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India and China have seriously better prospects than say Sierra Leone or Ethiopia. By contrast to many Sub-Saharan African countries where there is no wealth to be had, China gained 50 new billionaires in 2007 and India has three of the world's ten richest people. While they aren't yet at the EU's standard of living, to call modern day China or India impoverished is laughable.

He had an interview with Dick Gordon on The Connection on 9/5/2002: http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2002/09/2002090 5_b_main.asp/ (... another NPR show, sadly cancelled now..)

Why the decision to go with an almost totally American leading cast)? Other big book to movie adaptations (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) did outstanding with a fully british, and very mixed (respectively) cast. Was this by design to win over American audiences, or studio pressure, or just because they were the best auditioned actors these right roles? and also, were they the 1st choice for the roles.

In an interview on The Connection on WBUR radio this week, Danny Boyle -- indie director of "Trainspotting" and other movies -- commented on this very point.

Basically, according to Boyle, there's a checklist of British-isms that are believed to cut into the marketability of a film when it is screened in the USA. The bigger the movie, &/or the more likely the producers intend to bring the movie to the American market, the more closely they need to adhere to this checklist. Every checked-box on the list is a compromise for the director -- a little movie like Boyle's Millions can get away with mostly ignoring it, but a high profile movie like Hitchhiker "has to" pay more attention to the list.

For better or worse, this checklist comes up all the time. Jokes based on references to "zebra crossings" and "Ford Prefect" will be lost on the vast majority of Americans, for example. (And it's not just the Hitchhikers movie: the green smiling mascot familiar to American readers of the books never showed up in the British editions [at least at first, not sure about later ones]; with the Harry Potter books and movies, some of the names & dialog were changed so that they'd be less alien to American kids.)

If the director has a lot of clout, or doesn't care about the American mass market, then they can get away with this, but with something as prominent as Hitchhiker, they'll feel like they "had" to Americanize it, whether or not fans of the original versions of the story agree with sanding down all the quirky bits that made the stories so fun to them in the past.

"Burn Hollywood, burn."

Why the decision to go with an almost totally American leading cast)? Other big book to movie adaptations (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) did outstanding with a fully british, and very mixed (respectively) cast. Was this by design to win over American audiences, or studio pressure, or just because they were the best auditioned actors these right roles? and also, were they the 1st choice for the roles.

In an interview on The Connection on WBUR radio this week, Danny Boyle -- indie director of "Trainspotting" and other movies -- commented on this very point.

Basically, according to Boyle, there's a checklist of British-isms that are believed to cut into the marketability of a film when it is screened in the USA. The bigger the movie, &/or the more likely the producers intend to bring the movie to the American market, the more closely they need to adhere to this checklist. Every checked-box on the list is a compromise for the director -- a little movie like Boyle's Millions can get away with mostly ignoring it, but a high profile movie like Hitchhiker "has to" pay more attention to the list.

For better or worse, this checklist comes up all the time. Jokes based on references to "zebra crossings" and "Ford Prefect" will be lost on the vast majority of Americans, for example. (And it's not just the Hitchhikers movie: the green smiling mascot familiar to American readers of the books never showed up in the British editions [at least at first, not sure about later ones]; with the Harry Potter books and movies, some of the names & dialog were changed so that they'd be less alien to American kids.)

If the director has a lot of clout, or doesn't care about the American mass market, then they can get away with this, but with something as prominent as Hitchhiker, they'll feel like they "had" to Americanize it, whether or not fans of the original versions of the story agree with sanding down all the quirky bits that made the stories so fun to them in the past.

"Burn Hollywood, burn."

Here he is...

Tocqueville certainly hasn't written anything worthwhile since his Democracy in America ;)

Then you might find this interesting:

The Connection's AntiBlog episode

The Mother Jones article
Its mostly on political blogging. I listened to it earlier today, but did not have enough time to do a quality article submission.

Over the years, there has been a fair amount of debate about whether robots should take on human forms, especially with regards to having detailed life-like faces. Some robot designers, wary of this debate, have settled on giving their creations near human-like faces.

My question is in relation to this topic. Do you think that people (and "sentient robots" that may exist some day) will be be overall better served if robots are readily distinguishable from humans? How strongly will this affect our "bonding" with robots and their bonding with us? Dogs for instance look quite different from humans, but many a family-pet seems to believe itself to be a real part of the family, and sometimes even seem to think themselves to be human. How will this affect the way we deal with "death" of a robot?

That may have been true once, but it is not true anymore. Here also: Japan's military dilemma.

Many of these posts are clearly extrapolating way beyond the original poster's intent. He's enthused about the possibility of listening to the radio shows that interest him when he desires to do so. He's not looking to have a T1 line jacked into the back of his head.

I for one sympathize and think way too much to do is being made about the putative benefits of "do-nothing" time. I used to listen to music during my 30 minute walk to work. Then I discovered NPR's the Connection radio archive. Along with the CBC's Ideas and much of the BBC. Now my morning and evening walks are a bit more edifying. Pop the real media or mp3 files onto my PDA and go (or if you hate real media, convert them to mp3). Same goes for the original poster. Why listen to morning radio pablum, aweful music and advertising when you can pop in a decent NPR show?

This doesn't mark the end of introspection nor the demise of the patient appreciation of art. It's simply replacing a more convinient, but often less desired media, with one from a different timeslot. So the poster listens to novels instead of music while doing excercise or having breakfast. I hardly think this is sign of an impending heart attack to say nothing of the demise of human civilization.

Have a very white sounding name. If you even seem like a minority you can forget about finding a job besides McDonalds and just go on welfare. Another option if you are a woman, get a sex change. You'll get hired faster, and for higher wages. You may even get a chance to become president.

Think I'm kidding?

Proof: Proof1
Proof2
Exerpt:"Consider it a different kind of name dropping. These days human resource managers are legally required to put on color-blind glasses, to carefully pore over resumes looking for the "best" candidate. But still, discrimination can be as quick and capricious as looking at a person's name.

That's according to a new study of 5,000 resumes sent in response to want ads. Researchers found that people with black sounding names like Tamika or Tyrone were fifty percent more likely to get dropped from consideration and those with "white" sounding names were strongly favored."

Some keys to ending racism in the workplace.

1)Get rid of all names on resumes. Everyone should just be a number.

2) Get rid of job interviews. A computer should hire and fire on merit and productivity alone. Remove the human element from the process.

The results of these actions? The end of affirmative action. If we want to get rid of affirmative action I just showed you how.

Anyone who supports ending affirmtive action and racism at the same time, please respond and support this msg, mod it up if you cant respond with support.

Well, this is WBZ radio we're talking about, so the way the guy looks isn't relevant to his job, but that's an aside. He made marks that, while not dishonest, did misrepresent the truth, and in various ways has done so for two years now.

By way of comparison, ABC news got in similar trouble a couple of years ago when it was revealed that one of their White House reporters was filing reports not from the White House lawn, as these news broadcasts typically do, but while standing in front of a studio newsroom's blue screen, in front of which a photo of the White House was digitally painted. This was seen as a breach of journalistic integrity, for reasons I can understand if not entirely accept -- after all, television newscasters often report from studios with an obviously phony city skyline is used for a backdrop, and the integrity of this is never questioned. The White House lawn situation, on the other hand, was seen as crossing a line, by suggesting that the reporter was on the scene, and perhaps had just stepped outside for a quick photo shoot with the freshest first hand information, while the news desks with their fake backdrops are obviously studios.

With radio, it's a different & interesting case though. By way of comparison, Boston's other main news radio station, WBUR, has sent their call-in news talk show The Connection to Baghdad for two weeks, where host Dick Gordon interviewed locals about the Iraq war and it's aftermath. It probably would have been possible, and cheaper & safer, to do these shows from WBUR's Boston University studios, and for all most listeners would know, maybe they did stay at home. I don't think these shows were actually faked, but the point is, with radio you have to take their word for it.

Then again, as ABC's White House lawn scandal showed, you have to take their word for it with television too, and they're not always honest. Yay, digital revolution... :-/

Anyway, with the "Connection Goes To Baghdad" series, I see that as a cool story of how tele-commuting is making journalism better. This WBZ story, on the other hand, isn't showing how technology is elevating journalism -- it's allowing them to hide what's really going on with their staff. Now while I don't think there's anything that bad with what Gary LaPierre is doing, the fact that WBZ felt it was unnecessary to present this information to the public isn't encouraging.

It's fairly well known that one of WBZ's other personalities, David Brudnoy, has had to report from home at various points over the years due to poor health -- the guy has been HIV+ for years, and now he's also dealing with cancer. Brudnoy is very popular, and I don't think anyone begrudges him from working from home. But then, he's honest about it, and that's the key difference. Likewise, one of the FM talk radio hosts, Jay Severin, does his Boston show from New York -- but again, his station is honest about it, so there's no big deal. Again, this isn't how the LaPierre situation has been handled.

So, you're right that the capability to telecommute is an interesting and useful thing for broadcast journalism, but being up front about it is ethically critical -- especially considering that the public knows how easy it is to misrepresent the truth with modern technology, so we depend on broadcasters to be up front about what they're doing. In cases where a station admits what they're doing, the public will probably accept this without blinking an eye. On the other hand, if a station gets caught out with a deception, as here, then it becomes an issue for that station's credibility. I'm sure that WBZ will overcome this -- they have an excellent reputation, and this isn't enough to change that -- I hope that they and other broadcasters will be more forthcoming in the future.

To go beyond that, read & listen. When Christopher Lydon used to do the public radio show The Connection from WBUR in Boston, he used to do lots of great jazz shows. The ones on Kind of Blue & A Love Supreme greatly deepend my appreciation of what was already two of my favorite albums, and Lydon's enthusiasm for the music also got me interested in hearing more from people like Count Basie and others. Thanks to the magic of RealAudio and the generosity of Boston University, you can still listen to these great radio shows today. On a similar note, NPR's Curious Listeners Guide to Jazz looks like a pretty good overview of the genre but deeper conniseurs than me might disagree about that one.

Really though, the library is the best thing. Check out everything you can, make a note of what you like & what doesn't do anything for you, and focus on the artists & time periods that you like the best. For me, the stuff from the late 40s (Davis' "Rebirth of the Cool", 1948 [?]) through the late 50s (1959 gave us Davis' "Kind of Blue", Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" & "Blues & Roots", and Coltrane's "Giant Steps" -- four of my favorites) and into the early 60s (Contrane's "Blue Train", 1961) seems to have been the golden age of jazz. Before that was a lot of big band & swing (fun, but not as personally satisfying to me) and after that came a lot of avant garde & psychedelic stuff that I only care for in small doses.

As for whether you'll like modern stuff, I dunno. The 60s & 70s seemed to bring a lot of psychedelic free jazz & funk, but personally I haven't yet found anything from that era or since that has won me over. The closest thing I can find to modern jazz that I like is Martin Medesky & Wood, who in some ways do an interesting blend of that older cool jazz mixed well with modern hip hop -- making me wonder just what John Coltrane would have done if anyone thought to have a DJ in a band back in the 60s. My problem with MMW though is the whole hippie jam band thing, which I find great for naptime. Oh well. The other modern jazz person I've found to be consistently interesting is John Zorn; if you've ever heard Mr Bungle's albums and tried to puzzle out how they got to be so different from what Faith No More did, blame/thank John Zorn. To the extent that the first Bungle album didn't sound like "The Real Thing", to my ear it's almost all Zorn's influence (he produced the album). This stuff is fascinating to listen to, but it can barely be described as music in any conventional sense: his Cobra album seems to go out of its way to discard rhythm, melody, harmony & tempo -- it's just vaguely organized bursts of sound on disc. Very very weird.

Bonus points: compare & contrast the album cover for "Blue Train" with that of one of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs -- the cover art & logo are similar, and the back cover tiny font text are like mirrors of each other. First time I ever got a chance to see Cowboy Bebop (again, at the library -- I don't have cable tv :), I could tell just from the cover that the people that did this had excellent taste :) :) :)

Anyway, this is al

To go beyond that, read & listen. When Christopher Lydon used to do the public radio show The Connection from WBUR in Boston, he used to do lots of great jazz shows. The ones on Kind of Blue & A Love Supreme greatly deepend my appreciation of what was already two of my favorite albums, and Lydon's enthusiasm for the music also got me interested in hearing more from people like Count Basie and others. Thanks to the magic of RealAudio and the generosity of Boston University, you can still listen to these great radio shows today. On a similar note, NPR's Curious Listeners Guide to Jazz looks like a pretty good overview of the genre but deeper conniseurs than me might disagree about that one.

Really though, the library is the best thing. Check out everything you can, make a note of what you like & what doesn't do anything for you, and focus on the artists & time periods that you like the best. For me, the stuff from the late 40s (Davis' "Rebirth of the Cool", 1948 [?]) through the late 50s (1959 gave us Davis' "Kind of Blue", Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" & "Blues & Roots", and Coltrane's "Giant Steps" -- four of my favorites) and into the early 60s (Contrane's "Blue Train", 1961) seems to have been the golden age of jazz. Before that was a lot of big band & swing (fun, but not as personally satisfying to me) and after that came a lot of avant garde & psychedelic stuff that I only care for in small doses.

As for whether you'll like modern stuff, I dunno. The 60s & 70s seemed to bring a lot of psychedelic free jazz & funk, but personally I haven't yet found anything from that era or since that has won me over. The closest thing I can find to modern jazz that I like is Martin Medesky & Wood, who in some ways do an interesting blend of that older cool jazz mixed well with modern hip hop -- making me wonder just what John Coltrane would have done if anyone thought to have a DJ in a band back in the 60s. My problem with MMW though is the whole hippie jam band thing, which I find great for naptime. Oh well. The other modern jazz person I've found to be consistently interesting is John Zorn; if you've ever heard Mr Bungle's albums and tried to puzzle out how they got to be so different from what Faith No More did, blame/thank John Zorn. To the extent that the first Bungle album didn't sound like "The Real Thing", to my ear it's almost all Zorn's influence (he produced the album). This stuff is fascinating to listen to, but it can barely be described as music in any conventional sense: his Cobra album seems to go out of its way to discard rhythm, melody, harmony & tempo -- it's just vaguely organized bursts of sound on disc. Very very weird.

Bonus points: compare & contrast the album cover for "Blue Train" with that of one of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs -- the cover art & logo are similar, and the back cover tiny font text are like mirrors of each other. First time I ever got a chance to see Cowboy Bebop (again, at the library -- I don't have cable tv :), I could tell just from the cover that the people that did this had excellent taste :) :) :)

Anyway, this is al

To go beyond that, read & listen. When Christopher Lydon used to do the public radio show The Connection from WBUR in Boston, he used to do lots of great jazz shows. The ones on Kind of Blue & A Love Supreme greatly deepend my appreciation of what was already two of my favorite albums, and Lydon's enthusiasm for the music also got me interested in hearing more from people like Count Basie and others. Thanks to the magic of RealAudio and the generosity of Boston University, you can still listen to these great radio shows today. On a similar note, NPR's Curious Listeners Guide to Jazz looks like a pretty good overview of the genre but deeper conniseurs than me might disagree about that one.

Really though, the library is the best thing. Check out everything you can, make a note of what you like & what doesn't do anything for you, and focus on the artists & time periods that you like the best. For me, the stuff from the late 40s (Davis' "Rebirth of the Cool", 1948 [?]) through the late 50s (1959 gave us Davis' "Kind of Blue", Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" & "Blues & Roots", and Coltrane's "Giant Steps" -- four of my favorites) and into the early 60s (Contrane's "Blue Train", 1961) seems to have been the golden age of jazz. Before that was a lot of big band & swing (fun, but not as personally satisfying to me) and after that came a lot of avant garde & psychedelic stuff that I only care for in small doses.

As for whether you'll like modern stuff, I dunno. The 60s & 70s seemed to bring a lot of psychedelic free jazz & funk, but personally I haven't yet found anything from that era or since that has won me over. The closest thing I can find to modern jazz that I like is Martin Medesky & Wood, who in some ways do an interesting blend of that older cool jazz mixed well with modern hip hop -- making me wonder just what John Coltrane would have done if anyone thought to have a DJ in a band back in the 60s. My problem with MMW though is the whole hippie jam band thing, which I find great for naptime. Oh well. The other modern jazz person I've found to be consistently interesting is John Zorn; if you've ever heard Mr Bungle's albums and tried to puzzle out how they got to be so different from what Faith No More did, blame/thank John Zorn. To the extent that the first Bungle album didn't sound like "The Real Thing", to my ear it's almost all Zorn's influence (he produced the album). This stuff is fascinating to listen to, but it can barely be described as music in any conventional sense: his Cobra album seems to go out of its way to discard rhythm, melody, harmony & tempo -- it's just vaguely organized bursts of sound on disc. Very very weird.

Bonus points: compare & contrast the album cover for "Blue Train" with that of one of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs -- the cover art & logo are similar, and the back cover tiny font text are like mirrors of each other. First time I ever got a chance to see Cowboy Bebop (again, at the library -- I don't have cable tv :), I could tell just from the cover that the people that did this had excellent taste :) :) :)

Anyway, this is al

If you like Morning Edition and All Things Considered you should really check out The Connection and On Point. Both are news/topical discussion shows that discuss a wide variety of interesting topics with much greater insight than you'll likely find anywhere. I'm also a fan of This American Life.

All of these shows can be streamed over the net either live or time-shifted.

I mentioned this in the article on shipping CM corn out of the US, but it is important to note that the production of corn in the US is highly artificial, and the press release from the USDA does not provide enough information to verify that the overall equation is reasonable. If the efficiency of the farms is high enough to produce ethanol only because of other subsidies (specificly for cattle feed), it doesn't suggest that the net equation (Is the use of corn based ethanol a truely renewable fuel) is really positive Also, it ignores the other issues relating to our other problematic uses of corn which enable the mass production of corn efficiently. See the discussion that was hosted on US GM production on The Connection recently for a full discussion. The same program also discussed the corn production problems during a discussion of fast food beef production. Also, NPR reported on 'All Things Considered' that ethanol has negitive enviromental impacts (by releasing volital organic compounds) during processing. Also, note this bill. From my perspective this is probobly more a Bush/Republican PR push to demonstrate both their 'environmental friendly' policies and garner farm state votes.

There have been a couple of articles and books released recently (I am too lasy to look up this links right now, but start with a program aired recently on The Connection which discussed the issue at length. We have GM corn largely because our subsidy model encourages the production of far more corn than we can use. Then, in an attempt to keep polititions in office, attempts to find new ways to use the corn in an attempt to keep the farmers happy. The patent issues IMO are a big concern, but the bigger problem is the really broken way the industry works in the US. If we didn't propagate the broken system, we would have (most likely) some non-GM corn/soy/wheat... which the rest of the world would like. As other posters have noted: there is more than enough production in the world without greater efficiences (for now) politics, dictators, and human stupidity and lack of empathy is the source of most hunger.

The Connection, a nationally syndicated call in show from WBUR in Boston, ran a radio interview with the author this morning.

Click here for The Connection's Pride Before the Fall web page.

Click here for the Real Audio interview.

The Connection, a nationally syndicated call in show from WBUR in Boston, ran a radio interview with the author this morning.

Click here for The Connection's Pride Before the Fall web page.

Click here for the Real Audio interview.

John Heilemann, the author of this book, is on the NPR talk show The Connection today. The website lists times and stations.

John Heilemann, the author of this book, is on the NPR talk show The Connection today. The website lists times and stations.

Wendell Berry also says that language and technology as they're now often used divide the world (see "Life is a Miracle" or really, just about anything else by him). I wonder what he thinks of the internet...

This reminds me of something that I was thinking about the other day as I passed some ad that said "communicate with anyone! anywhere! anytime!" I don't own a cell phone. Yes, I check my email twice a day, but I find that I don't really have to (several weeks in Australia reminded me of that).

How much of the communication ideals that seem to be pushed out (or community website ideas) do we really want? Need? I don't need to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Sometimes I need the opposite. Sometimes I just need to be able to communicate with a few people, in the right places, and then have time to do something useful, like build a bookshelf (so I'll have a place to put those collectors items when people buy only eBooks that expire in 4 months).

Yeah, I'm starting to sound like Cliff Stoll and I'm also something of a hypocrite because I like the internet and technology as much as the next guy. But there's just something about the promise of virtual community (and often "Insta" or
some other manufactured word like that) that, like virtual books, doesn't seem quite as promising as community in the real world.

Simon Singh was interviewed on The Connection immediately after the l0pht show last week. It was interesting and the real audio can be found at here.