Edshugeo The GodMoor

Yeah. There's a pun that won't be used a billion times today.

Anyway, new NIN album, The Slip, being given away as mp3s, lossless and even high def wav files at 24/96 (larger files via Bittorrent).

EW quotes that
Reznor has been in a ''prolific phase and we didn't want 'business' to get in the way of getting the art in the hands of the fans.''

NIN says;
as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

Go get it, if you haven't already...

It's also licensed under Creative Commons

Labels: Awesome, bittorrent, downloads, good deal, music, youtube and other video

Last week I finished watching Real Kung Fu, a 20 episode TV drama series starring Yuen Biao, Gordon Liu, Leung Kar Yan, Lo Mang, Yuen Wah and Lee Hoi Seng.

The story seemed to revolve around an unambitious middle age man (Yuen Biao, who I assume is playing his age) who gets caught up in a murder mystery. When Leung Kar Yan (who used to be nicknamed "Beardy") appears as an effeminate ex-opera performer (and kung fu expert) with asthma, I figure it's just a nod to a character played by Lam Ching Ying in Prodigal Son. Even knowing that Yuen played the lead in Prodigal Son, I thought nothing more of it, since the lead character here seemed completely different.

It wasn't until an article on Kung Fu Cinema about a newer series called Wing Chun, did I start to make a connection. I was still in the middle of Real Kung Fu (from 2005), when I read that Wing Chun (2007) was a direct sequel to Prodigal Son that re-united Sammo Hung, the film's director with Yuen Biao who played Leung Jan.

Soon I'd figure out that Leung Tsan from the series I was watching was the same, though the story was different.

Leung Chan (spelling varies) was a Wing Chun expert from the 1800's/1900's. He taught the man (Chan Wah-Shun) who taught Yip Man who was Bruce Lee's teacher in Wing Chun, which I guess makes him Lee's Grand teacher. Had I not been a kung fu school drop out, I would have known this and not had to find this out on Wikipedia, but there it is.

Here's the trailer for Prodigal Son:



The opening theme for Real Kung Fu:



and a scene from Wing Chun:



The article says that Wing Chun (a 40 episode series) will be released on DVD in May by Tai Seng for a suggested retail price of sixty bucks, but it's available now from YesAsia for about forty eight bucks. Of course, it can also be found online, *ahem*. I look forward to watching it.

Labels: Awesome, downloads, DVD, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, tv, youtube and other video

From ars technica:

Sony BMG is no stranger to piracy. As one of the most vocal supporters of the RIAA and IFPI antipiracy efforts, the company has some experience hunting down and punishing consumers who don't pay for its products. The company is getting some experience on the other side of the table, however, now that it's being sued for software piracy.

PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, received a call from a Sony BMG IT employee for support. After Sony BMG supplied a pirated license code for Ideal Migration, one of PointDev's products, the software maker was able to mandate a seizure of Sony BMG's assets. The subsequent raid revealed that software was illegally installed on four of Sony BMG's servers. The Business Software Alliance, however, believes that up to 47 percent of the software installed on Sony BMG's computers could be pirated.

These are some pretty serious—not to mention ironic—allegations against a company that's gone so far as to install malware on consumers' computers in the name of preventing piracy.

Read the rest of it.

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, hypocrisy, technology

I was rooting for those guys back when there was a format war, but now it's a little bit late for them. They're sounding somewhat optimistic. Perhaps they've simply come too far to turn back. I dunno. I don't care.

I'm waiting for either the price of full profile (2.0) Blu-Ray players to come down significantly, or a compelling reason to buy a PS3 (I already have an XBox 360).

In the meantime, I get my HD fix from the occasionally pixelated fare on Cablevision's Voom HD network, and also from downloading WMVHD encodes of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD releases. These look fantastic, and I've noticed no pixelation at all, watching Mr. And Mrs. Smith and almost no artifacts during Appleseed Ex-Machina. This quells my fear that the pixelation which occurred during fast motion scenes on the HD cable channels were due to a limitation of my moderately priced 37" screen. I now know that isn't the case, based on those downloads and from renting Ratatouille on XBox Live marketplace.

The WMVHD downloads are obtained from usenet (alt.binaries.movies.wmv, alt.binaries.HDTV), saved on a USB hard-drive formatted as HFS+ using Macdrive 7 (I'm not a Mac user), 'cause the 360 doesn't recognize NTFS despite it coming from the same company (Microsoft), and FAT 32 has a 4GB file size limitation (most of what I've downloaded is 8+GBs). The 360 is compatible with HFS+ which is an Apple file system. Hmm.

The only problem I'm having so far, is I can't copy files of folders to this drive if they have Chinese characters in the names, which is the case for some in my music collection.
03/16/08 - easily rectified by right clicking on the drive, selecting "Mac File Names" and "International".

Labels: Anime, downloads, HDTV, movies, music video, PS3, tv, XBox 360

D-Addicts Chinese Series Of The Month for March is the excellent 2006 version of Louis Cha's (Jin Yong) Return Of The Condor Heroes. It's available on DVD in the U.S. as Condor Hero.

I eagerly await the long delayed update of Legend Of The Condor Heroes, which may show up this year.



The Unofficial Wuxia Series Of March are two shows: Young Zhang San Feng and Young Warriors Of The Yang Clan.

Young Zhang San Feng is also known as Taiji Prodigy. This looks promising. Plus, it's Dicky Cheung.




I may skip Young Yang Warriors. I just finished Warriors Of The Yang Clan, and while I thought there was a good story or two there, I was generally annoyed by how badly those stories were told. It was still enjoyable enough to watch and the cast, led by Ti Lung as General Yang Ye were pretty good, as were most of the fight scenes.



The movie Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (starring Gordon Liu and Alexander Fu Sheng) is based on the same legendary family, but was centered around a different son, than that series.





Nah. Actually, I'm gonna check out Young Warriors, too.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, Shaw Bros., tv, youtube and other video

Ghosts I-IV at NIN.com

Haven't heard it yet. Just downloaded the FLAC version. I initially opted for the CD priced at ten bucks, but the deal killer was the seven dollar shipping and handling fee. I went for the five dollar download instead (which include DRM free mp3s as an option).

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, online retailers

Happy Year Of The Rat. D-Addicts has another series up for torrent download. Genius Physician Ti Ying AKA Miracle Healers.



This in addition to the usual Chinese Drama Series Of The Month. Three Musketeers with Shu Qi (torrent link). As far as I can tell, it isn't based on Alexander Dumas' novel, though that wouldn't be a bad idea.

Labels: bittorrent, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

And I almost forgot to check D-Addicts for the Chinese Series Of The Month.
This month, it's Tian Long Ba Bu (Eight Steps Of The Heavenly Dragon), also known as Demi Gods And Semi Devils and also State Of Divinity.

I recently watched an 80's HK version of the Louis Cha novel starring Lueng Kar Yan, Felix Wong, and Shek Kin (Mr. Han from Enter The Dragon). I liked parts of it but disliked others, mostly the first third of the series before Lueng Kar Yan shows up and starts throwin' around beatdowns. This one is a newer production. Looks to be from within the last couple of years. Guess I'll add this to my download list.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

For a limited time, like now-ish till Sunday. This is meant as a compensation for problems with XBox Live during the December holidays. Though only those with gold (paid) subscriptions suffered, this free game is being made available to all members whose machines are connected. And only for these few days. Tough, as there are quite a few players likely waiting for their machines to be repaired and sent back (those who suffered the Red Rings O' Death). For those who already purchased this game (800 points or about 10 bucks), a call to customer service should yield some other solution.

I downloaded the demo a while back, and it was okay. I'll unlock the full game just to have and to give it another go.

Labels: downloads, good deal, video games, XBox 360

Cool! I was gonna buy it even at 30-ish. Since Loco Roco (which was brilliant) didn't do all that great (sales-wise), they're being more reasonable on the price, which is good. More kudos for Sony. Aside from GTA IV, Patapon is the only new game I'm looking forward to in '08 so far. I'm sure they'll be others, but right now, those are the two that stick out.



I'm still playing Orange Box on the 360, now on Half Life 2, Episode 2.
Team Fortress will have to wait 'til I finally upgrade my XBox Live membership as it can only be played as multiplayer.

Next purchase will probably be Blazing Angels 2. Tried the demos of 1&2 the other day as well as Ace Combat 6 and enjoyed BA2 the most out of the bunch. AC6 is cool too, but I'll wait for the price to come down a bit.



The XBox Live Demos are preferable to me to downloading whole games for sampling the worthiness of a potential purchase. I'm assuming the 360 is hackable to that purpose due to the presence of those games on newsgroups, but I've found no reason to do that since the machine does everything I need it to do. Except connect to my PC, but I'm still working on that.

This in contrast to the PSP, a different animal, sure. It had to be hacked to do some of the things I wanted. And yes, I "demo" games on it (like the Japanese version of Patapon), though not always from Sony who are only now beginning to make proper use of their online presence for downloadable content. Whether or not they'll host as many demos as Microsoft does right now remains to be seen.



Beats is a game available from The Playstation Store for five bucks. So far, I'm not that impressed, but for $5, I don't feel ripped off. It works with M33 custom firmware, though for version 3.80 you need one of the later revisions (it's up to M33-5 as of this writing).

Labels: downloads, good deal, online retailers, PSP, video games, XBox 360, youtube

Okay, it's not terrorism, continuing assaults on our freedoms, or way out of control illegal immigration, but still.

Time Warner said on Wednesday that it was going to start testing a new rate plan in Beaumont that would limit the amount of bandwidth each customer can use each month before additional fees kick in. Alexander Dudley, a Time Warner spokesman, said that the exact terms had not been set, but that packages would probably offer between 5 gigabytes and 40 gigabytes a month. The top plan would cost roughly the same as the company’s highest-speed service, which typically runs between $50 and $60 a month.

read more....

Labels: bittorrent, bullshit, computers, downloads, media, technology

Credit where credit is due. Sony-BMG will make their music catalog available at Amazon, DRM-free. Good news. Price is still a bit of an issue for me, though I did buy that NIN album, Still, on Amazon the other day. Future purchases are probable as I like Amazon better than iTunes, generally.

Labels: downloads, music business

Two TV series up at D-Addicts this month (among others) are Drunken Kung Fu, the Chinese Series Of The Month and Fox Volant Of Snowy Mountain.

At the moment, I know nothing of Drunken Kung Fu, but I'll be downloading it for sure.



Fox Volant is a 2007 series based on a Louis Cha novel. This novel is available in English, but has been criticised for a bad translation. Perhaps it will be re-done by Oxford University Press at some point. I hope they're still translating his works. I'm almost finished reading The Book And The Sword, which is absolutely wonderful so far.

Labels: bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia

The Inevitable Rise and Libeteration Of Niggy Tardust! is the latest album from the usually excellent Saul Williams, produced by Trent Reznor. One can download it for free or pay five bucks and get a higher quality mp3s or FLAC files.

I bought it, and I like it, though not as much as Amethyst Rockstar (which I need another copy of) or even Saul Williams (the 2nd album).

I got this email the other day:

The multitrack files of the songs Break and Banged and Blown Through from
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! are now available in .wav format that allow you to create your own remixes and mashups in any multitrack audio editing program (like GarageBand, Live, Acid, CoolEdit, etc).

Here are the links:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xo6ru8
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lmfe5v

Be sure to post links to your version on the
SaulWilliams.com message board!

…and if u haven’t already
Download The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!
at SaulWilliams.com NOW!!!

Cool stuff.

Trent Reznor has made NIN tracks available for remix for a while now, though I've yet to try 'em out. Now he's released Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D a remix companion CD to Year Zero. It's in the tradition of his previous remix cds; Fixed for Broken, Further Down The Spiral for Downward, and Things Falling Apart for The Fragile. Was there one for With Teeth? Dentures? Braces?

Big difference here is this disc is better than the one it's based on, in my opinion. I wasn't feelin' Year Zero and quickly forgot it as fast as I did With Teeth which had it's moments but, bleh.

Another big difference; the combo comes with a DVD rom which includes all the tracks from Year Zero in formats that can be imported to audio editors for remixing. Awesomeness! I'll have to get that. I only have downloads right now.

I've only tried my hand at remixing with Beck's Mixed Bizness which had some Acid tracks released about 6 or 7 years ago, and more recently Prince had a handful of samples from the then not yet heard Musicology, that he invited members of his website to mess with. I'll have to look for that Musicology mix, but I do have the Beck track which I've posted at Vox and titled Heather With Leather.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, music making, remix

Prince responds in song (recorded last night) to the shitstorm he started. And what a funky ass song it is. It seems he's still being an ass in the lyrics (or so it's been interpreted), but who cares? Listen.

Labels: bullshit, civil rights, downloads, music, Prince

Got this email, today. Tried to include the graphics, but it wasn't happening.

This morning I woke up invigorated and charged with the sort of energy that
might only come to someone waking up in a city surrounded by fire. I felt
alive and every instrument ever whistled by the wind surged symphonically
through me. I knew that today, whether by nature or by will, I would be
forced to reckon with what water could not quench. The fire that burns in
me is labeled poetry and music. Men in uniform have tried to put it out.
But every now and then, I blaze through hearts at nature's whim...

how clouds of ash
so easily shade
gray clouds of doubt

I've decided to put my record out.

In hopes of quenching fires:


THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST!

http://www.niggytardust.com

Written and Performed by Saul Williams
Produced by Trent Reznor
Mixed by Alan Moulder

Exciting stuff!

Not because it's another "donationware" release on the heals of Radiohead's In
Rainbows, but because it's a new album by Saul Williams! Produced by Trent Reznor! Available not only as MP3s, but also in FLAC!

FLAC and higher encoded MP3s are for paying customers ($5.00 - perfect price for an album download), lower encoded MP3s for those who want the album for free.

I paid the five bucks. Getting the FLAC files. Supposed to be available on November 1st.

I wasn't crazy about the title before I realized it was Saul Williams, and probably
about hip hop and culture. Can't wait for this. Go sign up for it...

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, music business, online retailers

I say about 5 bucks, roughly. I didn't know there was a new Radiohead album coming out, but it'll be released on the net in a few days. The band is offering it to fans and other interested parties. You name the price. From free to whatever.

I already know I like them (though, I'm not a huge fan), and that the record will most likely be decent. I always felt that for mp3s, ninety-nine cents was too expensive, and that CDs were too expensive at fifteen bucks (and up). Thanks to Amazon and some big box stores, most CDs can be had for just about ten bucks, which is perfect. And on eMusic, songs are about 25-30 cents-ish, depending on your plan. Not everything is available on eMusic, but I buy waaaay more music from them than any other way. Everything else are CD purchases from Amazon or in one recent case, the artist themselves.

I like Radiohead's plan. Their fans will pay for the downloads, if they aren't going for the CD/Vinyl package (which includes the downloads). As for those of us with casual interest? I dunno, but I already placed my order at 3.60 euro pounds, which is about $5.10 (or not), U.S. There was a small credit/debit charge of .45 euro pounds added. I was tempted to adust my price, but didn't.

edit: I should have adjusted the price, or double checked the conversion rates with a site other than the one linked to, as the total came up as $8.26 on my card. A bit more than I intended to spend.
MoEdit (Oct. 10 2007): I can't tell a euro from a British pound. There's my price confusion. Album's good so far, but I was reading back issues of Blood Sword on the bus while listening.

Don't expect Prince to go this route.

Thanks to The OdinsBlog.

Labels: downloads, good deal, Heroes, music business, online retailers, oops

Watch the trailer here (thanks Hud) or download it here and convert it to your favorite device.

I'm sooo on that, by the way. I'm even gonna buy the action figures (assuming they don't suck. They can't, right? Right?)

Labels: downloads, movies

NBC has ended their deal with Apple, no longer allowing downloads of their programs from iTunes.
Apparently NBC wants the service to charge $4.99 an episode rather than $1.99.
Also, they seem to think that the DRM on iTunes downloads aren't strong enough.

"Among its aims are to stop pirated material from being uploaded to iPods."

Now, the only NBC programs on iPods will be pirated ones. Idiots!
I still think $1.99 is too much, but it doesn't matter. I don't have an iPod, nor do I plan on getting one. The DRM crap won't work on my PSP, and that's fine by me.

The program I use to convert downloaded (not from iTunes) and dvds for viewing on my PSP also converts them to the iPod, XviD4PSP. And it's a free program. So if you want to take the latest episode of Heroes to work with you, it'll show up on usenet (look it up if you don't know) and the other usual places about a day later. When the accountants explain to the knuckleheads the damage being done, you'll soon be able to go back to your overpriced iTunes downloads... if you still want to.

Update: You might not want to. I haven't tried this yet, but it's supposedly easy, using RSS and torrents. I think there are risks using torrents that aren't there with usenet, but usenet is complicated to explain (TimDoc can help) and finding exactly what you want there, isn't always easy. Read - TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase.
Thanks James Hudnall.

Labels: bittorrent, bullshit, downloads, funny-ass shit, online retailers, ripoffs, solutions?

I vaguely recall this being the title of a barely watchable movie from, maybe, the 1990s, but I won't let any such preconceived notions get in the way of checking out a new Wu-xia TV series.

I don't know what it's about except that it's based on a Louis Cha (Jing Yong) novel from the mid 1950s. What's likely are kung fu mayhem, defiance of gravity, romantic complications, and perhaps yet another attempt by some evil bastard to infiltrate the Beggar Clan. Well maybe not the last bit, though it's been attempted in three series I've seen already, Demi-Gods and Semi Devils (1982), Legend Of The Condor Heroes (1983?), and Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006), all based on Cha's works.

The thirty episode series (fansubbed) can be sampled over at D-Addicts via a torrent. The download includes the soundtrack. It's a bit hefty at 16 GBs.

I actually have 2 more eps to go on Return Of The Condor Heroes.
I should be done tomorrow, at which point I continue watching the Anime, Jubei-Chan 2: Counterattack of Siberian Yagyu, before moving on to Heavenly Sword, Dragon Sabre (2003-ish), the third and final (?) part of the Condor Heroes trilogy.

Labels: Anime, bittorrent, dorama, downloads, kung fu, tv, wu-xia, youtube

"Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left. This is how I roll with control - NES."

Hip Hop centered around Anime and video games? Why not, I guess. An article on Garage Spin pointed me to this cat named Maja (pronounced may-juh) who spins rhymes about that stuff. I've avoided listening to so-called "nerd-core" hip hop. Something about that whole scene rubs me the wrong way, and I'm not sure why, but I figured I'd check out his Transformer video on YouTube.

Hmm. Nicely done. Next was a performance of ANIME (アニメ見る時) in English and Japanese. Holy shit! Listen to this guy...



Next up, I listened to one or two tracks on his New School Hip Hop MySpace page and I was sold. First I checked to see if he was on eMusic. He wasn't, so I went ahead and ordered the CD. That was Thursday night, probably after 12. I got it on Saturday after paying for the cheapest shipping available. It was a shock to get it that quick, but then I realized it shipped from Brooklyn. Cool. The shipping, the NY sales tax and $3.00 handling fee brought the disc up to about $15.00, a little more than I would normally pay for a CD, on the rare occasion I buy them.

I've listened to it a coupl'a times now and I'm mightily impressed. Not that I listen to that much hip hop anymore, but it's nice to see somebody do something fresh with the genre every now and then.

I'll be absorbing this record for a little while. So far my favorite is UUDDLRL, though I'm much less a gaming fiend than I am an Anime one (and not as much as I used to be).

Maja's MySpace has 4 songs not on New School Hip Hop.

The Transformer Bundle is a free download including the complete version of Transformer (the track on the CD is acappella) and Here I come, which is different from the outro remix.

More Maja videos can be found here.

Labels: Anime, downloads, good deal, japanese, music, music video, video games, youtube

Playstation.com are giving away UMD discs that demo a new game for the PSP; Jeanne D'Arc.
Only while supplies last. I signed up for mine. You get yours...

Thanks pspupdates.qj.net

For downloadable demos for a bunch of other PSP titles (some are Japanese), click here.

Labels: downloads, good deal, PSP

Archive.org makes a number of public domain titles available for viewing and download, as well as other media with various copyrights and whatnot. I'm not sure this movie belongs here, but a number of films like this tend to show up on supermarket and discount shelves from multiple dvd labels, so the copyright on the English version is probably not being enforced at the moment.

I haven't seen this one, yet, but it looks entertaining by the looks of the first few minutes.

You can stream it here, or download the mp4 which may or may not work in your portable media player. I haven't tried it in my PSP, yet.

Enjoy...

Labels: downloads, good deal, kung fu, movies

Yikes! Got a heads up from the Undercover Black Man that the recording in question is Albert Brooks, not Nick Nolte, and as a result not quite as funny. A link to an interview with Mr. Brooks is posted in the comments section. Cue my own Krusty groan. My apologies to all, especially to Mr. Nolte and his family.

Back in the early nineties, James Brooks shot a musical called I'll Do Anything. The cast, which included Nick Nolte and Tracey Ullman sang and danced to songs mostly written by Prince. Test audiences weren't crazy about the result, and the movie was re-edited into a dramedy. I saw it on cable years ago and didn't think it was that bad of a movie, but I always wanted to see the original version out of curiosity. As a Prince fan, I'd be compelled to purchase a special edition DVD with the musical on it, if it were ever made available.

A non-Prince tune stayed in the film and the lyrics to Don't Talk To Strangers was used as dialog (or was it the other way around?).
A number of the songs appeared on the bootleg Platinum, and then (3 songs) on The Vault: Old Friends For Sale (officially released and excellent). Don't Talk to Strangers was covered by Chaka Khan on Come To My House. The Prince version of that song and I'll Do Anything hasn't been released officially, I think.

Recently, 30 Years Of Unreleased Funk Vol. 3 appeared on usenet. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet (and may be missing a track or two), but I jumped right to the I'll Do Anything tracks, particularly the one's with Nick Nolte. Man, it would be tough to try and sell this soundtrack. He even does a Krusty The Clown like groan somewhere in there. Using the mug shot pic above will probably seem like a cheap shot till you hear this tune... (took that down out of fairness)

I'll Do Anything - Nick Nolte Albert Brooks

I'll Do Anything - Prince Demo

I'll Do Anything - Prince from Platinum

The above are megaupload links. I don't know how long they'll last...

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, movies, music, oops, Prince

Recently, some rare-ish (never before released on CD) 80's b-sides and extended versions from Prince were made available from 7digital (and iTunes?) in Europe*. Fans are expressing some disappointment that these tracks are badly encoded vinyl rips complete with audible scratches, pops and surface noise. Read here to see what one fan had to go through to get some of his money back.

Hold on to those bootlegs. They won't be obsolete for a long while.

*these may not be available in the U.S.

7 Digital sells DRM'd wma files, by the way.

Labels: bullshit, downloads, music business, Prince, ripoffs

For the most part, I still listen to albums (set compilations of music sequenced by the artist, traditionally sold on a vinyl or plastic disc), when listening to music on my PSP. Often times, say when doing my food shopping, laundry, or just when I feel like it, I prefer not to make any set choices and listen to random songs from my music collection.

Unlike the higher end iPods, which have hard drives as large as 30-60 Gigs (more?), PSPs are limited to external memory via Memory Stick Duos. I think the largest capacity released thus far is the 8 gig. I have a 1 GB, 2 GB, and a 4. This limits what I can keep on my PSP at any given moment. This is especially true since other data is stored on the memory stick. Game saves, game demos, ISOs (games), emulators & ROMs, photos and of course videos (usually two or more 45 minute Wu-Xia TV episodes*).
I normally have space left over for anywhere between 2-6 albums worth of music.

The PSP has a shuffle feature that randomizes whats on the mem stick, but only within each folder (each folder normally representing an album or otherwise group of songs). That's pretty useless. In other words, the PSP will shuffle tracks from Cntrl-Alt-Delete-U (The Paper Chase), move on to EP C (Battles) to do the same, and then Planet Earth (Prince). When not listening to albums as originally sequenced (or newly sequenced by myself or others), I'd prefer to shuffle tracks from all folders on my player.

When PSP Shuffle came around (or when I finally found out about it), it was great. It scanned all the music on my PC, and whenever I wanted to fill up my memory stick with random music, it did it's thing, and I was good to go. I disabled the photo and video feature. Throwing random photos from my PC onto the PSP wasn't a good idea (for a couple of reasons). The only video that can play on the portable is video specifically encoded for use on it or similar devices. Still, I mostly watch serialized material, that works best in chronological order. Sometimes I encode YouTube videos to show friends at work, and those are chosen specifically.

PSP Shuffle cleared out the contents of the mem stick before filling it with music. Even though I set it to only import music, it would erase all videos and photos as well as music (after giving a warning). This wasn't a big deal to me. I would use a mem stick that didn't have any current videos on it and game data was untouched.

At some point (I don't recall when), PSP Shuffle stopped working. I attributed it to a problem with my PC. Something I installed or un-installed. Who knows? The program acted like it was working, only much faster than usual. It would erase the mem stick, but not fill it with music. I tried uninstalling and re-installing, adjusting what little settings there were and then just gave up on it. I figured that maybe a firmware update might've had something to do with it.

When hooked up via USB, it used to be that music was found in "drive letter"/PSP/MUSIC, but fairly recently (don't remember when) the music folder was placed on the root of the PSP (as was VIDEO), so it would be found on "drive letter"/MUSIC. The old music folder is still there and still works (still needed for 48 Hour Pong), so I don't know if one thing has anything to do with the other.

A few attempts were made using Google to solve this problem with no success until a couple of days ago when I came across a guide to using a program called Media Monkey with the PSP. Media Monkey is primarily a music organizing tool that looks like it's inspired by iTunes. I've used iTunes to convert CDs to MP3s and M4As, but not much else, since I don't have an iPod. The free version of Media Monkey does everything I need it for, but I'm tempted to pay for a license, because it's so good at it. For one thing, it's not as CPU hungry as PSP Shuffle was. For another, it doesn't automatically erase the memory stick, of other music, video, etc. All the other stuff it may or may not do (I'll find out later) is gravy.

On the guide, where it addresses synchronization options, Kingbee116 suggests synchronizing tracks to \PSP\MUSIC\"artist"\"title".mp3. He correctly points out that once in MUSIC, you can only go one folder deep. I would normally put the music in \MUSIC\"album"\"title".mp3, preferring to name the folder after the album title rather than artist name, which can usually be seen on screen. Also using the root MUSIC folder as allowed by recent firmwares (official and custom).

Since the main purpose of this program (for me) is to randomize tracks, I avoid sub-folders altogether. I set it to \MUSIC\"title".mp3 so that the MUSIC folder is not filled with other folders with music in them, but with tracks from all over my computer. And rather than play these tracks in alphabetical and numerical order, I then use the PSP's shuffle feature, and everything is as it should be.

I still have to edit my music library inside of Media Monkey, as I have samples, program sounds, podcasts, DAW tracks, unrecognized (on the PSP) formats and other audio I consider undesirable for this particular task.

*At the moment, I'm watching Jubei-Chan, soon to be followed by Jubei-Chan 2. These are Anime, not Wu-Xia. Soon as I'm done with those, I'll finish watching Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006), which is Wu-Xia.

Labels: downloads, good deal, music, PSP, solutions?

Kudos to Team M33 for picking up the torch from retired coder Dark Alex. Updated custom firmwares allow PSP users to both purchase contemporary commercial games and use their favorite homebrew programs. When faced with a choice between the two matters, I choose to keep homebrew, and not buy new games. Custom firmwares also allow piracy, which is a legit concern for Sony, but one I doubt they'll ever combat successfully.

If there were some way for Sony to allow homebrew (non-commercial programs created by enthusiasts) on official firmwares, it might, reduce piracy of current PSP software. However, some of the most popular homebrew are emulators of older systems. I don't know whether or not they constitute some form of piracy.

Anyhow, the battle rages on and users are winning.

Labels: civil rights, downloads, Heroes, PSP, video games

Great amateur short Kung Fu film. No martial arts experience between the lot of them. I'm impressed as a muh-fug.

Found via The Martial World.

Labels: downloads, funny-ass shit, independent film-making, kung fu, youtube

As reported on Kung Fu Cinema;

Online digital download site Jaman.com is currently offering up to three free downloadable rentals on select Shaw Brothers classics such as TWIN BLADES OF DOOM and THE 14 AMAZONS when you create an account.

All you need to do to take advantage of this feature is have a broadband connection, visit Jaman.com, register for free, download the Jaman player, and start downloading up to three digital titles specially-marked “Free Rental” from among 50 Shaw Brothers classics in Jaman’s online library.

Once you’ve finished watching your free rentals, you can continue to rent movies for $1.99 or purchase them for $4.99.

I'm not a fan of watching movies on my computer, but I'm gonna have to try this.

Out in video stores this week are the first of the Dragon Dynasty releases of the Shaw Bros. line; 36th Chamber Of Shaolin (Master Killer), My Young Auntie, King Boxer (5 Fingers Of Death), and The One Armed Swordsman. If these movies contain the original English dub tracks (where applicable), then the time has come to throw away my old supermarket bought bootlegs.

Labels: downloads, good deal, kung fu, Liu Chia Hui, movies, nostalgia, Shaw Bros., wu-xia

Some projectionist submitted a negative review of "Rise Of The Silver Surfer" and got canned after the studio (Fox) threatened the theatre chain. Most agree that if a confidentiality agreement had been signed (or otherwise consented), then fine. However that isn't apparent at this time (he denies it), and Fox's bullying tactics might not be the type of publicity they want right now.
I was already leaning towards not seeing this film until it was available in some digital manner. I disliked (didn't hate it) the first one, and didn't see how the same crew could do any better this time. So, the controversy, if it has any legs, is mostly a non-issue for me. I am interested to see what it leads to, if anything.

Speaking of movies, I attempted to see Knocked Up over the weekend with a friend, and found the screening sold out. If theatre attendance is really declining the way it's been described, then this sort of thing shouldn't be happening anymore, should it? Or is Hollywood only worried about their shitty movies?

Labels: bullshit, comics, downloads, movies

On TV

Craig Ferguson
is what David Let