Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Some things you may not know

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  • Evan Yates,

    Technical Limitations might find your long VGA cable wanting in the clarity department (even if it is very high quality cable).

    Looks like the best ones are good for only about 10m. (but I'm no expert)

    Hamiltron, Te Ika-a-Māui • Since Nov 2006 • 197 posts Report Reply

  • Don Christie,

    Congratulations are due to Brian Opie and all the others involved in the project, which began with a meeting at the National Library exactly a year ago.

    The New Zealand Open Source Society would like to second that emotion.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1645 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    PS: Wellington readers: another remind about the Hustlle for Autism on Monday night, which will launch David Cohen's book, A Perfect World and my new autism website, Humans, and raise money for the Autism Intervention Trust.

    Give my regards to David, Russell, and I really look forward to reading the book. I'm sure some PA readers shudder at the mention of his name, but I was pleasantly surprised - and impressed - by Welcome to the Campus of Struggle, which is mostly a collection of work he's done for the Chronicle of Higher Education (who also own Arts & Letters Daily).

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    I brought Murray around to my flat and stuck on Orange Juice's You Can't Hide Your Love Forever album: the one with the wonky version of Al Green's 'L.O.V.E.', and much beloved of John Campbell.

    Little did I know that Murray, as a genuine soul fan, loathed the record

    Are you dissing John Campbell?? (heh heh) And can you confirm that RIU did get it's name from Orange Juice's Rip It Up (and start again). I thought I knew but knowing Murray (I don't actually!) there's probably also some old Chuck Berry-type song out there called (Gonna) Rip It Up or similar.

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • 3410,

    "Bumps" Blackwell, apparently. Not a name that rings much of a bell for me, but the song was, of course, an absolute standard of the Rock 'n Roll era; Chuck Berry, Elvis, Everly Brothers, Beatles, etc., etc.

    Don't be too hard on the kids though, RB. Consider this: Expecting today's students to know about that song is the chronological equivalent of you being well-versed in the music of 1929.
    ;)

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Ballantyne,

    Ummm -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OUVC_xV79M is what you're after, surely?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 27 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    that's the song I was thinking of, Steve! (I should have googled RIU myself but I thought that would be cheating).

    </sidebar> Interesting that Little Richard is singing "gonna RIU, gonna ball tonite" since 'ball' was slang of the day for 'f@ck'. No such blatant slang in today's modern music??

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Rob W,

    Now I'm confused. I remember the old paper copies of Rip it Up from '77 or '78, while Orange Juice's lovely album 'You can't hide...' came out the the early 80's and I think the next one they called Rip It Up. Anyway, well after Rip It Up started.

    Didn't Little Richard have a song Rip it Up?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 9 posts Report Reply

  • Scott Common,

    Totally stoked about a NZ specific creative commons finally on it's way.

    Will try and make it for Hustle on Monday, but ironically depends on wether I have band practise :-)

    Yay - it's Friday...

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 62 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    A poet at some stage has to be poor. And somehow money spoils poetry. It does, it takes away, it changes your original intention. I always become nasty when I have money.

    Sad but true, I think. The best poetry and art generally is done for the sole reason that the artist wanted to do it for itself. The profit motive will always distort the art, and the artist who does that can never avoid the feeling of having been cheapened, something that can colour their outlook forever after.

    I feel that way about my 'art', computer programming. If the profit motive had never been there, I would have worked on only the projects that interested me. As it turned out, I managed to work mainly on projects that were of some interest to me, but that's not the same thing. Even my ultra-conservative business partner, who made a fortune from programming before we became partners, admitted to me that if making money had not been an issue, he would have done what he loves, writing computer games. Now he wants to go back to it, but I have to wonder what could have been achieved if he'd spent his best years on it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • merc,

    Once you whore your muse she will never return.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Paul Wood,

    Oh piffle, what a bunch of Romantic 19th century nonsense. Poetic inspiration has nothing to do with starving away in a attic, and everything to do with your sense of vision, your intellectual ability, and your relationship with the world.
    In essence, you are idealising what is actually a kind of intellectual transcendant masturbation that may or may not result in a mass entertainment for a high-brow elite that probably doesn't understand it anyway - probably the reason I love it so.

    And Ben, I respect your position, but dude, it's code, not Gerard de Nerval.

    Christchurch • Since Jan 2007 • 175 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Not for free anyway, which turns the tables. Where once you had your muse for free and you pimped her for cash, now you have to pay her every time, and each is less sweet than the last. Eventually you end up a whoremonger, paying many jaded old muses for sad renditions of your lost youth.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    The best poetry and art generally is done for the sole reason that the artist wanted to do it for itself. The profit motive will always distort the art,

    Then surely.... the artist with no money may well already be distorting their art in order to survive, and equally, an artist that wants for nothing, can surely also do thier art for its own sake?

    It is reasonably true that many great artists have known poverty at some point....

    But it doesnt follow that you have to be poor to do art for its own sake.

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • LegBreak,

    Rip it Up the magazine predated Rip it Up the song by several years.

    In fact when the song came out, I remember RIU the magazine had as a clue in their cryptic crossword "They've stolen our name; we've got the pip"

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1162 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Andrew, there is art in everything we do, or at least there can be. And I don't think that just because you're getting paid for it, it's any less masturbatory. You're just jerking to someone else's tune, providing money shots to fuel the masturbation of others.

    I'm not really Romantic about it, though. I don't think there was a golden age when artists didn't struggle for a living. If anything, there is more genuine art being created now than there ever was, as more people are freed from worldly concerns. But I think society as a whole does value them less than it did, and a lot of potential is still lost to practical concerns.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • kmont,

    Lurid but apt metaphor. The whole art for arts sake debate is more interesting and - ahem - fertile than the Mac vr PC one.

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 485 posts Report Reply

  • kmont,

    Mac vrs PC

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 485 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    If you took from the world all the art that had been done for money, or food or sex or kudos or to have the thrill of enthralling others, or something other than purely its own sake... how much would be left? An enterprise can be worthwhile and an end unto itself and still earn a buck...

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    FletcherB

    But it doesnt follow that you have to be poor to do art for its own sake.

    Nor did I say that. It's a correlation, not a cause. Those few people who were both highly talented and also born rich have created much of the world's greatest art. But a lot more people are born poor, and I think talent is probably distributed evenly across all classes. Of those people, the ones who chose to pursue their art for it's own sake are usually impoverished for much of their lives. Some are discovered in their lives and do OK out of it. Then there's the ones who cashed in (and I'm not saying they shouldn't), who created lesser art but made a great deal of money out of it.

    Classic example would be Tolkien vs J K Rowling. Tolkien created his own vision with very little outside encouragement, and effectively started an entire genre. In the last decades of his life he did well out of writing basically the most popular book ever written by one person. He was not a poor man, being a middle class scholar, he was able to indulge his dream to write the LOTR. Rowling, on the other hand, merely taps into a preexisting genre with derivative ideas carefully marketed, and has made an incredible fortune out of writing works that are lesser, each sequel copying the formula of the first, and synchronizing the works with movie rights.

    I'm not saying Rowling is bad and Tolkien good. Just that LOTR is a vastly superior work of art to the Harry Potter series, and that comes mainly from the connection between Tolkien's work and the profit motive being very weak. In fact, the Lord of the Rings was a sellout in Tolkien's mind, the book he really wanted to write was the Silmarillion. This dream was never realized until after his death, and I can't say it's a great read. So the profit motive wasn't entirely bad, at least it got the LOTR written - Tolkien realized that he would rather write something that people would read, and they weren't going to read the Silmarillion. But it certainly wasn't that burning quest for cash that pumps out endless Harry Potters.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Tolkien created his own vision with very little outside encouragement, and effectively started an entire genre.

    That's a very, very big call. Tolkein drew heavily on Norse mythology. He didn't invent elves, or dwarves, or orcs, or magic rings, or fantasy for that matter, and he freely acknowledged his own influences. I'm not saying Rowling isn't derivative, she is, hugely. But so is Tolkein, and his prose is heavy, plodding and dull. I know that's heresy.

    And Ben, I respect your position, but dude, it's code, not Gerard de Nerval.

    Coding is still creating. It's sticking existing elements together to make something new, just like writing or music.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • merc,

    I tell programmers that too Emma, ;-)

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • Heather Gaye,

    Coding is still creating. It's sticking existing elements together to make something new, just like writing or music.

    I hear this quite a bit, usually from non-coders, and much as I appreciate the encouragement, it's not strictly true. Elegant code is a beautiful thing for sure, but coding is inventing, not creating. Code is devised because there was a problem that needed to be solved. Creation is different - a creator's ultimate goal is to come up with a new idea from nothing. While a programmer could potentially create code as art, most coding isn't creative.

    Morningside • Since Nov 2006 • 533 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Mm, when I write an article for a client to fill their particular need and jam in their SEO requirements, that's not very creative either. I'm creative when I'm writing for myself. My pet coder is the same - he likes to play with code, but most of the time he has to Build the Widget, so we can eat and stuff.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Don't be too hard on the kids though, RB. Consider this: Expecting today's students to know about that song is the chronological equivalent of you being well-versed in the music of 1929.

    While I'm not young enough to be the kids, I did know that Rip It Up was a Little Richard song (and Orange Juice!).

    But I was wondering how I knew that because, well, I wasn't alive in the '50s. Then I realised - it was through the late 1970s rock 'n' roll retro revival. (I probably saw Sha-na-na play it on their TV show.)

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

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