(Guest Blog by Bill Gasarch has has a large collection of novelty songs, mostly funny songs.) I) There was a satire on Saturday Night Life called CONSPIRACY THEORY ROCK (which was in the style of SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK) that was brilliant, and only aired once. (Too controversial, though this posting is not about that.) I have this video clip in my collection, and it was one of the rarest things in it. NOW this clip is on YOU-TUBE! Hence I can no longer claim it is `rare'. But the YOU-TUBE clip says ``rare video footage'' HOW RARE CAN A VIDEO CLIP BE IF ANYONE IN THE WORLD CAN ACCESS IT !? II) With the ability to make perfect copies of CD's, and MP3's its hard to say what it means to have a `rare recording'. If you have the original Vinyl record or reel-to-reel tapes, that may be rare, but I'd RATHER have the version put on CD or MP3. III) Some paintings sell for gobs of money. Do we have the tech to reproduce those exactly (in 3D)? I suspect no, but one day we will (holographs?). When that day comes, will the prices drop? Maybe not- its already an artificial market; `originals' may still be valuable. IV) What music or video or TV shows or whatever bring produced now will be considered `rare' in the future? Note that even really bad TV shows and movies are on DVD. Some really bad movies even have `directors cuts'. V) So, what is the rarest thing in my collection now? In 1976 I audio taped off of TV a satire- a Chrismas song as if done by Bob Dylan. I did not know who did it. I still don't. I have not found it anywhere else. It does not seem to be on vinyl, audio, CD, or MP3. Since I have the largest Bob Dylan Satire Collection in the world, (www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/dylan/dylan.html) and this is known by that community (How large is that community? Larger than the Gen Multidim Poly VDW community) the fact that I can't find it, and nobody has emailed me about it, means ... its rare! However, I would rather FIND it on CD or some other medium and know who did it than preserve its rarity.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
THE DEFINITION OF RARE
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If you know someplace online to find Pierre Henry recordings, please post.
ReplyDeleteHow about synthetic gemstones? How long will natural gemstones remain expensive if you can manufacture gemstones that cannot be distinguished except by outrageously expesnive scientific equipment?
ReplyDeleteCoin collectors deal with the question of rarity rathre directly. Along with date, grade, mintmark, and all that, they assign Rarity numbers ranging from R-1 (very common) to R-8 (unique). Some coins are regarded as "uncollectable", these being uniques or nearly so, and all known examples owned by major museums.
ReplyDeleteBy this definition, a digital file would never be considered rare, as it may be reporduced ad infinitum
Is the list of accepted STOC'07 papers out?
ReplyDeleteOr How about EC ? Authors have been notified, but there's still no list.
ReplyDeletehttp://research.microsoft.com/research/theory/feige/homepagefiles/stoc2007accept.txt
ReplyDeletehere's an attempt at dealing with similar questions from 1936 -
ReplyDelete"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
W. Benjamin
http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html