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since one of XM's primary investors is ClearChannel, burglar of musical culture. That's why I bought Sirius Satellite Radio, which has comparable programming.

I'm still shocked that Howard Stern, now-perennial ClearChannel hater, is even entertaining the notion of going to XM...

Since our air waves are ruled by the CRTC overlords, when did they allow XM to sell it's services.

Both Sirius and XM Radio have put in an application with the CRTC to offer satellite radio service in Canada. While it's currently grey market (ie: signup via their websites with a bogus US mailing address) here in Canada, there are more and more Canadians signing up. In fact I just recently bought a JVC PNP tuner to listen to Sirius (which has WAY better signal coverage in Canada than XM, and IMHO superior programming) and have convinced some friends to buy receivers, all of which are happy new satellite radio listeners.

Seriously though, why would anyone want to record and save music off either XM or Sirius? Satellite radio has the sound quality 'better than FM' but far inferior to CD quality. Besides, it would fall under fair use in Canada, where our judges still respect what that means.

Rumor was that the new SkyFi 2 was going to have USB connectivity built into the home cradles to provide XMPCR functionality. Now though, it seems like this will go away, which is a real shame. Also, the USAtoday article says that the most of the current radios cannot be hooked up to the computer, which is just wrong. Anything you can hear, can be recorded.
My question is, it seems pretty obvious to me that someone was going to do this, so why release the PCR at all? My guess is that they didn't want to offer online streaming like Sirius and wanted to pick up extra subscriptions for PCRs. Look what that got them. In any case, XM has a neat product and is doing well.

Sirius has better sound quality anyway, plus free online streaming (at reduced quality) and exclusive NFL coverage.

You could even make a similar setup with a standalone Sirius tuner, if you don't mind a little hacking (and I know you don't, Slashdotters...). Just get any Sirius receiver, attach its line out and an IR transmitter to your PC, and change the station with infrared. Cake!

It is possible, however, to use inclined orbits to provide good coverage at high latitudes, including the poles. You'll need multiple satellites to provide continuous coverage, though. It's my understanding that the South Pole links use retired geostationary satellites that have run out of stationkeeping propellant. Without stationkeeping, solar and lunar perturbations increase the orbital inclination, the angle between the orbital plane and the equator, which is nominally zero for a geostationary satellite. This causes the satellite to move in a north-south figure-8 pattern, making it visible for part of each day at each pole.

Two good examples of satellites in orbits specifically designed to provide good high latitude coverage are the Russian Molniya series and the new Sirius digital radio broadcasting satellites. (Sirius' competitor XM Radio uses conventional geostationary satellite orbits.)

Both Molniya and Sirius use elliptical orbits with inclinations of about 63 degrees. At this inclination, the effect of the earth's oblateness on the orbital argument of perigee is canceled out. That means the apogee (farthest point from the earth) will always occur at the same latitude, which in these two cases is selected to be the northernmost point of the orbit (since northern latitudes are being served). The result is a satellite that, while not stationary, spends much of each orbit nearly motionless at high latitude.

The Molniya and Sirius orbits differ in that the Molniya orbits have fairly low perigees and orbital periods of about 12 hours. The Sirius satellites are in geosynchronous (but not geostationary) orbits, meaning that even though they do not sit motionless over the equator, they still complete exactly one orbit per sidereal earth day.

The Russians use these orbits because their country sits at high latitudes. Sirius uses their orbits to increase the elevation at which their satellites appear over the northern US and southern Canada, minimizing blockage by buildings and reducing the number of terrestrial repeaters needed in urban areas.

A Sirius orbit can be seen here and a Molniya orbit can be seen here.

Last week I discovered that my mid-range Dish TV plan has added around 90 of Sirius Satellite Radio's music channels. This is the first time I've enjoyed radio since moving out of range of KCMU (founding station of grunge) Seattle in '89. CD's have never made me give up my vinyl collection, and to my ears 128-bit mp3 compression is as bad as 8-track. Dish's own music channels sound no better than 128-bit. The Sirius channels don't - just compressed and the bass eq'd up a notch. Just got a new phono cartridge, but it turns out that one Sirius channel will at times have content that's about 50% drawn from my old vinyl - and well-selected at that - so that cartridge may last a long time. What's more fun is that another 6 or 8 of the channels are playing mostly very good stuff I haven't heard before, mostly in free-format, live DJ style.

This is the anti-Clear Channel, and severely undercuts the star and marketing strategies of the big labels and broadcasters by pumping out a lot of less-heard stuff. But it also severely undercuts my reason for building my own collection in the past: a shortage of good, fresh stuff on the radio meant that to secure a supply of stimulating, diverse and inspiring tunes I had to amass racks of the damn things. Nonetheless, at my best I can only equal, not surpass, a good DJ making selections more out of love than promotion.

And no friggin commercials. Aside from losing big on some mp3.com stock, this whole file-trading thing has been too limping in fidelity to matter to me. But radio this pleasing means both I have little reason to build my own collection except for disks by the truly-obscure artists I see live, and I'm not paying into a subscription plan either, really, since Dish added these for free to the TV plan I already had, and Sirius is mainly in it for the hope that I will subscribe to put 'em in my car (a temptation).

So I'd say the current industry + the file-trading industry (to the slight extent there are true INDUCErs) taken together as a whole, as the synthesis of that thesis + antithesis, is Siriusly challenged, and that essentially free (or cheap), noncommercial (inter)national satellite radio is the new antithesis to the whole lot of 'em - who are as usual still fighting the last battle among themselves rather than noting the fast approach of their common obsolescence.

"television,"

That's that thing I have my GameCube plugged into, right?

"magazines,"

That's what I have the internet for. I don't see ads on the internet.

"radio stations,"

Sirius Hell, I'm not even sure there's payola involved there...

"newspapers,"

Google News

"taxi cabs

I own my own car.

"sporting events"

What, you mean there's something else I can do with my GameCube's display? You're talking about watching anime DVDs, right?

I keep on hearing about all these silly campaign ads Bush and Kerry keep on spending money on. I haven't seen or heard one yet!

Who in their right mind would actually grin when mentioning commercials? He should be frowning about that!

Increasing the definition of the same crappy music interspersed among lame-ass DJs and commercials doesn't add any value for the listener.

Sirius Satellite Radio, on the other hand, comes commercial free on all music channels. Forget about XM Radio, they expect you to actually pay for the privilege of listening to commercials. And though they play fewer commercials now than terrestrial radio stations do, there's nothing that says they can't increase the amount of commercials they air. That and the fact that Clear Channel owns a large share of XM Radio means that Sirius is the only new alternative that provides anything of real value to radio listeners.

Who in their right mind would actually grin when mentioning commercials? He should be frowning about that!

Increasing the definition of the same crappy music interspersed among lame-ass DJs and commercials doesn't add any value for the listener.

Sirius Satellite Radio, on the other hand, comes commercial free on all music channels. Forget about XM Radio, they expect you to actually pay for the privilege of listening to commercials. And though they play fewer commercials now than terrestrial radio stations do, there's nothing that says they can't increase the amount of commercials they air. That and the fact that Clear Channel owns a large share of XM Radio means that Sirius is the only new alternative that provides anything of real value to radio listeners.

14:31? Damn, the only thing I can think of is Arlo Gutherie's "Alice's Restauraunt". (Which I heard on both Sirius Organic Rock and FolkTown while driving to my Parents home on Thanksgiving.)

14:31? Damn, the only thing I can think of is Arlo Gutherie's "Alice's Restauraunt". (Which I heard on both Sirius Organic Rock and FolkTown while driving to my Parents home on Thanksgiving.)

I can't speak for XM, but Sirius isn't censored. One example that comes to mind is the track "People = Shit" by Slipknot (which I heard on Sirius' metal channel). Not that it's a particularly good track ;), but they left it all in there -- "shit", "motherfucker", "fuck" and so on.

Sirius radio is in much better shape than xmsr. Also, they have commercial free radio unlike xmsr.

If I could find one radio station that didn't have a playlist that I could figure out, entirely, after listening for three hours, I could die happy.

How about XM/SIRIUS? Most of the stations have much larger playlists than regular radio, and a lot fewer (if any) ads. And there are quite a few stations to choose from. I went with SIRIUS, and I am quite happy with it. You should give it a try. It is well worth the money if you listen to the radio more than a few hours a week.

Maybe not quite what you're looking for, but sattelite radio is an excellent alternative. You get to listen to what they pick on each channel, but there is lots of interesting content.

I picked up a Sirius radio a couple of months ago and I love it. 60 channels of commercial free music, and 40 channels of talk/news (including the Discovery channel). XM is a couple of dollars less per month, but XM is mostly owned by ClearChannel (aka Satan), and they have commercials. A friend of mine has XM, and she says it gets pretty repetitive. I haven't noticed any repetition with Sirius.

I just took a several hundred mile trip, and it's the first time I didn't bring any CD's with. I didn't need them, the satellite radio worked perfectly and had plenty of content to keep me happy.

Another cool thing you'll notice about it is that you hear music and find out about artists you otherwise wouldn't have heard of. I've purchased a lot of music from the iTunes music store because of this.

Shayne

[C]omputer source code, though unintelligible to many, is the preferred method of communication among computer programmers. Because computer source code is an espressive means for the exchagne of information and ideas about computer programming, we hold that it it protected by the first amendment. (junger v. Daley (6th Cir. 2000)))

This is too cool. As another posted said earlier, pinch me. I hope andrew bunner goes after the DVDCCA in an Anti-SLAPP (abuse of process) lawsuit if he comes out of this unscathed.

Chris DiBona

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> What sort of experiences did other Slashdot readers have over the past year?

At the beginning of this year I was working for a small (<50 employees) Internet start-up. During the year, we were bought by another bigger (a few hundred employees) Internet company for over $500 million. Since the main product of our work was software, we counted the number of source code lines in our repository: it was about 1,000,000. We figured we had produced about half of those ourselves. That comes to $1,000 per line of code!

The purchase was effected with the parent company's stock. By the time the deal closed a few months later, the stock had dropped in value by about 2/3. Still I was able shortly thereafter to exercise my previously acquired options at less than a tenth of that value. The tax payment on my paper gain was almost 4 times the exercise price (the options were non-qualified). I also got a bunch of new options at the then-current price.

As I write, the stock is down another 27%, but still worth almost 8 times what I paid for it. And I actually don't care what it's worth today. All I really care about is what it's worth when I retire, decades from today. The total value of all that stock is only 1/5 of my retirement portfolio, and it's all in the stock market (in various mutual funds).

In the long run, there's no place to be but in the stock market (see this bar chart). So I've picked several of the more aggressive mutual funds and put all my money there. And I'll leave it there. When I get to within 10 years of retiring, I'll start paying more attention and start thinking about when to get out.

Of course, as Milton Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead!"

It's quite simple really; Apple doesn't have and doesn't need to have a valid legal basis to file a lawsuit against the operators of the websites. Their objective is not to win or to recover damages; most such frivolous lawsuits are dismissed. Rather, they seek to stifle public discourse for economic benefit. More generally, this is known as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Normally, SLAPPs are brought by companies against protest groups, individuals, or public interest lobbyists on matters such as environment concerns, real estate developement, and zoning regulations. By transforming what is essentially public debate on issues of wide-ranging concern in a protected public forum into a legal discussion on the *effects* of the debate on the issue, rather than on the issue at hand. Luckily, you can protect yourself by some simple steps:

-Expressing yourself in a Q-forum (quintessentially public forum) such as a newspaper
-Make sure that your statements of fact are true
-Seek legal advice *before* taking action that may result in a SLAPP
-Move to California or another state with an anti-SLAPP law :-)


Click here for more information
or here

You wrote: "We need a way to show the oil companies that we're fed up of lining their pockets with cash" which is kind of funny since there are so many ways, and so many organisations doing so.
Rule #1: Buy NO unneccessary plastic items. I make an exception, personally, for my kids' legos. But I don't buy a new case for my computer just because the ATX form came out, I hacksaw the old one. Plastics are essentially a waste product of the petroleum industry.
Rule #2: Buy NOTHING from Exxon. Because we need to convince the Oil Barons that there are some things that don't blow over - and Exxon's had the most egregious crimes as well as being the last vestigal trace of the original Petroleum Trust (Standard Oil = S.O. = Esso = Exxon, you can confirm this easily).
Rule #3: Stop whining and do something. I am converting my truck to gas/electric hybrid ASAP. My bud Pete runs used fryer oil in his (unmodified) Mercedes diesel.

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--Charlie

Sticks and Stones may break my bones but FUD will never concern me.

Well, you and most of the others commenting on this issue are sure willing to spread the FUD around....

1) Car battery disposal is not a major pollution problem (manufacture being another issue). Those little ever-readies that you're tossing blithely into the trash are one of the most pressing ecological issues of our time, but people driving electric cars recycle ALL their batteries (the spent cores are quite valuable) and most gas vehicle batteries are also recycled.

2) Point source pollution (i.e. power plants) is easier to control/prevent than distributed pollution (cf. privately operated internal combustion engines). Gas lawn mowers are one of the principal causes of air pollution in the US, incidentally.

3) Many people are supplied power from hydro, wind, or photovoltaic sources. If you actually become a part of the electric vehicle underground you will find that many people are generating their own power, or use power from commercial "green" providers.

Your statement "yes the energy does come from some coal or oil burning plant" is thus incorrect through overgeneralization, which makes it relatively accurate compared to most of what's being posted here. Your comments on ethanol and car prices are similarly FUDular.

Alternative Energy Engineering

Electro Automotive

Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.

Greenpeace International Homepage

Home Power Magazine

innEVations

Jerry Halstead's Car

Low Rolling Resistance Tires

Phoenix EAA

Roofing Systems

Unique Mobility

Wilde EVolutions catalog

United Solar Systems Home Page

I believe this might be a good weapon against SLAPP lawsuits.

• Let's not forget that the lawsuit failed to name download.com as well as others that may have had the money to fight this suit and show up the DVD-CCA up to be the conniving bastards we all know them to be. This indicates that the lawsuit was targetted more at open source advocates, linux users and "hackers" in general for daring to go against the DVD-CCA's wishes...this makes it a candidate for
• anti-SLAPP legislation.Check out the Anti-SLAPP project if you have been SLAPPed by a corporation.

• The restraining order was trying to make certain forms of linking illegal...yeah right. Sarcastic Courtroom Analogy:"Your Honor, that's like saying that it's illegal for TV reporters to use phrases like 'a murder was committed with a kitchen knife bought at WalMart'...that is the same as linking in a web context.

• Let's not forget that the lawsuit failed to name download.com as well as others that may have had the money to fight this suit and show up the DVD-CCA up to be the conniving bastards we all know them to be. This indicates that the lawsuit was targetted more at open source advocates, linux users and "hackers" in general for daring to go against the DVD-CCA's wishes...this makes it a candidate for
• anti-SLAPP legislation.Check out the Anti-SLAPP project if you have been SLAPPed by a corporation.

• The restraining order was trying to make certain forms of linking illegal...yeah right. Sarcastic Courtroom Analogy:"Your Honor, that's like saying that it's illegal for TV reporters to use phrases like 'a murder was committed with a kitchen knife bought at WalMart'...that is the same as linking in a web context.

http://www.sirius.com/~casp/welcome.html

Take me to court!

It may be worthwhile to look into California's recent law against SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Too many people were being harassed by large companies in court, so this law was enacted to have these kinds of suits thrown out without a trial. I don't know if this case legally qualifies, but it's worth looking into.

The smart dust page had a link to a page with some really snazzy micro aircraft. Can you imagine using dust sensors/controllers to build a tiny self-guiding spy plane that can provide 20 minutes of flight time?

--

. . . the article doesn't mention that Sony would also provide a webpage for these artists. . . . if the contract expires and Sony doesn't want to provide a site (because they own it for life), the artist can't by him/herself?

Ugh. Labels often turn out not to be obligated to do a whole hell of a lot for bands; sometimes they release records but refuse to promote them (the Velvet Underground being a classic example, as well as the Stooges), sometimes they sit on tapes, refuse to release them, and refuse to let the band have them to release elsewhere. The last Viva Saturn rekkid is in that state now. It's gruesome, but at least the band can usually walk away and keep working -- though there've been exceptions even to that. But it makes perfect sense that Sony will, inevitably, in some cases refuse to do a web site, and leave some poor bastards virtually unable to make a living . . . Yeah, they can change their name, but there's such a thing as "brand equity", you know? Even the Dead Milkmen (rule! rule! rule!) had brand equity. People showed up to see them, a lot more than show up to see Touch Me Zoo (note: The Milkmen didn't break up because of the label or whatever; they're an example of brand equity, not an example of bad label behavior. I mean, they got that too, but I don't know of anything about Touch Me Zoo which demonstrates that fact).

The whole miserable industry is gruesome. Urrrgghh. Yeah, the labels gotta make a buck, but there are limits.