What's that, you say? You only buy from Indie bands? Are you sure they're really Indie Bands? Check this out (from last year, but what they hey.)

"The cutest little trend now with new bands and major labels, is to sign young bands, and instead of them sitting around for awhile doing nothing, they get them to put out fake indie albums… usually on their own fake indie labels, or perhaps any indie label willing to take a check under the table, and that way they can build up that “indie cred” that “money can’t buy” in an “organic” way. Right. This is especially popular among many local L.A. bands of the moment who have played like… 5 shows, but are already living fat on the major label payroll. The funny part is that some of you idiot kids out there either can’t tell this is happening, or don’t care. Well here’s the thing, to all the bands that put out albums on independent labels cos there’s no other way to put out their records, and tour in vans cos that’s the only option there is, not cos it’ll make them look like “troopers” in their major label debut’s one sheet, IT’S HUGELY FUCKING OFFENSIVE. FUCK OFF. So next time you hear about a band where somebody says, “awwww, naw dude, they didn’t really sign with $8#2% Records, that’s just a rumor”, and then see full page ads in every magazine on the face of the planet for their “independent” record, YOU ARE BEING FUCKING PLAYED. " [thehypercube]

8:11:05 AM     Discuss: []

Over on iRights, Jeremy Bowers writes that the role of computers in education should be to provide immediate (or at least faster) feedback:

What if, instead of spelling tests, we required students to always use a proper spellchecker? A proper spell checker is one that dynamically underlines misspelled words immediately, instead of being run as a discrete process at the "end" of writing something. Proper spell checkers provide immediate feedback. A traditional spelling test provides feedback after a day or more, long after it is too late to learn anything from the test./

The problem that I have with this is really more of a philosophical one. The problem is that the very philosophy of our school system is flawed. The fact is, that kids will lean on this.

Not because they are trying to cheat the system, per se, but because by the time that they're writing stuff on their own, and having the computer aid them in their spelling, they're well past wanting to learn, they just want to pass.

I think, on the whole his idea is good, but until we correct this basic flaw in the existing public education system, things like this aren't gonna make it.

...You want to avoid seeing the red underlines, and you get a sort of odd pleasure from typing an entire paragraph without seeing any red underlines. Where the "check at the end" spell checkers breed dependence, the "immediate feedback" spell checkers breed independence.

But that's only for us geeks who write a lot and understand that writing is our voice. :) Again, with the current focus, you just wanna not get hassled by the teacher, and get done with school.

I speak here as a past school troublemaker, who got talks from teachers for turning in free-form essays on the futility of writing essays/writing assignments.

You could argue with me that my experiences are out-of date, and you'd be right.

My counter to this would be that nothing from what I have read, and seen with my daughter's cousins and their school experiences leads me to believe that things have really improved, and in many ways, I believe them to have gotten worse.

8:02:20 AM     Discuss: []