"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. " -Benjamin Franklin --Or Not. I could stand it no more, so I did a little research, using the "World Wide Web," where the digital media lives....

We're O'Reilly readers. We're smart. And we've all had it happen to us. We're watching TV or browsing through the airline catalog, and then we see it: HEY! I THOUGHT OF THAT TEN YEARS AGO!!!!! (Go ahead, reply to this message with the idea you had that somebody else came up with, and which drove you crazy.) Well, that's a...

How were the makers of this Easy-Bake Oven able to make the digital clock, obviously just a paper sticker, actually advance in time?...

We all remember the Mellotron from the Strawberry Fields flute line. "...always know sometimes think it's me..." I had no idea it was such an ambitious, fancy, and musical machine, on top of being dang clever and cool. See it demonstrated here by immensely stereotypical Brits. But what does this tell us about Digital Media? I guess we've had awesome...

Go here and bang around for "appliance." http://www.projectbarbq.com/bbqtopic.htm (thanks for the photo, Dave Battino) http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2032 You'll see that the topic of "PC versus Appliance," especially as relates to audio, was brought up elegantly in 1997 by Van Webster in a talk he gave at our conference, Project BBQ. Since then, the "church of appliantology" has created quite a stir...

http://www.projecthorseshoe.com This is a bright group--I thought you might be interested in knowing about the 50-person Game Design Think-Tank that my partners and I are putting on. This will be the first one on the topic of Game Design, but we've had 10 very successful conferences on Music on Comptuers (Project BarBQ). The high concept, basically, is to "Solve...

On the topic of "I'm not your friggin' test department," I'd like to submit my first example of proof that products I suspect are being released with "bullet-point features" that have never been tested even once. Example One: Vox Valvetronix: The Wonderful Amp With the Useless Direct-Out Feature That Turns The Amp Into a Bass Drum Mic The Latest in...

Dear Member of the High-Tech Audio Industry: Please. Stop thinking about performance and features for a second: focus on "does it work or does it crash?" If you are under the impression that your testing staff is doing a good job of addressing this problem, then --you are very likely living in blissful ignorance, or --you are in an industry...

Get your rock tune featured in the next version of the Guitar Hero game! http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/27-04-2006-2662.html...

Oh. I guess I didn't understand the meaning of the word "wireless." It's a trademark. Got it. Sorry, my bad....