One of the better summations of the major pro file-sharing arguments in the music file-sharing discussion. It seems to cover up most of them in a really humoristic and concise matter. Quite awesome indeed =)
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When you begin to study at a Swedish college (at least every technical college) you are assigned to a group of like 10 people with 2-3 people as coordinators. These coordinators are supposed to help you through your first couple of weeks of school, show you where everything is, how stuff works and stuff like that. I think my coordinators did a very good job, though I didn’t get to know them very well.
I just noticed on Facebook though that one of my coordinators has started studying in Tokyo. Reading his blog I get extremely home-sick. I want to go back there and I just want to be there! I want to eat lunch at Design Festa, I want to go to Akiba to look at figures and check out new cameras, I just want to do all the stuff, I just want to be home.
I’m meeting with the international department (the department handling exchange programs) on the 30th, but it seems I misunderstood what the double-exam thing I talked earlier about really was. The information is really unclear, everything you can find online and in brochures indicates you take your masters degree there, but when I spoke to the head of the international department on the phone, she said the program was to extend your education by 2 years to take another masters degree – something I’m not very keen on.
Maybe I can get into one of the programs that my coordinator got into. Maybe I can survive here for 2.5 more years and then get a job there. Maybe.
You can read more in depth about what it is here. But essentially it’s a very complex shape that slowly rolls from different sides until it has come to it’s point of equilibrium. This supposedly takes a while, though I don’t know how long. So basically it’s something utterly lifeless that is supposed to be moving around on your desk for a while.
It’s really quite useless, but it’s a really cool shape and it’s shiny and pretty. Costs $149 for the cheapest model though – a 1kg heavy aluminum version. Check out the store here. There are models in plexiglass and brass too, but they’re quite much more expensive.
For the first time in probably 10 or 15 years I have bought an album. As you can probably see in the “Senaste musiken” (I should probably translate these things to english :P) feed out to the right here on the blog I have listened to it a lot. The best song is definitely “Empire State of Mind” featuring Alicia Keys. And if you don’t know it already the main artist of the album is Jay-Z. By far the coolest guy in the music industry, a true business-man (but not in a 50 cent kind of way) and is one of the most respectable men I know of.
Anyway, the record cost 90 SEK on iTunes, which is like $13 or €9. Why did I buy it and not just download it?
Well because of two things really. I hate to admit it, but honestly, one of the reasons I bought it is because of the inaccessibility of a good site to download quality in original releases. One of those sites was what.cd, but I was (unjustly) banned from that site and I haven’t had the energy to get another account or try to find another site.
Part of this being the reason is also that I’m getting lazier as I get older and get more other shit to worry about. When I switched to Mac i stopped worrying about hardware altogether, sure – a Mac costs a bit more, but you don’t have to worry about anything ever again. It’s worth the money to not have to worry and to just have everything served up for you (It’s kind of like eating at a restaurant compared to cooking at home).
Right now I’m just in a place in my life where finding a good tracker and downloading the music (like 20-30 minutes of work) is just not worth the $13 that I will save.
I think this is something very general, young people with a lot of time on their hands will always pirate – and they should! That’s how the artists get famous, that’s how stuff get around. How many good designers would we have today if every kid had to pay $4000 for Photoshop or whatever insane amount it costs?
But as people get money and less time it’s natural that they start paying for things. This is how I think it has always been and I think this is how it will always be.
The second part of me buying it is that I know Jay-Z owns his own record-company. Which means the money actually does go to him. Give me an opportunity to pay the artist and not the leeching record company and I will pay every time! And on top of that, it’s $13.. the prices of record are actually getting quite reasonable and it’s not like this is going to ruin me.
Recently I’ve been reading more than usually. I think mostly because I’ve gotten some good tips on books I actually like. I really like Haruki Murakami and I’m going to read Norwegian Wood as my next book.
When I was in Japan though I picked up a book that whose title is “100 books for Understanding Contemporary Japan”. I looked through this in Japan and picked out a list of the ones I actually wanted to read and after seeing that Dex had bought one of the books that was on my list I thought I’d post the list here! Since I haven’t read any of them, I’ll just post the title with an image and description from Amazon.
Constructing Civil Society in Japan: Voices of Environmental Movements
Writing in the tradition of Japanese environmental sociology, which emphasizes fieldwork and case studies, Hasegawa (sociology, Tohoku U., Sendai, Japan) reviews the environmental movements in contemporary Japan and the new public sphere as the vibrant civil society that the movement supports. Among his topics are motivating and mobilizing the movements, anti-pollution lawsuits, regional referendums, the dynamics of social movements and official policies as exemplified in green electricity, and transforming the Citizens’ Sector. He also sets out the principles and issues of environmental sociology.
Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism
Japan Remodeled is an important book. Japan’s economic system is undergoing major transformation exacerbated by 15 years of malaise. Steven Vogel provides a sophisticated, careful, rather cautionary analysis of Japan’s processes and patterns of public policy reform and corporate restructuring. He cogently argues Japan’s capitalism is being reshaped partially toward a liberal market system, but with distinctive institutions and values persisting.
Media and Politics in Japan
A collection of essays which examine the influence of media in Japan. These essays discuss the media’s influence in politics and public opinion, to name a few.
British Factory–Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations
The Japanese way of work is notoriously ‘different.’ But is it Japan or Britain which is the odd man out? This is the first book to explore the real differences, not by contrasting Japanese employment relations with a hazy ideal image of ‘the West,” but through a point-by-point comparison of two Japanese factories with two British ones making similar products.
Evolution of Manufacturing Systems at Toyota
This is much more than a book about Toyota or a book about manufacturing….The book contains important contributions to the theory and practice of organizational learning that will be equally interesting to the practitioner and the academic.
Japan in the 21st Century: Environment, Economy, and Society
The ancient civilization of Japan, with its Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, is also closely associated with all that is new and modern. Looking outward, Japan sees what it has become since Hiroshima: the world’s second-largest economy, a source of fury and wonder, a power without arms. Looking inward, Japan sees old ways shaken and new ones developing at a hectic pace. Japan in the Twenty-first Century offers compelling insights into the current realities of the country and investigates the crucial political, economic, demographic, and environmental challenges that face the nation.
Note: This one seems almost the most interesting and informative.
Bushido: The Soul of Japan
Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution.
Japanese Science: From the Inside
Samuel Coleman provides a profound and insightful critique of scientific organizations in Japan. The book is based on extensive fieldwork in a number of bioscience-related laboratories and research institutes. And, most importantly, rather than rushing towards his own judgements, Coleman provides ample space for the views and voices of Japanese researchers themselves.
Japan’s High Schools
Looks at five high schools in Japan, analyzes their organization, politics, and instruction techniques, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese educational system.
Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle, Updated Edition: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation
This new edition of the groundbreaking popular book is a must-have for both seasoned and new fans of anime. Japanese animation is more popular than ever following the 2002 Academy Award given to Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. It confirmed that anime is more than just children’s cartoons, often portraying important social and cultural themes. With new chapters on Spirited Away and other recent releases, including Howl’s Moving Castle–Miyazaki’s latest hit film, already breaking records in Japan–this edition will be the authoritative source on anime for an exploding market of viewers who want to know more.
Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga
As Schodt points out, in the 13 years between publication of his 1983 Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, and this volume, American consciousness of manga, Japanese comics, and its animation offshoot, anime, has grown considerably. The collective American eyebrow may still rise quizzically at the enormous popularity of comic books in Japan, where they are accorded nearly the same social status as novels and film, but the narrative strips, with their characteristic big-eyed characters, are increasingly popular in this country. The informally encyclopedic Dreamland Japan, the result of Schodt’s 16-plus years of studying manga, not only makes it easier to understand the art form but also says a good deal about Japanese culture.
And last but not least, the book that Dex had bought, which seems really cool:
The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan
Otaku: Nerd; geek or fanboy. Originates from a polite second-person pronoun meaning “your home” in Japanese. Since the 1980s it’s been used to refer to people who are really into Japanese pop-culture, such as anime, manga, and videogames. A whole generation, previously marginalized with labels such as geek and nerd, are now calling themselves otaku with pride.
