Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Random Q & A Thread - PART 2

Page: 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11(12)13 14 15 16 17... 31

10:38 / 20.09.04

Linus, you're a star. My documents and emails are now satisfyingly blank.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:50 / 20.09.04

Jub: You could also move them to Del.icio.us, then either rebookmark them at home or use that as your favourites folder.

Toksik: It's not a straight list of metrical forms, but Writing Poetry by Peter Sansom is an interesting read. Browse before you buy, though - it may not be to your taste.

11:04 / 20.09.04

Problem with Roman dating to our system is that there are several incidents where years extended over severl year periods our system, when Emperor's decided to make x year a long one or a short one. It's only a small change +/- but if you need an exact date it causes problems. The Calander was a purely religious tool in Rome.

13:35 / 20.09.04

Does anyone know what the music used in the Shaun of the Dead trailer is? The catchy beaty bit when Shaun gets action and twats a zombie with a cricket bat as he runs to Liz's flat.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:39 / 20.09.04

The Calander was a purely religious tool in Rome

And quite a useful way of arranging to meet people and having some confidence that you will be in the restaurant on the same day...

14:20 / 20.09.04

Yeah, but the only resteraunts in ancient rome were all religious themed. McDionisious, Burger Rex and Pizza Hut aside

17:24 / 20.09.04

can anyone point me in the direction of a good and simple (but not simplistic) guide to poetry structure?

I liked John Lennard's Poetry Handbook -it's mainly for prac. crit. rather than your own poetry but it explains all the different forms well.

09:47 / 21.09.04

Fucking Romans. (Thanks, all, though.)

Though actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure why dating from 753BCE would cause any more problems (regarding Gregorian calendar/length of year/etc) than dating from 1CE/1BCE. Surely the long/short years and the change to Gregorian calendar are just as much a problem in the Christian dating system?

Haus - I think there's a convenient fiction that the Roman years went from January-December at least from the period I'm interested in (Marius/Sulla onwards). I remember being slightly disoriented looking up dates and finding that a Roman year just covered one number BCE or CE, rather than those fuck-complicated Greek things ("Battle of Charonea 330/29BCE"*).

*or whenever.

Short of a big bit of paper, I spose I could just get hold of a convenient edition/translation of the AUC that gives both BCE and AUC dates in the margin, and then do some adding-up.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:52 / 21.09.04

Shouldn't be an issue, unless you are writing a children's book set in an alternate future in which the empire never ended, in which case you'd have to work out whether the Greg. calendar was ever adopted and other such irregularities. The fact that I immediately assumed you *were* says more about me than you...

11:03 / 21.09.04

Calendar changes are a complete nightmare for historians - the only thing you can really do is make a decision on which one you are going to use (the one which is easiest for your project is usually best) and state in your preface that you are using it. I think it unlikely that anyone would pick holes in your choice, though this may be different for your discipline.

The classic early modernist's fudge is to make the year begin on 1 January, and ignore the extra days...

11:36 / 21.09.04

an alternate future in which the empire never ended

*stares in puzzlement* An alternate future?

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:10 / 21.09.04

Oh, all right. In which the empire never ended. And everyone wears togas. And is called Marcus.

08:07 / 24.09.04

Another question regarding my sorrry lack of computer skills.... for some reason, when a new window opens for Internet Explorer it opens as a minimised icon type thing.

Also I can't seem to half and half them, erm, that is, they either have to cover the whole screen or be that small icon thingy, whereas I used to be able to have two or more windows open at the same time covering my screen.

If you look at the three little buttons on the top right of your screen you may have the same thing as me. In order, minimise, half and half and finally, close.

Any help greatly appreciated.

pointless and uncalled for

12:58 / 24.09.04

Can I get the genderneutral for fraternity/sorority please.

13:17 / 25.09.04

Are they 'fellowships'?

Can anyone tell me what the "..." is called when used at the end of a paragraph for a sort of dramatic effect? Is it a kind of ellipsis? I sometimes see it in the middle of a sentence too, as something akin to a colon.

eg.
'He thought he knew how to create a dramatic pause. The only problem was... he didn't.'

More broadly, what are acceptable applications of "..." in formal, or semi-formal, English?

18:03 / 25.09.04

I thought it was elipses at the end of a sentence or paragraph.

Whisky Priestess

18:40 / 25.09.04

I call them dotdotdots.

But professionals don't.

19:18 / 25.09.04

They're called Loebdots as 90% of the comic industries supply is used by Jim/John/Jeff Loeb. They're like Kirbydots except a bit crap. He's trying to cut... down though... to this... kind of...

...level.

22:14 / 26.09.04

Thanks all. Particularly the link, Whisky.

08:30 / 30.09.04

Use of uncleared samples on music demos

Here is a condensed version of a discussion I had with my brother last night:

Brother: "I listened to your CD. Thirteen of the tracks have samples of dialogue on them. That is infringement of copyright."

Me: "Yes but it's only a demo. It's not going to be sold or broadcast."

Brother: "It doesn't matter. It is copyright infringement. You will be taking a grave and terrible risk if you send it out to anyone."

Me: "Fuckinell, I'm only sending it to a couple of poxy fucking indie labels, not fucking EMI or Sony!"

Brother: "It doesn't matter. It is copyright infringement. You will be..." etc

So, is my brother being absurdly paranoid, or should I be worried? Is it a good idea to be as 'spotless' with a demo as one would be with a proper release? I realise that technically speaking my brother is probably correct, but I just cannot see the guys at Load records grassing me up to whoever owns the copyright on the 78rpm disc of 'Attack from Zarrus' and whatnot.

09:04 / 30.09.04

If you're only at the demo stage, then it's not something major to worry about. The record label would sort out copyright/royalty issues if and when they decide to sign you up and release the songs to the general populace. Of course, it may then turn out that some songs are not available for sampling, or the royalties are enormous, which might mean you have to replace the sample or re-mix the track with something less contentious...but on a demo? Shouldn't think it's a problem.

10:43 / 30.09.04

No problem on demos. Copyright only becomes an issue if it's a public broadcast. On a similar note, is it right that bands playing covers in pubs are exempt from copyright, even though they are braodcasting publically, as long as they do not alter the song in anyway?

11:33 / 30.09.04

Is there a way to make IE open a blank page, rather than the page you're on when you hit ctrl-n? I can't find any way of changing that but I'm sure it's possible. (It's the only browser there is at work by the way, I know that basically the anwser to my question is "Use something, anything, else.")

13:05 / 30.09.04

On copyrighted samples: I think the rule is anything five seconds and under is fair game, but I'm not absolutely positive.

On covers: Playing them live is generally fine -- it's if they appear on albums that the publishing house (ASCAP, BMI, whoever) will come around asking for royalties. (I'm not sure if this is how the laws are written -- it's just how it works out in practice.)

On IE: Go to TOOLS > INTERNET OPTIONS and in the "HOME PAGE" square up top, click "Use blank."

15:28 / 30.09.04

Thanks for the comments, chaps. I've been doing a bit of research via the web, and the gist of it seems to be that no one will hassle you until you start making money, but if you think you're going to find yourself in that happy situation then it's best to get the samples cleared beforehand. I could still be sued before then but it is unlikely given that I'll have nothing to cough up.

grant> I had that knocking around at the back of my mind, too, but the one thing that all the websites say is that the 5 second thing is a myth. Even a single snare hit is covered by copyright. Flipping heck, eh?!

15:34 / 30.09.04

Sorry grant, I didn't explain my question very clearly -what I mean is that if I hit ctrl-n now, I will have 2 pages replying to this thread open, whereas what I want is 1 page replying to this thread and 1 blank page. It sounds really petty now that I actually go into detail about what I want to change, but I was just wondering if it was possible...

16:16 / 30.09.04

Oh, sorry I missed the cntrl+n part. As far as I know, IE doesn't do that. Safari on the Mac does. I'm not sure which way I like better.

16:36 / 30.09.04

grant sez:

On covers: Playing them live is generally fine -- it's if they appear on albums that the publishing house (ASCAP, BMI, whoever) will come around asking for royalties.

For the band or performer, this is correct. The royalty cost for live performance of covers is usually picked up by the venue, believe it or not. You might see little ASCAP and BMI decals displayed on the window of your favorite bars and performance spaces; as part of the licensing agreement that allows them to present live music, they pay a small fee (annual, I think) to ASCAP and BMI, a presumptive charg, on the assumption that copyrighted music will be played live, by DJs, and/or on jukeboxes in that venue. They're not required to submit specific playlists or anything--as I understand it, it's flat fee, which (presumably) goes into a general fund; rather than be administered to the rights-holders, these fees go to cover operating costs for ASCAP and BMI themselves.

Again, this is just to the best of my knowledge: if anybody has more specific information, I'd love to hear it.

00:17 / 01.10.04

Has anybody read the Ted Hughes translation of Ovid and if so what do you think of it?

Whisky Priestess

09:26 / 04.10.04

Where oh where can I get a rippable mp3 of "Je t'aime (moi non plus)" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin by 5pm tonight? (it's 11.30 am now)

Thanks!

09:48 / 04.10.04

Whisky: Check your email, if it's not too late...

Whisky Priestess

09:57 / 04.10.04

Cheers Baz, but I can't get web-based email at work - can I PM you my work email?

22:23 / 11.10.04

Computer question:
I've got lots of video, in a mixture of formats, hogging my hard disk. Lots of this video I'd like to burn to disk to watch on my TV through my DVD player. So far I've been making VCDs, and that works just fine, but space is a problem. So I got a DVD burner. However, hardly anything is in the right format for TMPGEnc DVD Author to handle. Either it's not the right kind of mpeg, the resolution or the framerate is wrong, or the sequence header is incorrect. Often a combination of those.
Is it ridiculous to hope that there is a bit of software that'll convert all these files into mpeg-1 or mpeg-2? Is there anything I can do to fix the other things?

11:49 / 12.10.04

Hello peeps. Searched the book forum but to no avail. Essentially, I am thinking of selling some of my books, and wondering the best way to go about hocking 2nd hand books in London.

I don't really want to sell them, but am very hard up at the mo, so was going to take a crate down to Charing Cross Road and see what I can get. Does anyone have any tips, or suggestions?

11:57 / 12.10.04

hmmm,
a tricky one without getting ripped off- my gut instinct tells me ebay? otherwise your talking 10p per book which is just heartbreaking....

Page: 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11(12)13 14 15 16 17... 31