listening to your favourite song on Rdio, or maybe checking your Soundcloud stream. You reach for the play/pause key on your keyboard and BAM, motherfucking iTunes comes up. Don’t you hate that? I do.

Luckily, there’s a way to fix it. Open your terminal and type:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

Voilà, iTunes no longer responds to the media keys. The only downside is that now iTunes doesn’t respond to the media keys at all. I couldn’t care less, but if you’re a crazy person who actually likes iTunes (poor you!), you can reattach the keys at any time with:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

One could conceivably run the detach script at login and write a small AppleScript launcher to reattach the keys and then launch iTunes. I’ll leave this as an exercise to the reader.

In case you’re one of my 17 readers, you probably noticed the site’s design has changed recently. This is because we’re not running on Wordpress anymore, but on sub-atomic quantum entaglement engines Octopress!

But what exactly does that mean for you? Well, the site will load much faster, for one. It’s also very resilient against l33t h4x0rz, which is always a good thing.

For me it means I don’t have to worry too much about my site going down if I’m ever featured on HackerNews or Reddit, since there’s no interpreter between the files and what you see. Instead of being a dynamic blogging engine that reads databases and process templates on the fly, Octopress generates all necessary files before uploading them. All the webserver has to do is spit data in your general direction (and it does that really fast).

I also took the time to clean up the blog a bit; all photo-posts were removed, since I already had a copy of those on Posterous. This has left only posts with “actual content” (mandatory quotes, I fear), which should serve as an incentive for me to stop being lazy and write more.

And what will I write about? Well, taking from my older stuff, I’d say music, programming and random ramblings - In other words, a regular blog. A more focused portolio-like website will come soon, and I’ll probably comment on its development around here.

I know this sounds a bit like a new-year’s resolution thing (and I know what usually happens to those), but I missed having an honest, real blog instead of scattered posts on assorted social networking sites. Not that I’m abandoning them, but instead of linking to other people’s stuff, it’s high time I go back to making stuff other people would want to link to.

Oh, and before I forget: happy multi-denominational food and gifts holiday!

Enough said. This is where I ultimately wanted to go with Gerador Zero. I hope I can find the right people to do something like this!

This is happening! I finally put together a No Step live thing, and Fountain is the perfect place to try this out. I have no idea how it will turn out in the end, but THAT’S THE FUN OF IT!

See you there!

What the video said.

I used to get really pissed off when I heard people talking about how vinyl sounds better than digital recordings, independently of physical support (CDs, SACDs, audio files and so on). I won’t get into this matter in depth here; suffice to say, there is a mountain of technical evidence proving otherwise. If you want the most accurate reproduction, digital is the way to go. This is such an irrefutable fact that even if you buy the latest album from your favorite band on vinyl to enjoy that good ol’ analog sound, all the recording, mixing and mastering was certainly done using computers, plugins and ProTools.

Digital won, hands down. Deal with it.

So why are people still buying vinyl? Why go for such an ancient, impractical and mostly retired medium?

Besides the physical fetish - the album art really shines with more space, doesn’t it? - I only realized the real reason a few weeks ago, after Andrew Huang (of Songs To Wear Pants To and Team Andrew) replied me on twitter.

How could I have missed this? It’s not about the medium, but the act of listening to music. It took me a while to figure this out because I’m relatively old (36, thakyouverymuch).

You see, I grew up in an era when everybody had at least a half-decent stereo at home. I remember when CDs came out and everybody bought them, bragging about how the sound was amazingly clear, that you didn’t have to flip the damn thing to hear the B-side, that you could program the track order without having to drop the needle (causing that loud POP when you didn’t lay it down just right), and that scratches and crackling noises were a thing of the past. Yes, CDs were once the format praised by audiophiles! It’s funny how things change.

Anyway, fast-forward to 2012 and everybody consumes music in some sort of digital format. But where do you listen to it?

Crappy laptop speakers. Cheap headphones.

And when?

On the way to work, in a crowded subway or bus. During office hours, while thinking about something else. While you’re jogging, with an iPod or cellphone strapped to your arm.

So, again, why vinyl?

Because you’ll need a half-decent stereo to listen to it. Because you’ll have to stop what you’re doing, walk to the turntable, remove that big round thing from the sleeve and place the needle carefully. Because once you do that, you can’t really change the order of the songs easily without having to get up again.

Because you’ll have to STOP and LISTEN. Vinyl demands attention. It needs manual intervention. It comes with a long-forgotten ritual that a whole new generation is beginning to understand and appreciate.

Nevermind that it doesn’t sound as accurate as a digital recording, that you’ll need to replace the needle regularly and the record itself will wear down and eventually begin to crackle and pop. Years from now, when all music in the world fits into a super-dense nano-SD card, it will still make you stop and listen.

Vinyl carves a slice of attention span, pushing music back to the foreground - just like before iPods and computers slowly shoved and blended it with background noise, a collateral victim of multitasking. Since nobody came up with a technology with a built-in excuse to stop for a moment and enjoy music, vinyl sneakily stole back its place. Sweet karma.

The one where I say “basically” a lot and make a few announcements.

I’m rereading KLF’s The Manual and after all these years it’s still pure genius. Technology has come a long way and most chapters about booking studios and distribution are quite outdated, but the main ideas about music and how to put out a successful single are sound. Take for instance the Golden Rules:

Firstly, it has to have a dance groove that will run all the way through the record and that the current 7” buying generation will find irresistible. Secondly, it must be no longer than three minutes and thirty seconds (just under 3’20 is preferable). If they are any longer Radio One daytime DJs will start fading early or talking over the end, when the chorus is finally being hammered home - the most important part of any record. Thirdly, it must consist of an intro, a verse, a chorus, second verse, a second chorus, a breakdown section, back into a double length chorus and outro. Fourthly, lyrics. You will need some, but not many.

While nobody really cares too much about radio these days, successful pop songs follow those rules to the letter. Just look at the past #1 hits; it’s all there. Also, on originality:

It is going to be a construction job, fitting bits together. You will have to find the Frankenstein in you to make it work. Your magpie instincts must come to the fore. If you think this just sounds like a recipe for some horrific monster, be reassured by us, all music can only be the sum or part total of what has gone before. Every Number One song ever written is only made up from bits from other songs. There is no lost chord. No changes untried. No extra notes to the scale or hidden beats to the bar. There is no point in searching for originality. In the past, most writers of songs spent months in their lonely rooms strumming their guitars or bands in rehearsals have ground their way through endless riffs before arriving at the song that takes them to the very top. Of course, most of them would be mortally upset to be told that all they were doing was leaving it to chance before they stumbled across the tried and tested. They have to believe it is through this sojourn they arrive at the grail; the great and original song that the world will be unable to resist.

So why don’t all songs sound the same? Why are some artists great, write dozens of classics that move you to tears, say it like it’s never been said before, make you laugh, dance, blow your mind, fall in love, take to the streets and riot? Well, it’s because although the chords, notes, harmonies, beats and words have all been used before their own soul shines through; their personality demands attention. This doesn’t just come via the great vocalist or virtuoso instrumentalist. The Techno sound of Detroit, the most totally linear programmed music ever, lacking any human musicianship in its execution reeks of sweat, sex and desire. The creators of that music just press a few buttons and out comes - a million years of pain and lust.

We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance record that consists of nothing more than an electronically programmed bass drum beat that continues playing the fours monotonously for eight minutes. Then, when somebody else brings one out using exactly the same bass drum sound and at the same beats per minute (B.P.M.), we will all be able to tell which is the best, which inspires the dance floor to fill the fastest, which has the most sex and the most soul. There is no doubt, one will be better than the other. What we are basically saying is, if you have anything in you, anything unique, what others might term as originality, it will come through whatever the component parts used in your future Number One are made up from.

The Manual is not only a timeless classic, it’s been proven to work numerous times. The Pipettes used it. Also Chumbawamba and The Klaxons, and many more who won’t admit it. It’s true that anyone who uses it will make disposable pop music, but what’s a #1 hit but precisely that?

The full text of The Manual can be found online in a few places, and since it’s been out of print for so long, nobody cares about the piracy (heck, the KLF would probably be for it). Just go out there and grab it.

And it’s a weird one. The main sound (right at the beginning) actually came from tweezers that I sampled and tuned. The whole thing is full of polyrhythms and it’s actually a waltz. Yep.

As always, you can buy it at nostep.ca (name your price! give me money!).