DudeAsInCool

Some kind-hearted soul at CyberKnowledge has amassed over 20,000 free and legal music videos at Youtube, catalogued them, and even added a button so you can play them on the spot. Pretty nifty, huh? Check It Out

Bluegrass veteran Ricky Skaggs and pianist Bruce Hornsby have joined forces for an eponymous collaborative album due March 20 via Sony BMG/Legacy. The set includes covers of Hornsby's prior hit "Mandolin Rain" and Rick James' "Super Freak." Backing was provided by Skaggs' band, Kentucky Thunder. "Ricky Skaggs is a deep musical soul, one of the great keepers of the traditional and mountain music flame," Hornsby says. "It was so inspiring -- and educational -- to make this record with these virtuoso musicians." Read more at Billboard

Billboard reports that "Houston rapper Mike Jones will unveil his next album, "The American Dream," in April via Swishahouse/Asylum/Warner Bros. Records. First single "Mr. Jones" was produced by Myke Diesel and is at radio now. Additional details have yet to be revealed about the follow-up to 2005's "Who Is Mike Jones?," which has sold 1.4 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan." Read more at Billboard

Wired takes a look at how to boost the sound out of your mp3s and mp3 players" Lossy compression like that employed by MP3 and AAC robs a song of its aural presence -- drums lose their crispness, bass loses its punch and high tones are muddied by artifacts. Ripping at higher bitrates or with a lossless compression scheme helps matters, but what can you do for the MP3 collection you've built up over the years? Re-rip all those tracks? Forget about it. A number of technologies exist to make those lossy MP3s shine. Digital signal processing and various psychoacoustic methods can help coax a more natural sound from all of your digital tracks, bringing the audio fidelity close to its pre-compression glory. A number of technologies exist to make those lossy MP3s shine. Digital signal processing and various psychoacoustic methods can help coax a more natural sound from all of your digital tracks, bringing the audio fidelity close to its pre-compression glory. Read more at Wired

..According to a study by InsuranceHotline.com, a Web site that quotes drivers on insurance rates, astrological signs are a significant factor in predicting car accidents. The study, which looked at 100,000 North American drivers' records from the past six years, puts Libras (born between Sept. 23 and Oct. 22), followed by Aquarians (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) and Aries (March 21-April 19), as the worst offenders for tickets and accidents. Leos (July 23-Aug. 22) and then Geminis (May 21-June 20) were found to be the best overall. "I was absolutely shocked by the results," said Lee Romanov, the president of Toronto-based InsuranceHotline.com. Read more at MSN

In their article, The Website That Can Name The Tune, CNet reports that Midomi finds music by the tune you humm: Do you ever find yourself humming a song whose title, to your frustration, you don't know or can't remember? New search Web site Midomi is designed to actually identify that song for you in as little as 10 seconds. Launching in beta mode on Friday, Midomi allows people to search for a song by singing, humming or whistling a bit of the tune. The site then offers search results that include commercially recorded tracks or versions of the song recorded by others who have used the site. The technology also lets people listen to the exact section of each of the results that matched their voice sample. Read more at CNet Or check out the beta for Midomi

Pandora, the music intelligent site that suggests music that users may like, has created a mashup to eMusic's indie store, if you want to purchase a selection. Check it out HERE

Roughly 25 million Americans—or 18 percent of the U.S. online population—have illegally downloaded a full-length movie, a study released Wednesday asserts. In a study of 2,600 Americans polled via telephone and online, Digital Life America, a unit of Solutions Research Group, found that 32 million Americans had downloaded a movie at some point in the past. Read more at Extreme Tech

In case you couldn't find a favorite, the following sites have been shut down, or are no longer working: SuperMoviePlex Forums ??? UKs TV-Links - Shut down 10/19/07 Nitchi 50Webs- Shut down Stage 6 - Shut down by DivX http://teevee.gamefurnace.com-- No Longer Available! http://www.watchforfree.co.nr/-- Outdated! http://www.rapetheweb.com-- Outdated! http://digguser.blogspot.com -- Outdated! http://tv-posse.piczo.com-- No Longer Available! http://onlygreatstuff.blogspot.com/-- No Longer Available! http://moviemadd.piczo.com/ -- No Longer Available! http://tvlinks.voodeedoo.org/-- Currently Down! http://www.tvshez.com/"-- Currently Down! http://www.free2see.co.nr/--No Longer Available! http://movies.addictivejunk.com/"-- No Longer Available! http://tv-earth.com/-- No Longer Available! http://www.bleenks.com/" -- No Longer Available! http://www.tvfusion.piczo.com/ -- No Longer Available! http://www.wegotshows.com/ -- No Longer Available! http://www.showstash.com - Shut down by MPAA http://www.tv-links.co.uk/ - Shut down by UK http://www.rapetheweb.com/ - No longer available http://www.eztvefnet.org/"--Dead http://ttp://www.tvtorrents.com/--No longer working http://www.collegerage.com/--Videogame site, not working http://stolenmovies.blogspot.com/--No longer working Movies6.net - Formerly Simplistic Movies 66Stage.com And beware of http://miivi.com/ - it's a scam site to entrap people

The Leeds Music Scene interviews guitarist and photographer Tad Kubler, their musical influences, the involvement of Soul Asylum's David Pirner and the success of their latest album. Can you put a name to your sound? What's your influences? I would say that we're definitely without question a rock and roll band. Our influences are Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, The Replacements, Soul Asylum, Springsteen; a lot of early Minneapolis rock and roll and then a lot of classic seventies rock and roll too. How did you get Soul Asylum's David Pirner involved? Well I knew Danny, the guitar player [for Soul Asylum], and had met him a bunch of times before in and around Minneapolis. I'd never met Dave, but our lawyer used to represent Soul Asylum and he's still really good friends with those guys so when we were talking about the fact we wanted guest vocals on that song ['Chillout Tent'] and we couldn't figure it out George, our lawyer, was in the studio at the time and he said "what about Dave Pirner?" and we were like "Oh my God" and he's like "I'll call him" and he did and Dave said "I'd love to". Read the full interview HERE

DAVOS, Switzerland - Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that his wildly successful site will start sharing revenue with its millions of users. Hurley said one of the major proposed innovations is a way to allow users to be paid for content. YouTube, which was sold to Google for $1.65 billion in November, has become an Internet phenomenon since it began to catch on in late 2005. Some 70 million videos are viewed on the site each day. "We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users," Hurley said. "So in the coming months we are going to be opening that up." Read more at Yahoo News

In his journal, David Byne takes a look at Mark Katz's book, 'Capturing Sound' which details how recording technology has changed music. Some excerpts from the review: Katz says that the length of 78s (and later or 45s) determined some changes in writing style. Those recordings, being limited to fewer than 4 mins (more like 3.5 for 45s) prodded songwriters to limit their composing to that length. To me a song length between 3 and 4 minutes seems natural, inevitable; I can hardly conceive that it could have ever been otherwise, but maybe it was. I dunno, though — even folk songs and blues, most of them don’t have too many verses — the old transcriptions and collected lyrics wouldn’t run much longer than that. So maybe this is an example where the technology happened to fit one existing form like a glove. However, with jazz and classical it made a huge difference. Jazzers obviously would stretch out a tune or theme, and had to then limit themselves in the studio — they became more concise and jazz became more “composed”. I’d offer that for some jazz musicians Later on, with LPs, record companies encouraged artists to record long players, which could be sold for more money and profit than mere 45s, and some artists began to stretch out a little more. Thematic LPs emerged (Frank Sinatra again) and extended jams and side-length compositions from Miles and various rock bands. Artists began to use the studio as an instrument as well, creating compositions on multitrack tape that could never be reproduced live. Later, with 12” dance and DJ singles, which I remember from the late 70s, the low end, the kick drum and bass, could be brought forward, made louder, and the disco became a world of throbbing pulsing low end which had to wait for the CD before it could be recorded and experienced in album format. With CDs, it was rumored that the length of the disc was technically created to be able to hold the duration of Beethoven’s 9th. Or so the unsubstantiated story goes. But the low end, and the super high end, was practically unlimited, unlike LPs, and this extended audio range could now be available to everyone. Dance music, techno and hip-hop became music of physical sensation. Music was in your face and jiggling your butt. What comes next, with MP3s and the solitary listening experience begun with the Walkman in the late 70s (it was that long ago!) —? Well, the cassettes that came with the walkmen were perfect for mixtapes. So albums began to be reconstructed, homemade compilations were passed around, and the mix tape as a personal statement, a thoughtful and considered gift and a journey came into being. This was a kind of composing. Or recomposing. None of that is new. It’s taken off with MP3s — it has exploded, it’s easier, but it’s not new. Now mixtapes (still called that though they are CDs) mainly feature new mixes and even brand new songs and there are “artists” whose talent and attraction is their skill at making these mix CDs. There’s a point though, at which the richness of the retinal or aural experience is so diminished that it becomes irrelevant, but where is that point? I first heard rock and soul songs on a tiny crappy-sounding transistor radio, and it changed my life completely. It was sonic, but it was also a social and cultural message that electrified me. Now I’m not saying that tinny sound should be considered satisfying or desirable, but it’s amazing how lo-fi or lo-rez information can communicate a huge amount. Read the full review HERE

In his article It's On to Plan B..., SoulXTC explores the Pirate's Bay's plans to buy a country. (Sealand is out now for a number of reason.) Here is the Prince of Sealand:

Liar

I think this has been posted elsewhere, but it's worth looking at again. Zappa warns that the greatest threat to America is not dirty lyrics, it's the move of the country towards a fascist theocracy, where the values of one religeon are imposed on the rest of us.

I've been watching a 911 documentary tonight that is pretty compelling: it's thesis is that explosives are what brought down the twin towers, not the planes. Watch it and make up your own mind.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Serena Williams won her eighth and most improbable Grand Slam title, overwhelming top-seeded Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-2 in the Australian Open on Saturday. Only the second unseeded woman to win the Australian title in the Open era, Williams came into the tournament ranked No. 81 after spending most of last season on the sidelines because of a knee injury. Read more at the NYTimes

Jan. 26, 2007 - White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. While that is no guarantee they will be called, the odds increased this week after Libby’s lawyer, Ted Wells, laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, had been made a “scapegoat” to protect Rove. Cheney is expected to provide the most crucial testimony to back up Wells’s assertion, one of the lawyers close to the case said Read more at Newsweek

In an interview with Kristy Lang on BBC Radio 4's Front Row program today, producer/musician/artist/god Brian Eno revealed that he is producing the next Coldplay album. "I think [the album] will be very original and very different from what they've done before," Eno said. ...Lang and Eno had been discussing the Talking Heads' influence on current pop music, so Lang had to ask if the new Coldplay album will sound at all like that band. Eno laughed and replied, "Funnily enough, I mentioned to David Byrne the other day that we are trying very hard to stay clear of Talking Heads." Read more at Pitchforkmedia

the judge should have stepped in at that point

So everyone jumped to conclusions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp. studio Twentieth Century Fox subpoenaed Google Inc.'s YouTube video service to learn who uploaded pirated copies of episodes of television shows "24" and "The Simpsons," The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The subpoena, filed January 18, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asks YouTube to hand over information to identify the subscriber so Fox can stop the infringement, the Journal reported. Read More

Remember that election last November? You know, the one that signaled the need for change. Well, apparently that change doesn’t include taking a more enlightened approach to legislation involving new technology. Earlier this month a bipartisan group of Senators lead by Diane Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a bill that would create a variety of new restrictions for both Internet broadcasters and listeners. Bill S.256, also known as the “Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act” (PERFORM), would, among other things, require that Internet broadcasters protect their audio streams with DRM technology. Apparently the RIAA has convinced Feinstein that unencrypted audio streams are contributing to the global piracy problem. In a world where just about every song ever recorded is available from any number of online sources, it’s hard to believe that a significant number of listeners are sitting around waiting for their favorite song to play on some Internet station so they can record the stream, cut the song out of the stream, tag it, then transfer it to their iPod. No, something tells me that people who don’t want to pay for songs have more efficient ways of stealing music. Read More

Slum's postcard made Post-Secret! - it's the one with the feline photo, but don't tell anyone :)