Classical Convert

Windows Hearts Beethoven

The latest Windows update refuses to install if it senses a lack of Beethoven’s 9th:

Thank you Microsoft for insisting that Beethoven’s MOTHER ********** NUMBER 9 NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED ON MY MOTHER ********** COMPUTER before Service MOTHER ********** Pack 3 can be successfully installed.

Your programmers are morons. Go to hell, the lot of you.

If Windows prefers Beethoven, I bet baroque old Linux likes the intricacies Bach better. What about Apple? Somebody who has form as an utmost priority I suppose… Webern? Nah, that doesn’t feel right. It has to be universally accessible as well. Any suggestions?

Tags: apple, beethoven, classical music, composers, linux, windows sp3

Signs Of The CD Apocalypse

The imminent death of compact discs draws nearer! On the one hand, there is this report that 48% of teenagers bought no CDs last year. None. 0. That’s up from 38% the previous year. On the other hand we have Apple getting all high and mighty about becoming Americas second largest music store, just behind Walmart. I’m predicting that with DRM free, high-quality digital music stores popping up all over teh internets, Apple is going to start feeling some pressure from the likes of Amazon and Co. pretty soon. And quite rightly so.

We just need the quality gap to close before our favorite polycarbonate pitted media altogether. That is, stores need to hurry up and start selling lossless audio files as an option. Otherwise, everyone is going to get so inured to the unquality of low bitrates that we’ll probably all start talking with compression artifacts littering our speech. Or something equally not-quite terrifying.

Tags: apple, CDs, lossless, mp3, music, retailers, walmart