The World of Stuff .com

Darts and laurels

A few months back, I discovered Brad Sucks, a “one-man band with no fans” who had a lot of fans. His only album at the time, 2003′s I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, was very good, and I think he owes his fan base to the fact that he distributed the album for free under a Creative Commons license that allowed for noncommercial use and remixing.

This week, he released his second album, Out of It. It was the first time I was excited about the release of a new album, maybe… ever? Anyway, it’s a short record, but if you liked the first one, you’ll enjoy it. You can download it in MP3 format for whatever price you want, including for free. (For the Ogg Vorbis q7 version, Jamendo has a torrent and a direct download link.)

Interestingly, the new album is released under a Creative Commons license that allows commercial and noncommercial use of all kinds, provided that the artist is credited and that derivative works are released under the same license. Incidentally, this license is incompatible with the license Brad used for his first album, which means you can’t mash up tracks from the two without permission. Still, it’s good that he chose a more generous license for Out of It. He can get away with it since he has so many fans.

I’ve also heard of this fellow called Girl Talk and how everyone loves him. Unauthorized mashups are his thing. Yesterday, when Waxy.org analyzed the hundreds of samples he used on his latest album, I decided to download it. It’s called Feed the Animals, and it’s a 53-minute orgy of popular music. There’s something for everyone. Recommended.

You know what’s annoying? Selling out. I have stopped visiting a number of sites because they were jumping on the money bandwagon and/or acting all high and mighty. At The Sneeze, Steve’s running jokes got old fast, and he pretends that his blog is a magazine. I am mad at PostSecret because Frank Warren passes over normal people’s secrets in favor of the most scandalous ones, which he then makes money from by putting them in expensive books and music videos. Jessica Hagy of Indexed accepted a book deal. Damn Interesting reposts the same damn articles over and over again… because they’re busy writing a book (and sometimes for no apparent reason at all).

Remember a few months ago when I said this?

Jim Davis, the mastermind behind the Garfield empire, has now realized that if you can’t beat ‘em, you should join ‘em. His company is going to publish a book of old Garfield strips with Garfield removed, and the Garfield Minus Garfield guy is going to write the foreword. This is just absolutely nuts… and I count it as a sell-out.

I was going to say that I Can Has Cheezburger was getting very close to the point of selling out. It’s run by an actual company now. They’ve had sweepstakes and have launched sister sites in case this lolcat thing doesn’t work out. Yes, I was going to say that ICHC is close… but I just went to the site and saw that I Can Has Cheezburger is now a registered trademark of Pet Holdings, Inc. Whaaa?

To you alleged sellouts: Don’t be mad. I used to love you all. You had, and still have, some great ideas. I still have a place in my heart for each of you (except maybe The Sneeze). And hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

As we all know, good-looking people face so many problems in our society. Fortunately, there’s now a social network just for them: BeautifulPeople. To get in, you have to be voted attractive by members who are of the opposite sex. Then you have to pay pretty dang much money if you want full membership. (£69.95 a year? What the heck?)

One of those university projects: Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene.

How much of the things you remember actually happened? A recent (or not recent, I can’t tell how old the article is) study suggests that creating false memories is pretty easy.