A few weeks ago, I went over a friend's house to hang out - and one of the things that we did was play Rock Band on his Xbox 360.   For those that haven't played that game yet, it's basically like Guitar Hero except instead of just a guitar, you have bass, drums, mic, etc.   Your goal is to play through songs as well as possible, scoring points for accuracy.    The songs you play are a mish-mash of oldies and recent songs that range from "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers to "I'm So Sick" by Flyleaf and fill in almost every genre gap between.   Or is it?

After playing, I realized that there was an amazing potential here that the folks over at Harmonix (the developers of the game) have yet to cash in on.    Simply put, the ability to create your own songs.

Take that to the next level and imagine that you're in a band.  Or perhaps you are.   Imagine the ability to take your song and put it on a game that can be downloaded via Xbox Live and have millions of people wanting to learn how to play your song.   Included features could be a link in the game next to the song to be able to purchase your band's entire album for download directly to your Xbox.

I realize that the process of creating the song could be extremely tedious.  My thoughts are to have the ability to load an MP3 and then basically go through each instrument and input where on the guitar neck each note goes.  It could take a long time to add a song, yes.   But would you do it for your band if it meant that your song could be exposed to millions of Xbox Live members?   Or even for your friend's band?   I think so.   If there are people that have enough free time to create custom paint jobs in Forza Motorsport 2, then I'd think that with the incentive of a few bucks and possible stardom then they'd be happy to create some songs no matter how long it took.   How many people got record deals out of their songs being on Napster?  Not many, perhaps, but it did happen.  And it could happen with Rock Band also.

Harmonix would probably have to have some sort of written (electronic) agreement that each person who uploaded a song would have to agree to that would basically say that the song is indeed their own song and isn't violating copyright laws.    Then if someone complains that a song is violating copyright, take it down.   Look at YouTube for inspiration there.

To take it to the next step, you could introduce multi-song packs for free.  For example, a "Seattle Grunge Pack" made up of three or four songs of Seattle-based grunge bands that have uploaded their songs.    Since it's free, a lot of people would no doubt get it.   And once they have it, they could be given links to buy more Rock Band playable songs from each band, or their album as MP3s just to listen to on your Xbox.     And naturally, Harmonix would get percentage of each item sold.   For inspiration on how the finances of it would work, simply look at how iTunes does their indie MP3 stuff.  

Not to mention how many band members do not currently own the game that would go buy it simply for the chance to be included in this.   Bands invest a lot of money in the chance to become the "next big thing"...so a hundred bucks or so to get exposure to millions of people is nothing.   Or, if Harmonix is smart, they'd create a downloadable program to create songs free of charge.   If they wanted, they could make the free song creation program only be able to create guitar and bass tracks while purchasing the full game would unlock the ability to have all instruments be created for songs.   Personally I think it'd be better to just allow full song creation with no restrictions whatsoever for free.  The development costs would be paid back in the royalties from each song sold, and there'd be a ton more songs created then making the game more attractive for purchase by end users as well.   It's not like a band member that creates a song would be able to play his own song until he bought the game anyway.  :)  

But because song creation would be free, bands would only have to invest time, something that is very easily invested and is done so readily in MySpace pages, Facebook accounts, etc. all in an attempt to gain popularity.

In fact, the only thing that I cannot figure out about it is how I'm going to get royalties for the idea.   :)    All kidding aside, I think it'd just be awesome to see this put into effect.   Comments welcome.

Every time I see a Mac ad, I'm reminded of how modest Apple has become over their security concerns.  Do you want an operating system that is begging for someone to infest their OS with viruses by turning an ad campaign basically claiming it's not possible?  Give a hacker enough reason, and it will be done.   What's enough reason?  How about the fame of being "the first" to do so?  BBC had a good article on this issue.

Mac users pride themselves on the fact that they can run both Windows and OS X on their Macs through BootCamp.  It's little known, however, that back in '06 Apple shipped their iPods with a virus that will attack Windows if it's installed on the Mac.  The simple fact that Microsoft allows Windows to be installed on a Mac while Apple is scared to allow OS X to be installed on a PC certainly sounds like the Apple of old where they restrict their users more than allowing them freedom.  Microsoft could very easily make it so Windows wouldn't work on a Mac (sure, there'd be hackers that find a work-around) but it's easy to see that Microsoft wants you to be able to run Windows on a Mac if you want.   Why wouldn't they?  It doesn't hurt them.   So why does Apple not want you to run OS X on a PC?  Perhaps because if they do, people would stop buying the outrageously-priced (although nice to look at) Macs.

As an end user, if I want to run an operating system on my computer then it shouldn't matter what kind of hardware I'm running.  And I shouldn't have to find a hack to do so.

I went to the dentist today to get a temporary crown put in...and ouch, it hurts.   Once the numbness went away, a throbbing pain took it's place.   Based on what I've read online it's rather normal...but I sure hope it doesn't last for three weeks, because it really hurts.  Basically it feels like a constant migrane that won't go away.  :-(  

While I was waiting for my ID badge, they had CNN on where they quoted Dr. William Gray, a noted hurricane specialist, to state that global warming is in fact not human-induced.  If he is correct, which I think he is, then there is absolutely no point in attempting to "fix" the environment...after all, it's not broken.  Here is a short, but great, interview with Dr. Gray that sums up his position on this matter.

This was taken from Capitalism Magazine's website (which I find to be somewhat ironic).

Meteorologist Dr. William Gray may be the world’s most famous hurricane expert. More than two decades ago, as professor of atmospheric science and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University, he pioneered the science of hurricane forecasting. Each December, six months before the start of hurricane season, the now 75-year-old Gray and his team issue a long-range prediction of the number of major tropical storms that will arise in the Atlantic Ocean basin, as well as the number of hurricanes (with sustained winds of 74 miles per hour or more) and intense hurricanes (with winds of at least 111 mph). This year, Gray expects more activity, with 15 named storms, including 8 hurricanes. Four of them, he says, will be intense.

James Glassman: Dr. Gray, in the September issue of Discover Magazine, there’s a remarkable interview with you. You’re called the world’s most famous hurricane…

Dr. William Gray: Well that – you have to talk to my critics about that. I don’t think they would agree with you.

Glassman: Well you certainly…

Gray: I’ve been around a long time, yes. I’ve been around studying hurricanes over 50 years now, I’m an old guy. Yes.

Glassman: Well, you’re in the hurricane forecasting business among other things?

Gray: Well, we’re in the seasonal hurricane forecasting business, and monthly. We don’t do the short range, you know, one to two day crucial forecasts. That can only be done by one group at the National Hurricane Center. But we certainly do a lot of forecasting for different parts of the globe and the hurricane from a seasonal, monthly point of view. Yes.

Glassman: And from a seasonal, monthly point of view, you had been predicting a growing number of hurricanes. Now, my question is in the wake of Katrina and some of the statements that we’ve heard immediately afterwards by advocates of the global warming theory – is global warming behind this increase in hurricanes?

Gray: I am very confident that it’s not. I mean we have had global warming. That’s not a question. The globe has warmed the last 30 years, and the last 10 years in particular. And we’ve had, at least the last 10 years, we’ve had a pick up in the Atlantic basin major storms. But in the earlier period, if we go back from 1970 through the middle ‘90s, that 25 year period – even though the globe was warming slightly, the number of major storms was down, quite a bit down.

Now, another feature of this is that the Atlantic operates differently. The other global storm basins, the Atlantic only has about 12 percent of the global storms. And in the other basins, the last 10 years – even though the Atlantic major storm activity has gone up greatly the last 10 years. In the other global basins, it’s slightly gone down. You know, both frequency and strength of storms have not changed in these other basins. If anything, they’ve slightly gone down. So if this was a global warming thing, you would think, “Well gee, all of the basins should be responding much the same.”

Glassman: You’re familiar with what your colleagues believe. Do you think many hurricane experts would take a different point of view, and would say, “Oh, it’s global warming that’s causing hurricanes?”

Gray: No. All my colleagues that have been around a long time – I think if you go to ask the last four or five directors of the national hurricane center – we all don’t think this is human-induced global warming. And, the people that say that it is are usually those that know very little about hurricanes. I mean, there’s almost an equation you can write the degree to which you believe global warming is causing major hurricanes to increase is inversely proportional to your knowledge about these storms.

Now there’s a few modelers around who know something about storms, but they would like to have the possibility open that global warming will make for more and intense storms because there’s a lot of money to be made on this. You know, when governments step in and are saying this – particularly when the Clinton administration was in – and our Vice President Gore was involved with things there, they were pushing this a lot. You know, most of meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded.

Glassman: We thank you very, very much for this interview. Thank you, Dr. Gray.

Gray: Well thank you for asking me.

I am convinced myself that in 15 or 20 years, we’re going to look back on this and see how grossly exaggerated it all was. The humans are not that powerful. These greenhouse gases, although they are building up, they cannot cause the type of warming these models say – two to five degrees centigrade with a doubling of the greenhouse gases.

Glassman: Well thank you very much for giving us your time.