big giant circles
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Posts posted by big giant circles
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Sorry guys, I didn't have internet (or power) for 26 hours earlier this week, and half of today as well, so my ability to stay current has been spotty. And it's late, I'm tired, and I haven't read all posts, so sorry if I miss something that's already been covered, and I am admitting up front I'm too lazy to bother reading it all at this point.
The gist of what DJP is saying I get, and I even agree with most of it. Most, anyway. I'm not so much upset that Maisel defended his "brand" as I am at the amount he demanded (and even the amount he settled for) for Baio's mistake.
Dave, I'm sorry if we clash on this, but the day that anyone, millionaire or not, loses track of the value of $32,000 (much less $150,000), especially to a common non-millionaire person who has to drain their savings and children's college funds or mortgage their home, or sell their car, or whatever--the day that doesn't affect a person's conscience is the day that they can officially be dubbed greedy, especially in a case such as this.
I've been in recent situations where I have been monetarily wronged, and I could sue, but in the end, I know I'd be draining what little monetary water there is in a vast vast dry desert, and the oasis is probably the only thing keeping the person from starving, or from losing their home. I've been wronged, but even still, when it comes right down to it I just can't bring myself to be the person who completely destroys their life, especially for an amount of money that probably doesn't even mean that much to me in the grand scope of my life. I may get mad and gripe about it, but in the end I can handle a slight loss if it means I get to keep my humanity and look in the mirror with a clean conscience and know that I still possess some form of empathy for other people.
So just to make things clear, that's my perspective. Maybe Baio was wrong for trying to claim fair use on this matter. I can see it going either way, honestly. And really, I suppose it's a matter of who has a better argument. But considering the fact that it IS definitely possible based on other fair use trials that it could have gone the other way, who's to say then that Baio's mistake was so unthinkable and ignorant? Yes, he would have been better off to play it safe, but that is completely not my point. My point is that he made a mistake, and was punished disproportionately to his error. That is all.
I really don't want to lose too much energy on this topic, it got me riled up in a hurry, and me being the way I am, I tend to move past things just as fast as they fire me up, so I think I'll be doing that now.
Please let me know if anyone decides to do a kickstarter to help soften the blow to Andy's bank account.
*edit* yes, I am aware that I would make a crappy lawyer. But I'm probably better off for that.
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Agree with the points Dave made, but would like to reiterate that the photographer is a massive douchebag and I hope karma catches up to his greed. One of my biggest peeves in the world are people who feel justified in extorting outrageous amounts of money for things that are truly not worth the amounts they demand.
Guy makes an 8-bit tribute album, doesn't realize he's supposed to license the artwork: Whatever, the proper and humanly decent thing to do as the photographer would have been to contact him and say "Hi, you used a derivative of our artwork without permission. To obtain a license would have been X amount. Please pay us such." Heck, they could have even thrown a small fine on there. But $150k, then settling on $32k?
And even moreso, look at the intent. This clearly wasn't a malicious attempt to rip off the artist, it was a mere oversight. Recently Disney World settled a case to pay $50,000 ($33,000 to a kid and $17,000 to the parents) because the kid burned his lip on hot nacho cheese. I'm not trying to get too deep into this particular case by pointing out all the factors involved and whether Disney was at fault or not, but let's face it, the amount they sued for was exorbitantly high if Disney had to settle on $50k. By the way, the medical bill was under $500 and the kid has recovered fully and needs no continual medical care.
Greed is just one of the things I hate the most about this world we live in. People have done and will do awful things for money. They will ruin someone else's life in a heartbeat if it means some padding for their wallet. I guess reason and empathy are things that most people really truly don't possess. Disgusting.
Anyway, I'm definitely in favor of a kickstarter for Andy. And maybe another one to hire a plane to fly over New York with a banner that reads "Jay Maisel is a greedy douchebag".
*edit*
I can't say the Facebook wall-lynching surprises me haha - http://www.facebook.com/jaymaisel. Worth nothing I suppose, Andy does not approve of it, he's taking the high road. http://twitter.com/#!/waxpancake/status/83965389075267584
*moar edit*
Dear Jay Maisel,
Hi there, I just wanted to tell you that you've taken some great pictures in your career, and I particularly appreciate you capturing what many people believe to be such a great picture of me, it truly captures the passion and love for my art, my music, my soul. But then I find that you recently took a young man to court over his re-imagining of these things. Seeing as it is my face and my image directly involved, I cannot help but be alarmed that you would capture such a seemingly poetic moment in the name of art, but then deny someone else the opportunity to do the same, and at no real threat to you. I'm awfully disappointed in you, Jay. Let thieves be thieves, but let artists be artists.
Regards,
Miles Davis
*for clarification, the above is not an actual quote (should be obvious haha), but rather what I personally envision Miles Davis's reaction might be to this matter.
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*Edit* another update, off to a nice start! So far 76 donations have rased $422, averaging around $5 per purchase, I'm really pleasantly surprised at the amount people are contributing, I'm deeply touched
I do hope my momentum keeps up though, medical bills are really steep, and I'm still trying to figure out a way to promote this cause on a larger scale, but so far all the networks I've tried (Kotaku, Destructoid, even BioWare community) haven't responded back, so if anyone has any ideas/contacts to help me continue to spread the word, please let me know, and much much appreciated!
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Thanks so much guys, I continue to be deeply touched by all your support! So far, 44 people have bought the track averaging over $6 per purchase, that's so heartwarming and inspiring to me, to those of you who have supported my cause, deepest thanks!
On a semi related note, I'll try to get the ball rolling on an official preview video for the rest of the album. I'm really excited about it, I've never really dabbled in the the chiptune sound style, so it's been a fun (and addictive!) experiment for me.
Thanks again for helping me spread the word. I'm trying to see if Kotaku or Dtoid etc might be willing to throw me a plug, so if anyone knows a solid way to get in touch with any of those guys, please let 'em know! (I wonder if that will flood Dale North's inbox...) lol
Oh, and my video just got it's first dislike... Heh, good ol Youtube
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Hi guys, so I'm working on an album of Chiptune-like and Chiptune-inspired music, which I'll hopefully have a nice preview video ready for soon. The album will be titled Impostor Nostalgia.
More importantly, one of the tracks has kind of a sweet story about it. Titled "You Can Have Mine", the track is dedicated to my own sister who was blessed to be a compatible match for her husband's failing kidneys, and donated one of hers to him last week.
In an effort to raise money to help them cover the cost (they're poor college kids, and he's actually in med school, and thus bears thousands and thousands of dollars of debt to pay for it) I have placed the song on sale at Bandcamp.com and will donate all proceeds towards them covering the overhead cost of the surgery.
Please take a moment and click the following links and consider purchasing the track and/or sharing this with your friends. Much love and appreciation to you all. :]
Buy the song here - http://biggiantcircles.bandcamp.com/track/you-can-have-mine
Listen/watch a cute video here -
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The FL Limiter on the master channel by default does suck, yes. I recommend using TLS Pocket Limiter instead. Open a new project, go to the Fruity Limiter, click arrow, replace > TLS Pocket Limiter. Now Save As - Templates > Minimal > Basic with limiter > Basic with limiter.flp and you're done.
Now open a project with that template, and every time you start up FL, it will use the Pocket Limiter instead of the FL one.
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There are some really silly points being brought up here, as expected any time this topic comes up.
Paying melodic homage to someone else's music is such a different topic altogether. First of all, there are laws that dictate what is acceptable and not. In the cases of obvious major derivative works (remixes and such) that's why the royalties/licensing system exists. Second, if artist B throws a small shoutout to a track written by artist A, it's likely not impeding artist A's profit from the musical product he/she created. Third, music is art and software is a tool used to build a product. The fact that the product is digital does not change the fact that it is being created by a tangible tool. It's 2011. Thinking that just because something is just lines of code and electrical signals on a computer does not change the fact that it's a product and not just some magical free mystical device that nobody can "own" and is therefor free to be taken advantage of by any and all. That is an insanely ridiculous and primitive line of thinking.
These debates are easy to have on an internet forum, but let's consider how they'd go before any judicial system in the modern world. Defendant is charged with pirating software. Whether pirating a plugin that costs $20 or pirating thousands of dollars of multiple software, they would be found guilty. End of story.
Ultimately, unauthorized piracy from active, living vendors/developers/individuals is theft; it is wrong, and it is illegal. That's the answer to "why not pirate", which is the root question to this debate right? So there you have it.
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On a deeper tangent to the topic of piracy in general, someone said that everyone pirates stuff, be it music or software, and I'd say that most people probably do. I've done it, most people in this discussion have admitted that they pirated software/music at one point or another for various reasons. Whatever, it's silly to pretend that a debate will end that. People are always going to do it, and for all kinds of reasons, from some that are ridiculously shallow and cheaply justified and outright reprehensible, to some that are actually understandable and even respectable and logical.
That being said, seeing as people who openly admit to active piracy on the more reprehensible end of the aforementioned spectrum love to throw the alarm anytime someone resorts to Ad hominem, it's only fair to say then that using the argument "I bet you guys have pirated stuff (or whatever) before" isn't a valid argument because it doesn't change the fact that piracy is illegal and wrong and shouldn't be done, it just makes the other party a hypocrite. And as Tensei said, even a smoker can say that smoking is unhealthy. It just makes them look silly for saying something that they're guilty of.
I feel like that's pretty well the fairest and objective perspective on the matter anyway. I personally don't pirate because I find the older I've become, the more my perspective has changed to "I just want to do the right thing." I'm more aware of consequences of my actions, both legal and abstract. Stealing is wrong, and because I know guys like Andy and how much time and money they invest into developing software and whether I know them personally or not, I don't want to rob them of their rightfully earned income. I haven't pirated music in a long time. All the music I listen to in recent years I own. There's still some pirated stuff on my hard drive here and there, but if I go back and listen to it and realize I don't own it, I rectify that. Thanks to Steam, I own a helluva lot of games. Most of which I haven't even played and may never get around to playing. But I bought them because they were convenient to buy and affordable. The games that I think cost too much, I either wait for them to come down, or I just don't play them. I don't tell myself "Oh, I'm just a hobbyist gamer and therefore don't need to pay the $60 to play this game since I'm not actually making money by playing it".
I think it's really just more about maturity and education than anything. In earlier years, you bet I pirated stuff. I pirated music, games, I pirated FL Studio and made my first remix on it. I'm not going to condemn those of you who pirate to a fiery hell, but I will say that I've personally come to realize that there's no compelling justification for it. I hope that you eventually abide by this realization, especially since we've enlightened you to plenty of reasons why you shouldn't. But whatever, like anything in life, you have the right to do whatever you want and get away with it if you can, so there's really no sense for me to get too upset over the personal choices you choose to make that I have no control over.
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TL:DR - Why not pirate*? Because it's illegal. It is theft, it's immature, it's disrespectful, it's wrong, etc etc etc. Whether we've all done it or not doesn't change the fact that it shouldn't be done.
*referring to piracy of items that are actively and readily available via legal medium from active developers/artists/individuals/companies who rely on their product for their livelihood.
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BigGiantCircles is a known griefer/hacker/llama and he leaves dirty socks in people's personal chests. I wouldn't tolerate him as a mod for a second.
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I'm not a game composer, and I don't even know the guy. What is this fallacy called again, appeal to pity?
I understand Dan's point isn't exactly the strongest argument, but "I don't know the guy or follow suite in his profession so who cares?" is just as weak a defense.
"I only steal from people I don't know personally". Not the most compelling perspective, is it?
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I love my Kore 2, this surprised me a little. Whatever, I guess Maschine is their money-maker these days anyway, so I guess it makes sense that they're shifting to that.
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the more overhyped VSTs like Omnisphere and TrilianTo me, Spectrasonics is a ripoff.
Spectrasonics is awesome and you shut your whore mouth you dirty pirate hooker.
I love you Snapple <3
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haha maybe I talk to virt too much then
probably says more about himJake doesn't count because he is a robot and cranks out epic music faster than the rest of us can eat lunch.
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I can't help but agree with the core message of this song because I myself do not want to be a crappy housewife.
On another note, if I ever meet either of those two dudes in person, I will involuntarily kick them in the face/balls.
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Absolutely. Most people I know that get laptops just so they can have the whole "portable studio" aspect usually (in my experience) rarely end up actually going anywhere to compose.
I'm a big fan of desktops. You have to spend so much more money to get a laptop with decent specs that compare to a powerhouse desktop you can get for less.
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it is, for now, my only option. is it bare-able?
Or would you suggest not making the purchase until I have a computer with larger RAM capacity?
Well, you can load instruments with 4GB of ram, but you won't be able to load very many. My personal suggestion would be to wait until you have a machine that has more ram, but it's totally your call. Your license carries over so you can always upgrade your machine later.
Furthermore, a dual-core processor is going to get bogged down fairly quickly with all the sample-streaming you'll likely have going on.
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I love you Snapple. I love you HARD man.
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If you are capped at 4GB of Ram, that's not ideal if you plan on using large templates and/or loading lots of instruments simultaneously.
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The portals don't seem to work anymore.
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Coolness.
*edit*
Here's mah updated claim now - gfi|AzdnkHzjvCafkG`qwEvb`EtouCvpmH}mItk`R}cwIn_|Ewy_IcywQ~z[wn`Gh|xBwb`E
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It's not 100% what you have, but more how you use what you have.
Some people can make really rad music out of totally free/cheap samples/plugins. It depends a lot on what you're going for. If you're doing electronic music, there are a billion and one ways to achieve an end. Some people prefer to just go ahead and fork over the cash to go straight to the more pro-end stuff like Omnisphere, Alchemy, Komplete, etc etc while others can do really amazing work using entirely free stuff laying around on the internet.
If you're looking to experiment, Komplete Elements is fine. It's obviously not as fully loaded as the individual plugins are, but it's a lump of presets that might help you get some new sounds in your music. And there is nothing wrong with that at all, as long as your output sounds good.
If you've never used any Native Instruments stuff before, you can always download demo versions of their instruments. Not to mention they have some free versions like the Kore Player and Kontakt Player. Definitely pick those up, there's no reason for you not to. Alchemy even has a free player, and even it's got some great sounds. Again, you're limited when it comes to customizing the sounds they give you, but that doesn't mean you can't use them and make something that sounds cool.
Whatever you get, just try to learn to use it well. If you come to rely too much on presets, you might find that it hinders your creative process rather than help it. So those are the points to consider.
For $50, even though Elements is limited, that's a really good price for a decent quantity and variety of sounds, especially if you're not looking to spend $500 right this minute. You can always upgrade later.
As for helping OCR, you can pick it up by going through our affiliate links, which are through Amazon and Zzounds. I don't think Zzounds carries it, and it looks like Amazon only has Komplete 7 Elements, which is $99 (though it gives you 14 gigs of content as opposed to 3). http://ocremix.org/amazon/
Hope this info helps, don't let these guys overwhelm you :]
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O hai Jon, I like your music dude!
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Some Pictures!
First of all, this is what it looks like inside Capa's giant glass sphere of lava:
Second, I figured out how to edit my own blocks, so the first thing I did was to give myself actual clear glass and edit the ugly ugly ugly glowstone to something a bit more fitting of glowing rock, which you can see surrounding Mickey's face.
And finally, I got sick of red blankets, and made blue ones. And also, I put the batman logo on them. This is AngryItch's bed.
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Yep. It's the Profire 2626. Great preamp, crappy soundcard. Or at least, the drivers are total garbage. M-audio really lost a customer over that issue, and I'm one of a long list of people who've had endless BSODs in Win 7 from awful awful drivers.
I'm probably going to swap it out for something soon. DannyB tells me the new Komplete Audio 6 is pretty sweet, so maybe I'll snag that.
Willrock AND FLIK birthday
in General Discussion
Posted
Happy birthday dudes!