Tuesday, July 30, 2002

Some of you know the results of my recent pokes into traffic and student attitudes at a few Universities. I'm not a social scientist, so what I say can probably only be considered anecdotal, but the use of p2p has dropped, while the use of file sharing among trusted parters seems to be rising (back to the future -- this is what was going on pre-Napster). I think that most of the mp3 listening is being done to listen to new music and the need to do that is a function of the demise of interesting radio stations in most markets (even college markets). I believe that the students have been turned on to more interesting (to them) music and we are seeing that in a big increase in consumption of some obscure labels - particularly European labels. The situation doesn't seem much different from the late 60s when kids were exchanging crude cassettes of radio shows from interesting sources ... tastes rapidly shifted from the top 40 and, apart from a couple of groups, obscure music from the likes of the Velvet Underground became more important. The drop in CD purchases is probably a combination of taste shifting (note that the majors don't control that channel) and partly cross elasticity with money for other things -- if you look at the sum of the movie, cd, concert budget for the 13-23 age group you see that the total is roughly constant. Increases in movie spending account for the drop in concert going and CD buying if you buy into that model. When talking to college students (or doing surveys with a few hundred users), one gets the sense the the big labels are seen as evil and clueless. Clueless seems to dominate as very little is being produced that is interesting. One young woman commented "Sony .. that's sort of like Woman's Day isn't it..." There is also a sense that the companies will do anything to come after the students for "student abuses" I think that some serious image damage has been done by Rosen et. al. -- probably more than the current drop in CD sales. I also have the sense that the homogenization of radio was very deadly and lost an audience. A strong signal exists that music that you regularly listen to should be supported and it would be great if that money went directly to the artists. The record companies maintain that they develop talent, but I think this group would contest that claim. Younger kids don't see major labels as being evil. The trend setters use foreign mp3s to look for new stuff, but mp3 to this group is more blatant theft with a considerable amount of CD-R sharing. (I have only talked to two groups of kids -- 8th and 10th grade, so this is very weak). These kids have very fixed budgets. The $100/week of disposable income may exist at upper middle class and beyond, but it is much lower on average for the country. I have the sense that clothing was more important than music or concerts to this group. I don't know if either group will wake up as the RIAA becomes more aggressive. My gut feeling is that the younger group could care less, but you will see more disgust in the older group. At a global level we are seeing Mr Ashcroft move away from what is normally considered a democracy. These things come and go (remember Sen McCarthy?) moving back towards a central point or perhaps past it may have implications for the RIAA -- and even Microsoft. All of this may influence opinion for the acceptance of Palladium. When it comes to the big labels the Clue Train made deliveries twice a day for a few decades, but no one took delivery. 7:47:19 PM     Aha - the glint of tupperware under the leaf cover! It has been some time since I have done geocaching and early this morning seemed appropriate. If you are looking for a good excuse to get a GPS, give this a try. http://www.geocaching.com/ Of course some people are more creative. How about virtual geometric patterns. The cool thing is that you physically have to have been there. http://www.gpsdrawing.com/ Teddy Roosevelt would have loved this. As President, he was taken with long walks with visiting officals (who had to go along). At some point in the walk he would announce a return to the White House using the most direct method - often through shallow ponds which, in the Summer, were covered with a film of oil to control mosquitos. Some people take their hobbies seriously. In rocketry one finds a range of activity that starts with model rocketry - the sort of things that one finds in hobby shops and seems to be a univeral activity with young boys. The next step up is a large step -- high powered rocketry. One now can spent thousands on a rocket and a launch may be an event halfway across the country in a place like Blackrock, NV. There are fairly serious people, but the critical components (like rocket motors) are purchased. One fundamental difference between model and amateur rocketry is that flying eggs is considered sport for the former and bowling balls for the latter. http://www.gbrocketry.com/blackrock_xiii_october_2001.htm Moving up a level is amateur rocketry. Here nearly everything is homebrew and the level of technical proficiency is high (CalTech and MIT have groups of current students, professors and alumni) - eg - you find real rocket scientists. Several groups work with liquid fuels and a few groups have their eye on being first amateurs to orbit something. The Reaction Research Society is one of the more important groups. http://www.rrs.org/ And finally we have professional rocketry - the stuff NASA and the military do. There isn't a huge difference between the low end of the professionaland the high end of the amateur games I've been fascinated with Alan Epstein's microengine program at MIT for some time. There isn't enough space to go into the deep coolness that they have provided, but one line of research deals with building tiny rocket motors using microelectronic construction techniques. To call this research multidisciplinary is an understatement - this is a real liquid fuel rocket motor with turbopumps. Much has been written about this, so hunt around. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_leo051801.asp Finally - your tax dollars at work. All you can do is shake your head. Thanks for the tip Andrew. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Al-Qaida-Online.html 2:01:09 PM

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