Phasing out old media

Getting rid of the old stuff and formats is one of the hardest things to do in a materialistic society.

I've managed to dump and have gotten rid of the following formats of media so far as of September 2016:

• MiniDisc (MD)
• Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and the data format DDS (including DDS2/DDS3)
• Various optical disks other than CD/DVD (including Panasonic's PD)
• Flash memory formats other than SD including Smartmedia / Compact Flash
• 5.25" and 8" floppy discs
• Vinyl LPs
• VHS video tapes

The following media formats are not acceptable as of September 2016:

• Blu-ray (including BD-R) (The reliability issue still remains suspicious)
• Super Audio CD (playback only)

And the following old materials are in the archive mode and will not be accessible on demand (i.e., packed and will not be opened unless a critical demand from those who may concern (e.g., legal authorities), which may take days to access):

• DXCC paper QSL cards (caution: I may discard all paper QSLs at any time, details undecided)
• Old Apple ][ documents
• Old TL/1 language and GAME language compiler documents
• Old SWL paper logs
• Old private music demo tapes

Note well: I will issue no paper QSLs anymore, even if I ever make more ham radio contacts. I will not make a paper QSL request. All new paper QSL requests will be immediately and unconditionally discarded. This has been effective since 1-NOV-2014. LoTW and ClubLog uploads will still be conducted for new contacts.

The following media formats have been for business acceptance only (i.e., the playback hardware exists but no new recordings) since September 2015:

• 3.5" floppy discs
• Cassette tapes

The following media formats have been for business transactions only (i.e., the recording hardware exists, but will not be activated unless requested by the customer) since September 2015:

• CD-R
• DVD-R (single layer/dual layers)
• (micro)SD(HC/XC)
• Generic USB memory sticks

I will still be buying necessary software pieces including music CDs, software on DVDs, and paper books, but will do my best on getting rid of them as many as possible.

Bottom line: I need to remember that the room spaces are always the most precious resources.

(This article first appeared on my Facebook Notes dated 27-SEP-2015)

It's all about experience

It's not just the programming.
It's not just the music.
It's not just the message.

It's all about experience. And the desire for it.

People are looking for a new experience through technologies.

Concurrency will surely help giving a smooth experience; and even more good things.

(I will not quote Jimi Hendrix here)

The days of Neuro Net Recordings

Neuro Net Recordings (NNR), an online techno-music distribution project, is one of the most important music projects of my life. Many music files of NNR have been available at archive.org as a part of the open source music archive. It was founded by Tomotoshi "Ackie" Akiyama and other core members including myself, in 1994. I was the Internet Archivist, or the one who handled the online distribution channels over Internet.

NNR had the free online distribution policy from the beginning: NNR had the non-exclusive distibution rights of the music files in the various available formats on the Internet. It was quite similar to the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, which means preserving the author's credit, non-profit use only, and changes not allowed during redistribution.

NNR was not really a for-profit label, but most of the albums of NNR Active Potential Series were distributed by cassette tapes with reasonable price (JPY500 for Active Potential Number 0). NNR also released one CD album called Neural Networks Vol. 1 in 1996. So NNR was really an independent label, though NNR consistently distributed the music files towards the potential listeners on the Internet. NNR once had a redistribution agreement with FranceMP3.com. Jean-François Fecteau has been a long-time supporter of NNR activities, and he has played NNR tunes many times in his program Le Vestibule from CFOU-FM in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada.

The distribution format NNR chosen were RealAudio, MPEG-1, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 finally, because MP3 technology license owners allowed exemption of the MP3 technology royalty fee to the business with USD100000 or less annual revenue. Ackie kindly sent me the past DATs for mastering NNR cassette tapes, so I rebuilt and remastered the CD-R master discs from the DATs. I learned the remastering skills using Syntrillium's Cool Edit (now Adobe Audition) and other tools.

I also performed real-time streaming events called Neuro Net Radio twice on 1998 and 1999, which were actually DJing from my house over RealAudio streaming, playing only NNR tunes to avoid dealing copyright issues with the copyright holders.

Many professional music creators contributed to the NNR music archive before and during they became really professional. Some of the artists are: NISH, Leopaldon, Takuya Kitani, and Warping Allergen. I find many NNR contributors are still actively seeking their other opportunities in their lives.

In the age of iTunes and Amazon.com MP3, no professional musician can survive without distributing their music online. Streaming music radio stations like Soma FM are doing competitive business. Many people in the so-called music industry, however, still do not accept online media, and I feel quite sad about it. I've already been fed up with the stagnated copyright issues in Japanese music scene either. So I decided to quit distributing NNR files on my own in 2004. Fortunately, archive.org generously provides the storage space and other goodies to the free-music distributors, so I decided to put NNR and my music pieces there in 2007.

I know my talent on music is quite limited and is not competitive enough to survive as a professional musician. But I also believe that does not limit my rights to freely distribute my own music. I've learned a lot through my NNR activities and I appreciate all those who helped NNR.

Fumi Yamazaki suggested me to write this, as a case study of Creative Commons activities in Japan. Thanks, Fumi.