Sid posted the announcement on the official site over two weeks ago, but I only looked last night. It would appear to be one more result of the “economic crisis”, though there is also the expected rant about piracy. I won’t get into that again, wrote quite enough about piracy and how it’s not like the content creators and distributors would want people to believe it is, but I will say that I’m quite saddened by the news.
From what I heard, that album had been fully written since 2003 and was supposed to be released in 2005. But then Sid wanted to rerelease “A Legacy of Love” first, to make it clear that this fourth album is linked to that one and not to the third, so “The Legacy Remains” was delayed, and then the delays kept piling up, mainly due to the band’s usual problem of repeatedly losing their female vocalists. My guess is that Sid wasn’t satisfied with just recording the songs again with the new vocalist after the first one who worked on this album left the band, so he actually wanted to change them to fully suit the new voice. That took time, which time was apparently longer than the second vocalist who worked on this album was willing to stick around. In came a third, the work probably started all over again and in December the word was that the album was finally going to see the light of day in early 2009. But now it would appear that the record label crumbled and it got pulled down with it.
I can’t say it was unexpected… Seems quite fitting for this to happen just when an album that seemed to just refuse to be released was about to finally be forced out into the world. But I was still hoping, so I’m still saddened by the news. And I’m even more saddened by his decision to just let it vanish into oblivion, become “the lost album”, as he put it. Fully agree that there are problems with all the currently available methods of selling songs in digital format, but if he’s not going to make any money out of it anyway, why not just make it available for free? He says it wouldn’t be fair to all the other band members, but I don’t see why. Unless I’m missing something, they’re not earning anything as a result of how things stand right now either…
What’s worse is that, for all practical purposes, the band has disbanded after hearing this news from their record label. Sid says that they only met in the studio, while recording, and since that’s not going to happen anymore it’s pointless to just say they’re still a band. So he’ll go back to the beginnings of Antichrisis, make music alone, though two of the other members assured him they’ll still help if he’ll need them. He also doubts Antichrisis will ever release another full album, since he lost his faith in this method of making music.
Why did I want to write a post about this? Just because Antichrisis is one of my favorite bands and I was really looking forward to that new album. I have mixed feelings about the sound, but I really relate to Sid’s lyrics and the story behind them, that’s why I even put up some of them.
I was seriously entertaining the notion of actually buying “The Legacy Remains”, if it’d have been released and some shop from here would have somehow sold it, despite being fully against buying “hard copies” of music or movies you never intend to play or watch on anything other than your computer. For a while I also searched every shop from here I could think of, plus many I never knew existed until then, for a copy of one of their old albums, thinking I could just show my support that way. I couldn’t find any, of course… Still, knowing me, this should tell you how much I wanted to support this band. But I guess it didn’t work out…
Two days ago, the World Wide Web turned 20. Those first few visionaries didn’t create the Internet, that already existed for quite some time, but their work finally allowed the average person to access it. One has to wonder how would the Internet look like and where would we be today without them or without the later decision to make their idea available for free.
20 years doesn’t seem so long, does it? And yet look how much of an impact it has had in so little time. The way in which we transfer information has changed drastically, and so did the way we live our lives. This was an undeniably beneficial development, all the negative aspects being caused by some of the people who have started using it afterwards. In all, it’s one more proof that a small group of determined individuals can change the world.
We’re no longer talking about abstract concepts, events that happened too long ago or things that have no direct effect on your life. I’m able to write this and you’re able to read it thanks to a small group of people who decided to turn a revolutionary idea into reality and did so for the benefit of all and not just their personal gain. It’s that simple, and it’s an opportunity to learn and be inspired.
How would you like to change the world in 20 years?
I wonder how long has my brain been working on this story it decided to fill me in on this morning… I’m talking about the start of a high fantasy story, information about some of the characters and the world it’d take place in, plus ways in which many of my ideas about this world could fit into a high fantasy scenario, all of which I have dreamed about this morning. It was a very lucid dream, including moments when I woke up, analyzed some of the ideas, made some changes, then went back to sleep to let my subconscious figure out what to do with said changes.
The idea itself seems quite nice, not to mention reasonably original. Of course, since my subconscious created it, it’d be very strange if I’d think it sucks. Still, I did make several changes to it after waking up, changes which include turning a secondary character into the most important one, while also significantly altering her appearance and moving some ideals from the mind of another character into hers. I was very frustrated at my lack of drawing skills because I could see how she had to look so clearly after I woke up that I felt I had to draw her. I gave up the idea and settled for drawing pictures of her in my mind, of course.
Who knows, if I’ll still be alive and have a fully functional brain ten years from now, I might actually get to it. But right now I’m just trying to write down what I already know, and that’s going very slowly. I’ve been struggling with it for several hours and all I have are some general traits and the appearance of two characters, nothing else. It’s so frustrating! Writing is so slow and words are such a weak form of communication! I think too much and too fast for my poor communications skills to be able to keep up, plus that my thoughts are in pictures and feelings and all sorts of concepts which can’t be clearly explained in words, or at least not by me.
I know of the silent treatment in relationships, and it’s a truly bad way to act, regardless of what caused it, but it seems even stranger to be on the receiving end of it from a friend. Or someone I like to think of as a friend, at least. And when, after asking five times, I finally get a reply, she says I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that she had nothing to say in response to my messages lately. Why do I find that very hard to believe?
Don’t mind this, I’m just thinking with my fingers again. Plus that I meant to post this yesterday, when she was completely silent, as a last step before posting in more public places, places she couldn’t ignore. But I decided to try one last time to deal with it in private and got the reply I mentioned above. Since it’s useless and unlikely to be true, I still need to think about it, even with my fingers.
Over a year ago, I saw an article in a newspaper which mentioned that a committee had identified the greatest engineering challenges of the century ahead and had set up a site where people could rank them and offer their solutions. They admitted that it’s mainly a “public relations” move, meant to bridge the gap between engineers and the rest of the populace, but it’s an interesting idea nevertheless.
The poll is updated by hand, since they ask for comments and not just a simple vote, and they seem to have stopped updating it on June 30, 2008. The ranking at the time was:
1. Make solar energy economical.
2. Provide energy from fusion.
3. Provide access to clean water.
4. Reverse-engineer the brain.
5. Advance personalized learning.
6. Develop carbon sequestration methods.
7. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery.
8. Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
9. Advance health informatics.
10. Prevent nuclear terror.
11. Engineer better medicines.
12. Enhance virtual reality.
13. Manage the nitrogen cycle.
14. Secure cyberspace.
If I were to briefly analyze these results, I’d say the top two spots show that people seem to be extremely worried about energy. Clean energy, if possible, but their main concern is making sure energy will be available to them, whatever the means. Having the development of carbon sequestration methods also in the top half of the classification only emphasizes that. Clean water has a deserved top spot, nothing strange about that, but I find it interesting that reverse-engineering the brain comes next, considering the ways in which such knowledge could be used. Personalized learning is another challenge that obviously deserves to be a priority, but I find it odd that engineering the tools of scientific discovery ranks so low. Many people probably don’t truly grasp the meaning of such an abstract concept, because to me it seems to be a prerequisite for pretty much everything else!
Moving on to the bottom half, I find it rather pleasing that urban infrastructure isn’t higher on the list. It means some people are really starting to think about the bigger picture and to put global problems above their own need for comfort. Health informatics and better medicines might be more important than this ranking shows, but I think they’re placed so low because of the potential for misuse and the truly rotten attitude and practices of the large pharmaceutical companies. Nuclear terror likely ranks this low because most people don’t really see it as a threat anymore, so long after the last time its effects have been truly noticeable. Virtual reality could have plenty of important uses, but many people probably don’t see it, plus that it’s true that solving many other challenges from this list would have more significant effects immediately. The nitrogen cycle should rank higher, considering the effects it has, but this is another example of a problem that people are mostly unaware of. As for the last spot, that’s certainly caused by the fact that increased security means reduced freedom, and cyberspace should be a free place. There have been way too many bad things done in the name of security already.
So how would I rank them? That’s a hard question to answer, but I’ll make an attempt and also explain why I placed each of them where I did.
1. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery. As I said above, this seems to be a prerequisite for everything else. Better scientific tools pave the way towards better and faster scientific discoveries. The others might be hard to rank, but this one’s obvious!
2. Advance personalized learning. People don’t work the same, so they need to be treated as individuals and allowed to develop and make use of their skills and interests as they are, not forced to change in order to fit the mold society would want them to fit! This would also pave the way towards better and faster discoveries.
3. Provide energy from fusion. It does seem to be the best way to generate energy, having less environmental costs than even the cleanest methods available today. If this could be achieved and handled responsibly, we’d go a long way towards living in harmony with Earth.
4. Provide access to clean water. Lack of access to clean water is a major cause for disease. More importantly, wars over the control of clean water sources are already brewing, so a solution to this problem would save us from a lot of bloodshed and suffering. Of course, a prerequisite to finding a solution to this problem is a drastic reduction of the human population worldwide, but that’s another issue.
5. Manage the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen pollution, generally caused by fertilizers and waste, plays an important part in the degradation of the environment. This tends to be overlooked by the general public both because other environmental issues make the headlines and because solutions for it involve major changes in lifestyle, which is something most people aren’t ready for.
6. Prevent nuclear terror. When a problem gets out of sight, it tends to get worse instead of better. There are way too many nuclear warheads in this world and the fact that some questionable governments already have or will soon develop their own only increases the threat. Also, this measure should include improving the safety of nuclear power plants and better nuclear waste management, both of which are certainly required.
7. Advance health informatics. This would go a long way towards understanding and solving health problems and improving the quality of life for all. However, it must be implemented very carefully, because there is a high potential for misuse.
8. Enhance virtual reality. Putting aside the military and recreational uses, which are also very important, virtual reality is a great tool for designers as well. With it, we could learn how to use areas more effectively and create better buildings and infrastructure, improving our lives and reducing our negative impact on the environment at the same time.
9. Restore and improve urban infrastructure. As I said, if we can improve our lives while also reducing our negative impact on the environment at the same time, why shouldn’t we? But we need to be careful to put the environment above our own interests when we decide what counts as an improvement.
10. Engineer better medicines. It’s a very important issue, but the large pharmaceutical companies already have too much power and the chemicals we pour into our bodies often do more harm than good in the end. We should first change the way medicine is viewed and practiced, then work on better medicines.
11. Make solar energy economical. It’d be nice, but before we make it economical we should make it sustainable. Installing enough solar panels to cover our energy needs would require a lot of space, and the planet isn’t getting any bigger. Also, the most efficient solar panels contain indium, which is an extremely rare mineral and mining operations aren’t exactly good for the environment.
12. Reverse-engineer the brain. It would be useful, but perhaps there are things we shouldn’t tamper with until we evolve into something better. I wouldn’t trust humans to properly use the results of such a discovery.
13. Secure cyberspace. As I said before, more security tends to mean less freedom, and cyberspace should be a free place. We already see the results of this approach and they’re not good. So, instead of trying to secure the whole medium, we should educate people to take care of themselves and offer them the tools needed to improve their own security when they feel it necessary.
14. Develop carbon sequestration methods. No. Period. We need real solutions, not means of delaying the inevitable! We need to stop putting so much carbon in the atmosphere and gather some of that which is already there in order to use the components for something else. Dumping it into the ground is not an answer!
This would be it, feel free to disagree… Since some of these things are equally important, I might even disagree with myself after a while. But it was a nice exercise nevertheless and you should try it too, if you’re reading this.
