“Intelligent Person in Thinking Clearly Shocker!”

Well, yes. Once again, someone who has their head firmly on their shoulders makes a case against ID cards. The flaws in the idea behind ID cards can be easily pointed out - such as the fact that they wouldn’t have helped prevent any of the terrorist attacks so far - but they do need repeating.

I hope Lord Mackenzie is a “former government crime advisor” because of his rubbishness of his advice:

“Let’s look at the Soham murders. If Ian Huntley had had an identity card, would he have got the job at Soham school which allowed him to commit the murders? I think not.”

Of course not. Let’s not point out the flaws in the way Police handle data (if indeed there were any problems), let’s blame the lack of ID cards. After all, never mind what else they’ll have stamped on them, I’m sure they’ll have “Possibly a Potential Murderer” written nice and bold across them too.

I’m with the naysayers on this one. The scenarios where ID cards will be of any use are when every person has only one card, and they can be used as absolute proof of identity. But that’s just not going to happen, not now, not anytime, so you may as well work from the assumption that some people won’t have them, and many people will have fake ones. So what’s the point in having them at all?

…and while I’m on the whole music thing, I’ve set up my music player (the wonderful amaroK) to report back to last.fm / audioscrobbler with the details of what I’m listening to. Amarok can suggest songs for you, based on what you’ve got and what people like on last.fm. So I’m helping anyone out there who has similar music tastes to me. You can see what I’m listening to, as well as my favourite tracks, artists and albums, by looking at my profile.

What really caught my attention was when I noticed the list of “neighbours” - people who live in the same musical-taste area as me. Top of the list? Why, naughty_jude, apparently. Now who could that be?

Most music is very formulaic. Not only in style, but in length too. I think that’s still a relic of commercial radio stations, who need to fit in some yakking and some advertising at fairly regular intervals. And even if they don’t need to advertise or yak, I think it would still be risky to put on a song lasting 10, 15 or 20 minutes - the listeners don’t get to choose that track, or press ’skip’, so they might well find something else to listen to.

Around one in fifteen tracks in my collection are over 10 minutes long - some are over half an hour. Today’s track of the day is Terra, by ABA Structure (Kenji Williams) from the album Tektonic Illusion. Fast and rhythmical, and there’s something nice and edgy about it. (Hey, if my descriptions suck, it’s only because I need to practise!) I love the fading in and out of themes throughout, it helps draw you through the track.

For me, the first half of the song is just a long teaser for the introduction of the main rhythmic theme at just after the four minute mark. And to have a teaser that long is great, and something only normally found on drance tracks intended for DJs to mix.

When I read that Creative Commons have to prove to the US IRS they have “public support”, I thought I’d give them a hand. And seeing as I read that when Creative Commons was at the forefront of my mind, I thought I’d give generously to their campaign. So I did.

Will you?

I’ll give them their due, Magnatune replied to my letter pretty much straight away (it’s just taken me a few days to post it here).

Hello

Nothing has changed with regards to the creative commons licensing. If folks want to use non- tagged versions of the song, they just have to write in and we will point them in the right direction. Please follow the thread from John regarding the announcements and feel free to add any thoughts.

http://www.magnatune.com/info/submit

Regards,
Joel
Magnatune.com

I’d disagree with the statement that “nothing has changed”, since a fortnight ago I could download the CC music anytime I wanted, without having to email and ask. But we’ll see what happens when I want to license another album. I’m still wading through the ones I’ve got already - today marks the point at which I’ve played all 781 tracks in my collection - it’ll take a bit longer before I’m able to “name that artist” when it’s on random though!

Last night at the bar, I was talking with some current union hacks (albeit one was an elected hack) about various things. Things such as space charging, the Royal College of Science Union (now that the RCS has been un-split-up by the Rector), and of course, disposing of dangerous materials. It’s amazing that the same things come up over and over again, year after year. What’s not so amazing is that nobody realises it’s all been discussed before, and they just keep rehashing the same rubbish solutions to the same problems as the last group of people.

Also, my favourite politician resigned (again) today. I’d love to say “good ridance”, but I know he’ll be back.