SlashNOT

Matthew writes: Following on the heels of Apple’s critically acclaimed Panther, expectations for Tiger could not be higher. Old school fans who relish Classic Apple hits need not apply—this slickly produced CD is rock solid and clearly the most complete work since the re-invigorating return of front man Steve Jobs five years ago after retiring his critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful solo project “NeXT”.

Heavily influenced by Jobs’ experimentation with NeXT, Tiger finds Apple retaining its pop influenced techno while layering in a substrate of heavy industrial influence. Heavily multithreaded and expansive, Apple continues its operating system hit machine unabated, but this time with less obvious surface glitz and tighter underlying code. At first glance, Tiger can seem almost cartoonish in its glam influence, but a few minutes spent exploring the work reveals a technical depth and intriguing completeness sorely lacking in modern contenders like Microsoft’s over-reaching Windows at one end and the overly quirky, too-folksy Linux at the other.

Accessible hits as Expose, Dashboard, and Spotlight lift the compilation to new heights that will doubtless bring the Apple faithful out, and even convert a few new fans who have been waiting for a Best Of compilation to buy into this time-tested journeyman group.

Matthew writes: English poetic divas Ann and Jane Taylor have re-united and released a new verse of their nursery mega-hit “The Star” to update it for modern audiences.

Originally published in 1806 in the volume “Original Poems for Infant Minds, Volume 2″, the breakout crossover hit has been used to lull small children into complacency for two hundred years. By combining the fresh “couplet” stanza with a novel theme that didn’t involve death or punishment, the sisters unleashed the first megahit–some even credit the hit for coining the term “Star” to refer to fame.

Dogged by critical reviews for their second major work, “The Cut”, which reads in part “Well, what’s the matter?/There’s a face/What! Has it cut a vein?/I see it bleeds, but never mind/that tiny little drop”, the sisters blamed poetry anthology editors for forcing them back into the studio to capitalize on the sudden fame of their first hit.

Cracking under the pressure to produce, the duo went the way of so many other poetic collaborations. While claiming that they would always be sisters, Jane and Ann struck out on their own with solo careers.

Unfortunately, neither was able to achieve anything even remotely like their initial success with “The Star”. Jane’s first solo offering, “The Orphan”, fell even flatter than “The Cut”. Editors warned her that “The Orphan”, whose first verse reads “My father and mother are dead/No friend or relation I have/And now the cold earth is their bed/And daisies grow over the grave” would perhaps not strike the receptive chord with the kids that she was looking for.

Ann’s “Baby Dance” did considerably better, even topping the dance charts momentarily in 1808, but faded rapidly from the public consciousness.

Older, wiser, long dead, and past their differences, the sisters have reunited to recapture their former glory with a new verse that updates the physics behind “The Star”

“We wanted something fresh, for the new audiences. Not a complete remake, you know, but just a little twist. Because let’s face it, we actually do know what stars are these days. It goes something like this:”

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Now we know just what you are
A giant ball of hydrogen gas
fusing to helium because of your mass
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
we even know how far you are

SCRaTCH writes: Leading music distributors have announced that they have joined forces in the latest attempt to rid the internet of the parasitic plague dubbed “File Sharing”.

In an astonishingly original report published today, it has been revealed that they are going to destroy File-Sharing by the end of next month by only releasing music that is of such poor quality, no-one would want to download it in the first place.

An insider in the music industry explained:

“Initially we passed off this File-Sharing as a load of silly piffle but after a while we realised that these people needed to be stopped. We set up a crack team of cyber-spies to research piracy and after 18 months of research on one web-site, we drew a blank. We realised that a new approach was needed”

“One of our brain-storming sessions came up with the idea of changing the names of the mp3’s to something different. We tested this idea by uploading Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ and renaming it to “Mozarts Clarinet Concerto”. This was a HUGE success. We didn’t get a single download. But we knew we needed to do more.

“We tried flooding Kazaa with MP3’s that let out a high-pitched scream every few seconds but they were actually embraced by so-called “Techno Remix Culture”. Some Gabba people in Rotterdam simply did something to it with a device called a ‘Goldwave’, ramped it up to 260 bpm, added a heavy bass-drum every 1/16th of a second and they had a European hit in all those Underground rave-things. The high pitched squeal became the most sampled sound in the history of Dance Music, no matter what speed they played it at. We were gutted”

“What made the situation worse is that they were on an Indie label and made a packet off the eventual album by releasing the promo for free to File-Sharers. They had no packaging or distribution costs either. Its a disgrace”

Our insider continued…..

“We were really excited about this new “Trusted Computing Platform” and had the idea of making our own soundcard which would detect anything being played through it that was below 44.1khz stereo and, when it did, it was gonna like EXPLODE and blow the bastards to bits and make them see that we meant business and WE’D HAVE WON.

“But the do-gooders kept whinging about whether PC users would buy hardware that could kill them and even those Trusted Computing people didn’t trust us and they wouldn’t let us run the whole thing from this office – so we’re taking legal action against them”

Summing up, our man revealed that a final broadside is due.

“We’re pressing hard to get P2P recognised as a Terrorist Act but in the meantime, we’re releasing music that is so crap, no-one is going to want to download it”

However, rumour is rife in the File-Sharing community that P2P will continue unabated

“It doesn’t matter how crap the music is” said one sharer “If it comes up in a search – i’ll download it. I’ve got stacks of stuff here that I download & never listen to. I’ll put it with that lot”

Misanthrope writes: The recent allegations of Mars harboring a frozen underground sea has prompted new speculation of illegal file trading on Mars. “What else is the planet hiding?” asked Neil Turkewitz, the RIAA international executive vice president. “Where there is the potential for life, there is the potential for piracy.” When asked to name a Martian filesharing site, Turkewitz declined, citing a policy on pending cases.

“The RIAA is continuing its international public relations campaign against a very odd target,” said Princeton Professor Edward Felton, a noted critic of law and technology. “They’ve interpreted Russian overtures against Allofmp3.com before the US-Russian summit as a precedent for interplanetary enforcement.”

NASA officials cautioned against confusing Mars with the similar-sounding planet Mongo and its infamous despot and P2P network hobbyist, Ming The Merciless.

Martian officials were unavailable for comment.

Matthew writes: Over the weekend, a computer used to synchronize with Paris Hilton’s ubiquitous T-Mobile Sidekick was hacked, and lurid bits of data were posted to the infamous hacker website GorillaMask.net.

The phone numbers of many A-list celebrities like Fred Durst, Lindsey Lohan, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Ashley Olsen, and Eminem have been forced to change their phone numbers.

Among the websites listed in her browser favorites was www.SlashNOT.com, which has resulted in a 10-fold increase in traffic over the past few days as SlashNOT’s server valiantly struggles with the page-requests of fame mongers rushing to ogle the details of Ms. Hilton’s daily routine.

We apologize for any inconvenience to our regular readers incurred, but we have elected not to change our domain name to avoid the traffic.

Blitzenn writes: In a surprise move the White House admits that they haven’t any idea where Osama Bin Laden is currently hiding, but has revealed intelligence suggesting that he is illegally downloading MP3s. RIAA (Recording Industry Artists Association) has announced that they intend to sue Osama Bin Laden in an attempt uncover his where-abouts. Mr. Bush stated in his recent address that RIAA now has more far reaching powers to uncover wrong doers than the government does and is calling on the organization to pursue one of the Oval Office’s most wanted.
In a statement to the public on the issue, the White house has published the following;
“RIAA has demonstrated that they are willing to go to any lengths to find individuals who deserve prison time for their wrongful actions. Just look at the number of children and young adults they have been able to find and prosecute in our own country. We feel they are the right people for the job.”
RIAA followed up with their own press release;
“We believe that we will be victorious in our hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The DMCA, (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), has given us the ability to completely wreck the livelihood of thousands of otherwise law abiding young men women and children across this great country. We feel it is now time to take those abilities and exercise them abroad. We are sure that we will have Osama within our crosshairs before the week’s end. Downloading music illegally is absolutely the most heinous crime we think of, and we will severely punish him as we have done to others here in our own country.”

Matthew writes: Ozzy Osbourne, former lead singer of Ozzy Osbourne, has been resurrected from death after a quad motorcycle accident on his estate in England.

“Ozzy sold his soul a long time ago,” reports wife Sharon Osbourne. “That’s what accounts for his iconic fame based on just three or four radio hits, and the rejuvenation of his career as a lovable zombie on our hit TV show, and the inability of drugs, alcohol, and vehicles to actually kill him. He will remain in a state of animated undeath until such a time as our dark lord has finished his hoary mission and anointed a new Prince of Bleeping Darkness. We’ve been hoping that our son Jack could take over for him, but so far our Dark Lord hasn’t shown any interest in magically creating a career for him.”

Moondog writes: The RIAA announced today a new product it has developed with YES.net. It’s called “Flame That Tune”.

“The whole thing is based on our existing song fingerprint technology,” said YES.Net Director of Technology Christopher Barone. “For some time now, we’ve been able to have our servers listen to the radio and use digital fingerprints to ‘Name That Tune‘. Now we’ve developed technology that can analyze a song’s fingerprint and tell a consumer whether or not a particular song is a piece of crap.”

“There is this whole market segment out there of indies who don’t care if they make money on music. They just want their music to be heard,” said Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA. “So get this: they offer their MP3s for free. As ridiculous as that sounds, this has become wildly popular. The problem is, the average consumer has to wade through a tremendous amount of crap before finding a decent song. With Flame That Tune, the consumer will no longer have to listen to a song to decide whether it’s crap or not. We can do the job for them.”

The product is to be released early next month. Critics are concerned however. Some say that Flame That Tune is simply a ploy by the RIAA to keep consumers hooked on music you have to buy.

But the RIAA and Yes.Net are undaunted. “We’re excited about this new product,” said Sherman. “For years we’ve been working with radio stations to help them educate consumers about what good music is all about. And let’s face it. The average consumer wouldn’t know a great song if it hit them over the head. That of course, is where we come in.”

matthew writes: Hilary Rosen, former president of RIAA, was recently sued as part of RIAA’s anti-piracy campaign. She received a letter notifying her of the suit based on the presence of a Kazaa file share on her computer containing 2,110 downloaded songs.

According to current RIAA president Mitch Bainwol, the lawsuit was filed automatically, and would be retracted, since past RIAA Presidents are automatically granted amnesty. “In order to process the 60 million or so lawsuits RIAA will be filing, we’ve created an automated system we call ’scan-n-sue’ that automatically detects the presence of Kazaa or Gnutella on a computers attached to the Internet, subpoenas their ISP to determine their identity information, and files a lawsuit based on the information received from the subpoena. Of course, with completely automated systems, this sort of thing can happen.”

“Now that I think about it, Hilary had become somewhat furtive when people walked into her office in the weeks before she left. I naturally assumed she was browsing for porn.”

Michael writes: Four students who were sued last week by music-industry watchdog RIAA have admitted, after intense questioning, that they deliberately conspired against the RIAA.

“We met one evening in our secret lair and talked about what we could do to vanquish our arch-enemy, the music industry, and file sharing was the obvious answer,” said one of the remorseless students. “We realized that four college students could single-handedly crush a billion-dollar industry just by swapping a few Blink 182 songs.”

An RIAA spokesman announced today that charges will be filed against all four students. “We’re pleased to have found the source of the music industry’s troubled history, and now that their plot has been foiled, we can restore the music industry to its former glory.”