Everything that's wrong with the music industry....

In an article on the New York Post, we learn that the music industry really doesn't care about the people who create the music.

In short: the RIAA has been filing dozens of music piracy lawsuits, targeting guilty and innocent alike. Suing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, they literally ruin people's lives over sharing a couple of CD's worth of music.

So what do they do with all this money? They give it to the artists who were pirated, right? Wrong.

"What's more, these sources said that after the labels recouped their legal expenses, there wasn't much left to pass along to the artists.", the article says.

So, in this new world, does this mean that only the lawyers win?

Increasingly, record companies are becoming an anachronism in today's society, and it's becoming more and more apparent that the RIAA doesn't have the musician's best interests at heart. It's time to end the music business as we know it. Give the artists control over their own works and let them sell through places like iTunes and Amazon.

New wiki (CR users only)

I'm working on a new addition to the site. By using Google's Sites feature, I can create a kind of Wiki, this will allow me to quickly set up and edit my site.

the first page is a download page here:
http://sites.google.com/a/compiledreality.com/aviation/Home

What's more evil than a super villian?

A building contractor.

On flying model planes...

Those of you who know me know that I've been interested in airplane flight.... for a long time.

I can't afford to fly a real plane, so I've taken up the hobby of radio controlled flight. The first challenge? Buying the right first plane!

I considered 2 planes: The Hangar 9 Alpha, and the Hobbico NexStar. Both aircraft are aimed squarely at the new flier, and both are about the same price.

What interested me about the NexStar was the hi-tech wing. It has leading edge droops and fixed-position flaps, which act as half speedbrake and half lift-inducing flaps. The Alpha, on the other hand, is traditionally configured aerodynamically, but has a 3-bladed prop with a very flat pitch.

Other than that, the two planes serve the same market: the new pilot. Both planes are .40 size They both have a wing span of somewhere around 5 feet, are powered by a .4 cubic inch engine, (That's right: 4 tenths of a cubic inch.) and weigh in at around 6 pounds.

However, a wrinkle worked its way in to my plan: I came across a used plane for sale. And the guy was selling everything: radio, field kit... everything. The catch was, the plane wasn't a NexStar or an Alpha. It was this thing called a Giant Kadet Senior.

The Giant Kadet is a .60 sized plane, with a 6.75 foot wing span, but it weighs the same as the NexStar. So where the NexStar goes for drag & gimmicks on the wing to keep the speed down and the lift high, the Kadet does it by just having HUGE wings. Of course, the tailplane is huge, too. The elevator and rudder account for about 1/3 of the tail surface, so you get a ton of control authority.

On my first flight with this thing, which was my first flight in any nitro powered plane, I greased it in... the landing was perfect. Half of that was the fact that I've spent a lot of time on the computer, but a lot of that was due to the fact this plane glides very well. Because the wing is so large, you can cut the power while still on the downwind leg in the pattern, and you just kind of float in to the runway. I actually ran it out of fuel yesterday, and I just kind of tootled back to the runway, made a left turn, and set it down. Basically, you point this plane at the runway, kill the engine, and it just kind of floats above the ground, slowly settling in.

Now, I did say that this was my first nitro plane. It is also my first plane with landing gear. I actually started on an Easy Star, which is a fun plane to fly. In fact, I recommend that everyone who wants to fly buy an Easy Star, fly it for a couple of weeks until they learn to land without crashing, and then jump in to Nitro... but not without spending some time at a simulator first. (FMS is a good sim to practice with if you don't want to spend the money for RealFlight.)

So back to the Kadet: This plane is versatile. Because it's so light, you can power it with an engine designed for a smaller plane. You can use it to carry payloads or to tow gliders. You can even do some aerobatics... at much slower speeds than the sport planes out there.

Of course, now that I've gotten used to flying on fuel, it's time to get in to something more interesting. Pics of my first "assembled by me" plane coming soon....

I dumped MySpace

For those of you who might be wondering where my MySpace profile went... it's gone. I am tired of getting spam of all kinds from MySpace: porn sites trying to friend me, bands looking for new fans, and even the occasional bad comic trying to get me to go see his show.

However, the final nail in the coffin was when someone hijacked the account of someone I know and started using it to send spam. I tried to tell her to change her password, but it apparently didn't work... I kept getting spam after spam from her MySpace account.

Yes, I have had some good experience with MySpace: a couple of friends I haven't talked to in a long time found me through there, but the down side is that with all the spam I get now, I would have missed their "hello" letters or friend invites anyway.

Maybe I'll re-connect. I don't know. But for now, no social networking sites for me.

On iTunes and DVR's...

I'm not sure, but I think this is a first: Snapstream Beyond TV has a DVD burining/iTunes plugin for their DVR software.

The cool thing about this? I can now dump my tv shows to DVD AND to my iPod. The cooler part is that the iTunes integration is totally hands-off, so I can just plug the iPod in to my comptuer, and while it charges at night, it grabs the latest shows off my DVR, saves them to my iTunes library, and dumps them to the iPod.

Oh, and with Beyond TV Link, I can use the tuners on my HTPC to record a show while I watch a different show on the main PC and my daughter watches something else on another computer. The cool thing about this is that instead of running coax to every room, I just run a home run to the room with the HTPC, and my tuners and my cable modem all plug in there. Much cleaner. True, it means I need a computer to watch TV anywhere but the living room, but it also means that I can take my video with me anywhere.

On restaurants and waiting tables...

What's the most important rule in business? If you lose your customers, you don't have a business.

So what's the most important rule in the restaurant business? If you ignore your customers, they won't come back. I was at the Boll Weevil today and got not quite the worst customer service I've ever had at a restaurant. Yes, the service was unexceptional even to the point that it wasn't the very worst.

What was so bad about it? Was the waitress rude? No. Was the place dirty or too loud? No. Was the food bad? No, actually it was very good. But the waitress never once came back to my table after giving me my food. She never filled my iced tea, never asked if I needed anything, never asked if I wanted dessert (which I very much did... until I'd sat there for so long that I was in danger of over-running my lunch hour) and never even brought my check. I had to go find her and get my check so I could go.

I watched her for 10 minutes while trying to get her attention. She took 3 tables' orders, bussed a table, brought drinks to the afore-mentioned tables, but never once even looked my way.

Those of you who own, run, or work at restaurants: the process is simple. Take the order, bring the food, and bring the check with the food. That way I can leave when I'm ready. Then at least come by the table and check in... if I'm reading, don't pester me, but at least see if I'm doing okay. Never, never make the customer feel ignored.

Is that really so hard?