Posts for August 2007

No Profit In Patriotism

Rolling Stone: The Great Iraq Swindle -- Not everyone who reads this blog will like this story, and guess what...I don't fucking care. I'm not mad at most of you individually; but I am mad. And people with their heads in the sand aren't helping things. *sigh*

August 29, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Well-named podcast MP3s are a lifesaver

As podcast recommendation systems florish, we start to subscribe to a given MP3 podcast in many different ways: shared playlists, del.icio.us feeds, aggregation sites like Scouta, etc. Within the actual RSS feed, the enclosure URL (and sometimes the guid) give us a means of distinguishing uniquely between podcasts, which works even in blended feeds.

Unfortunately, that's not always enough. Lots of us non-iPodders use players that are just USB mass storage devices when plugged in, and URIs disappear once the file hits that dumb drive. (bonus for iTunes library here!) What that means is that, in addition to good RSS feed info, I need the actual media file (MP3, etc.) to be well-named. Ideally, this should be in a way that's hopefully close to unique, to keep namespace collision from occurring. At the same time, a name that is TOO long is hard to manage, so it's always a balancing act.

Things that help: showname (short), short description, timestamp (at least to day) YYYY-MM-DD rocks, as it helps in sorting. Dashes, too.

Good examples from ITconversations -- ITC.INNO-GregElin-2007.08.18.mp3 -- and G'Day world -- tpn_gdayworld_20070823_281_Twitter.mp3.

Another interesting thing to watch is filename evolution...both Jon Udell (Interviews with Innovators above), and Cameron Reilly (G'Day World) have tweaked and improved their naming conventions over time...fun to watch.

August 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)

OpenCongress has great new tools

Wow! Many thanks to Jon Udell for his recent writeup on his conversation with Greg Elin about the Sunlight Foundation. I'm subscribed to his podcast feed, so I'll hear the actual interview soon enough, but the overview was enough to send me scrambling over to OpenCongress. It's amazing! I frequently use THOMAS at the LIbrary of Congress to track legislative information, but OpenCongress has far more flexible tools. Each bill's information page (example) includes RSS feeds, aggregation of news and blogger coverage, and appears well maintained.

There are also fun geek toys like the bill status widget generator, which let's you build a javascript widget to stick on your homepage that updates with the status information for some bill you're interested in. (Stick it right next to your last.fm favorite artists widget, perhaps). All in all, I'm very impressed with OpenCongress, and looking forward to using this effective monitoring framework once our legislators return to Washington next month.

UPDATE: Heh...turns out I've had OpenCongress as a del.icio.us bookmark since 2005. I vaguely remember the old site...they've come a LONG way.

UPDATE: Ugh...I have NO memory. I already blogged these guys!! This cracks me up.

August 20, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Amazon S3: the start of something big

More Choices - All backed by Amazon S3: chaching! I talk about an ecosystem backed by S3 in my podcast today, and it's already alive and well. Heck, I'm behind the times here...

August 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Nemesea: In Control

Amie Street's email recommendations are actually useful...who'da thunk? They're getting some traction, apparently, as they have Sarah McLachlan and BB King recordings linked from that email (both of whom I like). But I actually bought another artist, Nemesea. I freely admit I have unsophisticated music tastes, but one of my preferred genres is kinda light Gothish stuff, which Nemesea does well. The lead singer has a strong voice that reminds me a bit of Amy Lee from Evanescence. Bought the album; the song below in particular kicks ass.

UPDATE: Sweet...Nemesea is actually a success story from Sellaband, which provides a marketplace for bands to shares to raise money to produce their record, and then profits are split between Believers (that own shares), the band, and Sellaband. Great concept; it's been floated before, for both music and books, but I wasn't aware that it had been successful for musicians other than major names.

Plus, you can actually get 3 songs from the album free at the band's Sellaband store, and the other MP3s are only $0.50 each!

August 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (2)

KAZ: Episode 20

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the August 15th episode.

I'm back! I'm not using the in-car mike, and life is good. Didja miss me? *grin*

Links:


 

Video thumbnail. Click to play.
Click To Play

August 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

AACS DRM in operating systems

AACS DRM tentacles reach far into operating systems -- Ick. This Ars Technica article is a good overview of the lengths the movie industry is going to in protecting their content, and the effects this has on newer OSs as AACS is wired in at a deep level. The article references (and to a certain extent, criticizes as over-hype) Peter Gutman's well-publicized article from last year (Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection)...but there are plenty of problematic issues mentioned here even if Peter is not 100% correct. Definitely worth reading.

August 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

The Future of Music: Digital Rights or Wrongs?

I've started watching and listening to more shows off of FORA.tv, and a recent program that I really enjoyed was The Future of Music: Digital Rights or Wrongs?. I enjoy these sorts of debates, and this program really highlights the various camps. One speaker, Ted Cohen, is a former industry exec, and exhibits much of the classic industry denial and fear. Another, Lee Shupp, is an artist and ethnographic futurist who shows a clear sense of the changes that have overtaken the industry. And Gerd Leonhard sounds like a true visionary, showing a deep understanding of the fact that the rules are different, that non-rivalrous goods work by different economic rules, and that music in particular has a special place in people's minds. Good stuff!

FORA.tv has a lot of great content, including technical events, politics, arts, and more. you can watch online, or download both video and audio versions of the programs (I don't know if downloadable content is available for every program). If I can find a way to set up an RSS feed of stuff I like, I'll be golden.

August 10, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Enemies of the American way of life

The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program -- Read this, and then tell me we haven't lost this grand War on Terror. We've beaten ourselves, by throwing away our humanity, our morals, and our principles. I have a hard time even thinking about how badly we've hurt ourselves here; the damage is severe, and ongoing, and yes, far worse in the larger sense than the casualty count of 9/11, as horrible as it was. (Don't dare try to say I don't care about that.)

And don't start with they started it; they deserve it. If that's honestly your defense, please do us both a favor and go talk about it somewhere else, ok? If you actually want to try and make a reasoned argument about this, on the other hand, I guess we can gird our loins and start the debate. Feel free to comment away...I admit I'm interested in the state of mind that can defend the place we've ended up.

August 9, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

A win for transparency

Judge Orders Release of Reports on 2004 Surveillance -- This looks to be a clear victory in the name of transparency, while allowing some redaction for sake of undercover police identities and such. If the ruling stands, and actually goes through, it's a big win. Lack of oversight and accountability creates a huge temptation to abuse power...it's always good to shine some light in. Uncomfortable at times, but good for everyone involved, police and protesters alike.

August 7, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Sowing and reaping continues

We reap what we sow. Again. Now, I have faith...when (and I said when, not if) these powers are abused enough, people will stand up and shine a light on the situation, and things will improve. It's happened before. But why do we have to learn these lessons the hard way?

Power corrupts. Question authority. Does no one read history in Washington? *sigh* I suppose it's all about the votes, but these things really get to me sometimes.

August 5, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Adventures in ebooks for Charlie Stross

Yes! The gob-smackingly brilliant author Charlie Stross (how's that for a plea for comments from the man himself? *wink*) has talked his publishers into a very interesting ebook experiment. As he notes, ebooks are typically priced so close to the cost of a actual book that it seldom makes sense to purchase them. After he commented on the problem in a earlier post,, however, WHSmith is selling his ebook of The Atrocity Archives for half the price of the paperback edition. Joy! Hopefully this will get some traction. And yes, it's DRM'd...he had no choice (read the notes. Next step is hopefully to get them to try a sale without that; I'd start getting excited at that point. But I'm easy, especially where it comes to Mr. Stross.

Based on past experience, by CC company will think that my card #s been stolen if I go to buy this, and decline the sale...but I may just try anyway. This sorta thing must be encouraged! (I already own the book, so no worries there....just trying to reward good behavior.)

UPDATE: Cory Doctorow weighs in via the comment section of Charlie's post. Well-spoken, and valid points. I don't worry personally about the DRM issues on my own machine, b/c I'd never actually INSTALL any of that crap to read a book. I'd buy it to promote the (un-DRM'd version of) the format, plain and simple. I hear what both Charlie and Cory are saying, and I think they're a lot closer on this than it appears at very first glance; things, they are a-changin' in ebook land.

August 2, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Kameraflage

Kameraflage looks to be an interesting (and potentially annoying..but hey, two-edged swords and all) technique that exploits the fact that digicams have a different imaging spectrum than the human eye. IOW, things you can't see via the human eye can show up on digital pics. Similar to some insects seeing into the near UV, and the fact that many plants actually are "colored" in that frequency range as a result.

Worth thinking about, if nothing else...

Note: they add (tm) to the term everywhere. I'd find it ironic if I linked to them to give publicity, and then were smacked down by them as a result. (btw, this would involve removal of all links and comments, guys, so make your choice!)

August 2, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier posts -- Later posts