If The Believer's music issue is more problematic, that's because it's also more neutral. In an effort to stamp out snark, the editors also seem to have stamped out skepticism, and so the magazine takes it for granted that indie-rockers are the most important musicians on the planet: the harpist and songwriter Joanna Newsom, for example, taps into "a deep, universal pain." (Might those words appear on a certain blog sometime soon?)

Here's something I don't understand: We can develop a robot sturdy enough to mine the Saturnine moon Enceladus, strong enough to withstand the fierce ionic winds and burst through the 40 meters of scorched onyx that covers the planet, and smart enough to collect the vital crystals from amidst all the worthless rock, but the designers at USR labs can't figure out how to stop them from finger-banging my wife?

Judas Priest pioneered the heavy metal sound in the 1970s and '80s. Lead singer Halford left the band in 1991, citing internal tension, and in 1998, he disclosed that he is gay during an interview on MTV.

I can barely remember century's dawn, before my persona arrived. I had a job, I owed no debt, I rented an apartment, I wasn't married. My knees didn't hurt when it rained. Then I got involved with McSweeney's, which, according to most dictionaries, is an old Gaelic word meaning "trendy literary scene."

He quotes me as saying, "We're about to enter a new age of literary celebrity." When I read this online this morning, I had to re-read it a few times, looking for some postscript that indicated that, as Neal usually does, he had made the quote up. ... The quote doesn't sound like anyone, really—no one would have said something like that, unless they were addressing, in a bad late-'80s TV movie, some kind of misguided depiction of a glitzy (ha!) book-industry convention.

Standing bits on end also improves the reliability of read-write performance in demanding environments. The Momentus enhancements come without increases in power consumption or heat generation - crucial as remote users look to work longer between battery charges and system builders seek to pack more performance in smaller notebooks.

During the years that followed its publication, I went to university, married, became a father and a teacher of adolescents. These developments had a profound moral and spiritual effect on me. I found that I no longer agreed with what I had written earlier and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the ideas that I had put my name to. In 1976 I became a confirmed Anglican Christian and shortly thereafter I wrote to Lyle Stuart Inc. explaining that I no longer held the views that were expressed in the book and requested that The Anarchist Cookbook be taken out of print. The response from the publisher was that the copyright was in his name and therefore such a decision was his to make -- not the author's. In the early 1980's, the rights for the book were sold to another publisher. I have had no contact with that publisher (other than to request that the book be taken out of print) and I receive no royalties.

"They liked the fact the fact this is a city that could really benefit from this." She says they want to bring the film industry to Oakland, a kind of Hollywood North where urban youth could join apprenticeship programs: "They've really developed an affection for the city."

The raw style of Wonder Showzen seems to come straight out of public access.

V: Well, thank you for that insult. Thanks for shitting on our hearts. And our baby!

J: Yeah, you just threw our baby in a dumpster. How do you feel now, prom mom? We actually try really hard!

On the flight to Raleigh, I sneezed, and the cough drop I’d been sucking on shot from my mouth, ricocheted off my folded tray table, and landed, as I remember it, in the lap of the woman beside me, who was asleep and had her arms folded across her chest.

Screwed Up Records & Tapes is the store that keeps alive the memory of Robert Earl Davis Jr., a.k.a. DJ Screw, the local hip-hop DJ who was the inventor and namesake of screwed music. No one knows for sure how or exactly when Screw created the slowed-down sound, but members of his south Houston crew, the Screwed Up Click, say that Screw was playing around with his turntables in 1991 and serendipitously discovered that dramatically reducing the pitch of a record yielded a mellow, heavy sound that resonated with the slowed-down pace of H-Town.

"We have been working together as Destiny's Child since we were 9, and touring together since we were 14. After a lot of discussion and some deep soul-searching, we realized that our current tour has given us the opportunity to leave Destiny's Child on a high note, united in our friendship and filled with an overwhelming gratitude for our music, our fans, and each other," the statement said.

The pressure on Watterson must have been enormous, but he steadfastly refused to sell out, even a little bit. "I look at cartoons as an art, as a form of personal expression. That's why I don't hire assistants . . . and why I refuse to dilute or corrupt the strip's message with merchandising," he said in his Festival of Cartoon Art speech. "Characters lose their believability as they start endorsing major companies and lend their faces to bedsheets and boxer shorts."

Instead of displaying simple "away from my computer" messages, Hollywood buddy lists now overflow with come-ons, from "need work" to "wrapping up shoot." Producers hiring for a new production can tell at a glance who's available now, who's not and who might be free in the near future.

[Brad] Meador, who is head of operations at ClearContext, and Deva Hazarika, the chief executive officer, have been playing poker in lieu of collecting paychecks for the past year while working to get their three-person company off the ground. After logging 50 or more hours a week at the office, each one spends another 10 to 15 hours, usually on weekends and evenings, at their favorite poker sites--mainly Partypoker.com, Ultimatebet.com and Pokerstars.

Traditional copyright faces webcomics with an uncomfortable choice. Its restrictions, properly enforced, would mean a virtual end to crossovers and homages, fan art, fan fiction, and many other staples that make the webcomic a more entertaining creation and foster artistic growth. A total lack of copyright, however, leaves unscrupulous readers free to “bootleg” subscription sites, program tools to deprive comics of advertising revenue, and even profit from others’ labor without permission.

The deck also allows you to play tapes through your computer. But its most important feature may be validation: pack rats who saved hundreds of tapes, to the annoyance of their significant others, will suddenly seem to be masters of foresight.

No matter what atmosphere they drop into, they're able to breathe. It seems odd that the Wookiee planet, for example, would have the right amount of oxygen for people who grew up on Tatooine, when we know that even going to a higher altitude on Earth becomes a problem in terms of oxygen. But now I'm just nitpicking.

"Comedic value is determined by multiplying the recognizability of the main character (R) by their delusions of grandeur (D). This is added to the verbal wit of the script (V), and the total is multiplied by the amount someone falls over or suffers a physical injury (F).

"The difference in social status between the highest- and lowest-ranking characters (S) is added, and finally the total is divided by the success of any scheme or stratagem in the show (A). Each term in the formula is assigned a value up to a maximum of 10 to give an overall scientific score."

Both Tweedy and Lessig support a general freedom of access to intellectual material; only in a community of shared ideas, they believe, can creativity thrive. In keeping with that belief, a recording of the discussion can be downloaded, free of charge, in its entirety, right .

Pill called the film good VHS quality, but acknowledged it isn't on par with that produced by some personal camcorders.

"George Lucas isn't going to use this to shoot Star Wars IV," he said, "but a budding George Lucas may use this to shoot something in his backyard."

We don't pretend to think this comes close to the Scream's masterpiece, but then nothing else does. So what primalscreamremixed.com offers is a different spin, moving from chill through dub via glitch to drum & bass. Not a million miles away from the eclecticism of the source.

[The album] has been certified for U.S. shipments of 21 million copies, tying it for fifth place with Billy Joel's "Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & II" on the Recording Industry Assn. of America's all-time best-sellers list.

There she stands -- ratty bathrobe, checked pajama bottoms, headband, wild hair, and a fanatical look on her face. And she's surrounded by six cats that own her heart and soul. The Crazy Cat Lady stands 5-1/4" tall and can be posed however you like.

It’s like Skype for musicians, though the music is delayed a few measures to keep everything in sync. You plug your instruments in, the software provides a beat. Then you find out what a crappy guitar player you are.

On NPD's list of the top 10 digital music services, iTunes was ranked ahead of file-sharing companies such Kazaa and iMesh. Other paid online music services such as Napster and RealNetworks' RealPlayer store also edged onto the list. "These (paid) digital download stores appear to have created a compelling and economically viable alternative to illegal file sharing," Crupnick said.

Last week, the Cambridge company launched a new website called Rounderarchive.com, which offers out-of-print albums from its early days through digital downloads and limited-edition CDs. It's an attempt to bring vintage folk music into the cyber-age -- and it's a trend that's starting to catch on with other boutique specialty labels.

One of the benefits of digital photography – the fact that amateurs can take better-looking photos and doctor them using photo-editing software – is also becoming a bane. Photofinishing labs increasingly are refusing to print professional-looking photographs taken by amateurs. The reason: Photofinishers are afraid of infringing on professional photographers' copyrights.

[Tim] Westergren, who previously played in bands and worked as a composer, compares the concept to isolating the spices, sauces and other ingredients that might go into a given meal and determining which will appeal most to the consumer.

Chris Martin's chart-topping hits don't impress his baby daughter. ... He says, "She prefers an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros to Coldplay. She hasn't heard X+Y - we don't play it in the house.

1. "Swingers" -- It takes a special kind of douchebag to STILL be shamelessly quoting this movie ... Guess what, idiots? You're so NOT 'Fucking Money' - and you don't even know it. You're the opposite of money. You are the abject poverty of culture and style. Keep reading Maxim and deluding yourselves into thinking that girls love drunk assholes, then wondering why you go home alone every night and masturbate unsuccessfully to boozy fantasies about your friend who thinks he's Vince Vaughn.

Only a handful of music blogs, with names like Fluxblog, Stereogum and Largehearted Boy, have any influence, but even those still have a long way to go to fundamentally alter the landscape of the music industry. Many labels view blogs as little more than potential providers of free publicity; even a blog like Music for Robots, which gets about 8,000 unique visitors a day, is little more than a blip on the radar of major labels. But blogs are acting as incubators for new talent like the Hysterics. It's doubtful that MTV would have discovered the band as quickly otherwise.

While backstage, the Game described the reaction to his 50 Cent disses. "I feel like a couple of n-ggass are mad at me 'cause I said what I said, but me, I'm the type of n-gga that don't give a f—k,” the Game said. “I didn't ask for this sh-t, I got kicked out the group cause n-ggas hated on me man so f--k them n-ggas. It's GGGG-Unot."

Here's where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked and looked at ducks.

By the way, I need to say this about Reginald Dennis when you mentioned that, I mean the other thing it looks pretty obvious from what he's writing, that he's a paid informant for the government and the police. I mean because that's what - when someone would sit there and make up a series of lies that are designed to create a perception that there's some kind of criminal activity taking place that's what informants do. That's how police operate in our country in case you haven't noticed.

Though it's not offering money upfront, the fast-food giant is willing to pay rappers $1 to $5 each time songs with the plug hit the radio, according to today's Advertising Age. McDonald's hopes to have its signature sandwich in several songs by summer, the mag says.

According to News.com, the Intel transition will occur first in the summer with the Mac mini, which I'll bet will become a mini-Tivo-cum-home-server. Hooked to the internet, it will allow movies to be ordered and stored, and if this News.com piece is correct, loaded onto the video iPod that's in the works.

Alan Izhar-Bodner, an Israeli inventor, has developed a way for divers to breathe underwater without cumbersome oxygen tanks. His apparatus makes use of the air that is dissolved in water, just like fish do.

I still feel to this day, The Source needs to change my score to five mics. What they can do is take my remastered album and rate the remastered album - it's a different album. Give me my five mics. I feel like the XXL completely showed how credible they were by saying, "Yes, I made a mistake." I've made mistakes in the past too. We're all human. All these magazines are ran by humans.

The wife of soccer star David fears her last attempt at a solo comeback was so disastrous, critics will attack her second attempt regardless of the quality of her music. The singer is consequently hoping to prove cynics wrong, by revealing her true identity after she has landed a number one hit.

West coast rapper Afroman and his label have ordered a cease-and-desist against the San Jose, CA booking agency RS Entertainment and an individual named Dol Ré for performing and promoting himself as Afroman. ... Afroman amusingly added that he would have tried to stop Dol Ré's fraudulent behavior earlier but didn't "because he got high."

Series 1 will include:
· Swan with bowie knife, switchblade, lead pipe and spray can
· Cleon with nunchucks, rumble chain and spray can
· Cochise with Molotov cocktail, wooden board with nails and a spray can
· Baseball Fury with 2 baseball bats (one is broken)
· Luther with handgun, broken bottle and alternate hand with bottles on fingers (from the famous end of movie scene).

Unique performances will be streamed via the Web sites of radio stations across the country, beginning June 6 at KNDD Seattle's www.1077theend.com. Through June 21, the Demon Detour will "visit" the sites of 39 U.S. radio stations, and two national broadcasts, one via radio host Mancow's syndicated show and the other via Sirius Satellite Radio's Alt-Nation channel.

I love sharing files over the Internet! It's a good question. I think everyone should be asked that question. And if they have a problem with it, then you know not to buy their records. [Laughs.] ... Lars Ulrich, the guy who's made the biggest stink about it, wouldn't even have a career if it weren't for trading demos back in the day.

I always had dreams of becoming a successful rapper. More importantly, I had dreams of being successful. A lot of people have one track minds of what they want to do. Sometimes that works, but they never think that they may have another position in life to do. For example, some rappers aren’t good rappers, but they’re great CEOs. Some CEOs aren’t good CEOs, but they’re great rappers. I always kept that in mind, so I just did whatever I had to do to be successful – part of that was doing street promotions, deejaying, being a rapper, doing the gold teeth. All of it was me – Paul Wall.

[Tino] doesn’t look the least bit creepy or unnatural. What he looks like is a smoldering latin heart throb…wearing Jordache shorts that were made for an eight year old girl, and an izod golf shirt that is stretched so tight you can see through it. The colors used in the title block are timeless, assuming your idea of time is between 1976 and 1978.

According to John Jay, the executive creative director at Wieden & Kennedy, the advertising company that has long had the Nike account, consumers are savvy enough to play limbo with the markers of design elitism and democracy, mass-market and independent. ''The trend for customization is definitely about a growing indie spirit in a sea of mass,'' Jay says. ''But it doesn't have to be one versus the other. It's also about a new sense of originality, where one brand's innovation is enhanced by yet another source of ideas or editing, about cultural remixing and not being satisfied with only one source of originality.'

Whenever a new gadget comes along, salesmen inevitably point out that an older gadget has been rendered obsolete. The automobile pushed aside the railroad; the computer replaced the typewriter. [John Philip] Sousa feared that the phonograph would supplant live music-making. His fears were excessive but not irrational. Early ads for the phonograph took aim at the piano, which, around the turn of the century, was the center of domestic musical life, from the salon to the tavern.

A burned car discovered in Vallejo on Wednesday has been connected to the Las Vegas slaying of a Kansas City rapper listed by police as a "person of interest" in local rap legend Mac Dre's death late last year.

There's just something about leaning on a piano in a Paris studio that makes you want to sing other people's songs. And when it came time to put together the album, we had 20 songs to choose from and by then it didn't matter which ones I had written and which ones I hadn't. It wasn't an issue anymore - we put on the songs that seemed to belong together. I don't think I'll do any covers on my next album though. Though I may do something that's sort of traditionally based like "When I Was A Young Girl". I like doing those songs, because otherwise they don't survive.

"If I had the choice, I would gladly spend my 100 coins on you instead of on an extra life."