Fewer new CDs to buy = lower sales!

Just now found this item on yet another explanation for why CD sales dropped 10 percent in 2001 (besides the obvious: DVDs give you much more for the same $$ [or even less]): significantly fewer CD titles were issued that year!

Missing RIAA figures shoot down "piracy" canard [The Register]

Research by George Zieman gives the true reason for falling CD sales: the major labels have slashed production by 25 per cent in the past two years, he argues.

After keeping the figure rather quiet for two years, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says the industry released around 27,000 titles in 2001, down from a peak of 38,900 in 1999. Since year-on-year unit sales have dropped a mere 10.3 per cent, it's clear that demand has held up extremely well: despite higher prices, consumers retain the CD buying habit.

Increasingly hysterical comments from RIAA chairperson and chief random-number-generator Hilary Rosen suggest that many billions of potential sales have been lost...

Heh.

On a related note, if you haven't already seen it elsewhere, you may well be owed $20 by the music industry. Not a hoax, not an urban legend. Just look it over, then file a claim to get your money. (Don't know when it'll actually be sent: "The Final Approval hearing will occur in May of 2003, and it may be several months before payments would be mailed out." [ref]) Still.  

 Tomorrow's TiVos

David Pogue writes up future TiVo features: Tomorrow's TiVos [NY Times, via Bump]

(Whether or not owners of the older Series 1 machines will get any of these features is still under discussion.)

[Free:] the ability to sort the list of recorded shows by either date or alphabetically ... clump shows into folders ... [make] calls to the mother ship [..] via cable modem or D.S.L.

...if you pay a one-time $100 fee... you'll be able to program your TiVo from a Web site ... the TiVo will be able to check for your Web instructions as often as every 15 minutes.

[The pay option] will also let you watch shows on one TiVo that were recorded by a different TiVo in the house.

So, pretty much TV nirvana, even more than now.  

 2002 A Cappella Picks

The reviewers at the Recorded A Cappella Review Board have picked their favorites of 2002 with links to detailed reviews of each. If you're looking for new music to try, these would probably be a good bet. [Note: I used to write reviews for the site, and it's run by my former bandmates Seth and Chris]

RARB Picks of '02 [RARB.org]

Blue Jupiter - Ear Candy
SoCal VoCals - V3: Previously Unreleased
Eclipse - Think Twice
The Nylons - Play On
The Amalgamates - Bamboo
...

Most if not all of the groups have websites (Blue Jupiter, SoCal Vocals, etc...) and many provide free sound clips.

I don't think I bought any new a cappella last year, but when I do I'll probably look over their reviews.     1 comment(s)  

Thanks for the list. I picked up the Eclipse disk on a friend's recommendation a few weeks ago and have really been enjoying it. My buddy Eric's got a lot of this stuff in rotation on his web radio station at www.acappellaalways.com.
      ...posted by TheBrad on January 20, 2003 12:59 PM

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 Scripting Safari, clumsily

OK, I've pretty much switched over to Safari as my main browser; it's mighty stable, mighty compatible and mighty fast. There's little I need to use IE for any more, and it runs rings around Mozilla. Chimera's not bad, but Safari's bookmarks beat it handily.

So anyway, this means I've had to do some tweaking to my 'cheater' blogging script (which takes whatever's in the current browser window and tosses it into BBEdit in my favorite format). It could use tons of refinement, but it already saves me time:

tell application "Safari"
    set t to name of window 1
    set u to URL of document 1
    set x to text of document 1
end tell
tell application "BBEdit 6.5"
    set s to "<a href=\"" & u & "\">" & t & " <small>[" & u & "]</small> <blockquote><small class=\"q\">" & x & "</small></blockquote>"
    make new document with properties {contents:s}
    activate
end tell

Then save it from Script Editor as a compiled app, assign a keystroke combination to it (in my case by making it a button in DragThing), and poof! My own little custom 'Blog This' thingy, and the browser doesn't even have to be frontmost.

I should credit the page I got some Safari scripting hints from (since I'm not too facile with AppleScript on my own yet): Five Scripts for Safari Beta [Studio Log]

Anyhow, that's done now, so: onward. And no more techie posts for at least a little while.