How many gigabytes was that again?

The other day I was so excited. There has been a hint of a "gift" to be given out to all the Nine Inch Nail's fan's out there via their website. It was a long three week's in waiting to see what was going to happen this time. What I mean by "this time" is since he's finished his "contract" with his now past recording company, and has shown his distaste for the direction the whole industry is going.

Towards the beginning of the year he released a quarter of a album for free via bit-torrent. And making it fully available by buying what kind of "package" you wanted. The song's where quite different than the normal NIN' stuff as they are no lyrics. It's all instrumental. Then he held a contest using free video hosting site's to have the fan's make the video's. The concept behind this was to see what people would come up with for video's as to every person the music will mean something different. And with no lyrics this held true.

Then over the summer Trent surprised us with a free download of an album he had written and recorded and gave it away free on-line again via bit-torrent for the uncompressed version. A regular download for a compressed version.

But after news of him trying to have a concert from one of the "Light's in the Sky" tour date's and his former record company wasting his time by not giving him the go ahead. He was setting up to record a show in 3D. Well, at the last second, the record company called and since they still own the rights to most of his older material, they said nope. As Trent kind of joked and said should have just done it anyways. Well, something was cooking.

Then this post of have a happy holidays everyone and check back soon we may have a little gift for you. Well a few weeks went by and nothing, not a word. Trent loves to sit back and see just what his fan's are saying and I guess likes to toy with them.

Then the other day I logged on and saw it. The promised gift. 405 gigabytes of three concert's all shot in HD and at multiple angle's. WOW!!! Now with just a couple of seed's starting to give this out well, it's going to be a month before all the video and audio will even make it to one spot let along one computer. But it's picking up. Now with all of this out in the open what to do with it???

That's where the NIN's fans are coming into play. Instead of a record company having to approve what is going to be the final version of this, the fan's have the say. Right now as we speak what is already been downloaded is being worked on by the fan's to be mixed to our liking. Last time I checked one of the whole shows one person had been able to get the full download for (so far). They have started mixing it and syncing the sound to the performance and started choosing the video that would be used.

I just that this is cool, this is the first time a band has given the fan's the full opportunity to do as they wish with the footage. The kind of funny but sad part was only a select few has the tool's to compile this much data and the tool's to make this live concert. So what happens next?

A new website opens up with the tool's needed to accomplish such a task. As you are reading this it's being worked on and it's staying in high definition video until the fan's choose what is the final version to be released. Now everything will still be there so a person can still make what ever they like out of the data, but a final version will be made available for download in a high def. format. As well as being able to compress it to allow it to fit on a standard DVD.

I so lack the knowledge to attempt to do this so I just have to wait and see what is put out for the final project. Everyone is so eager to see but really this will be month's before anything is ready. I just thought this whole concept was neat and wanted to share it with other's. Plus can you just image how that person is feeling that had the final say, in the no to letting one date be filmed for a 3D version on blu-ray disc or DVD. OUCH!!!

But with project's like this and what MJK is working on with Puscifer, record company's may just be a think of the past. The industry is already skimming down on CD's due to the ease of MP3 player's and using MP3 or similar files to store and listen to your favorite tunes on.

Some of the technical part's of this I may be wrong about as I'm still learning what this whole new feat is and what I can do with it. I was thinking about overnighting a 1TB usb hard drive from somewhere and seeing what I can mix out of this. But I doubt I'd ever have the time to finish the project.

This has gotten me excited about about working on my Geocache series, that fabled one that I started a year ago and just got the artwork done and then kind of got side tracked plus I was out of town all summer. So with some snowy day's ahead I'll be hard a work making the puzzles to complete this. I guess I'm hoping my plan's for "Year Zero", I can finish. The idea's are there. The near impossible puzzle has been written and is only known by me (That's a scary thought). I just need to finish with the photo part of it and get out and find the location's. Which alot had been picked already and have been waiting for me to get out and finish this puppy up. Last year I had painted up all the final container's for this series which will be a nice mix of traditional, multi's, puzzles, which the first 15 will need to be found to even start to look for the 16th hide.

I've found what's going to be the "trick" for it. You may want to ignore that part too. I may just be saying that to throw someone off. My fear was to go threw all this work on it and then it just flop's due to the difficulties one may have with it. But after a promising chat with a person I hadn't heard from in age's assures me my work into this will be worth it.

But I just have to say again, Trent Reznor, thank you!!! Thanks for your effort's to "taint my generation". (You are one of the few that would understand what I mean by that). Now on to the "drawing board" (evil laugh).

I promise this will be the last music realated post for a while and aim more on geocaching. I've got a few more story's still to get wrote up yet...