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If you need to find your area's NPR station that carries Fresh Air, you can go to this link. And if you have already missed it (the show has already aired today in most areas) then you can visit the archive to listen to a copy. Enjoy!

If you need to find your area's NPR station that carries Fresh Air, you can go to this link. And if you have already missed it (the show has already aired today in most areas) then you can visit the archive to listen to a copy. Enjoy!

here's the link to the ra file

I just got through listening, and it is very nice basic introduction to Linux. Lots of the basics of what Open Source is. Linus talks about WHY WE DO IT. Try this for the Real Player feed

The real audio stream of today's show with Torvalds buffered and played fine. Interesting so far... though I'm only a couple of minutes into it.

Before I wised up and got a real career, I got an MFA in creative writing. One time we had a seminar put on by some editor for a pretty big "literary" publishing house. She said the surest way for a book's sales to jump was to have the author interviewed on NPR--Freshair specifically.

When local emergency crews got there, they only found an injured pedestrian and some paint markings. They then tracked down the SUV and found that the driver was drunk.

I can't find a link to the story, but it was on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me recently.
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NASA is in a sorry state right now. The space station is a lousy way to get out of the stagnation that we've been locked in ever since the shuttle program got underway. More competition from a Russian/Australian alliance (as well as from China et al) could be a very good thing, both for NASA and for global space exploration in general.

I'm for anything that would get us off our asses and have us out doing something interesting, like exploring Mars, rather than putting Yet Another Damn Tin-can in orbit. Someone at NASA has a huge David Bowie fixation, methinks....

There was just a story about these bikes on NPR yesterday. But why have a media blitz for something that 99.9% of Americans can't afford? It's like having commercials for helicopters.

The designer tested it on a runway, with two cops clocking him, and the radar guns topped out at 199mph. Jay Leno has one as well.

The designer tested it on a runway, with two cops clocking him, and the radar guns topped out at 199mph. Jay Leno has one as well.

I heard a piece about this bike on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning. The company mainly installs used marine turbines into boats, and was interested in tyring to build a bike like this. They got funding (about $300,000) from an existing customer to build a prototype. Now this Louisiana Y2K Superbike is the fastest production motorcycle in the world, and the waiting list is a few years, probably significantly longer with the newfound publicity.

On NPR, they mentioned that Jay Leno has one, and also had an interview with the inventor/owner/creator, who mentioned that in speed tests on an airport runway, he broke 200MPH before the Sheriff's radar guns hit their measuring limit, and that he's been pulled over by cops who encouraged him to speed so they could clock something going that fast.

All in all, sounds like an interesting feat of engineering. One can only imagine what somebody will invent to best this puppy...

I heard a piece about this bike on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning. The company mainly installs used marine turbines into boats, and was interested in tyring to build a bike like this. They got funding (about $300,000) from an existing customer to build a prototype. Now this Louisiana Y2K Superbike is the fastest production motorcycle in the world, and the waiting list is a few years, probably significantly longer with the newfound publicity.

On NPR, they mentioned that Jay Leno has one, and also had an interview with the inventor/owner/creator, who mentioned that in speed tests on an airport runway, he broke 200MPH before the Sheriff's radar guns hit their measuring limit, and that he's been pulled over by cops who encouraged him to speed so they could clock something going that fast.

All in all, sounds like an interesting feat of engineering. One can only imagine what somebody will invent to best this puppy...

hour two had a really good show on "digital" copyright today;

http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate =05/18/2001&PrgID=5

The had the chair of the SDMI working group on, Talal Shamoon. Also, Jessica Litman, author of Digital Copyright : Protecting Intellectual Property on the Internet, and Lawrence Lessig.

It covered topics that have already being milled over here, but it was still interesting to listen to. The conversation was polite, but the SDMI guy was noticeably squirming at a couple of points (they did mention the Felton story). Ms. Litman really argued the need for fair use/public representation well. It ended on a caller saying the music industry is "greedy." All in all a good listen.

Heard about the monkey man on NPR

Many people have been attacked by this thing in New Delhi. this monkey guy is no joke. They say he has iron hands and terrorizes people who sleep on rooftops.

and you think your neighborhood is unsafe...

As for music, I'm now buying way more than ever before because I'm listening to the radio instead and hearing way more that I ever heard on MTV.

I hate to burst your bubble but the radio sucks almost as much as MTV. Whereas MTV and VH-1 are owned by one large company (Viacom ?), commercial radio is basically owned by 3 large corporations and the selections are payed for by music companies. I stopped listening years ago and only tune to NPR (National Public Radio) because it is not a commercial for manufactured crap like Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, Slim Shady, etc. Now college radio stations are cool because they actually play music they like, not based on the dictates of corporate greed.

There was a good Salon article about this a while back.

Antibiotics usually aren't effective against viruses. Innoculation as the result of vaccination can protect one against them, but not antibiotics. (The over prescription of antibiotics against viruses is part of the cause of drug resistant bacteria and viruses, according to this story on NPR, about 2/3 of the way down, "Antibiotics use")

Here's what Noah Adams looks like.

That doesn't include all of the other nasty stuff that is produced by burning coal.

Actually, Clean Coal power plants are rather impressive. The coal is ground into a powder, mixed with water, then turned into a gas. Somewhere in the process sulfer, etc. are removed and made into sulfuric acid, which is sold. The result is your powerplant is also a small chemical plant. I only caught the last few minutes of the spot on NPR, but it sounded interesting. Here is the segment from All Things Considered on Monday, May 07, 2001.

That doesn't include all of the other nasty stuff that is produced by burning coal.

Actually, Clean Coal power plants are rather impressive. The coal is ground into a powder, mixed with water, then turned into a gas. Somewhere in the process sulfer, etc. are removed and made into sulfuric acid, which is sold. The result is your powerplant is also a small chemical plant. I only caught the last few minutes of the spot on NPR, but it sounded interesting. Here is the segment from All Things Considered on Monday, May 07, 2001.

That doesn't include all of the other nasty stuff that is produced by burning coal.

Actually, Clean Coal power plants are rather impressive. The coal is ground into a powder, mixed with water, then turned into a gas. Somewhere in the process sulfer, etc. are removed and made into sulfuric acid, which is sold. The result is your powerplant is also a small chemical plant. I only caught the last few minutes of the spot on NPR, but it sounded interesting. Here is the segment from All Things Considered on Monday, May 07, 2001.

Just the contrary, actually. The problem with American radio today is that 90% of the stations are owned by a handful of companies, and they all play the same pop or classic or country or rock'n'roll songs. The potential for satellite radio is to have a hundred stations broadcast across the continent, reachable from anywhere, and each one targeting a specific niche. One station could just play 80's hits, another grunge metal, another baroque classical, another NPR news, another guitar jazz, and another electronica. If you've ever enjoyed Spinner radio, you've already seen a glimpse of what satellite radio can offer.

Myself, then, I'm all for it. I'd gladly pay $10 a month for the chance to listen to exactly the music I want, rather than music I can tolerate which was compiled by a bunch of suits in New York City for consumption by the masses.

on today's Morning Edition.

NPR reported on this. Basically both sides in the fight - over patent protection and cheaper drugs - have interesting arguments. On one side are the multi-national pharmaceutical companies, who say they need money from the sale of anti-AIDS drugs to conduct further research. On the other are South African authorities, who say they desperately need affordable medicines to tackle the country's AIDS crisis. The question is... who's right? If I heard correctly a decision should be made tommorow April 18th.

Theres even a real audio link (although it didn't want to play for me). it also links to wearefamous.com, the artists' site

PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) is already a private nonprofit corporation. They already play sponsored "messages" for corporate "underwriters." If public broadcasting is still short on funding for equipment, PBS should just give up government support altogether, and take commercial advertising. The same goes for NPR (National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio International).

Sometimes I worry that I will develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.

PBS receives funding from three sources: charitable private donations, corporate sponsorship, and government. The government bit is permanently controvertial, corporate sponsorship is done in a way that avoids interrupting programmes with adverts - there's usually a thank you at the end of each program which goes through the list of sponsors, and programs might end up named after the sponsor too. Finally, private donations are solicited through telethons, where programming is suspended until enough donations have come in.

PBS is part of the CBC (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) which also runs a national radio network NPR. The latter is closish to a cross between Britain's BBC Radio's 3 and 4 in content.

Content varies as PBS is heavily regionised: all stations are nominally independent and usually have a reach covering a handful of counties. The two local PBS stations, from Miami and West Palm Beach, I receive here usually have a mix of imported news programs (from the UK's ITN and BBC), some news and financial programs from PBS, a documentary series or two such as Nova (equivalent, and I think sharing material often, with the BBC's Horizon series), and large amounts of imported British sitcoms varying from Blackadder (yay) to Keeping Up Appearances (God help us.)

OTOH, when I go up to Connecticut, as I do on a regular basis, the station tends to have some very high-quality home grown history programs and such.

The network is famous internationally for the Sesame Street series.

I can't comment on the financial comparisons between the BBC and PBS except in pointing out that the comparison is unfair on all levels. Not only are the sources of income entirely different, but the BBC provides two national TV stations with a small amount of regionalisation, five national radio stations, several hundred local radio stations, and even a symphony orchestra, for the price of the licence fee - a source making it accountable only to TV owners. (cable/satellite stations like BBC World TV and the World Service have seperate sources of funding.) PBS funds a heavily regionalised TV network, where the funding from each region will heavily impact the funding of that region's programming.

Does that answer the question?
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This problem was talked about on NPR. Basically all PBS stations must be broadcasting digitally by by May 2003. the transition will require about $4.5 million. Also about one-third of the 347 member stations, or about 115 stations, of the Public Broadcasting System are in danger of closing because of this.

Here is one time line. This one is written and not a visual time line. This is also interesting. The only problem is that their is is a gap from 1975-90. This is the my favorite site This site starts in 1980 but it is very indepth about DOS, widows, and Microft itself! This is a nice time line also. It covers 1975-2000.

I know its an old story, but I think it should go down on the record that other news organizations DO post April Fool's stories and columns. In fact here's an NPR story from Sunday:

http://www.npr.org/programs/watc/features/2001/010 401.lunar.html

I am 99% sure this is an April Fools joke, and if it isn't, well, life if going to start sucking:
http://www.npr.org/programs/watc/features/2001/010 401.lunar.html

Basically, Weekend All Things Considered ran this story about a company called LunarCorp projecting ads on the moon with a laser. Except LunarCorp is the former name of a GE bone density company, and *no one* else had the story.

NPR had an interesting story on Hanna on Morning Edition. Look for the story titled Classic Cartoonist Dies (4th story from the bottom of the page). It's in real audio format.

This week's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday on NPR (hosted by Ira Flatow -- does anyone else remember Ira as host of the great kid's science program Newton's Apple?) had a great retrospective on Mir in their first hour's segment. Among the guests were astronaut Norman Thagard (who did a stint aboard Mir), Russian space expert James Oberg and Brian Burrough, author of Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir.

I highly recommend listening to this program for anyone interested in Mir, it's history and contribution to space science.

I have a hard time believing that these excerpts where written by a fourth grader. Any fourth grader who writes that well shouldn't be in fourth grade any more. The more I read about this one the more I think the parents used their daughter to create some sensationalism and get their own opinions out to a wider audience

Well, Emily was 12 years old when she appeared at the Ig Nobel Awards. And she didn't claim to have written her own material! In any case, you can hear her yourself on NPR at:

1998 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

I think she obviously had the support and assistance of her parents, but it's clear that she is a very bright girl and has a promising future. The science project was completely her idea. She was originally going to do a probability of picking M&M's blindly from a bowl, when she saw a videotape her mother (a registered nurse) was watching as part of her research on Therapeutic Touch. She said "I wonder if they can really do that?" :)

- MFN

Listen to Author Glyn Moody. His new book is called Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. It charts the movement begun by computer programmers who believe software should be given away for free. Moody is a London-based writer whose work has appeared in Wired, The Economist, and The Financial Times

I just heard on NPR's hourly broadcast a tidbit about NASA's research into, among other things, escape systems for the shuttle. They also talked about it on Talk of the Nation five years ago. And while i'm doing the "karma-whore" thing, cnn.com has a piece about it.

In quasirelated news, that cargo ship docked with Mir, so we can now send it screaming to the ocean "between australia and south america." Greeeeat.

Anyway. Anyone got any info about these escape systems?

-J

I just heard on NPR's hourly broadcast a tidbit about NASA's research into, among other things, escape systems for the shuttle. They also talked about it on Talk of the Nation five years ago. And while i'm doing the "karma-whore" thing, cnn.com has a piece about it.

In quasirelated news, that cargo ship docked with Mir, so we can now send it screaming to the ocean "between australia and south america." Greeeeat.

Anyway. Anyone got any info about these escape systems?

-J

All Things Considered had an interesting discussion of DNA banks and peoples rights. They discussed both the voluntary data bank in Iceland, as well as the purchased databanks, of entire islands that were bought by independant American research companies. They also discused similar actions very similar to a DNA collection, such as Cancer and tumor collection that were collected from patients during surgery, and sent on for analysis and research without the patients consent; their point being think how much we have advanced through not giving people a choice, or even informing them. While I do not neccessarilly agree with this view, it is an interesting one to think about and hear debated. Genetic mapping differs slightly from previous collections in that these samples could theoretically tell you almost everything physical about a person; where as previous databanks like this had been mutated or foreign cells. Anyway, an interesting thing to think about; you can get both transcripts and audio from the site. and if you didn't know about "Science Friday" on NPR you should check it out, it's a great program!
-OctaneZ

There isn't a shortage of electricity. The problems stems from the electricity resellers selling the electricity at a fraction of what they pay for it from the producers. Sometimes they buy it for 10 to even 100 times what they sell it for. And the way de-regulation in California works is that it has a fixed price that the resellers may sell the power for. Making an extremely unbalanced exchange between consumer, producer, and reseller. The reason for all of this is a financial shortage by the creditors putting the squeeze on the electric resellers.

Listen to a more detailed and thoughtful realaudio explanation by a University of California Professor on NPR. Click Electricity Primer to listen in.

"unlike California, most other states actually build Power Plants... nifty concept ya know."

This has nothing to do with the current crisis. There is energy available. The plants aren't selling it because the terms of deregulation, which they locked in expecting to make a killing, turned around and bit them in the ass a few years later.

The current crisis is a financial one, caused by price-gouging and price wars between the various entities who make and distribute power. If the power companies hadn't pushed for wholesale energy prices to be deregulated, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in. They sat down with the governor and wrote the legislation. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

When I first heard about these blackouts following right on the heels of deregulation, I predicted the conservative/libertarian response was going to be "there wasn't enough deregulation." Sure enough, that's the automatic response. It'd be funny if it weren't so annoying.

NPR did a good story on this yesterday. Their electricity primer interview (5.5 minutes) gives an excellent overview, and their discussion of Southern California Edison's default on payments (4.5 minutes) is interesting too. Both require RealAudio. The page with these links is here but I don't know how long that URL will last.

Jamie McCarthy

"unlike California, most other states actually build Power Plants... nifty concept ya know."

This has nothing to do with the current crisis. There is energy available. The plants aren't selling it because the terms of deregulation, which they locked in expecting to make a killing, turned around and bit them in the ass a few years later.

The current crisis is a financial one, caused by price-gouging and price wars between the various entities who make and distribute power. If the power companies hadn't pushed for wholesale energy prices to be deregulated, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in. They sat down with the governor and wrote the legislation. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

When I first heard about these blackouts following right on the heels of deregulation, I predicted the conservative/libertarian response was going to be "there wasn't enough deregulation." Sure enough, that's the automatic response. It'd be funny if it weren't so annoying.

NPR did a good story on this yesterday. Their electricity primer interview (5.5 minutes) gives an excellent overview, and their discussion of Southern California Edison's default on payments (4.5 minutes) is interesting too. Both require RealAudio. The page with these links is here but I don't know how long that URL will last.

Jamie McCarthy

"unlike California, most other states actually build Power Plants... nifty concept ya know."

This has nothing to do with the current crisis. There is energy available. The plants aren't selling it because the terms of deregulation, which they locked in expecting to make a killing, turned around and bit them in the ass a few years later.

The current crisis is a financial one, caused by price-gouging and price wars between the various entities who make and distribute power. If the power companies hadn't pushed for wholesale energy prices to be deregulated, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in. They sat down with the governor and wrote the legislation. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

When I first heard about these blackouts following right on the heels of deregulation, I predicted the conservative/libertarian response was going to be "there wasn't enough deregulation." Sure enough, that's the automatic response. It'd be funny if it weren't so annoying.

NPR did a good story on this yesterday. Their electricity primer interview (5.5 minutes) gives an excellent overview, and their discussion of Southern California Edison's default on payments (4.5 minutes) is interesting too. Both require RealAudio. The page with these links is here but I don't know how long that URL will last.

Jamie McCarthy

Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited. To ask about linking rights, contact: webmaster@npr.org.

I asked about my "rights", but haven't seen a response yet

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

But the ones above are at least educational.

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

But the ones above are at least educational.

1. Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
2. Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir

But the ones above are at least educational.