Saturday, January 21, 2012

Taking Over the Internet, Pt. 2: Megaupload, SOPA, and copyright

So much for the best laid plans of mice and men: Two days after telling the Wall Street Journal that he didn't plan on backing down on SOPA, Lamar Smith (chief sponsor of SOPA) said he was pulling the bill for the time being.

Yesterday I wrote a few words about this bill and some of the related news. Today I'm expanding on that a bit, particularly on the parts about Megaupload, using the following Associated Press article from Time as a frame for my thoughts. (The quoted paragraphs will be in italics.)

Friday, January 20, 2012

Taking Over the Internet, Pt. 1: Megaupload and SOPA

This has the potential to be a rambling post or two, so please bear with me.

There is a lot of chatter these days concerning two proposed (but now shelved or delayed) Acts dealing with US copyright laws. They are SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). On Wednesday, Wikipedia and Reddit protested the proposed Acts by having an information blackout for the day. On Thursday, the content-sharing site Megaupload.com was shut down. It was a massive site, allegedly the 13th largest on the Internet at one point. Some people are wondering how the US government could wield such power, or if they are trying to take over the internet, or if this is the beginning of the war of the internet.

This is what I think.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Available for download: Tracks from the cover challenge

It's Christmas time. I'm going to go hand out some presents in a sec, but before that, I thought I'd put the covers from the last few days in one easy-to-access spot. Thank you to all those who commented or shared the tracks as they went up. It really felt nice to have such positive feedback.

Please feel free to download the tracks if you liked any of them.

Cover Challenge by ErrantKnave

EDIT: I thought changing the track names on Soundcloud would change the file extensions, but apparently they're still all titled under the original working file names. My bad.

I had fun playing these tunes. I know I said I was going to do twelve of them, and I'm not happy that I only got through half of them. I want to revisit the other six someday. Maybe someday soon.

Links to the previous posts, detailing each song:
The White Stripes - Fell in Love With A Girl
Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
Hanson - Change in My Life
Bruno Mars - Marry You
Frank Sinatra - Fly Me to the Moon
The Beatles - For No One

Thanks for the support, everyone. Happy holidays!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Part 6 - 12 Covers of Xmas: For No One (The Beatles)

Yeah, 12 songs is a no go. We'll have to settle for a half dozen. Since this will likely be my last post before Christmas, I hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Part 5 - 12 Covers of Xmas: Fly Me to the Moon (Frank Sinatra)

I got an email last night that made me laugh. All it said was, "We need to talk about your drum pattern selections." That's it. The email was from the drummer of my former band. When I record these songs, I usually just choose a beat and loop it through the entire tune. I have no doubt that my friend could come up with more varied and interesting beats. However, I'm not a drummer, so you'll have to suffer through plain old loops.

Moving on... this latest is one of my Top 5 Sinatra tunes.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Part 4 - 12 Covers of Xmas: Marry You (Bruno Mars)

Yes, yes, I've fallen behind. A lot. A couple of the songs just didn't work, and I haven't really been home either. But there's a new song for today, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Part 3 - 12 Covers of Xmas: Change In My Life (Hanson)

Yippie kay yay! It's another cover!

As you might have seen yesterday with Britney Spears and the day before with the White Stripes.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Part 2 - 12 Covers of Xmas: Baby One More Time (Britney Spears)

So, continuing with the plan I mentioned in yesterday's post, here is another cover. For my first attempt, I went with the White Stripes, with a song that jolted me from the moment I first heard it. Today's song... is a completely different matter.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Part 1 - 12 Covers of Xmas: Fell In Love With A Girl (The White Stripes)

Friends and readers, with twelve days to go until Christmas, I'm challenging myself to record twelve covers in that time and post one a day.

Some things to know before listening:
1) There is nothing Christmas-y about most of the songs. It's just a convenient title and time of year.
2) These are low-fi recordings; just me, a guitar, and a computer. I'm keeping it simple, only adding drum beats to fill out the songs.
3) I don't really want to do straight-up covers, so if you're in the mood for fidelity to the original, it won't always be there. That said, I think every song that I'll attempt is good in its own way, and I'm proud to play them. I'm not trying to send up the original artists.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Top 5 Things I Learned From Ryan Gosling

Hey girl, I know this blog post is a day late, but... I promise to make it up to you. Hopefully today.

Right. I think the title explains the first half of this post pretty well, so why go throgh an extensive preamble?

From "F*** Yeah! Ryan Gosling" to "Feminist Ryan Gosling" to "Librarian Ryan Gosling", this dude really gets around. this is some of the information I've gleaned through his ubiquity.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...