Epirus in Greece, where I'm coming from, is a quake zone btw, we have "feel-able" earthquakes regularly there (at least once or twice a year). The biggest ones, where people died, were in 2004, and then back in 1981.

In my mother country, Greece, we have a word for this: koufovrasi. Supposedly (or so the superstition goes), a few hours before an earthquake, the weather becomes hot, stale, like you're choking, and it's like the sound doesn't travel as much (that's why it's called as such, which in free translation it means "deaf, boiled weather"). In the villages of the mountain Epirus, this is a known "sign" that an earthquake might hit soon. I personally experienced this kind of weather once or twice during in my early life there, but I don't remember if an earthquake ever hit soon afterward or not.

No, you're using the wrong update button. Not the one for ALL apps, but in each app's page. So when you try to update apps one by one, this doesn't work anymore.

This does not work here, for two different devices, and if you read the article, you will see that there are many people who can't. There are many threads about it. If you can, you're special.

Apple needs to be a bit more carefully about older versions of the OS and models. Case in point:

1. This: http://www.osnews.com/story/24428/The_Next_Brick_to_Decorate_Your_Wall_iOS_3_x_Devices
After months this article got posted, the App Store STILL DOES NOT work properly. You still can't update an app from within the device by hitting "update". The button does nothing! You need iOS 4.x or above before you can update via iOS (so we now have to use iTunes, which I don't want to use since that iPod has no music in it, I just use it as a PDA).

2. Apple REMOVED AirTunes support from iOS 4 when the second generation of AppleTV came out. What they did exactly was to stop supporting the original AppleTV (that was still sold at the time), from within iOS. So I can't use the 1st Gen AppleTV to send audio too from my iOS device anymore. This used to work just fine up to a few months ago. After the iOS 4.2 update, the support was removed.

While parts of technology might stop progressing as fast, other parts of technology will start getting optimized, to get over the halting of that other part. So if hardware stops getting faster, people will start optimizing software (which is currently extremely inefficient), until we get a better HW/SW tech at some point later in the future. There's a very nice comment on the Amazon page of the book by JPS, give it a read.

>That's like saying you'll never go back to Vivaldi after hearing Mozart...

No, because both were good. In my case, I can't say that Rihanna, who sells millions of records, is better than Washed Out. She's not.

> Music is all about taste

Sure, but there's also a common denominator threshold. When you cross it, things sound kitsch.

It's like watching "Lost in Space", and then you started watching "Babylon 5", after someone transported the tapes back to 1967 for you. After you go Babylon 5, and see how much DEPTH there's there, you will find the rest of 1967's TV boring as hell.

Same with music. Yes, there are tastes, but what I tried to communicate goes beyond tastes. For example, the "taste" paradigm would work for me when thinking that I like "Surfer blood", but I don't like "Toro Y Moi" -- both pretty hipster artists otherwise. But when it comes to Rihanna and Surfer Blood, then that's not a matter of taste anymore, because we're talking about two different WORLDS. Two different products: one's music, the other one's not!

I have 140 GBs of legal music, and I will not stop buying or legally downloading free new music, not because I'm a consumer drone, but because the music changes over the years, and I want to keep up with it. I like the new stuff more than I like the old stuff. Music evolves and becomes more complex, and requires more time to get accustomed to it, and I like that because the payout is better. Of course I'm talking about underground indie music, I don't listen to mainstream artists. Either way, RIAA won't get my money, since they don't support the kind of artists I listen to.

You said it!

This is true for metal, but not for indie rock music. Started in 2006, and exploded in 2009, almost all indie hipster bands given away from 1 to 3 free legal downloads per album, as promotion. That's how I got into indie music myself. This helped creating the so many indie music blogs out there, these legal free downloads. The metal scene doesn't have as many blogs, and therefore not as many free samples -- it's a bit chicken and egg problem. Plus older mentality I guess, from the bands and these older labels that run metal bands.

Anyways, Amazon has almost 10 free metal albums, with various artists in it, check them out. Email me if you need URLs.

It's all about the people and how much free time they have. For example, I grew up in the '80s, with Madonna. As any teenage girl of the time, I loved her look and music. I liked only a bit of actual rock, and mostly pop. The '90s were eurodance for me, and 2000s were adult, popularized, alternative rock. Everything I listened until 2009 was under the monicker of "popular" and "mainstream".

In 2009 I started listening to underground indie bands, and today I mostly listen to artists that record music at home, and not only don't even have a contract with an indie label (let alone a major one), but they don't think they will ever sell a single digital unit, so they give their album for free on Bandcamp.

When all that took place in my head, within the last 2 years, I'm now INCAPABLE of listening to pop music. I hate it. I hate 95% of mainstream music. I feel that the bedroom artists, that don't have to answer to anyone, are the true heroes who PUSH the boundaries to explore new kinds of music.

I'm a 37 years old. I don't look like a hipster at all (more like a fat computer-stricken geek). But because I had the time and will (no kids you see), I took the time to educate myself about new kinds of music. In the beginning it felt like random notes, completely hookless, but as the time goes by and you get accustomed to the sound, a new musical world will show up in front of you. After that tipping point (it took me over a year to get sonically there), you can never go back to the old style of music. It will sound too little, too cheesy, too kitch, too unintelligent.

Agreed. Last year I paid *over* $2000 for music, so that puts me probably not just on the top-14% of consumers, but probably on the top-1%. But like you do, I always check what I buy, I don't buy whatever random stuff are around. Youtube has neither good or bad effect, because it neutralizes its position by helping me decide to buy something or not. If youtube didn't exist, I would probably buy LESS.

What's the killer though is that 80% of my new music these days is downloaded for free from BandCamp rather than bought. Not because I don't want to buy (I've can prove that I do to anyone who would check my iTunes and Amazon receipts), but because the KIND of music I listen these days very rarely can be found on iTunes, and to much less extend, on Amazon. I started listening to obscure indie bands that record at home, and these people just do music for fun, and so they often don't charge any money for it.

More importantly, it's that THESE musicians are pushing the boundaries of music, since they don't have to answer to any music exec. 95% of popular music will never win me back, so for these execs mentioned in the article, I'm already a dead customer. Even if I spend so much money for music (since it's mostly for indie labels' music, and the rest is music I get legally for free).

V *is* bad. Very bad television. Laughable. Trying to look for this thing called "soul" at a MILF's cleavage.