Are you pissed off? I'm pissed off. Vent Thread.

[individualzero]

Ew. Feel better, bro.




P.O.Vent: Got pickpocketed at Safeway today. I'm now down close to $80 (strangely not any of my necessary cards...), which was over half of my monthly payment and a majority of what I needed to spend on shit to get moving to the new place. Oh well...

[luna]

why the fuck does canada still not have a reliable digital music store?

[Goose]

The same reason we don't have access to Spotify, Pandora, Amazon's MP3 store, and everything else nice that the 21st century has to offer music lovers: greedy copyright holders.  The CRIA (which supposedly stands for the "Canadian Recording Industry Association", but actually only represents the big four record labels, none of which are actually based in Canada), and SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) want about 100x the royalty rates for services like that to operate in Canada when compared to any other country.  It essentially makes offering digital music in Canada a proposition in which its completely impossible to make money.  Pandora's CEO said exactly that earlier this year when he announced Pandora wouldn't be able to expand north. 

Of course, these same organizations also have Harper by the tits, and the copyright reform bill shows exactly that.  The only groups in favour of the "digital locks" provisions are the major American media organizations (through the guise of similar "Canadian" industry groups, like the CRIA), because they can use its draconian methods to stifle competition from the north through law enforcement.

What's a Canadian to do?  Vote with your wallet, of course.  This is a "free" market that's supposedly being manipulated here.  If an artist is signed with a major label, pirate that shit instead of buying it from iTunes.  If they're signed to an indie label, buy directly from the label (most have fairly decent online digital stores for their artists).  Its more annoying to have to figure out who's signed to what, but it'll eventually get the message across that the way the "big boys" are doing business isn't worth your dollars.  And don't feel sorry for the artists, as they should've known better when they signed their last contract with the major label that the way that label does business is no longer viable.

[Aaron]

Im on my phone. So my typos and grammar go to shit more Ao then normal.

A few days ago i was listening to music with music bee about to go to bed. Everything on my pc started flashing like a strobe light. I reset my pc and it was fine. It did it again today. Only much much worst. I tried to reinstall windows. Then to boot from the cd so that i could fdisk and start over. However even bios is flashing. Im trying to change it to boot from cd/dvd and it isn't doing shit. Which really really fucking sucks... So any ideas? Like how do i flash bios? Im sure my roommate will let me use his pc to download bios and whatnot. Is that what i should do?

Its the icons on the desktop that flash. Not everything. Just them. I can get on IE and it will kinda load the home page but i can get to gongle or anything else... And even the home page is messed up... I can't double click stuff i have to right click then open the file...

[Goose]

Its the icons on the desktop that flash. Not everything. Just them. I can get on IE and it will kinda load the home page but i can get to gongle or anything else... And even the home page is messed up... I can't double click stuff i have to right click then open the file...

You gots yourself some nasty-ass spyware there.  I've seen similar things happen after someone installed something from a not-so-legit source, or other reasonably silly things without double-checking for viruses and so on.  As to why its actually extended all the way to the BIOS... well, that's just nasty.  I'd definitely flash that, make sure it works, then reformat the Windows drive and start over.

[Aaron]

Kk. So how do i flash it? And where do i get the bios from?

[Goose]

From the website of the manufacturer your motherboard.  There'll be instructions there too.

[luna]

The same reason we don't have access to Spotify, Pandora, Amazon's MP3 store, and everything else nice that the 21st century has to offer music lovers: greedy copyright holders.  The CRIA (which supposedly stands for the "Canadian Recording Industry Association", but actually only represents the big four record labels, none of which are actually based in Canada), and SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) want about 100x the royalty rates for services like that to operate in Canada when compared to any other country.  It essentially makes offering digital music in Canada a proposition in which its completely impossible to make money.  Pandora's CEO said exactly that earlier this year when he announced Pandora wouldn't be able to expand north. 

Of course, these same organizations also have Harper by the tits, and the copyright reform bill shows exactly that.  The only groups in favour of the "digital locks" provisions are the major American media organizations (through the guise of similar "Canadian" industry groups, like the CRIA), because they can use its draconian methods to stifle competition from the north through law enforcement.

What's a Canadian to do?  Vote with your wallet, of course.  This is a "free" market that's supposedly being manipulated here.  If an artist is signed with a major label, pirate that shit instead of buying it from iTunes.  If they're signed to an indie label, buy directly from the label (most have fairly decent online digital stores for their artists).  Its more annoying to have to figure out who's signed to what, but it'll eventually get the message across that the way the "big boys" are doing business isn't worth your dollars.  And don't feel sorry for the artists, as they should've known better when they signed their last contract with the major label that the way that label does business is no longer viable.

lame

i always try to buy directly from the artist, i don't agree with "stealing" music but i absolutely refuse to buy through itunes.

[Goose]

lame

i always try to buy directly from the artist, i don't agree with "stealing" music but i absolutely refuse to buy through itunes.

I'll be perfectly honest, if I weren't so attached to CDs, I'd be buying from iTunes.  Their "iTunes Plus" format (256-kbps-ish AAC) has no DRM on it, and is significantly higher quality than anything the MP3 format can provide.  Plus, its not a proprietary format (the AAC codec and the M4A file its delivered in are both covered by MPEG standards, same as MP3).  Damn near everything plays them these days, same as MP3s (unless you buy a real cheap piece of shit player).  The only thing better would be lossless, like FLAC, but that's where iTunes loses me (they'll only sell "Apple Lossless" ALAC files, which are proprietary and a pain in the ass).

As well, if the band isn't signed to a major label, they most likely got their music onto iTunes through a deal with a service like Tunecore, which charges artists a flat, cheap rate for digital distribution, and lets the artist keep all the royalties.  Usually iTunes just takes a 30% cut, so 70% of what you're paying is actually going straight to the artist.  The major labels really rig their artist contracts for digital distribution, so if you're buying a Foo Fighters album on iTunes, you might as well just pirate it, because the Foos will be lucky to see a tenth of a penny per song bought.

I'll admit the iTunes software on Windows blows fucking goats, but once I've bought the music I can play it anywhere I want, because of the no-DRM thing.  As long as CDs are an option though, I'll pretty much always opt for that.  Its just how I roll.

[Aaron]

My roommate looked at my pc yesterday when bios was up and rocking. He found that my keyboard had a key or keys stuck. (but not enough to fuck with my typing.) So after work im gona buy a lot of canned air and clean it... Since he got bios to work. I got a clean install. I nuked it. And fixed it. So right now it still does it. The strobe light flickering thing. Also does it in open windows. Like in IE it makes the address strobe. And it still wont load anything...

Also didn't save my Borderlands toon. So im sad about that. But my roommate said he will help power level me up.

[Static]

Also didn't save my Borderlands toon. So im sad about that. But my roommate said he will help power level me up.

I'll happily give you the same offer if you're up for some online co-op, love that game and I haven't taken my tank out in ages.

[individualzero]

I'm also game to help with the Borderlands powerlevel-ness, but I think my highest character is like 20-something. I'm not sure if that'd be much help, but I'd be glad to lend a hand.

[Aaron]

Thanks to the both of you. I downloaded it yesterday. Then bought two new games. So I won't be playing Borderlands for awhile. But when I do start playing again, I will let you guys know.

[luna]

Another paycheck that's missing hours?
Jesus fucking christ

[rokken like dokken]

I've heard so many people extol the virtue of employment with small businesses - I usually associate those sorts of things with them based on previous experience.