Radiohead Release Hours of Hacked MiniDiscs To Benefit Extinction Rebellion (theguardian.com) 117
Radiohead have released a vast collection of unreleased tracks made during the sessions for 1997 album OK Computer, after a MiniDisc archive owned by frontman Thom Yorke was hacked last week by an unnamed person, who reportedly held the recordings to ransom for $150,000. From a report: The band have now made the 18 MiniDisc recordings, most of them around an hour in length, available on Bandcamp for $23. Proceeds will go to climate activists Extinction Rebellion. The band's guitarist Jonny Greenwood confirmed the hack, and said: âoeInstead of complaining -- much -- or ignoring it, we're releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion. Just for the next 18 days. So for $23 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom. Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it's only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download." Thom Yorke wrote of the 1.8 gigabyte collection: "It's not v interesting. There's a lot of it 0... as it's out there it may as well be out there until we all get bored and move on."
Extinction Rebellion... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, they need the money to pay for lawyers after attacking & blocking illegally an airport, duh.
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Pedantic internet grammer guy strikes again, (bwa-ha-ha!).
Re: Extinction Rebellion... (Score:1)
So much, fun are your at party's.
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I think it was paragraph 4:
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I'm not seeing where the airport is going to be closed.
Well I would suggest downloading a screen reading program to help combat your lack of eyesight.
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The same group that plans to shut down one of the world's busiest airports for a week and a half in the middle of the summer? BBC source. [bbc.co.uk]
And the group will fly in from all over the world to do so...
Twits.
Re:Extinction Rebellion... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the same group thjat Emma Thompson (tv personality and all-round "luvvie") flew in specially to speak to (from LA) and then flew all the way back again (hopefully she didn't miss her tea).
Of all the groups to give climate change charity money to, this is not the one. Its a bunch of middle class shouty activists demanding the west be subjected to self-immolation to satisfy their own inferiority complexes and need to stroke their egos.
If they were serous about climate change, they'd be picketing an airport or coal-fired power plant in Beijing or Delhi. But they won't.
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If they were serous about climate change
...we would see lots of serum flowing on the streets.
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I notice that none of your points here are targetted at any of the arguments put forward by Emma Thompson, nor those of Extinction Rebellion. Instead you resorted to little more than personal attacks and name calling.
Perhaps you would like to put forward the names of alternative charities and explain specifically why they would represent better value for money than donating to Extinction Rebellion?
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That's not how it works. You look smarter by critiquing. If you offer alternatives, someone might point out how dumb they are, and then you'd look like the fool.
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You know people in the UK cannot go and picket a power station in China. So the most effective way to get those countries/people listening is to start making the changes at home. May or may n
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And you're also criticizing them for not going to Beijing or Delhi, many people making a comparable trip, in order to protest at an airport with less traffic.
Re:Extinction Rebellion... (Score:4, Insightful)
That just shows how fucked our democracy is.
Politicians don't listen. Increasingly distributive protests are the only way to make them pay any attention. The democratic systems are designed to prevent people having any real influence.
A million people marched against Brexit. We have straight-faced politicians telling us the only way to preserve democracy is to suspend democracy. Can you imagine what is going to happen when Boris tries to take us over the cliff with no deal?
Re: Extinction Rebellion... (Score:1)
What's the point of wasting all that money? Governments voted in with actual binding votes in an actual real election often cancel the plans of the previous incumbents before they're put into action without any outcry at all. This wasn't even that, it was a non binding referendum without even a clear direction. Now it's obvious that its a damaging unicorn pipe dream, only the easily deluded are on board, because they'd rather watch the country and themselves burn than admit they were tricked.
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The democratic systems are designed to prevent people having any real influence.
Like one person having total influence, aka a dictator? Yeah.. that's by design.
A million people marched against Brexit.
I was under the impression that several million people, a majority of voters, voted for it. You want a tiny minority to be able to undo that?
I'm not sure you understand what Democracy is..
Sometimes you don't get your way.
Technically a bit over a third (37,4%) of the voters voted for it but more than 50% of the ones that exercised their right to vote did vote for it.
But yes you made your bed so lie in it
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Aren't you the one that wanted to pretend Huawei was China's "goodwill technology ambassador" to the west, that they'd never been caught doing anything shady, never lied, zero fraud, and it was all a figment of our imagination?
Yeah, that was you. Apologize for one thing you know is wrong? And you can no longer credibly whine about anything else that may in fact be fucked.
BECAUSE YOU CRIED WOLF, LYING BITCH, AND NOW YOU GET EATEN.
How about you man up and at least get a permanent identity before you complain about the words of someone else.
Guessing your are one of all those paid shills
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Re:How much CO2 did their touring emit? (Score:5, Funny)
They think they're so fucking special. I wish I was special.
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What the hell am I doing here?
Hack a physical offline medium? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was under the impression that minidisc was a cartridge-based miniature optical disc, usually write-once, read-many medium, or professional-master, read-many medium.
So unless the media was all loaded into computer-driven readers at the same time and somehow the drives and the computers were in a state that it was impossible to down the drives to manually eject the discs, I don't see how it's especially possible to hack a minidisc archive.
If they mean to say that an archive of materials that were originally recorded to minidisc back in the nineties, later imported onto a computer's online file storage was hacked, that would be accurate, though wouldn't be be better just to say, "Hacked archive of Thom Yorke's Radiohead studio sessions for OK Computer released to the public by the band for charity-benefit," work best?
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Radiohead suck though.
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I was under the impression that minidisc was a cartridge-based miniature optical disc, usually write-once, read-many medium, or professional-master, read-many medium.
FTS (emphasis mine):
So the headline is wrong, but the fact that it came from MiniDiscs originally is still apt.
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I was under the impression that minidisc was a cartridge-based miniature optical disc, usually write-once, read-many medium, or professional-master, read-many medium.
FTS (emphasis mine):
So the headline is wrong, but the fact that it came from MiniDiscs originally is still apt.
That doesn't actually say one way or the other just the minidisc archive was hacked. How?
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I await your +5. Goddamn, you really hit every trope there.
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MiniDiscs are a magento-optical storage medium and as such where always erasable.
Players that could be connected to a computer for direct extraction of the ATRAC compressed audio stream where as rare as hen's teeth.
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There was a magneto-optical computer storage device which I think used the same discs, but I don't think it could read the discs written by ATRAC-format decks, and then there was the problem of the ATRAC codec which probably wasn't available, either, until ATRAC was getting curb-stomped by MP3 and a weak-ass attempt was made to computer-enable the format.
My guess it was something like DAT cartridges. There were a ton of them used for backup drives, but only a small number (Sun branded, I think) could read
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magento-optical storage medium
This is one of those rare occasions where a typo is deliciously fitting :)
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Early MiniDisc players had optical out. I imagine that remained pretty common on HiFi separates versions but didn't own one of those.
You can still buy [ametron.com] a professional drive with digital audio output.
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If they mean to say that an archive of materials that were originally recorded to minidisc back in the nineties, later imported onto a computer's online file storage was hacked, that would be accurate, though wouldn't be be better just to say, "Hacked archive of Thom Yorke's Radiohead studio sessions for OK Computer released to the public by the band for charity-benefit," work best?
It would, but I'd say what happened is Radiohead was talking to the journalist, said some version of what you say above, and al
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Thom Yorke probably ripped the discs to 128kbps MP3 using WinAMP, and put all the files in a folder called "c:\users\thom.yourke\My Music\minidisc archive".
You know, usual tech journalist quality reporting.
Re: Hack a physical offline medium? (Score:3)
Why would he spell his name wrong?
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Typo, and most people have no idea how to edit it.
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Security.
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Something is wrong with this report.
I own lots of Sony MiniDiscs. What they describe simply cannot happen in any way, shape, or form.
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Something is wrong with this report.
I own lots of Sony MiniDiscs. What they describe simply cannot happen in any way, shape, or form.
Why not? Your claim makes no sense.
The interview says the copy of the audio from the minidiscs that was stored on a computer, was copied when that computer was hacked into.
You can't go a week without seeing a story about how some computer was hacked into and data copied off it to be released.
Even if you did, I don't at all understand why you would think this to be impossible.
It would only be impossible if the data wasn't also stored on a computer and the only copy that existed was on minidisc or some other
Yay for them (Score:4, Interesting)
Turn it into a PR stunt and instead of paying a random maybe make a few bucks.
Re: Yay for them (Score:2)
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"It's hard to call it a "stunt" unless it was orchestrated from the beginning."
I don't see why though that is certainly possible..
"I can't imagine there is much substantial music in the MiniDisc demos that hasn't already been released."
Exactly. So they release for sale something they themselves indicate has no value. Why? To milk the PR value. It's better than free press, people who are curious might well even buy the thing where they never would have before so they'll get paid for this press.
So...the "Hack" was just a publicity stunt? (Score:1)
So...was the "Hack" was just a publicity stunt to increase the exposure of these less-than-professional recordings ahead of their sale to the public then?
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Reminds me of the DVD extras on Wierd Al's UHF. In the intro bit he explicitly tells the audience that these scenes we're cut because they suck, but you have to have deleted scenes now.
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Yeah sure publicity stunt. Because we all know that those damn money hungry politicians release many hours of content for very little money and then maniacally laugh while lighting their cigars with monopoly money because they donated all the real money (what little was collected) to charity.
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Man I managed to cross my threads. s/politicians/artists
Subject is misleading (Score:3)
The story is that Radiohead was being blackmailed and rather than pay the ransom they released these hours of recordings instead, snubbing the blackmailer.
The details of what charity they give proceeds to is irrelevant to the story I think, except for Slashdot to increase ad views by creating non-existent controversies.
Can anyone explain radiohead to me? (Score:3)
Re:Can anyone explain radiohead to me? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd add to this that there are VERY few bands who manage to put out more than 2-3 really good albums in their life. Even those that do usually do it in a very explosive prolific period that later fades. The Beatles are an example of this- they had an incredible run of creativity, but Paul McCartney hasn't written anything particularly noteworthy since the 1970s (and Lennon was headed down the same path before his death). Frankly, even brilliant people only have so many good ideas floating around in their heads. I think age also has a component- there's something about creative drive that peaks in late youth and seems to wane later in life.
I'd rank OK Computer as one of the very best albums of the 90s, and up there with the all time best rock albums. But most of what came after is mostly mediocre. I don't mind experimentation or "weird" (OK computer had that), but not all experiments work.
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"modern" music
There's a lot of breadth in both those words, and especially a lot of grey area in the word music. If you judge "modern" by any single song, or any single band you're most definitely doing it wrong.
Hey! (Score:2)
Cool , I think I may buy this '
"money goes to benefit Extinction Rebellion"
Crap, nevermind.
Not that interesting... (Score:2)
Not very interesting, so it can be had for only $23.
If it was worth $23, why didn't it get released earlier? Oh yeah... PR stunt.