October 11, 2007
British accents by Peter Sellers
This video, shot between takes on Dr. Strangelove, features Peter Sellers running through a variety of British accents (and of course the American Midwestern accent he used for President Muffley) -- all in less than ninety seconds. Pretty cool.
While I'm on the topic of accents, have you ever heard of Foreign Accent Syndrome? Very rarely, after stroke or brain injury, a subject will suddenly speak with a foreign accent. What actually happens is that certain aspects of speech (like pronunciation, pitch, and rhythm) are altered in such a way that it sounds to others as if the subject has an accent. From this article on FAS: "For instance, one of our patients, a native New Yorker, was so often mistaken for being Swedish that her doctor jokingly suggested she call herself 'Olga.'"
Here's a BBC story (and video) about an English woman who had a stroke and now sounds like she's Jamaican or maybe French Canadian.
11 Oct 23:36 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Misc. Tidbits, Science, Video
How much did you pay for 'In Rainbows'?
I've been listening to In Rainbows, the new Radiohead album, for the last couple of days. It's a slow-grower that'll take a while to digest, so I'll refrain from reviewing the record. (I'm a lousy reviewer anyway, so turn to someone who can actually do it decently. Here's a glowing review to start with...) I will say that I'm currently digging "Jigsaw Falling Into Place", "Nude", "Reckoner," and - perhaps surprisingly, given others' comments - the lovely "House of Cards".
Anyway, what really prompted me to mention the album is the novel marketing/distribution/payment strategy. You've surely read about it by now. You can download the album now for whatever amount you'd like (including nothing). You can also wait a few months and get an expensive super-deluxe version with vinyl, CDs, booklet, etc. And so on.
Everyone's atwitter over what the band's move says about the state of the music industry, the value of music, the future of music distribution, and more. All interesting questions, and there's plenty of lively debate. I don't have time to elaborate on those topics, but I would like to take a moment to focus on perhaps the most interesting aspect of Radiohead's approach - the variable pricing scheme - and specifically, the fact that you can legally choose to pay nothing at all.
Cheap, effortless digital distribution has turned recorded music into a public good (much like public television & radio), subject to the problem of free/easy riding. The rational thing to do (and I'm using "rational" in the game theoretic sense) is to pay nothing to download Radiohead's new album. But what did you pay? I think Radiohead are correctly banking on the likelihood that you'll pay something for their music.
I paid for the album, and judging from other people I've talked to, I'm willing to bet you put something into the honesty box. The following statement will betray my geekiness (like so much on this site does), but I would absolutely love to get my hands on detailed payment data, because (as Jonny Greenwood himself has said) Radiohead are conducting an interesting experiment. (Not a strictly scientific experiment, mind you, but an interesting one nonetheless.) We are getting a few hints of how many copies have sold thus far and some speculation as to the average price paid (£1), but I would really like to see the price distribution, geographical variation, etc.
It's like a real-world variant of some of the games used to examine human behavior and figure out the hows and whys of sociality's evolution. The long and the short of it is that, contrary to what one might expect (given the so-called "selfishness" of genes), we have been shaped by natural selection such that we don't play these games as a rational agent would - that is, we tend to be quite altruistic. For example, in the prisoner's dilemma, people cooperate more than expected (a rational agent will always defect), and in the ultimatum and dictator games, they offer more than expected.
Anonymity does have an effect, and it will certainly play a role in Radiohead's little experiment. But we're very sensitive to anonymity. For example, even in the comments section of the review I linked to above (which is almost totally anonymous), a commenter who wrote about downloading the album for free from a BitTorrent server was roundly castigated by the other commenters, leading another commenter to wonder: "Hmmmm.... should it be £2, should it be £4 do I dare do the £0 thing - all this handwringing from you guys!" Another wished for Radiohead to "publish the names and emails of those who paid nothing to download the album."
Anyway. This post is getting too long. I'm curious to see how Radiohead's experiment plays out and if it has any lasting effect on popular music. In the meantime, just out of curiosity I'd love to find out what you paid (or didn't pay) for the album. E-mail me.
Update: I was just informed that one of the Nature Network blogs already explained this angle far better than I did. See Fiona Jordan's post '"In Rainbows" in anthropological context'. I particularly like what she writes concerning the emotional aspect:
Importantly, the "music business" is not just a business. It transacts not only in the tangible product but in intense amounts of emotion. The social contracts between an artist and their audience are multiple and complicated, and they do not produce agents who play their economic games in a rational manner.
11 Oct 17:18 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Music, Science
October 1, 2007
"I'm trippin' too"
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Or as I call him, The Iranian W.) Plenty of his statements indicate that he, like so many other world leaders, is blinded by ideology - or just batshit insane. The Holocaust denials, the claim of being "surrounded by light" during a speech, and so much more. Like this:
The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.
But I'll admit that he occasionally makes a good point (rhetorically, at least). And sometimes he can even be funny (albeit inadvertently). Like last week at Columbia University when he claimed there are no gays in Iran. Which prompted Andy Samberg's Mahmoud love song, "Iran So Far" (which was the whole reason I posted anything about Ahmadinejad's visit since it's been hashed and rehashed by everyone). The official clip at nbc.com doesn't work for some reason (typical), so enjoy it on YouTube. (If the clip below doesn't work, try searching for other copies.)
01 Oct 19:33 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Current Events, Humor, Politics, Video