A Quick Tip to Overcome Blogger’s Block!

Yikes! I’ve only been at this thing for 3 months and I got my first real case of writer’s block - or in this case, blogger’s block!

One major factor might be that I just turned in my senior thesis (a major paper for me) and after considerable difficulty.

The number one reason that I get writer’s block is the pressure to produce something of a certain quality. This was the case with my thesis, or “comps,” and it’s been the case this week with my blogging as well.

Ever since the Christmas-day tiger attack in San Francisco, I’ve gotten the senes that something was not quite right in the official story, and I’ve waited a good long time to get all the facts before I weighed in with my opinion. This was an article that I knew would be outside of the mainstream view, alledging that the boys were not traditional “victims,” per se, and I had anticipated writing it for months now.

However, after writing an article that meant so much to me, and about which I anticipated such a fuss, it’s been difficult for me to move forward onto a traditional article again.  I did a knee-jerk announement about the Earth Hour movement, which was quick and easy, but it’s taken me a long time to finally move forward and make another post.

How did I do it?

I set myself free!

One of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve gotten in my life came from a college professor who told me “Allow yourself to fail.” This might seem contrary to the general goals of an academic pursuit, but he knew me well and he trusted that if I could just take the pressure off of myself, that I would do good work. He could see what I could not - that the pressure to succeed and perform to my own standards (which are admittedly pretty tough) was getting in the way of me doing good, natural work.

This has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn, and I certainly have not finished incorporating it yet. I still have the urge to push myself, to aspire to something greater than what comes to my mind in a given moment. However, it turns out that at any given moment, I’ve got a lot on  my mind that is valuable and that I should remember to share.

Tonight, when I sat down at the keyboard to write, it took me a couple of hours of dawdling and avoidance before I could finally bring myself to fire up the WordPress and take a crack at a blog. At first it was painful and I felt pressured, but I remember just to let myself go. I didn’t worry about a clever title, or a cool picture, or making sure to properly cite a bunch of sources - I just wrote the things that I already knew and gave the opinion that’s been sitting at the tip of my tongue now for weeks, waiting for a bit of attention. I let it all out, and while it might not be my best structured or prettiest post of all time, it’s got me back on a roll again.

I mean look, I’m writing here, aren’t I?

Sometimes, writing can be a cure for itself: if you don’t think you can write one piece well right now,  go ahead and work on another, or just start free-writing about anything . I’m not the sort of person who thinks that free-writing or stream-of-concsciousness is the key to truly authentic work (I throw most of it away.) However, it’s a great practice for getting your mind up and running, the words rolling, and to work through the kernels of some ideas that can grow into fully-formed articles later.

If you’re having writer’s block - or blogger’s block, in this case - just got for it: write anything! Get rid of your assignment or your goal, and especially any preconceived notions of what you Should Write! (capital-letters included for gravitas) Write about whatever is on your mind at that time and you’ll soon find that you can write about anything.

Don’t wait one moment longer.

I bought my first mp3

I’ve never done that before.

 

To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been sleeping much lately and that might have very well impaired my judgment. However, I feel pretty happy with my purchase.

Why?

Well, it was music that I wanted and had no other way to get. Considering this particular item was a special-edition reissue of an album that I already own, I was concerned with the second disc of unreleased songs, live recordings and alternate takes. I could have bought the new version, I guess, but then I would have been paying for a brand-spanking new copy of something I already had, and under the circumstances, forgoing the liner notes didn’t bother me that much. (one of my major complaints about the digital music market)

It was cheaper than the cd, it came in full-quality audio files, and I had it instantly. A minute after I decided I wanted it, it was playing on my computer. (high-speed internet has totally redifined the nature of “impulse-buys”) I’m glad that I didn’t, and it ws cheap enough that I haven’t had any buyer’s remorse yet - at least, not in my wallet.

If it was cheap and easy, why don’t I feel good about my purchase?

Because the way the music business has handled the internet revolution has been sloppy, insulting, recidivist, and in many cases downright predatory. The intimidation methods that these companies employ to extract settlements are ridiculous for a mainstream American business, and the strategical targeting of college students, who they assume can afford a legal settlement if they can afford an education, strikes me as truly shameful.

What bothers me most is the way in which this debate has transformed the average music fan into a nameless, faceless “customer.” The music business and the careers of countless artists have been built upon the passionate support and selfless promotion of dedicated fans. These companies are not selling groceries or hardware - they traffic in intellectual property to which people develop intense emotional developments. In my mind, their profit-margins, if not their ethics, should dictate an appreciation and amicable relationship with the fans. Instead, all this has proven is that the fat-cats and rock stars view their adoring public with a thick air of entitlement and a measure of contempt that I’d challenge you to find in any other billion-dollar industry (except maybe oil.)

The fans who buy albums, records, posters, shirts and concert tickets are what keep these guys’ yachts afloat. If they wanted to keep living that way, they could have shown a little gratitude and understanding towards the people who put them there. I’m not advocating that the record companies should have sat back and allowed the wholesale piracy of their product - I simply think that it was their duty to their fans to adjust their pricing, distribution and business models to account for the changing technology of the times. If the fans decided the time had come to get their music through the internet, and that the price at which that music was being offered was too steep, it was the industry’s prerogative to make the music digitally available and to bring the prices down - that’s pretty basic economics, if you assume they wanted to stay in business.

Instead, the legal battle the companies have initiated have shown that they’re no longer in the business of shaping our culture, but in the commodification and diminishment of the human spirit in which they traffic. Make no mistake - the file-sharing lawsuits are not to recompense lost profits for the artists or anyone involved in the creative aspect of the business. They’re not even to cover basic operating fees for the companies in question. These lawsuits are an intimidation tactic intended to bully the public back into order and to preserve an outdated business model that the industry is too lazy to change.

They’re terrified of the new technology - they know they’re obsolete, and what’s more, the industry executives are well aware that the horizontal integration of internet society and the ease of distribution that the internet allows have made their roles utterly redundan. Gone are the days of A&R representatives and “talent scouts.” The world of independent music is available at our fingertips and the internet users will be the new “taste-makers” - only, it will be more democratic and more representative of the tastes of the generation than ever before in our culture’s history. They know this and they’re trying to squeeze every drop of water out of the stone.

 Photo courtesy of fensterbme

How to Download YouTube Videos in Safari

While watching a YouTube video:(this will be MUCH easier if the YouTube video is the only webpage or tab that you have open)Click on >> Window >> on the menu bar>> click on Activity

>> in this window, find the line that says “YouTube - ” and the title of the video, ie. “YouTube - zen chicken”

>> if there is only one line visible, click the gray horizontal triangle to the left of the video’s name; this should open the ‘drawer’ of included files>> there are a couple ways of identifying which file is the video1. if the file is still loading, you will see a “X of Y MB,” ie “1.0 of 1.1 MB”2. if the file has “get_video” in the name or a “.flv” file extension, that’s the file that you need3. if the video file has finished loading, it will have the largest file size in the right-hand column, ie. “1.1 MB”>> Double-click on the file. The file will be downloaded as “get_video” to the Desktop, or “get_video1,” get_video2,” etc.

>>Rename the file to add the “.flv” extension by highlighting it, clicking “Enter” or “Return” and typing “.flv” at the end

>> This file is a Flash Video file and should open directly in iMovieThis should already work on the lab computers. If it does not, visit http://perian.org/ and install Perian (it’s free). This may require the help of the lab technicians.

 

UPDATE: If the .flv videos don’t work immediately after downloading, make sure the you reset the Mac. The resetting process will correctly initialize the Perian codecs (video coder/decoders) in OSX so that this will work.