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Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Search me 
| | I'm getting server errors from Google. And I'm almost paralysed by it. |
Which is why we have Dilbert cartoons
| | ...I came across this in a message from Doc Searls: |
| | "In play, the rule might be this: everybody gets to change" |
| | And it made me think: maybe that's what makes work so often seem so unlike play. At work, nobody gets to change. |
Questions
| | In the midst of writing research... |
| | I'm wondering what percentage of webcasters are radiating from Linux, BSD or related servers using Shoutcast or other MP3 streaming software. That's the specific question. I'm interested more generally in what cost-saving approaches webcasters have been using to lower operational and technical overhead. More generally than that, I'm interested in seeing the degree to which the CARP/LOC process favored big companies looking for lock-in. |
| | By the way, I don't think that's what Microsoft's and Real's agendas were. I think they were just trying to sell servers to somewhat contained, if not captive, customer bases. But I really don't know. |
| | What does seem clear is that MP3 transmission took off in a big way in the middle of a CARP process that began when the whole game looked like it would play out as Microsoft vs. Real. But I'm not sure about the specifics, so numbers and hard historical sources would help here. |
Bring out your dead
| | We've reached the point where, for the first time, the right to free expression on the Net is not ony being abridged, but punished, severely — simply because recent trends in copyright law, which favor the interests of politically influential entertainment industry interests, have reached a psychotic extreme. If the Librarian of Congress' ruling comes to full effect, nearly every U.S. - based webcaster will not only be forced off the Web, but in many cases will owe lump payments of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course the pioneers — the ones that have done the best job for the longest time, have attracted the most listeners and kept the best records — will be punished financially to the greatest extreme. |
| | It would be hard to find a political philosophy that justifies the effects of the DMCA, the latest CARP process, or the Librarian of Congress' latest ruling. Sensible opposition to it comes from all surfaces of the political polyhedron (the old linear left/center/right hardly makes sense any more). These rulings can only be justified by the embodiment in law of a politically powerful and unusually paranoid special interest group. |
| | [Later...] At least one reader begs to differ, saying this: |
| | A Neoclassicist believes copyright into perpetuity, no fair use can be considered, and the fewer numbers of participants in "transactions" the faster the productivity of human society can proceed. That's why you and I are simply "Consumers", and not active participants. Cute, eh? |
| | The problem is, we are now six years down the road, and this economic theory shit has already become obsolete because of the advancements of technology. Yet, as they are in power, they're determined to push forward with destructive and fanatical reinforcement of their obsolete beliefs. |
| | ... and offering Links these three links. All this shit's kinda new to me. Anyway... |
| | Arguing over copyright law, performance rights and all that other stuff is useful and necessary. But when the damage hits, you have to start accounting for it. That's what I'm looking for here. Is anybody keeping track? I really don't want it to be me, 'cuz I suck at it and I don't want to burden Linux Journal with it. But somebody has to do it, and I'm glad to help any way I can. |
Amen, brother
| | Cory: There's this pervasive myth that what broadband adoption really needs is to be attractive to a kind of slug-like couch potato who needs a compelling reason to spend this month's Twinkie-and-Budweiser budget on data services. |
| | [Later...] I just upgraded Internet Explorer (my secondary browser after Mozilla) to version 5.2, and it kindly changed my default page to MSN. As if that weren't self-damning enough, the "content" on the MSN home page features abundant insult to the reader's intelligence.: "10 IQ-boosting books"..."Peris of 'value' meals"... "Is she flirting or just being nice?"... "Lose weighty via the 'Net?"... "Who has what it takes to be an 'American Idol'?" Sounds like back end of the National Enquirer's table of contents. |
| | By the way, IE 5.2 still yields a blank white box, reversed out of the screen background, instead of a dowload window. Strange. |
Well, unfuck me
| | I wrote a week's worth of stuff on yesterday's blog, and that may be how long it will need to last. I'm headed for New York and New Jersey in a few hours, and have loads of work to get out of the way before I go. |
| | So scroll away. Or leap sideways and teach yourself the Unfuck gesture. |
Unwired Italia
| | And thanks to Hanan for the link. |
Loverolling
Still in beta, and already #5 on Daypop
| | By the way, warchalking really is tearing up Daypop. Betcha it's #1 by the time the football game starts. |
| | ... And yep, Warchalking is now #1 on Daypop, with the arrow pointing upward. |
Age, race, blood type, arrest record...
| | Have you treated yourself to the Los Angeles Times' invasive registration process? The weblog universe points regularly to this site, but I've heard nary a peep about this form. |
| | Well, I peeped a bit about it a couple days ago, not that it matters. By the way, even though income is a required field in the paper's registration form, one of the income level choices is to decline answering. But you only find it if you scroll past the highest income level. Sneaky, huh? |
| | Glenn Reynolds adds, Several readers wrote that "cypherpunk" works as both ID and password at the LA Times. I wonder how many other sites that's true for. . . . |
Still admired
| | Remember ".. the three men I admired most... the father, son and holy ghost...they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died" from Don McLean's "American Pie"? |
| | Well, one of those men was supposedly disc jockey Peter Tripp, who used to be on WMGM (among other stations) in New York in the early '60s, and who split town during the "payola" scandal that made huge headlines and is sadly quaint compared to the corrupt (yet scandal-free) system by which songs get chosen for airplay on commercial radio, |
| | How ironic, then, to hear Peter Tripp (I didn't even know he was still alive) reading over its bitwaves more or less the same letter to listeners that is all that remains of MoreMusicRadio.net. |
| | [Later...] Guess it wasn't the same Peter Tripp, who seems to be dead. (Maybe it was this guy.) Still, it seems fitting. |
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