The latest of the latest. I am at a lan party in Lynwood. Duran Duran is playing on the stereo. And now Fuel. I am DJ, unappointed, but coincidence drives much in our world. I just happened to have a working computer with sound next to the receiver, so here it goes. I had a problem with shoutcast that crashed my system hard, which is a rarity in Linux. That's too bad, but it happens. Until computers have perfect stability like their analog or even consumer electronic (CD players) counterparts, they cannot be used very well as live musical instruments. I see great capability strained by the constant crashing. Linux has a way to ensure that bluescreens do not happen normally. That is a huge step towards perfect computing, not just musical computing. The ability for computers to playback already recorded music has created a great benefit for music lovers, but will progress towards completely dynamic computer-generated music. Some minor attempts have been made. The most interesting commercial application of dynamic music and multimedia given by a computer is Rez video game for Sony Playstation 2. Players interact with the game through their character in a computer world where light and sound mix. My experience with this game is minimal (lack of PS2), so I can't comment on much more than it's attempt and success at it's goal of synestasia.

Another lesson learned is that low quality music sound much worse over large speakers than headphones. Why? I could go into the physics of it, but that would take a long time. Maybe the reverb? Maybe the fact that the headphones just direct it through a person's ears into the brain where it's very easy to understand, where speakers need to bounce off the ears into the canal. Help me, if you know the reason, e-mail!

Space Invaders! In the air, 
In a flying saucer, 
you can take me there,

You fly away into hyperspace, 
back again to your alien girlfriend,
Won't you stay, for another day,
You and I, together we can fly.
We can fly!