Monthly Archives: April 2012

Listening To...

A few things I've picked up recently...

Hank Williams III - Damn Right, Rebel Proud. It's shit-kickin' music: raucous and loud and raunchy, big attitude. Though he shares the legend's name, 3's his own man, for sure. About the only musical connection to Sr's legacy are in lyrical references: he likes to call out people who did Sr. wrong. He's definitely not trying to emulate that sweet, subtle poignancy of Sr's songs.

Screaming Females - Ugly. The way the singer puts a lot of energy and attitude into avoiding singing in key reminds me of really early Throwing Muses. But the Muses have better songs.

Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series #4 (live @ Royal Albert Hall, 1966). I'm slowly growing fond of Mr. Zimmerman. Took me a long time. I've always heard he rarely plays his songs live the way he originally recorded them. But that must be a recent change - they're all pretty much straight, here.

Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls. 60's soul, 70's Stones with hints of the Walkmen and maybe a touch of Black Keys. Very nice. Great singer.

Heard anything you need to tell the world about?

A Big Box Of HATE!

According to the study by professors at Penn State University, New Mexico State University and Michigan State University, the number of Wal-Mart stores in a county correlates significantly with the number of hate groups in the area.

The amount of Wal-Mart stores in a county was more statistically significant than other factors commonly regarded as important to hate group participation, such as the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education, the research found.

href LiveScience.

Welcome Back McCarthy

Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-FL) claimed at a town hall meeting that about 80 members of Congress are communists, a remark which has drawn quick fire from opponents.

"I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the democratic party that are members of the communist party," West told supporters at a town hall meeting in Jensen Beach, FL. He was responding to a question by a participant who asked, "what percentage of the American legislature do you think are card carrying Marxists?"

Why do people elect total fucking morons to represent them?

Cheap Apps And Big Money

Kevin Drum:

The problem for the app market is that smartphone (and tablet) apps are so cheap that there's no way their makers will ever make substantial amounts of money. A few days ago I bought my most expensive app ever: $9.99 for Photoshop Touch. That's a lot! But Photoshop for a PC or a Mac will set you back about $400. Adobe would have to sell a helluva lot of copies of Touch for it to ever be a serious money spinner for them.

No, Adobe isn't going to make a lot of money on their $9.99 app - not by Adobe's money standards of anyway. But, Adobe does know that cheap - or even free - tools can do a good job of keeping your company's name in front of people. For example, what's that free tool which is constantly updating itself, which I hate, but which I just can't escape? Adobe Flash? No not that one... Adobe Reader! Yeah. That one.

Adobe aside, most app writers are small shops - and a lot are just one developer who does it for fun. And for an enterprise that size, a steady stream of small money is good money - and I know of what I speak.

Developers like me are the people who can make money off small sales. I made a hell of a side income for the last 15 years or so, selling PC apps for $24.95 a shot. For most of that time, I was doing three or four thousand dollars in gross sales per month (my biggest month, Jan 2000, was almost $9K in sales). Yes, I paid taxes on that, and accountant fees, and state fees, and internet hosting fees, etc.. But, even after all that, I had a very very nice chunk of money for doing something I enjoyed. No, it wasn't Adobe money, but I'm not Adobe - my business has one employee, who works part time, who doesn't mind skipping a pay check once in a while, and who doesn't need any benefits: me. No, it wasn't enough money that I could quit my day job. But it sure made a nice supplement! Sales are almost zero, these days, since I haven't come up with anything that people want (apparently), in a while. But, it still brings in enough to keep me in new PCs.

And sure, $24.95 is a lot more than most smartphone apps cost. But, it's a different environment - the piracy threat is lower, the ease of purchase and installation is higher; and most importantly, expectations are different. A smartphone app can get away with doing just one thing well, and there's a huge market for apps that are simply novelties. That app that turns pictures of people into pictures of zombies is essentially useless, but it's instant fun, and will spread like a virus among your phone-holding friends. One person gets it, shows it off at a party, then two other people buy it immediately. No PC app can get instant marketing like that, because people don't carry their PCs to parties.

Just Stop

The U.S. might be the worldwide leader in fast food and fat people but British diners will get the first taste of Pizza Hut's new hotdog-stuffed-crust pizza.

The fast-food chain newest offering debuts in Great Britain. It is a 14-inch pizza with a single hotdog - contemplate that for a minute - baked into the ring of crust at the edge of the pie.

Disgusting.

via Times Union