Sandeep Kumar's Blog

Awesome!

YouTube – Making Contakt – Presented by Traktor.

Wanna Rickroll someone? No problem, there are thousands of copies of the video of Rick Astley’s legendary song, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” on the Internet. However, if you want to use the original Rickroll video, which should be located here, you’ll be greeted by an ugly message: This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.

Rickrolling, in case you haven’t been online between early 2008 and now, is the practice of tricking someone into opening the aforementioned video, and it’s considered to be one of the most popular Internet memes of all time.

Yes, it’s a popular and copyrighted song, but it’s also been viewed millions of times precisely because it became such a popular online meme. How removing it from YouTube (YouTube) will help copyright owners is a mystery to me. Props to Neowin for noticing this one.

via OMG, They Killed (the Original) Rickroll!.

Ministry of Sound, London's hugely influential and longstanding nightclub, is currently faced with a very unsettling prospect: a new residential tower cropping up right across the street, threatening the venue's entertainment license.Fears first arose when property developer Oakmayne submitted an application for a new apartment building in Elephant and Castle, at the site of the old Eileen House. If built, the residence tower would place 369 private apartments just a stone's throw away from the bustling night club, inevitably challenging MoS's current method of operation. When asked about his project's potential interference with the world-famous venue, Oakmayne chairman Christopher Allen stated simply that "nightclubs come and go."But Ministry of Sound has so far proven much more durable than most. The venue first opened its doors in the fall of 1991, and has since become one of the world's most successful nightclubs, with thousands of massive parties and literally millions of patrons. MoS is also one of dance music's most recognisable brands, with a hugely lucrative record label and several famous compilation series, such as Hed Kandi, Global Underground, Euphoria and Dance Nation. With all of its various branches combined, MoS grosses over £80 million per year.Nonetheless, the people at MoS see Oakmayne's plans as an extremely serious threat to their South London home. Lohan Presencer, CEO of the Ministry of Sound Group, issued this statement earlier today:“When Oakmayne told us that 'nightclubs come and go', we were horrified. Ministry of Sound is not just any nightclub; it’s the most famous nightclub in the world and the heart of a global entertainment business. These developers have cut corners at every stage and counter to their claims, they do not have the best interests of the local community at heart. We must do everything in our power to save our club and our business”.

via RA News: Ministry of Sound faces developer threat.

Wow, I’m really impressed with Ableton for stepping up when most software companies don’t bother. I’ve heard previous stories of the CEO of Ableton and his vision for his software, and profits aren’t the only thing he sees. Either way, I’m looking forward to this, this should be good

New features are great, and yes, it’s often us users asking for them. But reliability and stability are more important to most of us. It’s therefore a welcome surprise to see Ableton’s CEO post the following message on Ableton’s forum today, announcing that the company will put new features on hold until some reliability issues are fixed. For developers other than Ableton, it should be telling to see how users respond — if this kind of frankness inspires confidence rather than concern, it could mean that talking more openly about bugs and how to fix them could open up more dialog between developers and users:

Update, 12/29: One release with some fixes is already available, in the form of 8.1.1. It appears to address a showstopper bug I personally encountered with Drum Rack performance under certain situations. I’m testing that fix and others. I don’t believe this is the only update to 8.x that Ableton is planning, or the one to which this message refers, but it is a start. Check out the downloads page.

Some of you have experienced and reported problems with Live 8 several months ago that we have still failed to fix. This is both painful and necessary for us to discuss. We owe you sincere apologies, as well as an explanation and outlook for the future.

Ableton values quality over innovation. Our engineers will stop whatever they are doing to fix a bug when they become aware of it. They must, however, rely on a process that prepares the incoming information and funnels it to them appropriately. Establishing and maintaining this process is the responsibility of management — particularly us, Bernd and Gerhard — and this is where things have gone wrong while we let our attention divert to ambitious new projects.

Our apologies also extend to both the Ableton developers and tech support colleagues because they want to be proud of software and service that users love.

We have now decided to:

* suspend all development towards new features while the whole team joins forces to address the current issues. This effort is open ended and will result in a free Live 8 update;

* make process changes to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.

We hope this plan finds your understanding and agreement. We’d like to wish you a very happy holiday season and a wonderful 2010!

Gerhard Behles, CEO

Bernd Roggendorf, CTO

Pausing forward development to focus on bug fixes in and of itself is not an unprecedented move – it’s just usually not something you talk about. So I have to applaud not only Ableton making the sacrifice to focus on reliability first, but also that they’re being frank about acknowledging issues. I’m honestly not entirely certain just which issues they’re describing, because I don’t have the benefit of the big picture that comes from handling Ableton’s own tech support. Once Ableton does make progress on this upcoming free update, though, I’ll be sure to share what changes are included.

As seen on the Ableton forums, via Bjorn Vayner / The Covert Operators on Twitter.

Clarification: I should hasten to add, as I realized this post could be misread — talking about and fixing bugs is a good thing, but having bugs is not. Ableton, as any music developer, depends on the goodwill and trust of its users. If in fact bugs have made current Live versions less stable, or have adversely impacted the perception of Live, that leaves the ball in Ableton’s court to resolve. To me, the proof is in the release. If you have issues you’ve fully documented that have not be resolved, to which this post may be referring, we’d love to hear about them (emphasis on “documented” and “fully” — let us know exactly the issue and how to reproduce it). Likewise, we’ll watch for fixes. All software has bugs, and being a computer musician means being able to manage reliability and stability to make the computer an effective instrument.

via Create Digital Music » Ableton Suspends Development to Focus on Bug Fixes for Live 8.

YouTube – Passion Pit – Little Secrets Felix Da Housecat remix.

I’ve never heard Felix make anything like this. Anthem!

YouTube – The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody [1080p].

this is easily the coolest video all week, not to mention an awesome demo for YouTube in 1080p HD now.

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Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening Hour standup special debuts January 17th on Comedy Central. CD/LP and DVD arrive January 19th wherever fine products are sold. Click here to read more about the album/special and about upcoming episodes of Parks and Recreation, including details on our trip to “The Glitter Factory” on EW.com.

Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening

Hour standup special debuts January 17th on Comedy Central.

CD/LP and DVD arrive January 19th wherever fine products are sold.

Click here to read more about the album/special and about upcoming episodes of Parks and Recreation, including details on our trip to “The Glitter Factory” on EW.com.

via Aziz is Bored.

I love this guy, great to see he’s finally getting his own special

NIIIIIICCCCEEE!!!! I’m hoping I can get tickets this time, last show looked amazing!

U2 adds second Southern California showPublished November 10, 2009 02:11 PMComments and 0 Reactions printemailBy Jon Zahlaway / LiveDaily Senior WriterU2 [ tickets ], which recently revealed plans for another round of North American shows next summer, has tacked a second night onto the outings Southern California kick-off after posting a sell-out for the first night.The new show sets the stage for a two-night tour-opener June 6 and 7 at Anaheims Angel Stadium. Tickets for newly added June 7 performance go on sale Nov. 20, according to U2s website.So far, the bands itinerary comprises stops in a dozen cities throughout the US and Canada into mid-July. Details are shown below.In addition to the North American run, the band will embark on a new leg of European shows next year, beginning in August and extending through early October. Those dates can be found at U2s website.The 2010 shows–which also will include a late-summer/early fall European trek–will continue to feature the massive stage set the band has been using over this year, designed by long-time U2 associate Willie Williams in collaboration with architect Mark Fisher, an “in-the-round” design that seeks to afford every fan in attendance an unobstructed view of the band on stage.In late October, TheWrap.com reported that the “170-ton, $40 million, four-pronged stage [is] so enormous, its overhead so costly,” that the band still hadnt broken even on the tour, even after four months on the road in the US and elsewhere.With shows so far this year in 44 cities, the band has already played before more than three million fans in 2009, according to a press release.U2 is touring behind its 12th studio album, “No Line on the Horizon,” which surfaced in February. The set debuted at No. 1 in 30 countries, including the US, where it posted first-week sales of about 484,000 copies.Share TOUR DATEStour dates and ticketsJune 20106 – Anaheim, CA – Angel Stadium12 – Denver, CO – Invesco Field at Mile High16 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Coliseum20 – Seattle, WA – Qwest Field23 – Edmonton, Alberta – Commonwealth Stadium30 – East Lansing, MI – Spartan StadiumJuly 20103 – Toronto, Ontario – Rogers Centre6 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field9 – Miami, FL – Land Shark Stadium12 – Philadelphia, PA – Lincoln Financial Field16 – Montreal, Quebec – Venue to be announced19 – East Rutherford, NJ – New Meadowlands Stadium

via U2 adds second Southern California show >> Tour dates at LiveDaily.

YouTube – Drunk Ewoks on Today Show.

c’mon that title just screams awesomeness… (spoiler, there’s fighting, drinking, and leg humping)