I think Cowboy Neal was paying homage to my favorite Onion article ever, with the dept title "screw-everything-we're-going-eleven-layers dept". Read it, the article is great.
Ralph Giles of Xiph.org did an interview, where if I remember correctly he said that Microsoft, or rather Bungie, which Microsoft owns, used Ogg in Halo 2 and Speex in Xbox Live.
I remember reading something somewhere which quoted Matt Groening or Al Jean saying that they didn't think a half hour cartoon sit-com could translate well to the big screen until they saw the South Park movie. When they saw it they started thinking seriously about a Simpsons movie again. I wish I could rememeber where I read it, or it might even have been on one of DVDs.
Reading about the teddy bear, it struck me as a simplified, not very intelligent, version of The Lady's Illustrated Primer in Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age.
PBS did a documantary a couple of years ago called "Race for the Superbomb". It has some neat maps which discuss radiation if someone detonates a bomb near you.
Steve Talbott has written a great deal on this subject as well in his book The Future Does Not Compute: Understand the Machines In Our Midst and in his newsletter Netfuture. If you haven't read Netfuture, you should, its execellent.
Frontline did an excellent documentary called "American Porn", where it talked about how obscenity prosecutions were put back on the agenda when Ashcroft was confirmed. They had meetings with old US attorneys who did obscenity work in the 80s, and this was only put on hold because of terrorism concerns. (You can watch the entire episode online.)
Two of the most interesting points: one US attorney basically said that no prosecutor should ever lose an obscenity trial since there is (no matter what the Supreme Court tells you) a common decency standard in 99% of the US: penetration. The second interesting bit is that one of the porn industry's main attorneys came up with a list of things never to be filmed if the company distributing it wants to stay in business.
I think that the government's resources could be better spent elsewhere, and for the most part consider myself a libertarian, but after seeing some of the more extreme parts of the porn business covered in the documentary I think I would be hard-pressed to not call it obscenity.
As mentioned in the story, the FCC started this process several years ago, but congress stopped it. Why?
The National Association of Broadcasters, however, went nuts over this idea. They lobbied congress hard, and circulated what they thought radio would sound like with all the added stations. The cds they pushed on uninformed congressmen wildly exagrated any problem and the idea was quickly killed.
One of the things that really angered me about this (and still does) is the fact that NPR fell in step with the NAB. The reasoning for this I can only assume is the fact that listeners of low-power fm would probably come from NPR's listener base and not from some crappy top-40 station. Realizing the possible loss of revenue (fewer pledge drive contributions) NPR acted in this reactionary manner. (I should note that I still support my local NPR stations, but not as happily as previously.)
Hopefully, congress will listen to the FCC on this instead of lobbyists for the NAB. The electro-magnetic spectrum is a public resource. If the public is not getting anything useful from the currently liscensed stations and are being blocked by these same stations when the public attempts to coexist with them, I say we take some of the spectrum back -- and now.
I'm not so sure that there is a so-called digital divide. In the United States atleast there doesn't seem to be one.
As far as the rest of the developing world is concerned, shouldn't the UN be more concerned with basic staples of life (i.e. medical care, sanitation, ect.) than bringing technology?
Eric Boehlert has some "unique" journalistic techniques, so I think maybe the story should be taken with skeptical eye.
This is not to say I like current radio. My pick for good music would have to be a public radio station: WYEP.
I think Stallman is just misunderstood. When he talks, he talks passionately, and like many other zealots this causes some to reject him and his point of view just as passionately. But the part about lisensing software being immoral, well, Stallman may have a point.
I think it's bad to set restrictions on what someone can do with what they buy (with the exception of things like guns that can affect other people), and that's all closed source lisenses do.
Which brings me to my main point, Since when can't you make money on open source? Look at Red Hat, I can buy a cd from some other vender for cheap, but they haven't gone under yet.
You can have it both ways. Open software and developers who aren't going hungery.
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I think Cowboy Neal was paying homage to my favorite Onion article ever, with the dept title "screw-everything-we're-going-eleven-layers dept". Read it, the article is great.
Ralph Giles of Xiph.org did an interview, where if I remember correctly he said that Microsoft, or rather Bungie, which Microsoft owns, used Ogg in Halo 2 and Speex in Xbox Live.
I remember reading something somewhere which quoted Matt Groening or Al Jean saying that they didn't think a half hour cartoon sit-com could translate well to the big screen until they saw the South Park movie. When they saw it they started thinking seriously about a Simpsons movie again. I wish I could rememeber where I read it, or it might even have been on one of DVDs.
Reading about the teddy bear, it struck me as a simplified, not very intelligent, version of The Lady's Illustrated Primer in Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age.
Well, at least he pointed out his error quickly. I don't think CBS has done that yet and its been four months now.
Billy Graham's Bible Blaster?
PBS did a documantary a couple of years ago called "Race for the Superbomb". It has some neat maps which discuss radiation if someone detonates a bomb near you.
Steve Talbott has written a great deal on this subject as well in his book The Future Does Not Compute: Understand the Machines In Our Midst and in his newsletter Netfuture. If you haven't read Netfuture, you should, its execellent.
Frontline did an excellent documentary called "American Porn", where it talked about how obscenity prosecutions were put back on the agenda when Ashcroft was confirmed. They had meetings with old US attorneys who did obscenity work in the 80s, and this was only put on hold because of terrorism concerns. (You can watch the entire episode online.)
Two of the most interesting points: one US attorney basically said that no prosecutor should ever lose an obscenity trial since there is (no matter what the Supreme Court tells you) a common decency standard in 99% of the US: penetration. The second interesting bit is that one of the porn industry's main attorneys came up with a list of things never to be filmed if the company distributing it wants to stay in business.
I think that the government's resources could be better spent elsewhere, and for the most part consider myself a libertarian, but after seeing some of the more extreme parts of the porn business covered in the documentary I think I would be hard-pressed to not call it obscenity.
The National Association of Broadcasters, however, went nuts over this idea. They lobbied congress hard, and circulated what they thought radio would sound like with all the added stations. The cds they pushed on uninformed congressmen wildly exagrated any problem and the idea was quickly killed.
One of the things that really angered me about this (and still does) is the fact that NPR fell in step with the NAB. The reasoning for this I can only assume is the fact that listeners of low-power fm would probably come from NPR's listener base and not from some crappy top-40 station. Realizing the possible loss of revenue (fewer pledge drive contributions) NPR acted in this reactionary manner. (I should note that I still support my local NPR stations, but not as happily as previously.)
Hopefully, congress will listen to the FCC on this instead of lobbyists for the NAB. The electro-magnetic spectrum is a public resource. If the public is not getting anything useful from the currently liscensed stations and are being blocked by these same stations when the public attempts to coexist with them, I say we take some of the spectrum back -- and now.
As far as the rest of the developing world is concerned, shouldn't the UN be more concerned with basic staples of life (i.e. medical care, sanitation, ect.) than bringing technology?
Eric Boehlert has some "unique" journalistic techniques, so I think maybe the story should be taken with skeptical eye. This is not to say I like current radio. My pick for good music would have to be a public radio station: WYEP.
I guess even with his position of power Harry Reid finally lost and/or the rest of congress finally got (a little) common sense.
Is everyone else as frightened by this as I am? What next? - the DOD by McDonalds?
I think Stallman is just misunderstood. When he talks, he talks passionately, and like many other zealots this causes some to reject him and his point of view just as passionately. But the part about lisensing software being immoral, well, Stallman may have a point.
I think it's bad to set restrictions on what someone can do with what they buy (with the exception of things like guns that can affect other people), and that's all closed source lisenses do.
Which brings me to my main point, Since when can't you make money on open source? Look at Red Hat, I can buy a cd from some other vender for cheap, but they haven't gone under yet.
You can have it both ways. Open software and developers who aren't going hungery.
I couldn't agree more. Part of the problem is there is no way to quantify the "pain" of being sold a defective product.