Cool. Google now puts info on your Google Feed subscriber total into the crawler’s GET request. Interesting! Hello, you two (yeah, 2. Whatever! *grin*) Google Reader subcribers; I think it’s pretty cool, actually, because neither of those is ME.

Got some good stuff out of my podcasts recently:

Freethought Radio had an excerpt from Sam Harris’ knockout speech at the 2006 FFRF convention: How Not to Believe in God.

Found a new podcast recently, from the Institute for Humanist Studies. Great stuff! (worth a link all by itself). I’ve just listened to my first episode, and it had some must-click links:

• Greydon Square, an atheist hip-hop artist
• Mr. Diety (a hilarious vlog on God and the universe)

Enjoy.

I’m finishing up some fairly big changes to the way I manage my media consumption, which should greatly improve my ability to flick quick little recommendations into the blog queue. In the meantime, some media I’ve enjoyed:

• Bruce Sterling at Freedom to Connect
• Cory Doctorow: The Totalitarian Urge
• Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon) on Scalability
• Vernor Vinge: What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen? (Direct mp3 link)

All of those were simply outstanding.

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the March 6th episode.

More than you EVER wanted to know about my quest to avoid iPods by buying the weirdest media players known to man. And other such geekiness. It was a slow news week, folks…

(OK, bad, I know. I couldn’t resist).

RAIN (Radio and Internet Newsletter) has a great overview of the Copyright Royalty Board’s decision on Internet royalty rates from Friday. Short of it: everyone dies. Big ones (Pandora) crushed. Middle-size (Radio Paradise) double-crushed (why crush someone when you can double crush them, I guess.). Small fry (Live365 streams, etc.): at $500/year minimum, they’ll probably just go away. Crazy.

Mad? Write your Congress-critter. OTOH…this could be a classic RIAA-shoots-self-in-foot-AGAIN, and another boost for Creative Commons-licensed music. (I personally really dig Magnatune, but find what you love!).
It’s sad, but maybe it’s time.

Feh…go write that Congressperson. This is crazy!

Sometimes you have to hit ’em with a mackerel to get people to notice: Dispatch from Germany, Summer of 1939 (III): Building an Effective Resistance. He’s nothing if not subtle. I like that! And yes, I agree…attacking Iran would be criminal insanity.

Sheesh! I haven’t seen the right side of Google Reader’s (100+ Items New) in several weeks now! It only takes a week or so of not keeping up to put you WAY in the hole. Admittedly, BoingBoing, Crunchgear, and Truthdig make up a disproporionate share of the backlog…but the rest are interesting feeds from all over. I love this stuff…I can’t bear to mark as read anything but the big aggregate feeds.

Oh hell yes: Project Epoc

Holy crap. This is so cool…GrandCentral has added Gizmo support:

• GrandCentral and Gizmo…free calls everywhere
• Got Gizmo? GrandCentral Does
• GrandCentral adds Gizmo Support

I’ve already added mine and tried it, and it works! You could somewhat clunkily do this before if you had a Gizmo CallIn or 775 number, but this is seamless, easy, and all VOIP. It is quite amazing. Even my VOIP phone’s days are probably numbered now. At the very least, I’ll probably change providers (perhaps to another home Gizmo/SIP number; from $25/month to nothing, after a one-time $50 adapter purchase.)

The ACLU Presents: STEVE CONNELL & SEKOU (tha misfit): “inSECURITY”. Just go watch this freaking NOW.
You can also get a free audio CD of inSECURITY from that page. I already have one, so if you’re local, just ask. I’ve got MP3s as well.