Many of you have asked where the music is coming from which is heard over my live stream on a daily basis. A couple of our community members – Jeff and Lumpy – have graciously put together a special section of their IndieNation station just for your listening pleasure. Our stream is called 8bitwonder, and runs 24 hours per day – even if I’m not listening. The music is completely random. However, many of the tracks come to you courtesy of 8-Bit Peoples.

8-bit is NOT the only type of music you’ll hear coming from your speakers when you tune in. There are a few DJs throughout the day, and each of them brings something different to the mix:

• iscifit.tv (Jeff) – The network/tech director, also DJ’s, bringing sci-fi, tech and 80s music to the masses.
• Lumpy (John) – The programming director that bring indie/podsafe music to the masses
• Meshelly (Chell) – Programming director, started as a fan and now kicks butt on the air herself.
• The Guys Podcast – TGP brings their show each Wednesday at 9pm Eastern time (-5 GMT).
• Zack “The Mothman” Daggy – Brings you the very best indie music every Wednesday at 11AM EST.

Many people are confused as to the true meaning of “8-Bit music.” Back in the early 1980s, computers for the home became cheaper and more accessible. This led to a proliferation of PCs and gaming consoles which were abandoned as people upgraded to new generations of software and hardware. Despite this, small groups of artists and musicians continued to use those old machines to produce their audio. This type of music is commonly known as chiptune.

The gaming technologies used in chip music production are those which were produced in the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. These systems include the old Commodore 64, the Nintendo Game Boy and the NES itself. They were unique back then in that they marked a period in the tech development of gaming audio in which sound chips were used.

The term Chip Music is now applied to compositions which try to recreate the original sound, even though they are made using more complex technology. Composers use modern computers to help them compose, record and execute their craft. These same modern machines are needed to help the composers network with others throughout the scene.

The popularity of Creative Commons over Copyright in this scene has helped many musicians learn and develop their craft through the open-source environment. Emulating the original sound chips has become quite prevalent due to the increasing rarity of those old original gaming systems that were used “back in the day.”

I have to thank Jeff and Lumpy for all of their hard work, dedication and many free hours of service to keep this stream running. Be sure to tune in – either via my stream or their direct link – to listen whenever you have a chance.

8-Bit Music on the Live Stream

Today I am honored to be attending – and streaming – the Science Commons Symposium, held on the Microsoft campus. In the spirit of Creative Commons Salons – global, informal events focused on bringing together the community around a central topic or focus – Science Commons will be holding a day-long event today in Seattle. The event will aim to bring a broader understanding on the term “open” and all of its flavors when applied to science. From Open Access publishing and data sharing efforts, to more transparent ways to conduct bench science and the various “open”s (data, science, access) – the benefits of implementing “open” approaches to science are not only gaining visibility but also generating a buzz in the community.

There is an all-star list of experts and leading minds to shed some of their wisdom on these very topics with us — all united by a common passion for knowledge sharing in its various applications and definitions. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.

I will be updating this post throughout the day to include links (both audio and video) to the various presentations. As soon as each one ends, my assistant will be pulling the video from Ustream and re-encoding it to get it onto our various channels as quickly as is possible. Keep checking back here so that you can watch the presentations that interest you the most!

• Cameron Nyelon is a biophysicist who has always worked in interdisciplinary areas and is a leading advocate of data availability.
• Jean-Claude Bradley is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and the E-Learning Coordinator at Drexel University. He leads the UsefulChem project, an initiative started in the summer of 2005 to make the scientific process as transparent as possible by publishing all research work in real time to a collection of public blogs, wikis and other web pages.
• Antony Williams is a leader in the domain of free access chemistry. He is the VP of Strategic Development for the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the founder of ChemZoo Inc., the original host of ChemSpider prior to acquisition by RSC.
• Peter Murray-Rust is an accomplished chemist, a faculty member of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, a leader in the Open Data movement, and a founding member of the Blue Obelisk organization. Peter Murray-Rust brings an interdisciplinary approach to research in several interesting areas.
• Heather Joseph is the Executive Director at SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. She leads SPARC’s advocacy efforts to support widespread adoption of open access to scholarly research.
• Stephen Friend is the founder and president of Sage, a not-for-profit medical research organization designed to revolutionize how researchers approach the complexity of human biological information and the treatment of disease.
• Peter Binfield is the Publisher of the online academic journal PLoS ONE, one of seven titles from the not-for-profit publisher, the Public Library of Science (PLoS). He is a respected innovator and analyst in the fields of scholarly publishing (both Open Access and mainstream/subscription), and scientific communication, and has been with PLoS since March 2008.
• John Wilbanks is the VP of Science Commons. John and the Science Commons team help people and organizations from every part of the scientific ecosystem lift legal and technical barriers to research and discovery.

Science Commons Symposium

http://live.pirillo.com/ – For the longest time we had no clear way of defining what people could do with our content – they were limited to private viewing of the content with no redistribution rights. Then the creative commons came along and told people "yeah, you can use this content, but with these restrictions."

The Creative Commons essentially allows you to define your own license for your content without having to pay an expensive copyright lawyer.

Does anyone use Creative Commons and do they actually matter? Oh yeah, a lot of people use a creative commons license, including us. In fact, we recommend that if you’re creating any content online that you use a creative commons license.

What do you think? Is the creative commons license important, or is it a load of hippy hot air?

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What is Creative Commons?