From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V7 #400 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, October 23 1998 Volume 07 : Number 400 Today's Subjects: ----------------- time to start streamin'... [Bayard ] Re: Hairy Armpits [Martin_Bell@idg.co.nz] Re: time to start streamin'... [Capuchin ] Re: time to start streamin'... [Tom Clark ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V7 #398 [edoxtato@ssax.com] Re: time to start streamin'... [lobstie@e-z.net] Re: time to start streamin'... [Tom Clark ] Re: time to start streamin'... [Capuchin ] Re: time to start streamin'... [Capuchin ] New REM - really short review [MARKEEFE@aol.com] Re: Posse/Whistle test [Michael R Godwin ] Cinerama/Wedding Present follow up [Ken Sabatini ] Re: riffology (7% RH) [Michael R Godwin ] Re: riffology (7% RH) [Michael R Godwin ] Re: Favorite John Paul Jones keyboard solos [Michael R Godwin ] The Onion [griffith ] More post-show indulgencies [Eb ] Re: More post-show indulgencies [MARKEEFE@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:38:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Bayard Subject: time to start streamin'... Anybody messed with streaming audio and/or video? I have tons of robynstuff to put online, and 8 gigs of space to do it... which reminds me - what about a digital trade server? i could do an ftp site... a cd-size WAV file would ONLY be about 400 megs zipped, no? the office next to mine has a dragon-and-skull fountain that spurts blood. I love this holiday! time to start screamin, =b ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:15:01 +1200 From: Martin_Bell@idg.co.nz Subject: Re: Hairy Armpits Well, I was doing my best to ignore this thread, but I could resist no longer. And anyway, three replies from the kiwi fegs makes for a more representative response to the original question. James, communicating through crippling pain, said >I'd guess the ratio's about a 5-1 ratio to the shaven, with the prportion >pro-shave rising as you go upmarket in the bigger cities (by this I mean >women in the higher incme brackets - you wouldn't find many corporate exec >women with hairy armpits, I wouldn't think). Certainly at University level >though the proportions would be getting lower, and it may drop to 50-50 in >some of the more rural areas ike the South Island West Coast (universally >known simply as "The Coast", as if there wasn't one anywhere else in the >country) and the NE North Island. Here in Dunedin the ratio would probably >be about 3-1 I'd say James gets it pretty much right here, although how he actually went about researching this is a slight cause for concern. With summer arriving here in the Southern hemisphere and billowy, loose fitting blouses becoming more prevalent, it's possible that I may begin my own research project. My experience to date on the matter is that the ratios suggested by James do not differ here in Auckland (NZ's largest city and home of Lucy Lawless). The only further point I would add to the debate is that I once read an interview with Iggy Pop, in which he said that one of his biggest turn-ons was licking the sweat out of a womans hairy armpit. I have not felt compelled to try this yet. Martin (Who has a vision of James punching his disfigured claw into the air as Otago demolish Waikato in tomorrows NPC grand final). PS (Personal Starfucking moment). I interviewed Michael Stipe last weekend for a local music mag. If anyone's interested in an e-mailed copy of the unexpurgated interview, which will be appearing in edited form in the November 'Real Groove' (if they had a web site, I'd direct you there), just e-mail me. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:06:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Bayard wrote: > Anybody messed with streaming audio and/or video? I have tons of > robynstuff to put online, and 8 gigs of space to do it... which reminds > me - what about a digital trade server? i could do an ftp site... a > cd-size WAV file would ONLY be about 400 megs zipped, no? Why use wav anyway? CDA uses aiff which is easy for most to decode and play. But even better, just use mp3. At the lower compression ratios, you lose so little data as to make it more or less impossible to tell the difference. And you're down to what? A meg a minute? Sheesh. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:30:32 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On 10/22/98 2:06 PM, Capuchin wrote: >On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Bayard wrote: >> Anybody messed with streaming audio and/or video? I have tons of >> robynstuff to put online, and 8 gigs of space to do it... which reminds >> me - what about a digital trade server? i could do an ftp site... a >> cd-size WAV file would ONLY be about 400 megs zipped, no? > >Why use wav anyway? CDA uses aiff which is easy for most to decode and >play. But even better, just use mp3. At the lower compression ratios, >you lose so little data as to make it more or less impossible to tell the >difference. And you're down to what? A meg a minute? Depends on what you want to do with the audio. Streaming? Use RealAudio or QuickTime3. Download/Save? Use AIFF (for people with sufficient bandwidth who might want to press CD's) or MP3 (for low bandwidth downloads). - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:45:00 -0500 From: edoxtato@ssax.com Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V7 #398 Quail wrote: >(Unless you steep your gonads in pure liquid LSD for >a few days, probably while drinking a Tab.) Well, there goes MY birthday celebration for next year. I suppose it's back to Old Oral Roberts University for me... - -Doc ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:55:55 -0700 (PDT) From: lobstie@e-z.net Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Tom Clark wrote: > Depends on what you want to do with the audio. > Streaming? Use RealAudio or QuickTime3. > Download/Save? Use AIFF (for people with sufficient bandwidth who might > want to press CD's) or MP3 (for low bandwidth downloads). > > -tc and you know, it really doesn't take that long to decode an .mp3 back to its original .aiff form. i've got an old 100mhz powermac that'll decode it fairly quickly. i have yet to get a straight answer on whether or not an .aiff sound file degrades if you encode it into an .mp3 and then later decode it back to an .aiff file, but from what my ears hear, it doesn't seem like there's any degradation. its like stuffing and unstuffing a file (or zipping and unzipping if you're a wintel user), isn't it? - -john ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:14:44 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On 10/22/98 3:55 PM, lobstie@e-z.net wrote: >i have yet to get a straight answer on whether or not an >.aiff sound file degrades if you encode it into an .mp3 and then later >decode it back to an .aiff file, but from what my ears hear, it doesn't >seem like there's any degradation. its like stuffing and unstuffing a file >(or zipping and unzipping if you're a wintel user), isn't it? In this case, "degrades" is subjective. MP3 is a psycho-acoustic lossy compression, like the compression used for MiniDisc. That is, the algorithm "throws away" the audio you are not likely to hear because it is masked by other parts of the track. So, you could make the analogy of AIFF->MP3->AIFF is similar to CD->MD->CD. StuffIt and ZIP are lossless compression - you don't lose any data. I'd rather download a Stuffed AIFF than an unStuffed MP3. gotta go get my ears lowered, - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:08:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... > On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Tom Clark wrote: > > Depends on what you want to do with the audio. > > Streaming? Use RealAudio or QuickTime3. > > Download/Save? Use AIFF (for people with sufficient bandwidth who might > > want to press CD's) or MP3 (for low bandwidth downloads). On Thu, 22 Oct 1998 lobstie@e-z.net wrote: > and you know, it really doesn't take that long to decode an .mp3 back to > its original .aiff form. i've got an old 100mhz powermac that'll decode it > fairly quickly. i have yet to get a straight answer on whether or not an > .aiff sound file degrades if you encode it into an .mp3 and then later > decode it back to an .aiff file, but from what my ears hear, it doesn't > seem like there's any degradation. its like stuffing and unstuffing a file > (or zipping and unzipping if you're a wintel user), isn't it? Not at all. MP3 is a lossy compression format. You do lose quality in the form of dynamic range and such. MP3 is not just a compression thing like ZIP where there is a very complex compression algorithm and all of the original data is stored in the ZIP file and extracted again unharmed. MP3 is for quick and easy download and play of files without need for interim decoding. It's not entirely ALL of the data you had before. However, it's so good, for listening purpose you can't tell the difference between a low compression MP3 and a reasonably sampled AIFF. Personally, I'm gonna get me one of them Diamond MP3 CDR players. Give me 650 minutes of music on a disc any day. If you're not mixing the stuff later and pitching it as CD quality, then you're cool. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 16:30:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Tom Clark wrote: > In this case, "degrades" is subjective. MP3 is a psycho-acoustic lossy > compression, like the compression used for MiniDisc. That is, the > algorithm "throws away" the audio you are not likely to hear because it > is masked by other parts of the track. So, you could make the analogy of > AIFF->MP3->AIFF is similar to CD->MD->CD. > StuffIt and ZIP are lossless compression - you don't lose any data. Bingo. > I'd rather download a Stuffed AIFF than an unStuffed MP3. But why is this? I mean, can you really hear the difference? It's so tiny and unhearable. It's not like you're breaking things down and removing individual acoustic tracks. I don't get it. It sounds like one of those awful JPG vs. GIF debates that flooded newsgroups six years ago. Blah. J. ________________________________________________________ J A Brelin Capuchin ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 20:35:52 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: New REM - really short review I'm giving it my second listen right now. I think I like it. I *definitely* like it more than either of the last two. The music is moving in a more thoughtful and laid-back direction. For a reference point, I'd say it sounds more like "How the West Was One" and less like "Crush With Eyeliner." And there are actually lyrics printed for EVERY SONG! Pretty weird. I haven't had a chance to really sit and just read the lyrics, but they seem okay. I wouldn't be surprised if it made my year-end Top 20. Top 10 would be pushing it, but it may grow on me (and it hasn't been a super-duper year for new releases, as far as I'm concerned). So, I'd give it a thumb's "Up" (if I were a punny Roger Ebert). Or a 13/20, if I were Eb (odd, isn't it, that Roger Ebert's name contains the word 'Eb'? I guess it's a grumpy critic type thang). - -------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:37:37 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Posse/Whistle test On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, dlang wrote: > The Robyn video I have from the Whistle test, does ANYONE know the date? They > play Higsons and Uncorrected personality traits, live from somewhere or other ..... > dave My guess is that it was broadcast in 1986 - but I have no idea where the performance was filmed - Mike G. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:14:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Ken Sabatini Subject: Cinerama/Wedding Present follow up Hello, I've got 2 weeks worth of unread digests in my in-box--been traveling too much lately to keep up. But I started with the most recent digest and this caught my eye: "Scott (Ferris) Thomas" shared: The wife and I are planning on going to the Halloween-night UConn gig. Ah, UConn--my undergraduate memories come rushing back. It was a perfect combination: The bucolic splendor of Storrs coupled with the nearby bustling city of Willimantic . . . ;) Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:09:42 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: time to start streamin'... On 10/22/98 4:30 PM, Capuchin wrote: >But why is this? I mean, can you really hear the difference? It's so >tiny and unhearable. It's not like you're breaking things down and >removing individual acoustic tracks. > >I don't get it. It sounds like one of those awful JPG vs. GIF debates >that flooded newsgroups six years ago. Or CD vs. MiniDisc, or MiniDisc vs. DCC, or CD vs. DCC, or DVD vs. LD, or CD vs. Vinyl, or Tastes Great vs. Less Filling, or Eddie In The Shower w/ Natalie vs. lj Creaming Her Jeans Over Liam Gallagher... Like I said, it's all subjective. - -tc Anybody else going to the Cracker show at the Fillmore tonight? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:24:37 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: riffology (7% RH) > Eddie writes: > << oh yeah. i also had a math question: what is the maximum number of > riffs that can be utilised, and, how many known riffs have been utilised > to date? is somebody keeping track of them? >> On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 MARKEEFE@aol.com wrote: > If you were limited to selecting from just one note (e.g., > you're "riffing" on a didjeridoo), there would be 65,536 possible riffs within > that one 4/4 measure of 16th notes . . . but that's also only if you're > playing nothing but 16th notes. [fascinating continuation of discussion snipped] It would be interesting to apply all those incomprehensible data compression algorithms to some well-known riffs. When I run a few selected riffs through the M R Godwin riff-crunching brain, they all come out sounding like: a) You really got me; or b) Smoke on the water; or c) Whole lotta love. Further research is being done on "Wishing Well" which seems to be an clever backwards melange of (b) and (c). Admittedly, the brain refused to handle "Fresh Garbage" because of the time signature, and it couldn't work out any way of fitting "I keep singing that same old song" by Heavy Jelly into the synapses because the riff goes on for so many bars. I have now formed a sub-committee to report back on "Better by you, better than me" by Spooky Tooth. Yer actual Hitchcock content: 'Kingdom of Love' certainly has a riff, though not a heavy one. 'Egyptian Cream' has a heavier riff. But are there many other Hitchcock compositions which are riff-based? I wouldn't count 'I'm only you' or 'Airscape' because they are more lick-based than riff-based. 'I am not me' is more power chords than riffs. 'Sometimes I wish I" is a rhythm rather than a riff. I guess that he has given up riffing with the demise of the Egyptians. - - Mike G. "Directing traffic in the street And your shoes were too big for your feet" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:44:43 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: riffology (7% RH) I have just run a few test riffs through the M R Godwin riff-crunching brain, and, fascinatingly, after a couple of passes through the hypothalamus, they have all come out as a) You really got me: or b) Smoke on the water; or c) Whole lotta love Analysis of 'Wishing Well' indicates that it is a clever backwards melange of (b) and (c). It would be interesting to apply some of those sound-crunching algorithms to see if these 'paleo-riffs' could be broken down even further... (I thought that AIFF! was a noise made by the Penguin when - KRRUNCH! - struck by Robin...) Unfortunately the brain used in these tests was unable to cope with 'Fresh Garbage' (because of the funny rhythm) or 'I keep singing that same old song' by Heavy Jelly, where the riff is so long that it clogged up half the synapses. A research sub-committee has been formed to report back on 'Better by you, better than me' by Spooky Tooth. Yer actual RH content: Hitchcock certainly uses a riff on 'Kingdom of Love' and a heavier one on 'Egyptian Cream'. 'I am not me' is more power chords than riff, and 'I'm only you' and 'Airscape' are more lick-based than riff-based. 'Sometimes I wish I' is just a rhythm, not a riff. My guess is that Robyn Hitchcock's riffing days ended with the demise of the Egyptians. - - Mike G. "Directing traffic in the street, and your shoes were too big for your feet" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:52:08 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: Favorite John Paul Jones keyboard solos On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Eb wrote: > David Greenberger is the guy responsible > for presenting Ernest Noyes Brookings to the world. If you don't know who > ENB is either, he was this weird old convalescent-home man (now dead) who > wrote these strangely stilted, descriptive poems. I believe there have been > *four* Brookings tribute compilations now (assembled by Greenberger), > including artists like (um....) Christmas, Young Fresh Fellows and Andy > Partridge (I think??). Keith Christmas, possibly? He's an English folk-blues guitar-player who lives (or used to live) around here, famed for his song 'Robin Head' which examined how large quantities of drugs might have affected Robin Hood and his (extremely) Merry Men. - - Mike G. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:56:45 +0100 (BST) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: Re: riffology (7% RH) Sorry if this came through twice in slightly different forms - technical trouble with the brain - MRG ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:12:48 -0700 (PDT) From: griffith Subject: The Onion Pulled this off the WB message board (which I looked at for the first time in months - no updates): ::Hi there. I will be interviewing Mr. Hitchcock for The Onion's :: AV Club section this Friday. I'm a long time fan, but ::I thought I'd pool the crowd for suggested questions. You can contact me at ::phipps@theonion.com It is probably too late to respond, but go ahead an try. griffith = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Griffith Davies hbrtv219@csun.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:55:34 -0700 From: Eb Subject: More post-show indulgencies Well, last night brought more D#-style "weirdness" and bad luck. Somebody needs to check my horoscope, because it must be black, black, black indeed right now. I had double plans last night. The legendary unreleased 1966 Dylan/Band film, Eat the Document, is playing in LA at the Museum of Radio & Television for about a month at very specific times (Thursday at 6 pm, Friday/Saturday/Sunday at 1 pm). Last night was the perfect chance to save myself a drive to LA and go to the Dylan film first, then the Cracker show at House of Blues. I've had almost this "jinx" about seeing Cracker live -- I've missed them every tour up until now, due to odd circumstances (last time, I actually showed up for the show the FOLLOWING NIGHT -- I've NEVER done that before...unbelievable). Anyway, the first crappy thing that happened is that I got a phone call right as I was heading out the door, and couldn't get away from it for about 10 minutes. Blah. I zoomed up to LA for the Dylan film, and got there late by the exact margin of that phone call. Grrrrrr. So no Dylan film -- I wasn't going to walk in late. Damn. Well, I'll have other chances to see it, but that was just SUCH the perfect time to see it.... So now I have time to kill, so I'm walking around Beverly Hills looking for somewhere to eat. Not easy, when you're walking past mega-elite restaurants like Spago, La Scala, etc. Heh. Finally, I find a spiffy little Mexican fast-food place. I ordered, sat down and was sipping my lemonade. Then something happened to me which hasn't happened to me since I was about six years old, if memory serves. Boy, talk about a longshot. What horrible curse hath befallen me, as of late? Let's make this a brainteaser -- can you guess what happened?? Perhaps whoever makes the closest guess can have my Vanilla Ice cd. ;) On top of that, I spilled my drink all over the floor about ten minutes later. Oof. Just call me Schleprock..."helloo everybuddy...." Anyway, kindly submit your guesses, either publicly or privately. ;) So, phooey. After that, I was soooo paranoid for the rest of the night. I was driving a borrowed car because my car's window hasn't been fixed yet, so I was hoping that no calamity would happen to THIS car. Luckily, the rest of the night went ok. I'm not a huge Cracker fan (I like Camper Van Beethoven far more, though Kerosene Hat was purty darn good) so I only had so much capacity to enjoy the show, but I'm sure this was as good as a Cracker concert could possibly be. The big news was that Joan Osborne and Adam Durwitz (Counting Crows) were onstage for like half the show, singing backup vocals and even doing a few leads. Two songs even included what I think was the entire Crows band, and one of these was supposedly the first public performance of a new song from their upcoming album. So, uh, yay? Now, I couldn't care less about these two artists, so I wasn't as thrilled with these cameos as other folks, but it did give the show sort of an "event" quality. So that was neat. And admittedly, Osborne does have an excellent voice, though I got real sick of her hip-shaking blues mama bit. As for the night's celebrity/starfucking tally, it was dire, indeed -- the best name I can come up with Johnny Galecki (late of the "Roseanne" show). Heh. Oh, and he was hanging with the guy who played the snoot on the cancelled "Boston Common" (yawn). HOWEVER, at the Comedy Store across the street from the club, the upcoming Jim Carrey/Andy Kaufman biopic was being shot all night. Huh. I didn't see Carrey in the short time I watched, but it looked like they were shooting a scene with his "double." The marquee on the club said "Tony Clifton Live" (if you're a Kaufman fan, you don't have to ask...), and the shot I saw filmed was a limo pulling up to the club, flanked by a bunch of grizzled bikers, and then Kaufman/Clifton/The Unknown Comic/Carrey/double getting out of the limo with a paper bag over his head (?) and going inside. Hm. Of course, paparazzi were all over the place, hoping for that big-money shot of Jimmyboy. Does anyone know who's directing that film? I have nothing further to say at this time. Eb Visit my website: http://plato.digiweb.com/~peteo/eb.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:00:58 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: More post-show indulgencies In a message dated 98-10-23 16:05:20 EDT, you write: << Then something happened to me which hasn't happened to me since I was about six years old, if memory serves. Boy, talk about a longshot. What horrible curse hath befallen me, as of late? Let's make this a brainteaser -- can you guess what happened?? Perhaps whoever makes the closest guess can have my Vanilla Ice cd. ;) >> Do we each only get one guess? I mean, cuz, like, I REALLY want that Vanilla Ice CD! Um, okay, let's see. Did you . . . pee your pants? That's my best guess. My only other guess would be: You found yourself whistling a Grateful Dead tune (but I think you'd be more likely to admit my first guess). Did I win? Did I win? Oh, I *hope* so! Michael K. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V7 #400 *******************************