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This American Life (on NPR) ran a pretty good documentary on this subject a few weeks back. It's available in Realaudio format on the web. It's an hour long though. The archive page is Here. Or go to the audio directly.

Here's a very good audio link to a story on This American Life. The argument is that while the German government was quite serious about sabotage, the would-be sabateurs themselves were by-and-large not fully committed.

Real audio was a mature technology when they (NPR) first signed on for their service. It has served them well. If you want them to consider free alternatives, make a presentation to them.

Exactly. Look at what happened with Car Talk (story one, story two). Click & Clack didn't like the way that Real tries to abuse their users either, so they reluctantly tried switching to Windows Media instead, knowing that this solution wasn't much better. After getting lots of complaints, they switched back to Real, but not before getting Real to relax on some of their policies.

And you may have other options, as well. In Boston, WBUR provides streams in each of RealAudio, Windows Media, and Quicktime, and even goes so far as to tell users how to listen to the station through iTunes (or, but they don't quite spell this out, any other player that can take an MPEG-4 URL as a stream source).

But if these formats aren't enough for you, and you've just got to have these shows in your format of choice (and you're using a Mac, but I think we can take that as given if you're an NPR junkie :-), then maybe you should take a look at Audio Hijack, which is a neat little program for, either on-demand or on a schedule, starting up an audio stream in your player of choice (or the site's player of choice, as the case may be) and capturing the output as AIFF files. (Actually, it does far more, and can record any audio on your Mac, but I'm trying to stay focused on internet audio here.) These files can in turn be converted by a program like Amadeus II or LAME into MP3 or OGG or what have you; Audio Hijack can even fire off the converter program for you automatically if you want it to. The audio quality of a Real->AIFF->MP3 recording may not be anything spectacular, but for talk radio this isn't such a bad compromise (hint: an episode of This American Life averages around 30mb this way). For a year or two now, I've been idly wondering how to do a decent TiVo for radio on my computer, and now with this I think I've found a pretty good solution...

Check out This American Life. Leans more toward comedy than tech, but touches on current events, etc. Always very entertaining. But if you're trying to do real work while you're listening, you'll be pretty guaranteed to get distracted. My fiancee and I just got back from a 5-wk road trip, during which TAL eps burned to CD were an invaluable source of entertainment in the car.

Public Radio International backs a similar website called Transom.org that offers the same kind of idea exchange and exposure to producers of shows such as This American Life.

It's also been around for a while.

If you want audio books I suggest episodes of This American Life instead. If you pay you can get versions from Audible.

Anyway you can listen to the whole thing here. It's really an interesting story.

From TAL's site...

We recognize there are issues with RealAudio - but there are other quirks with Windows RealMedia Player and other formats, too. And the "free" technologies some of you have kindly suggested have their own costs - mainly, they still require staff time (particularly time to convert our many, many shows) and server/bandwidth space, which are in very short supply here. We promise that we've investigated many options, and have chosen what we think is the best, and really, the only viable solution. Recognizing that we can't make everyone happy, we do the best we can, as we keep our promise to offer TAL shows free online.

It would seem to me that they are purposely trying to make it more difficult for you to capture the audio to a file. After all, they are offering downloads of the programs at audible.com. This American Life offers this explanation. It basically says that you're not respecting the copyright by downloading the file, but that by listening to the stream, it's basically just like you're listening to it on the radio.

I would prefer if they would stream MP3, but that's pretty trivial to capture to a file. Sites may be turning to Windows Media for its DRM capabilities. QuickTime has DRM too, but I don't know if anyone besides Apple is actually using it.

I disagree with another poster about QuickTime being terrible in Windows. I have very few problems with QuickTime on my Windows machines. I find Windows Media much more annoying and problematic on my OS X machines.

It would seem to me that they are purposely trying to make it more difficult for you to capture the audio to a file. After all, they are offering downloads of the programs at audible.com. This American Life offers this explanation. It basically says that you're not respecting the copyright by downloading the file, but that by listening to the stream, it's basically just like you're listening to it on the radio.

I would prefer if they would stream MP3, but that's pretty trivial to capture to a file. Sites may be turning to Windows Media for its DRM capabilities. QuickTime has DRM too, but I don't know if anyone besides Apple is actually using it.

I disagree with another poster about QuickTime being terrible in Windows. I have very few problems with QuickTime on my Windows machines. I find Windows Media much more annoying and problematic on my OS X machines.

Electronic voting is ill-fated on many levels. If you have the time please, PLEASE listen to "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" audio found here. Just do a search for "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" in the search window in the left column. It fills many gaps as far as understanding the fundamental "problems" with e-voting, and it's quite an eye opener. Good luck.

...is ill-fated on many levels. If you have the time please, PLEASE listen to "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" audio found here. Just do a search for "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" in the search window in the left column. It fills many gaps as far as understanding the fundamental "problems" with e-voting, and it's quite an eye opener.

Good luck.

Jack Hitt did a story on Diebold for This American Life a few weeks back. It's a good listen and neatly sums up all the problems with untrusted computerized voting. I know WE know what the issues are, but it's refreshing to see this out in the public eye.

A description of the show and a realaudio stream (yeah yeah, I know) is available here.

Triv

Jack Hitt did a story on Diebold for This American Life a few weeks back. It's a good listen and neatly sums up all the problems with untrusted computerized voting. I know WE know what the issues are, but it's refreshing to see this out in the public eye.

A description of the show and a realaudio stream (yeah yeah, I know) is available here.

Triv

Just as a side note, on the recent "This American Life" compilation CD there is a track of David Sedaris himself retelling that story. Check it out at http://www.thislife.org/

That's an excellent and most obvious point. Yet you would not believe the institutional resistance to this idea among the three e-voting OEMs (Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia) to the idea of creating some sort of printed record. They insist on doing it all digital, even though their systems are ridiculously, incredibly insecure--probably because, in the event of a recount, a paper trail would provide concrete proof of how poorly their systems perform. There was an excellent overview of all this in Act One of the latest This American Life. You aren't going to believe your ears when you hear how lame these companies are (esp. Diebold), they to whom we are poised to entrust our most important the most important cornerstone of our democracy.

...is ill-fated on many levels. If you have the time, listen to "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" audio found on this page. If fills many gaps as far as understanding the fundamental "problems" with e-voting.

Just listen to "The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice" audio found on this page.

My no to the question asked at the end couldn't be bold enough.

'This American Life' had a great story on Sunday about voting machines, specifically about Diebold's. The theme of the show was The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice. The show is supposed to be coming out in RA on Thursday here.
Basically they talked about electronic voting and some of its (many) drawbacks. Most /.'ers would probably enjoy listening to it.

For anyone who doesn't know about 'This American Life', basically they are short stories (about 3-4 per show) revolving around a certain theme. The stories are real life stories from ordinary people in America. Many of the stories are funny, some are sad, and almost all of them are thought provoking. I'd highly recommend listening to a show or two.

And no, I'm not affiliated with the show. Just an avid listener :)

For those of you interesting in touch-screen voting, there was a very interesting show about it on the weekly PRI (public radio) program This American Life, which discussed the problems with the system, including the Diebold system and the non-auditability of the new touch-screen voting machines. The audio isn't up on their website for free yet, but it should be here soon. For those who can't wait, you can get audio from the show at audible.com.

If you don't yes listen to This American Life yet, you should start. It's probably the best weekly show in any medium -- radio or television.

For those of you interesting in touch-screen voting, there was a very interesting show about it on the weekly PRI (public radio) program This American Life, which discussed the problems with the system, including the Diebold system and the non-auditability of the new touch-screen voting machines. The audio isn't up on their website for free yet, but it should be here soon. For those who can't wait, you can get audio from the show at audible.com.

If you don't yes listen to This American Life yet, you should start. It's probably the best weekly show in any medium -- radio or television.

For those of you interesting in touch-screen voting, there was a very interesting show about it on the weekly PRI (public radio) program This American Life, which discussed the problems with the system, including the Diebold system and the non-auditability of the new touch-screen voting machines. The audio isn't up on their website for free yet, but it should be here soon. For those who can't wait, you can get audio from the show at audible.com.

If you don't yes listen to This American Life yet, you should start. It's probably the best weekly show in any medium -- radio or television.

How bout you look into getting a subscription to This American Life at audible so that the artists get a little extra something for their work if you really want to support them.

Triv

to streaming archives of the show you won't have to miss

BTW in the last Gulf War more American soldiers died in training and motor vehicle accidents than actual combat

My dad was in the military for 21 years and I spent roughly 16 years following him around the world. I really respect the men in uniform... so much so that unprovoked war is sad.

I was in Germany during the Gulf War... luckily my dad wasn't called up. He was near the end of his career and he was in communications, so not as much call for him. Anyway, I went to an DoDDS (Department of Denfense Dependent School system), Wuerzburg American High School to be exact...

Anyway. The Gulf War starts (at midnight our time). We lived in military housing that was just off the main Wuerzburg kaserne (or base)... no fencing, nothing. Wake up in the morning and it was like we were being invaded. Humvees (with machine guns) everywhere and people pulling barbed wire around the perimeter of our housing area (which included the high school that I went too). Full chain-link and regular patrols began began the next day.

So... it was wierd. Then you get to school. the kids whose parents had already shipped down are freaking out (mom or dad is now in real danger of getting hurt). In the weeks that follow, some other kid loses it as his mom or dad is called down to Iraq.

What did I take from that? Well, Bush Sr. wasn't sending his kids, the fathers and mothers of his grandchildren, to war. Neither were many (if any) of Congress. Instead they were sending people like my dad. The mothers and fathers of my classmates and friends. While "we" were victorious, I can only think that the casualties from our side included families that had no decision in the matter. Luckily, I didn't know any of them. I hope the same occurs with this "war." At least the invasion of Kuwait gave some pretext of Justice... the "He started it" argument.

The other thing (besides the war) that all those distraught kids knew about is just what 56ker mentioned. Massive troop movements always mean casualities whether a shot is fired or not. After all, their families had participated in at least one REFORGER exercise (when it was still in its heyday). Even though it was just an "exercise" people (people just like their moms and dads) died from these sorts of accidents in every single one. So, just the act of being "called up" meant that there was a risk of death or serious injury.

There's a bit of a fallacy in your argument, dear sir. Let me explain:

Take, for example, the new federal law that all foreign nationals from certian countries be required to register with the government: several news artivles about how this process has revealed that many people have been detained. Not a problem... except they're being detained without the right to a lawyer; habeus corpus has been suspended for them (they do not know what evidence and what crimes they are being charged with -- something out of Kafka's "The Trial", I believe); and currently reporters can't find out who's being held, why they're being held, or even how many are being held.

This extension of the PATRIOT Act makes these things legal. Which means they could charge you, and not only could we not know why, or if, you are on trial -- you wouldn't even be able to get a lawyer.

Next, let me admit, you're right, I haven't had any civil liberties restricted directly that I know of. Let me stress that last point: you talk of wiretapping. I wouldn't know if someone was tapping my lines, because with the PATRIOT Act, if I was labeled a terrorist, it wouldn't be private or public knowledge; it would be completely unknown, as the request would go to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Again, I reference this Real Audio file from This American Life, it gives the details. This court meets in secret; it's documents are not published and not for review. So not only would you not know if you were being wiretapped; no one would.

Finally, if I had been hauled off to jail out of the blue, I probably wouldn't have access to a computer to check on Slashdot, and be able to read and/or post to your question; jails of this sort tend not to let people have access to computers.

I'm not worried that they're coming for me today; I'm worried that if, in the future, I expouse beliefs that are opposed to what the government believes, I will become labeled a "terrorist", and will have my rights unilaterally suspended. What happens to my neighbor this week can happen to me next week -- so I want what's fair for *everyone*.

Right, and for some reporting of this check out the This American Life program Secret Government.

Never underestimate just how crazy anything involving the "war on drugs" in the US can get. It's a modern day witch hunt, in almost every respect you can think of. There was an interesting this american life aired a couple years back that touched the subject a little. Of particular note is the family ripped apart when the mother was sentenced to prison even though she didn't even have any drugs, and the congressman talking about how they really didn't understand a lot of the antidrug laws when they were being drafted.

The Public Radio show This American Life did a segment about this event in 1996 (it's act 3 of episode 37) and interviewed some of the survivors. They did a nice job exploring the segregation and racial issues. The show is available as a Real Audio stream from This American Life website.

The excellent radio show, This American Life has an episode which features the Port Chicago disaster. The story involves the interview of five survivors of the blast. You can hear the Real Audio recording of the broadcast here.

The excellent radio show, This American Life has an episode which features the Port Chicago disaster. The story involves the interview of five survivors of the blast. You can hear the Real Audio recording of the broadcast here.

or strange use anyway, take a look at story and then take a look at this book titled power of maps. this guy mapped EVERYTHING. makes this mapmaker in the story look kinda boring. ;)

I use Total Recorder to capture the audio, which is the only method I've found. Unfortunately, quality is lost in the conversion, and its one of the few programs that keeps me booting windows. Here's hoping someone uses the recently release realaudio source to come up with a better Linux solution.

All these shows take up a lot of space though. The Bantam BA350 holds 128mb + a 128mb flash card. Recharges from the USB port and works well. My favorite MP3 player to date, though it has a windows only interface.

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.

Act III: Newfies. Reporter Chris Brookes had always thought the story was a joke. During World War II, a black sailor from the U.S. washed up nearly dead onshore in Newfoundland, and the white nurses -- never having seen a black man -- thought he was covered in oil and tried to scrub him clean. But when Brookes finally tracked the sailor down, decades later, it turned the whole thing was true. And the sailor said that sort of treatment was a lot nicer than what he'd been used to at the hands of whites down south. Brookes tells the incredible story of the sailor, Lanier Phillips, and how his experience in Newfoundland changed his life.

Act III: Newfies. Reporter Chris Brookes had always thought the story was a joke. During World War II, a black sailor from the U.S. washed up nearly dead onshore in Newfoundland, and the white nurses -- never having seen a black man -- thought he was covered in oil and tried to scrub him clean. But when Brookes finally tracked the sailor down, decades later, it turned the whole thing was true. And the sailor said that sort of treatment was a lot nicer than what he'd been used to at the hands of whites down south. Brookes tells the incredible story of the sailor, Lanier Phillips, and how his experience in Newfoundland changed his life.

WhileI agree with the idea of prevention there is a massive difference between this program and Midnight Basketball. Midnight Basketball, Head Start and other similar programs give people in disadvantaged areas something legal and safe to do, and help them to be healthy and law abiding. These programs give them an incentive to do better and aid in acheiving it.

Keeping a list of people "likely to commit crimes" does not help to prevent crimes it merely provides the police with a list of the "Usual Suspects" that they can attempt to match with any crime that they get. Anyone unfortunate enough to be on this list can look forward to being targeted for quesitoning or just systematic harrasment whenever a crime occurs probably making it more likely that they will commit crimes in the future. After all, if the police already think that you are a criminal even if you have never been convited of a crime, and treat you like one, where's the incentive to behave like a decent person?

Take a look at This American Life's episode entitled Perfect Evidence Act one has a story about what happened when the Chicago pilice force turned to a profile, and "The Usual Suspects" in order to solve a crime and the price that the innocent paid.

WhileI agree with the idea of prevention there is a massive difference between this program and Midnight Basketball. Midnight Basketball, Head Start and other similar programs give people in disadvantaged areas something legal and safe to do, and help them to be healthy and law abiding. These programs give them an incentive to do better and aid in acheiving it.

Keeping a list of people "likely to commit crimes" does not help to prevent crimes it merely provides the police with a list of the "Usual Suspects" that they can attempt to match with any crime that they get. Anyone unfortunate enough to be on this list can look forward to being targeted for quesitoning or just systematic harrasment whenever a crime occurs probably making it more likely that they will commit crimes in the future. After all, if the police already think that you are a criminal even if you have never been convited of a crime, and treat you like one, where's the incentive to behave like a decent person?

Take a look at This American Life's episode entitled Perfect Evidence Act one has a story about what happened when the Chicago pilice force turned to a profile, and "The Usual Suspects" in order to solve a crime and the price that the innocent paid.

All advocacy aside (and I am firmly in the pro-mp3/anti-RIAA camp), how is this not obvious? I lost interest in the music scene a while ago, and mostly pack my mp3 portable with excellent public radio such as This Life and Fresh Air. But a friend bought me a cd for my birthday and I never cracked the seal, just downloaded the tracks for convenience. It sounds fine to my unsophisticated ear, and the cd just sits on my shelf. The truth is, that probably the bulk of the decline is caused by the music industry. But all things being equal, if it were possible to legislate the digital music genie back into the bottle, more music would be paid for. Not as much as is downloaded, but come on, its simple supply vs. demand.

I really enjoyed "Take the Canoli", but as good as Sarah's writing is, it's even better to hear her read her work. Try to catch her on This American Life or somewhere else on NPR.

And at the age of 16, (some?) Amish are encouraged to try technology, drugs, etc... for a few years and are then given the choice of returning to Amish traditions. Here's an interview on the topic (interview one one who decided NOT to go back) from This American Life a few weeks ago:

http://www.thislife.org/ra/213.ram

I also thought I made it clear that producing material more to my taste (CD's containing downloaded news & interview programs) is simply more effort then I'd like to invest every week. I'm already spending 12 hours on the road on top of just living my life, what free time I have is at a premium and searching / downloading / burning radio programs every week is just too much to ask. However paying for a device and service that offered what I want would be worth it for me if it worked.

Finally while it's nice that you like Canadian radio programming (and yes the CBC is one network though there are many others) please don't insult my other choices. I enjoy many NPR programs: Terry Gross on "All Things Considered" is a fantastic interviewer and "This American Life" often rises to brilliance. Being a US citizen living in Canada I appreciate hearing news and material from both sides of the border. YMMV.

Did you tell your parents these things? Would you really expect your children to tell you these things? Do you really think you know everything that's going on? Of course not. But you seem bothered by it -- even though most of us grew up that way and turned out fine.

There's a feeling in the country that every moment of a child's life should be structured, that some adult should be responsible, that it shouldn't be possible for anything to ever go wrong. Well that's fucked up.

It used to be that kids had free time, time to go explore things, time to make mistakes, time to learn about who they are. This American Life had a good little segment about The Geography of Childhood, about how children in the early 70's spent their time.

There are dangers in the world. But one of the big ones is the danger of being too safe -- it makes children too naive, unable to assert their will in the world (which they must learn to do), unable to think independently.

So I say once again: let go! The chance of your child getting kidnapped and murdered is extremely small. The chance of them doing drugs is pretty high. The chance of whether they will deal with that experience in a mature, thoughtful, and ultimately positive way is up to you, the parent. You can't keep it from happening -- so help your child become the person who can deal with it well. Help your child live their own life, because it's not your life to live. Even at 11.

This American Life (www.thislife.org) did a program in May 2000 about the mentality of a mob. In act two of their program, they have a story of a teacher that did an experiment with their class in 1973 that was remarkably similiar. You can listen to it at: http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/00/158. html

You can hear the episode of This American Life which talks about dial a song and other interesting TMBG stuff here. Don't bother clicking unless you have Realaudio or steambox ripper. The TMBG segment is in act two, about 37 minutes into it. The original referring page is here. Enjoy.

You can hear the episode of This American Life which talks about dial a song and other interesting TMBG stuff here. Don't bother clicking unless you have Realaudio or steambox ripper. The TMBG segment is in act two, about 37 minutes into it. The original referring page is here. Enjoy.

Talks about how TMBG had to change the songs around in order to prevent the answering machine from stop recording. (The answering machine stopped after it dedected a certain tone.)

They could also tell what songs are good and not so good by seeing how long people would listen before hanging up.

It's in the "second act". A good listen.

Talks about how TMBG had to change the songs around in order to prevent the answering machine from stop recording. (The answering machine stopped after it dedected a certain tone.)

They could also tell what songs are good and not so good by seeing how long people would listen before hanging up.

It's in the "second act". A good listen.

This American Life did a good piece about their Dial-a-Song, too. Host Ira Glass and team seem to be good friends and huge fans. Count on Public Radio to cover the important stuff!

This American Life did a good piece about their Dial-a-Song, too. Host Ira Glass and team seem to be good friends and huge fans. Count on Public Radio to cover the important stuff!