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Topics - zzzone.net

Pages: 1 [2]
21
Everything and Nothing / Roomful of vinyl reduced to a hard drive
« on: November 22, 2009, 11:44:04 AM »
I moved into my first home in 1998. 

I had a huge vinyl record collection which I had collected from 1976 onwards, consisting of approximately 15,000 units.

Unfortunately the room that held my vinyl records was inundated by flood water from Katrina in 2005.  I was heartbroken (although I did get a huge tax write-off for uninsured losses).  Also when I moved to my current home, I didn't have to move and store the roomful of vinyl (a huge heavy task)

Over the past year I have been ripping and downloading music files for my music server.

By my estimates, I now have 2-3 times as much music as I had in the roomful of vinyl on a single 2 terrabyte external USB drive.

Somehow in 1998, I never thought that the roomful of vinyl could be reduced to the size of a book.  This makes backup possible and future loss much less likely.  Also, moving this amount of music is effortless.

Technology is still surprising to me.

22
Everything and Nothing / The Public Option
« on: September 07, 2009, 05:39:14 AM »
http://www.StandwithDrDean.com

As a physician practicing public health for the last 22 years, I have seen countless folks who have lost their lives or health, and prosperity due to

1.  pre-existing illness
2.  losing their job
3.  inadequate coverage via their insurance
4.  and, of course, not being able to afford insurance.

A government-managed option like Medicare, Medicaid, or Veterans Administration benefits is very, very important in the new healthcare plan.

Please don't let the proponents of scare tactics and misinformation win this one and deprive Americans of a government option for insurance.

Remember the insurance and pharmaceutical industry are heavily funding the hatchet job on the public option.  The reason is, of course, money.

There are no death panels, no threats to existing programs, no loss of choice of physician, and no rationing of healthcare.

Sign the petition and consider a contribution to the effort.  As you know, I never, ever send out solicitation emails, but I feel like this is a critical time for a crucial issue with which I am all too familiar.

http://www.StandwithDrDean.com

If you have any questions, let me know.

Please consider asking your friends to sign the petition also.

Happy Labor Day.

Jim Zachary MD

23
Everything and Nothing / Photo Thread
« on: May 24, 2009, 02:35:05 PM »
Hey.

Almost everyone has digital cameras and some sort of way of posting their pix (Flickr, Picasa, etc.)

I would really like to vew some pictures that you talented and not-so-talented guys are taking.

Here's some of my amateur ones to get it started:

http://zzzone.net/gallery/

Jim
Austin TX

24
Everything and Nothing / last.fm
« on: May 10, 2009, 06:56:44 AM »
I have recently discovered last.fm.

I'm not much of a social networker, but I like the idea of being able to set up a playlist which then generates a "radio station" that then plays to my tastes.

Whenever I play my Squeezebox, the information is fed to last.fm.  Additionally I can play my last.fm radio station via my Squeezebox.

I'm curious how last.fm gets the rights to artists' stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm

Very cool.

http://www.last.fm/user/zzzoneDOTnet

or

http://zzzone.net/lastfm.html

Anyone else have a page?

25
Everything and Nothing / Lossless .flac vs CD
« on: April 13, 2009, 06:24:30 PM »
As many of you are aware from a previous thread, I'm converting all my music from CD to .flac files for a home server.

http://flac.sourceforge.net

How do the readers of this forum that include artists, label owners and fans feel about digital downloads of lossless files such as .flac?

I see that Robert Rich and several other ambient artists have some of their music at MusicZeit.com.

http://www.musiczeit.com

As I see it the listener gets the music without any sonic loss nearly instantly after the purchase, and the artist and label don't have to worry about shipping around a physical product if they don't want to.

And if you don't have a home system that plays .flac, you can just burn to one of my favorite pieces of media: the CD-R.

There are likely other positives and some negatives but I'll leave those to you.

Jim

26
Everything and Nothing / "I am NOT a number"
« on: January 15, 2009, 05:26:34 AM »
RIP Patrick McGoohan

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99355656



If you want to watch entire episodes:

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-1960s-series/

27
Everything and Nothing / Unknown Ambient CD-R
« on: January 03, 2009, 04:25:50 PM »
I just found a CD-R in a plain white envelope.  There are no identifying markings on the CD-R.

The envelope is marked with "INS. g" on the back with a pen.

There are 4 tracks.

1.  0:30 - seems totally silent
2.  30:36 - lovely drone with some superimposed echoes and field recordings
3.  29:29 - a lower pitched drone
4.  15:13 - another slowly changing drone

Sorry, I'm not very good with these descriptions.

I tried using all the databases (AMG, FreeDB, MusicBrainz, GraceNote, etc.) and there were no matches.

I can send post some MP3s if anyone wants to try to figure it out.

Thanks.

Addendum:  I am uploading some .mp3 versions and will post links when they are up.

28
Everything and Nothing / CD Artwork and Packaging
« on: November 28, 2008, 11:02:48 AM »
In this day of digital downloads, I still prefer the CD.  I like vinyl records, too.

The packaging is a definite plus, but it does take a tremendous amount of space (for my collection.)

I would like to nominate the Faria Records label as having some of the best packaging:

http://www.faria.ru/releases/releases_engl.htm

Each release includes a LOT of artwork.

And the music is excellent too IMHO.

I'm ripping the Robert Rich & Faryus release "Zerkalo" for my music server as I type this message.

http://www.faria.ru/releases/releases_22_engl.htm

What other packaging has caught your attention lately?

Jim
http://zzzone.net

np: World Domination Enterprises (with samples from Dr. Who)


29
Everything and Nothing / CD-R Deterioration
« on: November 23, 2008, 02:08:37 PM »
Hi ya'll.

I have this ridiculously large collection of music on CD that I am ripping to .flac files for my music server.

As the title says, I have run across at least 2 CD-Rs by ambient musicians that have deteriorated to the point of being unreadable by all the drives I have (4 CD players, 5 DVD-RWs, etc).

Why do I bring this up?

There are a lot of musicians using CD-R now and hopefully those discs will retain the beautiful music as they should...or will they?

One of my bad discs has been replaced by the musician.  The other disc is apparently not replaceable as the disc is out of print (Michael J Harris: Blind Cinema).  If anyone can give or sell me a copy of the latter I would appreciate it.  I can email you a picture of me holding the disc and cover for proof.

Anyway, musicians should consider shying away from releasing their "timeless" ambient music on CD-Rs that appear to be timed to deteriorate.  :-\

Happy Holidays, ya'll.

Jim
http://zzzone.net

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