i think you're missing the point. digital musicians aren't attempting to reproduce what's been done before. they're creating new stuff - called music - digitally.

wait, so these guys aren't playing instruments?

manipulating objects that make sounds. hmmm. looks like it to me.

You can get a crowd moving with a SNES!

rockit was the 1st 7" i ever bought.

i still have it somewhere...

but why would you bother trying to emulate the sounds of an orchestra or of any real instrument?

why, when those sounds are so limited in their expressiveness? the electronic music producer has a far wider tableau to play with than wobbling tubes and strings.

mass-produced? deadmau5 and daft punk? you do realize that those three are pretty much the sole performers, engineers, producers, marketers & distributors of their music? they make their own music on their own in their own studios that they built. they own their own record labels. they perform on stage alone. (sure, they collaborate...)

or do you mean mass-produced like they print a bunch of CDs?

i have yet to meet a piano that can sound like a violin.

yet, it's still a musical instrument.

just because one machine can't make the same sound as another machine, doesn't mean that it's not an instrument.

no, you're a luddite snob.

that is all.

Pointless? What is the sole purpose of plastic guns?

Wow take a heart pill, dude.

They're called appropriations bills and they're freely available online.

I have a towel.

do you own a car, a microwave oven, a radio, a watch, a TV? do you ride the bus/train, do you vote?

get. the. fuck. over yourself.

yeah, 'cos having everyone download a native application just to provide a decent type-ahead drop-down would improve security on the web a ton.

no, you'd need some way to sign the code to ensure that what you downloaded was what you expected. you'd need some kind of sandboxing to ensure that the native code didn't steal all your secrets. you'd need some kind of UI/communications framework that worked well on every operating system, so companies didn't have to develop 5 different versions of their application. it would be nice to have a unified language that was easy to learn and suited just for the task, in fact, why not just compile it on the client then you don't need to store different versions of the binary.

oh look... a browser!

fool.

This is not an isolated instance. Forced nationalization has been going on there like this for years.

Scottgu. My vote...